Audacity Forum

It's a whole new world.

Some people buy all the stuff, plug it in and start publishing. The worst thing they do is publish a YouTube Video about how easy it is. It's not. He's a Celebrity Unicorn. Most people have problems such as yours.

You can take this is sections. If you manage to get the CLIP lights (I assume red) on the Behringer, then the Behringer has run out of the ability to get louder and is creating distortion. So it's not going to get any louder than that. It pushes the show down the USB cable and into the Mac.

Apple (upper left) > System Preferences > Sound > Input. There should be a bouncing light sound meter there indicating the Mac has received the sound and it's happy.
Then we watch the sound meters in Audacity. If they're deadly low, there is the possibility you're not recording the microphone you think you are. What does it say next to the Audacity microphone symbol? you may have to pull the windows wider to see it. Does it say USB Audio Device? I'm betting not. I bet it says Built-In Microphone.

You can further confirm what you're doing with the scratch test.

Start a recording and announce and scratch each microphone in turn. Only one of them will be nuclear detonation loud. The iMac microphone used to be centered just above the screen. Goodness knows where it is now.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/clips/ScratchTest2.mp3

Koz

I'm happy to say I'm not like most people. Everything you mentioned I had already done. The mic input in the iMac is set to USB and the level is all the way up. When I speak into the microphone the level goes up a little past half way. On the Behringer, the Gain knob is set to just the point before the clip lights go on. In Audacity, I have the Behringer set for the mic input and output, and the mic input level is turned all the way up, when I speak into the mic, the level goes almost 3/4 of the way up. Yet this is the wave form I get:
This doesn't seem normal to me. Is it? The only way I have found to make it louder is to choose Amplify from the effects menu. And at that point I'm not sure if that will lessen the sound quality. Could my microphone possibly be defective?

I appreciate the help in this matter. Thank you

I don't have this interface, but since I thought about buying it I watched quite a few reviews of it and If I remember correctly, the stereo/mono switch on the interface should allow you to mix your signal down to mono on the interface. The 202hd on the other hand, doesn't seem to have this switch.