Audacity Mac vs PC Levels

[FrankF]

I've been playing with vinyl recordings for a while and getting what I would consider excellent results. So far have used PC each time and always take the time to set the input record volume levels. I had never tried on a Mac and simply out of curiosity I tried it but can't seem to get the input record volume to change regardless of how high or low I slide the setting to. I recorded a few tracks anyhow and the results were still what I would call excellent. How could this be? I'm thinking in the old days with cassettes I would stay away from auto level decks for obvious reasons. I would suspect preset or auto levels on a computer would be terrible as well? Yes I normalized afterward to -1.0.

So my question is what's going on here? Is there a way to manually set the record levels on a Mac? If not, and Mac does use preset unchangeable levels, why I am I getting very good results? Am I missing something simple?

Would really appreciate some input.

Thank you!

 

[laughingboy]

Sounds like something odd is happening. I've used audacity with a Mac, and you can set the recording levels (and the waveform displays that change in levels) just as you'd expect. You just adjust the slider that has an icon like an old condenser mic on the mixer toolbar.

https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/mixer_toolbar.html

Are you using Core Audio input? Or a device with an analogue-to-digital-converter between your source and your Mac? You might want to check that your input settings are correct.

 

[Tony L]

What is the audio interface? It is ages since I’ve actually used my Focusrite 2i2 but IIRC the levels in Audacity are static and you set the input level just using the level controls on the front of the Focusrite. It all lines up with the peak indicators on the interface box etc.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

What is the audio interface? It is ages since I’ve actually used my Focusrite 2i2 but IIRC the levels in Audacity are static and you set the input level just using the level controls on the front of the Focusrite. It all lines up with the peak indicators on the interface box etc.

Not a Mac user so can't comment on that aspect. But yes, I'd prefer using an analogue gain stage in the ADC to set the levels.

If someone is setting the level after the ADC make sure the input capture is 24bit. Even if you are going to trim this down to 16 bit when finished.

 

[farfromthesun]

What is the audio interface? It is ages since I’ve actually used my Focusrite 2i2 but IIRC the levels in Audacity are static and you set the input level just using the level controls on the front of the Focusrite. It all lines up with the peak indicators on the interface box etc.

You can adjust audio levels in Audacity on Mac - as mentioned above. FWIW, I always leave the level in Audacity alone. For either DJ recording or simply ripping vinyl, I get the DJ mixer levels set optimally, then adjust the Focusrite accordingly.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

FWIW I wrote my own DIY recording program (Linux ALSA based) so I could ensure that the data wasn't being fiddled with during recording. This generates an LPCM wave file I can load into Audacity, etc. Or play as is.