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Comment by callmeed | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, but I haven't used Audacity in a while ... how exactly do you record Skype calls with it? Is there some sort of integration with the app or your sound card?

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This isn't what he's doing, but if you use an audio routing system like jackd on Linux or Soundflower on Mac OS X, you can capture audio output from one application (flash youtube videos, Skype, iTunes, etc.), mix it with your system input, route the superposition of both signals to Audacity, and record everything into the same stream. You can also use audio routing to mix a conversation into the input of an icecast server. That way you can stream a live Skype conversation mixed with music and sound effects into an Internet radio show while also recording and monitoring it.

http://jackaudio.org/

http://cycling74.com/products/soundflower/

OS X: Audio Hijack (USD 32) http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/buy.php

Save $32:

  apt-get install jackd2

You mean:

  brew install jack

Haha. Definitely not for me, but you are correct given the impetus brew is more apropos.

Or SoundFlower for OSX:

http://code.google.com/p/soundflower/

I listen through Skype calls with my laptop's speakers, and just hit the record button for potentially useful dialog. So, no integration with the app or sound card. BTW, for this to be useful, I try to record as little dialog as possible so in cases where I want to check something, I don't have a lot of material to listen to and sort out.

How To Enable “Stereo Mix” in Windows [Vista+] (to Record Audio) http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/39532/how-to-enable-stereo-mi...

I payed for Pamela long ago; now the free version records 15 minutes. (Don't know if I can still recommend them though, now tying in TrialPay for some reason.) http://www.pamela.biz/en/products/

Take a look at CallGraph. I rapidly ditched Pamela, seemed spammy and overpriced.

Most soundcards will have a virtual input that records the output. Audacity can record from any input your soundcard provides.

records system input

Correct me if I'm wrong but it can only record your input, not the other side of the conversation - if you change the setting to record from stereo then the person you're talking to on Skype just hears themselves echoing back.

My personal use for audacity other than randomly playing around with audio stuff was to clean up a CD of a radio recording from a decade ago, that over time had picked up scratches and noise, and managed to do a pretty awesome job overall.

On Windows my sound drivers include something called stereo mix. You can record this through audacity to get their side of the conversation. To record yourself as well you need to set your mic to playback through your speakers, but then you hear yourself speaking.

There may be a better way, but that's what I've always done if I needed to record on Skype.

Maybe audacity's changed since I tried it, used to be that by chosing stereo in audacity your skype input was automatically set to stereo too.

It probably depends on your sound card, and whether it can record from more than one source at a time. Many older sound cards only had a single stereo input, but it's not uncommon for newish motherboard-integrated HD Audio chipsets to support recording from multiple sources.

If you (still) use an emu10kn-based card (such as the SB Live), the kX project drivers allow custom routing, mixing, and alteration of inputs and outputs via the card's built-in DSP chip.

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