I’ve had yrs. of fun with Audacity & my electric keyboard! Now I have W8.1 laptop & Audacity 2.05 & can’t record anything because the recording doesn’t start when the song starts & sound waves bunch up in groups producing a recording that sounds like Donald Duck on happy gas! I connect my keyboard thru a Behringer U-control-UCA202, monitor on. I used headphones to see if the music got that far & it did. However, when I press rec., & start playing, the rec. lines don’t start when the music starts. About 1.0 the recording wave lines appear but they are all bunched together! When I play it back it sounds like Donald Duck!
Hoping for improvement, I tried some settings suggested by other musicians that use Audacity (but not on W8.) Tried 2 different settings- no improvement. Are there any default settings that I can restore Audacity to when I got it & start all over? I’m so hoping that you can help me! My husband recently died, & I use my music to help the healing process; it is very important in my life.
Regards, Gloria (or Glory; not sure how my username turned out?)
You can realign the recorded track after you stop recording using Time Shift Tool (press F5 on your computer keyboard).
If you do a Latency Test to measure the recording latency then you can set that latency as a correction value at Edit > Preferences…, Recording Section, “Latency Correction”. Then if the latency doesn’t change, your recordings should be aligned.
Hi Gale, thank you for contacting me so quickly! I went back to the Audacity “drawing board” & experimented with your suggestions, but it doesn’t seem to be a latency problem because the top & bottom wave lengths line up with each other. The problem is - when recording the wave lengths don’t start when the music starts. The waves start showing about 1.0, but by then the waves lengths are all jammed together. Upon playback the playback speed is so fast is sounds like D. Duck! I’ve contacted other musicians who have recorded with Audacity & they don’t know what causes this. I’ve had no trouble for 10 yrs. with Audacity 2 & my Windows XP. It’s only with the combination of Audacity 2.0.1 and my new laptop with Windows 8.1 that music now doesn’t record correctly!
I am not clear whether you have 2.0.1 or 2.0.5 but I suggest you uninstall them and get a pre-release of the latest 2.1.0 Audacity - Browse Files at SourceForge.net. 2.1.0rc2 should turn out to be the same as our eventual 2.1.0 release any day now. Wait for the download box to appear. Do not click any green download buttons on the web page.
When you install 2.1.0rc2, put a tick (checkmark) in the Reset Preferences box half way through the installer, then say Yes when Audacity asks if you want to reset preferences.
You can fix the recording starting at the wrong place. If the recording is still going too fast in 2.1.0 this may be harder to fix but the root cause is somewhere in this long list of things to try: Audacity Manual. Different sample rates in different places, or sample rates set too high, are usually the cause.
Hi Gale,
Sorry, I do have Audacity 2.0.5,; been working on this problem for 6 hrs. straight & got mixed up! I’m going to copy your advice & do a download again for the program. I really appreciate your help in this situation. Will let you know how it turns out in 3-4 days.
