Examples are: Windows WASAPI & Windows DirectSound. You need to select the primary audio source first: that is done by selecting an option in the drop-down to the left of the mic icon. The exact source of the sound you intend to record is pointed to by the use of two separate options. There are drop-downs around the mic icon at the bottom of the toolbar that lets you do so. Realtek Audio is the standard sound card driver which comes out of the box with Windows 10.Īudacity lets you select the audio source to record from. E.g.ĭepending on your machine it might have other options than Realtek(R) Audio (As you can see I also have an external soundcard a Focusrite, which I'd be really using if I'd want to record system sounds) So, what you need to do in audacity is to select Windows WASAPI as your audio host and select your soundcard as a loopback device. That's why it's called 'loopback device'. it needs to loop back the result of the transform to itself before it can record it. So, to be able to record the system sound your sound card needs to actually do 2 actions: transform it to an analogue signal and then record that signal. If you hit 'record' in audacity it will try to record the analogue source, but there is no analogue source, hence your audio wave will be flat (i.e. When a system sound is a triggered it is sent as a digital signal to your soundcard, which will turn it into an analogue one before output.

it takes an analogue signal and will transform it to a digital one (or vice versa). You need to make sure that your sound card is treated as a loopback device.Ī soundcard takes an input signal, transforms it and outputs it as a different signal.

(disclaimer: I'm sacrificing correctness for understandability here)

Wasapi audacity