Audacity Forum

Hi again Audacity experts,

On a prior thread I went through quite an ordeal trying to get "Stereo Mix" to appear in my sound prefs in Windows 7 ULT in order to enable audio recording of streaming content with Audacity... I'm not continuing on that thread here because this question introduces a new possible solution that I can't find current information about.

First I'd like to ask if I can skip past most of the obvious solutions for enabling desktop audio recording (Freecorder, Virutal Audio Cable, loopback, driver updates, etc.) unless they are new, foolproof options for Windows 7 specifically since I previously went through four days of attempts with steve, waxcylinder and Irish, who were very, very helpful, in spite of my situation.

A few weeks ago I finally settled on the hard wire loopback method of wiring the speaker outlet back to the line-in outlet, but that method produces an audible hum in my speakers and somewhat diminishes the sound quality both in the recordings that I get in Audacity and in the overall sound quality that comes out of the speakers all the time since I need to use a splitter to have the speakers operable and to wire the speaker outlet back to the line-in outlet... this is true even with a gold plated wire and splitter.

I found myself switching back and forth between with and without the loopback wires in order to record which takes away the ability to record something spontaneously at the time that it is playing... for example, there is a song that I can't find at the iTunes store or anywhere that's playing on a French jazz radio station in the iTunes app right now that I'd like to record, but by the time I re-hook-up my loopback cables, the song will be over.

But recently I found out from one of my senior staff members that Dell (and possibly other PC manufacturers) has made the Stereo Mix option invisible by excluding it in the registry programming and that a somewhat simple(?) registry edit will enable the Stereo Mix option... this is apparently a solution outside of any audio driver updates.

I'm finding information about doing this registry edit around the internet (including on this forum - http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... try#p17657 ) but all the information that I have found so far only includes information about doing this registry edit in Windows XP and Vista and these various forum posts and articles are from 2007 and 2008.

For example, there is a YouTube tutorial that is posted about editing the registry in Windows Vista or XP (I think by the post date and the appearance of the panel styles in the screenshots included). This information is completely different from the information contained in the Audacity forum thread that is linked above on the subject, and the instructions in this YouTube video are vague and seem to leave out some of the critical information and details that are needed when editing the registry (for someone who has never edited the registry before) and some of the useless titling of each step, and grammar in this YouTube tutorial creates some doubt in my mind about this person's overall thought process... and it doesn't include any later notes that say if it applies to editing the Windows 7 registry... here is the link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU_KrJ9S4o4&NR=1

So I'm wondering if any of the extensive audio knowledge that is contained in the astute minds on this forum may have information about doing this registry edit in Windows 7 that will allow "Stereo Mix" to show up in the system sound prefs and in Audacity.

I can post the steps of the YouTube tutorial (linked above) on this subject and list the questions that I have about each step if that would help anyone to understand my lack of knowledge and lack of confidence about simple registry editing since I have already compiled these questions in an email.

Thanks allot,

digiday

As we have said multiple times, Stereo Mix is a dance between Windows, the Sound Card itself and the Software Drivers. You can't generate a global fix in just one place that's going to work for everybody. If you have a fancy, talented sound card, it's going to register in multiple places in the Registry -- different from your neighbor down the hall.

You can, however, buy Total Recorder and that works in all Windows versions from Win2K and up.

http://www.highcriteria.com/

Your hard-wired connection may have a slightly lower quality, but should not have hum. It's possible that the shields or ground connections at the plugs may be defective or sub-standard, or you could just have a ratty sound card. It's totally possible you plugged into the Mic-In (pink) instead of the Stereo Line-In (blue). That will create all sorts of sound distortion because the Line-Out and Mic-In are completely incompatible with each other.

You did use a shielded sound cable, right?

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2102949

You might try moving your computer. Physically move it to another room and try it there just to see. Analog audio can be affected by all kinds of room magnetics and wall power problems. A friend of mine tried to do sound work and couldn't get rid of the hum. He was trying to run the computer against a wall that housed the power panel for the building. Bad idea.

Koz

Sorry koz,

Don't shoot!... I'm back after a reasonably long respite... I didn't read about your Stereo Mix dance... did you take lessons at Arthur Murray?

I just happened to be looking at the Total Recorder website when your reply came through... your response time is almost as fast as your temper. I had to make sure that Total Recorder wasn't by the same crooks that make the Applian "Freecoder 4" which has even more horrendous reviews on Cnet.com now than it did a couple of months ago... that is a possibility, though the topic of this thread is more about the possible registry edit.

If you like Radio Shack links, here are the links to the cable and splitter that I bought... I went back and exchanged my first purchase once already because the salesman set me up with a mono splitter that only recorded in one channel and played back through the other channel, which canceled themselves out when trying to record and play back in Audacity, so I then went back and exchanged my purchase for this gold plated stereo wire and adapter... no one has previously mentioned "shielded" before...
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2103870
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2102527

The diminished sound quality in the overall sound that comes out of the speakers is as much of a problem as the hum... I've read that using the "Stereo Mix" option, if available, produces the best sound quality and doesn't require the wire and splitter that are compromising my speaker's audio quality.

The belabored topic of my post was more about the registry edit and not about all the other alternatives that I've already explored... if you would rather not reply or you tend to get angry because I posted a question, then my response would be the obvious, "Ignore me"... most other people already do.

Thanks,

digiday

Forgot to say, I did not plug my loopback cables in to the mic outlet... if I had, it wouldn't work at all.

digiday

Here is some not so new information on the registry edit for Dell computers that I found and how this may be an effort by Dell and other organizations to cripple audio recording ability across a large portion of computer users...

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... fa01c35d67

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell/15 ... ts-do.html

http://cepmixervistafix.blogspot.com/20 ... r-fix.html

And below are a couple threads from the Audacity forum on this subject...

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1053

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... b6e#p93183

digiday

Brief, maybe. But not angry.

I read that as you made a recording with your cables and then the playback was very substandard. What you meant was you were monitoring the "loop" live with a Y cable and that didn't sound right. Different.

The computer makers did two things that make perfect sense given who they are. They configure most if not all Windows laptops for audio/video conferencing, and delete -- or just fail to install or configure -- the stereo mix service. The former because most makers gave up the idea that these computers were "home" machines and actively turned them into business machines (which has the expected effect that we get many postings complaining about not being able to record a guitar) and the later because computers are much more stable without it. Stereo Mix is a recursive re-entry pathway and nobody really understands it. It causes many problems with live recording and other services when you leave it running by accident.

"How come I get an echo in my microphone recording."

Macs can't record Stereo Mix out of the box and you have to jump through hoops to get it to work.

If you start collecting and posting Windows Registry hacks it may be convenient for the music industry to pay attention. That's the other reason to delete Stereo Mix.

Koz

I did some more checking in to "Total Recorder v8.2"... one out of three public reviewers on Cnet.com had this to say...
http://download.cnet.com/Total-Recorder ... 24762.html

Version: Total Recorder Standard Edition 8.2 build 4200
"NOT WORTH THE EFFORT"
by ufogino on February 14, 2011

Pros: FREE AND LOOKED GOOD
Cons: SPYWARE AND MORE INCLUDED
Summary: AVOID THIS DOWNLOAD

This was the same problem that reviewers of "Freecoder 4 Toobar" complained of (and that Freecoder couldn't be removed)... not sure if Total Recorder 8.2 has the same removal problem, and the free version is only temporary and apparently has an audible sound every 60 seconds, but this spyware and adware problem seems to be prevalent with much of this type of software.

digiday

koz,

koz wrote:

I read that as you made a recording with your cables and then the playback was very substandard. What you meant was you were monitoring the "loop" live with a Y cable and that didn't sound right. Different.

No, that is not what I "meant"... you are misreading what I wrote or putting words in mouth...
digiday wrote:

I went back and exchanged my first purchase once already because the salesman set me up with a mono splitter that only recorded in one channel and played back through the other channel, which canceled themselves out when trying to record and play back in Audacity...

What I was describing was that the first splitter that the salesman at Radio Shack directed me to was a mono splitter (very small "Mono" labeling at the bottom of a list of product title languages on the package) and that it was recording in one channel and playing back through Audacity in the other channel so nothing could be heard during playback... meaning later, after the recording. I was not monitoring my "loop" live with a Y cable during the recording... the splitter was only so I could use my speakers without having to continually switch back and forth between with and without the cables... ironically, I ended up doing that anyway because the quality of the sound was noticeably diminished with the splitter setup.

I think there would be a reliable proofreading service that you can find by doing a Google search... it's entertaining sometimes reading what people want to read in to what one writes.

digiday

I tried "Freecoder 4 Toobar" and I was most unimpressed that it forced the installation of a load of unwanted other software even when deselected, and then was very difficult to uninstall. In my opinion "Freecoder 4 Toobar" is one to avoid.

Regarding Total Recorder Standard Edition 8.2 build 4200
CNet rate it as free from viruses, spyware, and malware (see CNet Download Policy http://www.cnet.com/download-software-p ... ?tag=mncol )
There is one review that says "Pros: FREE AND LOOKED GOOD, Cons: SPYWARE AND MORE INCLUDED, Summary: AVOID THIS DOWNLOAD" but the other two reviews give it 4 out of 5 stars and are happy with it.

I'm always a bit suspicious of reviews that are written entirely in upper case, especially if they give an entirely one sided review with no substantiating evidence ("What" spyware is included? Why did neither of the other reviewers or the CNet team notice any spyware?) I wonder if that reviewer was mixing up Total Recorder with Freecoder 4 Toolbar.

Hi steve,

It's good to hear from you... I missed your wise and experienced input.

You're right about Freecorder 4... check out the latest review on it on Cnet.com... someone from Applian admits in a letter to the guy who is reviewing Freecoder that there is "PriceGong" adware included in their software, yet on the Freecorder webpage (at the bottom) there is a little red goodhousekeeping type seal that states "NO SPYWARE ADWARE"... it seems it should read "YES SPYWARE-ADWARE IS INCLUDED".
She says, "We do have that in the program. If you don't want it then do uninstall. We don't install any programs on your computer-you do that."
http://download.cnet.com/Freecorder/300 ... ag=mncol;1

It crossed my mind that the reviewer of Total Recorder was getting it mixed up with Freecorder 4 Toobar, but I also understand that many software users (meaning the other two reviewers) blindly install software and think, "This is great!" while having no idea (and never seeking out the information that is displayed during the installation) of what is being installed on their computer... just like I'm sure people who invested with Bernie Madoff thought "This guy is great!" before he "made off" with all of their money.

Also, allot of doofuses (or doofusie) use all caps when they want to emphasize something... THEY JUST DON'T KNOW WHERE THE EXCLAMATION POINT IS LOCATED ON THE KEYBOARD!!!!!!

It's good to be back...

enjoy,

digiday