Audacity will record iTunes, but nothing else

[hypocrith8ter]

My computer is running Windows Vista. After I downloaded Audacity, I tried recording YouTube, but no sound was recorded. I have a standard auxiliary cable going from my microphone input port to my sound output port. I popped in a DVD and played it through windows media player. Tried recording the sound, but still I got nothing. Interesting thing is when I opened iTunes and tried recording a song from there, it worked. After some tweaking out the audio volume in iTunes, I was able to record the audio with a crisp file. So what am I doing wrong if I can record iTunes, but cant record anything else?!

[steve]

Without the "loopback connector" (standard auxiliary cable), check that the output and input are both working correctly. Then attach the cable and adjust the levels.

[hypocrith8ter]

I dont understand how adjusting levels will affect anyhting if the program will record audio from one program, but it wont record audio from other programs. Output obivously work or I would hear any music after I test a recording. Input obivoulsy work because I was able to record the audio coming from iTunes.

[kozikowski]

It's still a mystery how you're doing that. Do you have any of the capture software packages; SoundFlower, WireTap, or Hijack? If not, the only way to get any show playing on the computer into Audacity (aside from the hard-wired cable) is to play the music on the computer speakers and record it on the built-in microphone.

You can find out if you're doing that by looking in...

Apple > System Preferences > Hardware > Sound > Input. Which input is selected?

Koz