I have windows 7 32x. I use standard audio drivers which is listed as Realtek high definition. I came from using windows 7 32x on an older motherboard that did not use realtek’s High Definition driver.
Let’s see if I can properly articulate my problem:
I used to be able to have my pc volume at 1% and hit record. The sound in it’s original loudness/volume/format would be recorded without my adjusting anything.
When I use audacity to record, with this new computer, the sound playing on my PC the volume of the recording is affected by how loudly I have my speakers turned up. This forces me to inturn turn my speakers blaring loud in order to make a decently and i only mean decent, recording. So how can i fix this?
EXTRA info:
When I look at my Volume Mixer “speakers” shows a green level and a grey level. I assume grey indicates the maximum sound level being played by the source and green is the amount I’ve allowed my speakers to play. The green always rises to the level I have the sound Level. I want audacity to record from the grey and not the green.
For Audacity to record computer playback, the system output has to have some audible signal playing through it. The same goes for any other software that records audio as it plays through the sound device.
There is no obvious reason for your problem if it really worked to your satisfaction on another Windows 7 computer. Have you tried turning the Audacity input slider up, so you don’t have to have playback volume so loud?
What you want to do was easy on earlier versions of Windows like XP which had a Master system volume slider which you could turn down while leaving the second system output slider (WAV) turned up. Vista and later only have that second system output slider.
If you don’t want to hear the audio at all while you are recording it, buy an 1/8 inch (3.5 mm) audio connector and put it in the headphones jack to shut the audio output off.
If you want to hear the audio quietly, use headphones or external speakers that have a volume control (but not USB speakers because you have to play the audio through the built-in audio device in order to record it from stereo mix or similar).
Also be aware that there are per application volume sliders in Windows Vista and later (right-click over the speaker icon by the system clock > Volume Mixer). It may help (slightly) if you turn the slider up for the program that is playing the sound which may let you turn the master (Device) slider down a little. Note that a program must be playing sound before it will have a slider in Volume Mixer.
Alternatively try Sound Leech to make the recording which doesn’t depend on the volume of the playback because it grabs the audio before it gets to the playback device.
The thing is my other PC was also windows 7. The only difference i just thought of is that I had a cheap 2002 soundcard in it. I can’t fathom why that would change anything though.