Why isn't my Audacity software recording sound?

[compu123]

Audacity worked perfectly on my XP computer, recording fine and all.
Now on my Win7 laptop I cannot get it to record.
Also tried to run it compatibility mode for XP but it made no difference.

And I am not talking about recording by talking into the inbuild microphone, that works.
But I am referring to recording say a webinar or a skype call, which always worked perfectly before
by connecting a headset with microphone to the computer and then press record.
However now it doesn't record the sound.
It did record it for about 2 seconds, but now it only gives me a blank recording,
and the microphone settings are on full etc.

What do I need to do differently now in Win 7 ?

P.S. On Win 7 I use version 1.3.14- beta but on XP I had version 1.2.6,
Is that the causing of this problem??

Thank you for your answers.

[kozikowski]

Audacity 1.2 is not supported on newer computers. On some computers, it won't even start.

My first reaction is to wonder how you got it to work on the earlier computer. Skype is notorious for taking over the sound pathways, messing up recording software like Audacity. What you have now is normal.

You generally have to install recording software like Total Recorder, Pamela, or one of the free software packages like Skype Recorder. The lower two of the four Pamela packages are intentionally damaged to get you to buy the higher priced software. There are only two workable ones, Pamela Professional and Pamela Business.

There was a YouTube entry who claimed to get both sides of the conversation in the show by recording the speaker through the microphone. Since that generally messes up the listener at the far end and confuses Skype gating, we don't recommend it.

Koz

[compu123]

Thanks kozikowski,
But I am using 1.3 on the newer computer, where it's not working.
??

So are you saying, that basically one cannot get audacity to work / one cannot use audacity with version 1.3?

Thanks again for clarifying.

P.S.Please note that I only mentioned Skype as an example, I haven't tested this new version in Skype yet,
only when recording a webinar/or anything else but your own voice.

[steve]

Recording Skype or other voip software requires recording from 2 audio sources at the same time - your microphone, and the other person/people that are playing over the Internet. In XP it was often possible to do this by setting the microphone so that it would play through the sound card, and then setting the recording source to "Stereo Mix". This has been made more difficult and often impossible on later versions of Windows because the stereo mix recording option is often not available.

There are some general guidelines to recording from Stereo Mix on Vista/7 but this is not guaranteed to work - it all depends on your hardware and the sound card drivers: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Mixer ... _Issues#cp

Even if you are able to record Stereo Mix, there is no guarantee that it will work while running Skype/voip software as these programs will configure the sound system for their own use and not for recording. Skype recoding is made much more simple by specialist commercial Skype recording software such as Pamela or Total Recorder.

[compu123]

Thanks Steve.

But then now on Win 7, as I can only record in Audacity when clicking record and speak into the microphone,
it makes Audacity not suitable for my needs any longer at all.

(I do wonder what it's used for then by other people though.)

Anyway, as I am now without a recording software, would anyone know of another free recording software
that works for recording 60+ mins and does record from the internet, too?

I appreciate your help.
Thank you .

[steve]

would anyone know of another free recording software
that works for recording 60+ mins and does record from the internet, too?

Recording voip or Skype is a different thing to just recording "from the Internet".
Recording from Skype or other voip software calls for recording from two sources at the same time - the local microphone and the streaming audio.
Recording "from the Internet" is much more simple if your computer, and in particular the sound card drivers, support recording "Stereo Mix".

See here for information about recording from the Internet: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Mixer ... _Issues#cp

[compu123]

Just wanted to give everyone the answer and solution that I now found out myself.

By right clicking on the volume in the task bar, and choosing recording devices ,
and disableing the inbuild microphone does the trick.

[compu123]

Unfortunately my above mentioned solution solved the problem for not being able to record on Audacity some online streaming using a cable with headset etc.

But now Audacity stops recording when I talk into the headset's microphone

??

[compu123]

My apologies for the confusion, but now I solved it:
for recording online streaming via cable, stereo mix must be enabled, like Steve etall mentioned,
but the microphone has to be enabled, too.

For recording voice through a headset's mic the stereo mix has to be disabled and the mic enabled.