Hi,
I’ve been recording interview through Skype, using my alesis multimix8 (USB) for some time. I am on a windows 8 machine and have never encountered a problem. Audacity always recorded both sides…until today. It was ONLY recording my mic, but not the caller. All settings were the same. My connection to Skype is an Ethernet connection.
Does anyone have any idea what may have occurred to create this problem?
Thanks for your thouts/suggestions. 
How did you set up the mixer? Did you set it up or get somebody else to do it?
I’ve done reliable Skype recordings with a mixer, but I did it with two different computers. As a rule, Skype takes up two sound channels (transmit and receive) and the recording takes up one either stereo or mono depending on whether or not you want separate recordings for near and far. If you’re counting with me, that’s three sound channels out of the machine’s standard two. I used one machine completely to manage Skype and the other to record the show.
How did you do it?
Koz
Hi Koz,
I set up the mixer (with guidance) and it’s worked to record (stereo), both my mic and the caller. Not sure why that changed. I have another laptop (win 7) connected to another input in the mixer for sound clips and that records fine, as well. Again…I did nothing different, yet it would not record the caller…any caller (tested it further) and it’s never done that before.
Sorry if I didn’t answer your question correctly…just stumped here…
The party line is that Audacity doesn’t reliably record Skype or any chat or conference service.
Skype in particular is vicious about turning the computer’s sound systems to do what it wants and what you want just isn’t considered. Sometimes it’s just unstable. “It worked last week and now it doesn’t.”
Some people go through months of podcasts and everything works just fine. Those people are looking at the rest of us wondering what’s wrong. Those people are unicorns.
If Skype went through an update in the middle it could just be set up differently now. If Skype needed to renegotiate the connection for any reason, it may have decided to change the settings. Impossible to know.The Skype part of the system is working, right? Both parties can hear each other?
If you just can’t find what happened, we recommend Pamela paid software or one of the other software packages that “knows” what Skype is and how it works. Fair warning don’t fall in love with software that insists on working in MP3 and you might pay attention to whether it will produce split tracks or not. Pamela takes care of all that with easy options.
http://www.pamela.biz/en/products/
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/help-recording-with-a-mic-laptop-and-headphones/35068/6
Koz
I use “Skype Call Recorder” on Linux. I’ve heard good reports about the “experimental” version for Windows, though not used it myself (http://atdot.ch/scr/).
Thanks Steve…
Thanks Koz…have you used Pamela or do you know others who have good things to say about it? Thanks!
Pamela has been around for years. There used to be a free version (some limitations) and there probably still is (just checked: yes there is: http://www.pamela.biz/en/products/). Koz has previously written that the free version does not record both sides of the conversation, but I thought the main limitation was 15 minutes per call. If you try the free version, please let us know how you get on (will be useful for other users).
As written, I did my Skype recording test with two computers, not fancy software. The forum had one (1) complaint about Pamela and that turned out to be the poster using it incorrectly. Easily fixed.
Koz
The Pamela versions and promotions change. I try to link to their generic product page. They used to have four versions, depending on how crazy and/or professional you need to get.
Their big deal is a real company with real updates and support. And yes, they know what Skype is thinking about enough to keep out of the way.
Koz
I do need it to sound professional…most of the skype recorders lose the quality of the headset I’m using (Audio Technica BPHs1). Does Pamela record high quality? So there is no solution for the audacity glitch?
most of the skype recorders lose the quality of the headset I’m using (Audio Technica BPHs1). Does Pamela record high quality?
I assume it’s fine… Most audio quality issues are on the “analog side” or related transmission quality… The local sound should be much better than the sound transmitted over the phone network. Of course, that mic requires that you use your mixer which has the proper XLR balanced, low-impedance, microphone interface. (It’s not a “computer mic”.)
So there is no solution for the audacity glitch?
I don’t think it’s fair to call it a or glitch (or bug). Audacity works with the regular Windows driver protocol which only allows recording from one sound source/device at at a time.
And as others have said, Skype “takes over” your computer’s audio. That’s a good thing if you want Skype work easily and reliably, but it might be a bad thing if you want to run another audio application at the same time, especially if the other application needs different settings.
There was one posting from someone who went into The Dreaded Windows Registry and forced the recordings to work, but that’s not something I would wish on anyone and it’s not clear Skype continued to work right after he did it.
That’s usually the problem. You can get either Audacity to work, or Skype, not both. Some celebrity Unicorns do manage to luck into a particular combination that works like this one:
Reel Life Podcast
http://reellife.podomatic.com/
I think Chase has given up the good fight and is doing something else now, but his simple install and podcast worked perfectly right out of the gate and I think still works. Multi-point Skype with music, stingers, theme and local microphones. He’s looking at all of us like we’re crazy.
We’re not crazy. It’s much more normal for a recording to do what yours is doing. The local microphone is just a local microphone, so Audacity has no trouble with that. The far side, however, is a Skype service with echo cancellation and environment suppression, so that one is seriously magic. Typically, if you can force that to work, the far side stops hearing you clearly because the echo management falls apart.
This isn’t for the easily frightened.
So unless you get lucky and find the one setting that solves your problem, you are now normal and yours works just like everybody else.
You can totally go with one of the lower tier offerings, or try Pamela on one of their lesser plans to see if it’s going to work. You may not need Business or Professional if you don’t care that the show is split with you on one side and the far side on the other. That’s so you can apply filters and corrections to their voice without affecting you. Many of the other offerings just jam everything together and what you get is what you got.
Automatically saving as MP3 is not a good idea because MP3 compression distortion gets worse each time to have to do production and you can’t stop it. That’s why the better packages use WAV or one of the other uncompressed formats.
Koz