setting up mixer to record my own mix cd's

[cato1970]

Please help !!
I have installed adacity 1.2.6 to my laptop what i am wanting to do is record my own mix cd's. i am using windows xp
I have a stanton sa3 mixer which i am connecting to my laptop via the mic socket as this is the only line in i have on the latop. I am using 2 jack plugs from the mixer to the 3.5mm mic socket.
I can not seem to get any sound to record via audacity. Could you explain in LAYMANS terms the set up i need to do from start to finish. IE.. Set up my equipmesnt correctly and Set up adacity to record my mixes.
thanks in advance for your advice
cato

[kozikowski]

Go into Windows Control Panels > Sound and make sure your Microphone connection is selected and turned up if there's a volume control.The panel might be selecting the built-in microphone if you have one of those.

Then launch Audacity and go into Edit > Preferences > I/O and make sure the same thing is selected.

While you're in there, change the quality from 32-Floating to 16 bit. Close Audacity and restart it to make the settings stick.

Click once in the red record meters and they should wake up and meter whatever sound you have going through the mixer. Your meters may look different...

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/Audacity1_record.jpg

Get all that so far?

Press record.

Now the bad news. You don't have a high-level, Stereo Line-In connection and the Mic-In is mono and very, very sensitive. So instead of getting a stereo performance with instruments on the left and right, you will get left only, or possibly two channels with left sound on both. Even that's good news. You might also not be able to do this at all because of distortion or crunchy sound. You will be overloading the microphone connection some thousand or so times and very few people manage to get good sound past that.

Windows laptops are aggressively business computers and audio production sometimes suffers. What you're doing would work perfectly fine on a large Deskside PC or a Mac. You can add a USB sound device to your machine and do it that way.

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=9477

Koz

[cato1970]

Hello Koz
Thanks for the help/advice thats brilliant, will let you know how i get on.
If i need the extarnal soundcard would i need to change any settings in audacity?? if so which ones and how do i change them
thanks in advance
cato

[kozikowski]

You'd probably be much further along asking that of one of the Windows Elves. I can do generic Windows problems, but if you get too detailed, I'm as lost as you are.

Koz

[cato1970]

lmfao thanks
What i meant was would i need to change the quality back from 16-Floating to 32 bit.

anyway will let you know how i get on when i get the external soundcard
cheers cato

[cato1970]

Hello Koz
Well thanks for your help the behringer soundcard works a treat. but i have another problem!!
once i have recorded my mix cd i want to put this on a blank cd so i can listen to this in my car how to i do this
thanks cato

[jtp_60]

Hello Koz
Well thanks for your help the behringer soundcard works a treat. but i have another problem!!
once i have recorded my mix cd i want to put this on a blank cd so i can listen to this in my car how to i do this
thanks cato

Depends on your car stereo capabilities ... meaning, does it play mp3/wma/etc. files or does it need to be a std Audio CD.

If it plays std CD's only then just use some CD burning software to burn "Audio CD" (how you get your files burned depends on software ... normally just by dragging files from one list to another) otherwise, just encode your mixed wav -files to some of those supported lossy format files and then burn a "Data CD" instead of Audio CD.

Juha

[cato1970]

no what i meant was once i hace recorded my mix how do i save the file/mix onto my laptop. and in what format ??
cheers cato

[steve]

You need to Export the audio as a 16 bit WAV file at 44100Hz sample rate.
Setting the sample rate is simply a matter of setting the project sample rate before you export - which you do by setting the project rate in the lower left corner of the main Audacity window.

For Audacity 1.2.x setting the Export format to 16 bit WAV is buried somewhere in Audacity Preferences (Edit menu)