Recording System Sounds with Steinberg UR22?

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

Hello,

Audacity is awesome! However, I am having a small problem. I have a Steinberg UR22 and want to record what is coming out of the speakers and me talking at the same time. My brother does this for a gaming channel, but with the internal sound card. Is there a way to do this with the Steinberg UR22? I have searched Google and this forum and have found nothing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

2

…found nothing…

That usually means it can’t be easily done. Game recording is usually done with Fraps or other purpose built software. Games and Skype use up all the computer’s sound channels and Audacity can only use what he computer supplies.

Koz

3

In order to record what is playing on the computer, the computer must be playing through the device that you are recording with. For example, you can’t directly record the sound coming out of USB speakers (one device) using the on-board sound card (a different device) because there is no connection between one device and the other.

A second problem is that if you set your system to record what is playing through the computer, then it won’t be set to recording from your microphone, or conversely, if you set to record from the microphone then it won’t be set to record sounds playing through the computer.

It may be possible to get it to work if you set your game to play through your on-board sound card, then with an appropriate lead, connect the “line out” (or “headphone out” if that’s all your computer has) to one channel of the UR22 (using a 1/4" jack plug into the UR22), and plug your microphone into the other channel. You will need to plug your headphones into the UR22 to hear the game, which will be a bit weird because you will have the game playing in one ear and your voice in the other. Then set Audacity to record in stereo from the UR22. The stereo track can be split later into two mono tracks, one with your voice, one with the game.

If that doesn’t work, then you’re back to Koz’s suggestion of using software that is designed for the job (such as Fraps).

4

Ok, so I cannot record what is coming out of the speakers and the microphone at the same time. Got it.

Is it possible to just record what is coming out of the speakers? I have don’t have USB speakers, I have studio speakers plugged into the left and right main outs of my UR22. I know you can record stereo mix with the internal soundcard, but can this be done with the UR22?

Thanks again!

5

Actually, you do. Your non-USB speakers are connected to the USB Steinberg UR22. The computer sound card is part of the internal guts of the computer, but external USB devices are not.

Koz

6

You may be able to do that with Fraps if you are on Windows Vista or later. You didn’t say what version of Windows (see the pink panel at the top of this page).

If you are on Vista or later, try Windows WASAPI recording in Audacity.

  1. Open Device Toolbar .
  2. In the first (Host) box of Device Toolbar, choose “Windows WASAPI”.
  3. In the second (Output device) box in Device Toolbar, choose the UR22.
  4. In the third (Input device) box in Device Toolbar, choose the (loopback) input for the same device you chose in step 3 (so UR22).
  5. In the fourth (Input Channels) box in Device Toolbar, choose mono or stereo.
  6. Start playing the audio you want to record.
  7. Press the big red Record button in Audacity.

Gale