help - too many settings on a pc - which ones and where?

[whomper]

cant record through pc mike - any hints are welcome -

background
win xp pro sp2 audacity beta 1.3.9
installed audacity
edited a wav file fine
could play it on mini pc speakers plugged into front jack (lime green)

there are also 6 jacks in the back of the pc - green pink blue
plus 3 more for line out! (red black gray)
i understand the blue is for line in and pink is for mikes
green is line out to the speakers
not sure why the other 3 are there

would like to use the front jacks - very hard to access the back of pc
although i will have to use them for the next project that needs a line in
but for now - the mike problem

next plugged mike that came with the speakers into salmon pink jack
on the front

tried to record with audacity - no modulation seen
then
tried to record with windows sound recorder (5.1) - nothing useful
got a file of just thermal noise

found settings on sound recorder
edit - properties - settings = convert bit rate depth
edit - audio properties - allows selecting input output and midi

output that worked said realtek
input that failed said realtek
the alternative input is modem#0 line record
no clue which are front/back or how otherwise related

also found volume control in windows
front mike was muted - unchecked that
mike volume was muted - unchecked that
and turned gain up on both
also turned other vol controls to max

odd thing noted:
master slider beeps somewhere in the pc when i use it even though speakers are off !

tried again
got diddly squat

turned speakers on

odd note 2:
can just hear self talking through speakers when using the mike
even when not recording
but cannot cause feedback squeal even with mike in front of the speakers

still nothing recorded via mike

found front mike option on control panel of audacity
selected and turned mike gain to max

still nothing being recorded but noise

so i am guessing that somewhere deep in the innards of win
are yet more hidden setting that need to be diddled

under pc control panel
realtek sound effect manager
unmuted mike again
but no slider is shown for volume for mike input
but can find one for mike output
WTF is mike out? and why does it have a volume control

also under pc control panel
sound and audio devices
had hardware test
it *thinks* the microphone is putting input into the pc

tried the mike again
now it is clipping !!!!!
according to the tracks shown

so which setting turned it on ?
which is the real volume control for it?
i am assuming that if it clips before audacity's mike gain sees the signal it is too late so i need to set the volume earlier on

with audacity gain at 0
it is peaking at -3dB on a soft signal input

but recording with win sound recorder
the wav file is still empty of content
i can play back the audacity tracks
so presume i can save them and continue okay

even though i thought all monitor type options were off
still can hear my voice somewhat in the speakers when recording with audacity

if anyone has knowledge of the magic set of all the settings with all the places that i need to find in winxp and change i would appreciate your telling me whatever you know about where to find them
and which ones are the ones that are needed

thanks

[kozikowski]

You have a very talented sound card with more ins and outs than are normal. I have an older sound card like that -- it supports full 5.1 analog surround and digital signals in addition to the regular signals and pathways. I have a rainbow of different connectors back there.

The down side to these cards is they must be set up according to the maker's software, not just Windows. Sometimes, Windows setups must be adjusted as well. So Windows starts out life not particularly straightforward and this makes it much worse.

You are well ahead of the game in trying to get Windows Sound Recorder to work. If you can't get that to work, Audacity is helpless.

If you haven't run into this yet, PCs have two sound pathways: record and play. It's perfectly possible to select, for example, Line-In on the play side and listen to your show without being able to record it. You didn't select Line-In on the Record side. This is the audio philosophy that allows you to record "Mix-Out." That's just a crossing of the two pathways.

The older Windows systems used to just present you with the whole pile of options and it was up to you to straighten it all out and have a happy day. The newer Windows try to restrict you to the settings that make sense, but all the older settings are still back there, and I think that's what you're running into.

Do you still have the instructions for your sound card? I'd start there, plus this piece on Windows...

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

Koz

[whomper]

You have a very talented sound card with more ins and outs than are normal. I have an older sound card like that -- it supports full 5.1 analog surround and digital signals in addition to the regular signals and pathways. I have a rainbow of different connectors back there.

The down side to these cards is they must be set up according to the maker's software, not just Windows. Sometimes, Windows setups must be adjusted as well. So Windows starts out life not particularly straightforward and this makes it much worse.

You are well ahead of the game in trying to get Windows Sound Recorder to work. If you can't get that to work, Audacity is helpless.

If you haven't run into this yet, PCs have two sound pathways: record and play. It's perfectly possible to select, for example, Line-In on the play side and listen to your show without being able to record it. You didn't select Line-In on the Record side. This is the audio philosophy that allows you to record "Mix-Out." That's just a crossing of the two pathways.

The older Windows systems used to just present you with the whole pile of options and it was up to you to straighten it all out and have a happy day. The newer Windows try to restrict you to the settings that make sense, but all the older settings are still back there, and I think that's what you're running into.

Do you still have the instructions for your sound card? I'd start there, plus this piece on Windows...

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

Koz

thanks
the soundcard was stock with a cheap dell some 18months or so ago

no docs with the soundcard
did find a control panel
but it didnt seem to make much sense

possibly there are install options with the realtek drivers
that i do no know about or how to change if they are there

not clear that this does 5.1
there are control options that are grayed out for additional channels

i got audacity to work with mike recording
did NOT get windows recorder to work
go figure

there are just too many irrational scattered settings in windoze
billyg and his bunch are braindead imbeciles if their interface seems logical to them

i would hope that it all ends up in the registry
so someone could write one good utility to control audio in/out
but fear that there are several registry entries
and maybe some private heaps of data that we dont get to see

i will meditate on the different paths
and see if i can figure out a combination that works better
dont really care about win sound recorder
as long as audacity works okay

i fear that when i go to using line in on the back panel
that i will ahve to do a search and destroy for all the blinkeen settings again and try to find a combo that works

i need to copy cassettes to cd and the docs here that i can find omit the serious info about drivers and settings but do give lots of info on connector sizes.

microslop needs a better architecture so everything doesnt keep tripping over all the other software's feet and undoing what each is trying to do

dos worked so easily, why did they inflict windoze on us.

[kozikowski]

<<<braindead imbeciles if their interface seems logical to them>>>

I think it's all relative. The current interface seems to be a lot better than the earlier Windows systems. Remember when the recording control panel was hidden behind the playback one and they had duplicate entries? That wasn't handy.

I can clear a room in fifteen seconds. I just walk in and announce that I have a Linux sound problem. "I think I hear my mom calling. Gotta go."

I still have two useful programs that run under MS DOS 6.2. I made it all the way to Windows 2000 and that's when I bailed. I'm a happy Mac user. We needed to get a Windows Vista machine to run in one of the conference rooms. It took a Hardware manager, a company Systems Administrator, and me to get it to behave.

Not fuzzy-warm.

Koz

[whomper]

<<<braindead imbeciles if their interface seems logical to them>>>

I think it's all relative. The current interface seems to be a lot better than the earlier Windows systems. Remember when the recording control panel was hidden behind the playback one and they had duplicate entries? That wasn't handy.

I can clear a room in fifteen seconds. I just walk in and announce that I have a Linux sound problem. "I think I hear my mom calling. Gotta go."

I still have two useful programs that run under MS DOS 6.2. I made it all the way to Windows 2000 and that's when I bailed. I'm a happy Mac user. We needed to get a Windows Vista machine to run in one of the conference rooms. It took a Hardware manager, a company Systems Administrator, and me to get it to behave.

Not fuzzy-warm.

Koz

well.... it is different


dos was easy
i could control it
everything was in one folder not scattered like a sandstorm
ms wrote a mammoth book on how dos worked
8x11x3inches with *everything* about dos in it

thanks for the linux warning
i had been thinking of going that route for pc recording
now i will stick with xp that i have some chance of controlling
found several sites with tweaks to make it music friendly
and a couple of utilities to automate removal of the excess stuff

i can live with the xp interface
partly decided against vista because of the aeroslop and other useless "features" that only suck up cycles and mess with music record/playback

i would still be using 95 except the battery was hardwired in the mobo and no way to replace it without an expensive trip to the shop

so i went to 98se
still running two of those machines

both are faster than the xp with all the security software it needs
because the 98se never goes on the net ever for any reason

first xp machine just simpy died after a few years and replaced it with a newer one that had sp2

then bought a big muvva xp pro machine just for music sp3
still need to install it strip off the excess garbage and get the audio interface and mikes working with it

in the meantime the smaller xpprosp2 system that runs our net stuff is also doing audacity quite well without a major clean up to remove extra garbage that billyg put on it. wish i could clean some of the dell garbage off though. they buried their crap deep.