How can I record audio playing on my computer with Audacity?

The way I do it is I have the audio out from my PC connected to one of the channels of my DJ mixer and my secondary output from my mixer goes back into my PC but that’s because I use it for production, does it not just work if you hit record?

If you are on Vista or 7, you can change the input from “mic” to “stereo mix”. That way, you will be recording what is playing on the computer internally, and not recording external noise.

@buckyboy28 or XP.

@TheCreative

Change the input drop down menu to Stero Mix (or Wave, What-U-Hear, or something similar. The available options tend to depend on your soundcard). Set the input volume to 0.5.

Go to Preferences and if needed change Channels to 2 (Stereo).

And there you go :)

Thanks guys!

@acidlogik Sorry where’s the input drop down menu? This is what im seeing right now. Im using Snow Leopard by the way. Thanks again for the help.

It should be on the right of the slider bar with the microphone icon…

@acidlogik ohh wow okay this is all i see in the drop down menu. Is it supposed to be like that?

sorry i’m new to this.

Not really. You should have an option to record PC audio (such as Stereo Mix). It might be because you’re using a Mac but I’m not sure (I know zilch about Macs).

All I can do is offer my apologies and hope someone else has the answer.

It is a bit tricky. But it can be done. And one major problem is that you cant hear the audio while it is recording.

First you need to install SoundFlower

Next go to System Preferences and select Sound. Make it look like this.
http://imgur.com/EHJyh.png

Now fire up Audacity.

Audacity—> Preferences
http://imgur.com/EpuTM.png <—Make it look like that

Or save yourself a lot of trouble and get Audio Hijack Pro

@johnpowell Thanks for the help! Audio Hijack Pro works great!

I have converted to use streaming audio capture to record streaming audio on my computer. Because it can record audio with good quality. It will record streaming audio with a high speed on my PC while i am playing streaming audio.

http://www.capturestreamingaudio.net/record-songs-on-computer.html