Recording Audio from the Internet

The inability of a new installation of Adobe Audition to do

"stream recording" a.k.a. "what you hear" recording

is an FAQ on this forum.  This week I stepped up from 32-bit Windows 7 to 64-bit Windows 7 and got to experience the "joy" of fighting through this issue once again myself, as I had it working before in 32-bit but upon reinstalling in 64-bit, I temporarily struck out until I hunted around a bit.  Let me add one post describing the fix for me to try and help future forum users who search before asking.

If you have hardware that permits* stream recording but still can't get stream recording to fly at all and are in Windows 7, try this.  Go to Control Panel>Sound>Recording tab.  With sound playing over or into the PC, you should see green bars pulsing up and down synched with sound levels for at least one of the inputs listed there.

No green bars for any input there?  Sound is not reaching your sound hardware which of course means that Audition can't record it.  You may need to check the inputs from any external audio gear you are trying to record to ensure they really are correctly connected to your PC, get the correct Windows driver for your sound hardware installed and working, or make a hardware change.

If you see pulsing green bars for an input on the Recording tab when sound is playing over or into your PC, but that input has no green check mark on it, click the device so it's highlighted, and select "Set default."  (On my soundcard, the device that works best for stream recording on Audition is "Line 1/2.")  NOW (this is the part I forgot after reinstalling Windows 7): With the device still highlighted, click the Properties button.  Click the Listen tab and click the "Listen to this device" button so it is checked. I believe this is not checked by default, but on my setup, it is necessary for stream recording to work.

After making either or both of these changes, you may need to reboot to get this to take effect in Windows and get Audition stream recording.

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*As it says above, some PCs (particularly some made by Sony) are reputed  to have disabled stream recording because they're intent on enforcing  DRM even if it seriously inconveniences their users who are recording  their own creations.  (If you have such hardware, you might try a "USB  soundcard" as a workaround, as doing this may fix this issue.)  Also, if your motherboard uses built-in sound hardware rather  than a good quality soundcard, it may record though with unacceptable  quality; you may want to add a soundcard at least on a desktop PC, or again, you may want to try a USB soundcard on a laptop.

If your hardware doesn't support it, just get a cable with two mini jacks (one on each end) and plug one into aux-in and the other into aux-out (headphone if aux-out is not available). Then record aux-in.

It's probably worth having a read through this recent thread here in the Audition forum:  http://forums.adobe.com/thread/524251?tstart=30

Yes, a good many computer manufacturers have disabled the feature that lets you record "What U Hear" or similar.  Some have just hidden  the feature and I posted the method to get it back early on in the topic I linked.  Other computers have the feature completely eliminated which largely leaves you out of luck.  There's also a commercial product called "Virtual Audio Cable" which you could try (also linked in the above topic) but that is a paid for programme if you decide you need it.

Bob