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Ok, I know this has been asked multiple times on every website imaginable but I've still never been able to get an actual answer, so I'm hoping my asking this won't be a waste of time.
I have a Toshiba Satellite running Windows 8.1 x64, and I'm trying to record sound from my microphone and from the computer(speakers) at the same time, but I simply cannot. I've tried absolutely every combination of settings on the 'Sound' settings dialog, but I just can't get it to work. No matter what I try, the recording software will only record either the speakers or the microphone, NEVER both.
For example, if I open Audacity with the Stereo Mix set to default recording device, and the Microphone set to listen through the Speakers, and record me talking and listening to something on the computer at the same time with the recording device within Audacity set to the Stereo Mix, it will only record the speaker audio, not the microphone audio, and if I try setting the recording device in Audacity to the microphone when I try to record, I get an error popup and it won't record anything. Unless I'm missing something, I've tried just about every possible combination of default device, default communications device, listening options, and recording device options in Audacity, but no matter what, I just cannot get it to record audio from the speakers and microphone at once.
Can someone please tell me what settings I need to be able to do this?
Windows really isn't built to do it - see http://superuser.com/a/603353/347380
– Tetsujin – 2015-02-16T17:24:45.513@Tetsujin that's strange, actually, I've been able to do it using Open Broadcast Software, because it allows for multiple streams of input, but on no other program have I been able to make it work. – user2649681 – 2015-02-16T17:25:56.083
Most non-pro apps use windows sound manager, which is barely capable of one i/o at a time. Things like ASIO can handle as many as you can throw at it, but requires hardware as well as software support. See http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Multichannel_Recording for a reasonably well-written primer. As you'll note from that, it's a darn sight easier to do on Mac ;)
– Tetsujin – 2015-02-16T17:31:01.253