Recording with Audacity from Digital Performer

[Rick Averill]

Hi. I wasn't sure whether to post this here, or under General MacIntosh questions. But it only occurs using DP, so here goes. I was trying to make a recording of a sequence in DP-10 using Audacity and Soundflower. I set the System sound preferences to Soundflower for both input and output. and in Audacity, I set the device prefs/record to Soundflower. But when I record, there is silence, both audibly and visusally in the waveform window. I tried it again, while playing a YouTube video in Safari, and it works perfectly. Why would it work with Safari, but not DP? Appreciate any help you folks can give me.

[terrybritton]

My better question would be why you aren't using DP's bounce features instead? That's already built-in to DP and doesn't require you to record from a second program.

Terry

[Rick Averill]

When I first started using DP, years ago, I had trouble using bounce. I can’t recall the specifics, but I found it easier to use Audacity to record it. But the computer I did that on crashed a couple of years ago and I’m just now starting to use DP on a new Mac. But I will once again look into bounce.

[bayswater]

I've often recorded from DP to DSP-Quattro, or Logic, or from either of these into DP using Soundflower with the setup you describe. Never with Safari, and not on Windows. I don't know why this wouldn't work. Are you able to set up some sort of monitoring, either by routing audio to the D/A converters and speakers, or by putting meters in the recording app's audio channels to ensure that a signal is actually passing from one app to another? (On the Mac, I just set audio to use Soundflower as the system audio device so I can hear what passes through a Soundflower channel. Don't know how to do that on Windows)

[Rick Averill]

Thank you for your response. When I select Soundflower in System Preferences, there is no sound from my speakers.

[bayswater]

The signal path you have to set up to run audio through Soundflower and monitor from there to speakers is not intuitive. I have to refer back to some instructions I downloaded to get it working on a Mac.

But if you are recording from DP to Audacity, does the latter have metering you can use on the recording channel to see if it detects a signal, even if you don't hear it?

BTW, as someone mentioned earlier bouncing might be worth a shot. I've not had problems bouncing the signal from the main outs to a file since somewhere in V8. You can also route the main out back to an audio channel via busses/auxes and do a real time recording to that channel.

[Rick Averill]

Thank you all for your kind replies. I went back and investigated bouncing, as suggested, and I found it worked well. It’s not as complicated as I remember it. I probably just didn’t understand it then. So, problem solved. Thanks again.

[bayswater]

Perfect.