Latest techniques for recording your system sound in Windows 10, 11
Unlike
other methods, this one doesn't require any third-party software. You will only
need Windows to complete this technique; however, your sound card should
support it. If not, the next two techniques will likely work as well.
For the
first technique, open settings on Windows.
Within settings, over on the left-hand side, make sure you're within system and then click on sound .
Within sound, right in the middle, you’ll see all your different input devices
These are all your different microphones, and we want to add an option that says stereo mix. This will allow us to record the audio playing on the pc. You'll notice that by default, we don’t have stereo mix in this list.
We must add it. On the main screen, you should see an option for all sound devices.
This opens all sound devices. If we scroll down to input devices, within this category, you should see an option for Stereo Mix.
Let's click on this and under the general category, let's click on allow. Next let's go back to the top and navigate back to the sound view.
Within sound, let's scroll down back to the input devices and here you should now see an option for Stereo Mix. Let's make sure to check this option.
With this selected, the sound playing on your computer will now be the input for any recording application that you use.
Down below you can also set the recording volume for the Stereo Mix. Now that we have everything configured let's test this out.
Open voice recorder app, this is a free app that comes pre-installed on Windows, and we can now use this to record any of my system sound.
For
the second technique, we're going to use Audacity which is also one of my favourite
apps. It's free and open source and allows you to record your system sound as
well as much more.
All
right, let's look. To get Audacity, head to the website audacityteam.org.
If you scroll down just a little bit, you'll see an icon to download Audacity.
To record your system sound, up in the top left-hand corner, you can choose the audio driver that you want to use to record.
Select the one that says Windows WASAPI. To the right of that, you can select your input source and here from the previous step you could select your stereo mix but up above you can also simply choose your speakers.
By
selecting my speakers, anything that I hear coming from my speakers, I'll be
able to record that. Here I'll click on the record icon, and once again, I have
my music player open on the right-hand side. Here I'll click on play.
I'm all done with my recording now,
so I'll click on the stop icon.
The thing we love about
Audacity is you have full control over the audio output. For example, right up
above I could click on effects. I can change the speed. I can also reduce
any background noise and there are many other effects that I can choose
from.
For the third technique, You
can also try installing a virtual audio cable, and our favourite is made
by a company called VB-Audio. To download the virtual audio cable head to
the following website VB Virtual Audio Cable: https://vb-audio.com/Cable/
Here
you can simply click on download. This is donationware, so if you find value in
using this virtual audio cable, I suggest considering donating.
Once
you finish installing, navigate back to sound settings, and for your output
device, let's select the virtual cable. Down under input, here too let's
select the virtual audio cable. I'm back now within the voice recorder. Here I
can click on the record icon and once again I'll play some music.
The two downsides with this
approach: one, you won't be able to hear the audio as you're recording,
also once you're all done, you'll have to remember to turn your output back to
your speakers otherwise you won’t be able to hear anything on your pc.
