Hello! New to USB turntable recording. I am using a Victoria Tunewriter III and Audacity 2.0.5 in Windows 8. While recording a track off vinyl, I see both tracks recording (both meters are active), but upon playback only one track is heard, in mono format (and only one meter is active). I’ve gone through the Audacity preferences, selecting Stereo recording. Can anyone offer me a clue as to what I might be doing wrong in playback? Thanks in advance!
To the left of the waveforms there are two sliders. The top slider is a volume control marked -…+. Below that is a balance slider marked L…R. Make sure the balance control is centered.
Thanks! The balance is centered on playback. When I increase the top slider (-…+) I hear an increase of staticky noise. (?)
This doesn’t explain why you only see one channel in the playback meters, unless your recording is horribly unbalanced, but check this out:
- By the system clock, right-click over the Speaker icon > Recording Devices then right-click over USB Audio Codec > “Properties”
- On the “Advanced” tab, in the “Default Format” section, make sure the drop-down menu is set to “2 channel 16 bit 44100 Hz”.
Gale
I right-clicked the Microphone (USB Audio Codec) and drilled down to change the setting from 1 Channel 16 bit 48000 hz to 1 Channel 16 bit 44100 hz, retried a recording and got the same result. I am only hearing one of the stereo channels on playback. For giggles I tried recording in mono, thinking it would fold both channels into one, but still only hear one “side”. My device preferences in Audacity are set to:
HOST - MME
PLAYBACK - Speakers (USB Audio Codec)
RECORDING - Device - Microphone (USB Audio Codec)
CHANNELS - 2 (stereo)
I have both sliders (-…+ and L…R) centered. As the recording is in process, both meters on top of the display (green and red) are active, although each seems to be recording the same thing - at least visually. The recording is separated vocals on the right and band on the left, so I’d think they would be “registering” different meter waves. I’m not sure what else to check, but if you have an idea please share. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s a hardware problem, with the USB cord or the USB port itself.
Do you want stereo recording or not? Irrespective of other issues, if you want stereo recording you have to set Windows to “2 channel”.
If you have Audacity set to stereo recording but Windows set to “1 channel”, you will get two channels recorded with both channels the same.
When the recording is played back, however, that should show in the Audacity green playback meters as both left and right channels active and moving identically.
Are those USB speakers (that is, not the USB turntable)? If you don’t have USB speakers, set the playback device to your built-in sound device.
Have you read this tutorial in the Manual: Recording with USB turntables or USB cassette decks ?
See above. If you insist on setting Windows to 1 channel that is what you will get. 
Gale
Applied all the suggested settings and got the results I wanted. Thanks! I’ve never dabbled in the recording/playback settings in Windows of any version, so the “1 channel” and “2 channel” differences just didn’t add up in my mind. Thanks for your help again. Happy New Year!