Audacity Forum

Uh-oh, this time I think I really screwed up. But before I explain how, here’s what I’m doing my (spoken voice) recording with:

Shure SM58 mic
Tascam US-122L interface
Audacity version 1.2.6
Dell Inspiron laptop, Windows XP Pro, version 5.1

So, here’s what I did… In Audacity, I went into “Audio Preferences” and this is what I saw (although I’m not sure what it was set to before I started fiddling around with it):

Playback Device (choices):

MS Sound Mapper – Output
Sigma Tel Audio
Tascam US-122L
Bluetooth Hands-free Audio

Recording Device (choices):

MS Sound Mapper - Input
Sigma Tel Audio
Tascam US-122L
Bluetooth Hands-free Audio

Since I’m recording with a Tascam US-122L, I figured it made sense to set the “Recording Device” to this. But then Audacity didn’t record at all. So then (and this is probably where I screwed up) I started playing around with things & adjusting the settings. I experimented with different combinations for both recording & playback devices as well as switching from “mic” to “digital mic” just to see if it would make any difference & if I could get it to record. Well, not only does it not record, but sometimes, depending on what I have it set to, it generates some god-awful noise when attempting to record. I tried exiting out of Audacity & reopening it as well as rebooting my computer, but same thing. So, at this point, my questions are…

1. What do I need to do so I can get Audacity to record again?

2. What are the correct settings that I should be using in Audacity for Playback & Recording Device given my set-up?

3. How should I set Windows Speech Tools so that it’s in sync/doesn’t conflict with Audacity?

I’m also unhappy with the overall quality of my recordings, which don’t really seem to be much of an improvement if any at all over the recordings that I did directly into my laptop without the external mic, pre-amp & Audacity. But rather than lump too many problems into one posting, I’ll save that for another one…

aUdAcIoUsmE wrote: Since it was first posted, I uninstalled then reinstalled Audacity & now it seems to work just fine. Although I'm still unclear as to why Audacity defaults to Windows Sound Mapper & if I should leave it set to that even though I'm actually recording through a Tascam US-122L interface & that also happens to be one of the choices. I should note that in playing around with the settings, the only combination that seems to work is when both input and output are set to Sound Mapper. So maybe everything is just as it should be with this. I don't know.

The "Windows Sound Mapper" is the default audio service in Windows, and so is used by default by Audacity and many other audio programs. The "Windows Sound Mapper" is not a real audio device, but when a program is set to use it for either audio input or output, the Sound Mapper "maps" the device to whatever real audio device is currently the system default device.

When you plug in a USB audio device, Windows will automatically set that device as the default device for sound recording and playback. (This is a problem for people with USB turntables, because their default playback device becomes the turntable, even though the turntable is a recording device only).

When you plug in the Tascam USB device, Windows will automatically set it to be the default recording and playback device, so if your application (Audacity) is set to use the "Windows Sound Mapper", then the sound mapper will connect the application to the Tascam.

For Windows XP, if you look in Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices, you will see that the Tascam is listed as the default device.

So the short answer is, leave Audacity set to Windows Sound Mapper.

Well, that explains it! Thank you, Steve, very much for your reply. I do appreciate it