Audacity Forum

Using Windows Vista, Just bought a usb headset to replace my old headset that used reg jacks and ever sense I can't record the stereo mix

zgy18 wrote:Using Windows Vista, Just bought a usb headset to replace my old headset that used reg jacks and ever sense I can't record the stereo mix

The USB headset is not a full-featured sound device like the computer sound device you were recording stereo mix with. It will almost certainly just record from its own microphone. If you are recording computer playback using a physical sound device, the recording and playback device must be the same. Therefore if you want to listen to the stereo mix recording while you are making it, you will have to do so using your previous headphones or speakers.

If you install Freecorder (which installs as a web browser plug-in):
http://www.freecorder.com/sound-recorder

this uses a virtual driver to grab sound direct from the application producing it, before it reaches the sound device. Therefore you should be able to record computer playback with Freecorder while using your USB headset. The recording will be saved to a file and you can edit that file afterwards in Audacity if you wish. Save the recording to WAV if you want to edit it in Audacity, even if you want to export it from Audacity after editing as an MP3. This will save you losing quality by encoding the file twice in the lossy MP3 format.

One advantage of recording computer playback this way is that you will only capture the audio that you intend, so that system dings or sounds made by programs such as e-mail alerts won't get into the recording.



Gale