Well, it took all afternoon, but I think I finally have a "studio" configuration that will let me record without needing
chaoswolf to sit around and twiddle knobs and push buttons for me. It will require a bit of tedious back-and-forthing until I find the 10' extension cable for the soundcard's preamp box.
Anyway, the rig involves a very small laptop sitting on a TV tray table between the mic stands and the music stand. Along the way I had to recompile Audacity in order to get the latest version (1.2.2, which has level meters). Why somebody thought it made sense to have a multitrack sound-recording program without level meters is beyond my limited powers of understanding (except that I suspect it may have started out as an editor, making recording something of an afterthought).
Anyway, the rig involves a very small laptop sitting on a TV tray table between the mic stands and the music stand. Along the way I had to recompile Audacity in order to get the latest version (1.2.2, which has level meters). Why somebody thought it made sense to have a multitrack sound-recording program without level meters is beyond my limited powers of understanding (except that I suspect it may have started out as an editor, making recording something of an afterthought).