The Steel Guitar Forum

Anybody know of a little (free) program I can download that will record audio of whatever's playing on my speakers? I'm really looking for something simple like the little 'Sound Recorder' that comes with Windows, but it needs to record for several minutes (not just a few seconds), and needs to record whatever you are hearing, so you can for example, go to a website and record the music you hear playing there. The Windows Sound Recorder fails on both those counts.

Got one to recommend?
Thanks,
Jim

The Audacity program will do that, providing your sound card has the "What You Hear" (System Mixer) option. Some newer Integrated Audio modules (on the motherboard) do not have the What You Hear implemented. If you want to record streaming audio from the internet (e.g. steel radio) you need the What You Hear option in your sound "card".

The Windows Sound Recorder will only record from the Microphone input and then only for 60 seconds. About all it's good for is testing your microphone.

The last couple of years I've been using a little program called "Total Recorder". It's free or at least it used to be. Can't remember where I got it. It will record a whole program if you so desire. Also it's very easy to use.

I've been using TotalRecorder for years - it's an excellent program. Not free, but not expensive either. The Standard Edition is $17.95 and will record anything you can put through your sound card. Find it at http://www.highcriteria.com/

This one works pretty good, been using it for a while with good results. Free to try.

BF

http://www.ripvinyl.com/

Thanks everyone. How would I determine whether my sound card has the 'What You Hear' option?

Windows Vista Recording Input Source selections for recording streaming audio, sound from media players or just about anything you can hear coming through your speakers are Hidden from view and Disabled by Default.

If your sound card/system supports recording streaming audio Input Source selections such as: Stereo Mix, What U Hear, Wave Out Mix, Wave or a similar selection, here's what you need to do to Enable it for recording:

Right-Click on your Speaker Icon in your System Tray, (near your clock), select "Recording Devices".

In the Sound window that opens, near the top, select the "Recording" TAB.

Move your cursor down to where devices are shown.

Right-Click in the blank white area and select "Show Disabled Devices".

If supported, new selections will appear such as: Stereo Mix, What U Hear, etc. Right-Click on "Stereo Mix", "What U Hear" or similar and select "Enable".

Right-Click on the same item again and select "Set as Default Device". Click OK.

Now in the recorder's Options in the "Input Source" box, you should have the "Stereo Mix", "What U Hear" or similar source available to select for recording streaming, etc.

(You can also Enable other hidden selections like Microphone, Line In, etc. if they are not already shown).

If the "Stereo Mix" type device did Not show up in the "Sound" window when right-clicking and selecting Show Disabled Devices, it may indicate that you have Integrated Sound, and recording streaming, etc. is Not supported. In that case (on a Desktop PC), installing a sound card into an available slot should solve the problem.

If you're using a Laptop or a Notebook and aren't able to get your preferred Input Sources showing, that is hard to resolve. The best thing to do in that case is to contact the manufacturer to see what they can recommend.

If your laptop has a PCMCIA slot, We have read on forums that it might be possible to use a PCMCIA sound card to resolve the problem but haven't been able to test that yet.

Thanks for the very detailed response, Bob. I don't have Vista, though, I have XP. And when I right-click on my speaker icon, I don't get the options you cited. I get only 'Open Volume Control' or 'Adjust Audio Properties'. So, I don't be able to follow any of your suggested moves. But I appreciate the effort.

Jim Cohen wrote:Thanks for the very detailed response, Bob. I don't have Vista, though, I have XP. And when I right-click on my speaker icon, I don't get the options you cited. I get only 'Open Volume Control' or 'Adjust Audio Properties'.

Double-click on the XP Systray speaker icon to open the Windows Mixer. Go to the Option menu item and select "Properties." Change the selection dot from Palyback to Recording. If there is an option called Stereo Mix, or What You Hear, select them and click OK. Those sliders will now open in a new smaller mixer window.

Hopefully, your sound card's software will allow you to record streams (What You Hear).

Jim Cohen wrote:Thanks for the very detailed response, Bob. I don't have Vista, though, I have XP. And when I right-click on my speaker icon, I don't get the options you cited. I get only 'Open Volume Control' or 'Adjust Audio Properties'. So, I don't be able to follow any of your suggested moves. But I appreciate the effort.

Each different sound card has different software to control it. So other people's answers will not work for you. What is your sound card? Do you know how to bring up the software that lets you control it? It probably looks like a mixer with some switching, such as selecting sources and destinations from a list. If you watch Audacity looking for signs of audio coming into it, while you poke around in your sound card's mixer, you may stumble across the signal routing that works.

If you have Integrated Audio that doesn't have the "What you hear", the $30 SoundBlaster Audigy SE, PCI Sound Card (even available at Wally World) is an inexpensive option that will give it to you.

The Audigy SE option is also a step up for MIDI playback as the hardware MIDI Synths on the board are much better than the poor Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth. I have one PC with the Audigy SE installed and I use the "A" hardware synth with programs such as Band in a Box and the synth is equivalent to the Roland VSC33 and since it's a hardware synth instead of software it doesn't require another program to be loaded.

Thanks, everyone, for your help. I got it working. I used Wiz's instructions to set my input settings on the sound card (had a stereo mix setting, no 'what you hear' setting per se), and then just opened my Reaper software and it could record it readily. The only thing that was different from Wiz's instructions was that when I clicked on Options > Properties, the 'Recording' side of things was greyed out and not clickable. But I just changed the 'Mixer Device' from 'Audio output' to 'Audio input' and then it became clickable and then I could click on 'Stereo Mix' and from there eveything worked as suggested. Thanks again to everyone.

You can lock this one up, Wiz.
Jim