Audacity Forum

I am very new to this and can't seem to figure out what is wrong. I have Audacity 1.2.6. on Vista. Everytime I press record I get an error saying "Error while opening sound device. Please check the input device settings and the project sample rate."

I go into edit<preferences and my options for playback are Microsoft Sound Mapper-Output, Realtek Digital Output, and Speakers Realtek.

I have no devices coming up in the Recording device drop down menu. My Default Project Sample Rate is 96000 Hz.

Please help determine what is going on and how I can fix it!

96000 is a slightly oddball sample rate. I would reset the preferences to 44100, 16-bit, Stereo, restart Audacity and see if that doesn't help. You can go up to higher rates and bits later once you get it working.

Higher bit standards give you lower noise and higher overload threshold, and increasing the sample rate results in higher frequency response. There are limits to what you can do. The sound card itself will determine the noise level and that's frequently much worse than the bit specification, and you can choose a sample rate that's so high that you may start recording marine navigation radio stations along with your sound. 44100 is barely OK, 48000 is video standard and that's better, 96000 is not supported by some sound cards.

Koz