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How to record what you hear from speakers in Win10

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Record what you hear from speakers

This tutorial teaches how to record what you hear from speakers in Windows 10. Even though this was created on Win10 it works on Windows 7 and 8 too. Some sound cards have built in loopback and you have what-you-hear -option in recording devices, but this tutorials works even if you don't have that option available.

1. Go to http://www.audacityteam.org/ and download Audacity from "Download Audacity 2.x.x" -link. After download is complete, install Audacity.

Audacity homepage and download links

2. You can change host quickly from this quick access -bar. Change your option to Windows WASAPI.

Audacity audio input selection

3. On the second dropdown you have to select device what you want to record. In my case it's Speakers.

Audacity audio output selection

4. This and step 5 are both optional. I'm only showing other way to change these same settings. Go to Edit -> Preferences.

Audacity Preferences link

5. And there you can see same options that you changed before.

Audacity preferences dialog

6. Hit record button and you should see changing in audio track.

Audacity record button

7. After you have recorded what you want, hit Stop button. After that you can trim your audio by painting the area that you want to remove just by painting it with left mouse button and after that hit cut -button.

Audacity recorded audio

8. When you are satisfied with your audio, just go to File -> Export audio.

Audacity export audio button

9. Select where you want to save your MP3 file and you can change format options if you want. I suggest that you are not using lower than 256kbps on quality.

Audacity save as dialog

10. Fill your ED3 tags and hit OK.

Audacity MP3 file meta data dialog

5 Comments

WarrioR_AbsolutE - December 7, 2017
There is no speakers selection in my audacity and it is the latest version...
Gary R Lennox - September 29, 2017
Thank you for these instructions, really helpful!! I'd recommend Acethinker Audio Recorder which I have been using for many years. It supports recording system and microphone or both. Share it here as an alternative to Audacity.
Aichi337 - May 17, 2017
thank u <3
For_Uhm - August 10, 2016
Heads up: make sure you set your audio device driver output to stereo only. I forgot and left my Realtek set for surround and this recording trick didn't work at all; it does work after I changed to 2-channel out.
Trolling for LOLs - April 23, 2017
Brilliant mate, thanks! I was trying to get a video game track and losing my mind trying to get Audacity to 'hear' it in order to record it, but found your post during my search and voila! Changing the surround to stereo made the game crash from window mode, but everything is good on game restart and have the track being recorded now.