audio - UA-1G

I want to use my Aspire One to do some audio work, starting with digitizing my LP collection. But I'm having trouble figuring out what to do. I've bought a Cakewalk/Roland UA-1G, which is basically a USB soundcard with stereo input and output. But I haven't managed to find any application where it shows up.

I'm not sure whether I've missed some existing application, or whether I need to install one, or maybe upgrade the version of Linux. So any advice and pointers to online resources would be very helpful.

Thanks, Dave

 

Have you tried Audacity?

 

I used to do LP conversions professionally as part of my work. I wouldn't suggest using an AAO as a base for doing such work as it may end up either making low-quality recordings or recordings with some serious glitches. Best bet is to use a desktop PC with a decent audio chip, a decent amount of RAM and a fast HDD and CPU.

One of the main programs I used when converting a variety of audio sources to digital formats was Steinberg WaveLab. It allows for high quality WAV recording, then converting to virtually any audio format you wanted. At the same time, it generates a "peak" file which gives you a visual display of the actual audio wave. You can then trim, cut, reduce noise, fix jumps etc etc.

Again though, I would not suggest doing this sort of work on an AAO, but if you insist, WaveLab is an awesome application for the job.

 

Thanks for the ideas guys. I'm really looking for help at the more basic level of getting the hardware recognized and working. (That's why I posted in the hardware forum )

I should probably add that I'm running Linux on the solid-state version of the machine. For this hardware & OS to not keep up with a single stereo audio stream, there'd need to be a serious bug somewhere!

 

The reason I ask about Audacity is it is free and is cross platform. I have used it with several Linux distros and Windows. It has never had a problem, for me, finding and using the hardware.

 

OK, thanks. To get things running I've switched over to another machine running opensuse 11.3, which I understand better than Linpus and which has a more recent kernel etc. And I understand how to install audacity But on that machine, audacity doesn't see the device. At usb level, it's there and alsa kind-of sees it but there's something not quite there. Once I sort out what's needed to get it to work, I'll come back to the Acer, because I need it to work on that somehow.

 

Have you tried Linux Mint?

 

SOLVED: audio - UA-1G

Just to let everybody know what happened ...

My experiments with opensuse 11.3 led to me getting it working in standard mode (i.e. up to CD or DAT standard) but not in enhanced mode (24 bit, 96 kHz).

I then tried Knoppix 6.3.4 and it all worked. I put Knoppix 6.4.4 on a USB stick and booted my AAO from it and everything worked! Yea!

Sound quality was pretty good except there was a lot of interfence when the netbook was plugged into the mains. On battery it was fine. I think the PSU is double-isolated so it wasn't a hum loop (and didn't sound like it either) so perhaps some kind of inductive pickup and a lack of isolation in the AAO? Doesn't matter though because the battery lasts long enough for what I want to do.

Thanks, Dave