I’m running windows 10 with Audacity 2.1.0. When I’m live stream recording (recording from say youtube into Audacity) the recording is scratchy, missing parts and totally unrecognisable. Ive noticed the drop down boxes only allow me to use Microphone imput (Conexant HD smart Audio 221) which is the only option other than the sound mapper. My system shows I have Nvidia HD Audio but I cannot get this to be recognised in Audacity. Unless of course I’m completely going down the wrong track with this lol.
So that is the explanation. You are trying to record YouTube with a mic.
You want to show disabled devices in Windows Sound then see if you can enable stereo mix or similar.
If you don’t see stereo mix, you may not have Windows 10 audio drivers that are matched to your hardware. Have you looked on the web site of your computer or motherboard manufacturer for the latest Windows 10 audio drivers intended for your computer model?
Not all sound devices may offer stereo mix even then. If not, you can record streaming audio by choosing the Windows WASAPI host in Audacity’s Device Toolbar.
Note that you can download YouTube videos using your web browser. Use your favourite search engine to find out how. To edit the audio, add FFmpeg to your computer then drag the video into Audacity and it will extract the audio for you. This way you will get the audio into Audacity exactly as it is in the video file being streamed from YouTube.
Obviously we assume you have copyright holders’ permission to record or download these YouTube videos.
That’s for sending audio through the video adaptor to your HDMI or DisplayPort output for monitors that can play audio.
That NVidia playback device may not appear in Windows Sound until you actually connect a monitor with audio to the HDMI or DisplayPort output.
Gale