audio into computor

[stardust2003]

Hi

all I want to do is get 8 mins audio from a cassette tape into my comp ie audacity

Ive got the lead from headphone socket in music centre into the computor

there are 6 sockets at back of com 3 above 3
Ive got it from music centre... ie cassette tape deck..... into top left socket on back of my computor.
top middle socket is "out" to my comp speaker.

everything in sound and audio devices looks ok the levels etc.

I just cant get a sound in there
usually tweeking the plugs, slowly turning them etc, does it.
I had the sound for about 10 secs today then lost it , not had it since .....
when I get sound in the comp speaker the sound signal appears in audacity too
Its driving me mad
surely there must be some foolproof way of doing this ?
a simple operation and Im stuffed ..... !

[Gale Andrews]

Plug into the line-in of the computer (usually blue) and select line-in as the input in Audacity. See:
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Trans ... uter_or_CD


Gale

[stardust2003]

yes i ve got the "line in" setting
for a moment I had the sound playing in the computor speakers, but for some reason
the signal does nt seem to be getting into audacity... Im not seeing that red band that
usu monitors the sound.

sometimes tweaking the plugs gets it, but Im am against a brick wall here
the music signa just wont get in there.


Ive got playback set at microsoft sound mapper


Device............... line in/ mic in
recording 1 mono
play other track while recording new one .......... not ticked
sofware playthrough box............... ticked

I just tweaked the plugs and got a hum.... that hum got thru to the comp speakers
and the red monitoring line began to show up in audacity... so some sound is getting there if only a hum !

Ive got the music playing but that signal just will not get in there !!

[Gale Andrews]

Ive got the music playing but that signal just will not get in there !!

Does your cassette deck have a headphones socket? If so try plugging the cassette deck end of the cable into that.



Gale

[stardust2003]

Its so frustrating.... as I say, its worked before but Ive often had to do a lot of
tweaking the plugs...
Its as though inside the socket theres no contact... you tweak it .. eg push the plug down.. and suddenly]
get a connection ... its worked before but this time Im hitting a brick wall.

Ive tried with another music centre and a small radiocassette too.

Im thinking now that maybe I should give up these cables and signals in the wires and look for a cd recorder deck.
With that I might be able to record the audio onto a cdrw ... put that into the computor
and whiz the audio file over to documents..... problem solved !

[Gale Andrews]

If the cassette tape is only speech/ low quality you can record it into the computer by putting the tape deck close to the internal microphone and record from that source (or plug a mic into the mic port of the computer and put the mic by the tape deck).



Gale

[Irish]

Its so frustrating.... as I say, its worked before but Ive often had to do a lot of
tweaking the plugs...

That looks very like a faulty cable to me. Try replacing that first.
The next most likely is a faulty socket on the cassette deck or computer. (You didn't say which end of the cable you tweaked to get it to sound)

POL

[stardust2003]

Irish.... you are bang on....
after going round the mountain and going thru all kinds of settings in the comp and in audacity
I finally wondered if the cable was faulty.


I finally rigged up another cable and bingo... the music signal appeared in audacity at long last !

it was a quality cable too... plastic covered plugs etc.

But the prob is finally solved. In a way its a relief that it is a faulty cable and not the sound card !

I ve been trying to figure out how to record live radio in audacity
and it seems you dont pick "line in"
you pick sterio mixer

unfortunately that option does nt seem available to me
maybe the sound card Ive got installed doesnt allow that option
looks like Ive hit a brick wall there !

[Gale Andrews]

I finally rigged up another cable and bingo...
I ve been trying to figure out how to record live radio in audacity and it seems you dont pick "line in"
you pick sterio mixer unfortunately that option does nt seem available to me maybe the sound card Ive got installed doesnt allow that option looks like Ive hit a brick wall there !

Glad you found that the cable was the problem.

You may or may not be able to get the sound device to show "stereo mix" by using the Windows Control Panel. It depends if the device has that ability. See http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Mixer ... _Issues#cp.

If you need more help please state what version of Windows you have, for example, XP.



Gale