Audacity Forum

You can divide the system in half. Do you have an iPod or other music player? You can Plug an iPod directly into the Line-In of your sound card with an extension cable.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2102970

Play music and the iPod should more than drive your sound card to good level.

You can make that cable if you have two RCA/1/8" adapter cables and two couplers, etc.

There is another slightly more magic thing you can do. You know if an RCA audio connector is a little dirty or old, the show sound can pick up hum or buzz. You can use that for testing.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2102974

Plug one of those into your sound card, hold the cable by any plastic part and touch one of the RCA metal tips with your other hand. The sound meters should wake up for that channel and record loud hum and buzz. You are intentionally creating trash. If you do it right, the hum might go over 0.5, proving the sound card is OK. All the volume controls will need to be up to max to make this one work.

Koz

Thanks for all your responses. However, I found another person with this problem on the forum, Nov 2 2007 - clipping audeo input problem. The solution there was to change the audacity setting from recording mono to stereo. And it seems to work. So thats what I am going to do. Does seem a bit strange but there we are.

simon lees wrote:I found another person with this problem on the forum, Nov 2 2007 - clipping audeo input problem. The solution there was to change the audacity setting from recording mono to stereo. And it seems to work. So thats what I am going to do. Does seem a bit strange but there we are.

That's not really a fix, it's a workaround for a sound card that doesn't work properly - but I guess if it get's you going for now, then that's good. (and it'll give you time to save for a better sound card).

Steve,

Thanks. I must say I do not know enough about the technology to understand why this works as a workaround but I will take your word for it. Interestingly, on another PC I do the same thing but without this clipping problem and that PC has a 3 year old realtek soundcard whereas the PC with the problem has a 6month old realtek soundcard.

<<<I do the same thing but without this clipping problem and that PC has a 3 year old realtek soundcard whereas the PC with the problem has a 6month old realtek soundcard.>>>

Which, in computer-speak, means you went from an old $49 sound card to a new $12 sound card.

Koz

<<<Does seem a bit strange but there we are.>>>

Not so strange if you know how to run a screwdriver and soldering iron.

One way to create mono from stereo is to smash the two signals together and then divide the signal level by two. This is precisely what you can't do because the two smashed signals will add up and overload the sound channel. Then, when you divide by two to bring the signal level back down and avoid overload, it's too late.

You need to divide each signal by two first and then smash them together.

Bad electronic design. Something that happens a lot in $12 sound cards.

Koz