Setting your Sound Card as a loopback device

Requirements: This will not work with a hosted server. A virtualised server may be able to do it. This was written for XP, but will also work for Win 2000 and Win 98. The sound card/device must have both recording and playback capability for this to work.

1. Go to Sound and Audio Devices in the Windows Control Panel
2. Go to Volume
3. Select Advanced
4. Select your input sound device
5. Select the Stereo mix as your input
   • The stereo mix is the output of the soundcard.
   • Please Note:Unless you wish to record ALL sounds your computer makes, including the startup and shutdown tones then may want to change the Windows sounds to 'off'.
6. Your computer is now set to record the output of the sound card as the input.

How to enable the "Wave Out Mix" ("Stereo Mix", "Record what you hear") in Windows 7/Vista

1. Go to the Control panel and double click the "Sound"
2. Select the Recording tab
3. Right click on the background of the tab and select Show Disabled Devices
4. Find the "Wave Out mix" ("Stereo Mix", "Record What you hear") item, right click on it and select Enable
5. Now you can capture audio from any program in Windows 7/Vista

Please note: Only certain sound cards have the stereo mix option; not all of them have it.

The drivers can also affect whether you have a stereo mix option or not. Generally the Microsoft drivers for sound cards that ship with Windows don't have this option. Getting the driver from the manufacturer for the sound card can fix this, but only if the sound card supports it.

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