Audacity Forum

Ok. So I read the little tutorial about recording from Youtube using speaker output. My problem is, the speakers on my laptop suck and whenever I record through them the recording/sound quality is low and comes out rattly, crackly, popping, and shaky. But when I plug in the high quality stereo headphones I have, it produces clean, deep, rich sound. But when I plug them in and hit record, all I get is silence, because my computer's built in microphone is external and next to the speakers.

Is there any way I can directly record the sound input that is coming through my headphones, rather than through my low quality speakers.

Thanks.

To record the high quality service internal to the computer, you need to be recording "Mix-Out" or "What-U-Hear." You are recording the built-in microphone and yes, that's usually terrible.

There's no other variation. You need to set the Windows Control Panel for this service. If you're on a Win7 or Vista machine, there's a possibility that the service just doesn't exist and you either need external hardware cables and adapters, or money-based software like Total Recorder.

Windows Control Panel
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... trol_Panel

This has nothing to do with Audacity. Audacity is a complete slave to what the computer supplies to it.

Koz