Cant only record from built in microphone

[mikebrown]

I have used Audacity successfully on a desktop computer using Windows XP

I'm now trying to use Audacity 1.3 beta with Vista ultimate on a Sony Vaio laptop.

I can record only from a mono microphone that is built into the laptop. There are no alternatives offered.

Checking messages on the forum I found this: -

"So the first step towards rectifying input selector problems is to go to the Audio I/O tab of Audacity Preferences and check that the playback and recording devices are explicitly set to the correct sound device you want to use, for example you may have multiple sound devices such as built-in sound and an external USB adaptor"

The problem is that when I visit the preferences panel, the built in microphone is the only option so I cannot click on any alternative.

Any suggestions welcome! Thanks

mikebrown

[steve]

Laptop, on-board sound card and Vista are often a troublesome combination. You may be able to enable other inputs from the Windows Control Panel.

Also, have a look at this page and see if there is anything that helps: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... bar_Issues

[mikebrown]

Thanks - but there was nothing that rectified the problem there.

Since sending my query, another source told me of a temporary fix. This is to plug the laptop sound output into the microphone input and turn the volume down to a low level in both the output and mic in order to avoid saturation.

Can you believe that Microsoft, after all this time, have not made Vista Ultimate backward compatible with XP?! I mistakenly thought that by waiting for the Service Pack to be issued, and getting the best version of Vista, I would have avoided such problems. It's very disappointing.