Can't record In WASAPI Mode!

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

Hello.

I’m new to Audacity and am trying to record my LPs in highest quality possible. I want to record in WASAPI mode through my Asus Xonar Essence STX sound card as I understand this avoids the computer sound card and will yield a clean and unaltered recording. Recording settings are 24 Bit, 192000HZ. When I try to record i get the following error message; “Error while opening sound device. Please check the input device settings and the project sample rate.”

I’m running version 2.0.5 of Audacity. My Windows 7 Professional version is 6.1 Build 7601, Service Pack 1, 64 Bit.

Thanks for your help!

Bill

2

Yes WASAPI Exclusive Mode (not Shared Mode) would theoretically give you a “bit-perfect” recording, as would WDM-KS if Audacity releases included it.

However as it says in the Manual ( Audacity Manual )

Windows WASAPI: This host only appears on Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. The only inputs that are currently provided are “loopback” inputs for recording computer playback.

Even if you were recording WASAPI loopback in Exclusive Mode, you would need to match bit depth and sample rate in Audacity with Default Format in Windows “Sound” to get theoretical bit perfection. Otherwise you may see “Error Opening” or Audacity may perform resampling.

Some users say WASAPI loopback recording is always 44100 Hz, and I thought so too for a while, but the “Actual rate” you see bottom right of Audacity seems in fact to be the rate of the output device’s “Default Format”. As I understand it this should not be the case when in Exclusive Mode, in other words the sample rate and bit depth in Default Format should be ignored by Audacity.

WASAPI non-loopback and WDM-KS are available in the 2.0.6-alpha “Nightly Builds” ( Missing features - Audacity Support ) but these are development builds and to be used at your own risk. In particular due to assumed bugs in PortAudio’s WDM-KS support, the computer may freeze or crash in isolated cases if Audacity encounters a device that does not support WDM-KS.

Other Forum regulars will probably seek to dissuade you from recording at anything higher than 48000 Hz, but I will leave them to make their case.


Gale

3

Greetings Gale,
I’m rather new to Audacity. I’ve a couple of doubts/questions I would really love to have your clarifications about:

What’s the best way to capture/record lossless audio playback (16-44) exactly with the same source’s quality?
I do: Win10 default audio settings (16-44), application output: stream audio (wasapi), capture audio from audacity (16-44) wasapi loopback. Should I enable dither (shaped) in audacity quality settings?

Wasapi (exclusive mode) prevents me from recording (error in Audacity). I guess it would be the ideal option if it was possible, right?

Should I consider also MME/stereo mix for this purpose?

4

I’m sorry to inform you carlox97, but Gale Andrews passed away in July 2017.

I’m not a Windows expert myself, but the recommended way to record audio playing on a Win 10 computer is to use WASAPI loopback.
There’s some additional information here: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/tutorial_recording_computer_playback_on_windows.html#wasapi

5

Oh, I’m really sorry to hear that. I just joined this forum but to me it’s clear Mr. Gale Andrews was an enormous loss.

Thanks for the reply, Steve.

From your words I understand wasapi is the best option to achieve an accurate playback recording, on windows 10.
Would you suggest another OS to capture audio playback more efficiently?