[Marcov]

I was thinking of putting this thread to General Discussion, but since my ban's nearly over (1 day left I think), I thought of posting this here first and perhaps someone can move it there.

Anyway, I have this problem, Hypercam 2 and Bandicam both don't record any sound. I understand this problem has occurred in many users of the programs. As I see it, the common way to solve it is to check the "Stereo Sound" thing, which simply doesn't work for me (I don't have that "Stereo Sound"). To elaborate, here are some pics of my volume control;







See? It doesn't have the "Stereo Mix" something that appears to be required for the sound recording to work.

Help, anyone?

[Marcov]

Uhh...anyone?

[Sololop]

To my knowledge, Windows removed the "Stereo Mix" option to prevent recording of songs off of the internet. That's why it's not on Windows 7 (My OS). It looks like you're using Windows XP, and I know it used to have it, but they may have patched that in a service pack. But I'm not certain.

[Jeff Vader]

que

My Win 7 has Stereo Mix. As does my netbook's XP. As did my previous ****ty laptop's Vista. As does my sister's laptop's XP.

[Halleck]

Dunno about Hypercam, but FRAPS seems to work well on windows 7, you can try the demo and see if it works. I haven't tried hypercam in a few years, but FRAPS has always had great performance for capturing 3D games.

[Sololop]

que

My Win 7 has Stereo Mix. As does my netbook's XP. As did my previous ****ty laptop's Vista. As does my sister's laptop's XP.

Odd. I wonder why mine doesn't have it, and why Marcov's XP doesn't have it.

Maybe a setting somewhere needs to be toggled.

[Herra Tohtori]

Whether it's available or not depends on sound card drivers. If the driver doesn't provide a device that hooks to stereo output and makes a stereo input device, then you don't have it available.

[Marcov]

FRAPS doesn't work too. It uses "HD Audio Render" which seems to be available in my computer.

It doesn't work.

[Nuke]

que

My Win 7 has Stereo Mix. As does my netbook's XP. As did my previous ****ty laptop's Vista. As does my sister's laptop's XP.

its usually disabled and/or hidden by default. at least mine was, i cant remember what i did to enable it.

[Klaustrophobia]

Whether it's available or not depends on sound card drivers. If the driver doesn't provide a device that hooks to stereo output and makes a stereo input device, then you don't have it available.

i've heard a lot of the new sound hardware has throughput recording disabled for the reasons stated above.  which is fking bull**** if it's true.

[Herra Tohtori]

i've heard a lot of the new sound hardware has throughput recording disabled for the reasons stated above.  which is fking bull**** if it's true.

Especially as it's rather trivial to capture the audio or video files directly as they're transferred to your browser's cache.

Also trivial is to route the analog stereo signal through Y-splitter and hook it up to the Line-in input, and set recording for Line in. It's not bitwise recording, and quality depends on both output and input capabilities of soundcard, but it does work in any situation.

Slightly less trivial (but simple nonetheless) is to set up a virtual audio device that can be used to play back or capture sound. Latency becomes a problem, however, especially without ASIO.


Best option: Buy a proper sound card and check before buying that the drivers supplied for your OS happen to have the stereo mix capture in some shape or form.

[Nuke]

i was able to record my stereo mix with a realtek chipset and record a stream off the net with audacity.

under win 7, seems you need to go into your recording panel, right click on any of the devices and check the "show disabled devices" and "show disconnected devices". check both of those and you may see the stereo mix (that is if your sound hardware/drivers support it), and enable it. it might require further tweaking to make it work (un-mute, levels, set as default, etc), but it worked for me.

ive always considered soundcards to be somewhat non-essential for the last several years. i have an old pci sb xfi somewhere but it really doesnt do anything the existing chipset doesnt do. might be some quality improvement but none that my ears can detect. considering im using a 30 year old stereo in place of computer speakers the sound is actually fairly good.

[Herra Tohtori]

Well, I've had a horde of audible quality issues with onboard sound, both with Realtek AC'97 codec solution on my first PC (clicking, noise and static and high-pitched continuous noise that depended on what the processor load was) and then there's the issue of features such as spatial effects for games, high quality dolby surround so that you can watch dumb youtube videos with sound on left channel only without going mad (dolby surround basically makes the sound come from both headphones, and applies phase delay to create stereo effect) and at the end there's the issue of audio fidelity, which really only matters if you're using decent headphones and know what to listen to, or [really expensive super speakers[/i].

Also, Windows audio service usually also applies some degradation of the signal, so sound card isn't the only thing that affects audio quality. When a program decodes compressed audio data into waveform, it isn't played back directly - it goes through a lot of stuff that essentially turns 16bit sound into 10bit.

If you want bitwise playback of the waveform you have (this is actually improves the playback fidelity of uncompressed high quality audio such as CD's) you need to set up ASIO for your sound card, one way or another. Some sound cards support ASIO directly, it's just a matter of finding software that also supports it. Sometimes you need to be a bit more creative (ASIO4ALL offers ASIO functionality for all sound cards, even onboard ones).

The DAC of your sound card still affects the final quality of the output audio...

[Marcov]

So this means I have to buy something?

If so, uh...oh well...hmm...I don't want to if I can help it...

Anything! Please! Anything that can record and...doesn't require you to spend money...

[Nuke]

Well, I've had a horde of audible quality issues with onboard sound, both with Realtek AC'97 codec solution on my first PC (clicking, noise and static and high-pitched continuous noise that depended on what the processor load was) and then there's the issue of features such as spatial effects for games, high quality dolby surround so that you can watch dumb youtube videos with sound on left channel only without going mad (dolby surround basically makes the sound come from both headphones, and applies phase delay to create stereo effect) and at the end there's the issue of audio fidelity, which really only matters if you're using decent headphones and know what to listen to, or [really expensive super speakers[/i].

Also, Windows audio service usually also applies some degradation of the signal, so sound card isn't the only thing that affects audio quality. When a program decodes compressed audio data into waveform, it isn't played back directly - it goes through a lot of stuff that essentially turns 16bit sound into 10bit.

If you want bitwise playback of the waveform you have (this is actually improves the playback fidelity of uncompressed high quality audio such as CD's) you need to set up ASIO for your sound card, one way or another. Some sound cards support ASIO directly, it's just a matter of finding software that also supports it. Sometimes you need to be a bit more creative (ASIO4ALL offers ASIO functionality for all sound cards, even onboard ones).

The DAC of your sound card still affects the final quality of the output audio...

the dac is the main thing that dictates the audio quality. typically its a stand alone chip though it may be integrated into an mcu or a purpose build audio processor. all the ones i used were of the first 2 types, though ive build resistive dacs before out of resistor networks. usually the chip has a fixed resolution, so all sampling conversion is handled by software and it ultimately gets sampled to the dac's resolution. lots of integrated audio chipsets, especially the ones from about 5 to 10 years ago before audio chipsets became standard equipment on a mobo, tend to do a poor job of isolating analog circuitry from digital, sometimes even running digital bus lines parallel to analog lines (your worst case scenario for noise). but i find a lot of newer ones do a better job at isolating the circuitry. ive been seeing cards and boards with shielding panels built around analog parts. i didnt like early integrated chipsets but lately i just havent been able to tell the difference in quality from something like an xfi. of course nearly 30 years of metal has a way of making your ears not work so good.

So this means I have to buy something?

If so, uh...oh well...hmm...I don't want to if I can help it...

Anything! Please! Anything that can record and...doesn't require you to spend money...

well given that you dont have a stereo mix to source audio from id say grab an analog cable and jack the speaker port into the mic port with a double ended male minijack cable, and set source to mic. be sure to unmute it to be able to hear what is being recorded. on second thought that would probably cause feedback so you might just not be able to hear sound while its recording, of course you can play it back later. if you want to monitor the recording in progress id try putting a splitter in there somewhere. you wont loose much, especially if all your doing is uploading video to youtube, you will loose more quality in transcoding that you would from the analog capture (of course it is cumulative). save some money and get your cables from a dollar store, there just as good as the $10-$30 cables you buy at computer stores and other retailers. chances are its all the same chinese crap from the same factory. im getto and have invested in heat shrink, solder, and electrical tape, and can make most cables at will from scrap. 

[Marcov]

Thanks for that, but....

...look, I can't spend any money now at all. So is there an application that does this? Or...a trial-free software that converts .midi to .wav/mp3/whatever for free? Because that's what I need, actually.

[Sololop]

If you have a Mac you can use Soundflower. That's all I know.

[Halleck]

...look, I can't spend any money now at all. So is there an application that does this? Or...a trial-free software that converts .midi to .wav/mp3/whatever for free? Because that's what I need, actually.

Well, MIDI isn't actually an audio file, it's more like musical notation that can be read by a computer. It can sound different depending on the MIDI instruments used.

If the audio line out->audio line in hard cable patch solution doesn't work for you, you could try using actual composition software which would give you more control over it.

If you just want the default stuff you can give it a shot in winamp (at least, in older versions you could do this):
http://users.lmi.net/bblackie/music/winamp/midi2wav.html

[Nuke]

Thanks for that, but....

...look, I can't spend any money now at all. So is there an application that does this? Or...a trial-free software that converts .midi to .wav/mp3/whatever for free? Because that's what I need, actually.

not even a couple bucks? seriously i have zero income and can still manage to score parts when i need them.

now im just throwing this out there, did you try to update your audio drivers? get them from your mobo/soundcard/pc manufacturer, or windows update, and see if they dont give you more control over your sound. also some of the integrated chipsets have their own control panels, usually they have the same settings the default panel does, but sometimes they give you access to features that windows doesn't.

[Marcov]

...because I don't have a credit card.

I appreciate your effort to help me, but it seems there's nothing I can do to fix the Hypercam problem without paying. So, well...topic changed to "what can I use that convers .midi to .wav that is trial-free and is free of payment, and doesn't change anything of the sound"?