Talk:Audacity Setup and Configuration

Bill's section on hardware connectivity retained here

Identifying the sound ports on your computer

First of all you need to know the sound input capabilities of your computer. Most desktop PCs (Windows and Linux) will have sound ports on the back of the computer similar to these illustrations.

The rear of a typical PC	The color-coded jacks on the sound card

The red port is normally the microphone input, and is usually mono but might be stereo. The blue port is normally the line input port and is usually stereo. The green port is normally the headphone output port, also usually stereo. Check your computer manual to be sure.

PC laptops vary widely in the types of sound input and output ports they provide, where they are on the laptop, and how they are labelled. Again, check your computer manual to be sure of the capabilities of your laptop, where the ports are and how they are labelled.

Macs do not generally have a microphone input port.

Audio connections on a PowerBook	Audio connections on an iMac

In these illustrations of sound ports on Macs, the round port with the headphone symbol is the Line Output port. The round port beside the headphone port is the line input port.

Other Macs (Mini, Mac Pro, MacBook and MacBook Pro) are similarly equipped. Check your manual for the locations and labelling of these ports.

Identifying various cables and plugs

The terms "jack", "socket" and "port" are often used interchangeably. These all refer to something that a plug plugs into. Plugs plug into jacks, plugs plug into sockets, and plugs plug into ports.

In this tutorial we will refer to sockets on a computer as ports, and sockets on audio equipment as jacks. This is consistent with common usage. A guitarist will plug into the jack on their amplifier, a computer user will plug their USB device into the USB port on their computer.

On virtually all computers the audio ports will be of a type referred to as 1/8", 3.5mm or mini-plug. Here's what these plugs look like.

A mono mini-plug	A stereo mini-plug

Audio equipment may also use mini-jacks. Quite often the headphone output on portable equipment such as an iPod or Walkman will be a stereo mini-jack.

Audio equipment may also use the larger 1/4" jacks and plugs.

A mono 1/4" plug	A stereo 1/4" plug

Stereo 1/4" jacks are often found on the front panels of non-portable (home) audio equipment such as home theatre receivers and cassette decks. They may also be found on DJ mixers and professional keyboards.

Electric guitars and amplifiers are equipped with 1/4" mono jacks.

Tip, Ring and Sleeve

The parts of a stereo or mono plug, either 1/8" or 1/4", are identified by the terms "tip", "ring" and "sleeve" as shown in the illustration above. A mono plug has no ring. Thus you may encounter the terms "TRS plug" or "TRS jack". In stereo operation the tip connects to the left channel signal, the ring to the right channel signal, and the sleeve to ground.

Previous version of page retained here

For many users, Audacity will just work "out of the box", and you can immediately begin playing and recording. However, because there are so many different types of computers and ways to configure computers, some users may need to set up Audacity the first time they use it.

Temporary Files

Most users have only one hard disk. However, if you have multiple hard disks, you will want to make sure that Audacity uses your largest or fastest hard disk to store audio. Open the Preferences (in the Edit menu, or the Audacity menu on Mac OS X) and click on the Directories tab. Make sure that the directory listed is on your preferred hard disk.

If your home directory is mounted from a remote server, you definitely do not want Audacity's temporary directory to be there!

Setting up for recording

Getting sound into your computer

Locate the three colored analog audio ports on the back of your computer - almost every PC will have these as part of its built-in sound card. The red jack is for microphone input (usually mono, not stereo), the green jack is for line output (to your amplified speakers or headphones) and the blue jack is for stereo line input (like from a cassette player).

Back of a typical PC

Close-up of the audio ports

If you have a Mac, your audio ports will look something more like the image below. In this picture, the left jack is for stereo line input (like from a cassette player) and the right jack is for line output (to your amplified speakers or headphones).

For better audio quality, many people use an USB audio device. If you have such a device, attach your microphone and speakers to that device, and plug the device into your computer's USB port.

USB Cable and Plug

USB Ports

Using your computer's sound control panel, or the custom mixer application for your specific sound card, select the input device you want to use and verify that you are getting sound into the computer from that device. Do not proceed until you can do this. There is no point opening Audacity and trying to record something if you have not yet managed to get the sound you want into your computer.

Getting sound into Audacity

Open the Preferences (in the Edit menu, or the Audacity menu on Mac OS X) and click on Devices in the list on the left of the window. Choose your preferred sound card or audio device from the lists provided. Usually you should choose the same device for recording and playback, but it is possible for them to be different. For example you may want to choose your built-in sound card for playback and a USB microphone for recording.

After you have set your preferred audio device, look at the Mixer Toolbar:

The two sliders control the volume levels on your sound card; the selector on the left controls the output volume and the selector on the right controls the input source for recording (such as "Line In" or "Mic"). Adjust these appropriately.

If you are unable to move the sliders, or if the sliders always "jump back" to the same value no matter where you put them, don't panic: some sound cards do not have level controls, and some of them have controls that are not compatible with Audacity. To adjust your sound card levels, you will need to use other system software or perhaps a special control panel that came with your sound card.

Start your audio source then click on the right-hand meter (the recording level meter) to start monitoring the input. If the meters start indicating an input signal but you can't hear it, click on Transport > Software Playthrough and make sure that option is checked.

Adjust the input slider on the mixer toolbar so that the recording meter reaches to approximately the -6 dB mark on the loudest passages.

See the Meter Toolbar page for more details on adjusting and monitoring the recording level.

If you can't get any indication on the recording level meter at this point, you need to go back and check that you have set the correct recording device in the Devices section of Preferences. If everything appears to be correct but you still can't get sound into Audacity, look at this page on the Audacity wiki.

Setting up for playback

Once you have successfully set up Audacity for recording and can hear the input you are also set up for playback. You can use the output slider on the Mixer Toolbar to control the volume at which you listen to your Audacity project.

Note that the playback meters in the Meter Toolbar do not change as you adjust the output slider: these meters always indicate the volume of the mix of your Audacity project.

Project Sample Rate

The sampling rate, sample rate, or sampling frequency defines the number of samples per second (or per other unit) taken from a continuous signal to make a discrete signal. For time-domain signals, it can be measured in samples per second.

Now you are ready to play and record audio.