Hello Forum Members; I have a Dell 5150 with a basic sound card - Sigmatel. I have tried to record any sound playing on my computer and it will not work. I would like to be able to capture radio and other media playing online. I have the necessary programs such as Audacity. However, they fail to record due to a problem with the Sigmatel audio on my computer. Do I need a new sound card -- upgrade. Is there something missing from the drivers? Greatly appreciate any recommendations or advice, thanks,
couldn't find the details on the dell site...url was down...but if you never reinstalled the OS or you did with the disc provided then i think its fair to say its time for a new one....it'll record better...m-audio 7.1 is a great card great sound...xi-bit cards are great too.....
Vista? Most sound drivers eliminated 'What you hear' as an input source. You might need a third party app like TotalRecorder or a hacked driver.
Hi Tripplite and olyteddy: I have Windows XP Media Center 2005 but I gather it is the same story as per the Sigmatel audio drivers. I was hoping that may be an upgrade to a better sound card would work but I gather from what you've said olyteddy that will not work. I tried Free-recorder within my Firefox browser but I had the same problem even though it is suppose to bypass the sound card. It didn't record or if it did the sound was so faint you couldn't heard anything. Usually it just didn't record sound off the computer at all. Unless, of course, I did something wrong. Haven't been able to confirm that Dell also had this option eliminated from the sound card? What's odd though is some can record stream radio or other with no problems! How do you "hack" the driver. Thanks,
im still confused about what your trying to capture? is it an online audio stream? or is it a console based sound, like your just trying to record any sound that would go to your speakers? please answer... there are programs that can capture online video/audio streams not just live streams .....audacity doses the latter.... however if your looking for a hacked driver program look at sound trap, i'd suggest to try the trial version before you buy,to make sure it works...dell computers have alot of issues with onboard cards (stops working after reboot on old xeon computers was far to common) that's why up until recently they were just supplying third party pci cards with their computers Sound Trap and audacity do the same thing, except audacity is better and does a lot more....and its OS which is great the only difference is soundtrap uses it's own driver which resolves conflicts with some cards....so where audacity might not work Sound Trap will unless your sound card is complete dog crap XD REMEMBER if you want a louder recording higher the volume of the source's output not just your speakers power crazy wattage man! http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/660777#4012342 see ya -tripplite
I had this same problem and the previous poster was right, most onboard sound manufacturers including sigmatel have removed the "what you hear" option from their drivers, apparently this was due to Microsoft forcing them to do so before they would issue them a driver certificate compatable with Vista. Microsoft seem to think this is a way to reduce music piracy, as usual the bosses at Microsoft are so far out of touch with the real world it is comical, anyway to get back to the point, even though the sound drivers have the "what you hear" option removed, the sound chip itself is still capable of doing it, there are big long discussion forums about this, the answer is to use drivers that were not specificaly designed for your computer, one of the ways I got my "what u hear" option to appear in my mixer was to use an older sigmatel XP driver on my vista computer and it worked perfectly, I found which one to use by reading those discussion forums about this issue, try googling "no stereo mix on Dell 5150 sigmatel" and "no what you hear dell sigmatel" and variations of that to find those discussions about using substitute drivers to get around this issue.
Hi Tripplite and zonedout: I must apologise Tripplite for not responding earlier. Christmas crazy as usual. I hope you and zonedout had a wonderful Christmas. I'm recording (stream)radio shows. I guess it is what you call "record what you hear". As zonedout mentioned, I did confirm that the "stereo mix option" is not available on my Sigmatel sound card. Tried to find alternative drivers but I had no luck finding something compatible. Also, Sigmatel was bought out by another company? I have both Audacity and Sony Sound Forge (home version) and neither have a built-in audio driver and will not record because of the disabled sound card problem (no stereo mix option). It was recommended that I use polderBits because it has a built-in audio driver. However, I've already invested in the Sony Sound Forge. Hopefully, my problems have been solved now that we have an idea what was wrong. For Christmas, I received a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE (24-bit). It says on the box for recording: 24-bit analog-to-digital conversion in 16 or 24-bit with sampling rates of up to 96 kHz. I have no clue if that is good or bad. May be you can comment on the technical aspects of the new sound card. It is an upgrade from the basic sound card that came with the computer. Nothing fancy. Haven't had a chance yet to install. I'll keep you posted on the new sound card and let you know if I'm able to record "anything" at this point. Appreciate the advice. Happy New Year,
I had a great Christmas katydidit I hope you did too, your Creative Audigy is a nice soundcard much better than onboard sound I would be suprised if there was no stereo mix option on it, every Creative soundcard I have owned had this option in the mixer.
Hi zonedout: Thanks for the positive input on the Creative audio card. Keep your fingers crossed and report back after the New Year. Happy New Years, katydidit
Better late than never. Shame on Dell for such crappy drivers. This may or may not work for you, it worked for me; an article on CNET pointed me in the right direction. I have a Dell XPS 400, running Windows XP Professional. The XPS 400 has an Intel D945G-series motherboard. I went to the Intel Download Center Search for "sigmatel" and/or "D945GCL" (the motherboard name) Downloaded this file: 5.10.5208_W3_XP32_XP64_2K_wSTACGUI_UPMIX_AC'97FP_V2.EXE "Audio driver with support for legacy AC'97 front panel header plus the Sigmatel* software interface." Installed this file, no reboot needed. Checked in Device Manager; Dell I downloaded from Dell support for XPS 400 is dated 2005, the above Intel driver is dated 9/7/2006 once installed (for the "SigmaTel High Definition Audio Codec") Here's a direct Link to the driver file: http://tinyurl.com/xps400sigmatel (I made a shortcut) "Stereo mix" now appears in the recording menu! Tried it out with MixMP3 (a great free command line tool for ripping audio streams from "Stereo Mix")...and it worked PERFECTLY!
