Tutorial - Selecting Your Recording Device
- Bill 16Dec11: Add OS X Core Audio to Hosts. Minor edits. Looks good.
Now that you know you're getting sound into the computer and youv'e made your Audacity settings, it's time to set up your input device for recording.
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 .
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. An audio host is an interface between Audacity and the sound card driver. In Windows the choices are: MME (the Audacity default) or Windows DirectSound, the more modern replacement. In Linux there is often only one option: ALSA, other options could be OSS and/or Jack Audio Connection Kit (also known as "Jack" or "Jackd"). On Mac OS X the only choice is Core Audio.
Click on , 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.
- Peter 16Jul11: Steve are you suggesting that we explain here to the user the differences between the two? I suspect that that would go right over the head of many readers. Or should we be creating Glossary entries that we can link to, or even a new page on audio hosting interfaces? The latter would have the advantage of keeping this page relatively straightforward and simple. MME and WDS are windows interfaces - what are the host interfaces for MAC and Linux?
- 'Steve 16Jul11:' I think there needs to be some mention as in some cases one choice will work and other options won't. On Linux there is often only one option (ALSA), though it depends on what sound system(s) is/are installed. Other options could be OSS and/or Jack Audio Connection Kit (AKA "Jack" or "Jackd").
- Peter 17Jul11: I have added a brief bit on audio hosting with links to new entries in the Glossary for: MME, WDS & ALSA - is this sufficient?
- Peter 16Jul11: I'm never sure which is the better of the two MME or WDS. I tend to use WDS on both my PCs as it is a more modern i/f 1995 v. 1991 so both pretty old. IIRC Gale tends to prefere recommending MME to users - though I can't remember why. Gale can you elucidate further?
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 Input Device drop-down menu in the Device Toolbar.
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.
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
- Peter 15Dec11: In the later Betas the Audacity Device Toolbar has been expanded to also include the host and the no. of channels, making the toolbar the preferred method for making the settings and obviating the need to push the reader to the PreferencesDevices dialog.
ToDo Can we therefore either delete this editor note or move it to the discussion page?
Links
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