Windows 7: Sigmatel Audio - No 'Wave Out/Stereo Mix' option

Hello everyone,

I have a Dell Vostro 1500 with onboard Sigmatel sound. I do a little djing, and occasionally hear something in a video or TV show that I'd like to use as a sample to throw into my sets.



In XP I used to do this with Audacity - I'd set it to record 'Wave Out', press record, play the video file and voila - perfectly recorded sound.

As far as I am aware, the Wave Out/Stereo Mix option was not included with the standard Dell Sigmatel drivers, so in order to do this there was a workaround in XP whereby you could install LG drivers which would give you the 'Wave Out' option, so you could record directly from the soundcard.

Since installing Windows 7, I've tried the standard Dell drivers and the LG drivers for Sigmatel, but have been entirely unable to get the 'Wave Out' option. I don't really want to use a recording program such as Total Recorder as I've had issues with it in the past and like the simplicity of the system I used with Audacity.

When I right click the speaker icon in the system tray, then choose 'Recording Devices', the 2 options I see are 'Microphone / Line In' and 'Microphone Array'. I've tried right clicking and selecting 'Show disabled devices' but nothing more shows up.

So... does anytone know if there are there any Sigmatel drivers out there that can enable this function or any other workaround for Windows 7 to achieve it?

Thanks for reading, apologies for the long post.

Cheers,

Tom.

Tom hi and welcome

I am a fellow sufferer. Use audacity, on dell. In win 7 the only way I was able to use the sound card was cludgy but works. I couldnt figure out how to do it in software so I did it with hardware.
got a mini splitter amd a mini male-male cable.
splitter in headphone jack
headphones for levels, etc. Male-male from splitter to line in. Not distorted and levels easily adjusted in audacity.

Sorry I didn't have some super slick app but it works

Let me know if you do find a solution

Ken J

I am facing the same situation, using Sigmatel onboard audio on an Intel motherboard. Additionally, I have a Creative Labs Soundblaster Live 24 Bit internal card. I could record "what you hear" with both in Vista and cannot record what you hear with either in Win 7.

I have tried Vista drivers and Win 7 drivers as supplied by the Win 7 install process. No luck.

I put out a plea on a high-powered audio related forum to name some sound cards that had this functionality with Windows 7 and had no luck.

I have anecdotal reports that a Turtle Beach external USB sound card supports "what you hear" in Windows 7. It is about $70, more than I would like to spend and I would like to stay with internal.

I have no playback issues at all, just recording what my speakers are playing. I also use Audacity and don't want to fiddle with Total Recorder, which has shortcomings for my purposes.

If you hear of a solution, post about it. Googling reveals a lot of complaints about this, but I have not yet found a workaround or a list of sound cards that don't have this issue in Windows 7.

Not sure if it applies here but some sound cards/chips have the wave in/what you hear disabled by default in Windows 7 Including my own realtek chip

To check right click on the taskbar speaker icon and select playback devices

On the recording tab right click on the main panel with the icons for your installed hardware and select the check mark on "Show Disabled Devices"

If you have disabled items these will now be visible in the list.

It may be that support for the function you require is simply missing from the driver you are using but if it is present you can enable the device and set as default to use.

If not then Ken's inventive solution is one of the best I have seen for this issue

I understand that this was done by some manufacturers due to complaints from internet streaming sites that users were recording the live streams without authorisation

Barman:

Thanks for the comment. I am aware of the right click to show disabled devices, etc. That doesn't reveal anything, with any driver--although it did under Vista.

I suspect you may be right about reasons for the deliberate deletion of that functionality in Win 7.

I am somewhat surprised this is not much of an issue on this or other audio forums. I found quite a few hits about it on Google.

The Turtle Beach Audio Advantage SRM, which is an external USB device, is not supposed to have this issue.

Nor do certain soundcards from HT Omega, so I am told. They are expensive.

I am aware of the workaround as suggested by Ken. I am going to give it a few more weeks to see if there are any $50 area soundcards that don't have this issue. If I can't locate any, I will have to choose between Ken's method and spending more money than I care to for a card.

Are you using the vista driver or one specifically for Windows 7?

Just a thought - if you can get the Vista driver to work it may have the original functionality retained - just one of my out of the box ideas but you never know - the vista drivers should work with Windows 7 if they were fully Vista compliant

For onboard Sigmatel, I have tried Vista driver with no luck, but I don't think I have exhausted all possibilities regarding "compatibility mode" with it. It's an Intel board, only 3 years old, and Intel has said it is not developing Win 7 drivers for it. So I am stuck with whatever the Win 7 disc cares to provide or what I can scrounge on the net.

For Creative Labs, I have tried Vista drivers, drivers supplied by Win 7 disc, and an apparently recent Win 7 only driver found on the CL site. Fiddling with the Vista drivers nearly rendered my system null and void (unbootable by any normal method)--I was saved only by my very last system restore point.

I have to decide how deeply I want to wade into this driver issue. I may decide to go on one last blitz and try any and all drivers in any possible way, hoping to be bailed out by system restore--or I may think better of that and buy something else.

To be honest If audio quality is important you may be better looking at a variation of Kens suggestion - invest in something that can give you a quality digital output that you can feed into an external mixer and back into the pc, again digitally for the recording. or a card with an optical output and Input that you can loop back

I knew there are some high end options that use an external box with a PCI card but of course it's a case of how much quality do you need and can afford

Well, I am older than baseball and freely admit to having tin ears. Historically, I have been completely satisfied by mp3s as opposed to WAV files, $500 speakers as opposed to $5000 speakers, ordinary cabling as opposed to Kryptonite Super Heavy Duty Platinum Plated cables at $20 per foot, etc.

But I do have about 17,000 mp3s and listening has always been important. I still have a few thousand vinyl LPs, but don't listen to them anymore. Convenience and simplicity counts for something too.

I have no qualms about spending X dollars rather than X minus $50, subject only to my antique ears being able to A/B the difference and my frustration level being held below a certain threshold.

Hi, new member here.

My Sony Vaio VGN-SZ320p is currently suffering the lack of Stereo Mix too. It was working in Windows XP, now it just simply doesn't exist in Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit. Although on my desktop (not Sigmatel, SoundMAX) it does have stereo mix, so Windows 7 does in fact support stereo mixing. Since I do internet radio, and travel to do it sometimes, I need to somehow get this fixed.