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Is it possible to record what is sent to the speaker of a laptop while muting the speaker?

I'll explain what I mean

I'm aware that if wanting to record what is coming from a computer, an amateurish way is one can play sound that comes through the speakers, and one can record from the computer's mic and record the sound that the computer hears outside of itself. So the sound comes out of the computer and then in for record. This method means that a)you have to listen to it and b)any other noise in the room is picked up. I won't be using that way.

An alternative way, the regular way, for wanting to record sound that you play from the computer, and one that has an advantage of not picking up other room noise. In Windows XP this was done by going to volume control..and bring up properties related to recording and set input from stereo as opposed to mic. In Windows 7 there is an option under ctrl panel..sound..recording you can choose stereo as default as opposed to mic. And then it records whatever is sent out of the speakers.

The problem with that way, is that still, you have to listen to it. If I mute the volume control, then it mutes what is being recorded and nothing gets recorded.

If I used an external speaker then maybe it would work, maybe turning the volume control down on an external speaker would allow me to record what is sent out the speaker without having to listen to it. But I don't have an external speaker to test that. And i'm wondering if it's possible to do that without an external speaker?

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  • It depends on where the muting is done. You can have different sources going through a mixer, then to one or more applications for sound processing, recording and/or output, then to the speaker/headphone ports. The source can be muted at the mixer, or the sound application can include mute, or the output can be muted. Windows includes some rudimentary sound utilities and there are lots of installable applications. (cont'd)
    – fixer1234
    Jan 10, 2019 at 4:51
  • You can mute at the output (or record and not output). You just need to control it at the right place. If the Windows native utility doesn't offer that, load one that does. I've been away from Windows too long to make a specific recommendation, though.
    – fixer1234
    Jan 10, 2019 at 4:51
  • @fixer1234 well, chrome and audacity are cross platform. If I play a youtube video with sound in a tab of chrome, and record in audacity, it picks it up fine, then if I mute the tab, it no longer picks it up(so no good). I'm not sure where that mutes it? I guess you're saying the program should send to 'the mixer'. VLC is cross platform. Where is the option in VLC?
    – barlop
    Jan 10, 2019 at 5:14
  • Yeah, if you mute a YouTube video, you're muting whatever media player is rendering and outputting the sound for the browser. If you're talking about a YouTube video, you can just download it. Then if you want to rip the audio, you can use the file as input to an application like VLC. You could process and save the audio without outputting it to the speakers. I don't have much experience with VLC, but it might have the capability where you could tell it to use the YouTube URL as the source and avoid downloading it. But you probably want to keep the browser media player out of the process.
    – fixer1234
    Jan 10, 2019 at 5:28
  • @fixer1234 you're misunderstanding me. I'm not trying to view a video(there was a reason why I gave that example but anyhow). forget that example. I have an mp3 I want to play that. And I used the example of VLC because it's cross platform and you said you don't use windows anymore, you suggest you know how but not with windows software. Hence I mentioned a cross platform program. I'm happy to use another cross platform program. I'm trying to help you to help me but it seems that i'm not able to.
    – barlop
    Jan 10, 2019 at 6:42

3 Answers 3

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There is a lot of solutions: from win 7 there is a new technology called Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI) which permit this.

loopback capture

here is small tool that does not need to install anything, it uses the same technology (WASAPI).

Sample – WASAPI loopback capture (record what you hear)

virtual audio device link

Download and setup this

This will add a new audio device; this device is what you have to use from now with your preferred capturing program, for example if you use ffmpeg then use it like that:

ffmpeg -f dshow -i audio="virtual-audio-capturer" -acodec libmp3lame -ab 320k -f mp3 myaudio.mp3

If you will use other software to capture the audio then just go to its setting and search for an option to change the capturing device, then select "virtual-audio-capturer", now any program can capture the audio while the voice is muted.

this is the prefered way to do this.

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This may belong as an answer in the software segment of StackExchange, as the best possible solution might be a program known as Total Recorder.

I started my program, then opened a YouTube video and started the playback. The next step was to mute the audio in the usual manner. Returning to Total Recorder, I selected Record and was rewarded with a pair of bar graphs indicating that the sound was being processed.

After a few moments of that, I stopped the recording and the playback, unmuted the speaker and played the segment with zero complications.

The professional version is under US$36, while the standard is about half that.

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  • I just tried total record standard, and when I clicked the windows 7 volume control and clicked mute, i stopped seeing the bars, it didn't record any sound when the w7 volume control was muted
    – barlop
    Jan 10, 2019 at 2:11
  • That's an unusual development, if the results you experienced is due to the difference between standard and pro versions!
    – fred_dot_u
    Jan 10, 2019 at 10:38
  • I don't think it's that (standard vs pro)..
    – barlop
    Jan 10, 2019 at 16:04
  • apparenetly I shuld try switching from soundboard mode to software recording mode. There is an option for that under parameters, but it's disabled at the moment, I mgiht need to restart my computer, which wiill take a while 'cos I have to save/close two dozen notepad windows before restart ;-)
    – barlop
    Jan 10, 2019 at 16:06
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Very cheap solution might be to plug headphones into the computer. This will shut off the speakers. Don't put the headphones on your head; then you will hear only a tiny murmer, which can be ignored, from the headphones.

Sometimes stupid, easy, improper solutions are the best.

-- Gab Far

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  • 1
    You write "into the computer" <-- which socket? do you mean as a headphone or as a speaker?
    – barlop
    Feb 24, 2019 at 0:11

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