Listening while recording

[WendyKahle]

I am trying to record vinyl to digital on my Mac. I also can't get the sound to come out of my computer speakers while I am recording, even though I have tried checking every combination of boxes in the Audacity preferences I/O menu, with no luck. Any ideas out there?

[kozikowski]

Yes. When you're all set up to record, open Apple > System Preferences > Hardware > Sound > Output and make sure the Mac is trying to stuff the sound out to the speakers or headphones and not back to the turntable (which occasionally happens). Then mess with the Audacity check boxes, and be aware that sometimes Audacity needs to restart before those checks "stick."

Koz

[WendyKahle]

Thank you! I have sound now. But here's what finally worked: in the Audacity preferences I chose Built-In Audio for the Playback Device. I unchecked Hardware Playthrough and only checked Software Playthrough.

[kozikowski]

Yes, exactly that.

The reason there are so many options is to accommodate the people who are trying to play a rhythm track to their earphones while they perform on the guitar, for example. Software Playthrough may not work for them because although you haven't noticed it yet, what you're hearing is a beat off from what Audacity is recording. Given what you're doing, this shouldn't make the slightest difference to you.

Koz

[tarthur]

This user had a very similar one to mine, but the solution isn't getting me all the way to "fixed". I can record in to my MAC, fine, but I can not hear it from my headphones in realtime. When I stop the audicity recording, i can hear what it recorded. I can also hear the occassional beep from my headphones (ie, when deleting a file) that occurs while recording with audicy. my imac prefs shows output is not mute and that is pipeing to the headphones.... what else can i check?? Thanks!

[billw58]

I can record in to my MAC, fine, but I can not hear it from my headphones in realtime. When I stop the audicity recording, i can hear what it recorded. I can also hear the occassional beep from my headphones (ie, when deleting a file) that occurs while recording with audicy. my imac prefs shows output is not mute and that is pipeing to the headphones.... what else can i check?? Thanks!

Assuming you really are using version 1.2.x, go to Audacity > Preferences, then the Audio I/O tab, and make sure that "Software Playthrough" is checked.

If you have a recent iMac (in the last two years or so), you'd probably be better off with Audacity version 1.3.12.

-- Bill

[chrisbarry1313]

I am having some trouble getting that to work on my Mac that runs 10.4.11. I will try the latest version of Audacity and change some of the preferences to see if that helps. I will let you know if I get it solved.