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Record what you hear - using Audacity

This technique is a potential answer to one or more of the situations that could arise while trying to work with sounds / music on a computer, but with limited resources.

How to extract the audio from a video / movie ?
How to record what I play on a windows PC ? 
How to convert audio from one format to the other ?
How to extract the audio from a Youtube movie ?

The answer:
* Windows provides for accessing the signal going from the soundcard to the speakers, through what it calls a 'Stereo Mix', you just have to point your recording software to use the 'Stereo Mix' instead of the microphone. Voila!, any sound that you can hear on the computer can also be recorded.

Step by step procedure for doing this is below.

The software that use for recording is the well known Audacity. If you don't have it yet, I recommend you download it. Its a great software. (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/)

Step 1:
Add and enable 'Stereo Mix' to the group of Recording Devices. Either, right click on the Sounds icon in the taskbar or go to Control Panel -> Sounds. Choose Recording Devices. If 'Stereo Mix' doesn't appear in the list, right click anywhere on the list and make sure the 'Show Disabled Devices' option is checked. (see Screenshot 1)

Step 2:
Open Audacity (restart if its already open). Go to Edit menu -> Preferences and in the 'Audio I/O' tab change the Recording | Device: to 'Stereo Mix'. (see Screenshot 2)

Now you are all set.

Step 3:
Click on the record button in Audacity. Start playing the whatever you wish to record !! (see Screenshot 3)

Note: Audacity, at the time of writing is still immature on Windows, so make sure you save your project often enough.

Screenshot 1




Screenshot 2




Screenshot 3



last updated: 08 January 2012. 

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