Hi.
Not used Audacity for some time, I was on v2. something so up dated to 3.1.3 this afternoon. There was a YouTube backing track that I wanted to have on my PC, no problem in the past as I remember but something has obviously changed, as I now cannot seem to record anything. I checked on Windows (W10 Pro 21H1 19043.1415) and I am sure there was an option on my Sound blaster 64 to ‘record what you hear’ but that no longer appears
I have opened Audacity and tried to select most actions but all seem to be greyed out. On one webpage states:
“Steps to Record MP3 from YouTube with Audacity:
Step 1. Download and install Audacity, then open Audacity and hit “Edit > Preferences” from the top menu.”
My Edit > Preferences is greyed out ! Stuffed before I start !! ?
Am I wasting my time pursuing this? I hope that this is still possible and if so how to go about it now.
Thanks for the reply, I have progress of a sort. I shut down Audacity down and restarted, this time I could open Preferences but didn’t get much further. I clicked on Record and Stop and tried some other options but only got as far as grey audio as you can see in the attached screenshot. I noticed that i the bottom left Record and Stopped appeared but Nothing appeared where I should have seen the wave format of two tracks. Selecting Play only resulted in silence so no idea of what was recorded or where it was.
Looks like I have a lot to re learn.
I clicked on Record and Stop and tried some other options but only got as far as grey audio as you can see in the attached screenshot. I noticed that i the bottom left Record and Stopped appeared but Nothing appeared
Thanks for the screenshot!
I see you’ve selected the microphone input on your soundcard as your recording device. Do you have a microphone plugged-in?
If you want to capture streaming audio you’ll need to select WASAPI as your host (not MME) and “loopback” from your soundcard (or whatever device the sound is coming out of).
Note that for WASAPI (loopback) there needs to be sound playing before you can record. It can be “silent audio” but it can’t be “nothing”.
Hey. More progress, thank you!
You gave me a clue, with recording from a ‘microphone’ that I did not have attached! Selected another option but no go. Then started playing a track on YouTube then changed the recording option, this time with a lot more to select from, the Speaker Hi Def Loopback did work
The screenshot attached this time shows as Track 6, I guess when I try to record a track it will then show as Track 1, or 2? Not sure how this works
Thanks to you, I should be able to start recording.
Thanks again Doug. I was nearly going to give up
but didn’t get much further. I clicked on Record and Stop and tried some other options but only got as far as grey audio as you can see in the attached screenshot. I noticed that i the bottom left Record and Stopped appeared but Nothing appeared where I should have seen the wave format of two tracks. Selecting Play only resulted in silence so no idea of what was recorded or where it was.
