mp3 recording help needed

I'm having trouble recording mp3s. My Asus laptop has 2 headphone jacks and I used to use a short cable between one of them to my microphone jack and use Magix to record internet radio while I'm at work.

I recently had a virus removed that required reinstalling Windows 7. Since then one headphone jack stopped working and when I connect the one that does work to the mic jack I just get a buzz in the recording.

If I connect a mic to the jack and record from that it seems to work but the recording is not as good as when I would go directly to the headphone jack.

I use Audacity. Records anything your computer is running or anything your listening to. Free. Then you can export to MP3.

I use Audacity as well and have come to really like it. It is now my audio editor of choice. The only problem I have encountered is "dropouts" in the data stream being recorded. The artifacts range from unnoticeable to annoyingly long. I use Time Warner Road Runner as a service provider, not their fastest nor their slowest but about 100 Mb/sec. The dropouts are not the fault of the Audacity program, as they result when the digital data stream packets arrives just a bit too late to maintain a continuous stream of bits to the digital to analog conversion process. The gaps do not remove any of the original data, they just delay it's arrival a fraction.

You can use the Audacity program to remove the dropouts because they are easy to spot in the waveform display as they playback as "flat line" zero Db displays in both left and right channels. You pause and back up to the visible gap, position the cursor at the beginning and "paint" over to the end and click "clip". It's rather tedious but soothing in a way (like shucking peas). The result is a CD quality version of the original.

Audacity has filtering options to remove hiss, pops, and clicks from an audio data stream. these artifacts are usually produced when you transfer music from Vinyl or analog tape to digital. The filtering does remove some of the data stream and thus reduces the quality of the digital playback. I have found that none of the available filters work to remove dropouts. I think that there could be either hardware or software methods of monitoring the data stream and "pausing" it when both left and right channels fell to zero and stayed there for at least two bytes. Upon a non zero condition you'd resume the output to memory. I know what needs to be done, I just don't know how to do it...

Regards,
GtG

1. Find the audio settings folder and look at what devices are selected for line in. There may be a windows default that may not match and utilize your hardware.

2. You might have to install the drivers. You usually have to manually install your hardware specific drivers when you reinstall the OS. The drivers disk is typically on a separate disk or you can visit the computer vendor website and download and then install them.

Good luck!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.