Audacity Forum

Hi folks,

Have recently bought a Lenco turntable. The player has a USB cable and 2 audio plugs. How do I connect to the PC ? Have tried to connect the audio plugs to an amplifier and the audio plugs from the amplifier to the line line-in on the PC,but that does not work. When I connect the USB cable from the turntable to the PC I can make a recording. When I then make a recording end export a file in wav-format it is not possible to listen to the recording. Why ?

sasstudio

If, as you say, you can make a recording, then I guess that you've set it up ok.

sasstudio wrote:When I then make a recording end export a file in wav-format it is not possible to listen to the recording. Why ?

Can you play the recording in Audacity (and hear it)? If so, then you may be doing something wrong when you try to export. Are you getting a wav file? Does it play in Windows media player?

I can now play both in Audacity and in Windows Media player, but when the the USB cable is connected to the PC I cannot listen to the music. Removing the USB then it works. The preferences in Audacity are set to USB Audio CODEC for playback and recording. Think it didn´t work before simply because the volume control in Windows Media player was at minimun....
Which sample rate and bit rate for mp3 do you recommend ?
Regards sasstudio

Yeah, USB audio devices (especially turntables) set themselves as your default audio device (without telling you) and confuse Audacity (since they can only record and cannot playback). We get this problem fairly often.

Sample rate should be 44.1KHz unless you plan to make DVDs, then it should be 48KHz. If you're a nutcase audiophile you can use 96KHz or 192KHz, but you'll have to trick yourself into believing they sound better.

A 128 Bit rate for mp3s is the lowest you should be going for music. 192 is popular and well respected. 224 and higher are probably only useful if you're making classical-type music recordings.

alatham wrote:A 128 Bit rate for mp3s is the lowest you should be going for music. 192 is popular and well respected. 224 and higher are probably only useful if you're making classical-type music recordings.

Agree completely. May also be worth mentioning "Ogg" as an open source alternative to "mp3". Ogg can produce very high quality at high bit rates (although if you want it for an mp3 player, you will need to check if your player supports Ogg).
Also FLAC, which only gives around 50% compression, but is "lossless" (the compressed audio will sound exactly the same as the original, and can even be converted back into an exact copy of the original)