an unwanted tone

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Jim
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an unwanted tone

Post by Jim » Tue Sep 04, 2007 5:12 pm

I'm using Audacity 1.2.6 and Windows XP. I have a Numark turntable that I am using to download some very old vinyl. Everything is working great; except as soon as I hit the record button, I get this constant tone. As soon as I stop recording, the tone ceases. I am not a computer genius, so if someone has any ideas, please use regular American lingo.

alatham
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Re: an unwanted tone

Post by alatham » Tue Sep 04, 2007 5:37 pm

There is no regular American lingo for dealing with technical stuff. Chalk that up to our poor science education, or general apathy if you like. But we'll do our best.

You need to tell us what input source you have Audacity set to use. In the Edit -> Preferences -> Audio I/O menu, what is listed in all the various menus?

You should have the Turntable selected as the Recording device (I don't know what it will be listed as), your soundcard listed as the Playback device (or whatever your speakers are plugged into), the channels set to 2. "Play other tracks while recording new one" can be set to whatever you like, and "Software Playthrough" should be off.

kozikowski
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Re: an unwanted tone

Post by kozikowski » Fri Sep 07, 2007 12:11 am

It is possible to cause Windows machines to play to themselves causing feedback similar to a microphone in a really bad lecture hall. eeeeEEEEEEEEEE.

As above you must go through all your settings and close anything you're not using right at that time. If all else fails, turn off live monitoring or playthrough or whatever it's called. Record in silence. I bet the problem goes away.

You can cause your speakers to be so loud that they will feed back into the phono stylus, too. People tend to forget that one. A phono stylus resting on a vinyl platter amounts to a 12 microphone.

Koz

Jim
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Re: an unwanted tone

Post by Jim » Sun Sep 09, 2007 7:45 pm

Thanks for the info. After an extensive review of my process I found that the toggle on Numark was on phono vice line. Ishifted the toggle and turned off the speakers and play feeature as suggested and all is well with the world.

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