Solved this in the prior thread for my PC by following the directions to enable the Stereo Mix to get Audacity to record audio streams (using MME). Followed the same steps for my laptop but it’s still not recording — all I get is a “flat line”, meaning, no audio detected. Choosing “Microphone” records properly.
The toolbars are all shortcuts for the Preference Settings.
Audacity > Edit > Preferences > Devices > Recording > Device. Whatever it says in that box is what you’re recording from. That one needs to say Stereo Mix or whatever your computer calls it. If it says one of the regular Windows sound services, that’s why you’re recording the microphone instead of YouTube.
Yes, this is what’s so crazy. It’s on Stereo Mix, but not recording through the stereo mix, but the microphone instead. Here’s a screenshot of the Audacity > Edit > Preferences > Devices > Recording > Device section: http://screencast.com/t/2BkbP9n1
It’s probably correct. Stereo Mix means “whatever the computer is doing.” Now go into Windows Control Panels and find out what Windows is up to. If Windows has your microphone selected, then that’s what the computer is doing.
But he doesn’t have his microphone selected. He needs to go to his main page and under stereo mix choose Line-in. NOT stereo mix. Then go to the preferences window and under devices choose MME. Also under recording choose the top box Overdub. He also has to have an audio card that will record any Line-In signals, otherwise it’s almost useless to try.
Once these things are done it should work okay. Worked fine for me. Understand that choosing Stereo mix on the input bar of the main window does NOT usually turn on any microphones attached to the sound card.
Thanks, all. It’s working now. Don’t have a Line In option on this laptop sound card…not sure why, but with Stereo Mix, and the mic levels cranked and the speaker/output levels mid range, I can now record streams. There was a 2nd mic option, I’m guessing for an external mic, that I disabled, and that stopped the mic recording.
This makes no sense at all but as long as it works…
I also had to plug a 3.5 adapter into the analog out for speakers to get the volume on the Toshiba laptop to be silent so I could crank the levels high enough to record.
I would think the reason it doesn’t work is that your playback device is Logitech speakers (is that a USB device?) and the stereo mix is the built-in sound device (IDT). Stereo Mix IDT can only record stereo mix from sounds playing on the IDT built-in sound device.
If you can’t (or don’t want to) use the IDT speakers device, then the “better way” is to choose WASAPI Host (not MME), Logitech Speakers for output, Logitech Speakers (loopback) for input, and set recording channels to stereo.
