Audio Tools

From Virtual Worlds

It easy to record sound in Second Life. You do not need any additional software to do basic sound recording. First you need to access your computer's volume control. A lot here depends on your particular system and configuration, so you might found that things look differently for you. I do not use Macs at all, so below are instructions for PC. To get to volume control, double-click the speaker icon on your task bar (bottom-right part of the screen). In the volume control window go to the options menu, and click properties. You will have a choice (two radio buttons) between seeing playback and recording controls, so choose the latter and close the dialog. Now you will have a couple of volume sliders, with a check box saying "Select" beneath them. You need to select the output of your sound card. Typically, you will see something like "Microphone", "Wave encoder" and "Mono Out". Something other than "Microphone" should work. After you have selected the right control, you can now use any recording program to capture sound from your sound card.

Note: If your computer doesn't have "Stereo Mix" or "What U Hear", you might need to use one of the programs below to capture the entire sound stream (taken from SL wiki):

• Audio Hijack Pro (US$32, Mac) - If you're on a Mac, this is a popular app to get the job done.
• SoundTap (~US$20, Windows) - Joe Linden finds this very simple to use.
• Total Recorder (~US$18 for standard edition, Windows) - Has a lot of extra features.
• Ubercaster (~US$80, Mac) - Chiyo Linden and some Residents have recommended this.
• WireTap Studio (US$69, Mac) - Some say this is an even easier way to record on a Mac.
• WireTap Anywhere (US$129, Mac) - This application can route sound sources to other applications, so you could use this to record SL audio directly into something like Garageband or Soundtrack Pro.

Option 2. On PC you can also loop the speaker to the Line-In jack on the sound card if you have or wish to purchase a cable and then record using the Line-In as the source.

There is a YouTube tutorial on recording sound in this manner, often called "recording from the speakers":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfdzx7mr51Y

While you can record Second Life audio, including conversations, using recording from the speakers, the method has serious shortcomings, mainly because you record sound in a wave format (.WAV files). These files can grow in size really fast, so it is hard to share them and, sometimes, hard even to open in a audio editing program. A better alternative might be to use Audacity. This is a free, very powerful, reliable and user-friendly program that can be downloaded at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

There are several excellent YouTube tutorials on recording using Audacity, for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1VgexcR5ek
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9_pSLG0LZQ

Other audio programs that can be used to record audio:
- Fraps
- Goldwave
- WeGame
- Wiretap
- Wavepad