I am trying to record audio from my Windows 11 PC in such a way that Audacity will record exactly what I hear when I listen to that audio through my PC. Specifically, I am trying to record synthetic voices that are reading text. When I listen to these voices on my PC, I hear just the voice. However, when I record the voices on Audacity and play them back, it sounds like someone has add a sound stage ambience to the recording. There is a spatial dimension to the Audacity recording that does not exist when I simply listen to the recording as it plays back on my PC.
My research indicates that the problem might have something to do with the path that the audio is taking in order to be captured by Audacity. I have created some screenshots of my current setup . All the input audio devices are set as ādonāt allowāā on my PC except for Stereo Mix 2025. I do not have āspatial soundā selected on my PC.
I am hoping someone can suggest a way to get Audacity to record audio playback through my PC without adding this sort of ambient background noise. Let me know if other screen shots would be helpful.
The most obvious thing in your screenshots is selecting headphones as a recording device. Headphones are for output rather than input. I donāt have Windows 11 so I canāt help that much there. It is often suggested to disable Windows enhancements too though. Microsoft has some interesting ideas of what YOUR sound should be like.
And make sure your laptopās microphone is disabled. Clap your hands or talk to make sure itās not getting recorded. With Stereo Mix or (loopback) you can get a mix of signals.
You can also try (loopback) with your headphones/soundcard instead of Stereo Mix.
Thanks for the ideas. I tried changing the recording source, but the voice-activated recording does not work unless I choose the headset. So it seems like Audacity is not recognizing any other input source. My windows settings for recording options are set to 'allowā for apps.
It looks like it records correctly when I select the playback through speakers option. Unfortunately, I cannot monitor the sound while Iām recording, except by taking off my headset and listening to the speakers on my PC.
Here are the sound settings on my PC that allow Audacity to record correctly. I had to actually change the playback option rather than the input option. To add to the confusion, the number of input options has changed from four to one as Iāve been working on this problem. As I say, this set-up works, but is quite inconvenient because it requires me to listen through speakers instead of my headset.
In Audacity, I have recording device set to the PC speakers and I have playback device set to headset. But on my PC, I have to select playback through speakers to get Audacity to record properly. This means I cannot use my headset while recording the PC audio.
The loopback headset option should theoretically produce a clear recording but it is not doing so. Iāll have to look further into the Windows side of the equation when it comes to how audio is treated before even coming through a headset. Currently I am using what I take to be a K240 Studio headset, which I think is a pretty basic (cheap) model, not one whose drivers would introduce ambience. Looks like I have two choices: stop using my headset or hire an audio technician
In case this is of help to others in the futureā¦
I have a Dell G15 computer and it seems to have been marketed to gamers. It now looks like audio is āamped upā with gamers in mind before it reaches the headset, with some kind of virtual or spatial sound. Thatās my latest theory, anyway, based on hours of research.
Thanks, I figured it out with the various suggestions. It turned out that enhancements were activated in Windows sound options after all. I didnāt see any āonā notifications, but apparently the opposite of āoffā in this case is not āonā but ādevice default effects,ā which means that enhancements are indeed āon.ā So I disabled those effects and Audacity now records as I would expect. Thanks again!
