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Configuring your sound card to play music and talk at the same time XP

Some chat services these days offer you the option of voice via a  microphone/headset. 

By offering this option they opne the gate  for you to also play music via your sound card.  There are a couple of options to play music through your sound card and these are

1. Playing music by itself with out microphone sound

2. Playing music and being able to talk on the microphone at the same time

Addressing number 1 is simple and most, if not all, souncards will perform this option.

Click the start button in your task bar

Select control panel

Select the "Sounds and Audio Devices" icon by double clicking it and close the control panel

This will open a window called "Sounds and Audio Properties"

At the top of this window is five TABS labelled "Volume, Sounds, Audio, Voice and Hardware"

Select the "Audio" tab

This will display a window consisting of three sections named next to their respective icons, "Sound Playback, Sound Recording and MIDI music playback"

Each section had a separate volume button.  We will only be concerned with the "Sound Recording" volume button

Click the Sound Recording volume button to open the "Recording Control"

In the recording control we will look for "wave out Mix" ...this may be called something different on your pc and could be "Stereo Mix" or something to that effect.

If this is not visible the click options in the top left hand corner or the "Recording Control" window and select "Properties"

This will open another window called "Properties".

Make sure that there is a dot in the recording selection option and put a tick in the "Wave out Mix" or "Stereo Mix" option boxes below then click "Ok"

This will add the volume slider to the "Recording Control" window

Put a tick in the box marked "Select" at the bottom of the "Wave out Mix","Stereo Mix" volume control and set the volume to about 4 on the slide ( this is so you dont blow the ears out of the listeners)

You may, at this time, close the "Sounds and Audio Devices" window but leave the "recording control" window open as you may have to adjust the levels of sound via the mix option

Ok thats it...you may now eneter a chat room and test out the music playing function and adjusst levels as needed.