Audacity don't recording cassettes anymore

[Esceha]

I've used with very much pleasure Audacity for many years, for making CD's of my old cassettes and the last year for making music on length of my photo-animations (http://nl.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=Esceha57&p=r ) The programm was always working fantastic, also 14 month now on Vista Home Premium.

For a month I've tried the ''new'' beta version. I could not recording cassettes anymore. I've un-installed tghe beta version and installed version 1.2.6 again. Also now I can't recording. In Preferences I've tried al the possibilities more times.

Please, please, please HELP ME !!

(Granddaddy) Cor
Netherlands
E-mail: [email protected]

[hellosailor]

Cor-
After problems with hardware and software in Vista (also trying to "just" record my cassettes!) I would suggest this to you:

Disable any antivirus or other background software if you have any running. Sometimes this silently causes installation/removal processes to fail.

Uninstall all the Audacity software. Reboot the system.
Uninstall all sound card hardware drivers, and delete the drivers as well. Reboot the system again.

Now when the system comes back up, reinstall the hardware. Reboot the system.
Reinstall whatever software you want to use. Reboot the system again, after each single installation. Reinstall/restart any antivirus, etc. last.

What I've found is that sometimes software/drivers can leave bad entries in the registry and other places in Windows, and the process of TOTALLY uninstalling everything to do with the sound process, and then reinstalling it one step at a time with those reboots in between, gives the system the best chance of cleaning itself up and rebuilding everything, in the correct sequence.

I don't know that it will solve your problem with what the beta did, but would suggest it as the best generic way to get a clean and stable system.

[steve]

In case something in your Audacity preferences has become corrupted, you can reset the preferences by the procedure here: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... tored.3F_2

If that does not work, then it may be that a Vista update has messed something up, in which case you may be able to identify what has changed by doing a "roll-back".

[Esceha]

Thanks for your complete answer.
First I've read the instruction on the site you give, to delete Audacity out of the register.

I'll print yout instructions to do it step by step, but I'm afraid to delete the driver of the soundcard. I don't know the way to get it back. My expiriance is about 25 yaers but this Granddaddy Cor is 67 years old now............. But I think i MUST do it.

[steve]

Try resetting Audacity's preferences first - it's relatively quick and easy to do and may be all that you need. (just follow the instructions from my previous post).

If you still have problems after that, post another message with as much detail about your machine and what it will / will not do (what sort of sound card you have, does Audacity play imported audio, can you record with any other program, do system sounds play.... all that kind of stuff and anything else that you think may help diagnose the problem). We can then take it one step at a time and hopefully get things working again without too much stress.

[Esceha]

So I answered I've deleted all the things from the register ans reinstaled Audacity (with disabled antivirus scanner).

The result is the same. The programm works perfect, but recording................. (''shout down'')


Importing goes very well. Also all other things as cut, past, volume etc. etc.

[Esceha]

So I said, on this computer omputer (Vista Home Premium, Pentium Dual Core) I've used for one year very frequently Audacity without any problem.
My old one was a PC with Windows 98SE an on that computer I haven't also not any problem. The problemm came after installing the ''new'' beta version. The problemmm is the same now after installing the old version (several times new downloaded.)

My system works well:

[steve]

Well there's good news in this - it looks like there is very little wrong.

Am I correct in saying that the problem is that when you record, the recording comes out far too loud and therefore badly distorted?

Also that you are recording from the same cassette player that you have used previously and that it is a "hi-fi separate" cassette deck with no volume control rather than a portable cassette deck or Walkman (with a volume control for the output)?

Of course, if there is a volume control on the cassette deck, just turn it down. However I assume that this is not an option. So the other option is to turn down the recording volume in Vista. If you are lucky, you may be able to do this by turning down the recording level slider in Audacity. If not, you will need to go into the Windows Control Panel to do it.

[Esceha]

Am I correct in saying that the problem is that when you record, the recording comes out far too loud and therefore badly distorted?
Yes.

Also that you are recording from the same cassette player that you have used previously and that it is a "hi-fi separate" cassette deck with no volume control rather than a portable cassette deck or Walkman (with a volume control for the output)?
There NO volume control for the output. I use Line Out, as always.

Of course, if there is a volume control on the cassette deck, just turn it down. However I assume that this is not an option.
It's not an option indeed.

So the other option is to turn down the recording volume in Vista. If you are lucky, you may be able to do this by turning down the recording level slider in Audacity. If not, you will need to go into the Windows Control Panel to do it.
Well there's good news in this - it looks like there is very little wrong.
The Vista contolpanel was 67% (as befor) I just set the volume lower. See the picture.


The result of the first recording made by 25% is the same as 67%. Lower volume of Vista makes no difference.
The second recording volume is with lower volume Audacity. I know the best volume to record is half.

[steve]

Oh dear, that does not look so good.

My impression now is that it is either a hardware problem or a driver problem.
Could you post a couple of screen-shots like the two below, but zoomed in very close so that we can see the individual wave shapes.

I think that the problem occurring with Audacity 1.3 is just coincidence, but can you confirm if Audacity 1.3 ever worked at all, or if the fault appeared exactly at the time that you installed Audacity 1.3.

Also, are you able to "roll back" Windows to a time before the problem appeared?

I'd like to get a second opinion on this problem, so I'll ask a couple of other people to have a look at this.