Few Audacity questions

[SAngeli]

Hi,
I do not have a lot of experience with Audacity though I have been using it for a month or so. I have few questions I wish to ask. Currently, I run latest version 2.0.0 (unicode)

1. why anytime I run Audacity I first get a small windows "analysis plug-in VST" checking on all plug-ins and than I get the main Audacity windows? I did not have this issue when running rel 1.3.4 (or better the previous version to 2.0.0). How to avoid this?

2. how come I am unable to move the bar of the input level next to the microphone ? Anytime I move the mouse of it it says to use the system mixer. Is it possible or not to use it?

3. Is there a way to turn the mouse into a small hand and move through the timeline with it? I try to ask again with an example (as difficult to explain): with Adobe Reader I can change the cursor of the mouse into a small hand and I can move inside the document with the mouse being a hand. Is something similar possible with Audacity?

Thank you,
Spiro

[kozikowski]

1. Audacity > Preferences > Effects > [ ] Rescan VST... (de-select)

2. If you're using a USB microphone, the volume is determined at the microphone, not the mixer or Audacity.

3. That's "scrubbing" (like on a video editor) and it's a Feature Request for a future version of Audacity. While Audacity is playing, you can click anywhere in the upper timeline and Audacity will immediately start playing from that point.

Koz

[SAngeli]

Hi,

1. Audacity > Preferences > Effects > [ ] Rescan VST... (de-select)
This is already de-selected. As a matter of fact, with previous release I did not have any issue. Rather, here I have this issue.
I will try logging in into Windows from another user profile. I need to see if this comes from a corrupted user profile or not. Why this? Simply because it does not behave the same way on my laptop, with same OS.

Will let you know the results.

2. the input is from my sound card Line-in from AC97 and not from my USB microphone. How do I solve this as being quite important to me? I am acquiring the sound signal from the Line-in from home stereo system.

Thank you,
Spiro

[steve]

1. why anytime I run Audacity I first get a small windows "analysis plug-in VST" checking on all plug-ins and than I get the main Audacity windows?

Do you have any VST effects installed?

2. the input is from my sound card Line-in from AC97 and not from my USB microphone.

What do you have selected in the Device Toolbar?
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Device_Toolbar

3. Is there a way to turn the mouse into a small hand and move through the timeline with it?

You mean that you just want to "scroll" through the audio track? You can do that with the mouse wheel if you hold down the "shift" key.
See here for other ways of moving around a project: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/NavigationTips

[SAngeli]

Hi Steve,

Do you have any VST effects installed?

1. After installing Audacity, I installed "LADSPA_plugins-win-0.4.15". I do not know if I have VST effects installed. How to find out?
I tried with another user profile but it behaves the same way.
On my laptop, with same OS, I do not have LADSPA plugins installed and most likely this is why it does not behave the same way.

As for question n. 2 I refer to the Mixer Toolbar
I am only unable to move the hand slider of the microphone.

After doing some reading on the Audacity Online Manual, I believe I found the answer to my issue:
If the Input slider does not have direct control of your sound device's input level, it will be disabled and set to maximum. You will need to set the recording levels using the input slider in the operating system mixer or in the sound card control panel. To locate the system mixer see the help on our Wiki for Windows, Mac OS X or Linux.

As for question 3, I thank you for this tip. I now know how to move. Still, the little hand could be useful for short horizontal movements.

Thank you,
Spiro

[SAngeli]

Hi,
I wish to elaborate on the second question (I am unable to move the hand slider bar of the microphone input).

Here are some settings:

Windows Mixer
Recording Settings
AC97 Settings

A screenshot when I am recoding:

This is a sample of the recordings:

=> Here are my questions:

I noticed that I am unable to control the level of the input signal directly from Audacity and from Windows Mixer, via the "Recording Mixer" even if I change its level. When I change the level it affects the audio that the PC speakers produces. The only way to modify the recoding level is from xK application (the audio driver software) as shown on second picture “Recording Settings”.

Now, Is the wave signal of my recording sample ok? What is a good average value?

Also, I noticed that I have to raise the Gain to a value of about 10 before the sound gets distorted and this in order to obtain a higher volume when recording. Is this normal?

Lastly, when someone has some answers on the Plug-in issue I wish to know if I can avoid same scanning or not.
Thank you,
Spiro

[steve]

Topic moved to the Windows forum.

I do not know if I have VST effects installed. How to find out?

You will only have VST effects installed if you have installed them. Audacity does not ship with any VST effects.
As you don't know, I'd assume that you have not installed any, in which case the easiest way to prevent the unnecessary scanning is:
Edit menu > Preferences > Effects.
Deselect (disable) VST effects.
Close and restart Audacity.

[SAngeli]

Hi Steve,

what you advise me to do does not work. It just does not.
So far, comparing two PCs, I see the only difference that makes one not scan for VST plugins is "LADSPA_plugins-win-0.4.15" being installed or not.
I do not know if this makes any difference but other than that I do not see any other difference. Moreover, prior to installing ver 2.0.0 I was using ver 1.3.4 (or what was beofre available) and did not have any issue with VST plugins popping up when loading Audacity.

What to do?

What about the other questions? Hope someone can answer.

Thank you,
Spiro

[steve]

Regarding your problems with the KX drivers:
These are very complex and non-standard WDM drivers for sound cards that have either an EMU10K1 or EMU10K2 sound chip.
I've only ever used them with Windows XP so I have no idea how they will behave (or misbehave) under Windows 7.
Windows 7 is not officially supported by the KX drivers http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/faq.php?language=en#Q3

The only way to modify the recoding level is from xK application

That is the same when running the Kx drivers under XP. The Kx driver is intended to replace the standard Windows driver. The standard Windows driver should be completely removed before installing the Kx drivers (which is not always easy because Windows often insists that it knows best).

Now, Is the wave signal of my recording sample ok? What is a good average value?

The actual level looks fine, but the flat top/bottom of the waveform indicates that there is probably clipping occurring somewhere in the signal chain before it gets to Audacity.

Try turning down the "Line In" slider (second Kx interface image).

[steve]

what you advise me to do does not work. It just does not.

Could you post a screenshot of:
Edit > Preferences > Effects