So, I mentioned that the combination of my shiny new Samson C01U and Audacity (pick a current branch and version) is a bit, well, cantankerous on my Mac. It frustratingly works just fine on the Windows boxes in our lab, but on my desktop and Powerbook much cajoling and incantations are required. Almost ready to break out the chicken entrails...
One thing that I noticed, which seems to help a fraction of a percent, is that the Samson USB mic is a 16 bit sample source. Audacity's default is a 32 bit sample source. Not sure if that makes a real difference, since 16x2=32, but I set that bit in Audacity, and I think it works at least 3% more often than it did before (which means it works about 4% of the time now).
I spend a LOT of time quitting Audacity, nuking prefs, launching Sound Preferences, selecting source, launching Audio MIDI Setup, selecting source, launching Audacity, setting bits. Saying things like "Crap!". Repeating the process untill it decides to stick.
This isn't going to fly for my big podcasting workshop on the 19th. I may end up doing the Audacity demo from a Windows laptop, and showing Garageband on my Powerbook.
This whole Audacity-borks-on-USB-audio is really annoying. This is supposed to be THE audio app, and it doesn't work with an entire class of popular/common/good audio inputs (or outputs - borks when squirting audio out to my Logitech USB headset, too). There are several references to this problem in the Audacity forums and support areas. But no real solution. It's not a new problem, either. Some of the posts are from early 2005.
Is there another open source, cross-platform audio editor that works with USB in/out?
Update: Yeah. Audacity is still better than Ardour, though...