Tutorial - Selecting Your Recording Device

Ready for Proofreading

Now that you know you're getting sound into the computer, it's time to start Audacity.

Setting up the audio host and playback device

The Device toolbar is displayed by default in a new installation of Audacity. If the Device toolbar is not visible, click on View > Toolbars > Device Toolbar.

You may want to expand the size of the Device toolbar by dragging right on the drag handle.

Choose your preferred audio host and output device from the drop-down menus. Click on Generate > Tone, accept the default values in the dialog then click OK: a 30-second tone will be generated into a new track. Press Space to begin playback - you should hear a loud tone coming from your computer speakers. You can use the output slider on the Mixer Toolbar to control the volume at which you listen to your Audacity project.

Steve 16Jul11:ToDo What's the difference between MME and Direct Sound?

Note that the playback meters in the Meter Toolbar do not change as you adjust the output slider: these meters always indicate the volume of the mix of your Audacity project.

Setting up the recording device

Now that you know that you can hear what Audacity is playing you can continue setting up for recording.

Choose your preferred input device from the drop-down menus.

In the Input Channels drop-down menu choose whether you want to record in mono (1 channel) or stereo (2 channels). In general if you are recording a microphone or guitar you will want to record in mono. If you are recording a keyboard and the keyboard has stereo outputs you will want to record in stereo.

Project Sample Rate

The sampling rate, sample rate, or sampling frequency defines the number of samples per second (or per other unit) taken from a continuous signal to make a discrete signal. For time-domain signals, it can be measured in samples per second.

A setting of 44100 is standard for creating files that can be burned to CD, or for high-quality MP3 files.

Temporary Files

Most users have only one hard disk. However, if you have multiple hard disks, you will want to make sure that Audacity uses your largest or fastest hard disk to store audio. Open the Preferences (in the Edit menu, or the Audacity menu on Mac OS X) and click on the Directories tab. Make sure that the directory listed is on your preferred hard disk.

If your home directory is mounted from a remote server, you definitely do not want Audacity's temporary directory to be there!

Software Playthrough

Now click on the Transport menu and, if you are recording from a microphone, make sure that "Software Playthrough" is not checked - Software Playthrough will cause undesirable feedback from the computer speakers to the microphone. If you are recording a guitar or keyboard and want to hear the instrument through the computer speakers, make sure that "Software Playthrough" is checked.

Using Software Playthrough will cause a slight delay between time you play a note and the time you hear it. The amount of delay will vary between computers and operating systems. There is no way to avoid this delay. If you find it bothersome, the best solution is to play the guitar or keyboard through a mixer and plug headphones into the mixer.

Audacity Preferences

If you prefer, you can make the above settings in the Audacity's Preferences. To access this, use Edit > Preferences
The image below shows the Devices section of Preferences:

There are many other settings that can be made in your Preferences do take some time to explore and understand these.

Gale 05 April 2011: I'm not really sure what the answers to all the below are, but I think it might be easier to use a scheme like http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Troubleshooting_Recordings#silence (obviously with 1.2 stuff removed) rather than tie everyone up with listening for the input in the control panel first. XP users will rarely need to do that, and as it is now, we don't tell the users on any platform where the control panel is or what to do there, beyond the Wiki link.

Bill: Next, input source from Meter toolbar - though note that this is less and less necessary these days. (Is the input device on the toolbar yet? If so, the Preferences may not be necessary!)
The question was asked (above - I've cut it to here): what do you do if you can't make them (the devices chosen in your OS's sound control panel and the choices in Preferences > Devices) match? This should, in theory, be impossible. As I understand it, these menus are populated with choices that Audacity gets by querying the OS. If it's not possible, you've got a serious problem.
Second, the choices offered in the Device Toolbar are similar to those offered in the Preferences > Devices panel but leave out the option of the number of channels to use for recording. Also, the 'Host' selection is only available from Preferences > Devices. So the Devices Toolbar is not a substitute for the Devices prefs panel.
Third, taking an example from my system: on OSX 10.5, if I select "Line In" in System Preferences > Sound, then in Audacity Preferences > Devices > Recording the corresponding choice is "Built in audio" - so the choices don't, in fact, "match". Thus I've changed "match" to "corresponds to" in the second paragraph of this section. In the Devices Toolbar, my only choice for recording is "Core Audio: Built In Audio". But in the Mixer Toolbar my choices are "Line In" and "Digital In".
Finally, if I make changes in Audacity's Devices toolbar these are not reflected in the OSX Sound control panel. But if I change "Line Input" to "Digital Input" in Audacity's Mixer Toolbar, this change is reflected in the OSX Sound control panel!
My point is this - if things are this complex with OSX where it's pretty standard across all Macs, how bad can it be with Windows and Linux with their myriad sound cards and drivers? Do we want to step into this quagmire at all? I think we are left with the basic steps of 1) get sound into your computer using your OS sound control panel and 2) get that sound into Audacity. If you're having problems consult the wiki or the forum.
- Bill

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