Stereo Line Level Audio Input Jack

I've been using my Aspire One for a while now and, now that I've mostly tamed the beast (with lots of help from searching these forums), I'm pretty content with it. I installed Audacity and everything, however when I sat down to copy some records I noticed that there's a mic jack but no line level audio input. The heck! How am I supposed to copy stereo audio? Is it even possible on the A1?

I couldn't find any previous topics related to this. Thanks to anyone who can help.

 

That was one thing that almost made me consider another netbook. As a DJ, having a line in jack would have made the AA1 a great portable recording studio.

There are external USB sound cards that have line in jacks, and that's the solution.

 

Can't you use the mic input?

 

Can the mic input be used for recording? Cuz I have been trying and it seems like not. Is the only way thru usb?

 

Alright, thanks Pandemonium. Oh well, at least it shouldn't be too expensive.

In response to donec and eternal-balance, I could record from the mic jack (I managed to get do that much, at least), but it's going to be a) mono, and b) strangely distorted. It's designed for microphones, which usually need to be amplified, or something. I don't know, I'm no expert - I just know my recordings end up sounding like garbage. The mic jack can definitely be used for recording, but it only works well with microphones, not with, e.g., a stereo receiver or a CD player or something (although, again, I'm not an expert, though Pandemonium sounds like he knows what he's talking about).

 

Yeah, that's one of the downsides of the AspireOne.

If you're using Windows, try going to the sound controls, and select limited output for recording. Also, put the recording volume down, a lot.

I had a really old Sony laptop (PIII ages) and I used to record stuff using the mic jack. I have an electric piano, with headphone jacks. All I had to do was some tweaking with the sound stuff (I think instead of limited output, it had mic boost. So I turned that off) and voila, it recorded perfectly.

With the AspireOne, no matter how I tweak it, it still sounds bad. There's quite a lot of clicking, at least when recording from my piano. I have no idea what's wrong though. I would expect that the onboard sound (ICH7?) would be better than my old Sony lappy, which had a Yamaha sound card, but who knows.

Might have also been the cable. I used a cheapo $1 cable with the AspireOne, but a $5 with the Sony. But I doubt it.

Good luck recording!