Input problems as to volume / interference outside noise

I have a couple of problems digitalising vinyl. I use a USB turntable and a Mac Book Pro. And audacity 2.

One thing is, input doesn’t seem to have a fixed volume. When audacity records a track, it records the volume that is set on my amplifier. Which means I have to record at a pretty high level to have a reasonable result compared to other tracks I collect in iTunes and such. And it doesn’t matter at which level I set the input on audacity, .7 or .8. This surely should work otherwise.

Also while audacity records a track, I discovered listening back afterwards, background noise crept in - my footsteps and such. I seem to be recording vinyl and myself simultaneously.

How can I solve these problems? I’m a beginner and not very proficient with audacity and such, as you might have guessed.

Thank you very much.

Francois

You are recording from the internal microphone, instead of directly from the turntable.

Please see: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/User:BillWharrie/OSX_and_USB_input_devices

– Bill