i want to record using audacity and i have one usb slot(the second one
is broken) on my mac laptop. i got a usb2 hub with 4 slots and two usb
headset mics to record with. the os 10.3 operating sys recognizes both
mics, and in audacity the audio I/O preferences has two mics listed but
of course i cannot select both. for the life of me i cannot figure out
how to record within audacity with both mics operated by separate
people and have the audio recorded from both mics. i can only get the
audio to record from mic #1. audacity's setup doesnt seem to have any
selection for having two mics record simultaneously for either the same
track or two separate audio tracks. i will take either one. thats all i
need, to know how to record with two mics and have the audio recorded
by audacity or another easy program.
do i need something like a mixer?
would another program allow me to record using two mics? or am i
missing something within audacity.
any help is appreciated.
thanks

I don't know anything about the stuff that you have... But it occurs to me
that a single mic is a mono source. Perhaps there is a way to tie them
together before you put them into your USB doo-hicky so that it would be one
stereo input device. Just a though.

James. )




wrote in message
oups.com...
i want to record using audacity and i have one usb slot(the second one
is broken) on my mac laptop. i got a usb2 hub with 4 slots and two usb
headset mics to record with. the os 10.3 operating sys recognizes both
mics, and in audacity the audio I/O preferences has two mics listed but
of course i cannot select both. for the life of me i cannot figure out
how to record within audacity with both mics operated by separate
people and have the audio recorded from both mics. i can only get the
audio to record from mic #1. audacity's setup doesnt seem to have any
selection for having two mics record simultaneously for either the same
track or two separate audio tracks. i will take either one. thats all i
need, to know how to record with two mics and have the audio recorded
by audacity or another easy program.
do i need something like a mixer?
would another program allow me to record using two mics? or am i
missing something within audacity.
any help is appreciated.
thanks

In article .com,
" wrote:

i want to record using audacity and i have one usb slot(the second one
is broken) on my mac laptop. i got a usb2 hub with 4 slots and two usb
headset mics to record with. the os 10.3 operating sys recognizes both
mics, and in audacity the audio I/O preferences has two mics listed but
of course i cannot select both. for the life of me i cannot figure out
how to record within audacity with both mics operated by separate
people and have the audio recorded from both mics. i can only get the
audio to record from mic #1. audacity's setup doesnt seem to have any
selection for having two mics record simultaneously for either the same
track or two separate audio tracks. i will take either one. thats all i
need, to know how to record with two mics and have the audio recorded
by audacity or another easy program.
do i need something like a mixer?
would another program allow me to record using two mics? or am i
missing something within audacity.
any help is appreciated.
thanks

Why use Audacity for recording? It's great for editing the file, but you
can use just about anything to lay down the tracks; with OS 9, I used
"Coaster" to do a lot of stereo recording; no idea if there's an OS X
equivalent.

Isaac

"Isaac Wingfield" wrote ...
andrewlang29 wrote:....
track or two separate audio tracks. i will take either one. thats all
i
need, to know how to record with two mics and have the audio recorded
by audacity or another easy program.
do i need something like a mixer?
would another program allow me to record using two mics? or am i
missing something within audacity.
any help is appreciated.
thanks

Why use Audacity for recording? It's great for editing the file, but
you
can use just about anything to lay down the tracks; with OS 9, I used
"Coaster" to do a lot of stereo recording; no idea if there's an OS X
equivalent.

The issue isn't the recording application software.
The issue is that andrewlang29's Mac has no provision
to combine two independent mono sources into a logical
stereo source. This seems hardly surprising.

That the mics plug in with USB would indicate that they
have built-in A/D conversion. These kind of mics are
fine for low-quality computer use, but not really suitable
for any kind of stereo recording. That is likely why there
is no provision to combine two of these into a stereo
stream.

Even if you wrote a driver that would allow these two
mono sources into a logical stereo "source", you would
have the problem that the sampling clocks of the two
mics are not synchronized to each other. This would make
very ragged synchronization of the left & right channels.

would the answer perhapsbe to get a mixer?

andrewlang29 wrote ...
would the answer perhapsbe to get a mixer?

Where did you find a "mixer" for USB microphones?

In article ,
"Richard Crowley" wrote:

"Isaac Wingfield" wrote ...
andrewlang29 wrote:....
track or two separate audio tracks. i will take either one. thats all
i
need, to know how to record with two mics and have the audio recorded
by audacity or another easy program.
do i need something like a mixer?
would another program allow me to record using two mics? or am i
missing something within audacity.
any help is appreciated.
thanks

Why use Audacity for recording? It's great for editing the file, but
you
can use just about anything to lay down the tracks; with OS 9, I used
"Coaster" to do a lot of stereo recording; no idea if there's an OS X
equivalent.

The issue isn't the recording application software.
The issue is that andrewlang29's Mac has no provision
to combine two independent mono sources into a logical
stereo source.

In a recording situation, there is no such thing as "a logical stereo
source". It's just some number of signals, probably each originating
from a separate microphone (two is a useful number, for "stereo").

Any Mac that has two-channel audio capability can handle that. I've done
it on several, including a 6100, a Beige G3, an 8500, and others. Even
many PowerBooks can do it.

It may be that the problem lies in the USB adapter. I've never done it
that way; I've always fed two analog audio sources into the two-channel
analog audio jack on the Mac. And in some cases, edited the resulting
files using Audacity.

Isaac

"Isaac Wingfield" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Richard Crowley" wrote:

"Isaac Wingfield" wrote ...
andrewlang29 wrote:....
track or two separate audio tracks. i will take either one. thats
all
i
need, to know how to record with two mics and have the audio
recorded
by audacity or another easy program.
do i need something like a mixer?
would another program allow me to record using two mics? or am i
missing something within audacity.
any help is appreciated.
thanks

Why use Audacity for recording? It's great for editing the file,
but
you
can use just about anything to lay down the tracks; with OS 9, I
used
"Coaster" to do a lot of stereo recording; no idea if there's an OS
X
equivalent.

The issue isn't the recording application software.
The issue is that andrewlang29's Mac has no provision
to combine two independent mono sources into a logical
stereo source.

In a recording situation, there is no such thing as "a logical stereo
source". It's just some number of signals, probably each originating
from a separate microphone (two is a useful number, for "stereo").

Correct. But we are are talking about a "computer situation"
not a conventional "recording situation". In the computer world,
applications expect to see a "logical stereo source" where there
are two interleaved bitstreams coming into the software.

Any Mac that has two-channel audio capability can handle that. I've
done
it on several, including a 6100, a Beige G3, an 8500, and others. Even
many PowerBooks can do it.

Of course. As long as you are talking about the analog inputs,
and you could say exactly the same thing for PCs.

It may be that the problem lies in the USB adapter. I've never done it
that way; I've always fed two analog audio sources into the
two-channel
analog audio jack on the Mac. And in some cases, edited the resulting
files using Audacity.

And there is the rub. There is no driver for Macs or for PCs
that will take two mono USB digital audio streams and combine
them into a "logical stereo stream" which is what Audacity (and
every other audio application) expects to see.

And even if you DID write a driver to take two of these USB
microphones and combine them into a logical stereo stream,
the fact that the sources are running random (uncorrelated)
sampling means that you have a major problem synchronizing
them together. The effort to do this would enormously out-
weigh any benefit one could derive from it.

"Richard Crowley" wrote in message

And there is the rub. There is no driver for Macs or for PCs
that will take two mono USB digital audio streams and combine
them into a "logical stereo stream" which is what Audacity (and
every other audio application) expects to see.


Then record the two stereo streams and ause half of each !

geoff

On Tue, 15 Nov 2005 23:12:44 -0800, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

And there is the rub. There is no driver for Macs or for PCs
that will take two mono USB digital audio streams and combine
them into a "logical stereo stream" which is what Audacity (and
every other audio application) expects to see.

And even if you DID write a driver to take two of these USB
microphones and combine them into a logical stereo stream,
the fact that the sources are running random (uncorrelated)
sampling means that you have a major problem synchronizing
them together. The effort to do this would enormously out-
weigh any benefit one could derive from it.


You're getting all hung up on this "logical stereo stream" idea that
you've invented.

Audacity will accept two channels of input. They can be the two sides
of a stereo recording, or they can be completely different signals. It
may well store them as an interleaved stereo file. But that's nothing
to do with how they get into the computer.

The USB mic under discussion includes its own computer interface - its
own "soundcard" if you like. Maybe the system will accept two of
these at once. But even if it does, they won't be synchronised and
will therefore be useless for stereo recording. These mics are
very useful for quick and convenient setup and recording. But for
multitrack work they're out of their depth.

"Laurence Payne" wrote ...
You're getting all hung up on this "logical stereo stream"
idea that you've invented.

Audacity will accept two channels of input. They can be the
two sides of a stereo recording, or they can be completely
different signals. It may well store them as an interleaved
stereo file. But that's nothing to do with how they get into
the computer.

If that were true, the OP would not be experiencing the problem
that prompted this thread in the first place. Do you understand
how audio device drivers work and how they interface with
layered applications? At this level, the fact that we are talking
about audio is immaterial to the discussion. This is basic modern
computer operating system Application Program Interface stuff.

What kinds of Windows (or other OS) applications have you
developed? Which APIs did you use? Have you written any
device drivers (audio or otherwise) or used the SDKs?

Audacity will accept two channels of input. They can be the
two sides of a stereo recording, or they can be completely
different signals. It may well store them as an interleaved
stereo file. But that's nothing to do with how they get into
the computer.

If that were true, the OP would not be experiencing the problem
that prompted this thread in the first place.

His problem is that he has a USB headset.