help with sound recorder, anyone?

[JoelM]

Get to your Control Panel via:
Start | Settings | Control Panel

Double click on the Multimedia Icon and check that the "preferred" devices are your soundcard. (record & playback)

Sometimes BillyG's software gets lost and sets these to who knows what.

Hope this helps.

BTW I've email'd your site to my wife to look at.[nbsp][nbsp]She (we)begins homeschooling our eldest daughter here in a few weeks.[nbsp][nbsp]As well as just being offered a publishing deal with SAMS books, so she'll be REAL busy.

[julieA]

Well, I checked the box that says use only preferred devices. Is that what you meant? It still acts the same way. Is an ESS Audio Drive a sound card? Also, the mike makes static noises when I'm plugging it in as though it's not connecting well. Does that mean I may have to have a new sound card, cause the 'puter man says that will cost me $65! :([nbsp][nbsp][oh, no!] Sorry to be so UN-techno savvy but I've never opened the case of dear "Rhoda" for fear I might cause her demise. I need to take a class or something. :) What do you think? I can't do anything without that darn mike, right? sincerely, julieA PS Sure hope your wife likes my site. Tell her to write! Oh, yeah, she must do that already if she has a publishing deal. ;) hehe- little humor there. SAMS? Wow. Does this mean I'll be buying her book shortly. (Hi, my name is JulieA and I'm a computer how-to-book addict.) Thanks again for trying to help.
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mother of eight, wife of one...

[Charles Capps]

Mute IS off, right?[nbsp][nbsp]Sorry, had to make sure, I've been caught by that.[nbsp][nbsp]A LOT.[nbsp][nbsp]:)

Have you tried any other program?[nbsp][nbsp]
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"This is like being nibbled to death.....by CATS...."
http://flare.solareclipse.net

[julieA]

My sound recorder stopped working. I don't know if it is because I installed windows 98 since mom's stopped, too. Anyone have any suggestions? I need to record some .wav files for phonograms quizzes for my children. Dear Fellow FQ-ers, ANY help or advice will be most happily appreciated! :D

sincerely,
julieA
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mother of eight, wife of one...

[julieA]

:) Yes, I've done the mute thing, too- mostly with my cd player. But sound is on just not ON! Do you know of any other programs I could use? Mama mentioned that her 'puter tech friend asked what else she had but where do you get another recording program?
sincerely,
julieA
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mother of eight, wife of one...
[This message has been edited by julieA (edited 07-28-99)]

[JoelM]

Yes, the ESS is essentially your sound card.[nbsp][nbsp]Set the preferred device to that.

I don't think it is your recorder program.[nbsp][nbsp]
(BTW, there is a super recorder/editor trial at syntrillium.com called Cool-96)[nbsp][nbsp]We use an upgraded version of this to record, and edit the Pastor messages at our church.

[Justin]

As far as sound recording/editing programs, I use Cool Edit Pro 1.1 and Sound Forge 4.5 - both are studio grade mutli-track sound editing programs. I also use Goldwave 4.2, a shareware program for wave editing that is a worth every penny of it's $30 price tag :) However, I seriously doubt it's your software causing the problems...

The best thing to do is have your 98 CD handy, and follow these steps:

1) Open the control panel and double click on System

2) Expand the "Sound, Video, and Game Controllers" selection

3) Highlite (click on) your sound card (should say ESS Audio Drive 1880 or similar)

4) Click "Remove" and click "Yes" that you are sure

5) Make sure there are not other entries for your sound card in the list - if so, remove them as well

6) Reboot and let Win98 auto detect the sound card again

This should reinstall the drivers for your sound card as though you had installed it for the first time - usually this cures these types of problems.

If Windows does not auto detect the card, go into the control panel again and click "Add/Remove Hardware", and let it detect it (may take a while if it's not a plug 'n' play card, but it will detect it - I have had all of the different ESS cards in the past).

BTW - as for sound editing/recording programs, the ESS card should have come with Audio Rack 32 - it's a little cheesy but far superior to Sound Recorder...

Hope this helps.

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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Support

[Jacob Stetser]

Hey Justin-

Why does it do that, I mean, why do you have to reinstall the driver and go through all that mumbo-jumbo? Can't you just throw away the Sound preferences and let the system create a new one?

What happens to the old one to make it not work, and what causes that? I have this Win98 computer sitting next to the iMac and I've already had to restore from CD twice.. :þ Just trying to avoid problems in the future. I'm thinking, as long as I only use it for surfing the net, I might be fine :)

Jake
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icongarden.com/?fq (http://icongarden.com/?fq)
icongarden: making good ideas grow.

[Jacob Stetser]

I'm learning more and more how badly coded the UBB is.


[This message has been edited by Jacob Stetser (edited 07-28-99)]

[Justin]

To be honest, I have never had that problem myself on Win98 - been running 2 sound cards, 2 video cards, a modem, an Ethernet card, a 4X4X32 CD-RW drive, and wishing I had something to fill my final remaining PCI slot with, and yet I don't have those problems - and my whole PC is peiced together... whenever I see this type of problem it's when helping a friend diagnose a problem.

I think it's when someone plays with settings they should not play with, or possibly downloads a program that messes with areas of the registry that it shouldn't be messing with - either way, the problems don't just pop up on their own. It's always a case of something the user does (please don't take offence JulieA :))

The way I usually fix it is by doing just that - uninstall the problem device and reinstall it (the drivers, not the physical device). While Windows is a GUI interface, all of the underlying tools are there for those who know what they're doing - and shouldn't be messed with by those who don't IMHO...

But it's usually not fatal (as in needing a reinstall), as reinstalling the driver/program that has been affected will fix the problems. Usually...

Hope this helps a little.

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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Support

[Jacob Stetser]

Yeah, my Free-PC works just fine as long as I don't install anything.. I've installed one program on the current installation of Win98 - Winamp.

Last time I had to reinstall I had tried to install Visual Interdev 6 demo. Woo. All my ads disappeared and things started randomly freezing up.

To give Billy Boy some credit, I think it's a badly coded Free-PC client that messes things up, as well as a lack of RAM. At least it's free and does what I ask it to do. Look at web pages so I have a 2nd opinion :)

Jake
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icongarden: making good ideas grow.

[julieA]

OK, this is what happened. Mom and I right clicked my volume icon. Then I hit the option button and discovered that I had microphone un-checked. Once I checked it and did a lot of adjustments on the volumes, sound recorder is now functioning again. I do have a lot of feedback if anyone has any advice for fixing that but apparently Justin was right (again) and it was a USER problem. Thanks for all the support, you guys. sincerely, julieA :D[nbsp][nbsp][Now back to school...]

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mother of eight, wife of one...