Audio issues recording from cassettes

[lenmchast]

Been trying to take some cassette recordings, save them to an audio file, and then clean them up to get ready for burning on a CD. Well, I seemed to have gotten some of the audio by evidence of the waveform that came up, but when I go to play it back, not getting any sound. .

I'm using Rocketfish 7.1 as my PC's audio device (My PC's using Windows XP Professional for an OS), and I made sure it was the device selected both on my PC's audio settings and the device settings on Audacity (version 1.3.10 [Beta]). I am using a cable that has its two RCA plugs plugged into a 3.5mm/RCA Y adapter so it can be plugged into the tape player's headphone jack for the audio output, and the 3.5mm stereophonic plug on the other end of the cable is plugged into the Line-In port (the blue one) on my PC's I/O for the input end. And I made sure the input drop-down box was set to Line-In instead of the default Microphone, as well as to click on Start Monitoring on the Input Level Meter drop down box.

By all accounts, it looks like the software was reading the audio off the tape (as evidenced by the waveform that came up), yet it doesn't sound through my speakers. All other audio on my PC's programs come through fine otherwise.

Any suggestions?

[steve]

Try this:

Record something.
Apply the "Amplify" effect to the recoding using the default settings.
Check that the "Project Rate" (lower left corner of the Audacity window) is set to 44100 (change it to 44100 if necessary).
Export as a 16 bit WAV file.
Try playing the exported file in your normal media player.

What happens?
If there is still no sound, try playing a known good audio file and see if that plays.

[lenmchast]

Did the Amplify adjustments, and the Project Rate was at the 44100 Hz setting, before exporting it as a 16-bit WAV file. Played it on my Windows Media Player, and it was playing ok. Trouble is, when I play in on Audacity, even adjusting the Amplify settings, it still does not sound. I'm glad I got it to play on the WMP, but it won't help in editing if I can't hear it on Audacity. I wonder if there's anything else I might be missing.

[steve]

Played it on my Windows Media Player, and it was playing ok

Good - that was just to establish that Audacity is actually recording correctly.
So onto getting sound out of Audacity:

In Audacity "Edit menu > Preferences > Devices"
Could you list what options are available, and which options you currently have selected.

[lenmchast]

Actually, just double-checked the Devices on the WAV file, and they were on something other than Rocketfish. Reset those to Rocketfish, and now I can hear the WAV file on Audacity. Thanks for your help, stevethefiddle!