The Device Toolbar

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Hopefully this isn’t too dumb of a question… 99% of the time I’m using audacity (so pretty much all the time) the listed device in the first box is MME.

but atleast prior to downloading the newest version of audacity there was another option: Windows DirectSound.

My question is are there any major differences with selecting one over the other? Like audio quality or something? The PC I use is running Windows 7.

Also on an unrelated note does the panning slider (next to any given track) just affect the volume of the audio?

2

I’ll leave your first question to someone else as I’m on Linux and I can never remember what the difference is on Vista and later Windows.

The pan slider only affects the playback level (per channel) and not the actual audio data. Thus you can twiddle it as much as you like and if you move it back to the default centre position it will be exactly the same as if you had never moved it at all. The “effect” is “applied” when the track is “rendered” (either by “mixing down” the track, or exporting), so when you export or “Mix and Render” (Tracks menu) the audio data is changed according to the Pan slider setting.

3

This is what the manual has to say on the topic: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/device_toolbar.html

and this on MME in the glossary: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/glossary.html#mme

and on WDS: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/glossary.html#wds

WC

4

The Wiki adds this: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Multichannel_Recording#Windows_Sound_Interfaces

WC

5

Please look in Help > About Audacity and give us all three Audacity version numbers that you see.

If you are using the latest 2.0.4 from http://audacityteam.org/download/windows you should have MME, Windows DirectSound, Windows WASAPI (for “loopback” recording of computer playback) and Windows WDM-KS. How many of those four do you have in 2.0.4?


Gale