Audacity don't recording cassettes anymore

[kozikowski]

It looks to me that Audacity/Vista has lost the ability to "shift" the sound card between Microphone and Line levels. The fact that you can bring the levels down and they still remain dense and distorted indicates to me that the damage is happening upstream--before the control point.

It's not easy to shift an audio input connection between "Line Level" and "Microphone Level." Line is roughly 1000 time louder than Mic and the cheap ways of shifting all create bad sound problems.

It's also possible that the Recording Industry is intentionally making this harder and harder to do (for those conspiracy theorists). Microphone Level is used for live performances and Skype. Line Level is almost always used to steal music. Who in the recording industry would be sobbing if you were forced to go out and buy CDs of all your vinyl and cassettes?

Koz

[waxcylinder]

Who in the recording industry would be sobbing if you were forced to go out and buy CDs of all your vinyl and cassettes?
Koz

Tht's fine when they take the trouble to release them and keep them in stock - a lot of my old vinyl and tape is not available. I'd prefer to buy CDs, it would make the process a lot quicker ...

WC

[steve]

Thanks for having a look koz and WC, but that does not really help Esceha to get it working again. According to his first post, Audacity 1.2.6 was previously working, but is no longer. Any ideas?

[Esceha]

I saw on the Audacity site the beta version is for advanced users. Indeed.
But after deleting it's undiminished for the old version too.

And I was always so cheerful, now this granddaddy Cor cries........... I think I must life without copy-ing from my cassettes.
I remain trying, so I need the feasibility. If you see http://nl.youtube.com/user/Esceha57 with 67 animations in only one year, you'll understand.

[steve]

We have had a bit of a chat about this problem and find it puzzling. Unfortunately none of us are experts with Vista (we use an assortment of Macs, Linux and Win XP), but we all agree that the sound system on Vista is pants for people that want to record (which is one of the reasons that we don't use it).

It may be worth double checking that your cassette player is sill plugged into the "Line input socket" and has not inadvertently been moved over to a microphone input socket.

The next step after that would be to try uninstalling the sound card drivers completely, rebooting the computer and reinstalling the sound card drivers.

If that fails, the final solution would be to purchase a new audio device such as the Edirol UA-1EX
http://www.roland.com/products/en/ua-1ex/index.html

[Esceha]

Thank you all for so much effort for trying to cancel my problem.
My PC is ''build in'' so I've all the wires to loose. I''ll do that one of the coming days. And control all of it.
I'll report the result, Befor that time I only can pray........ )

Greetings from the Netherlands,
Cor

[jan.kolar]

The Vista contolpanel was 67% (as befor) I just set the volume lower. See the picture.

Cor,
1.In case (and only in this case!) your cabels could change anyhow from the times of good recordings,
make indeed sure your cable goes to "line in" input socket, not to to "mic",

2. please try to set just between 1% to 4% in the vista control panel.

(Explanation: (You do not have to read my explanations if you do not wish to) obviously you need to go several "6dB" steps down to get to proper signal level, one such step (like 60% to 30%) obviously can not be enough. A "6dB" step in this strange percent notation means "half". Thus 100% to 50% is first step, 50% to 25% is second step, then approximately 12% -- 6% -- 3% -- 1,5%. I think that percents should not be used in this place, but once they are, the point is how many times did we half.)

3. Please try 2. before uninstalling drivers. I suggest to try the following also:
run 1.3.5. once again,
slide its microfone slider close to the left border, so that it says "Input level 0,1" (with the slider between ticks)
then exit the program,
start 1.2.6 and check if I and you can be happy and there is a change with recording.
(Explanation: the slider certainly try to change something outside the (beta) program. The question is whether we can change it back. Lets do change by the (beta) program itself !)

This picture is related only to beta 1.3.x (do not use it with 1.2.x in your case !)

mic0,1.jpg (7.9 KiB) Viewed 1096 times

It looks to me that Audacity/Vista has lost the ability to "shift" the sound card between Microphone and Line levels. The fact that you can bring the levels down and they still remain dense and distorted indicates to me that the damage is happening upstream--before the control point.

Koz,
Audacity (beta version) uses its input/output sliders in two different ways. The first, the "native" one to change the mixer setting using drivers is used IF Audacity can. The second "software" is that Audacity multiplies the signal by a number <=1.(On the pictures, obviously the second method is used.)
Which one is used at particular hardware+software configuration can be found (only for beta) in Help > Audio Device Info, last two lines:

Code: Select all

Capture volume is native
Capture volume is native

One of the "Capture" should actually read "Playback", which is a tiny bug.
Unfortunately 1.2.6 does not give this information (My 1.2.6 in XP obviously uses native method for record and most probably software method for playback) (On vista, it is much more probable the native method is impossible.)
(If needed, I can look into the code to find out more about this topic for 1.2.x, if the code is fully accessible.)

Any ideas?

To the helpers:
Yes, is not it simply possible that
1.3.x moves the mixer settings by using "native method", and
a user makes it like 100% just before unistalling, and then 1.2.x is unable to use native method for some reason, and the settings remains high?
Also could it be possible that 1.3.x changes mixer setting that Vista hides from its control panels?
(There was a similar case, do you remember? what was the end? Could this apply to that case?)

(Perhaps, if the setting is hidden deeply, we need to run 1.3.x to change the setting back?)

Any ideas?

To the helpers:
Yes, one more: for my Windows, Audacity is identified as Audacity regardless if it is 1.2.x or 1.3.x.
And if Vista can detect how 1.3.5 handles input, it can remember it and change its attitudes to both 1.2x and 1.3x.
This would be last thing to try, but the way to test it is relatively easy: change strings like "Audacity" to "CityAuda" in the .exe file of 1.2.x (and also class {1231243-2342342-34-234-234} numbers if there are in .exe) (I think I could that if a license allows it).




Cor,
I am also curious about the same what Steve asked

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.

[Esceha]

Hurray, hooray, hurrah !!!!!



I want - deserved by you all- to upload a bigger flag, but I don't have. This morning I've deleted the sound-card. New installation was not a problem; after restart Vista searced for a driver and installed the driver. My joyful message to you is, Audacity works again faultless !!! Both versions; 1.2.6 and 1.3.5, so I say again Hurray, hooray, hurrah !!!!!

Heartly thanks to you all for all your effort helping me. The last years (much I hope) of my life I can enjoying Audadity again.

Greetings from the Netherlands from a realy happy
(Granddaddy) Cor.

[steve]

Congratulations Granddaddy Cor.

If you have time, it may be useful to other users if you could post a "How to un-inastall Sound Card Drivers in Vista".

BTW, I enjoyed your slide shows (though I've not seen all 68 of them) - very nicely done.

[Esceha]

I post TWO new topics in different sections:

http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=5050
and
http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5051

Have a good day.
(granddaddy) Cor.