Audacity Forum

Hi there,

Does anyone know if there any way i can talk directly to Audacity Technical help as i fear trying to do this on the forum my be tricky.

The lack of a technical helpline is rather unhelpful to say the least and this is taking ages to sort. (KAM say that this is definitely an AUdacity-Related query by the way.)

I'm trying to get to record Vinyl from a non-USB deck via a KAM USBH100 Audio Capture Device using Phono into the Hub, then stright into the USB of the MAc.(not through another hub)

I'm getting a signal in Audacity, but even though i have chosen various boxes in Preferences:

1. I still can't hear what is being recorded.
2. The levels don't seem high enough and turning up the dial on the Hub doesn't boost it enough.
3. Even though I think i've made a test recording that shows a signal, i can't hear it back.

All very Frustrating (note Cap F!)

I'm running Audacity 1.3.7 and MAC OSX 10.5.6. and have tried all the usual help topics etc

Rapid response appreciated!

THanks and Best Andrew

<<<Does anyone know if there any way i can talk directly to Audacity Technical help as i fear trying to do this on the forum my be tricky.>>>

Yes, I do. No, there isn't. Yes, it might.

This isn't a Corporation. The Mac version of Audacity has three people working on it.

I'm betting you can't go through any USB hubs, but that might not be the listening problem. When a Mac sees a USB audio device, it tries to use it for sound in both directions. In this case that's a bad guess.

Apple > System Preferences > Hardware > Sound > Output.

Make sure built-in speakers is selected, not the USB device.

Make sure all the level controls are turned up; the ones in this panel, the Audacity input controls and the controls, if any, on the preamplifier.

Koz

beak81 wrote:Does anyone know if there any way i can talk directly to Audacity Technical help as i fear trying to do this on the forum my be tricky. The lack of a technical helpline is rather unhelpful to say the least ......

Well Andrew, unfortunately Audacity is free shareware, open source software distributed under GPL - so this means there is no Technical Helpline - and the only technical help is that offered by the helper-eves who give there time freely on this board to help others - and they are scattered around the world in several timezones - so queries sometimes take a while to ripple around.

There is also the Wiki - see the links to Tips and Tutorials at the top of the page. One that may help you a lot is http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... turntables - and although this says it is about USB TTs, all one of those is is a TT (and preamp) with a gizmo in simlar to your KAM external USB thingy.

beak81 wrote: 1. I still can't hear what is being recorded.
3. Even though I think i've made a test recording that shows a signal, i can't hear it back.

USB devices have a habit of hijacking the entire sound – output as well as input – and they don’t tend to have loudspeakers (hence “no sound”).

What you need to do is to direct the sound output to your Computer's soundcard (In Windows it is Control Panel>Sounds and Audio Devices>Audio>Sound Playback - I don't speak MAC O/S sorry) - and make this setting to the MAC's soundcard.

You may also need to ensure that Audacity sends it output to the PC soundcard Edit>Preferences>Audio>Playback - and set this also to your computer's soundcard. You may need to stop and restart Audacity for this setting to take effect.

beak81 wrote: 2. The levels don't seem high enough and turning up the dial on the Hub doesn't boost it enough.

Provided you have a reasonable signal you can always amplify it later with either the Amplify or the Normalize effects.




If you do manage to get this to work properly with Audacity - can you please post a structured review of the device in this sticky thread that we have on soundcards that work with Audacity: http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=9477

And as you get better with Audacity you may want to consider becoming a helper-elf yourself here - and help others solve their Audacity problems

WC

Thanks everyone who has responded to my question but i still can't make it happen.

I can't believe that things like this can be this complicated.
One buys equipment on good faith and then spends eons trying to make things work. ( I wasn't to know that i was using shoestring 3rd party Freeware) i would gladly PAY for something that WORKS. my time is precious, and this nonsense isn't quality time.
I mean who has time for all this?
Computers were supposed to make all our lives easier.
Surely if someone comes out with a product/software it should either be properky Mac Compatible or not, no? otherwise the product is just Pants...
I wouldn't have thought that someone trying to put a Vinyl collection onto a Mac should be rocket science these days but this has taken me months to get nowhere. Excuse the rant this was supposed to be thanks.

beak81 wrote:I wasn't to know that i was using shoestring 3rd party Freeware) i would gladly PAY for something that WORKS. my time is precious, and this nonsense isn't quality time.

It's done on far from shoestring - the developers are gifted professional folks who give there time freely to produce this open source software. They do this by gifting their spare time, they have proper jobs too. And if you were hiring them you would be paying top dollar.

beak81 wrote: Computers were supposed to make all our lives easier. ....

who told you that then? I often cast my mind back to when I left university in the late sixties and one of my tutors told me "you'd better develop a lot of hobbies and interests as soon these computers are going to be doing all the work for us ....". Well I worked in IT all my working life and all I can see is that far from doing that they have instead created much more work for us all.

beak81 wrote:Thanks everyone who has responded to my question but i still can't make it happen.
I can't believe that things like this can be this complicated.

Computers (including MACs) can be very complicated environments to manage - and then layering on a complex application (like sound editing) adds to the complexity level (probably way more complex than the early rocket science that put men on the moon - have you ever seen their crude instrumentation).

All I can say is that Audacity works well for many people on the various platforms MAC/Windows/Linux - and many users use USB soundcards and TTs successfully. Have you tried working through the advice in the Wiki link that I sent? If so, where in the process did you fail?

And yes you could buy a paid-for audio package (there are several on the market) - but don't assume that it will necessarily be easier to get your setup working in that environment either. You should get a helpline though and that may dig you out (depends how "helpful" thay are in reality). I struggled with my Edirol soundacrd when I started with it - but thge Edirol helpline was extremly helpfull in getting it to work on my PC with Audacity - sadly unlike your experience with Kam.

WC