| From Mariette Connor
| Sun, 9 Sep 2007 22:14:34 +0100
| Subject: [Audacity-help] Audacity 1.2.6.
| I have Audacity 1.2.6 and have got to the stage of being able to
| record from old tape cassettes (but without any editing), and burning
| the exported WAV files to CD. These recordings are coming out 100%
| in clarity and volume on playback both from the Aud file and also the
| exported WAV file.
| I now want to move on to splitting individual recorded cassettes into their
| component tracks so that when I play the resultant CDs I will be able to
| jump about at random between tracks. I have the several web pages from
| Audacity and Audacity Wiki dealing with cutting up long tracks etc..
| My principal difficulty(at this moment) is that I find it almost impossible
| to see the end of individual tracks on the Audacity Window. This is because
| the waveform appears almost flat with only the tiniest ripples appearing
| (quite different from the sample illustrations on the Manual). I am on
| Microsoft XP and using line-in from my cassette player. The Recording Device
| I have set from Preferences is MAXDigital-audio, as I am only offered this
| or USB Camera or Microsoft Sound Mapper-input.
When you exported a WAV before and burnt a CD and found it had 100%
volume, didn't the recorded waveform have large peaks and troughs like the
illustrations you have seen? You need to get the waveform for the audio part
of your cassettes of a similar loudness, which will then make it easy to see
the silences (nearly flat lines) between the tracks of the cassettes.
To get the input level of the cassettes at the highest level without distortion,
which will give you the best level of music or speech relative to the inherent
noise in the signal, click the downward-pointing arrow in the right-hand
(red) recording VU meter
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/onlinehelp-1.2/toolbar_meter.htmand click "monitor input". If the meters are not visible, go to the Interface tab
of Preferences and check "Enable Meter Toolbar". Then play the loudest part of
your tape and adjust the input volume with the right-hand slider (by the
microphone symbol) on the Mixer Toolbar:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/onlinehelp-1.2/toolbar_mixer.htmso that the levels on the red recording meter are approaching but not touching
the right edge of the scale. If the meter bars reach the right edge, the red
clipping lights to right of the meter will come on, indicating that you will have
distortion in the recording.
If doing this does not give you a full waveform, then please try selecting the
line-in in the Windows Control Panel and turning up its volume there. For
help on this please see:
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Mixer_Toolbar_Issues#Using_the_Control_Panel(scroll down to the illustration for Windows XP). Then exit and restart Audacity
and try to record now.
I am assuming of course that you have not de-amplified the audio by accident
since you recorded it. You can always amplify it to the loudest level without
distortion by clicking Effect > Amplify then OK, but you will get a lot of surface
noise if you amplify a recording that was recorded at minimal level. If you did
record the audio like that, you'd be better to re-record it. Naturally check if the
tape deck has some means of varying the output volume (if you are recording
from headphones out on the deck, its volume knob will always directly control
the output level of your recording). If you are in any doubt about the
connections between the deck and the computer, please see:
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Transferring_tapes_and_records_to_computer_or_CDGale Andrews
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Tested on: 9/10/2007 2:58:45 AM
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