elsag:
However I am new to Audacity but the reply to the question seems still not clear in this thread after all these years.
This thread has been open when Windows 7 was in its infancy… Skype improved a lot meanwhile, other free software can record voip calls (e.g VLC) but are not a lot flexible and commercial software are another world.
I have discovered that installing the proper Realtek High Definition Audio Driver (a 100+ Mb package) is one way to allow the user to restore the hidden Stereo Mix once in the Windows Control panel the Audio is being open and with the right click in the empty field of the Recorded Devices you can show (and activate) the hidden/disabled audio devices. In fact sometimes Windows 7 actually disables that option that was quite common and active by default under XP/Vista. Similar should be the ‘fix’ under Windows 8/8.1.
Now once Stereo Mix is active, is Audacity supposedly to be able to record either the system audio and the microphone audio, so actually recording a two-way VoiP conversation when a so-called softphone (e.g X-Lite, 3CX, etc) is being used? Or is different the Audiocity setting/mode for this specific purpose
The answer is the same as it’s always been - you can only record Skype from stereo mix if you find a way to send the mic input to the playback device. You can do it by setting “Listen to this device” for the mic in Windows Sound (in Windows Vista and later), but it is a bad idea, and there are too many limitations and things that can go wrong.
Use an application meant for recording Skype, such as these How to record skype calls on audacity - #2 by Gale_Andrews