I am having a problem setting the input level in Audacity 2.4.2 running on El Capitan on a older MBP.
The INport is recognized and can be selected in Audacity. I can record and monitor the recordings. What I can’t do is adjust the input level. The input level control is operational (not greyed out) but has no effect on the recording level. Very odd. Sliding the input level control to zero has no effect on the recording level.
I am including screen captures for reference. Any ideas appreciated.
It’s not that unusual that can’t control the recording volume (digitally) with a USB device because the audio has already been digitized. Any adjustment to the digital audio is no different from using the Amplify effect after recording.
I assume there’s no adjustment on the analog side?
digital recording levels aren’t that critical as long as you don’t go too high and get clipping. If the sound quality is OK after the Amplify effect there’s nothing to worry about.
There is no adjustment on the analog side. Just an older turntable plugged into a Audo Technica phono preamp which is plugged into the INport. I think you are right about the results. I ran Normalize on the resulting file and the output is fine for my intended purpose. They files are going to used to listen to favorite LPs in my car. But in playing them back through my stereo setup in the house they sound good. Not as good as the original LP, but close enough.
So I guess I’ll ignore the input level control. A possible enhancement to the software would have non-adjustable input levels cause the input level control to grey out.
Audacity is a slave to the computer it is running on. Since macOS shows an enabled input level control, so does Audacity. Some USB devices (mostly microphones, in my experience) allow actual adjustment of the input level. Most USB audio input devices don’t allow adjustment of the input level and the input level control is greyed-out accordingly. It seems that the INport is incorrectly reporting to macOS that it supports input level adjustment.
But in playing them back through my stereo setup in the house they sound good. Not as good as the original LP, but close enough.
It should sound identical as long as the volumes are matched. That’s assuming “CD quality” (44.1kHz/16-bits) or better. Digital recording is normally VERY GOOD as long as you feed a good quality analog signal into the analog-to-digital converter…
If not, it’s possible that the Xitel is noisier than the preamp in your stereo (but you didn’t specifically mention noise) or maybe the RIAA EQ is different (but you didn’t mention frequency response or EQ either).
