How to install Audacity on a Mac - Perfectly?

[Raja]

I know how to do it, i've done it in the past, but this was the problem that happened to me :
http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2466
Same as this guy.

So I reformatted and now my Macbook (2ghz, 2gb of RAM) is back to stage 1 and I need a good recording program to record my DJ mixes using an M-Audio Fasttrack Pro, so I'm hoping Audacity will work.

Now I downloaded version 1.2.5 and I double click the .dmg, and get what looks like another hard drive on my mac. Than I double click that and I get a list of this:
Audacity - The actual Program
A folder for Languages
License.txt
A folder called nyquist
A folder called plug-ins
and README.txt

What do I drag to the applications area so my Audacity works flawlessly, and than what settings do I set it at to get it to record DJ Mixes in .wav using a fasttrack pro?

I appreciate the help.

[kozikowski]

I know it gave you a nice spring housecleaning feeling, but neither OS-X nor Audacity is that delicate. You can reset Audacity to Factory Fresh by drilling down to User(your name) > Library > Preferences and delete the audacity Preferences file. Restart the Mac and everything is all new. You'll find you need to reset all your custom settings because Audacity will forget everything, which is pretty much what you wanted. You have to go to extraordinary effort to damage OS-X, so you didn't need to do the reformat--unless you had something else wrong. Did you do the CD-Boot/Disk Utility/Verify thing first?


I personally make a fresh folder on my desktop called Audacity and pull it over to /Applications. Then drag all those files you downloaded and uncompressed over to it. You just installed Audacity and all its programs and tools. Drag a copy of Audacity.app over to your tool bar/Dock if you want a shortcut, but you can run it from that folder.

If you're going to be compulsive, I would totally make the Mac show me File Extensions. Desktop > Finder > Preferences > Show File Extensions. If you don't, it will try to hide some filenames from you making troubleshooting much more difficult.

You should remember that a lot of changes you make to Audacity don't actually take affect until you restart the program. That comes as a nasty surprise to people. Sometimes it warns you, sometimes it doesn't.

Now it gets hard. You need to plug the M-Audio USB into your Mac in order to run the setup and operations panels, but under no circumstances try to record audio that way. I want to have the M-Audio give me an optical audio output because that will plug right into the Mac, but it doesn't, so you're stuck with plugging the analog outputs via an adapter cable into the 3.5mm audio input of the Mac. Set the Mac preferences to record from the Line-In and Audacity Default Input should automatically follow you.

Play music. Click once inside the Audacity red record meters and they will become active and let you set levels before the performance. Go back to the first note of the song and press record in Audacity.

But, you say, I want to use the USB connection for the audio channels, too!

<<<so my Audacity works flawlessly>>>

Remember that? You can't do both. The Line-In of a Mac is very good quality and it's unconditionally stable. The forum is full of people struggling to make the USB audio services work, most unsuccessfully. You can stop being one of those people.

Koz

[Raja]

Thanks
I made a folder called audacity on my desktop, dragged all the uncompressed files into there, and put that in my applications, than I moved the audacity app to the dock.
But I don't understand what you're saying about the maudio unit. When I want to record a mix, I was planning on using this external sound card. I have it installed on my mac, and I want to use Audacity to record with it. I don't want to use the mac's own line in port.
How can I do that?

What settings should I set audacity at to record into .wav :
Under Audio I/O : I would set recording device to maudio fasttrack pro, and than select 2 channel stereo, and than there are a few boxes
Play other tracks while recording one, hardware playthrough, software playthrough,
and do not modify audio device settings (such as sample rate) - This box is checked, anything else I should check?

Under Quality: Default Sample Rate is 44100hz, with a sample format of 32-bit float. Is this what I want? I'm recording strictly audio

Under File Formats: The uncompressed export format is wav (microsoft 16 bit pcm), is this what I want?

Also, it says the mp3 exporting plug in not found, how can I get that?

Sorry for the bombardment of questions, just want to have the right settings to record quality audio.
If there is any other settings I should adjust, please let me know.

I am simply recording live mixes from a DJ mixer, into an M-Audio FastTrack Pro, using Audacity.

[kozikowski]

<<<I am simply recording live mixes from a DJ mixer, into an M-Audio FastTrack Pro, using Audacity.>>>

There's nothing "simply" about it and you left out a word. "USB." USB was never intended to handle streaming audio (or video) and it can create problems and instability when you try. That's what killed your last installation and it's killed a number of other people on the forum.

<<<Also, it says the mp3 exporting plug in not found, how can I get that?>>>

Because Audacity is free, they have to use third-party MP3 software and you have to install it yourself. MP3 Compression is copyrighted software by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.

http://audacityteam.org/help/faq?s=inst ... m=lame-mp3

Make really sure you get the right one to download. Getting the wrong one is a common mistake.

Koz

[Raja]

But many people have successfully used Audacity and this M-Audio unit, are you saying its not possible to make it work? I thought it was possible.
Any recommended mp3 exporters than?

I downloaded this version of Audacity: http://audacityteam.org/download/mac
The one labeled Mac OSX Intel - Audacity 1.2.5
I saw it as the default for an intel based mac, is it the right one?

Ah, I see the lame mp3 exporter in additional downloads, thats the one I should go for?

[kozikowski]

<<<But many people have successfully used Audacity and this M-Audio unit, are you saying its not possible to make it work?>>>

Oh, it is totally possible--for some people.

Remember what your task was from the first message? The task is to produce a perfect, stable install of Audacity on your Mac. I know exactly how to do that. Adding USB audio services to the mix could easily produce an unstable Mac and that violates your task rules.

USB audio services is the closest that Audacity has come to a range war on the forums. Since the condition isn't upper case "B" Broken, but just unstable, it's really difficult to pin pont what's wrong, but something is clearly wrong because billions of people all showed up on the forum with similar (but not exactly the same) problems.

Everybody got a USB turntable for Christmas and only most of them worked.

<<<The one labeled Mac OSX Intel - Audacity 1.2.5>>>

I think there's only one download that works with Intel and that OS-X version. It literally doesn't make any difference where you put the actual library file, but just for consistency, I'd put it in that same folder with everything else. It's pretty simple. Audacity will ask you to help it find the file. If Audacity can't "see" it, you got the wrong one.

Everything in UNIX (OS-X) is abbreviated. LameLib is the UNIX name for "Lame Ain't an MP3 Encoder, Binary Library." The name of the program is a recursive joke. The programmers don't get out much.

Koz (or in UNIX, kz)

[Raja]

thanks for the info.
i'll try recording this weekend and let you know how it sounds.
Can you tell me which are the best settings for recording
I wanted to do high quality .wav file and than compress it to mp3 later

[kozikowski]

<<<I wanted to do high quality .wav file and than compress it to mp3 later>>>

Excellent. Most people think they need to compress while they do production or some other technique. Compressors such as MP3 work the very best then they are presented with the highest quality work. If you do it any other way, you are compressing the previous compressor's errors.

<<<Can you tell me which are the best settings for recording>>>

Ummmmm. I'm very close to saying no. In analog land, I would be capturing 48000/16bit which is the video standard. I've done live voice tracks for mini-features like that. Some would go higher, (96000? 32 bit floating?) but you start to run into transfer issues--or at minimum, you need to check it first.

If you go with the USB digital transfer method, you need to make sure that both machines are speaking the same dialect. That's a trip to the instruction books. If you're convinced that everything is set correctly and you still can't make everything talk, then you're a candidate for the analog method.

Koz

[Raja]

Had my first recording today. Everything went pretty smooth. I recorded a 19 minute mix, in 48/16 2 Channel Stereo, and the file size saved as 205mb, is that normal?

Also, there was static distortion throughout the mix. I could hear the track, but when the bass would hit, it would sound like static.
All my gains were at 12, and the level meters were showing up in Yellow, why did I get distortion?

[kozikowski]

<<<showing up in Yellow, why did I get distortion?>>>

This is where you expect me to cloud up and rain all over your USB service isn't it?

Nope.

You were recording a live music performance, right? That's critical.

Describe the pathway. Microphones, amplfiers, cables.

Can you post a piece of that, say ten seconds with distorting bass? This is where I'm reminded that my web host provider broke my ftp service a while ago and never fixed it.

Come on, Koz, you're a techie. There should be an elegant a way out of this...

Let me think about this if you don't have a simple music posting service.

Koz