Startup Problems - no stereo, no audio out
Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2010 9:41 pm
I'm a relative newbie, and I'm having problems.
While waiting for a replacement hard drive for my laptop, I downloaded and began using Audacity on my wife's laptop to convert vinyl and cassette to digital and CDs. The laptop runs XP Pro. My audio input is from the stereo preamp ("record" output for tape recorder) through a Griffin iMic analog-to-digital converter (RCA stereo plugs in, USB out), and it worked fine for both records and tapes. Long and difficult learning curve, but it has worked out well.
I now have installed a new hard drive and reinstalled everything on my own laptop - a Dell Inspiron 6000 with XP Media Edition - and copied all the project files and WAVs from the other laptop. I used Windows Media Player to organize my files, adding tag information on albums and tracks, and I made audio CDs from WAV files using the Media Player. At this point, I had not installed Audacity.
THEN ... I installed Nero 6, and used it to make several more audio CDs from WAV files. Part of my rationale was a belief that anything Microsoft does well, someone else does it better.
TODAY ... I installed Audacity 1.2.6 so I could do the entire process - recording, editing, adding track and album data, and burning audio CDs - one one computer.
When I started Audacity, I ran into three problems:
1. Audacity only recorded one track. Nothing I did (including the options on the track pulldown menu) would make it record in stereo.
2. I could not made Audacity play back any sound output, even though it showed a waveform.
3. When I opened a previously tested WAV file in Audacity, the waveform filled the track graphic and it would not play.
Now that I have proven myself to be an absolute nincompoop (my excuse is that I'm still a digital audio newbie), can anyone advise how to troubleshoot this mess I've gotten into?
Ciao,
Tom Barbour
While waiting for a replacement hard drive for my laptop, I downloaded and began using Audacity on my wife's laptop to convert vinyl and cassette to digital and CDs. The laptop runs XP Pro. My audio input is from the stereo preamp ("record" output for tape recorder) through a Griffin iMic analog-to-digital converter (RCA stereo plugs in, USB out), and it worked fine for both records and tapes. Long and difficult learning curve, but it has worked out well.
I now have installed a new hard drive and reinstalled everything on my own laptop - a Dell Inspiron 6000 with XP Media Edition - and copied all the project files and WAVs from the other laptop. I used Windows Media Player to organize my files, adding tag information on albums and tracks, and I made audio CDs from WAV files using the Media Player. At this point, I had not installed Audacity.
THEN ... I installed Nero 6, and used it to make several more audio CDs from WAV files. Part of my rationale was a belief that anything Microsoft does well, someone else does it better.
TODAY ... I installed Audacity 1.2.6 so I could do the entire process - recording, editing, adding track and album data, and burning audio CDs - one one computer.
When I started Audacity, I ran into three problems:
1. Audacity only recorded one track. Nothing I did (including the options on the track pulldown menu) would make it record in stereo.
2. I could not made Audacity play back any sound output, even though it showed a waveform.
3. When I opened a previously tested WAV file in Audacity, the waveform filled the track graphic and it would not play.
Now that I have proven myself to be an absolute nincompoop (my excuse is that I'm still a digital audio newbie), can anyone advise how to troubleshoot this mess I've gotten into?
Ciao,
Tom Barbour