Dell disabling Stereo Mix due to RIAA pressure?

Update: Recently word of Dell disabling stereo mix on their computers has spread fast on social networking sites such as Digg, Reddit, and Slashdot. If you have read those articles. Don't worry, here's a solution that works and is free. Some have reported you need to pay $99 to Dell to get stereo mix enabled, don't pay it. You don't need to...

Do you have a need for stereo mix? Do you miss it on your Dell laptop?

What is stereo mix?
Stereo mix allows you to record anything that is playing through your speakers or headphones. Want to record the sound from a game? Want to record sound from a YouTube video? You can do it with Stereo Mix enabled and a free program called Audacity.

Driver that enables Stereo Mix:
https://support.dell.com/support/do...-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=3&fileid=235761

How to Install
Basically right click on it after you download the file and go to properties. Go to the compatibility tab and check the box and make sure it says "Windows XP Pro SP2". Then hit apply and ok. Run the installer like normal.

This XP driver does work in Vista, and does enable Stereo Mix on my XPS M1530. Hopefully it works for your Dell laptop too.

Does all my stuff still work with this driver?
The headphone jack, internal mic (for the webcam), and microphone/line-in jack all still work with this driver. The middle (extra) headphone jack does not seem to work with this driver. But you gain Stereo Mix which is a huge bonus. Audio playback is just as crystal clear as any other driver. Also HDMI audio output is not supported with this driver. So you do loose a few things, but if you need Stereo Mix, this is an easy solution.

 

Have you tried the XP driver? May still work.

 

LOL ya I just tried it a few minutes...just came back to post that it worked. It now shows 4 recording devices:
-Digital Mic (this is now the built in mic...works)
-Microphone (this should be the mic jack...though I haven't tested it yet)
-Line In (havent tested this either)
-Stereo Mix (WORKS!!!....Audacity is awesome now!!!)

One thing I noticed is that only one of the headphone jacks works...so I'm thinking that with these drivers the middle jack might be the line-in and the right jack is the mic. Gonna grab a mic now and test that theory.

Sound playback wise, it seems fine. In fact it seems to have gotten rid of an occasional sound static issue i had with the default drivers.

 

Still trying to get the other two jacks to work...the middle headphone and line-in/mic.

 

Ok...the Line-In/Mic jack does work...but the middle extra headphone jack doesn't do anything (it's not an input or output). So I guess these drivers are made for a two jack audio setup. Also the Sigmatel audio app in the Control Panel doesnt work with these drivers.

But you do gain Stereo Mix, you still have one working headphone jack, and you still have a mic/line-in jack. I'm willing to live with one headphone jack and gain Stereo Mix. (I never used two headphone jacks at once yet anyway).

 

You can just get a splitter if you do. Anyway, I'd chat with Dell's tech support, give them that link, tell them what your problem is, see if they forward a new driver request to their drivers team or whatever.

 

You've all got it wrong.

 

Shh ... don't give the RIAA any ideas.

 

Nice...sounds handy. I've been doing essentially the same thing, only by connecting the headphone and line in ports via an audio cable. Which accomplishes the same thing - except that you can't hear the sound you're recording.

 

But unfortunately in that situation you have two uneeded steps of digital/analogue conversion - the output is converted from digital to analogue, goes out and back in where it's converted back from analogue to digital again. This relies on good converters and will probably result in a slightly degraded quality.

 

That works too, but if you have a Dell laptop (possibly other laptops with similar audio chips too?) running XP, the drivers I posted should work fine for you. They even work in Vista for me.

 

Just came across this post while needing this enabled. God Dell sucks. Aholes! Thanks for the info.

 

Glad I could help.

 

http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2008/08/15/stereo-mix-record-functionality-and-dell.aspx

 

ROFLMAO
You think that just disabled it for the heck of it?
This is a feature that computers have had for years.
It wasn't done by accident, it was done on purpose.
And then they say pay us $99 bucks and will change it!

 

What am I missing?

I followed the steps (as I understood them) from the OP .... AND I still do not have "Stereo Mix". Do I need to do a driver roll back or uninstall the original driver first?

What I have done so far:
1. download driver from OP link.
2. right click and check the box above the pull down for Windows XPSP2 under compatability tab - click apply.
3. Double click driver and install it
4. after install there is a change .... and sound from the spks, but:
- click the "spker" icon and click mixer I get volume mixer
- pull down device and "Spkers (Sigma Tel High Def Audio CODEC) is check, no other option
- I get no pull down for Line / Mic control in Audacity or CakeWalks Guitar Tracks
- If I go to Control Panel: Try to open Sigma Tel Audio and I get "Unable to connect to COM interface"
- In CP Open Sound and at Recording Tab I now Have a Line in Option, and Mic and Dig Mic.
- Make Line in Default: Still unable to record sounds from PC

I must have missed something or did something wrong.

Man, when I got this XPS m1530 I did not know I was going backwards 15 years in sound ability. I bought a Sony Viao NB in 2001 that the Line in was a stereo Jack In and could record 2 live channels in from a mixer (I record studio and bands). My next Dell in 2004 only had a mono in. This new PO$ XPS m1530 is DOA for sound recording.

 

Oh BTW, I did just Roll Back the Newly installed Driver suggested by the OP and it had a newer date than my old driver ???

New Driver date - 5/10/2007

Original Driver date - 6/21/2006

Does that matter?

 

I have an E1705. It came with no stereo mix but the last time I updated the driver from Dell's own website the stereo mix became available.

I'm getting an m1330 Monday and I hate the idea that I might lose this capability again. Has anyone tried just using the latest drivers from Dell?

Edit: Never mind, I see that this is a driver from Dell's website. That sucks that you lose a headphone jack and HDMI audio!

 

Has anyone paid the devil (Dell) the $99 bucks to enable the stereo mix? If so what driver did they give you? Also are you able to use both head phone jacks?

 

Where do you get the idea you can pay $99 and Dell will supply an audio driver that allows recording of Stereo Mix?

 

according to the link provided, the loss of stereo mix is, to summarize, "Microsoft's fault". Now that Vista has been out for awhile however, and Dell claims to re-enable the feature for the new studio line, I wonder where everyone else's drivers are.

On the topic of the RIAA however, who seems to want to control the music industry and the way that we access art, I have to say that they annoy the **** out of me. They are suing a lot of people. I sure hope that other artists don't start to realize that I can take a picture of a painting or statue with a digital camera and enjoy it without <gasp> paying money for it every time!

Has anyone told them that hypothetically, I could photocopy or scan a whole book in to PDF format, and read it on my kindle instead of off the shelf? Sure I bought it, but I wanted multiple digital copies that I could easily move around with me. Should I turn myself in now, or should I just wait for them to send their cronies? Sheesh.

 

Don't worry about it, I already tipped them off.

What I don't like is that supposedly all the money they gain in the lawsuits doesn't go back to paying the artists, but rather back into their "suing people" fund. So for all the complaining they do about artists not getting paid, they are the worst culprits. They collect far more money than the artist would gain in royalties, and the artist sees none of it. Lots of them are even considering suing to get their share.

 

To add to that Deathstick, I would also point out that, last time I checked, artists were not the net beneficiaries of music sales either. It is the music 'industry' that is frustrated with piracy, because the loss of sales affects them the greatest (they who have gotten the prices of an album so high). So, the claim is that the RIAA is protecting artists - in reality they are just protecting industries which make up probably 80-90% of the cost of the release.

When Radiohead independently released "In Rainbows" to the public (payment optional!) they were averaging something like 2-3 dollars a copy. No official statistics were released, however there was reason to believe that the band actually made more money doing that then going through an 'official' channel like RCA records or whatever. Bands typically get there riches from performing anyhow, so this made for an interesting shift. Call it greedy on the part of the band, but it seems to have made an important point nevertheless: industry, do we really need you?

 

Could someone with a m1330 & m1530 post their Sigmatel/IDT Hardware Device ID?

I am currently working on enabling Stereo Mix for the m1330, m1530 and the m1730. The 1730 is done and once I have completed the other two systems I will be releasing this to the community.

More will follow but I do need info from owners of the 1330 and 1530.

Thanks.

 

For m1530:

HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_8384&DEV_7616&SUBSYS_1028022E&REV_1002
HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_8384&DEV_7616&SUBSYS_1028022E

I hope I got that right. Thanks, BatBoy!

 

Yep. that is what I needed. I'm a bit slammed at the moment and will not be able to devote any time to this for a couple of days.

For what its worth, I've posted the modded files for the M1730 HERE.

 

Awesome. Thanks BatBoy, I hope you can get it to work well with the other XPS models. I'll be glad to donate if you can get it working fully (HDMI, 2nd jack port, etc).

 

Thanks for the thought but this is for the community. I'll keep it going as long as I dont hit a dead end. Perhaps the Dell Driver Team will get off their behinds and update all the other drivers that are out of date on the support site.

 

Help for a novice. I have a Dell XPS M1730 and have been seaching the universe for a fix to the stereo mix issue . I use this to play sound from my computer in an online class environment, but I'm not a technie.

I see the post for a solution. Is this something that a novice can incorporate? If so, could you please tell me what I need to do?

Thank you so much.

 

Check out Virtual Audio Cable: http://www.niharsworld.com/2008/06/...able-vac-to-solve-missing-stereo-mix-problem/

I got it working on my XPS m1530. Still not the best/easiest solution, but it works now.

 

I don't know anything about your laptop, but i came across this page while searching for more information on stereo mix itself, and this is not a solution to your problems, but maybe just pointing towards suggestions. On my hp dv5-1124ca , the simple solution to get stereo mix, is to just enable it in the registry.

This post explains how to do it on a dv5 with IDT audio drivers. SO THIS WILL NOT WORK FOR ANY OF YOU. (sorry for caps , just making sure nobody modifies their registry because of this post) But , it might give you guys a direction towards a better solution then to lose inputs. I believe in the dv5 case , this info was taken by comparing the values in the vista registry vs xp registry, because stereo mix was present in vista, but wasn't in xp. The dv5 comes with vista as default os.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4331983&postcount=431

 

Have you got news for the XPS M1530 ?


Edit : I have try to edit your modded files, I have just change the ID HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_8384&DEV_7616&SUBSYS_102801F7 [M1730] by HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_8384&DEV_7616&SUBSYS_1028022E [M1530] in the 3 files and it seems to be good :

 

anyone made any progress on this?