Audacity problems

jro11 · Thursday at 1:32 AM

Audacity has been my 'sound' go-to application for years. It was straightforward, powerful, etc.

Then I had to deal with other computer problems...

Now I've reinstalled Audacity. I generate a sound on the computer (bird song), press the record button, and nothing. The cursor, which should be moving left to right, picking up whatever sound (or nothing) does not move at all.
I try another approach. I drag and drop a .mp3 file into the main screen area. Immediately its waveform appears on screen. I press the forward arrow (Play button) and again nothing. The cursor doesn't move and no sound comes out.

I've reviewed the docs, asked AI--followed its directions, and I still can't get the Play or Record to work or the cursor to move. I'm dumbfounded. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

wiganken · Thursday at 3:09 AM

There is a free open-source fork of Audacity called Saucedacity. It's no longer maintained but it may be worth trying out. If it works then good. If it doesn't then uninstall it again. Nothing lost.

https://alternativeto.net/software/saucedacity/about/

Another fork of Audacity is Tenacity - Tenacity

Fabler2 · Thursday at 3:21 AM

Not used Audacity in years but I remember that "Stereo Mix" (or" What u hear"?) should be enabled.

jro11 · Friday at 5:07 PM

wiganken said:
There is a free open-source fork of Audacity called Saucedacity. It's no longer maintained but it may be worth trying out. If it works then good. If it doesn't then uninstall it again. Nothing lost. https://alternativeto.net/software/saucedacity/about/

Thank you. I'd never heard the term 'fork' (as related to software). Does a fork happen only when software is no longer being supported (i.e., implying that the software has been abandoned) or can multiple 'forks' occur during the development of their 'plate' software app(s)?

wiganken said:
Another fork of Audacity is Tenacity - Tenacity

Thanks again. I'll look into it in tine. (couldn't resist)

jro11 · Friday at 5:13 PM

Fabler2 said:
Not used Audacity in years but I remember that "Stereo Mix" (or" What u hear"?) should be enabled.

Thanks. If you did use Audacity, and are still into sound, may I ask what similar program you are using now?

Fabler2 said:

Can't find this. Closest I can get is
.

Berton · Friday at 5:14 PM

Think of a 'fork' as the time you come to a tree but the road splits into a V around it. A fork is software is a change of a program into a different direction.

Ghot · Friday at 5:14 PM

@jro11

This is an older version, but you need to "set" some of the things in the RED box...

They may not be in the same order, but the newer versions will have the same settings.

Fabler2 · Friday at 5:22 PM

jro11 said:
Thanks. If you did use Audacity, and are still into sound, may I ask what similar program you are using now?

Can't find this. Closest I can get is
.View attachment 131555

I'm not using an audio editor now as lost interest. You seem to have Stereo Mix available though.

antspants · Friday at 5:24 PM

jro11 said:
or can multiple 'forks' occur during the development of their 'plate' software app(s)?

Opensource software is often duplicated and manipulated. Not sure that Fork is the best term.
Firefox is a good example, Linux is possibly a better one. And yes, can be multiple instances, the Plate software you mention doesn’t need to be inactive.

Some reading, I know you like reading.

Fork (software development) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Fabler2 · Friday at 5:33 PM

Just for info though, you should have the properties page in Windows Settings for SM.

antspants · Friday at 5:34 PM

Then you have non opensource software, like Windows for instance. There are people who use ancient versions of Microsoft products. Office, Windows. Windows 7,8,10 etc are still used. Then you have Windows Builds (22H2 23H2 24H2)
The only difference between the opensource and non opensource is often development & support. Windows 7 is long been unsupported yet it’s still there. Once a non opensource software is no longer supported, it’s not like someone can step in and pick it up develop it from where Microsoft left it, as the code is proprietary. The opposite is possible with opensource.

All just my interpretation of course.

Bree · Friday at 6:45 PM

jro11 said:
I've reinstalled Audacity. I generate a sound on the computer (bird song), press the record button, and nothing.

Check the Audio Setup. To record a sound being played on your PC the Recording Device needs to be set for Speakers (loopback).

pseymour · Friday at 6:55 PM

In addition to what Bree said, you may need to change the Host at the top of that menu. Some hosts don't support the loopback device.

antspants · Friday at 6:58 PM

pseymour said:
In addition to what Bree said, you may need to change the Host at the top of that menu. Some hosts don't support the loopback device.

Yeah, it’s the most fidgety thing about that software. I found just setting the defaults worked for me.

Bree · Friday at 7:30 PM

pseymour said:
In addition to what Bree said, you may need to change the Host at the top of that menu. Some hosts don't support the loopback device.

Very good point. Windows WASAPI is the one you need for loopback.

jro11 · Saturday at 2:29 AM

Berton said:
Think of a 'fork' as the time you come to a tree but the road splits into a V around it. A fork is software is a change of a program into a different direction.

Oh, very different from what I imagined. Does a 'Fork' usually provide a description of its change of course (e.g., This Audacity fork seeks to...)? Where might it put this description?

Fabler2 · Saturday at 11:24 AM

Have a look here and scroll to the tenacity heading,

GitHub - tenacityteam/tenacity: Mirror of https://codeberg.org/tenacityteam/tenacity. Pull requests are IGNORED!

Mirror of https://codeberg.org/tenacityteam/tenacity. Pull requests are IGNORED! - tenacityteam/tenacity

github.com

jro11 · Saturday at 11:59 AM

Fabler2 said:
You seem to have Stereo Mix available though.

?

Bree said:
Check the Audio Setup. To record a sound being played on your PC the Recording Device needs to be set for Speakers (loopback).

Which of these is "Speakers (loopback)"?

The way I have it set is the only one through which I get sound at all.

antspants said:
Yeah, it’s the most fidgety thing about that software. I found just setting the defaults worked for me.

Followed manual and reset everything to defaults [Tools/Reset Configuration] then (per manual again) went to AppData/Roaming/and deleted all .cfg files.

Bree said:
Very good point. Windows WASAPI is the one you need for loopback.

per manual, I reset that first.

Oh look!! I got the cursor to start moving again when I pressed the record button!!

Recorded (I think)...Now hardly any waveform and hardly any sound!

(Maybe the Bewicks Wren just doesn't want to be heard, naybe I'll have to resort to the sledgehammer approach and use OBS.)

jro11 · Saturday at 12:08 PM

Wait! Select All, Effect/Volume and Compression/Normalize...

and sound!
I may be able to change all my phone sounds (to somethings only birdwatchers can hear and understand) after all!

But why can't I instruct the program to default to Normalize rather than have to reset it every time I record a new sound?

Bree · Saturday at 12:42 PM

jro11 said:
Which of these is "Speakers (loopback)"?

The way I have it set is the only one through which I get sound at all.

That sets the playback device. You need to set Record device, that's where you'll see the 'Speakers (loopback)'.

jro11 said:
Recorded (I think)...Now hardly any waveform and hardly any sound!

That looks like you might have been recording from the microphone, picking up the sound from the speakers. Check the Recording Device setting. When you are recording from Speakers (loopback) and you still need to adjust the record level, then that is done with the slider control at the top, the one with the 'mic' icon (the one with a 'speaker' icon is for the playback volume).

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