I am getting ready to produce another series of tutorials about getting started with MC.
In the first series I could not use the sound tracks on the timeline as I am using the onboard soundcard - and when I plugged in my usb mike to do the Camtasia voice track, the onboard sound card was de-activated.

So now I am considering adding a soundcard to my computer.
Hopefully that will give me the possibility to run MC sound along with the usb mike.
(Anyone with views on that - please let me know what you think. Will that work?)

The sound advice I am looking for is:
If a sound card will solve my problem, what sound card is probably most suitable?

If any of you are producing Camtasia tutorials, what is your set-up to allow both voice recording and MC soundtrack recording?

Regards,

Douglas

PS. I should explain that the actual trouble I have had with the onboard sound was that after I plugged in the USB mike and then opened MC - MC reported, in its startup, that it couldn't find a sound source. So when I was doing some tutorials and the sound track was involved - I got an error message that there was no sound available.

drbgaijin:

If a sound card will solve my problem, what sound card is probably most suitable?

Hi Douglas,

If you search the forums for "realtek" you will find a wealth of information about onboard sound card trouble.  Most people wind up getting a Soundblaster Audigy 2 or Audigy SE card, but I have no idea how that will work with Camtasia or microphones.  Hopefully someone will chime in about them.

good luck,
Carl

 Thanks, Carl

I don't know if all onboard sound is "realtek" or not. I have a feeling that I have some other system of onboard sound. Apart from this usb mike switching off the sound I have not had any other problems using the onboard sound.

Otherwise I have been considering the Soundblaster Audigy 2 card.
But I'll wait around a little longer and see if anyone will enlighten me further.

Douglas

That motherboard uses a Realtek chip in a 7.1 configuration.  Someone recently discussed a means of getting full functionality with Reatek by switching the chip's operating mode.  I can't recall the details, but a search of the forum should find it.

If 7.1 sound (or other surround mode) makes avid cry, try setting the speaker configuration to "stereo", this solved the problem in many cases.

Usually plugging in a USB mic does not "deactivate" your internal soundcard, it only switches windows default input device to the usb mic. You can switch back to internal in windows audio control panel. Windows can handle multiple input sources, but most applications can't (they rely on windows sound mapper to route audio), I don't know if camtasia lets you select which input device to use? In audio control panel try to set "recording" to internal soundcard, but "voice recording" (next tab) to USB mic, this works for me (realtek HD internal soundcard + SC450 usb mic).

 Thank you all for the various snippits of information.
I will be trying out some of them later this coming week.

In the meantime something interesting seems to have happened.

Last week I installed MC3 (not as an upgrade, but from scratch).
I also added a MojoDX.
Today was the first time I have tried recording with Camtasia since the new installations.
I plugged in the USB mike and then opened MC3.
There was no complaint about the audio card not being present!
I was able to work with the audio as well as use the USB mike.
However I have not had time to see if I can actually record my voice at the same time as the audio from the timeline can be recorded.
Usually the voice commentary is enough...... but I have at least 2 projects which require a voice commentary as well as hearing the timeline audio track.

Regards,

Douglas

If you're serious about sound recording, be warned to stay away from cards like Soundblaster. Their noise levels are significantly higher than more professional cards. May I suggest you look into M-Audio or Echo for a card that has more professional applications.