Unable to activate "Stereo Mix" in Recording Devices

I've heard that new laptops now have this function disabled (courtesy of the RIAA), so that users aren't able to record music?

Is there a work around for this? I can't seem to get it working on my W500, and I tried all the steps here:

http://www.audio-recording.net/vistaproblem/

but it's not showing up as an option at all. All that shows up for me is the microphone.


Should I just stick a male to male audio cable from line out to line in?

 

I seem to have this same problem on Vista x64 on my x200 Tablet. I only see Speakers and Microphone on a Conexant High Definition SmartAudio 221. I have it set to show both disabled and disconnected devices.

I rarely need the "Stereo Mix" function, but it is something I would like if possible. I will check later in XP, but I doubt it's a problem there.

 

I suspect that's a hardware issue --- the chip makers just didn't want us to have the functionality. Does Xp vs. Vista make any difference? I would be surprised if they do.

It's just annoying to have these 'minor' changes that bring unpleasant surprise from time to time..

 

I don't understand why you can't just record the outputted audio with Windows. On Linux, you can just use arecord to intercept the audio being outputted and save it to a .wav file. It's a very simple process and circumvents all of this ``stereo mix'' nonsense.

 

Actually, that is exactly what the OP is trying to do. Under Linux you are intercepting the "stereo mix" and saving it to a file. This was straightforward under XP, but it is not straightforward under Vista.

 

i was under the impression stereo mix was removed via hardware. the spec sheet says the mic jack is mono.

 

I remember looking this up when I ran XP on a desktop...but I was able to get around it since I had recording soundcards. I don't think it would be easily to bypass with laptop grade soundcards that are the target of such limitations...since regular consumers would maybe try this.

 

I booted up my Tablet in XP.

There was no direct "Stereo mix" listed. However, I was able directly record my audio output using Audacity (Microsoft Sound Mapper-Input). An HD audio input was also present. I was able to record the audio from a MP4 file playing in VLC using this method (no cables).

This worked well enough, however it was balanced in an odd manner (way overblown on the left channel, but accurate on the right channel). Therefore the result wasn't as clean as I would like (but you could drop down to mono on the right channel and the output would be okay).

Under Vista, no such option exists and I am not able to record without using a cable (at least not in any method I have tried at present).

 

It is not an OS issue. I had it working on my previous notebooks with Vista. On the T500 it cannot be activated (at least I could not find a way). Either driver or hardware issue in my opinion.

Although I see no reason why the OS could not support this (saving the audio it is playing).

 

I believe you are correct regarding driver/hardware. I did not mean to imply it was XP or vista. I just dealt with the issue (read about it) when I was using xp. But as I said I was able to do this successfully with decent quality (recording off say...myspace) on a recording soundcard.

 

Took a couple minutes of digging but I excavated this out. I remember reading the discussion about this before.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=280000

and this

http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/...l&thread.id=316&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

 

Apparently this is a widely known issue. Complaints first surfaced on the T61P, and this is Lenovo's response:

Mark_Lenovo ( source):
"This discussion continues to surface, and to formalize the present Lenovo position, a formal tip has been published here.

For many of you, including revduane, drtigerlily, and Mixz1, I realize the tip doesn't tell you much you don't already know.

Please bear in mind that there can be a fair amount of lead time on new systems, and the new Montevina based products T400/T500 W500/W700, X200, etc were already well underway.

Lenovo is aware of the polls, ongoing discussions, and moves of some competitors like Dell, to restore this functionality for at least some models in their portfolio. Beyond that, I can't speculate on what future direction Lenovo may take on this subject."


It appears to have been disabled in hardware, and the best workaround at present is an application called Virtual Audio Cable, or an ExpressCard SoundCard (e.g. Creative X-Fi Express54).

 

what i find most disturbing about this backwards step is that Microsoft can dictate to manufacturers of sound chips how to configure their products (see the explanation in the formal lenovo tip posted by jonlumpkin). It also affects linux, since it is a hardware change. Dell has apparently found a chip manufacturer who is willing to defy uber-microsoft.

 

PAY for software????

 

Weird things. I find Stereo Mix to be vital. For example, when cycling audio out of a video I recorded into Audacity for editing.

 

yeah. It's the RIAA at work (and they work for the man )

 

From what I understand, there is some hardware component (the soundcard?) to the process under Windows though. For example, this article says that the

I want to know why there isn't a purely software-based solution.

 

I'm quite confused. I thought the all thing is disabled for good but now I read this on Lenovo site:

and this is from Nov 08. Has anyone seen such an application from Lenovo or any other vendor?

 

I know that Dell released an updated driver that enabled this feature. However, I believe it was disabled in hardware on the current crop of ThinkPads (not really sure why). Therefore, I wouldn't expect a driver or simple software solution to fix this.

 

"The change in design calls to have these function implemented in application level in future.

This means that it is disabled in hardware until they engineer chips that will enforce Digital Rights Management (DRM) with compatible software. Microsoft's view of the future is that the OS will control the use of copyrighted media... their OS... and only their OS.

 

Does anyone know if the Latitude E4300 has the line-in and stereo mix capability? My T400 will be arriving soon. I'm considering returning it before opening if I know that the Latitude has this option.

Or does Virtual Audio Cable solve this problem completely? Is there any disadvantage?