Muted recording from web: failed

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

I have Audacity 2.3.0 and I wanted to record from a streaming MP3. I started preparing 15 minutes before the program and I failed! So frustrating. I thought Audacity might make this easy to do, but no…

I’m giving up, but I thought I would post this as feedback.

I used Menu > Transport > Recording > Timer Record. It successfully records exactly what goes to the speakers, but the problem is that I wanted to mute the speakers so I can support clients while I do this recording silently.

Audacity seems to have no way to input from Firefox (I used Firefox to play the streaming MP3). Instead, it inputs from the mixer output ONLY. If I mute the speakers, the recording records silence! If I plug in a headphone, also silence!

2

[u]WASAPI loopback[/u] should work with the volume turned-down. (But WASAPI recording will stop if the streaming audio stops.)

If I plug in a headphone, also silence!

It should have worked with analog headphones, or with external speakers which almost always have an analog volume control and/or a power plug that can be disconnected. If you plug-in USB headphones, you’ll have to change the recording device.

There are special-purpose applications such as TotalRecorder that are supposed to be more foolproof… (TotalRecorder has it’s own virtual driver to get-around some of the Windows/driver/hardware limitations.)