Recording with laptop mic while headphones plugged in

Windows 10
Audacity 2.3.3

My problem is following:

I record with the microphone integrated in my laptop, which works fine until I plug in my headphones, to be able to listen to the recorded track or a metronome track while recording a second track, without having the effect of the laptop mic recording the output at the same time. What happens is: Either it is not recording anything at all any longer, when I use headphones without mic, and when I use headphones with mic, it records through those, which i don’t want as the quality is very bad.

I have tried plugging in the headphones before opening the program, and also tried the Transport > Rescan Audio Devices option. Either way, and with both headphones, they are not visible as devices (neither in MME, WASAPI or Windows DirectSound). The visible devices don’t change at all, with my headphones plugged in or not…

The socket on the side of most laptops is for a headset, combination of headphones and microphone. This is for chat and conferencing where that is the safest, easiest, and cleanest solution. And cheapest since they only have to give you one socket.

The last thing you want is both microphones to remain active since that gives you the forum posts of people with insanely noisy and distorted voice. I think the only people who win are the people with two sockets, one microphone and one headphones.

Screen Shot 2020-05-22 at 7.14.43.png
You may be able to get around your problem with a USB adapter such as the Startech, ICUSBAUDIO device. That does give you one stereo headphone and one mono microphone separate.

https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Sound/USB-Audio/Audio-USB-Adapter~ICUSBAUDIOB

Koz

I use one for my Mac which has no mic-In.

Pretend the machine on the right is a Mac. That is a special purpose microphone. Also pretend I have headphones plugged into the other socket of the adapter. They’re separate which is the point. Apparently, I never got a closeup pix of the two sockets.

Koz

https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Sound/USB-Audio/USB-20-to-Audio-Adapter~ICUSBAUDIO

I’m not sure what the difference is between the two models, but this one has pix.

Screen Shot 2020-05-22 at 7.59.10.png
Koz