The all-new "HELP! I have an Audacity problem" thread

MagicMan · Post by **MagicMan** » December 10th, 2017, 7:25 am

@Carod, stay away from using joint stereo as it may be adding to your "Click Problem". Also, low ram or full hard drives can cause this as well as having your system plugged into the same breaker your refrigerator, ac window unit, kitchen circuits etc, are plugged into. The pic below shows what you need to do to render/export in mono using Audacity. I use 2.1.3.

Carod · Post by **Carod** » December 10th, 2017, 9:00 am

Many thanks MagicMan, I don't get those export options from Audacity but happily I have found a workaround.

Also, thanks for your comment on the clicks. My working theory is that lack of PC resources is behind it. Time will tell..

Carod

Ealswythe · Post by **Ealswythe** » December 10th, 2017, 1:02 pm

Help! Audacity suddenly will not recognize my USB Snowball Ice microphone that I've been using daily for months! The microphone was plugged in, red light on, before opened up Audacity this morning, but Audacity gave me a message that it did no recognize the core audio. I quit Audacity, unplugged the microphone, securely plugged it in again, re-opened Audacity, but it will not recognize the microphone. I checked Audacity for updates, and it did say that I needed an update to 2.2.2. I updated, installed the update, and I re-opened. It still won't recognize my microphone. I checked the manual, and it said to "Rescan device". I did that, and nothing changed. What do I do??

Post by **TriciaG** » December 10th, 2017, 1:13 pm

- Do you have a different USB port you could try plugging it into? If so, try it.

- Plug a flash drive or something into the USB port to make sure the port hasn't gone bad.

- Can you try plugging it into a different computer, to see if the microphone USB connection has died?

Ealswythe · Post by **Ealswythe** » December 10th, 2017, 1:19 pm

TriciaG wrote:- Do you have a different USB port you could try plugging it into? If so, try it.

- Plug a flash drive or something into the USB port to make sure the port hasn't gone bad.

- Can you try plugging it into a different computer, to see if the microphone USB connection has died?

Hi Tricia, thank you for replying so quickly!
I’m using a MacBook Pro, 2015. It has only one USB port. The Snowball Microphone has the red light on, which means it is definitely connected to the computer. The only other computer I have is an old 2008 MacBook.
Right now, I’m doing the Mac Sierra update. When it restarts, I’m going to check again.
This is really frustrating. Just yesterday, I recorded a lot of files on Audacity, with no problem. This morning, everything is impossible.

tovarisch · Post by **tovarisch** » December 10th, 2017, 1:29 pm

Your Mac can tell you whether it sees your mic, in Audio Properties. Have you tried Face Time? Can that app see your microphone?

Ealswythe · Post by **Ealswythe** » December 10th, 2017, 1:32 pm

Tricia!
Update on what's happening....
I noticed that even though the USB port was securely connected, for some reason, the end of the cable connected to the microphone was just slightly out. I pushed that in securely, and now I re-entered Audacity. It is showing my microphone now! Yay!!!

I was so panic stricken over this!
Now I'll try it, with the new updated Audacity. I noticed that I had to re-set it to accept Replay Gain. I hope the LAME still works, to export to mp3. Will let you know.
Thank you for your help!!!
Linda

Ealswythe · Post by **Ealswythe** » December 10th, 2017, 3:09 pm

tovarisch wrote:Your Mac can tell you whether it sees your mic, in Audio Properties. Have you tried Face Time? Can that app see your microphone?

Thank you, Tovarisch!
I'll check on that next time. I did check on GarageBand, and it was recognizing my microphone. But I finally got the problem fixed. It was a little bit of a loose connection from the cable to the microphone.

Ealswythe · Post by **Ealswythe** » December 10th, 2017, 10:28 pm

New problem now: I downloaded the updated version of Audacity, 2.2.2. It works great, much better than the previous version. The only problem is that I cannot enable Replay Gain anymore. I go to Effects>Add plug-ins. Replay Gain is in that list, as Disabled. I click on it, choose "enable", and it says that it is enabled. I click "OK." Then I get out of Audacity. I re-open, but it is still not there. I check Add Plug-ins again, and it's still on the list as "disabled." I've even tried choosing "enable", click OK, then check the list, before closing Audacity. It is still disabled. How do I get Replay Gain to come back?

MagicMan · Post by **MagicMan** » December 11th, 2017, 4:24 am

Carod wrote:Many thanks MagicMan, I don't get those export options from Audacity but happily I have found a workaround.

Also, thanks for your comment on the clicks. My working theory is that lack of PC resources is behind it. Time will tell..

Carod

If you are running windows, you should have the same export settings. Did you install the lame file required for exporting mp3s? If you did, you may need to check the link under preferences to make sure it still sees it.

tovarisch · Post by **tovarisch** » December 11th, 2017, 7:12 am

Ealswythe wrote:New problem now... How do I get Replay Gain to come back?

Yep. Let us know when/if you figure it out. Curiously, it works fine on Windows. Just a thought: have you tried updating the plug-in itself?... (I haven't

)

Ealswythe · Post by **Ealswythe** » December 11th, 2017, 8:00 am

I just downloaded and installed the newest version of ReplayGain in the correct plug-ins folder in the Audacity folder. It still shows up as Disabled, and no matter what I try to do by enabling it, both within Effects and Analyze, it still reverts back to Disabled.

tovarisch · Post by **tovarisch** » December 11th, 2017, 8:22 am

I saw the same behaviour on my Mac, which is why I switched back to using my Windows PC for recording.

BTW, where did you get 2.2.2? On 'audacityteam.org' I can only see 2.2.1...

Ealswythe · Post by **Ealswythe** » December 11th, 2017, 10:05 am

tovarisch wrote:I saw the same behaviour on my Mac, which is why I switched back to using my Windows PC for recording.

BTW, where did you get 2.2.2? On 'audacityteam.org' I can only see 2.2.1...

Hi Tovarisch,
I looked again right now, and you are correct. Mine is also 2.2.1. I don’t know why I thought it was .2. Anyway, it is interesting that you had the same trouble on your Mac. It’s the only computer I have, so I have no choice.

tovarisch · Post by **tovarisch** » December 11th, 2017, 10:14 am

From what I have seen over the years, Audacity 2.0 worked reasonably well. So, you might just roll back your installation to some previous version and keep recording (if you do need ReplayGain, that is), and wait until somebody else figures out how to fix the ReplayGain enabling problem. That's what I'd do, anyway...