converting tapes - sound disappearing

[gillywizz]

I'm using an old tape deck and have a jack from the headphone port to the microphone port on my laptop (I know this isn't the best but don't know how to do it any other way). I managed to get the tape to play through the laptop and audacity started to import the tape fine, but then after about a minute it stopped importing (even tho the tape was still playing but no sound thru computer), then it reappeared for a while then stopped again. Each time I'm getting no further than a minute or so before the sound disappears and recording stops.... any ideas? Using Vista.

thanks

Gill

[kozikowski]

<<<Each time I'm getting no further than a minute or so before the sound disappears and recording stops>>>

That's important. Does Audacity produce a blank spot in the recording the same length of time as the difficulty, or does it stop recording and you get a click and two wrong pieces of music next to each other when you play it back?

Sound recording take up a lot of hard drive space. How big is your internal drive and how much space is left?

You could be damaging the Mic-In of the computer, but that's not what this problem sounds like.

Koz

[gillywizz]

Thanks Koz - typically after I'd posted the question I tried it again and it worked fine. No, it didn't produce a blank spot the same length as the problem, it carried on immediately afterwards, causing a "jump" in the recording like a scratch on a record but jumping further! I'll post back if it happens agai, thanks for your help

Gill

[kozikowski]

<<<I'll post back if it happens agai,>>>

It will. This is one symptom of the computer not being able to go fast enough for the work. It will only get worse. If you looked at the hard drive lights during the failure, I bet they lit up constantly.

Have you ever done a hard drive defragment? One tool that will speed up your computer enormously.

My Computer > Explore > C: See how big the drive is and how much space you have left. A production machine should never go fuller than 90%.


My Computer > Explore > C: > Tools > Defragment.

If the display lights up with a ton of little red marks, then you should defragment, probably multiple times. Clean up and throw out those old files that you haven't opened up in five years -- then defragment again. Defrag should not take more than about ten minutes. Yours could take hours if you've never done it.

Audacity will not work into a badly fragmented hard drive.

Koz

[gillywizz]

thanks Koz. Not defragged for a while I'm doing it now.

Not sure if this is a related problem (or if you'll see this, if not I'll post a new topic). Just imported 2 sides of a tape, now I can't save the project, all the save options are greyed out.... only options available are "new" "open" "recent files" and "exit"..

I have already done 1 tape and it worked fine, but I did it in 2 halves - I did this one all together.

[kozikowski]

Capacity problems again. How big did you say your hard drive was?

Koz

[gillywizz]

been defragging about an hour.... last defraf was December 08 - this may take some time. It is set up to run the defrag weekly, but says next defrag is "never" haha some use that is. I'l probably wait til it finishes the defrag and see if anything happens..

[kozikowski]

<<<It is set up to run the defrag weekly>>>

Most computers have to be alive and not sleeping for the maintenance tools to work.

And yes, it's good to check up on them every now and again. You appear to be trying to capture live audio into a completely fried hard drive. This should help a lot -- although you could have a damaged Audacity by now. Audacity 1.2 was pretty basic and it made assumptions on the health of the system.

Koz

[steve]

An upgrade to Audacity 1.3.8 would probably be a good idea when the defrag is complete. All of the regular forum contributors use Audacity 1.3 as the old 1.2 version is now virtually obsolete.

[kozikowski]

<<<the old 1.2 version is now virtually obsolete.>>>

And on some computers, actually obsolete.

Koz