Audacity Forum

Hello! I am a new Audacity user and am having issues recording my cassettes to my hard drive.

I have Audacity 1.3.9
I have a Macbook running 10.4.11
a new cassette player (walkman style)
a mini jack to mini jack cord

cord is pluged in to headphone jack on the casette player (only one)
and into microphone in on mac (the other is the headphone jack)

In my Macbook preferences the blue bar lights up when I press play on the casette player.

Now, when I press play on the casette player, and hit record thru the Audacity softwear
no sound comes out and nothing is recorded. Although when I hit the play and stop button on
the casette player it vaguely spikes the wave and during playback I can remotely hear the click for on and off...


What am I not doing right? Is it a settings issue with my macbook or with Audacity?
Is it a compatibility issue with the versions of both?

Can anyone help clarify this!?!?

Thank you in advance!

<<<and into microphone in on mac (the other is the headphone jack)>>>

You have it plugged into the Stereo Line-In (two black arrows a a circle) because Macs don't have Mic-In.

The sound meter in Apple Preferences is very sensitive. Where does it bounce? If it's in the bottom third of the meter, there may not be enough sound poop to make it to the Audacity meters.

Try this. Reset the Audacity preferences to 44100, 16-bit, Stereo from wherever they are now. Restart Audacity. Also in Audacity preferences, make sure the same thing is selected that was in the Apple Preferences. It's possible Default Device is the only thing available. This is OK.

Click once inside the red record meters and they will wake up and meter the sound without you needing to go into record. Play a tape.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/Audacity1_record.jpg

You may or may not hear anything. That's irrelevant right now.

Koz

The blue lines are at the max, showing strong reception...
I made the changes you suggested, nothing!
I did notice, that I hear what is happening out of the player and not what is in the player (the cassette with music)
any other suggestions?

I also talk and it picks that up, I went onto the system preferences of the Mac.
there are two devices for sound input

1. Internal microphone BUILT IN-----------one or two blue bars light up when I touch the cassette player on the outside making a bit of noise
2. Line in AUDIO LINE IN-PORT---------------all the blue bars light up when cassette player is on

I have an input volume which is on high
and an output volume, is on high

does this help you???

I know this is hard, but forget listening to the work. One thing at a time.

In the Apple Preference panels, you should have Audio Line-In selected. The bouncing blue lights in that panel should not jump when you clap, but they should move when you play the tape. Make sure the tape is rewound when you do this so you're not trying to play the end of the tape with nothing on it.

The blue lights should light at least half-way up. Close the panel. Open Audacity. Click once right over one of the red sound meters. They may be a different size than the ones in my illustration, but they should be there somewhere and after you click, they should jump with your tape.

Did you get that far? It's highly possible your room is still dead silent. We'll get to that in a bit.

There is a little volume control slider with a microphone symbol in the Audacity control strip on top. Make sure that's turned up.

Koz

GETTING CLOSER
PROJECT RATE 4800

HOW DO I ADJUST INPUT AND OUTPUT METERS?
I CLICKED ON THEM TO BE AT MAX BUT THEY STOP AT MID WAY THROUGH, WHY IS THAT?