Audacity Forum

This is my first time ever having troubles with Audacity, as I got a new laptop and I am unfamiliar with this. I am trying to record songs with this, but it keeps on picking up my friend and I talking while the song is recording. I think it is using the mic thats supposed to be used with the webcam, and not the internal speakers(?). I want it to pick up the song playing in the computer and not outside sounds. I might not have said this right, but with the Audacity on XP, it would record what was playing on the computer, and not through outside noises.

So your new laptop has Windows 7?
You've posted in the Audacity 1.2.x part of the forum, but Win 7 Vista do not support Audacity 1.2 - you will need to upgrade to Audacity 1.3.13
http://audacityteam.org/download/

To play sounds that are playing on your computer you need to set your sound card to record from "Stereo Mix".
See here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Mixer ... trol_Panel

I have the 1.3.13 version yes, sorry I've never been here before. But I remember on the old Audacity, if you didn't have a microphone plugged in, and had a song playing from the computer, it would record the song inside the computer, and not from the speakers like it is now. (Very confusing and frustrating)

Moderator note: moved to Windows 1.3 Beta board.

It is nothing to do with the "old" or "new" Audacity, but how you configured the computers.

It's a bad idea to record computer playback with the internal microphone because you will lose a lot of quality.

If the song that is playing is an audio file, import it into Audacity instead (File > Import > Audio). If it's a WMA or AAC file you can import it into Audacity by adding FFmpeg to your computer.

As Steve said, you need to record from stereo mix (if your laptop sound device has that option). Go to
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Mixer ... es#vistacp

and follow the instructions to show and enable all the devices, which will hopefully reveal "stereo mix" or what U hear. Then in Audacity choose Transport > Rescan Audio Devices and choose the stereo mix or similar device for the input in Device Toolbar.

There are ways to mute the internal mic or separate the different mics so they present as different recording devices, but we can cover that if you still have a problem after trying the above.




Gale