I am a recent convert from Mac OS to Elementary OS Juno. I cannot find the answer anywhere to the problem I'm having with Audacity. When I record a vinyl record I'm only getting fuzzy bass tones. No treble and the bass tones that are recorded sound horrible. I never had this problem with OSX and all the signal paths are the same. All the Audacity settings seem to be good too. Any ideas as to what's gone wrong? Am I missing some driver?

Hello and welcome to LQ.
I think this could go in a different forum if you don't get a better answer than I have. If no one solves this then ask for it to be moved to maybe software forum.


I doubt it has anything to do with Audacity being bad exaclty, rather some setting or program related to it.

Exactly how are you attempting to match impedance to computer? Do you have a usb turntable?

Does this vinyl work in vlc or other program to produce correct sound.


There are a few settings for input and output for Audacity up near the top.

It also has a few types of audio framework to get from hardware to Audacity so that my be last step.

How are you doing the recording? Are you using something like an Ion turntable?

Thanks for the replys. The path is turntable rca to receiver. Receiver rca tape out to Mac Mini audio in jack. I've successfully recorded using this method for years, only now that I switched to Linux have I had this issue.

I haven't tried recording from VLC... I did try to record some audio off of a dvd from the dvd player rca out in the same method as the vinyl and produced the same shoddy results.

The essential question is:
Is this setup working otherwise?
Can you listen to these records throuigh your computer?

You can, but again it's all fuzzy...

So the problem has nothing to do with audacity?

That is certainly a possibility. I've used Audacity for years and believe I have all the settings right. The fact that I'm using an older Mac has me wondering if it's some sort of compatibilty / driver issue.

Very generally speaking, it should be possible and trivial to connect an analog amplifiers line out to your computer's line in.
Do some basic troubleshooting:
1) do you have the right output?
You can test this without the computer by e.g. plugging the cable into active speakers line in.
2) If you do, do you have the right input on the computer?
If not, it should sound fuzzy regardless of the OS.
3) Can you get good sound into the computer from a different source?

If after all these steps you're still 100% sure it's elementary OS, open pavucontrol (your pulseaudio mixer application) and take a good 10 minutes to play with ALL the settings. It's not exactly intuitive and you might've missed something.

Yes, I've already done your points 1, 2, and 3. But the pavucontrol may be the ticket I'm looking for. Thanks and I'll report back.

...

So I a have accessed the alsamixer and all the settings appear to be fine. I've downloaded the Reco recorder and get the same results. However, if I use Reco to record the computer and not the line in I get perfect results. So this has to be an issue with the line in? Am I missing a driver? The sound card is an HDA NVidia with Realtek ALC889A chip in an older Mac Mini. Any ideas are appreciated, thanks.