Audacity Forum

patrick160356 wrote: As to whether the microphone is muted, it is, as you can see below.

Well that sure as heck looks like it's muted, but if it really is muted then there should be no signal from it.
Audacity does not have its own sound system, it just accesses the computer sound system - that's the same for all versions of Audacity.

First off, you need to be back in business.
If you've not done so already, reinstall Audacity 1.2.6. You can have both 1.2.6 and 1.3.x installed at the same time as they install in different directories.

The limitations of having two versions installed are as follows.
1) You cannot run both versions simultaneously.
2) Audacity 1.2.x cannot open projects that have been saved by Audacity 1.3.x
3) When Audacity 1.3.x is first installed it will pick up some settings from any other previous or currently installed Audacity.

You mentioned that you had been sent an Audacity 1.3 project from a client. Although Audacity 1.2.6 cannot open this Audacity Project there's a possible workaround (the practicality depends on the complexity of the project and what exactly you are doing with it). You could:
Open the project in Audacity 1.3.12,
Export the project as a WAV file,
Close Audacity 1.3.12
Open Audacity 1.2.6 and import the WAV file.

Hopefully that will get you round the immediate difficulty, but I'd still be keen to try and resolve the issue that you're having with Audacity 1.3.12. On the face of it, what's happening looks impossible, so we must be missing something.

Thanks for the ideas. I'll give 'em a try!

(And I KNOW it's screwy that the mic is still picking up when it is allegedly muted. I think that's one of the things that has been driving me crazy here! )

Thanks again.

patrick160356 wrote:I have happily used Audacity for many years. Today, however, I had the great misfortune to upgrade to 1.3 beta ...

I'm a bit confused here Patrick - all the Betas that I have on my desktop PC still have the Input Selector. 1.3.7 offers a full range of inputs, later Betas only have "Wave" on offer. The latest Alpha 1.3.13s that I have do indeed not have the Input Selector.

In fact on this PC they should really be greyed out as they properly are on 1.2 for me as I am using an external USB soundcard with this PC

===============================

And now I'm even more puzzled as on my laptop with 1.3.12 (using the onboard Realtek soundcard - for recording streaming audio) there is indeed no Input selector.
I do get the Input Selector in 1.3.8 & 1.3.9 and 1.2.6 - but not in 1.3.7 and 1.3.11 (or 1.3.12)

On the laptop I have a similar (but different) Reatek HD manager to you - on the Record section I only have Mic Volume and Stereo Mix (there is no line-in on the laptop). And I don't have mute buttons like you - instead I have two radio buttons which toggle between Mic and stereo mix.

But the Realtek HD manager does not seem to let me manage the inputs properly as expected - whichever setting I have toggled (Mic or Stereo Input) the Realtek merrily passes through the streamed audio to Audacity to record - and I can't get a squeak from the onboard laptop mic to record.

Now this suits me fine as my laptop is set up for streaming audio recording - but it is not proper behaviour. But I suspect that it may be more down to faulty behaviour in the Realtek HD h/w & s/w rather than an Audacity issue.

===============================

Update: Now I'm not so sure that this is not an Audacity issue - as with 1.2.6 and 1.3.8 I can use the Audacity Input Selector to switch between mic input and Stereo Mix - getting proper recording from either as expected.

Curiously if I set it to Mic in 1.3.9 and then fire up 1.3.12 then 1.3.12 will record from the Mic (I expected that because I suspected that the setting would be carried over in my Audacity Preferences) - BUT it also additionally records whatever is playing on the streaming audio, similar to what yo report above with your mic still recording when muted. 1.3.9 does just record the Mic when set to Mic

However if I fire up 1.3.13 (after the Mic reset in 1.3.9) it still won't record from the mic, but stubbornly stays on only streaming audio.

So now I throughly understand the frustration of your original posting.

WC

Don't know what to tell you, WC. The screen shot I attached shows what I have and I can't get Audacity to record from line-in. It will only record from the microphone (even when it's muted!). My computer is fairly new, too (about 9 months old), so I can't see why I am having this problem.

The MOST irritating thing is that I re-installed 1.2.6 ... no input selector now! AARGH!!!

Personally I would rather let Audacity be a slave to the soundcard h/w and s/w and use the Realtek HD to control the inputs to Audacity.

That's certainly how it works on my desktop with the external USB soundcard, an Edirol UA-1EX where the Edirol is definitely the controlling device. But as explained above my Realtek s/w and/or h/w on the laptop doesn't play ball in this respect.

I will monitor this when the 1.3.13 Beta comes out (hopefully next week) and file a bug report then if necessary.

As Steve explained earlier this is an area that the developers have been working on. And they have made some improvements: on my desktop the output sound is sent to the onboard Soundmax soundcard for monitoring - with 1.2 I had s/w control over the output volume with Audacity - this feature "disappeared" in the earlier Betas. It's taken 1.3.13 to finally get it back.

WC

But when it won't control the inputs, what do you do? Sigh ...

One thing you might try is a visit to the Realtek site to see if they have any updated device drivers for your particular soundcard.

And if that doesn't work then a complaint/bug-report to Realtek is possibly in order - it may be something they already know about - but if they dont', they should.

WC

Good idea, thanks. I'll try that.

patrick160356 wrote:The MOST irritating thing is that I re-installed 1.2.6 ... no input selector now! AARGH!!!

I was afraid that might happen. As has been suggested, it looks like the issue is with the sound card drivers rather than with Audacity. The microphone being muted in the RealTek interface, but not really muted is certainly wrong (a bug).

From your first post I understand that you were previously able to record from the "Line In", but suddenly (at the same time as you upgraded Audacity to the 1.3.12 version) using the same sound card in the same computer with the same operating system, you could only record from the microphone. Is that correct?

I can't see it in the thread - are you using Windows XP SP3?

Yes, to both questions. I'm going to try upgrading the sound card drivers today. Hopefully that'll solve the problem!