There has been recently a program suggested on the Audacity4blind mailing list
I’ve intensively tested it. It’s simply fantastic.
Of course, it hasn’t all the feature Steve mentioned but it works great as it can be started with global hotkeys, command line and per GUI.
Give it a try, the original post from the author follows:
----- Original Message -----
From: Carlos mailto:carlos1106@xxxxxxxxxx
To: BlindGeekZone mailto:blindgeekzone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2016 7:44 AM
Subject: [BlindGeekZone] New Utility - Virtual Recorder
Here is a new utility I wrote which some might find useful. I will
paste the contents of the ReadMe file below.
Virtual Recorder 1.0
Virtual Recorder is a GUI/frontend for the command line media converter
FFmpeg
http://ffmpeg.org/
and Virtual Audio Capture Device.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualaudiodev/files/
Virtual Audio Capture Device is a DirectShow audio device which can be
used to capture/record what is playing through your speakers. It is
also possible to record what is being played through your speakers if
your sound card has a loopback feature usually called
“Stereo Mix”/“What You Hear”
Unfortunately, not all sound cards support this feature, especially on
laptops. Some other applications like Total Recorder, GoldWave, and
Audacity can also record what is being played through your speakers. In
the case of Total Recorder using it’s own virtual audio drivers. In the
case of GoldWave and Audacity using the WASAPI loopback feature which is
native to versions of Windows starting with Vista. However, Total
Recorder and GoldWave are not free, and with the WASAPI loopback feature
in Audacity, I kept receiving errors. FFmpeg is capable of accessing
DirectShow audio devices for capturing/recording, but it is a command
line utility with many confusing parameters for the average user. All
of the above reasons prompted me to start working on Virtual Recorder.
Virtual Recorder is free, and probably much easier to use than programs
like Total Recorder, GoldWave, and Audacity if all you want is an audio
recorder which can record what you hear, your sound card’s input, or
both at the same time. Virtual Recorder is not an attempt to compete
with such applications. It is a simple audio recorder, that is all.
Most of the options should be fairly self-explanatory so I won’t go into
great detail, but I will briefly mention and describe a few things which
may not be so obvious. As mentioned above, you can record from the
virtual capture device which will only record what is playing through
your speakers. (I.E. System sounds, audio from other applications
including your browser, and so on.) Of course this means that if you
are recording an internet stream for example, system sounds, sounds
produced by other applications, and anything else you might play will
also be recorded. You should take steps when making such recordings to
avoid this issue by not running such applications and possibly even
disabling system sounds in Control Panel. You can also record from your
sound card’s line-in and microphone. Finally, you can record from both
the virtual capture device and your sound card’s line-in/microphone at
the same time which might be useful for recording podcasts, Skype
sessions, and so on. You can select what is recorded using the
“Recording source”
combo box. If you select the
“Sound Card”"
or
“Both”
options, you should also choose the appropriate input from the
“Device”
combo box. Keep in mind that the virtual capture device only records
from which ever sound card is configured as the default system playback
device in Control Panel. So if you wanted to record both sides of a
Skype session, you would have to take a few steps first.
- Make sure that the speakers or headset you are using in Skype are
configured as the default playback device in Control Panel. It is not
enough to select the device in the Skype audio settings. You can access
the default audio devices in Control Panel quickly by pressing Windows
key R to open the
“Run”
dialog, and then typing
mmsys.cpl
followed by Enter.
- Make sure that in Virtual Recorder, the
“Both”
option is selected in the
“Recording source”
combo box.
- Select the microphone you are using in the
“Device”
combo box.
Note that when recording from both the virtual capture device and your
sound card at the same time, you may have overall lower levels in the
resulting file. Use Virtual Recorder’s
“Record Volume”
to compensate for this. It may require some experimentation to achieve
desirable results.
You can record to the lossless flac/compressed, mp3, or lossless
wav/uncompressed audio formats. Other formats could easily be added,
but I figured these are the three most commonly used.
If you select the
“Options”
button, you can configure some settings like whether the program runs at
startup, minimized to the tray, or completely hidden by disabling the
tray icon. There is also a
“Global Hotkeys”
tab where you can assign hotkeys for starting, stopping, pausing, and
resuming recording when either the main window does not have focus or is
otherwise hidden. You can also assign a hotkey for activating/showing
the main window when it is hidden. Note that you cannot disable the
tray icon unless the
“Show main window”
hotkey is assigned since otherwise you would not be able to access the
program’s main window. For each hotkey, there is an associated
“Windows Key”
checkbox. Use this checkbox if you want to use the Windows key modifier
as part of your shortcut combination. For example, if you wanted to use
Control-Windows-F12 to start recording, you would press Control F12 in
the hotkey field and then enable the associated
“Windows Key”
checkbox.
All settings are saved in the file
VirtualRecorder.ini
located in the same folder as the program’s main executable.
Last but not least, there are a few command line parameters for
scheduling recordings with the Windows Task Scheduler or other
scheduling software. Use -r to have the program start recording
automatically, -t to set a duration for the recording, and -x to have
the program close automatically when it is finished recording. The
format for the duration should be hh:mm:ss (hours:minutes:seconds).
For example, to have the program record for 1 hour and then close, use
the following command:
VirtualRecorder.exe -r -t 01:00:00 -x
Record for 1 hour and 30 seconds:
VirtualRecorder.exe -r -t 01:00:30 -x
Record for 1 hour and 1 minute:
VirtualRecorder.exe -r -t 01:01:00 -x
Record for half an hour, but leave the program running:
VirtualRecorder.exe -r -t 00:30:00
Start recording and continue recording until manually stopped:
VirtualRecorder.exe -r
Note that when recording using command line parameters, the shown/hidden
state of the main window will be based on the settings in the
“Options”
dialog.
There is both an installer and a portable package for Virtual Recorder,
but due to requirements for making it portable, the two executables are
not the same. In other words, do not attempt to use the installed
executable in portable mode. It will not work correctly. Also, since
the portable version requires administrator privileges to register the
virtual audio capture device, if UAC is enabled you will always be
prompted the first time it runs. This is slightly annoying, but it is
the best I can do for now.
Both the installer and portable version can be found below at the usual
place thanks to Rob Hudson.
http://opopanax.net/download/
Send comments, questions and suggestions to: carlos1106@xxxxxxxxxx
mailto:carlos1106@xxxxxxxxxx