Windows 10 and recording with Audacity - a BIG PROBLEM!
Modern keyboards pose no problem when recording. You can record directly to WAV or MP3 to the keyboard's hard disk, or to a memory stick. But what about those older keyboards and organs that don't have the option to record to WAV or MP3?
My Yamaha AR80 is one of these, and to date I have had no problems doing recordings using Audacity. In the early days my computer had a LINE IN for STEREO INPUT (a white 3.5mm socket). Then along came laptops, and to record with them you had to do it via a USB Port. I have a LINE OUT from my organ, so put that through an AUDIO INTERFACE which had a permanent USB from it which I plugged into my laptop. Audacity picked up the STEREO input from the Audio Interface via the USB. Recordings went great, and were in STEREO.
Then this year I had a new laptop, running Windows 10 (well, not 'new' .. a 'refurbished' one). I downloaded Audacity 3.0.0, connected up all my leads to record .. and everything seemed to be going fine. Until I listened to it and visually looked at the waveform that Audacity had produced. This wasn't being recorded in STEREO! It was TWO TRACK MONO! The waveforms on the left and right channels were exactly the same.
Do you know what I am talking about? MONO is just one track, so if you have two speakers (or headphones) the sound only comes out of one side. With STEREO you get sounds coming from the left, and different sounds coming from the right. The overall sound is a 'fullness' all round. TWO TRACK MONO is the same mono track coming from both sides. I can only describe that as the sound appearing to come from 'over the top of your head'.
Have a listen to these two. This is a recording of Margaret Draper playing Albatross on her AR100 organ. She records to a floppy disk on her organ, and by sending me the floppy files I am able to play her piece through my organ. The audio is taken from the LINE OUT of the organ, and this first one has been successfully recorded in STEREO on my old laptop.
STEREO
This is what the Audacity waveform looks like. Look closely at the left and right channels and you will see that they are different.
This next one has been recorded the same way, but on my new laptop .. and this one has ended up as TWO TRACK MONO.
2-TRACK MONO
This is what the Audacity waveform looks like this time. Look closely at the left and right channels .. they are exactly the same!
As a musician, there really is no point in doing a recording unless it is in STEREO. You don't get the separation of the instruments and therefore don't get the 'fullness' of sound. If you compare this with sight, it's like looking at the world through one eye and not getting any perspective.