Audacity killed Skype

[panta rhei]

QT Pro was not that expensive.

No, but it's not unusual for that fee to be far greater than the total budget of some of the posters.

Touché! I hardly think twice if I need software costing less than 200 or 300 € when it is for business and at most twice if it is less than 2000 €.

When for something like digitizing LPs, the price of something like VinylStudio (30 US pesos) seems expensive. Ridiculous!

[panta rhei]

Rigghhtt! [The Twilight Zone theme]Wuddayaknow!|/The Twilight Zone theme]

Tonight (GMT +2, no New Moon) no problems with Skype after using Audacity!

The only new config is "play-through". Earlier I had phono/RCA from the turntable to the amp, now earphone-out/RCA from the MacBook to it. No restarting of the Mac - which is something I normally do only a few times a year.

[steve]

Now, what SEEMS to happen is that Audacity interferes with System settings and disables the mic.

As you will have gathered, I'm not a Mac person (Windows at work and Linux at home), but I sensed your panic and frustration and I know how frustrating it is when a computer suddenly goes wrong, so I thought I'd jump in and try and help while you were waiting for the Mac elves to arrive.

As far as I'm aware, Audacity does not actually make any changes to the computer sound system, other than perhaps adjusting the record/playback levels (this is certainly true on Windows and Linux). However, the simple act of plugging in a USB audio device does cause changes to occur. On Windows it is particularly annoying as by default Windows will often automatically hand over the entire sound system to the USB device (recording and playback) and set the recording input to mono. What that means is that all of a sudden, the computer looses all sound (because a USB turntable is a "recording" device only and is incapable of working as a "playback" device). This often happens when someone has just bought a USB turntable and plugged it in for the first time, and they don't realise there is a problem until after they have tried to use Audacity and cannot get any playback. Consequently, Audacity often gets the blame, even though the actual "fault" was due to plugging in the USB device and how Windows responded to that.

On Windows, the solution is to go into the Windows Control Panel and set the sound system to use the normal sound card as the playback device, set the USB device so that it is enabled as a recording device, and set the normal sound card as the default recording device. This configuration will be remembered after a reboot. Other applications will continue to work normally, and Audacity can be set manually to record from the USB device via the settings in "Edit menu > Preferences > Devices".

There are obviously some differences on Macs (which I can't help you with), but from what Koz was saying it sounds like "Apple (upper left) > System Preferences > Hardware > Sound > Input and Output" is doing a similar thing to what a Windows user would do in the Windows Control Panel.

[steve]

You must have been typing at the same time as I was
It seems that you are getting the hang of it now, but if you need assistance feel free to post. (If you need help with a different issue, we generally prefer a new topic for each new problem - it makes the topics easier to follow).

[billw58]

@steve: Fortunately, Mac does not change sound input/output when plugging in a USB device. Also, device choices can be made in the Devices Toolbar independently of the Sound Prefs panel. The path is Apple menu > System Preferences, Sound panel, Input tab.

See http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/User: ... ut_devices for an illustration.

@panta rhel: There's an entry on the Mac Bugs wiki page that might be relevant:

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Mac_B ... g_Audacity

It is instructive to have the Sound prefs panel open and visible while making changes to inputs and outputs in Audacity. The same might be true when starting and stopping Skype.

-- Bill

[steve]

Thanks Bill - links now in my bookmarks.

[bgravato]

Just to add that I use Skype and Audacity in my MacBookPro and I don't have any problems with either of them...

[panta rhei]

And just to report that during the last day or so, the reported anomaly has not reappeared. Now, next I guess I have to digitize David Bowie's "Hunky Dory"!

Thanks for everyone for bearing wth me! (Or should I say "baring with me", which seems to be a fav among native English speakers...)

Maybe one day I can take advantage of at least a fraction of the sophistication of Audacity. Meanwhile, the recently budgeted USD 30 for VinylWorks goes to a very worthwhile charity, to pay for a Christmas feast for the most disadvantaged people here in Helsinki, Finland, with 50 cm of snow and temperatures below -20° Celsius predicted for the coming Xmas period.

In the 1960s and 1970s we had shocking numbers of people freezing to death. Then the statistics were revamped and nowadays no-one here dies of cold.

[panta rhei]

Oh dear: another variable!

Did I have my EyeTV USB tuner or an USB copy-protection dongle connected? If, when? There are endless combinations.

(To the Audacity team: for half a living I make "parametric objects" for an architectural 3D CAD program, so I can appreciate these issues!)