I’d like to record myself playing guitar and singing, using Audacity 1.2.6 for Windows, just to have a better idea of what I sound like. I thought I had things set up correctly – mic plugged into the mic jack; audio/mic/gain levels set to max; tried both audio (mono) and stereo projects. But when I play back just a simple vocal, the recording is very faint, with lots of hiss, even with my speaker volume turned all the way up, and even though I’m nearly eating the mic. I’m sure it would never pick up the guitar.
My first thought is to try a new microphone. I’m using what I’m sure is a cheap no-name jobbie that Mr. S had lying around. It says “TRONIX D-110 Dynamic Microphone for Vocal and Hi-Fi Recording / Impedance 500 [ohms].”
I’m a total n00b when it comes to the technical aspects of digital recording, so please use tiny words.
(Eventually I’d like to get one of these, but I don’t have the $$$ at the moment. <sigh> I remember the good old days when you could just hit RECORD on your tabletop tape recorder and record all day long without all the technical folderol.)
Scarlett67: I’m a real low-tech musician myself, but I do use Audacity; mostly to capture the signal going to my speakers. (so I can make my MIDI evil compositions into MP3s.)
I had this same problem doing what I do. It turned out that I was using the wrong bitrate; 44100 is the one that works for me. It’s in the lower-left corner, just click on it. The default rate may be something different.
Also, if you go into the properties of your computer’s mixer (I assume it’s a pc?) you can turn up the volume on the mike. If there’s a sound icon in your taskbar, double-click it. Then click “options” on the top left, then click “properties.” Then select, “adjust volume for recording.”
Hm, I was using 44100, which is apparently my default. I’ll play with that later (it’s 6:30 am and Mr. S is sleeping in the next room!).
I had also played around with the Windows mixer settings, but “Recording” was grayed out. But just now I changed “Mixer device” to input instead of output :smack: and Recording became the only choice. Did a quick test and same result, grrr. (And then when I went back just now to grab the actual terms for this post, it was back the way it was before. Double grrr. I gotta set it every stinkin’ time??)
Open the Sounds and Audio Devices applet in Control Panel, go to the Audio tab, and make sure that the right device is selected under Sound recording. Click the Volume button, go to Options|Properties, and check all the appropriate boxes. Try turning up the volume there.
In Audacity, go to Edit|Preferences and make sure that the right Device is selected under the Recording heading.
Also see if your sound driver has its own applet, either in Control Panel or in the system tray. It may have settings which are separate from the ones in Windows.
If that mic doesn’t work out, I’ve had good results with the Samson C01U. It’s reasonably-priced and picks up a lot less noise than the Radio Shack headset I was using before.
Disclaimer: I am not an audiophile and only use Audacity to record chapters for LibriVox.
Done in the places where I can – but Mic Volume is grayed out.
Done.
Aha! But there, too, I can’t change any volume settings for recording. We even tried plugging in Mr. S’s guitar pickup, and it produced nothing for the first several seconds of our test recording (so it may be a POS too).
Looks interesting. We were going to check out mics at the guitar store today but it was closed already when we got there. Next time!
Next week I have someone coming over here to rehearse, and I know he has some mics that are probably better. We can do some more tests with those if I haven’t found anything better by then.
1: Microphone output is usually a very low level output and you will get the weak results you reported if you plugged it into a line level input which is expecting a much stronger signal. So double check the audio port on the PC is
1: A real mic input not a line level input
2: Is matched to the mic’s plug (ie mono or stereo) so you are getting all input channels. If the mic is a mono source and the mic input on the PC is expecting a stereo plug they may not be making a good connection.
3: Make sure the mic does not need a battery.
An inexpensive USB mixer might be a better overall solution like this onefor $ 63.00.
There’s a cheaper version of that Tascam recorder that Mr. S thinks he might like to pick up anyway. Looks mighty convenient. Even if I do get this set up, what a pain to have to haul out the laptop just to record something. I don’t mind Audacity for editing, though; I’ve done a bit (chopping up a cassette recording into tracks).
Whoops, “Mr. S thought so too” was in response to Dewey Finn.
Well, it’s the one with an icon of a mic next to it.
No idea whether the mic is mono or stereo. I am using an adapter (big to little; I told you I’m no expert! I forget the actual dimensions. What is it, 3/8" to 3/16"?). I do notice that the large mic plug has one black line around the tip, and the adapter (to fit the sound card jack) has two. Does that indicate mono/stereo?
It doesn’t have anyplace to put one that I can see. Just the cord and an on/off switch (yes, it was on when recording!).
That USB thing looks way more complicated than I want or need. I just want to hit “Record” and record, not mess with multiple channels/inputs whatever. This is just so I can listen to what I sound like, maybe record other people in order to learn songs, etc. I’m not looking to put out an album or publish anything. This is just for my own on-the-fly use. Sort of like those Jitterbug cell phones for old people.
Man, that little portable jobbie (with a better external mic) is looking better all the time. We may just have to go to the guitar place and ask them to just set us up.
Are you using windows XP? I had this problem too and spent months fiddling with every (I thought) possible setting and finally found the answer on the Audacity help website. It was in the Realtec HD and was a little button that didn’t even look like it did anything that you either had to enable or un-enable. But I can’t remember what it was… So check the audacity help … the answer for me didn’t exist anywhere else! In looking at it again, I think it was the little wrench icon on the Realtek mixer record settings down at the bottom. There’s a place to enable microphone volume there. I know I was frustrated as all hell for the same problem! Everything works as it should for me with audacity now.
Yes, XP, and as a matter of fact I do have the RealTek mixer. I did poke around under the wrench icon, and all it does there is allow me to show the sliders for CD / mic / line / stereo mix. But the sliders themselves are inactive, grrr. Only other thing under the wrench is “Enable recording multistreaming”, which I tried and as I recall it didn’t do me any good, so I disabled it again. Only other option for those four items is to mute them.
Not yet; it’s not a high-priority issue for me, and I was hoping the fix would be something simple that didn’t involve a ton of troubleshooting. I’ll check that out sometime in the next few days. If we haven’t picked up a portable/mic combo by then.
I’d suspect your mike is not designed for use on your sound card. Most soundcard mikes use stereo plugs, while most larger plugged mikes are mono.
Try plugging the microphone into Line in, which is a true stereo plug, and thus can handle a mono input source.
Ooh, just thought of something: You’re using Windows XP, so you have Windows Sound Recorder(sndrec.exe). Do you run into the same problems there? If you do, then the problem isn’t Audacity.
Well, the mic is older than our first computer, so that’s a distinct possibility.
I plugged the mic into the blue (line in) jack on the back (it was auto-detected by the Realtek software, so I know I got the right jack). In Sound Recorder I got nothing. In Audacity I got low audio, high noise.
