plays stereo, records mono

[Shmeinak]

Hi,
I am having trouble digitizing my cassette tapes. This started happening recently (after having no problem for years).
The bar shows Stereo 4410Hz 32 bit float.
When I play a tape (I have it checked off that I can hear the playback while it is playing) it shows that it is coming through in stereo (ie the 'bars'/'waves' show up on both the upper and lower bars. As soon as I hit the record button I lose the wave on the lower bar.
Does anyone have any idea why this is going on and what I can do to help it?
I've deleted audacity and reinstalled it and I'm still having this problem.
Thanks in advance.
G-d Bless

[steve]

I've deleted audacity and reinstalled it and I'm still having this problem.

I don't know why so many people try reinstalling Audacity in the hope of it fixing a problem. I've yet to see one case where un-installing/reinstalling Audacity fixed anything.

What operating system are you using?
Are you using a USB cassette player?

[Shmeinak]

*blush* I guess it becomes habit for us to uninstall/reinstall in hope of fixing problems - it works with many other programs....
I am using XP Pro, and I am using a regular cassette recorder with a cable that has both male ends (ie goes out of the earpiece on the tape recorder, and in to the line-in on the computer).
The thing that throws me the most is that it works great until I hit record.
G-d Bless

[steve]

The thing that throws me the most is that it works great until I hit record.

Yes, that is odd.
Could you have a look in:
"Edit menu > Preferences > Devices"
and say what settings you have in there.

Also, do you know what sort of sound card you have?

[Shmeinak]

Settings:
Host: MME
Playback: Device Realtek HD Audio rear output
Recording: Device Line In/Mic In
Channel: 2(Stereo)

Not sure what my sound card is

[steve]

Is it a laptop computer?
If it is, what happens if you try to record from the internal microphone?

[waxcylinder]

... it works with many other programs...

The reason that it works with many other prorograms is that those programs have a habit of resettting their preferences to default "factory settings" - so it's not the re-installation that sorts the problem it's normally resetting preferences which have somehow got out of kilter.

Audacity deliberately does not re-set prferences with a fresh installation. There are instructions in the Wiki to tell you how to reset preferences if required - see: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audac ... o_defaults

And IIRC I think there is an outstanding Feature Request for Audacity to provide a simple command to reset the preferences.

WC

[Shmeinak]

Is it a laptop computer?
If it is, what happens if you try to record from the internal microphone?

It is a desktop.

[Shmeinak]

Audacity deliberately does not re-set prferences with a fresh installation. There are instructions in the Wiki to tell you how to reset preferences if required - see: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audac ... o_defaults

And IIRC I think there is an outstanding Feature Request for Audacity to provide a simple command to reset the preferences.

WC

Thank you. I followed the wiki directions and now it is working.

[Shmeinak]

Thank you for the previous responses.
Resetting the value in regedit worked.
Actually, it worked for a few days. This morning I closed a ?file? while it was recording from my tape. (There was a lot of noise that sounded the same as the noise you get when you put the sound too loud on older machines). (I tried noise reduction, but I guess I have to set different parameters because it didn't work too well)
When I tried to restart it my very original problem started again. That is that there is an echo.
I tried to go back to regedit to reset that key again, but I can't find it anywhere.

This is a great program -- I feel like such a dummy having so many problems with it.