AMPLITUDE SUDDENLY FILLS ENVELOPE, STAYS

[mykel]

Hi guys and gals,

I've had the following trouble using two versions of Audacity, v 1.3 beta Unicode being the last installed.

Via a 3.5mm stereo cable, connected to "mic", the only audio input on my HP Compaq Presario with (agh!) Vista, and the "headphone" output of a cassette player (also tried an MP3 player), I attempted to transfer audio from audio cassettes, then radio transmissions.

The waveform would start out normally, for several seconds, then suddenly expand to fill the entire envelope, at the same time emitting a steady tone. I was unable to "stop" the recording, unable to "close" out the audacity window, unable to "end task", unable to turn off the 'puta, so I actually had to pull out the power plug from the computer. This happened several times as I attempted to make meter level changes at Audacity and volume changes from the audio source. They had no effect to eliminate the problem.

Input and output audio is controlled by Conexant High Definition Smartaudio 221. The driver is the latest version, and the mic input and speaker output are supposedly "working properly", according to my 'puta.

Please assist

Mike

[Gale Andrews]

I've had the following trouble using two versions of Audacity, v 1.3 beta Unicode being the last installed.

Via a 3.5mm stereo cable, connected to "mic", the only audio input on my HP Compaq Presario with (agh!) Vista, and the "headphone" output of a cassette player (also tried an MP3 player), I attempted to transfer audio from audio cassettes, then radio transmissions.

The waveform would start out normally, for several seconds, then suddenly expand to fill the entire envelope, at the same time emitting a steady tone. I was unable to "stop" the recording, unable to "close" out the audacity window, unable to "end task", unable to turn off the 'puta, so I actually had to pull out the power plug from the computer. This happened several times as I attempted to make meter level changes at Audacity and volume changes from the audio source. They had no effect to eliminate the problem.

Input and output audio is controlled by Conexant High Definition Smartaudio 221. The driver is the latest version, and the mic input and speaker output are supposedly "working properly", according to my 'puta.

I sent you a private message asking if you want to change your username. You are risking spam by giving your e-mail address away in your username.

Note that if you get around the problems by following the below, you will still get poor quality and distortion if you connect a line-level output (headphones-out of cassette player) to the mic input - the output is too strong for a mic input. You need another interface or sound card that has a line-in.


Have you got latest drivers for Conexant specific to your particular computer model and meant for Vista, as supplied by
Conexant or the motherboard manufacturer? If the drivers are made by Microsoft, they could cause the sort of computer lockup you describe. See Updating Sound Device Drivers and here if you have a Compaq Presario.

Make sure in the Audacity Devices preferences that you are recording from "mic" not "stereo mix". Stereo mix records audio playing on the computer. If you are recording stereo mix (so recording the playback of the microphone instead of the microphone itself), and also have Transport > "Software playthrough" in Audacity checked (enabled), you will get a build-up of echoes.

Also check at "Sound" in the Windows control panel that you are not "listening" to the microphone. "Listening" is the system "software playthrough" so will also play a delayed copy of what you are recording. To check that, click the "Recording" tab of "Sound", right-click over the microphone device, hit Properties, then click the "Listen" tab. You may well want to listen to the cassette player input through the laptop, but if the Conexant device is suspect, it simply may not permit you to record and play back at the same time.





Gale

[Gale Andrews]

from e-mail Guess I'll have to find an external interface - recommendations???

If you look at the link about having no line-in, that recommends Behringer UCA 202 for which you will need a 1/4 inch TRS to Stereo RCA cable.

Other recommendations are here.



Gale