Record From "What U Hear"/"Stereo Mix"

[Corpsecrank]

For those of you who want to record what you are hearing over your speakers/headset.

 

You will need to un-hide and enable recording options. If you are using a Creative Sound Blaster sound card this option will be called "What U Hear" if you are using another audio device such as Realtek on-board or generic sound devices this option will be called "Stereo Mix".

 

For the tutorial I am going to show how to un-hide and enable the "What U Hear" option. The same steps may be followed for the "Stereo Mix" option also.

 

First open your audio options. "Start/Control Panel/Sound"

 

Now go to the "Recording" tab.

 

You will need to right click and check the following options:

 

 

Now that the hidden options are visible you can change the settings to enable them.

 

Right click on the "What U Hear" option (Stereo Mix for non Sound Blaster devices) and Set the device to default:

 

 

Once the device is set as default you will be able to use the "What U Hear"/"Stereo Mix" option in your applications to record the audio you are currently hearing over your speakers/headset.

 

If you wish to record from the mic or use it in a game you can come back to this tab in the audio options and right click the mic and set it as default again.

 

I am sure there is probably a way to use both the "What U Hear"/"Stereo Mix" while still using the mic but I have not gotten that far since I only need to record audio once in a while. So I generally just leave the mic default until I am ready to record audio then I switch for that operation.

 

I hope this helps all of those who have had issues recording audio being played back over the speakers/headset.

[profhig]

Great tip Corpsecrank. I knew this could be done- just not how.

[Corpsecrank]

Great tip Corpsecrank. I knew this could be done- just not how.

 

That is exactly why I posted this. There were so many people including myself who had this problem and I thought this would be a great place to post the answer

[EclipseWebJS2]

I got a problem!

I can't find "Stereo Mix" in my Recording devices. Am I supposed to play sound before I can set things?

[washuk]

I have spent quite a bit of time trying to make the recording feature work and here is what I found. It requires a driver for the recording to work. My soundblaster card, SB X-Fi extreme audio, does not have this driver. There is also an issue with my Dell PC. As I remember it Dell turned out a lot of computers that were supposed to be ready for Vista but there was some delay from Microsoft supplying sound requirements to Dell so Dell just did the best they could with what they had and left out some portion of the hardware required for recording. The end result, you can't record. There are companies that will sell you a software recorder that will work but I have yet to find any free ware that works because the driver is not there......

[Corpsecrank]

I have spent quite a bit of time trying to make the recording feature work and here is what I found. It requires a driver for the recording to work. My soundblaster card, SB X-Fi extreme audio, does not have this driver. There is also an issue with my Dell PC. As I remember it Dell turned out a lot of computers that were supposed to be ready for Vista but there was some delay from Microsoft supplying sound requirements to Dell so Dell just did the best they could with what they had and left out some portion of the hardware required for recording. The end result, you can't record. There are companies that will sell you a software recorder that will work but I have yet to find any free ware that works because the driver is not there......

 

This is actually more specific to your sound card. The extreme cards had drivers issues in 7 right from the start and there are solutions for this. You could head over to www.sevenforums.com where others with the same card as you have found ways to make it work properly.

 

I use the Fatal1ty series SB and had no trouble.

[washuk]

I have found a freeware program that does work with my system. It's called Freecorder.