Greetings all. This is my first post ; sorry for its length and for any errors/omissions. I’m happy to provide any further information.
Problem: I’ve had no success setting up Audacity to record LPs. I’ve tried various things on and off for a couple of months but I’m struggling and would really like some advice. I used to know this subject - I was digitising LPs back in 2001- but I’m now retired and I’ve forgotten the lot.
PC System: Dell XPS 13 laptop. Windows 10 Home v 1309. Patched; runs AVG anti-virus software (which I disabled for 1 hour during today’s attempt).
Source: a Systemdek record deck attached to my hifi system. I’m trying to record direct from the deck rather than via the hifi amp. Reason: no free outputs on the amp and next to impossible to get round the back of it anyway.
Hardware I’m using to make recordings: I’ve bought 3 “solutions” so far and none works. Details below in reverse chronological order.
Today’s attempt: I tried an “EZCAP” (aka Easy-link USB audio card, Amazon ASIN B00VD992DS). This has RCA red/white (or red/black) plugs to take audio from the deck and a USB plug to connect to the laptop. Amazon’s page for this device says “no need power adaptor”. Sounds easy. Following its manual, I set Audacity’s playback device to Microsoft Sound Mapper and recording device to USB PnP audio device, 2 channel stereo. On clicking Audacity’s record button I got 2 lines of error:
Error opening recording device and…
Error code -9999 Unanticipated host error.
This occurred with “Host Interface” set to MME. Also tried Host interface “Windows Direct Sound”. Same error. I had earlier tried another config setting - which I didn’t note down, sadly - and got this error “Error opening sound device. Try changing the audio host, recording device and the project sample rate”.
(I’ve left the project rate defaulted at 44100 throughout).
Previous attempts: I bought and tried a Behringer UFO202 which I suspect contributors will know well - Amazon are doing well out of me. I’d also tried a Numark device I bought in a local shop ; ; it seemed a dead loss and they’ve gone bust anyway. I can’t remember the error I got with the Behringer but I’m fairly sure it was the one listed above as “Error opening sound device…”.
Last few lines of an Audacity log I generated tonight: (I’m not at all sure it shows anything relevant)
18:40:56: Checking for monolithic avformat from ‘avformat-55.dll’.
18:40:56: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-55.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
18:40:56: Loading avutil from ‘’.
18:40:56: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
18:40:56: Loading avcodec from ‘’.
18:40:56: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
18:40:56: Loading avformat from ‘avformat-55.dll’.
18:40:56: Error: Failed to load shared library ‘avformat-55.dll’ (error 126: The specified module could not be found.)
18:40:56: Error: Failed to load FFmpeg libraries.
18:40:56: Error: Failed to find compatible FFmpeg libraries.
18:42:37: Report generated to: C:\Users\iain_\AppData\Local\Temp\Audacity_dbgrpt-9532-20190930T184142.zip
18:43:15: Report generated to: C:\Users\iain_\AppData\Local\Temp\Audacity_dbgrpt-9532-20190930T184255.zip
I attached the second of those reports. It contains 7 files.
Questions:
- Am I right in trying to connect to a laptop via these devices? In 2001 I used a desktop. I’m not sure about USB connections’ sound abilities.
- If I am trying to do the right thing, where am I going so wrong?
Any advice welcome. Thanks.
log.txt (1.69 KB)
Audacity.xml (12.5 KB)
audiodev.txt (5.21 KB)
audacity.cfg (3.87 KB)