Couple of questions with getting started on Audacity

[DS29790bb]

Hi there. I am doing a school project and need to take some sounds off YouTube for this to work. Someone introduced me to Audacity at school, but I need to use it at home. I installed the simpler version (1.2) because that is what they use at my school and it looks simple.

I have Windows 7 and the computer is HP w1707 (I have no idea what that means....it's just on the front, if that helps).

Now, I am terrible with computers. I looked at all the FAQ and stuff before posting, but am still having trouble. I have that grayed out box up top where I can't select anything and everything says I need to get started there. I then looked up how to fix that, went to "Edit>Preferences>Audio I/O. From here, I do not know what box to select to record. The stuff I am recording is just audio from YouTube....I want Audacity to record the audio that comes out of the speakers in my computer. We don't have a microphone or anything like that. The device options for recording are "Microsoft Sound Mapper" and "Line In."

Anyway, most things told me to choose "Line In." I checked the control panel to see that the speakers and Line In audio devices were active, and they were.

I clicked "Record", played the clip from YouTube, yet nothing recorded still. All I got were flat lines.

I seriously have read everything I could on the web, but I just can't figure this out. Any help here? Thanks!!

[waxcylinder]

1.3.13 is the recommended version for W7

1.2.x is not the "simpler" version. It is the now-ancient version of Audacity that doesn't work properly on a lot of modern computing platforms. 1.2 is now longer updated or repaired, nor has it been for a very long time.

WC

[DS29790bb]

OK, thanks. I installed the newer version. I still select the speakers for recording purposes and I think I am selecting the correct ones (the same ones I mentioned above). I'm still looking at all the Wiki pages for this and it says something about a "sound card." Do I need one to record stuff on Audacity? I read that it's usually built in on computers. I ask this because when I click the record button and then play the YouTube video, nothing records. It's just a straight line.

Is there anything I just need to install for this to work?

Thanks for your help! I'm really not good with computers so it's truly aprpeciated.

[steve]

Topic moved to the Audacity 1.3 section.

Recording sounds that are playing on your computer can sometimes be tricky on Windows 7. The "standard" way to record sounds playing on the computer is to set the sound card to record from "Stereo Mix" as described here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Mixer ... trol_Panel

Fortunately, if you just want to use sounds from YouTube, there's a better way than recording YouTube.
If you use Firefox web browser, there are "Add-ons" available that allow you to download YouTube videos (such as Easy YouTube Video Downloader, though there are also other alternatives).

If you install Audacity 1.3.13 and FFmpeg (see here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.ph ... tallffmpeg ), then Audacity will be able to import the downloaded MP4 files from YouTube and extract the audio from them.