Recording desktop audio

[groovelator]

Hi. I'm probably being an idiot, but I've never been able to figure out how to record live audio from the desktop into my DAW, Reaper. My sound card's an Edirol FA101. Please could someone help?

thanks!
Mark

[Albatross]

On this windows laptop I just go into the audio properties > recording and there's a "stereo mix" item in the list along with the usual 'mic, 'line' ins. I just switch that on and everything coming through the 1&2 or L&R is whatever is coming off the desktop, ie; youtube, iPlayer, whatever.

Not sure about your Edirol interface though.

I can't do it with my Firewire interface on the studio machine, but this laptop has the usual onboard sound.

[Neokoenig]

If you want a little more flexibility in audio routing, have a look at http://vb-audio.pagesperso-orange.fr/Voicemeeter/ - it's great to get ASIO sources into programs like Camtasia (for screencasting), but is also v useful if you want to just reroute audio sources locally.

[groovelator]

Great, thanks for that - I'll give it a go. Recording from the desktop is not something I want to do often, but when I do want to it's very frustrating not being able to do it and not really knowing why! It feels like it should be very straightforward... and yet it's always eluded me

[ef37a]

Does anyone else here think "I am PDSure I posted a reply to this!"? For it not to be there next day or am I going ever more ga-ga?

Anyhoosis, I fired up Radio 3 and Reaper on this i3 HP laptop and there is the modulation. You cannot use ASIO drivers AFAIK, Reaper was set (in Preferences) for...
Input: Primary Sound Capture Driver
Output: Primary Sound Driver.

BTW can someone tell me if this process bypasses all the grottiness of the laptop soundcard (tho this HP is not at all bad for playback quality)? I export the result as .wav.

Dave.

[shufflebeat]

Definitely Gaga, I reckon but you're in good company.

I ended up recording my desktop audio (radio programmes) in Audacity and then transferring them to Reaper for choppage. I can't remember why (see, good company) but I would have tried going direct to Reaper first. This was some time ago and the Cockos brothers have been busy since then so things may have changed. 'Stereo Mix' was, as mentioned, the thing to look for.

[Pete Kaine]

Used to be a feature up until Windows 7 and then due to pressure from various quarters I believe, about it being far too easy to capture digital audio the feature seems to have disappeared natively. These days some cards offer it at driver level, otherwise you need some software installed (like Jack or VB) to do the internal routing for you.

[ef37a]

Used to be a feature up until Windows 7 and then due to pressure from various quarters I believe, about it being far too easy to capture digital audio the feature seems to have disappeared natively. These days some cards offer it at driver level, otherwise you need some software installed (like Jack or VB) to do the internal routing for you.

Far be for me Pete but! I don't have either of those installed on this HP lappy. The soundcard is "IDT High Definition Audio CODEC" not the more common Realtek.

Two of my W7 desktops have 2496 cards so that's easy, just input Mon Mix. One W7 desktop has an ESI 1010e installed (do you know it?) and that took me for *&^%!! ever to work out! Turns out to be two "patch leads" in the "DirectWire(R) gizmo of which I know not a lot.

I suppose this is technically "naughty" but it is just R3 and a bit of R4 (inside science) and it is THEIR fault for buggering up timer Freeview recordings on iPlayer!

Dave.

[Albatross]

I'm running Vista on this tea tray and by default, the 'stereo mix' item is disabled in the sound properties "recording" items list (line in, mic etc)

So what you need to do (vista, maybe others) is to right click in the recording properties window and choose "show disabled devices" and "show disconnected devices". Then 'stereo mix' magically appears and you can then bugger about with it.

[Albatross]

( As a side issue - Some lovely music on your website! )