Audacity Forum

I'm not sure what he was doing when he asked if I could hear him. Honestly I think he was making sure I didn't hear his wife who was sitting right next to him lol. The only thing he was using at the time was a MacbookPro and earbuds.

I am not sure what you mean about being killed when I add the second host....I am going to be the only person with a mic on my end. My second host is my brother who I was just talking to...Everything worked perfectly for almost 20 minutes that we were on the call. Maybe I am totally missing what you're saying here....And my mixer has two mic inputs so I could add another on this end if I wanted.

I'll upload a picture of my setup soon

Ok so here's a description of what you're looking at..

From left to right

1. XLR cable for my mic, pretty simple

2.Near my thumb (which is covering up an extremely bright blue LED) is the "CD/TAPE INPUT" which I have an RCA cable going into. The other end of that cable is a standard 3.5mm, which goes into the "SPEAKER" (green port) input on my computer. This is what allows me to hear anything on my computer.

3. Straight up from this you'll see a green cable into an adapter. This is simply my computer speaker cable going into the "PHONES" port on my mixer. This is what allows me to hear anything. When I am recording, I obviously plug headphones into here instead.

4. Lastly, to the very right is a 1/4 orange+white cable which is connected to the "MAIN OUT" on my mixer. The other end connects to the "LINE IN" on my computer using a 3.5mm connection. This is what allows my computer to pic up anything plugged into the separate channels of my mixer, which, right now, is only my mic.

The only problem with this, and it's not that big of a deal, is I can't adjust the volume of my computer sounds (skype, itunes, etc) that it RECORDS at. I can adjust how loud I hear it in my speakers or headphones, but I can't change the level it records at FROM THE MIXER. However, I CAN change the level it records at from the little windows mixer, or from the individual program. So, not much of a problem. I tried to remedy this by hooking the PC up to an actual channel of the mixer....while this works, it doesn't sound as good and I get feedback if I turn it up very high. I don't think those inputs were made for a PC lol.

A NOTE ON NUMBER 4. If you don't have a 1/4 inch to 3.5mm cable. You could instead plug in an RCA to 3.5mm into the CD/TAPE OUTPUT and it works the same exact way from what I can tell. This is what I recorded that clip with. However I just bought a 1/4 to 3.5mm cable so I thought I would use that instead, and leave the CD/TAPE OUTPUT open for what its meant to be.

I think thats everything, pretty simple. I am using no computer software to achieve any of this other than audacity. I do not have a sound card. I have integrated audio. However I think they are pretty decent integrated audio. Here's a link to my motherboard if you wanna see the audio jacks....http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... id=3908#ov

Let me know what you think and of any possible improvements I could make!

I need to get fresh coffee and read that through. Where are the headphones connected?
Koz

I tried to remedy this by hooking the PC up to an actual channel of the mixer....while this works, it doesn't sound as good and I get feedback if I turn it up very high. I don't think those inputs were made for a PC lol.

Oh, they were made to record a PC all right. But they weren't made to record a mixer playing to itself. It's one of the problems with Stereo Mix. You basically connected the mixer input to its output. _____eeeeeEEEEEEE.

By the way, to address an earlier concern. I understand you're not recording "This American Life" (yet), but my broadcast bias tells me you can easily start with a perfect show and create errors through special effects, but it's a bear to start with errors and fix them later into a perfect show.

Koz

I am going to be the only person with a mic on my end.

The design center is that once a week podcast with two hosts. You could add a second host just by adding a mic, cables and maybe a headphone splitter.

Gigabyte

I don't know why I thought you were using a store-bought laptop. You built your own or bought a very comprehensive desktop machine. That's a problem. Most people want to do all these tricks with a cheap Windows laptop. For one problem, most of them don't have Stereo Line-In, so you can't just crosspatch cables like you did.

(which is covering up an extremely bright blue LED)

Black electrical tape is your friend.

Koz

I think what's bothering me most about this is "Everybody Knows" you can't record Skype like this. We have multiple posts from people who tried and got anything but a good recording. That's what got my attention.

"Wait, you did what?"

We on the forum do have to watch the natural forum bias. We only see the failures.

Are you on headphones (of some sort)?

Koz

where are your headphones connected?

That wasn't rhetorical. Are you listening to the mixer? That means I need to go back to the mixer instructions and see what special provisions are made for headphones. The mixer is providing two different mixes, one the microphone "mix" for Skype transmit and recording and a different mix for your headphones. As you experienced, if you just feed everything to everything, it starts howling or distorting.

And while you're fact-finding, we're going to need to know the sound settings for Skype and the ones for Audacity. As I found, they can be very different. Skype assigns its own pathways and settings and only tells you if you know where to look. What device does Skype think is its "microphone?" Where exactly is Audacity getting its recording from? What does Windows think it's sending out the headphone connection? Do you have Audacity set for Playthrough?

Koz

The only thing he was using at the time was a MacbookPro and earbuds.

I believe that's one of the Skype recommended configurations. I have recorded actual production temporary sound tracks on a MBP using only the internal microphone and quiet room. That's all Denise was using in that silly test I recorded. The Mac people don't have to go to great lengths to replace their built-in microphone.

Past the obvious volume control settings on the Mac, there are two automatic settings.

Skype > Preferences > Audio/Video > [ ]Automatically adjust...
Does he have that selected?

Apple > Preferences > Hardware > Sound > Input > Internal Microphone, [ ]Ambient noise...
Does he have that selected? I think that's the setting which may try to filter out his wife. Ambient Noise Reduction is magic and I'm only half joking. I just tried it and the two settings do not try to change each other -- always a danger on Macs.

Koz

Alright, I hope I can answer everything you mentioned in one post, lol. but it's gonna have to be later, I am about to head out for the day.

I plug my headpones into the top most port where you see the green speaker cable. I unplug my computer speakers and plug in my headphones. That port is specifically for monitoring.

More to come

Alright here we go..

Where are the headphones connected? They connect to the topmost "PHONES" port. In the picture, there is a green speaker cable. When I want to use headphones, I switch them out.

I did in fact build my own computer and was very lucky to have onboard audio that came with a "Line-in" port. I think other people will obviously need some kind of audio interface to hook up their PC to the mixer. Unless of course your mixer has USB built in. Seems like some of the more expensive ones do

It would definitely be helpful to tell you my PC settings for sound. Here we go..

In windows playback and recording devices panel, I just have "speakers" as my default playback device. This is because my mixer is connected to the "speakers" port of my computer.

For recording devices, I have Stereo Mix as the "default devices" but I have "Line in" as the default communications device. This is because the "line in" port of my PC is also hooked up to my mixer. (as described earlier) [a weird side note] when I record my voice, I am not actually using the Line-in setting. I am using Stereo Mix. If I were to use line in, I couldn't record my PC at the same time. This works because stereo mix does include my voice as well as everything else. So while I could use "line in" as a recording device, I don't because I want to record everything on my PC. Sorry, that's kinda confusing]

For Skype. I have Stereo Mix set as the microphone (this makes it so that skype calles hear everything that goes on on my PC (including my voice because its hooked up to the mixer) For the speakers part of skype, I just have "speakers"as the device. (again, "speakers" are actually my mixer, because my mixer is whats going into the "speakers" port of my PC)

As for audacity, I have hardly messed with its settings at all yet, but as of right now I have "MME" "speakers" and "stereo mix" set. This records everything into one track.

I think that covers it. There are a lot of variables here, and I had to try a lot of different things to get it to work correctly. Hardware is so specific what with drivers and all, it's hard to tell someone exactly how it's done.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, the only drawback is I cant adjust the volume of anything PC related (skype, youtube, itunes) from my mixer. I have to adjust volumes on the PC itself. I think this is where the second computer comes in for Scott Johnson on the morning stream. He could have a separate computer running sound effects. Maybe not. It will be awhile before I ever find out lol, I am pretty content with how I have things now.

Let me know your thoughts