Audacity Forum

Hey, Im trying to record on my macbook its the alumminum one and it wont work the waveform stays flat and it wont record my bass. So I am running my bass straight to my laptop using my regular cable and a adaptor from radio shack into the line in. I switched my preferences in system preferences to line in, I changed it in audacity to line in, and also my settings in audio midi set up. When I record I turned the volume on my bass
to the max and when I click record play something then play hasnt recorded anything. Does anyone have any ideas.

A bass guitar doesn't have a lot of zot (technical term) coming out of the cable. I mean, we're talking waving a steel wire around in front of a magnet. We're not going to blow very many houses down with that.

So we need to amplify it before it gets to the Mac. A lot of performers at work run the guitar through a properly working amplifier and then take the headphone output and adapt that to the Line-In of the Mac (little circle with two black arrows). Start with low but listenable headphone volume and work up until you get enough.

Koz

Is the amp I use for practicing suitable for this? and then I just want to go from the headphones input on my amp to the line in on my mac?

Set the amplifier so your headphones are just on the quiet side, and then plug a 1/4" phone to 1/8" mini adapter between the two. Do you have a Radio Shack nearby?

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2102952

It's going to be left-only mono, but once you capture it, you can make it be anything you want.

Koz

I tried that and I had no luck. so I plugged my headphones into my amp and set it pretty quiet, then I took an extra cable plugged it into the phones input and on the other end I put the 1/4 to 1/8 adapter on it and plugged it into the line in on my mac. When I hit record still wont record any sound I tried turning up the volume on my amp and still didnt help. any other ideas? did I hook it up right?

Let's split it up.

Apple > System Preferences > Hardware > Sound > Input.

Make sure Line In is selected but leave the panel open. Turn the panel Input Volume all the way up.

Plug one of your 1/8" cables into the Line-In of the Mac, but leave the other end free. Grab the cable end by the plastic with one hand and touch the metal tip with your other hand. Do you see bouncing lights on the Preferences panel sound meter?

You are intentionally creating buzz and hum and trash in order to test the system.

Koz

Ok I tried that and nothing happened. So I guess I would need a different cable or is it possible my line in doesn't work?

Sorry I'm not right on top of this. I had to sit down with the machines and do a system analysis and that takes time.

While you have the Preference panel with the sound meter open, plug and unplug the sound cable from the side or back of the Mac. There should be a disturbance--a bounce--in the sound meter every time you do that. That means the sound channel inside the Mac is probably OK and we get to look somewhere else.

This touching the end of the cable with your finger thing does work, but not for your problem. We may need this trick a little later.

Do you have an iPod? You can take a 1/8" stereo male to male cable and plug the iPod right into your Mac and record it. Remember that an iPod will stop if you change cables, so you may need to start it up again.

Koz