Isn't Technology Wonderful!!!

It's taken a surprising amount of time but we've finally managed to get all of the audio functions of the new computer working -- and not all are even vaguely intuitive.

This machine is using Windows 7, which otherwise is a greatly improved OS from Vista. It has a RealTek High Definition Sound Card which is fabulous. However, to record anything (audio or video) from certain sources, including the Internet, you need to be able to see "Stereo Mix" in the "Recording Devices" window. In XP or the RealTek sound card in my previous PC for instance, that's there by default. It's not on the new machine. In order to find it, you have the RIGHT CLICK in any BLANK space in the "Recording Devices" window and check the box marked "Show Disabled Devices", only then will you even get the option to display it. You then again have to click on the button marked "set default" before it will work. But what THAT means is, if you are going to use the computer for any other sound or video application such as Skype, you have to change the default setting to one of the built-in microphones. As I said, not exactly intuitive.

Then there's the program I prefer to use for audio editing. CoolEdit's an old program, I know -- but it's one on which I've produced long radio documentaries very effectively so why change. CoolEdit wouldn't work under Vista, but that didn't matter as previous machines either ran XP or were "dual boot" (ie: would load under either operating system). It loaded perfectly under W7 but didn't run correctly. However, W7 offers a wide range of options under "compatibility mode". CoolEdit runs happily under XP Service Pack 2 (though curiously not SP3 for some reason). However, that didn't solve all the issues. The PLAYBACK settings under W7/RealTek HDA offer a range of settings. In order to record from the Internet (say: an interview conducted via Skype), PLAYBACK has to be set to "Digital Output"; to hear and thus edit the result on CoolEdit, PLAYBACK has to be set to "Speakers".

This may seem rather technical but I know of other people who are about to go down the same technological route. This may save them some time and frustration!