No Wave Form, USB Audio Codec missing

[James Bianchi]

I just acquired a USB turntable from Ion. The turntable works fine and plays LPs that I can hear through my wireless headphones. However, I can't record anything. I have been through level 2 support, was getting some response on the green and red bars (though low), but never could get a wave form. I was told that someone there would research the problem and get back to me, but guess they couldn't find anything helpful. I'm using a Gateway laptop model MX6440 with AMD Turion 64 Mobile using XP 2002 Home edition SP2.

I was then able to successfully get a wave response by connecting my cassette tape player to the mic input, bypassing the USB port (I had tried all 4 USB ports without success.) and was at least going to start by converting all my cassettes to digital.

Now I have an additional problem. USB Audio Codec disappeared. The file is completely gone upon doing a computer search. I uninstalled and reinstalled Audacity twice, once from the link provided by tech support, and once from the website (the Audacity CD came cracked and unusable). The USB Audio Codec still no longer appears anywhere, though I had it initially upon my first download. This makes no sense at all. Please help if you can.

James L. Bianchi
707-745-9699

[steve]

We may not be able to fix this in one go, but first things first.

You must connect the turntable and allow it to initialize before you start up Audacity. When you plug in the turntable, do you get a USB indication icon in the sys tray near the clock?

If you do, then open Audacity and go to "Edit > Preferences > Audio I/O"

You need to now set the USB turntable as the Recording device, and your sound card as the playback device. (Click OK when you have set these).

Now grab the "meter toolbar" with your mouse, move it somewhere convenient and stretch it so that it goes the full width of your screen (makes reading the levels much easier).

Click on the Recording meter to start monitoring and play a record.

Does the Recording meter respond to the music?

The signal should be quite high in loud parts (somewhere around the "-10" is good).

If the meter is responding, but is much lower than this, take the record off and look underneath the turntable for a volume knob to turn up the level.

Once you have a good recording level, press the record button and do a test recording.

[James Bianchi]

Thank you. I followed your instructions and USB Audio Codec appeared again. I adjusted the volumn under the turntable. This improved the sound level on the recording meter, though still at -21. I also had wave form, but it was very muted: moving within a quarter of an inch spectrum. I tried saving and playing what was recorded, but it was white noise. The microphone drop down menu was unresponsive and would not allow be to select Stereo Mix as required by the instructions. There was some progress, but it still is not working. Do you have any other suggestions?

James

[waxcylinder]

The microphone drop down menu was unresponsive and would not allow be to select Stereo Mix as required by the instructions. James

James,

the instructions are wrong and have been so for over two years now! When you plug in your ION, Audacity hands control over the sound services to the ION - so no input selection should be available, nor should the mic slider be operable or affect the recording volume.

Audacity and Windows will also hand over responsibility for sound output to the TT, which has no speakers obviously - so you will need to retarget sound output in Windows and Audacity onto your onboard soundcard.

I fell into both these traps with an ION iTTUSN two years ago because of poor documentation.

When I used my ION it controlled a perefectly good recording level with the gain control on the underside of the TT set to max - i only had to choke it down a bit with some tape recodings when I plugged my tape deck in through the ION.

WC

[James Bianchi]

Thanks WC. I won't stress about the drop down menu anymore (though it was actually working initially). I still have insignificant wave form and am recording white noise.

James

[waxcylinder]

can you try a different USB port on your PC - sometimes USB inputs are poor or NBG, somefolks find changing the port used can make it work.

WC