Audacity - record one audio source while listening to another

I listen to radio on Edge browser and recently there was 2 programs on at the same time that I wanted to hear. I thought I'd record one using Audacity in a Windows 11 VMware and listen to station 2 live.

Problem was, Audacity in the VM seemed to record everything on my pc - host audio + guest audio. I thought the VM would act as a self-contained pc, but apparently audio is audio, system-wide.

Even weirder is when I pulled the VM slider down in the host volume mixer to mute it - the recording level in the VM Audacity also went down.

So - is it possible to record one audio source while listening to another ?

You would normally need a separate sound card to do it. One easy fix is to connect a really cheap USB sound card, so you record from on board and listen from the USB or vice versa. Back in the 2000s I had two TV tuners and two sound cards (onboard and discreet). I could record two different TV programs at the same time without one interfering with the other. One sound card was connected to one TV tuner to record the sound and the other to the other tuner.

badcrc said:

So - is it possible to record one audio source while listening to another ?

Click to expand...

Yes, if your soundcard driver supports it, it is easy. Just configure the driver to use each audio in and out source as independent "channels/sources" rather than mixing in all inputs to one channel and all outputs to another.

There also exist virtual mixing sound consoles, that let you plug in any source to any output and input. One being VB-Audio VoiceMeeter

This may help...

I have monitor and TV. I use the TV to watch movies stored on my hard drive, using VLC Media Player.
I have VLC set to put the movie's sound on the TV, and use my desktop speakers for the monitor's sound.

In other words... I can watch a youtube on the monitor and watch a movie on the TV, and the youtube sound only comes out of the speakers, and the movie's sound only comes out of the TV.


NOW... just for this topic, I ran a movie on the TV, and a youtube on the monitor. I ran Audacity on the monitor and recorded the youtube audio. When doing this... I did NOT get the TV's sound on the recording of the youtube audio.


Audacity settings. Everything else at defaults.



VLC settings...



If I open a browser window (both FF), on the monitor and the TV, I can't figure out how to separate the sound. They BOTH come out of my desktop speakers. :/

Now... with this info, you audio gurus should be able to figure out the OP's problem.

What you described was like using separate audio cards, one is the computer card and the other the HDMI audio. Can be done using a USB audio card.

I have a Soundblaster Z card on the mobo (onboard sound disabled) and also a Focusrite Scarlett usb interface. I got the Focusrite for the condenser mic phantom power. It has a headphone socket, switchable direct/computer.

Not sure how I would point different sources to different soundcards.

Is my VM idea valid ?

You don't need a VM for this...just a virtual mixer as I stated above.