I do video game commentary, but my USB Mic recently gave out, so I had to go buy a new mic; a LineIn one. This would be fine, if not for the fact that Audacity records everything. This screws it up completely, as my commentary becomes a distant muffle under the game sounds, even when the game sounds are as low as they can get without being muted. I’ve gone into Preferences → Audio I/O, and there’s nothing there except Microsoft Sound Mapper and my speakers. I’ve tried unplugging the headphone jack, leaving only the mic one in, but the same thing happens.
I’ve searched the Internet for an hour now, and I can’t seem to get any answers. Is it possible to record only the mic when it comes to a jack-based mic? I’d rather leave recording the game audio to FRAPS, because then it’s two different files I can edit. But with Audacity, it blends them together, with my mic’s audio being much lower volume, so I can’t do anything with it. Would buying a Linein-to-USB adapter work?
Uhm… That still doesn’t really help me much. As far as I can tell, the link simply tells me how to enable the mic, which is fine. I need to prevent Audacity from recording what’s coming out of my headphones/speakers, and only the mic, but I still need to be able to hear the game myself. If the link tells me how to do that, I can’t seem to find it.
It should have suggested that the mic setting should be the only thing you have turned on. Everything else goes off. Windows has settings for “What You Hear” or “Mix Out”. I think there’s a third one I can’t remember. All of those should be turned off. Mix Out is the setting you use for recording internet audio shows and it literally records whatever the machine is playing. If you have a microphone in the mix, it tries to record it twice. Once on the way in and then again on the way out.
Some versions of Windows have two or more control panels and some have “Advanced Controls.” Some have right-click control panels. You need to find everything.
After you find all the settings, then you can turn the game sound back on in the Windows Playback panel and it shouldn’t interfere with the capture.
The Windows Sound Control Panels have been known to reduce grown men to tears and women to physical violence.