Playback sound woes

[Balu12b]

I have a UCB mic connected, it has worked couple of days ago, but today after recording, the playback is garbled. I know the mic's working, I have it plugged into mic input. Realtek sound card. No suppression is unchecked. Devices (Realtek speakers and mic) both enabled and checked. Device manager Sound has Realtek enabled. Realtek Mixer shows speakers and microphone checked. Windows Media Player as default. Speakers test working perfectly with a podcast. Audio I/O has Playback and Device checked as Realtek Hi Def. 44,100 Hz, 16bit mono checked. The UCB mic has a new battery in, so no prob there. I plugged it in before opening Audacity per suggestions. Still I hit record, I can see some spiking, but playback is all garbage. What am I missing?

[Balu12b]

I finally figured it out myself, after a thousand different experiments. Realtek needed to be recorded in stereo, instead of mono. Also, the playback device in Audio I/O works with Realtek Hi Def Speakers and the Recording Device Windows Map. Why? I don't know, but this works. It then records two tracks but sounds good. Any additional thoughts on this?

[steve]

RealTek provide base drivers for their sound chip, but for some reason, every computer manufacturer seems to be compelled to customise the drivers. The RealTek hardware should be capable of recording in mono or stereo, but it sounds like the driver is broken when it comes to recording mono. Updating the drivers may (or may not) fix the issue.