Recording internal sound

[crs]

[Sorry for double-posting from T6x hardware, thought maybe someone here might be able to help...]

I'm trying to record streaming music from the internet. I don't seem to be able to figure out how to record sound direct from the soundcard (as opposed to through a microphone) - whatever settings I choose, I still always seem to be recording microphone input only (with unsurprisingly awful quality).

I'm sure this is a stupid question, I used to do this without any issues whatsoever on my old machine, but this little T60 I've got now, running Win7 Professional, has me stumped.

When I tried with Audacity, in Preferences > Devices, I have two Interface Host options, (1) "MME", and (2) "Windows DirectSound". With (1), I can choose to set Recording Device to either "Microphone (SoundMax Integrated Digital HD Audio)" or "Microsoft Sound Mapper Input", with (2) I have the choice between "Microphone (SoundMax Integrated Digital HD Audio)" or "Primary Sound Capture Driver". Obviously I chose the non-microphone option, trying either interface host (I don't know what they mean...) - but it still records microphone input only.

I've tried with Mp3MyMp3 (a piece of freeware I've also used successfully on my previous system), there it won't even give me a choice of input device (the way it used to on my old system) - only microphone is available.

Looking at Sound settings in Control Panel, the Recording tab also only lists Microphone - which is the internal mic (I don't have an external one connected at present), with "SoundMax Integrated Digital HD Audio" controller.

I'll welcome any suggestions of what I could try! Thanks!

[loyukfai]

IIRC, the internal sound mixer is intentionally crippled on most, if not all, recent laptop models (not just ThinkPads), so that one cannot digitally record what's being re-produced internally.

A 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable would do the job.

For better fidelity, a USB sound card should do.

Speaking of this, makes me wonder if the situation is still the same, and what to do with the new single 3.5mm slot for both mic and sound.

Cheers.

[crs]

Thanks, loyukfai. It's at least a relief to know that it's not me being a complete idiot! never occurred to me someone would want to "cripple" the soundcard in such a way, what the...

I tried the analog-out-analog-back-in option, but the quality is miserable (not surprisingly!). A friend of mine told me of a couple of potential things to try earlier today, I shall have a look at them and see if that gets me anywhere (if so, shall post!) - otherwise I'll be giving your USB soundcard suggestion a go!

Many thanks.

[Radioguy]

never occurred to me someone would want to "cripple" the soundcard in such a way, what the...

Thank the RIAA.

[dr_st]

FWIW, a T60 (unlike the T61) can record back the sound output (called 'Stereo Mix' option). However the Win7 driver may be limiting such options - I've only ever done it in XP.

[kge420]

Have you tried audacity?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fetXAF_T2Q

[Medessec]

When looping back the sound with a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable, you need to make sure the audio that the microphone end is receiving is normalized, or not too loud, or it'll come out terribly fuzzy or distorted.

Best to download Audacity(as mentioned above), pull up what you want to record, and then plug the cable into headphones/line out, and mic. Then play the music, press record on Audacity, and look at the audio levels. Make sure they're not hitting red constantly, and make sure the blue in the recording channels isn't forming a solid straight square, you should see the spiky sound waves. Adjust it until the highest spikes are just touching the red levels, then restart both the Audacity recording and whatever you want to record, and do it again. Once it's finished, give it a listen.

There is the alternatives:
-Finding a driver that enables Stereo Mix loopback capabilities
-Using VAC(Virtual Audio Cable) and setting up a loopback that way
-Buying a USB sound card

But I think the explanation above will be most helpful, especially if you only want to record something from time to time. If you want to record a large amount of content, you need to find a more permanent solution.

[crs]

Thanks, kge420 and Medessec. As I explained in my original post, I have tried Audacity (I use this (very excellent) program for audio editing at work, so I'm very familiar with all its features; FYI, the youtube video link kge420 supplied is for an earlier version of Audacity).

As I mentioned, a friend of mine has had some suggestions that haven't been offered here yet:

One was to use JACK http://jackaudio.org; I haven't tried this although it looks like exactly what's needed to circumvent the soundcard issue; but it also looks a tad more complicated than what I was looking for (viz. sth quick and easy for just the occasional internet recording).

So I went with my friend's second suggestion: VLC http://www.videolan.org. Simple, straightforward GUI, and does exactly what I need, without the need for any sort of cables, questionable analog-to-digital back-conversions or a new soundcard! (and it can record video too, not that I need that.)

Thank you all for your suggestions and comments!

[Medessec]

Hmm. A few interesting solutions, and I haven't used VLC for this purpose. So it'd be cool if you could report back and see what kind of luck you get.

That's the thing about looping audio back though in computers... most solutions are either difficult to find or hard to manage.

[crs]

Hmm. A few interesting solutions, and I haven't used VLC for this purpose. So it'd be cool if you could report back and see what kind of luck you get.

I've had no issues here whatsoever, the sound quality appears to be the same as the original. All you do is point the VLC media player to the url, and save. (There's a number of containers available e.g. mp4 or raw (dummy), and a bunch of audio (and/or video) codecs, e.g. mp3 or wav.) (I shan't speak to how well it does with video+audio (see VLC website for issues) although when I was just testing to record a piece of speech from a youtube video, and forgot to tell it I just wanted the audio, I ended up with a perfectly good video too.)

So hope this helps those of you who've run into the same problem with their "crippled" sound mixers - even if this is not, apparently, either a ThinkPad or a Win7 issue at all!