No Volume To Playback

[George_Goldberger]

Hi,

I have Audacity 1.3.9
a Dell, running XP SP3
An Audio-Technica microphone
a Santa Crux audio card
Roxio Easy Media Creator 10

when i record from the microphone, and playback with the microphone plugged in; i get the same volume as when i recorded.

but, if i unplug the microphone, i can bearly hear the recording.

this does not happen with Windows Sound Recorder

i checked the settings for input/output volumes & they seem fine.

any ideas?

thanx.

g.

[kozikowski]

USB microphone? Model number? Audio Techinica makes a lot of microphones.

Koz

[George_Goldberger]

it plugs into the multimedia card. meaning, not usb.

an ATR4600

[steve]

What happens if you unplug the microphone during playback?

[George_Goldberger]

if i unplug the mic during playback, i lose the volume.

[steve]

i checked the settings for input/output volumes & they seem fine.

You checked those where?

This sounds very odd, so I'm looking for more information - any other details that you can think of may help.

[George_Goldberger]

in the control panel. there is an option, santa cruz control panel. has all sorts of settings for the card. microphone, speakers, line, mixer, etc.

i know it sounds very odd.

recently, also, if i play a movie for a long time, dvd, the machine goes blank, the screen goes black & i can't do anything. ctrl-alt-del does nothing. can't bring up the task manager. all i can do is unplug it. ... a connection perhaps. i have searched the web to see if there can be a s/w cause for that. vlan might affect power settings that could cause something like that. but, i don't have vlan. my power supply doesn't overheat, even if on all day. ... virus scans by malwarebytes & avg do not indicate any viruses.

[steve]

santa cruz control panel

Oh yes, it's all coming back now - you've got one of the old (classic) Turtle Beach sound cards?

From what I remember they were one of the best sounding consumer level sound cards of the day, but were plagued by buggy drivers and were a major contributor to the infamous "Blue Screen of Death". Without having access to one of these cards (and an XP machine to put it in) it's going to be tough for us to offer much help. I presume that you've already scoured the Internet for the latest (last) drivers for the card?

When you record, what sort of signal level are you getting in Audacity? Ideally you should see a waveform that has peaks that reach about half the vertical height of the audio track. Perhaps you could post a screenshot?

A wild guess that you may want to look into - If I recall correctly the Santa Cruz was a multi-channel (surround sound) sound card. Is it automatically switching to "surround sound" when you unplug the microphone?

[George_Goldberger]

uh yes, turtle beach. and yes, i tried getting a new driver, with windows update, but was told that i had the latest. i didn't scour the net though. maybe i should try that.

where is this surround sound that u speak of? in audacity or in turtle beach?

as for the wave level, if i am reading it correctly, it is 1.0

[George_Goldberger]

there were 2 controls in the santa cruz control panel that got back the sound. i was looking for surround sound, but couldn't find it. however, "enable 3d stereo enhancement" got my sound back. there is also an "echo reverb" feature, that got back the sound, but, it has an echo. duh!

now for the real test. if i upload this file to youtube, what will it sound like?