Alright. I'll bite. How do you record the sounds that you hear out of the speakers with Vegas? I know how to record from any input, and I have a few, but not all the sounds you hear. I can find files with the sounds and drag those to the timeline, but I mean how do you record, "LIVE", everything you hear? Am I suppose to loop the speaker outputs back into an attenuated input? Or do I find all the Windows "Playback control" options with Vegas and assign a separate track to each? Or is there a certain main output source that has all the sounds mixed (like the signal just before it goes to the speaker outputs) that you can find with Vegas and record from? It's not that I'd need to do this much, but I've wondered in the past, how to do it without using a mic.

Consumer sound cards will have a recording input labelled "Mixed Output", "What U Hear", or "PC Speaker". Selecting this input will route any sounds the computer makes to the recording application.

Some higher-end sound cards may lack this feature, in which case you can loop the outputs into the inputs. You may have to turn off monitoring in this case to avoid a feeback loop.

My Sound Card Recording Control has a "Stereo Mix". I just click this and as I have my loud speaker "outs" connected to a gorgeous valve PIONEER amp, I can monitor and record directly into Sound Forge. Works a treat.

Grazie

I think Windoz does provide the ability to route one audio stream as a recording input to another device, Hollywood let them get away with that much. Video is another matter.
Bob.

Audacity is a free audio editor that allows recording all sounds that come from your speakers. There's a drop menu where you can select "What U hear". Then just hit the 'record' button before you play your movie soundtrack, game intro sounds...etc to record it for editing/saving.

Doc

Sound Forge, Movie Studio, ACID, and Windows Sound Recorder can all do this too. Heck, you could probably even do this with Super Duper Music Looper™.

Oboy! Answers. Now I'll have to see. I've had audacity for ages, but I didn't really need it, so I never used it. I could reroute the sound back in from the speaker outputs too, it's just that rewiring is a hassle with the 500 million wires I have tangled under the desk right now. I've never bothered with the windows recorder, so that's an option too. (approaching the end of my 3rd year on a computer with absolutely no formal training, so I'm ignorant in a lot of areas.)
Like I said, it's not that I'd need to do this very often, but I'd like to know the easiest way, so it won't be a big, time wasting experiment when the time comes.
Technically, I have the computer sound routed to a boombox that I already use as an amplifier and that boombox has a cassette recorder and all I have to do is push record and then dump the tape back into Vegas and that works too.
Just thought it might be easier if it could all be done within the digital realm and without tape hiss added.
Thanks all..........

Hiyah!

TheGr8Steve, I've got a screen grab for you ..

I've emailed you thru' Sony Email - Wanna email me back and I'll attach screen grab? - Yeah?

Grazie

Thank you, Grazie. E-mail sent!

> There's a drop menu where you can select "What U hear".

Actually, this dropdown menu is populated by the capabilities of your sound card and has nothing to do with Audacity. It sounds like you have a SoundBlaster card (Live or Audigy) which is why you have this option. As Kelly (Chienworks) pointed out, many consumer sounds cards have similar features while many pro cards do not.

~jr

Okay an update. Grazie sent me a screenpic of his Windows Recording screen that showed which one to select on his set-up. Of course mine was labeled differently, but did turn out to be one called "What U hear". But I wasn't sure how to record this, so I tried the Windows recorder and it worked. But, maybe because I use WIndows ME, the dang recorder wouldn't record more than 60 seconds at a time and I couldn't find anyway to change that.
Didn't matter, I turned on "Audacity" and it recorded everything just fine and as long as I wanted. I also discovered, that the Windows playback controls will allow you to mix the volumes of the different types of sound files, so you could match your mic to these sounds and turn down the extra loud files.
I never could find the "What U hear" within Vegas. That's alright too. It's not like I'm trying to put out a 'CD' of noises from my computer. "Audacity" worked just fine for my needs. Thanks for pic, Grazie. See? Now I can't forget. Thanks all.