Hi - I am using Windows 10 and Audacity 3.2.1. I have used Audacity successfully in the past but recently, after not using it for some time, I tried to record something using Stereo Mix as the input and it was very very quiet. I upgraded to Audacity 3.2.1 and the same is happening. I’m not very au fait with all the different functions. Can you tell me what might be wrong?
Is playback volume turned-up? I believe the playback volume affects Stereo Mix.
You can also try [u]WASAPI loopback[/u].
…If you are recording from one of the popular streaming services and the levels are just slightly low, with peaks in the ballpark of -6dB, that’s normal. All of the popular streaming services use loudness normalization (loudness matching) which ends-up lowering the volume of most files. They can’t just boost the quiet-sounding files because there are many quiet-sounding files normalized for 0dB peaks and boosting would cause clipping (distortion).
I confirm it, indeed it is. At least in MME is that way.