Newbie Question: Controlling/Viewing Input Levels

[MarsNeedsAudio]

Installed Audacity and hooked up my USB turntable for the first time three nights ago. So the potential naiveness of this question shouldn't surprise anybody!

Why don't I see any obvious way to control the input levels? So far, if I want a louder recording than the default setting, all I can do (so far) is amplify it on the back end. (Even cranked, the one input level I've found seems to have no discernable effect on the meters.)

And why am I not able to see the level at which the input is going to be recorded until I've actually hit record?

[waxcylinder]

The reason taht you can't control the signal level is that your USB device has taken control of the signal - the mic slider becomes inoperative with most USB devices. There may be a gain control on your USB device that you can vary.

You can montor the level before you record - all you have to do is click ONCE (or an odd no. of times) in the input level meter bar (clicking there toggles between on and off - and it is not visually obvious which is on or off, unless you are applying a signal - folks on this forum have commented on this poor aspect of the GUI a LOT).

WC

[Carey]

1) What's a "GUI"?

2) If the recorded level is too low, you can amplify the entire audio file.

Open the file in Audacity. Then go to Edit > Select > All

Then go to Effects > Amplify

Then, I THINK you can get the same basic results by any of the following steps:
* Use the amplification factor the program has set for you (i.e. whatever the dB figure shown in the box to the tight of "Amplification" is should be fine OR
* Instead of selecting Amplify under Effects, select Compress OR Normalize

BUT.....I THINK Amplify -- using whatever factor Audacity has determined to be correct -- is the best choice here. Normalize is typically used to change files of different volumes to the same volume, using some pre-determined standard. And I think Compress is mainly to reduce any excessive high/loud sections, and to reduce the difference between the loudest and softest passages (although seemingly not in the way that my recent question indicated that I needed to have done).

[waxcylinder]

1) What's a "GUI"?

Its a Grahical User Interface - i.e. what we all (Unix users apart) use now with Windows and Mac applications.

In the old steam-driven computer days can you believe that people actually had to type in lines of cammands to make programs do stuff - or even feed them decks of cards.

So in this instanece it's really being used as shorthand for the "user interface of the application" or even the "user experience" as some folks would have it.

WC