Can't get 'stereo mix' with XP Pro

[juliep]

Hi

I hope someone can help. I've had a look at some of the posts
and most of the help seems to be for Vista, rather than
XP Pro.

I have just got a new XP Pro laptop and don't seem to be able
to record from the sound card, which is a Sigma Tel
High Def Audio CODEC. My only recording choices
are Line In, Microphone, and Digial Microphone,
none of which works without either capturing
external noises or distorting the sound. As
I recorded from "Stereo Mix" with Audacity on my
old XP Pro laptop, I'm guessing that this may be
something to do with the was the sound card driver
is written.

I've looked at Sounds and Audio Devices in
Control Panel and can't find anything which resembles
"enable Stereo Mix", and nor can I find anything
to help in Audacity Preferences. My sound card is
selected as the recording and playback
device.

As the machine is brand new, the drivers should all
be up to date.

Thanks in advance,

Julie

[stevethefiddle]

As the machine is brand new, the drivers should all
be up to date.

Yes they should be, but they may not be. It's worth checking on the computer manufacturers web-site.
For some reason, some manufacturers decided to disable "Stereo Mix" and this seems to occur most often with "Sigma Tel HD".

There are several alternative names for "Stereo Mix" - it is sometimes called "Mix" or "What U Hear". (The latter term is usually on Sound Blaster cards).

If "Stereo Mix" is disabled, and there is no updated driver, the 2 workarounds are (1) buy a new sound card, or, (2) use a "splitter cable" so that you can link the output of the sound card to the "line in". ("Line out" sent to both your speakers/headphones AND to the "line in" socket). With the second method, you need to take care that you avoid creating a "feed-back loop".

[waxcylinder]

Funnily enough I'm just encountering similar things on my new Dell laptop Vostro-1710 with XP-Pro and onboard Realtek soundcard.

With 1.2.6 I get two opions "Stereo Mix" and "Mic Volume" - the Mic Volume selected lets me record ok from the built-in microphone. I haven'yt gotten around to testing the "Stereo Mix" yet.

However in 1.3.5 on the laptop I get no input selection box on the right of the speaker and mic sliders in the Mixer Toolbar - not even a greyed-out selection box, just no selection box. (On 1.3.5 on my desktop Dell get the drop-down selection box with several options - and with 1.2 on the desktop PC I also get the several options - unless my USB soudcard is plugged in in which case the selector box is greyed-out)

WC

[juliep]

Thank you for your suggestions. Will grit my teeth and work through them!

[waxcylinder]

Well after an afternoon of playing around with my new laptop I can finally make it sit up and do Audacity tricks.

But it's really given me the greatest sympathy for all the newbies that post - I thought I new and understood Audacity quite well, but I still managed to tie myself up in knots and fall down many of the newbie elephant traps (echoey sound on recording, no sound output on the PC, howling feedback on recording etc etc).. Fortunately I mainly remembered some of the many helpful postings that I had read over the past ffe months - phew (wipes sweat from brow) .....

I can now record from TT or FM radio on my Laptop - but this requires the use of my USB soundcard. With the onboard soundcard though I can record not only from mic as reported yesterday, but also from internet feeds or whatever is playing on the laptop (this is something I could not easily do on my desktop PC without looping back the outputs to the inputs on my USB soundcard and jiggling Audacity and Windows settings).

The Realtek soundcard on the laptop seems to work well and interacts well with Audacity (in spite of several posts on the forum that seem to suggest problems with Realtek/Audacity - maybe I'm just lucky?

So going forward I shall leave my Desktop configured with the USB soundcard for recording "line in" type sources FM radio and turntable work - and the laptap can remain optimally configured for recording streaming type inputs.

WC

(BTW: by far the easiest application I transferred to the laptop was iTunes - I dragged over a big library complete with artwork and many playlists and it fired up first time, all complete- and beforehand I thought that was going to be the tough one.)

[juliep]

Stevethefiddle, I cannot thank you enough! Your first suggestion, that I visit Dell's web site and check for
updated versions of the sound card driver has sorted my problem out. While my machine is not even a month
old, the sound card driver that came with the new laptop was a year old. On Dell's web site there was an updated
driver released 6 months ago, which I have downloaded and installed. I can now get stereo mix, and my recording
problems seem to be solved. As I was downloading the most recent driver, I thought "wouldn't it be great if this
sorted the problem out?" but without any real expectation that it would. It was the first, the easiest and the most
ecomonic of the options you presented; it's worked, and this has made my day! Thank you again.
Julie

[George22]

Those with a Sigma Tel sound card and/or problems with Audacity's sound mixer should see: viewtopic.php?t=6421