Audio levels too high when recording from IE/Firefox

[mexican]

I've been trying to capture some sound bits from various places including youtube and Homestarrunner.com. Whenever I try and record audio from these sites it's obnoxiously loud to the point that the audio begins to separate. I've tried adjusting the input volume slider, but it has no effect. I've also tried negatively amplifying the sound but that has no benefit since the levels were recording so high. I've tried recording from both Firefox and IE with no difference between them.

Let me add that recording audio from any PC application behaves as I'd expect. Sound levels are normal and there is no audio separation when, say, recording music or dialogue from a movie. I'm using Audacity 1.3 in Vista (I can't try 1.2). Is this a simple issue to resolve or is it just the way things are?

[rsrt]

I seem to be having a similar problem, trying to record from a cassette player into the microphone jack on a Dell Inspiron 1505. Even if I try to lower the input volume levels, cassette player or Audacity, the sound is the same. It's as if for some reason the sound is lightly distored and sounds like it's being recorded at too high a volume. Listening to the same cassette through the stereo results in a normal sound.

Any comments, as I admit to being a rank newbie to recording music onto a computer, as evidenced by my even using cassettes.

Thanks!

vince

[steve]

mexican, you probably need to adjust the record level in the Windows Mixer. Windows Mixer has two pages, one for playback, and one for recording - go to the recording page and it's probably the "Stereo Mix" slider that you need to change.

rsrt, the microphone socket is for using computer microphones only - It is around 1000x too sensitive for a cassette input (hence the distortion). You need to use a "line" input. If your computer does not have one (very common on laptops) you could try an external USB audio device such as the Behringer UCA-202.

[rsrt]

Thanks Steve,

I had no idea that the computer microphone input was that sensitive. I have ordered a UCA-202, and hopefully that will be the answer to my problem.

Thanks!

vince