Audacity  recording device


Forum: Multimedia
Topic: Audacity  recording device
started by: lagerratrobe

Posted by lagerratrobe on Dec. 10 2005,21:13
Man, this distro kicks ass!  I can't believe how well it works, and how fast one can get a system going.  A kick-ass system running on a piece of hardware that sells for about $75 on eBay today.

I've got sound playing on my Dell Inspiron 3200, both from audio CD's, as well as MP3 files.  I have Grip setup with BladeEnc and can rip CD's all day long, but now I'd like to try converting some of my old concert tapes to mp3 format.  I got Audacity setup using apt-get, which seems to have installed v .98 ofthe software.  I've got the cassette deck plugged into the line-in jack of my laptop, and when I play tapes, sound comes out of the speakers, but Audacity doesn't know about any of it.  The Mixer in the extended panel works properly with th "line in level", so the PC "sees" the incoming audio signal.

Preferences in Audacity for playback and record devices are both set to "/dev/dsp" (no clue what /dev/dsp is, but Google shows a bunch of sound related stuff when I do a search on it).  When I create a new Audacity project, start the cassette deck, and then hit the red "Record" button in Audacity, the bar in the Audio track section never moves, and I never see any waveform info.

How can I go about determining what the correct device is that I should point Audacity to?  How else can I test my sound setup with Audacity? Do I need to disable the DSL Mixer before I can use Audacity (saw that Kmixer needed to be turned off in a post somewhere else), and if mixer needs to be off, how do I do that, and turn it back on?

Thanks.

Posted by lagerratrobe on Dec. 10 2005,23:50
I found the Audacity 1.2.2 mydsl package and installed it.  Unfortunately, I get an error that says I lack the correct libvorbisenc.so.2 libs now.  I suspect apt-get blew them out when it installed version .98 because I found a dpkg "libvorbis2enc.postrm" file dated from just after when I ran apt-get.

Help!

Posted by Khushi on Jan. 08 2006,17:24
I downloaded this audacity recording device, but when i record my voice, and when I play it back, I can barely hear it.  All my volume and recording settings are on high, but still the playback is very low and I can hardly hear a thing I recorded!!

Can someone pleeeeaaaaaaaseeeeee help me. This is extremely urgent.

-Khushi

Posted by Grim on Jan. 09 2006,06:23
@lagerratrobe `apt-get install libvorbis0a` should add the correct libvorbisenc.so.2 libs

/dev/dsp is the Digital Signal Processor device. Linux uses this to convert all the 1's and 0' into something pleasant to the human ear.  If Audacity can't access it, you probably have permission problems.  Do a `ls -l /dev/dsp` and you should get something similar to the following:

crw-rw----  1 root audio 14, 3 2005-12-31 19:58 /dev/dsp

Now, do a `groups`.  If one of your groups doesn't match audio, then you don't have permission to tinker with the device.  Add yourself to the group `adduser lagerratrobe audio`, then log out and back in. (Substitute lagerratrobe with whatever your username is on your system)


@Khushi Your microphone sucks.  You have three options.

1.) Buy a better microphone.  They sell 'em at RadioShack.
2.) Buy a pre-amp to boost the volume of your microphone.  The y sell these at RadioShack too.
3.) Select the entire waveform in Audacity.  Go to Effect > Amplify. Drag the slider to the right until you get the amount of amplification you desire.  You may need to uncheck "Don't allow clipping" to get Audacity to let you amplify your file the desired amount.

If you choose option 3, you may get some distortion/pops/snaps/cracks etc, but it'll definitely make everything louder.

Posted by soulbrew on Feb. 04 2006,00:36
Right on,

I got a similar problem. I fire up audacity and everything's fine, try
to record, no matter the source selected, the cursor won't start and the HD won't spin... I think this is the most relevant post to my issue and I hope that some soul will find the way to help me transfer my old beloved vinyls on mp3....

Thank y'all!

Marco

Posted by doobit on Feb. 06 2006,03:04
To make mp3s you also need the lame-mp3 plugin.
Also, you first must have working sound in and out on your computer.

Posted by soulbrew on Feb. 06 2006,10:23
Hi Doobit,

thank you for your reply.

The mp3 lame encoder is not the issue here.
Neither is the sound in and out: xmms reads
and play mp3s from the cd, so I take the sound out is fine.
Xmix or Wmix (I can't remember...) is installed and running,
if I select mic level I can get feedback, so I take sound in
is fine too.
The thing is that whenever I press rec on audacity, nothin
happens, that's it. And I do not know where to bang my head....

Waiting for some more info,

Marco

Posted by mikshaw on Feb. 06 2006,15:02
Do you have a writeable temp directory specified, with a decent amount of space?

Audacity has its own mixer of sorts...record and playback levels, and a dropdown list of available input sources (pcm, line, mic, etc...).

Posted by doobit on Feb. 06 2006,15:47
Mikshaw is correct (as usual). You need to choose the sound source in Audacity's preferences. If you did that, and still nothing is happening, then there was probably a problem in the install. Mine seems to work well using the Frugal install of DSL.
Posted by soulbrew on Feb. 06 2006,16:22
Hi Mikshaw,

Thank you for your reply!
Temp. dir  /tmp/audacity1.2-dsl (chmodded to 777, just in case...)
free space 722mb - I think it's enough....
I've just created another empty temp dir. chmodded 777 just in case and no, Audacity is not recording anything....

@doobit
I've been using Audacity on win for a few years and I understand
the way you tune it. So, given the case, you might be right. How do I go for an unistall in DSL?

I'm lost and about to drop the towel....

Marco

Any clue?

Marco

Posted by doobit on Feb. 06 2006,17:55
I don't, really since I'm using a Frugal install, the files go into the ramdisk's temporary directories in my case.
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