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so i upgraded to adobe audition from cool edit. i usually use Pro Tools le to record my acappella vocal bands i sing with. but i thought i should get a lightweight prgram like (cool edit/audition) to make very raw tracks of me singing on many tracks so that my guys would have a basic idea of vocal arrangements so i wouldnt have to write them out on sheet music. when i got audition i pleased to see that it really is improved and much more robust than i expected. the problem is when i hoook up a really cheap mini mic(those little ones on the little boom that come with computers these days..this is all i need for th etypes fo raw recordings i will be making for these vocal arr) i get nothing to record in audition when i arm thetrack and when i select the input. .so at this point i am covinced that it is the audio card since the mic works with my minidisc player. so where do i go to find out how to fix this? i know it is porlly a simple problem. i am talking about my toshiba portege laptop with a simple soundcard from ALI. i have checked the volume control panel and set the levels for recording. i have even tried the 'sndrec32' command in the RUN window for windows and the player comes up but when i hit record the mic is not making any visible recordings nor is the computer registering any sound coming into it.well i am first to admit that i am not even amazing at Pro Tools. but i have never had this simple of problems, usually in Pro Tools it is something complex. i tried making sure the track was armed with the red r. and then selected the right or left mono. i have checked my volume control panel thirty times in the control menu for windows. and i have loooked in the input area of AA. there are only two options in the input area for arming the track, ALI sound wave and wave mapper.i have tired both many times. i did check to see if my skype (it is a chat client with the best voip out there) was working. this confirmed to me that it is indeed some kind of driver problem. not only did the keyboard mic not work, neither did the little one i have been plugging in. i eve ntried goign to deive manager and uninstalled the sound card and then re-instlaling it. nothing. one last thing, when i record...i should see a waveform in the track box where i a m recording if it is working right? bc i am not seeing one. .like it is not registering a signal. thanks

Comments

anonymous Sat, 05/28/2005 - 23:18

i have tested the mic with a bunch of other minidisc recorders....no thoughts on what i should do next? i know it is not the mic since i tried it again a bunch on other sources.....any ideas? please? i loaded AA on my desktop and used the same mic. and it is doing the exact same thing....so either i have a bad program...which i doubt...or i am not doing something right.....when i arm the track and hit the spacer button to record shouldnt it show a wave form graph in the track window? bc i am not getting anything....

anonymous Mon, 05/30/2005 - 11:26

i tried that several times. i even loaded AA on my pc which is a desktop and it is doing the same exact thing. so it has to be either a bad prgram (which i doubt) or some simple setting. how do i test my keyboard mic? i have tested the plug in one and made sure it is the right plug. the reason i ask is because i think i changed some thing in skype bc no one can hear me when i am trying to audio chat but i can hear them so i think that something is keeping the audio from being accepted in both cases for AA and for skype...though this doesnt explain my desktop not working. i am going to load sonar 4 on my laptop to see if it works. i would use protools but the whole reason i went to AA for simple recording projects is bc i dont have the processor on my little p3 (728ram) laptop to hang with the new protools....it only runs 6.1 fine. so i hope sonar is not as bad even if it works bc it wont work for my needs. when i am recoridng shouldnt i see a waveform in the track window showing the audio beiong recorded? all i am seeing is gray and the track line moves as it seems to record nothing......there isnt even a line.

TeddyG Mon, 05/30/2005 - 18:25

Have you tried another mic(Any other mic) with same programs? If the mic you're talking about is what I'm thinking(2 bucks? 3? 10?) it isn't worth doing a whole lot of worrying about...

After trying another mic - I've got to say here that, problem or no, I sort've wish you'd go for a tiny bit more quality... like maybe a 30 dollar Radio Shack dynamic mic? Seriously. Still, if you're following all of the instructions for your system and it doesn't work, your best bet may be to go to the various web sites for tech support for your gear, maybe starting with your soundcard maker. Perhaps your soundcard needs some new(Or old?) drivers you could download from the web? The drivers you have may not agree with the OS in your laptop or whatever...

By the way, Adobe Audition(The former Cool Edit Pro), is not exactly a "lightweight" piece of software. Should do alot of what you need to do - tracking to mastering. Could also go on their "forum"(If they have one?), and chat with others who use it - make sure your settings are right.

The other day I found I wasn't hearing audio through Windows Media player. Tried everything I could think of, no luck. Finally, opened up the WMP "options" menu. The "speaker/sound" checkbox was muted..! How? I have no idea... Most of our problems are settings.

Meantime, I'd sure like to see you try another mic, at least until you get it working...

TG

anonymous Mon, 05/30/2005 - 23:21

Teddy

thanks, i know AA is no longer light.....i got it thinking it was...realizing it is no more robust than before. the mic works fine on other units and computers. i have many nicer mics.....but remember considering the things i want to do without having to open pt and hook up my mbox. i want to be able to make very raw tracks of me singing different tracks all together so i can arrange and hear what harmonies will sound like...i want to make raw arrangemnts for my singers i work with. a cheap mic will work fine for this purpose(though i do need a decent LDC soon). i just installed sonar 4 and it is telling me in the setup process that there is an audio driver error: the following driver either does not support the current audio format or is in use by another program, please choose whether i want to disable or use them anyway. the only card i have is the ALi audio wave....and i suspect that it is the reason i cant get any sound into the programs. i have mentioned all of this to the cool edit forum on home recording and they havent answered yet. i checked protools and it is acting the same way.....so i must have a driver problem now. i re-installed the drivers and that didnt work so i am going contacvt toshiba and see what it could be bc it seems like there is no longer any audio being heard by the computer......and many of these programs like protools and skype worked fine two months ago...so i either messed something up or some thing got changed.

TeddyG Tue, 05/31/2005 - 07:45

I have had "things" change, too and what worked, then, doesn't. Often the drivers for the audio card itself would no longer function and simply needed updated... Even Adobe Acrobat Reader has caused problems seemingly completely unrelated to it, which an AAR update "cured" instantly. Still, if it's Sonar, telling you there is an error, it is Sonar to ask(Or rather, the Sonar tech folks.), at least at first... Toshiba "may" be of help, too...

BTW: You ARE SAYING that you HAVE tried OTHER MICS and THEY TOO have NOT worked??? I don't care what you decide to normally use, just that you try some other mic with your current system just to see if the system itself is working...

TG

anonymous Tue, 05/31/2005 - 18:48

ok so i called toshiba and we trouble shot the audio card till we got it working...i ended up feeling very confused bc i am positive i tried the things we did many times. so i got it to record in the little sound recorder so next was to get all the prgrams to work. i called digidesign and we got the programs working. i am having pt 6.1/6.4 issues on my pc but that is another matter since pt seems to be working fine (though i really cant use it on this laptop bc even one plugin is too much for hte processor when recording it seems). so i tried the simple mic with sonar and while it is now working i am hearing a steady clip the whole time....even when i lower the volume. strange. in AA i am having no problems.....i wonder if it is bc sonar is more a system hog than AA....no t sure.....i am excited that i have AA working but the two issues i face now are: how can i set up to hear what i am recording/singing into AA while i am singing/recording it(i cant just hook up headphones to my headphone out can i ?) and i guess i need to figure an economical way to get signal into these programs if i want to use any thing nicer than these crap mics that hook into my microphone in on my laptop....i hate to spend another several hundred bucks (on something like a spike or edirol) since i have an mbox and really need to spend my next recording money allotment on a rode nt1a LDC. thoughts? i think this little mic will serve it purpose for what i really need AA for but i am starting to realize that my computer may be too slow for pt to ever run on it and right now i am having problems getting pt on the other one and getting the extra drive i have to work with that computer. so i may need to turn to this laptop for more serious projects.
HERES A QUESTION: any way i can get my mbox to talk to my sonar and AA programs? i know that digi hardware is proprietary but has any one been able to pull this off? i like pt but will not be able to really use it on my laptop until i get a faster one......and i like the mbox i would hate to haveto get another similar unit that does the same thing just so i can get monitoring and better/cleaner signal mics connected.

ghellquist Tue, 05/31/2005 - 23:58

playdeep wrote:
HERES A QUESTION: any way i can get my mbox to talk to my sonar and AA programs? i know that digi hardware is proprietary but has any one been able to pull this off? i like pt but will not be able to really use it on my laptop until i get a faster one......and i like the mbox i would hate to haveto get another similar unit that does the same thing just so i can get monitoring and better/cleaner signal mics connected.

Install Digidesigns ASIO or WME drivers. They are on the CD as well as freely downloadable from their website. I use ASIO with other programs and generally it works quite OK. Note however that the MBox is "single application", ie do not assign the MBox as standard windows output as that will tie up the box. If you go with WME instead, download the helper program from Digidesigns homepage.

Gunnar

anonymous Fri, 06/03/2005 - 14:55

how do i make sure that i do not accidently assign it? it works with others programs huh? that is very exciting. which program (wme or asio) do i want to go with if i use Adobe audition and on occcasion sonar(i guess i have cubase and logic too)?i checked the website and i only see wavdrivers and asio driver for 6.1.1....will this work with 6.4 or later or does it matter since i am getting it to use my mbox with other apps? thanks