Voice recording

Torley Linden started this to share how he records voice chat in Second Life. This page will become more useful with additional knowledge, so please share your experiences too.

Torley Linden's method

Initial setup

The first key thing you'll want to check is if your computer's sound card can also record the sounds it's playing. There are a lot of variations across systems, but the option to do this is commonly called "What U Hear" (on Creative Sound Blasters) or "Stereo Mix".

I'm on a Windows PC with Realtek onboard sound, and I can enable this by going to Control Panel > Realtek HD Sound Effect Manager. In the bottom section, "Record", it appears as "Stereo Mix":

[PICTURE]

Also notice the "Mic Volume" control. If you want to record yourself speaking, you'll also need to turn this on so your headset input (your voice stream in Second Life) can be recorded.

Note: In my experience, other listeners also hear themselves talking (echo, feedback) when you're doing this. But, your final output will sound fine, so if they can put up with it and tolerate the weirdness, you can get great results.

Recording programs

If you don't have a preferred sound editor, I recommend checking out the free, cross-platform Audacity.

I like Sony Sound Forge.

Second Life Preferences setup

Log into Second Life and go to Edit menu > Preferences > Audio & Video tab.

Move the "Master" slider to maximum (all the way to the right). Adjust the other sliders as desired, e.g., if you don't want User Interface sounds playing while you're recording, move it to the left.

Do a test run before the actual event(s) you want to record begins. Go inworld and, if using voice chat on-site would be disruptive, test with some friends in another region. I can't emphasize this enough, you'll screw yourself over and be thoroughly frustrated if you didn't prepare — it's happened to me, learn from my mistakes!

Note: You may have to also adjust your computer's overall (not Second Life) volume slider to get a good balance where the sound is coming through loud enough but not clipping.

Second Life's voice chat doesn't have dynamic levelers and it's easy to accidentally have your mic "too hot", so there's a likely chance something will clip if it gets too loud. Don't worry too much about this — as long as most of the signal is within the 0-12 dB headroom range, you'll be good.

Also make sure in Preferences > Voice Chat tab, "Enable voice chat" is on, and obviously, you can hear voice inworld.

Other advice

• When recording, watch the audio recording levels carefully. This is how you determine whether the sound is clipping.

• I prefer