Starting into Audacity on Win 7

[solarblast]

I have the latest version 1.3.12 (beta) installed. I would like to capture audio off the air for a radio station I'm listening to on my PC. I've gone to Preferences and see no devices (found) available for recording. How do I get going on my little project?

[AlanHK]

See Mixer_Toolbar_Issues#Windows_Vista_.2F_Windows_7

The most recent Windows operating systems called Vista and Windows 7 treat individual recording sources such as line-in, microphone and "stereo mix" as recording devices in their own right. As a result, the Mixer Toolbar input selector will be always be greyed out by default. Some users report that input sources can be made to appear in the input selector by running Audacity in compatibility mode for Windows XP. To do this, right-click over audacity.exe in Windows Explorer, then click Properties, then the "Compatibility" tab. This isn't a generally recommended solution.

Instead, select recording inputs at Edit > Preferences: Audio I/O tab, in the "Recording Device" dropdown (this dropdown is in the "Devices" tab in Audacity Beta). Also in the Beta version, recording devices can be viewed instead in Device Toolbar. To enable this toolbar, click View > Toolbars > Device Toolbar. Here is an example of recording inputs in Preferences for two different physical devices (an inbuilt sound device and an external USB sound card):

Microphone: Realtek HD Device

Line-In: Realtek HD Device

Microphone: USB Audio

Line-In: USB Audio

Stereo Mix: USB Audio


If selecting a particular input does not work, or you don't see the input you want, try selecting it in the Windows Control Panel (see the next section below).

We strongly suggest you read our further information about Windows Vista and Windows 7.

[solarblast]

Thanks. Unfortunately, I don't see any Audio tab. Nor do I find anything useful in the Device Toolbar under Preferences. All I see is a list on the left: Interfaces-Devices, Playback, Recording, Quality ... Devices shows Host: MME, Playback-Device: Headphones and Recording-Device: No devices found.

I'm going to punt on this one. I found my trusty old Pogo Radio device, which allows me to record on Line with an audio cable.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Usually you select "What you hear" or "Stereo Mix" but not all PC's with onboard audio(read laptops) allow it, if you have Vista or 7 you have to enable it with a secret hack.

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/audio-general-technical-discussion/130879-windows-vista-...-hear-how.html

rant: I have several old PC's(pre-2006) and thay all allow recording "what I hear", it seems somebody wants to close the analog hole.

[AlanHK]

I would like to capture audio off the air for a radio station I'm listening to on my PC.

Actually there are ways to capture Internet radio streams directly.

Eg Tapin http://tapinradio.com/wp/
which plays and can record most Internet radio streams (except for Real Audio).
If it's an MP3 stream, it just records it as-is.

Or Streambox VCR Suite.
Just Google for "Stream capture" and you'll find plenty of other apps.

If you capture the stream, rather than the audio outout, you get a cleaner sound and you don't get interruptions if there is buffering.

Sometimes you have to use a URL sniffer to find the actual address of the stream if they use some kind of flash player, for instance. Tapin has a lot of those in its presets already.