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Yesterday I converted 6 audio cassettes to MP3 files using my laptop's mic input jack. The laptop doesn't have a line-in jack.
Yesterday evening, I decided to pull out my old desktop computer, to continue the audio conversions on it, so that I could use my laptop for other things. My desktop computer sound-card has both mic and line-in jacks.
As the computer hadn't been used in 2 and a half years, I expected it to be busy for a while installing updates. Instead I encountered a problem where a svchost process was continually using 100% CPU. It seems to be a known XP bug, and the only way around it seems to be disabling automatic updates.
Today I found out that mic jacks are actually mono. Even though the files I recorded yesterday appeared to be in stereo, with a signal on both the left and right tracks, both signals were exactly the same. In order to record in true stereo, a line-in jack must be used.
So pretty much all of yesterday's work will have to be re-done. It's a good thing I discovered this now, rather than later.
Today, my desktop computer had still other problems. The line-in signal sounded fine when played through the computer speakers. But when I recorded it and played it back, it had static. This happened with both the line-in and mic jacks, and with more than one recording application. I tried changing various settings, updating the sound-card drivers, and even changing a PCI Delay setting in the BIOS, but the problem persisted. So I think it is a sound-card problem.
Luckily, this household does not have a paucity of computers. Now I am using one of Qiao's extra computers, which also has a line-in jack. Recording on it seems to be working fine. I compared one of the stereo recordings to the mono recording of the same file done on the laptop, and there is definitely a big improvement.
Yesterday evening, I decided to pull out my old desktop computer, to continue the audio conversions on it, so that I could use my laptop for other things. My desktop computer sound-card has both mic and line-in jacks.
As the computer hadn't been used in 2 and a half years, I expected it to be busy for a while installing updates. Instead I encountered a problem where a svchost process was continually using 100% CPU. It seems to be a known XP bug, and the only way around it seems to be disabling automatic updates.
Today I found out that mic jacks are actually mono. Even though the files I recorded yesterday appeared to be in stereo, with a signal on both the left and right tracks, both signals were exactly the same. In order to record in true stereo, a line-in jack must be used.
So pretty much all of yesterday's work will have to be re-done. It's a good thing I discovered this now, rather than later.
Today, my desktop computer had still other problems. The line-in signal sounded fine when played through the computer speakers. But when I recorded it and played it back, it had static. This happened with both the line-in and mic jacks, and with more than one recording application. I tried changing various settings, updating the sound-card drivers, and even changing a PCI Delay setting in the BIOS, but the problem persisted. So I think it is a sound-card problem.
Luckily, this household does not have a paucity of computers. Now I am using one of Qiao's extra computers, which also has a line-in jack. Recording on it seems to be working fine. I compared one of the stereo recordings to the mono recording of the same file done on the laptop, and there is definitely a big improvement.