Can't think of the name of a program...

[lostcarpark]

I used to have a program that would record whatever was playing on the sound card to a WAV file that could then be compressed to an MP3. Can anyone suggest a freeware program that does this? If it can save it directly as MP3, that would be a bonus. If it's open source, better still.

Thanks in advance!

Comments

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

http://audacity.sourceforge.net

That it?

[lostcarpark.livejournal.com]

I have Audacity, and it's great, but I don't think it's what I used before. I tried it, but I can't see how to make it use the output to the sound card as an input. I've used it for recording from mic or line-in, which worked perfectly, but not for internal recording.

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

Mine has a dropdown for microphone/wave/line in/CD player/stereo mix.

Pretty sure choosing wave does what you're describing.

[tinman0.livejournal.com]

I have Audacity, and it's great, but I don't think it's what I used before. I tried it, but I can't see how to make it use the output to the sound card as an input. I've used it for recording from mic or line-in, which worked perfectly, but not for internal recording.

whatever recording program you are using, you can select the sound source independently through windoze

go to control panel and select Sound and Audio Devices (or click on the volume control icon in the taskbar if you have that enabled)

on the volume tab select advanced button and that will also show you volume control. all the settings are for playback outputs. click on options>properties in the toolbar of volume control and click the Adjust Volume radio button for Recording. this will show you all the possible inputs for sound on your system. Make sure the one you want, probably stereo mix is ticked and then OK it. you will find that the Volume Control window behind has now changed to Recording Control. click the select box for the specific device you want to use for the sound input and Bob's your uncle. Remember the option to select this device will only appear if you have previously ticked it on the previous screen. you can also adjust the level of the recording input, make sure it is set quite high

Some programs such as Audition allow you to reach this screen through their toolbars but it just opens up the same Windoze screen and you have to go through the same rigmarole each time. don't know if this works for audacity

also note that when you open up volume control the next time it will always open on the playback volume screen but it will remember what recording source you selected from the last time and keep that setting until you change it again

hope this makes some sense?

[jacobsmills.livejournal.com]

Yup, Audacity would do it....
Handles a couple of formats (although I think you need to download a plugin for .ogg files )

I use it for recording radio programes coming through the TV card.

[lostcarpark.livejournal.com]

I want to extract sound out of some Flash and Real files. The program I had before was intercepting the data being sent to the sound card and saving it to a WAV. If Audacity can do that too, fantastic, but what do I select as the inpout? I tried selecting "Stereo Mix" then playing a Flash file, but all it recorded was silence.

[jacobsmills.livejournal.com]

Ummmm.... errrrrr..... Stereo Mixer should work.

I just tried it on Flash and RealVideo files and it's fine....

I suppose you could check your sound settings both in Audacity and generally - there was a program on my computer that managed to mute things without me knowing it, but....ummm... nope, Stereo Mixer should have worked :OO




If the worst came to the worst, a jack from speaker out to line in, although that would be a last ditch approach and at a guess would provide crap results...

Opd2d

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

OpD2D (Output Direct 2 Disc I think) from opcode.co.uk if I remember correctly.

Here's a set of instructions and the downloads that I put together for watervole Record from soundcard instructions and downloads

More on troubleshooting ...

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

... there's some hints at the bottom of that link for troubleshooting why sound may not be being recorded or if it is too quiet or too distorted.

I found that recording by time produced vastly too big files on my PC, so I know set it to about 40Mb per half hour (the BBC radio comedy and folk programmes I record come out around 38-40Mb per half hour).

There may be later versions of the recorder with variable bit rates etc.