Audacity Forum

Ive done all it says on wiki to stop my tracks skipping while recording.Im using a usb turntable to record vinyl.Ive even been monitoring my computer processes while recording and its low and only using 1/4 to 1/2 of RAM while the CPU is just slightly fluctuating. I can sometimes get halfway thru a record before it skips.Ive removed Audacity and Loaded it back on again,rebooted and made sure nothing else is running-even disabling wireless signal. Has anyone got past this issue? Id rather use this software,if not any recommendations?

Ive just watched the CPU usage through a recording and it spiked once to 33% and it made the recording skip.is it audacity or the laptop??

karlos100 wrote:Ive just watched the CPU usage through a recording and it spiked once to 33% and it made the recording skip.is it audacity or the laptop??

If the glitch coincided with the spike in CPU usage, then it is almost certainly the laptop.

Note that many CPU monitors use quite a lot of CPU themselves, and Audacity jumping to 33% could bring the total CPU usage much higher. The other consideration is that USB interfaces are CPU dependent and USB data throughput can be interrupted by high CPU load.

karlos100 wrote:I can sometimes get halfway thru a record before it skips.

You are very close to it working perfectly. If you can just squeeze an extra couple of % performance from the system then you will be laughing. As you are now aware, with recording audio, it does not matter if you are running at 0.1% resource usage for 99% of the time - what is important is that data throughput is 100% for 100% of the time.

Make a note (on paper) of your current settings for "Edit menu > Preferences > Audio I/O" and "Edit menu > Preferences > Quality" and then try tweaking the settings to see if you can improve performance. Sometimes just switching from 44100Hz sample rate to 48000Hz (or vice-versa) can be enough.

Close down all other programs before recording - if possible, disconnect from the internet and switch off your anti-virus program. "Windows Update" can be a killer if it clicks in during a recording.

Sometimes switching to a different USB socket can make a difference (if you have more than one USB socket).

Thank you for you're help. Ive been out and bought a new lappy with much more memory etc. Fingers crossed!!!!