I bought this Griffin iMic years ago to record my vinyl using Audacity on my laptop. I'd never really noticed any issue until recently when I played back a couple of recordings that clearly had different stuff going on in each channel. From this I could tell that audacity was recording 2 channels, it seems really to be one, duplicated. Which kind of defeats the object when you can see in the picture that the device is taking both left and right channels into the cable. So 2 questions - any idea if this is a problem with device, or software? And what do others use to record vinyl (not including USB turntables)?
Audacity does that by default I think. You need to go into the preferences menu, then audio I/O, recording, channels.
You should be able to set it to stereo from there. You'll need to restart audacity though before the changes come into effect. If that doesn't work then it could be that the griffin cable's knacked or has dirty contacts maybe. I still use audacity to transfer tapes from time to time, but I also use Amadeus Pro.
I've checked my settings again and I still think I've done it correctly. However, when recording the vinyl, I would expect the 2 waveforms to be slightly different, especially when there are speaker hopping effects going on, but there's definitely just the 1 waveform duplicated it seems. I'm starting to suspect the iMic now because that's the only thing I cannot really test thoroughly.
There's another thing to check. Is the input to your PC a mono or stereo input?
I am guessing that running the turntable into an amp & the signal out of the amp (via tape monitor) into the PC is off the table? You can do that with a regular RCA to jack cable straight into the mic socket
There's another thing to check. Is the input to your PC a mono or stereo input?
I am guessing that running the turntable into an amp & the signal out of the amp (via tape monitor) into the PC is off the table? You can do that with a regular RCA to jack cable straight into the mic socket
Yes, so turntable is in amp and then I'm using Tape Out. This PC doesn't have a mic socket. Don't know why. I also realised the other day that I can't use "Record What U Hear" either, probably because the internal soundcard doesn't support it?
Actually, a thought occurs to me. I can try my work laptop and see if I get better results as that's what I used the first time I attempted to record my vinyl.
There's another thing to check. Is the input to your PC a mono or stereo input?
I am guessing that running the turntable into an amp & the signal out of the amp (via tape monitor) into the PC is off the table? You can do that with a regular RCA to jack cable straight into the mic socket
Yes, so turntable is in amp and then I'm using Tape Out. This PC doesn't have a mic socket. Don't know why. I also realised the other day that I can't use "Record What U Hear" either, probably because the internal soundcard doesn't support it?
Click on Start - Control Panel - Hardware and Sound - Manage audio Devices - Recording ... you'll then see a list of your recording options, I Have "Microphone In At Front Panel", "Microphone" and "Stereo Mix", the Microphone setting record via the external microphone, if you have that setting you should be able to use the "Record What U Hear" option
I found the problem. I ordered a new USB device (Behringer UCA222) but this one has a monitor so I can plug headphones into it. When I played my record with the new device, sound was only coming out of one headphone speaker, which of course meant one channel was never even reaching the laptop. That led me to check the cable between the Amp and the USB device and found it was faulty. So i've now got a device I didn't need but at least it's solved my problem now. I am now recording Vinyl in Stereo!