Recording audio from emulator

Started by Eyestrain92, April 06, 2008, 04:59:48 AM

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Eyestrain92

Alright, I made a track I want to put into a mp3. I don't have a microphone or line in handy, so what do I need to do to take the audio straight as I hear it, to a .mp3 file or at least some other recording?

DJ_Omnimaga

#1
You need a software like Audacity to record from emulator. It's avaliable at http://audacity.sourceforge.net . In it there is a record button. Here's how I go for recording from emulator:

-Recording+emulator running takes lot of processor time, no matter if you have a high end quad core PC or older 1.4 GHz PC. Close all chatting programs (mIRC, X-Chat, Trillian, MSN, etc.) or internet browsers if you have them set to start up with windows.
-Disable your anti-viruses
-If possible, disable softwares that search for updates automatically on a regular basis. For example GoogleUpdate.exe. Just go in Task Manager/Processes and kill GoogleUpdate.exe, ituneshelper.exe, ipodservices.exe and make sure there isn't stuff like uTorrent still running even if you closed it.
-Afterward open Audacity, then ePSXe, but don't start the MTVMG/Music2000 rom/CD right away.
-Set up your windows so you can see both softwares windows at once. This is important cuz if you switch between them after doing the following by clicking on the taskbar buttons it will freeze literally for like 2 minutes.
-Start ePSXe emulation, go to your song and all.
-Now go back to audacity by clicking on the window and start recording.
-IMPORTANT! You must minimize Audacity window, because just the track graphic showing up on Audacity takes precious ressources. Hiding it will improve performance.
-Now click on ePSXe window and start playing your song. Don't close the window, keep focus on it and do nothing else. Altough it worked for me almost all the times sometimes I still needed a few tries until I get absolutely no skipping at all. In some cases prior recording/starting the emulation you may need to set both ePSXe.exe and audacity.exe processes to higher priority mode, but in my case I didn't needed to. But it worked pretty well in overall. Keep in mind I have a 2.93 GHz computer (not dual/quad core though) with 1 GB RAM.
-Now when you finished, press Esc in epsxe, then stop recording in audacity.
-Then you can save in WAV or MP3. I recommend mp3 at 128 kbps since it has high quality and is not that big.

EDIT: If you own two computers and both are close from each others and you have some audio cables and/or adapters you could also just connect both PCs to record the song from a PC to another. Basically just run audacity on the receiving PC, but set it in Microphone mode instead of Stereo Output, start recording on this PC then play the song on the emulator on the sending PC. There will be much less chances of slowdowns, but I don't know what sound quality will be like though.

I personally own one computer and use method 1. This is an example of result I got:

http://omnimaga.org/Our%20Own%20Work/DJ%20...over%202008.mp3

I hope this help. :) Sorry for my bad english though

Eyestrain92

Therein lies the problem. I click record on Audacity and nothing is recorded.

zapphnath

#3
In Audacity, there's a little microphone symbol under the Record, Play, etc. buttons.  To the right of it is a slider and to the right of that is a drop-down menu.  In the menu, choose Stereo Out as the source so that Audacity will record the sound being sent to the speakers.  This way, if you can hear it, so can Audacity.
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DJ_Omnimaga

also I think the microphone sound is set to maximum there. I'm not sure but you may want to reduce it if it's recorded too loud

Eyestrain92

It only gives me "Line In" and "Microphone" as options.

Not a Number

Quotealso I think the microphone sound is set to maximum there. I'm not sure but you may want to reduce it if it's recorded too loud
I always set the microphone volume to 0.1, though you can probably go as high as 0.3 without it clipping.

DJ_Omnimaga

Then your sound card may not support recording from the PC. I would consider getting a newer sound card. There may be other recording softwares avaliable elsewhere though. You may also have a very old version of Audacity.

If you cannot afford a new sound card for now I would suggest getting a cable to connect in your microphone port and the other side in the headphones port and set Audacity to record in Microphone mode. Then the sound will come from the headphone port and go through the mic port. Quality may not be as good but it will be far better than using a camcorder or cellphone