MCI recorder example

[Dave]

This is a simple MCI recorder

I have posted something similar before, but this is a version I just made/tested on my Vista laptop from work.

it works on this box even with its uptight security settings etc. (would not write to C: due to admin privilege request, so I just have it writing to the folder the app is in)

I had not played with this for a while and was surprised to see that sndvol32.exe is gone, replaced by sndvol.exe which is not really the same thing.

I will have to play more and more often I suppose.

Dave

[Dave]

So I have had time to play a little more and discovered some stuff which is related to Vista

you can, of course, monkey with your sound settings by right clicking the speaker icon in the system tray.

but if you would like to access these settings from your own application:

sndvol.exe is the windows volume mixer

mmsys.cpl is the sounds and sound devices control panel applet
you can access it by executing an external program with a command line:
rundll32.exe
shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL mmsys.cpl,,3

(actually the ,,3 is supposed to open the third tab but this does not seem to work-you can leave it out)

you can access devices that are disabled (and hidden by default) by right clicking in the white space below the active devices in the sound applet and selecting "show disabled devices" from the menu.

My recordings were very "hissy" at first, but I guessed there was some "thing" making extra noise that i could not access from the sound applet.

I wound up installing an app called "power mixer" from actual solutions that I purchased back when I was doing more work like this a year or so ago, and that gave me more control over Vista's ( and my laptop's) somewhat murky controls of my soundMax sound card.

there is likely a free app that gives this control, I just happen to own this.

It did clean up the hiss.

I hope this info is helpful and I would appreciate hearing from anyone who finds this useful, or knows more than I. I will probably keep messing with this periodically and post my results

I have added a new file just to show the new vista applet and whatnot, nothing else ids really different.

dave