Recording streaming audio to laptop problem

[starman714]

could somebody have a little pity and patience with me?

i bought a Toshiba Satellite C655-S5512 and the only recording device recognized by Windows 7 and any subsequent recording software is the internal mic which leaves a lot of environmental noise in anything i try to record whether it's streaming audio or line-in recording.

disabling the mic leaves me with 'no recording/capture device detected" type messages

any help would be thanked profusely

[captain beyond]

This probably won't help (I'm on a mac now but used to be pc), but don't you have a place (for me it's system preferences/audio)where you can select connected devices for input/output? Have you tried re-starting the laptop to recognize something new? Not sure if you're talking about external hardware or internal software.

[lintoni]

Will this help you?

http://www.sevenforums.com/software/49463-audacity-recording-directly-laptop.html

[starman714]

it has a camera and mic built into it - if i disable the mic through the control panel, software programs that record cannot see anything to record with - i don't have enough control of my soundcard/audio hardware with Windows 7 it seems - google didn't help me much

thanks lintoni, i have the same problem as that guy, no other devices are shown in windows 7 no matter what i click (my copy anyway, oem home premium) but i think that cable solution might just do the trick!

[mdshrk1]

I don't record online, but I've got my receiver running though an external SoundBlaster. Once I ran the setup on it, everything worked fine for me. Plug & Play should recognize your equipment.

[lintoni]

Was thinking about (for instance) a usb soundcard, but guessed that it would be no good for the streaming audio mentioned in the op.

[starman714]

that's what i've been thinking i need, an external soundcard. the workaround cable is sort of working for streaming but levels are crazy overdriven....but it'll work, just have to putz with levels a lot for each recording


as promised, profuse thank you's to all contributors! :wave:

thank you's thank you's thank you's thank you's thank you's thank you's thank you's thank you's thank you's thank you's thank you's thank you's

[starman714]

wanted to add, line-in recording seems to actually shut the internal mic off much the same as plugging in headphones re-directs from the speakers, so that's all good too. i goofed in my op

also, the workaround cable i'm using differs from the one in the link provided by lintoni, i just made a loop from the headphone jack to the line-in to record streams using what stereo audio cable i had on hand to shut out the built in mic, but it's still necessary to record from the headphone jack as the line-in or the stream doesn't record; no other "what u hear" option available


:wave:

[mdshrk1]

If you record without soundcard, chances are you will get a mono recording. That's why I got the SoundBlaster.

[starman714]

i think you're right, there are two channels but they appear to be identical; i tried it out with a joint stereo mp3, true stereo mp3 and a flac file all played in foobar and recorded w/ audacity and it always looks like the channels are identical then i tried streaming audio from NPR website and it still looks like both channels are identical - cutting one channel then the other they sound identical too.

[mdshrk1]

Yep....SoundBlaster time.

[starman714]

Yeah, I wouldn't mind the mono so much if both actual stereo channels were balanced in the mix but they're not...I tried a sample recording of 21st Century Schizoid Band - 2002 - Official Bootleg Volume One using the tune "Cat Food" and it's one channel recorded twice so there's a lot of missing instrumentation.

Why does this happen, anybody know? Both jacks, line-in and headphone,are claimed to be stereo by the manufacturer - is it the microsoft sound mappers problem? I tried with directsound, primary sound driver and microsoft sound mapper settings and all produce only one channel recorded twice.

[DanielG]

Can you post a link to the stream you want to download? The way you're recording is very inefficient - there may be a better way to get the recording onto your computer.

[starman714]

the link below is what started me trying to record streaming on this computer fwiw - I already have the audio of this from another source by now but it got me going on finding a way I can record streams properly with this laptop; hopefully you read this whole thread and realize why I'm stuck recording this way until I get to the store for an external soundcard. hopefully you do have a different workaround though

http://www.npr.org/event/music/135519051/let-san-francisco-shake-pj-harvey-in-concert

[DanielG]

NPR.org streams are a little difficult to rip - you will need to use additional software.

I was able to rip the PJ Harvey show using an app called "HiDownload Platinum". You can download it from here: http://www.hidownload.com/download-npr-audio.htm
They do have a trial version but you'll need to purchase the full version if you want to continue using it after the trial period ends.
There are other ways to extend the trial period if you want to do that... :)

Once you have downloaded the stream from NPR (it should only take a few minutes) you will have an .flv file. In order to extract the MP3 you will need to use another program called "FLV Extract" (it's free).
You can download a zip file containing the program from here: http://moitah.net/download/latest/FLV_Extract.zip
Info on how to use FLV Extract here: http://moitah.net/

Simply run FLV Extract, a small window will appear. Drag the .flv file onto the window and then the program will extract the MP3 file.

It's a bit of a process, but it sure beats recording the concert in real time.

If you need any more advice, feel free to ask.

[starman714]

thanks for the input, i could use flv as it is w/ vlc and and probably save the audio to a different container but i have enough software, thanks again though

[diggrd]

If you were unable to find stereo mix after checking show disconnected devices you might try http://stereomixplus.com/