Hi all,
(I’ve read the FAQs)
I’m using Audacity 2.0.2
Windows 7.
I just want to record the audio of a Youtube video.
I’m playing the video, I can hear the sound, but I can’t get any meter response in Audacity to record the audio.
Thank you !
Self Recording is not a guaranteed computer service. Some computers don’t support it, full stop. If you can’t find any of the special internal software devices like Stereo-Mix or What-U-Hear, then you’ll need to go to paid software like Total Recorder or to one of the hardware solutions mentioned in the document.
There’s no magic.
Koz
“kozikowski” wrote:
“Self Recording is not a guaranteed computer service. Some computers don’t support it, full stop”
but prior to upgrading to Windows 7, I had no problem to record that way !!!
Perhaps you did not find our copious documentation on this matter when you looked? Windows 7 disables all or most of the audio inputs, so no software can record from them until you enable them in Windows.
Partly because of copyright owners’ wish to prevent their works being recorded for no payment, stereo mix is not supplied on many new computers these days.
Please read:
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/faq_recording_troubleshooting.html#vista_7
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tutorial_recording_computer_playback_on_windows.html .
If you don’t have stereo mix or similar on your sound device, there are alternatives mentioned at the bottom of the Tutorial page noted above, or we have an experimental build of Audacity you could try that can record computer playback even if your sound device lacks stereo mix.
Also you can download the video or audio of YouTube videos to your hard drive, which means you don’t lose quality as you do when you record. You can search Google for how to do that. We are not encouraging you to do that.
Gale
Self Recording is a dance between the sound card, software drivers and the operating system. You changed the OS, so that’s where your recordings went. You join a long list of people who bought a computer with the specific idea of self recording and find that’s the one thing that’s been locked out.
It’s not a guaranteed service (unless you bought the machine that way), so you can’t go back and complain that you can’t record YouTube Video music. The supplier is going to say, “Of course not. Why would you want that?”
Koz
Thnak you, Koz !
and GREAT Thank You to Gale Andrews !!
Every time I reformat my hard drive I go through the same thing, getting Audacity to record streaming audio.
First, right click on the speaker icon in the lower right corner of your screen.
Select recording devices. List will appear showing microphones and your sound card. Now if your sound card is not shown, first right click inside the window and make sure both Show Disable Drivers and Show Disconnected Drivers are checked. If not, check them. If it still doesn’t show you will have to download a driver either from your computer manufacturer, mine is Dell, or the sound card manufacturer to get it in the list which is what I have to ultimately do every time but forget and yes, it is very frustrating.
Then set the Device Toolbar in Audacity. I set mine to MME/Speaker Headphones (IDT High)/Record Playback (1DT High Definition)/2 (Stereo) Input Channel.
If you get an echo in your recording open the Transport window in Audacity and make sure Software Playthrough is unchecked.
Now this works for me, so I hope this helps others. Trying to get simple answers as I have given is never given by these so-called Senior Forum leaders.
Yos:
I have a dell Latitude 6500 laptop with Windows 7 Pro. The following works for me.
Right click on speaker icon in lower left corner.
Select Recording Devices.
A list appears and should show microphones and sound cards. If there is no sound card do one of the following 2 steps.
-
Right click on the window and make sure Show Disables Devices and Show Disconnected Devices are both checked. If still no soundcard
-
Go to computer manufacturer, or sound card manufacturer for device driver and download it.
Once downloaded, or if soundcard shows, repeat above steps. Once you find your sound card, highlight it, then right click on it and select
as default communication device. A check should appear alongside the soundcard.
Now I set my Audacity Device Toolbar to MME Speakers/Headphones (1DTHigh)/Record Playback (1DT High Definition)/2 (Stereo) Input Channel.
If you get an echo in the recording select Transport in Audacity and make sure Software Playthrough is unchecked.
Now this work for me, your parameters may be different depending on what computer you use, but It worked on my desktop and my other laptop with windows xp.
Every time you reformat your hard drive, you will probably need to reinstall the drivers for the built-in audio device.
No, you do not need to do that on Windows Vista and later. Audacity provides you with the Windows WASAPI (loopback) choice that makes enabling stereo mix or similar inputs un-necessary.
In many cases, even the correct audio drivers will still not give you a stereo mix or similar input, so you have to use WASAPI (loopback).
If you are asking for us to copy/paste chunks of text from the documentation, no we won’t do that. We give a link to the documentation and we ask you to go off and read the link that has the complete text.
The information you give is mentioned in numerous places in the Audacity documentation (as is the information that you don’t give about WASAPI loopback).
Gale
Sorry Gale Andrews, but technical answers just don’t buy it when a simple question is asked and all that is given is a convoluted answer. Maybe try a simple answer, or better yet ask questions yourself to make sure you are responding to the correct question. Frustration, when trying to get your computer back into service because of a reformat, is the biggest single headache and doesn’t help when you get a snarky response of, “Read the Manual” or " I’m not going to tell you what the manual says." Now who actually reads the manual, or has the time to read the manual when trying to get back up and running as quickly as possible?
The proper snarky response should be to help solve the immediate problem at hand and could begin with something like this: Well I see you didn’t take the time to read the manual, but I will help you as I know you are having a frustrating experience with our product.
One other snarky reply to you and your company. Any software that requires patches, a helpline, or technical support was not ready to be released in the first place, and any patches to correct problems simply add to the overall problems until a new version is released. If a software was ready for release it wouldn’t need any support. If you never heard that before, than I suggest you go back to school.
Thank you for taking the time to share your “insights” metazip.
If you can’t be bothered to read the manual, even when a direct link to the relevant part has been posted, then why do you think that it is reasonable to expect someone else to copy it out for you?
Your reply also seems to suggest that Audacity is a commercial product from a commercial business. That is not the case. Audacity is free open source software, which is has been developed and supported by countless individuals from around the world. mostly in their spare time, for the benefit of others. I agree that is a surprising concept in this day and age.
Also, the reply you gave, metazip, was inadequate if the user cannot enable stereo mix even with updated drivers, as many users won’t be able to do. To have included that information, with all the alternative solutions, would have quadrupled the length of your reply.
Note that the user who we replied to was very satisfied with the response, so not everyone thinks like you. Copy-pasting the Manual here would increase response times, which I am sure you and others would not appreciate.
Gale
I suggest that you realize that this ain’t no major capitalist corporation like Microsoft or Apple - it’s an open-source software project staffed entirely by volunteers who give some of their free time (in some cases lots of it) to make all this happen. Didn’t you notice the $0.00 price when you climbed aboard.
I suggest you apologize - these folks don’t need your snarkiness …
I personally would like to hear from “metazip” which software was ever ready for release that wouldn’t need any support…, be it a free open source or commercial product…
The notion itself is fantastically unrealistic…