How to record streaming audio with Audacity in Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron)
I’ve been transferring everything I do with computers both at home and at work from Windows to Ubuntu Linux. 
One of the things I did regularly in Windows was to record either streaming audio or audio from a device plugged directly into my sound card. I have a long term project to get all my old cassette tapes digitized. In Ubuntu 8.04 I installed Audacity from Synaptic, then selected each input device in turn under Edit>Preferences>Recording but none of them worked or produced an error.
The solution was however quite simple and not with Audacity at all. I opened up the master volume control on the Ubuntu panel by right clicking on the icon and selecting Open Volume Control then selected Edit>Preferences.
Next make sure the boxes marked Mix and Mix Mono are checked then Close. 
Close the Volume Control and then re-open it and select the Switches tab and check the box for Mix and close again. Finally in Audacity in Edit>Preferences set the Playback and Recording devices to ALSA:default. That’s it, now anything playing through the sound card be it streaming music or from an external device such as a tape player can be recorded.
Posted in ubuntu
June 27th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I don’t have a Mix and Mix Mono checkbox. What I have is:
“Select Tracks to be visible:
Master
PCM
IEC958 (what on earth is that?)
Digital
Docking Mic
External Mic
Internal Mic”
But no “Mix” or “Wave out” or anything like that.
This is an an HP dv2000 laptop, “Audio device: Intel 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller”
Any ideas about how to enable recording of all audio streams? Of course I could use a cable to connect mic in to line out but that seems a bit clunky.
June 29th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Peter, you could always try resetting Audacity by deleting the audacity.cfg file which is in the .audacity-data folder. When you run Audacity again hopefully it should detect your sound card etc.
July 29th, 2008 at 2:53 am
Thank you for this tutorial! As a relatively new ubuntu user, Google has been invaluable for finding information. I initially tried changing the devices under Audacity’s preferences but to no avail. It’s highly unlikely I would have figured how to get this to work on my own and given up on it.
=)
July 29th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
@Seoras, he’s not talking about audacity. you should recognize what he means, being that you wrote the article. *hint* I don’t have a Mix and Mix Mono checkbox.
July 30th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Mike, I know Peter was talking about the switches available in the volume control preferences in Ubuntu, not Audacity. I didn’t know what else to suggest and resetting the audacity.cfg file has worked for me on other systems.
August 4th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Thanks seoras,
Woyked poyfectly!
Now I have a beeeg challenge to offer you: how about a tutorial to install snd (the Linux equivalent of Cool Edit Pro) in Hardy?
If you have enough lifetimes to do so, I have enough to follow the steps!
Regards,
Sam, Hardy Heroin Addict