no audit with USB turntable in opensuse

[miiick]

Guys,

I'm looking for a bit of help with getting a usb turntable to work. I am following the instructions in the wiki for usb turntables http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... turntables

Step 1: select usb audio codec. The best option I have is "alsa: ak5371: USB Audio (hw:1,0)", There is no option called "usb audio codec"
Step 2: Yep, tick software playthrough, seems fairly simple
Step 3: set recording to 2 channel (sterio), yep already set
Step 4: Mixer toolbar and turn up output, yep, already set a max
Step 5: Project rate, yep, already set correctly
Step 6: Red button to record. Well ....... The audio tracks do progress and the input level meter does move up and down

The problem: I seem to be recording a whole lot of nothing and there is nothing coming out of the speakers.

Tevion web site doesn't offer much help, they link back to the audacity site.

Thanks.


System:
opensuse 11.0, audacity 1.3.5-beta installed from packman repository, kde desktop, Tevion usb turntable (aldi brand).

lsusb output <relevant line only>
http://audacityteam.org/help/documentat ... al_1.4.pdf

output from /var/log/messages

Sep 20 21:04:07 toad kernel: hub 1-0:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port6
Sep 20 21:04:07 toad kernel: usb 5-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
Sep 20 21:04:07 toad kernel: usb 5-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Sep 20 21:04:07 toad kernel: usb 5-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0556, idProduct=0002
Sep 20 21:04:07 toad kernel: usb 5-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2,SerialNumber=0
Sep 20 21:04:07 toad kernel: usb 5-2: Product: AK5371
Sep 20 21:04:07 toad kernel: usb 5-2: Manufacturer: AKM
Sep 20 21:04:07 toad kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver snd-usb-audio

[steve]

Step 6: Red button to record. Well ....... The audio tracks do progress and the input level meter does move up and down

And do you get a blue waveform appear on the track, or just a straight horizontal line? (a screenshot would be nice if you could post one).

[miiick]

I just get the straight horizontal line. See screen shot.

I have also done a quick check on my WinXP machine with audacity 1.2.6 and vendor supplied drivers. Same result. Flat line (in the worst sense of the phrase).

The screen shot does not show it but I do get red and green on the meter toolbar.

audacity01.jpg (73.95 KiB) Viewed 4454 times

[steve]

Since you are getting red and green on the meters, I suspect that that flat line is not as flat as it looks. Try selecting the track, then use "Normalize" from the Effects menu and let me know what happens.

[miiick]

Awesome, it works. Guess it was just my not knowing enough about how to drive audacity. Now just to be sure, I will need to capture stuff then normalize it or can i normalize it on the fly. If I can then I guess I will get the audio play through too.

Only thing is not it has a lot of hissy static, I'll experiment with the noise removal, unless you have any other suggestions.

[steve]

Guess it was just my not knowing enough about how to drive audacity.

That's about the size of it.
Increasing the signal strength will probably take care of the noise problem as well. Check your USB turntable carefully and see if there is a volume knob on it - some have one on the bottom (underneath on the bottom - about the most inconvenient place they could have found).
You can't actually "normalize on the fly", but if you look diligently there should be some method of increasing the signal that gets sent to Audacity.

[miiick]

awesome. Thanks.