I have a client that needs an audio application that can record while another microphone device is also recording.
Specifically, they use Skype and this uses the Mic input, but they also need to record other audio at the same time (specifically for non-skype phone calls through a mic patch cable).
The computer is an HP, and has audio on the motherboard (Realtek). I've installed a second audio card (C-Media based). I forced the onboard audio to be on in the bios, and all devices show up in device manager. I can see the devices in the Audio control panel applet, but only one seems to work at a time, whichever is set to default. The other says "Currently Unavailable". Both skype and my application can choose the device to use, and simply choosing different devices does not seem to work.
Is there any way to do simultaneous recording of two audio input devices?
This worked when using a USB microphone, but doesn't seem to work with analog sound cards. We had too many problems with the USB mic's though because they did not always initialize fully before the startup applications started, thus causing them to select random audio inputs. It was very annoying.
Odd... usually the one-or-the-other "Currently unavailable" behavior is due to MUXing within a single piece of audio hardware, where two audio capture jacks are routed through the same ADC. I've never seen that behavior on capture devices on different pieces of audio hardware.
Can you email me a screenshot of the "Recording" tab of the Sound control panel? mateer at microsoft dot com