re: Audacity 2.1.2 from exe installer, Windows 10
A recent “upgrade” to Windows 10 appears to have abolished my ability to use another program (the aging AudioRoom Recorder*) to record “What U Hear” - in other words, anything I can hear on my computer speakers. This has been very useful, eg in recording the sound from a You-tube video. I tried “Audio Recorder for Free” but cannot get that to work either - maybe for the same reason. Someone recommended that I used Audacity (a previous version of which I had), but after I uninstalled it, and installed Audacity 2.1.2, LAME and FFmpeg, as well as the plug-in package. I cannot see how Audacity could perform this task. Another post on this subject advises that “Audacity does not download anything from the internet. …use your video downloader to download the video. Drag the video into Audacity and it will extract the audio without quality loss.” However, I don’t know what they mean by “video downloader” - so that would be Question 1.
Trying to follow the advice elsewhere on this post, i cannot find the “Device Toolbar” referred to. So Question 2 is, how do find Device Toolbar? That advice was:
try doing this in Audacity 2.1.0 from http://audacityteam.org/download/windows.
Open Device Toolbar .
In the first (Host) box of Device Toolbar, choose “Windows WASAPI”.
In the second (Recording Device) box in Device Toolbar, choose the (loopback) input for the device that is playing back the audio - so presumably SoundBlaster.
In the third (Recording Channels) box in Device Toolbar, choose mono or stereo.
In the fourth (Playback Device) box in Device Toolbar, choose the Speakers or Headphones that you are using for listening. It will be easiest to choose SoundBlaster, assuming your Logitech speakers can plug into SoundBlaster.
Start playing the audio you want to record.
Press the big red Record button in Audacity.
It’s not clear whether “Device Toolbar” is supposed to be in Audacity [my version is 2.1.2, not 2.1.0], or in the download website page somewhere - either way, I cannot find it, so cannot get to Step 1. Further explanation or advice would be appreciated. My aim is to be able to record “What U Hear” simply and straightforwardly, in a format(s) that I can use in Audacity and Amazing Slow Downer. So I may be asking the wrong questions to generate the answer I need.
*PS AudioRoom Recorder, an excellent program that is now 11 years old and legacy software, actually will not work now- it gives an error message saying “A device ID has been used that is out of range for your system”. The program opens but I can do nothing with it. On the offchance that someone reading this understands that, Question 3 would be, how do I fix this?
Thanks Steve
I can now follow the 6 steps marked in green. The settings are now as follows
However, I’m not much further ahead. If I have a You-tube video with sound playing, then press the record button, the sound trace recorded is dead flat, even though the sound through the speakers is normal.
From the “Help” menu, select “Audio device info”. Copy and paste the full audio device information into your reply. That may tell us what setting you need to change.
If you are not starting a new project when you record, you may need to reset the “Project Rate” (lower left corner of the Main Audacity window) to 48000.
It’s significant
To record with WASAPI loopback, the recording settings in Audacity must match the settings in the Windows Sound Control Panel.
The “Default Sample Rate” setting in Audacity Preferences is only the “default”. It can be overridden if either you manually changed the “Project Rate” (lower left corner of the main Audacity window), or if you import a file into an empty project. The “Project Rate” setting shows the actual sample rate that Audacity is using, and that is the sample rate that will appear when you create a new track.
There’s a couple more settings that may affect your ability to record:
Open Windows “Sound”, choose the main “Recording” tab then right-click over your chosen recording device and choose “Properties”. Click the “Advanced” tab, then put a checkmark (tick) in both Exclusive Mode boxes.
Choose the main “Playback” tab then right-click over your chosen playback device, choose “Properties,” click the “Advanced” tab and similarly enable both Exclusive Mode boxes.
See here for more details: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Mixer_Toolbar_Issues#vistacp
If you want to record from the “Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)” playback device, then you must choose “Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio) (loopback)” as the recording device, not loopback of the digital (HDMI) output.
By the way, I just noticed that the bottom section of my last uploaded image was missing, so I’ve gone back to that post and attached an extra image of the bottom left window, showing the 48,000.
MAGIC - thank you!!! Changing that setting does the trick -
Forum contributors like you and the others who have taken the time and trouble to respond, can make a big difference in people’s lives. In this case your tip, along with Steve’s earlier one, have solved a problem that has been time-consuming and very frustrating for me for many weeks now. This means I should be able to do everything I want quickly using only two programs - Audacity and Amazing Slow Downer (three actually, as I should also include Music Publisher). [PS the test is from You-tube - Beethoven’s Pathetique starts dramatically at 6.5 seconds …]
