Ripping good fun

Public service announcement:

Griffin Imic does work with Vista.

I while ago I wrote about how to rip music from vinyl particularly if you have laptop that doesn't have a dedicated soundcard.

Here's my other post on this.

One of the minor annoyances of everything breaking in the flat including my laptop was getting all my gizmos to work with Vista. One of which is the Griffin Imic external USB soundcard. This post is to help others in the same position.

Griffin in big letters on their website says that "The iMic hardware is not compatible with the Microsoft Vista operating system.". Which I think means they aren't writing any new drivers.

However when I plugged in my Imic into the usb port, things started to happen, drivers downloaded and all seemed fine. I downloaded audacity (and the separate lame mp3 file) and tried a test recording of vinyl using the ear phone socket on my hi-fi amp into the usb socket using the imic in line-in mode.

Playing a tune and pressing record the sound levels bar started moving but only in one channel. I also couldn't monitor the music recording via the laptop speakers. Checking with Griffin I supposed this was what they meant by doesn't support Vista and resigned myself to some grumpiness and having to buy a new usb soundcard.

However a few days later playing around with Audacity to edit an existing mp3 audacity still wasn't working (independent of the Imic) this was until I found the options tab on Audacity and set the playback to my "laptop speakers". I and also ticked the box for "stereo recording" (the default rather oddly is for "mono") and I could then edit the mp3.

Having solved this I tried again with using the Imic for ripping tunes.

1. First I plugged everything in.

2. On the vista control panel I made sure the sound settings where set so Imic was the input device and the playback was via my speakers.
3. In Audacity I did the same in options.

4. I clicked record on audacity and lowered the needle on my turntable and both sound level meters jumped into action and sound came out of my (tinny) laptop speakers and a stereo track recorded on my laptop.
5. I could then play around with it as usual.

So the answer is Griffin Imic usb Soundcard does work on vista as an input device I haven't used it as output device as I usually play mp3's through my stereo via my Nokia 95 phone.

I'm not sure if this just my dell laptop but if you've got an Imic and new vista machine it's worth ago. I can't guarantee it will work on every machine but the combination of Imic and audacity is useful and cheap way of ripping music onto soundcard less laptop so give it a go.

Search questions.

Ripping music to laptop using vista

Does griffin imic support vista?

How do I rip music without a soundcard?