I can't get Audacity to record

Stuart Legg · Post by **Stuart Legg** » 24 Feb 2011 6:52 pm

With Vista it works fine on the out put sound but no input sound.
It seems to me that this would be a common problem but reading the help and blog it's like the problem don't exist. They should spend less effort telling you all the wonderful things the program can do and more effort telling you how to get it to work properly. It's free so maybe I'm supposed to be grateful that it almost works.

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 24 Feb 2011 10:09 pm

Record what from what source?

What do you have chosen in Audacity/edit/preferences on the devices tab?

What is the make and model of your sound card?

Do you know if you have proper sound card drivers?

It can't record what it can't hear, just like any other recorder. Whatever the issue is, it's a near certainty it is not the fault of Audacity.

Dale Gray · Post by **Dale Gray** » 25 Feb 2011 2:19 pm

What I had to do was run a patch cord from the speakers out to the mic in with a cable that had a female jack on it also and plugged my speakers into that for monitoring.

Stuart Legg · Post by **Stuart Legg** » 26 Feb 2011 2:09 pm

If you have XP you don't need Audacity.
If you have Vista you'll need some kind of software to rip audio from a YouTube Video.
If you have Vista just downloaded “YouTube DownLoader” takes about 3mins tops and it was ready to go.
Paste in the Youtube videos url then when the file was complete drag and drop it back in and set it for an mp3 and whamo! a great sounding mp3 file magically appears on my desktop.
Unlike Audacity I didn’t have to download 2 different programs, stand on my head with both hands on my crouch while singing the Chinese National Anthem.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 27 Feb 2011 3:22 am

Whether you have XP, Vista or Windows 7 has no bearing on whether a recording program such as Audacity is needed or not needed. None of the Operating Systems come with a recording program, except the Windows "Sound Recorder" and in XP and Vista it will only record from the microphone input and only for 60 seconds.

If you want to record "what you hear" called "streaming audio" from the Internet (whether it's from Youtube or some other source) you need a recording program, such as Audacity (there are others) and have the System Mixer/Stereo Mixer/What You Hear available to do it. On SOME (but not all) systems you can run a jumper patch cord from the Speaker or Line Out to the Line In and do the recording if you don't have the System Function (System Mixer or other names for this function).

There are third party programs that will also allow recording of youtube videos and sound. But these are ONLY for youtube. If you want to record audio from some other internet location they will not work for that.

Stuart Legg · Post by **Stuart Legg** » 2 Mar 2011 7:24 pm

Jack sure you need something to record on. I have 4 different recording programs and they all will record anything that you can hear from my XPs sound cards stereo mix without using any of the inputs (Mic or inline)so I don't use or need Audacity on my XP. But none of those recording programs will do the same on Vista no matter how many drivers you download or how you configure it.
It was built in on the earlier XPs but for vista I haven't found anything you could download that would do that for Vista. They don't want you ever to be able to do this on Vista or Windows7. However if you have XP that won't do this there is a download available for this purpose. I feel like I'm singing the blues here.

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 2 Mar 2011 10:58 pm

Yes, you need a recording program of some type.

But that is not enough. Recording what you hear (“stereo mix”) is just more difficult on Vista and Windows 7, probably deliberately so.

The problem is with the sound card/operating system interaction, NOT the recording program.

There ARE sound cards that are KNOWN to provide stereo mix on Vista and on Windows 7. Some are built into the motherboard, some are internal, and some are external.

Apparently, you don’t own such a sound card. If you have such a sound card, any recording program will work.

Or you might have success with a patch cord running from your sound card speaker outputs to the microphone inputs. That MAY work.

Realtek onboard sound provides stereo mix on Windows 7. Sigmatel onboard sound can typically provide stereo mix on Vista.

I had considerable trouble getting Sigmatel onboard sound to work on Vista, but eventually got it done. I easily got an external USB sound card to work on Vista. And I easily got Realtek onboard sound to work on Windows 7.

With some sound cards, you may never get it to work. That may be your current situation.