Audacity Forum

steve wrote:

greghall00 wrote:Then, after reading your question I tried it with my budget (yet top rated!) earbuds and I could hear the chime in my ears.

Cool
I presume that you plugged your ear-buds into the green jack socket? That will be your sound card - probably a cheap and nasty one but probably good enough to get started. Even cheap and nasty sound cards are usually ok for playback, and that is what you want it for. Cheap sound cards are usually rubbish for recording, but you have your icicle so you won't be using the computer's sound card for recording.

One limitation that you will have with this set-up is that you will not hear yourself in the headphones while you are recording. That's not a big deal and some people prefer it that way.

If the computer was sold to you as "working" then the seller has some responsibility that it is actually working,

Steve, your final sentence made sense to me so I contacted the seller, who mae me an offer I couldn't refuse!

Thanks for the advice, which I took.

And thanks to ALL the posters who helped me reach this final concluding act in this matter.

I'm looking forward to my next post, which I hope will be more appropriately Audacious.



Greg

kozikowski wrote:

as well as them having been positively reviewed online.

You don't look for the positive reviews, you look for the negative ones.

"I think this product is the best thing since sliced bread and canned beer and I should know because I'm a good friend of the people who built it and are selling it. Moses received his on the mount and that specific one has been running perfectly ever since."

More like:

"The product failed the third time I tried to use it. Googling it seems to confirm that the product just does that and it's difficult to find one that behaves."

The Google term is "Frammistat Complaints." Replace Frammistat with your product.

Koz

Gratefully noted!

Thanks, Koz!

Robert J. H. wrote:I think that the "2in1" refers to the automatic recognition if head phones are connected (or alternatively, on the In side microphone/line-in).
That's at least the case on my Dell.
However, I have a desktop computer and a creative sound card.
The settings for the automatic/manual choice are - as usual - placed on a expanded tab, somewhere in the sound control panel.

Aaah! "2 in 1" Thanks, R.J.H.

You won't believe this.

Bo at reduxtech is going to send me a working unit and told me to keep Sadie to use for parts.

I am blown away!

Boy are THEY going to get a great review on ebay!

I will do business with him/them again, for sure!!!



Happy Greg Hall

Don't fall in love with that shared connection even though it would seem to be a really good idea. The built-in connections for a Windows Laptop generally aren't winning very many awards for quality right out of the gate and the shared ones tend to combine the worst qualities of the worst ones.

Everybody universally would like to erase the difference between microphone signal size and "stereo line." We have seen listings for computer connections called "Microphone Line," trying to desperately to blur the difference. But line-level such as from a sound mixer is a diesel locomotive (broadcast even worse), and microphone level is a colorful butterfly. You totally can't easily convert between them.

Quick, how many butterflies does it take to pull a coal train?

I changed my mind about headphones since your budgetary constraints stop just above earbuds. So use the earbuds. After you become fabulously wealthy, buy the top of the line headphones. Nothing like not being able to hear what you're doing.

"You delivered a terrific sound track to us for publication, but we'd like you to get rid of that background hum during the performance."

"What background hum?"

Koz

Boy are THEY going to get a great review on ebay!

[Cringe]
Let me read this back to you. The company sends you a non-working machine and you're happy? How long were you struggling with it?

My glowing reviews happen when they send me something working first time out. You should write a review just telling the world what happened and what they did about it. That's valid.

Koz

kozikowski wrote:Don't fall in love with that shared connection even though it would seem to be a really good idea. The built-in connections for a Windows Laptop generally aren't winning very many awards for quality right out of the gate and the shared ones tend to combine the worst qualities of the worst ones.

Everybody universally would like to erase the difference between microphone signal size and "stereo line." We have seen listings for computer connections called "Microphone Line," trying to desperately to blur the difference. But line-level such as from a sound mixer is a diesel locomotive (broadcast even worse), and microphone level is a colorful butterfly. You totally can't easily convert between them.

Quick, how many butterflies does it take to pull a coal train?

I changed my mind about headphones since your budgetary constraints stop just above earbuds. So use the earbuds. After you become fabulously wealthy, buy the top of the line headphones. Nothing like not being able to hear what you're doing.

"You delivered a terrific sound track to us for publication, but we'd like you to get rid of that background hum during the performance."

"What background hum?"

Koz

Koz, I know you help so many people per day you probably get their stories mixed up. We're talking about a desktop Dell GX620 SFF, not a laptop. What shared connections? The connection I made with Bo the refurb company owner? Or a connection between the sound card and other computer components, or what? But, which connections should I beware of? Erasing the difference between mic level and line level???

I can't follow you, sorry.

EDIT: And wouldn't any background hum stand out visually on the wave form thing on Audacity? Meaning, wouldn't I be able to see what hum the client referred to?

kozikowski wrote:

Boy are THEY going to get a great review on ebay!

[Cringe]
Let me read this back to you. The company sends you a non-working machine and you're happy? How long were you struggling with it?

My glowing reviews happen when they send me something working first time out. You should write a review just telling the world what happened and what they did about it. That's valid.

Koz

The company inadvertently sent me a dysfunctional unit and could have tried to deny responsibility for doing so or might have tried to evade doing the right thing after learning they'd sent me a dysfunctional computer, but instead they did what I'd like to think you'd do if you were in his shoes. Which doesn't always happen or doesn't always happen without veiled threats of ebay conflict resolution being called in to right things.

I think Bo acted in good faith and responsibly and he did it without hassling me at any point in this whole matter.

What more could he have done?

You and I don't know each other well, but in your role here as an unpaid volunteer dealing thoughtfully with all kinds of people with all kinds of equipment and all kinds of problems, I know you must be a pretty great guy.

Greg

To recap. You said the computer had " 2 in and 1 out" (or something like that) sound from a reading of the instructions. Someone else commented that the phrase probably meant a recording connection that automatically switched between Line and Microphone as needed depending on what was plugged in. The "1" referred to the headphone connection.

That's typical of a laptop computer some of which do have the ability to force one connection to do both -- some far better than others.

Since you're using a USB adapter, none of this, outside of the headphone connection which is required, matters to you, but against the time you decide to actually use the recording connections, you should know the restrictions. Most of them are designed for Skype headphone connection quality.

We had one posting where we discovered that the multi-use sound card was pretty miserable doing just about anything.


But back to headphones, you should probably stick to the earbuds until and unless you run into trouble, then pop for good ones.

Koz