You don’t have to install a microphone on your computer’s speakers to record audio. You can easily record audio from your Windows PC, even if your PC doesn’t have a stereo mix option.
Audio can be recorded from your computer in many ways, but here are some of the best we’ve come up with. The first three options use software only, while the third relies on the old trick of using an audio cable to connect the computer’s audio output to its audio input.
Option 1: Stereo mix or whatever you hear
The stereo mix is sometimes called “What U Hear”. This is a special recording option provided by the audio driver. If your driver includes this, you can select a stereo mix (instead of a microphone or line-in) and have your app record the same audio that your computer outputs through your speakers or headphones.
Related: How to enable Stereo Mix in Windows to record audio from your PC
Stereo mixes are usually disabled by default in recent versions of Windows, even if the audio driver supports it. Follow the steps to enable a stereo mix sound source in Windows. With Stereo Mix enabled, you can use any audio recording software and select “Stereo Mix” as the input device instead of the usual “Line In” or “Microphone” options.
Some devices may not have this option at all. There may be ways to enable it in many audio drivers, but not all audio devices support stereo mixes. Unfortunately, it is becoming less common.
Option 2: Restore WASAPI from Audacity
No stereo mix option? Not a problem. Audacity has a useful feature that allows you to record audio from your computer without a stereo mix. In fact, if you’re willing to use Audacity to record audio, Audacity’s capabilities may trump stereo mixes. This method takes advantage of a feature Microsoft added to Windows Vista called the Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI). This feature also works on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11 and helps make up for the lack of stereo mix options on modern Windows PCs.
In Audacity, select the “Windows WASAPI” audio host.
Then select the appropriate loopback device, such as loudspeakers (loopback) or headphones (loopback).
Related: Audio Editing Guide: The Basics
[録音]Click the button to start recording audio in Audacity and when finished[停止]Click. It uses Audacity, so you can easily cut and edit your audio files when you’re done.
NB: If that doesn’t work, you may need to use the dropdown box to the right of the device selection box to select the correct number of recording channels that will fit your device. For example, if you’re using a 7.1 channel headphone, select “8”.
Audacity’s tutorial website explains why this feature is actually better than a stereo mix.
“to retrieve WASAPI big Better than a stereo mix or similar input provided by an audio interface. Capture is all digital (instead of converting to analog for playback and converting back to digital when Audacity receives it). “
In other words, using Audacity’s WASAPI loopback option will improve the quality of the recorded audio files.
Option 3: Use Open Broadcast
Open Broadcast Software (OBS), commonly pronounced “Oh-bee-ess”, is most popular with Twitch and Youtube. but that is not all. It is also a very capable screen recorder or audio recorder. OBS records video and audio by default, so the file will be in MP4 or MKV format rather than a pure audio file, but it’s easy to convert a video file to an audio file just with VLC.
Related: How to record your desktop and create a screencast in Windows
This is the main OBS window when you first run the program. Note that the “Audio Mixer” section at the bottom of the window contains the “Desktop Audio” entry.
If you have a microphone connected to your system, be sure to turn the microphone volume down completely. This way you don’t have to worry about the audio tracks being separated later.
Then click “Start Recording” to capture all the audio output of your system. if done,[記録の開始]instead of the button[記録の停止]Click the button. By default, files are saved in “C:Users(YourUserName)Videos”.
If you want to convert the file to an audio-only format like MP3, you can do so with VLC.
Related: How to convert a video or audio file using VLC
Option 4: Audio cable
If none of the first three options fit your needs, there’s always a low-tech solution — a little hack. All you need is an audio cable with a 3.5mm male connector on each end. Plug one end into the line-out (or headphone) jack of your computer and the other end into the line-in (or microphone) jack. You won’t hear any computer generated sounds, but you can use any audio recording software to record a “line in” or “mic” input. To actually hear the audio, you can get a splitter so you can output the audio to your headphones or speakers and back to your computer at the same time.
Admittedly, this is inconvenient and ridiculous compared to the software-only options we’ve talked about. If you don’t have one, you can use the cable trick to do so.
Apparently, due to copyright law, recordings made in this way cannot be distributed. So please don’t use these hacking tricks. After all, even if you want to hack audio, there is an easier way than that.