Greetings, and thanks for having this help Board available. I’ve searched through the topics regarding this issue, and none seemed to offer a direct answer.
I have a Dell E6410 Win 7/32 bit that I’ve been using for five or more years with Audacity very successfully. I exclusively use the Behringer Xynyx 302 USB mixer to provide the A/D conversion and for the USB interface to the laptop
A few months back I needed (?) to install an ASIO driver of some sort for another application. As I was in the process of moving, I didn’t use my mixer/Audacity combination for a few months. Went to use it yesterday, plugged the mixer into a USB port, it powered up like usual, audio indication lights were properly showing signal. I started up Audacity, selected the USB input option (always seems to show up as a ‘microphone’ type of device, but it had always worked great), and nothing. No signal.
I then installed Audacity on my wife’s new Dell laptop (Win 10), plugged the mixer with its audio source to her laptops’ USB port and started easily recording right away as I’ve been accustomed. So - I have great confidence that the cables/mixer/audio source are ok. Some driver (I’m assuming) on my laptop has become hosed.
Additional steps I’ve taken - I uninstalled then reinstalled Audacity on my laptop (twice). No good; still no audio input. I can clearly see that my laptop can see the USB connection., so I feel that part is ok, but I’m still missing something.
Are there a set of drivers that I should see (or not see) within the win32 and win32/drivers area of my laptop? I may be barking up the wrong tree, but I’ve spent about six hours on this and can’t find the right answer. My wife will be unhappy if keep using her laptop. Happy wife happy life. Thanks for helping to preserve my 34 year marriage and for your time and help!
What application exactly did you install an ASIO driver for? Was that the ASIO4ALL driver or an ASIO driver specific to the application?
Where does that “Unspecified” image of USB Audio CODEC come from? Can you post a full screenshot of that?
Also could you post the contents of Help > Audio Device Info… top right of Audacity?
What are the exact symptoms of “no signal”? Did you record a flat line or did you see “Error Opening Sound Device”? If you recorded a flat line, does Effect > Amplify… and OK show you the recording?
Thanks for the tips. Flat line on recording. I can see audio activity at my Xynyx 302 USB mixer, but nothing coming into Audacity. I can turn on Audacity’s noise generator and see the waveform within Audacity tracks, but nothing coming from USB at all. BTW - I’ve tried connecting the mixer to the four different USB ports on this laptop (and found the USB input device each time). Same result - flat line input. I;ve adjusted gain within Audacity to wide open - nothing… Thanks!
Edit>Amplify does not seem to work, when I attempted that potential fix. I’ve tried values from 3dB to 30dB of gain, but “OK” never gets active. When I select “Manage” I get prompted to save the option, but it always comes back failed, stating that the appropriate range is “-1.00000 to 1.00000”. Doesn’t seem like a valid range for amplification or gain…
Also, the unspecified USB Audio CODEC image that I attached earlier came from the Windows Devices and Printers screen. No more info available there, other than the driver was developed by Microsoft on 6/21/2006.
Select the whole track by clicking just above MUTE.
Effect > Amplify > (read the numbers) > OK. Don’t set anything. It automatically figures out the amount of boost you need to make your show loud. If Amplify fails, then you don’t have a normal sound track or something else is very seriously wrong.
Either the list is incomplete, or your devices are broken, because they do not show the Windows DirectSound and Windows WASAPI hosts that they should do. If you trimmed the list, please attach the complete list.
I am not sure it is relevant, but you did not say what ASIO driver you installed for what application. Do you still need that driver and that application? Does your wife’s computer have that driver and that application?
Have you tried rebooting the computer? Or disconnecting the mixer, uninstalling it in Device Manager then reconect it and rebooting the computer?
Hi Gale, and apologies for the late reply/thanks for the continued support. I’ve been out of town for work the past couple days…
ASIO driver has been uninstalled on my laptop, and wasn’t present or installed on my wife’s machine. I honestly can’t remember why I had installed the ASIO driver in the first place, but it’s no longer needed for whatever app I was attempting to run (not knowing that it might affect Audacity, I may not have installed that piece of software in the first place. Software installs on my machine are rare for this purpose - I want to keep everything I have stable and running. I don’t play the freeware games. No time, no interest…)…
When the mixer is USB-connected to my laptop, it registers in the Device Manager as seen in the attached file. When it’s unplugged, the device icon no longer appears in Device Manager, so there’s nothing to uninstall…
I’ve rebooted the laptop numerous times, connected and reconnected. Still nothing. USB mixer to Audacity in my wife’s Win10 machine works good without glitch, the way it used to on this machine, so nothing’s ‘broken’ per se with the external hardware or cables. My laptop functions well for all other audio and video apps (Youtube, playing MP3 and MP4 files that are on my hard drive, etc.), so I’d consider that my hardware is working fine. Just Audacity is having an issue.
Is there another method by which to route inbound USB audio to Audacity software?
To diagnose you can ensure the mixer is Default Device on the Recording tab of Windows Sound then try recording with Windows Sound Recorder. While recording, observe the vertical meter for the mixer in Windows Sound. If the meter does not bounce to the sounds, no recording application will record.
The “Microphone (USB Audio CODEC )” only has one recording channel under WASAPI host. Perhaps try changing to MME or Windows DirectSound host in Device Toolbar.
