Audacity Forum

Hello,
I have a trouble in recording music with both Audacity 1.2.6 and 1.3.6 (Unicode). I use to play adding sounds to a previous layer while listening to it, and I've done that successfully with Audacity many times. Yesterday I started a new recording and loaded the layer. When I started recording a horrible noise came from my speakers and it was impossible to proceed. I tried with other software (the integrated Windows XP recorder) and I can record, so that is not a problem with the microphone or the hardware. I tried also to remove Audacity and install it again (also the new beta version), but the problem was still there. I went on trying, and the noise problem was almost fixed cancelling the mark for the option "Software Playthrough", but when I recorded again I obtained a file with a lot of hiss and the previous layer re-recorded amplified and the addition very very low in the background with a lot of distortion.
I don't know what did happen.
My operating system is XP and my soundcard is Realtek HD.
Can someone help me? I hope so, Audacity is my favourite programme, I'm a musician and I use it in all my productions...!
Thanks a lot
Paolo

I suspect that you have accidentally changed something in the sound card control panel (or another program has changed it for you). Look for a loudspeaker icon near the system clock. You may have set it to record "stereo mix" instead of the actual source that you want to record (or some other setting).

Yes, in my settings there was the option "stereo mix" enabled... also if I didn't enable it! I found that in the soundcard control panel. Now all seems to work fine.
Thank you Steve for your help!
All the best,
Paolo