Audacity Forum

I'm using an Asus K50i laptop with Windows 7, which only has a mic input jack. I know it's not exactly ideal, putting it lightly, to record from a mic-in line, but it's currently my only option. I'm trying to record my guitar from a Peavey Vypyr 30w amp and I'm using an aux cable to connect the amp (which has an aux-out jack) to the computer. However, whenever I try to record, I get the "Error while opening sound device." message, so I went to the control panel on Windows and it says that this recording device is currently unavailable. Even if I set the device as my default and disable the internal microphone and the stereo mix, the device is still unavailable, and Audacity still can't record. Anyone have any advice on how to record, or perhaps even a better way to record the guitar? Thank you!

You probably don't need to worry about the guitar until you get Windows to recognize Mic-In. Audacity is a slave to whatever Windows is doing.

You should probably root around in the Asus web site for updated drivers for your machine. You can also use Windows Sound Recorder and make that work before you even open Audacity.

Once the computer is in perfect working order, then you open Audacity and start to deal with the volume level and noise issues.

I know it's not exactly ideal

No, and it's not just a matter of being a little off. The guitar is likely to sound very broken up, raspy and fuzzy, whether you started with a fuzz guitar or not. Mic-In overloads very easy and overload/clipping in the show is permanent.

Koz