Audacity Forum

Hi
Just aquired the KAM USB Turntable wich is fine. However, despite hours of trying to get sound through the DELL Laptop, I eventually gave up.
I have followed the Audacity guides on this which appear to make sense but at the end of it all I still has zero sound through the PC. However the levels on the tool bar are bouncing about quite happily to the record being played. I can save the recording, but have to reboot to then load the file and play it.

What does happen is that it somehow diconnects all sound including the headphones output which I thought I could use to hear it through an Amp link etc.

I then have to reboot the Laptop in order to get any sound back.
I am sure it something really silly I am missing but if anyone can take pity on me and give me an idiots guide I would be very grateful. Thank you !!

When you plug in a USB device like this your computer hands over control of all sound services to the USB device - both input and output. Since you USB TT doesn't have a set of speakers, you then don't get any soundfrom the computer (not even the normal Windows sounds).

All you need to do is to get Windows and Audacity to retarget the sound output onto your PC's on-board soundcard. In Windows use Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices > Audio > Sound Playback - in Audacity use Edit > Preferences > Audio I/O > Playback Device - you may need to close and restart Audacity for the change to take effect.

Many folks fall into this bear-trap when they start out with USB/Audacity - I certainly did !

WC

Hi me again
OK I have deck connected and switched on.
Went to Control Panel and select USB AUDIOCODEC as the connection.
Sound record and sound playback both now show above USB device.
Voice playback and recording panels also now show the USB device.
In audacity I have the tab ticked to listen to new track while recording.
Levels indicate that the signal is getting through but alas no sound coming through.
Any ideas please ? Thank you

RADIOGFM wrote: Sound record and sound playback both now show above USB device.

You should only have the USB device set to be the "Sound Recording" device - NOT the "Playback Device" as well. Yje Playnack device needs to be set to your PC's onboard soundcard (I can't tell you what the drop-down will say, as I don't know what soundcard you have - but on my PC with my USB soundcard plugged in I only get two options, the USB device and the on-board soundcard).

WC

Hi WC
Thank you very much for your help, IT WORKS HOORRAAYYY !!!!! Thank you again.

Just one more query to pass by you if I may.

When my power transformer is plugged in to the DELL laptop, I get a very rhythmic bass pop type noise.
However, when I remove the power supply, so that it starts running on the Battery, this popping noise dissapears completely.
Is there any solution to this or is it a case of just a badly screened Adaptor ?

Thanks again

RGFM

RGFM,

glad we got you working.

Yup, some laptops do that (fortunately mine does not) - so your solution is the right one to run it on battery power for recording. You should be fine though to revert to mains power or editing and exporting.

WC

Hi WC

Cheers for the information

Once again I am very grateful to people like you, who spare the time th explain to us new boys on how to do things.
What would we do without you !!

Well I am off to record those old LPs and Singles !

Thank you !
RGFM

RGFM,

when you come to cleaning up the clicks/pops that you will inevitably have on the vinyl, you might want to consider investing a little in this software: http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=1994 - it works only what can be descibved as "magic" on your old records.

WC

Hi there and seasons greetings to all !!

Well I spent many minutes recording those classic vinyl records.

However, I have noticed that playing back the files (MP3), there seems to be a severe over recording/some distortion on certain records.
Is there any way I can reduce the recording level at point of recording, to prevent this happening ?
I realise that you can not have manual control on the Mic slider, but wondered if there was another way to do this.

Thank you very much.

RGFM

When you play the Audacity project, or exported WAV files of the projects, do you det the same distortion?

If so - then you are oversaturating the signal and getting clipping.

If not - then you can try upping the bitrate at which you export the MP3s. 128 is theAudacity default MP3 bitrate - which is generally considered to be the minimum levele required for recorded music. I normally use 192 which I chose as a good compromise between audio quality and space occupancy - but that was when I started out with a smaller iPod - with a biggger iPod now I probably would have chosed 256 - my son usually uses the full 320 bitrate

WC