Audacity Can't Locate Recording Device on Laptop

[prouddad]

I use Audacity quite often on my desktop computer, but getting it working on my 3 month old Dell laptop is a challenge. My laptop has Windows Vista installed on it. I have no problem playing mp3's on itunes plus sound & video from YouTube and other websites.

I'm stuck though, getting Audacity to record on my laptop. When I click the Record button on Audacity, an error message appears on my screen that says "Error while opening the sound device. Please check the input settings and project the sample rate. In respone to that error message, I then open User Preferences and look at the settings on the Audio I/O tab. I see no recording device listed on the pulldown menu.

I don't understand how there cannot be a recording device listed. When I looked in Sounds in my laptop's Control Panel, I found only Realtek High Def Audio which I believe is the speakers. Doesn't there have to be a sound card on a computer that plays music? If so, how can I find it and get Audacity to recognize it so that I can use it to record?

I appreciate any help you can give me.

Thanks, in advance.

[kozikowski]

Back up one step. Nowhere in that do you tell us what you're trying to record. Speaking into the built-in Microphone? Does it even have one?

Koz

[prouddad]

Yes, I do have a microphone built into my laptop. My main use of Audacity in the laptop however, is to record what I have on cassette tapes and convert them to mp3's.

Koz, you just threw the switch on in my head and caused me to identify another problem that may be related to this. On my desktop, I simply click onto the pulldown menu on the Audacity toolbar and select the recording source. I am unable to do this on my laptop because the recording source pulldown menu is grayed out. The source field is not only grayed out, but there's no source in the field. I'm sure that there's a logical explanation for all this. I just don't know it and hope you can share the solution....

Thanks.

Robert

[kozikowski]

I wouldn't be doing this in Audacity. I'd be doing it in the Windows Control Panels.

Windows Control Panel
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... trol_Panel

But then, probably with a laptop, I wouldn't be doing it at all. Does your laptop have Stereo Line-In? Most laptops don't. Most PC laptops have very sensitive, mono, Mic-In for microphones like Skype Headsets. If you plug a High-Level Stereo Line signal in there -- like from a cassette machine, you only get "Left" audio and it's usually distorted.

Some laptops have the ability to switch one connection between Mono Mic-In and Stereo Line-In. Most don't.

Koz