Hi, first time poster in a long while here. I’ve used Audacity extensively but not for about 5 years. Trying for several days to get up and running with no luck in recording a 2 channel cassette deck output for archiving to digital purposes. My setup and settings are as follows:
JVC cassette deck (tested and working properly on stereo system) > PreSonus Audiobox USB device via RCA-to-XLR connectors labeled “mic” and “instrument” on the PreSonus Audiobox USB device. Only other port connections on the Audiobox USB are Midi connectors which do not seem to fit my XLR connectors (which I was using the last time I successfully used this setup with Audacity)
The PreSonus Audiobox USB device is connected to my 2017 Mac which is running MacOS Monterey v. 12.6.3 via the hardwired USB connection on the PreSonus device.
Audacity version is 3.6.1 downloaded and installed from the www.audacityteam.org website approx. 4 days ago. As per “Audio Setup”, “Host” indicates “Core Audio”, “Playback Device” indicates “Built-In Output”, “Recording Device” indicates “Audiobox USB”, “Recording Channels” indicates “2 (Stereo) Recording Channels”, and “Audio Settings” repeats much of the previous info plus what appears to me to be a port designation in conjunction with “Host” as “Core Audio”, 44100 project and default sample rates, and 32-bit float as default sample format.
When I start the recording process in Audacity via the red button, no sound or waveform/levels indications appear although the bar is moving and my cassette deck is indicating sound via its meters.
Any help would be greatly appreciated and thanks in advance!
Does Audacity have permission to access the “microphone”?
And let’s make sure the Mac is getting input from the PreSonus:
Go to Apple (menu) > System Preferences > Sound > Input. Select the PreSonus as the input device and start a cassette playing. Does the input level meter bounce?
Thanks but, unfortunately, (on the Mac) Apple Menu > System Preferences > Sound > Input > Audiobox USB is still not enabling the recording to happen. I’ve (simultaneously with the preceding) played with every level knob on the PreSonus device to no avail. Still no sound and a flat line. I had previously experimented with “save as” in the Audacity menu with giving the project a name before beginning, also with no luck.
Sound output in the Mac’s system preferences has been set both to “Internal Speakers” and “Audiobox USB” without luck……
The levels are registering when recording now (Issue was a Privacy setting listed for OS Mojave and one other but not Monterey which I’m using….”allow microphone to access Audacity”). At this point, however, I can get no sound from my computer with which to audibly monitor the recording. Also, I can’t seem to find the mechanism to increase the recording sensitivity (past experience suggests you “feed” Audacity stronger signals rather than having a “sensitivity” control as such but something’s changed up since 2018-ish and some manner of “sound mute” somewhere in the chain seems to be toggled on.
I got it all going again. The Audacity > preferences > recording settings I needed to hear my particular project involved enabling “Audible Input Monitoring” and “Detect Dropouts” but not “Hear Other Tracks While Recording (Overdub)” (the latter of which a lot of Google searches seemed to suggest be enabled).
Levels finally responded to controls on my PreSonus Audiobox USB.