How to record on Xbox With Voice

Gaming as a hobby has become increasingly mainstream and familiar, and so did gaming hardware. Nowadays, you can get your hands on the best gaming hardware in console gaming, PC gaming, and mobile gaming with an endlessly developing landscape. Console gaming is as old as PC gaming and has quite a dedicated audience. So much so that communities from both gaming platforms constantly fight over which is better. As PC gaming offers far more flexibility and an extensive library for its users, but that doesn’t mean that console gaming doesn’t have its caveats that one can enjoy.

Recently, we have witnessed the release of very powerful consoles from Valve, Sony, and Microsoft that offer a great range of exclusive and non-exclusive games that you can play at high resolutions and more than enough framerates for a better and more immersive gaming experience on these consoles. Console gaming has a very dedicated audience, and just like PC gamers, console gamers also have a considerable community and esports tournaments. Xbox is one of those consoles that is a part of the Microsoft Eco System. Almost every game made for Windows OS is also available as an Xbox game.

Gameplay sharing and clip dumps have become much more common than before, thanks to the powerful hardware now available at affordable price tags. PC gaming offers many options to capture your gameplay which are easier to understand and implement than console recording options. In this article, I have compiled a list of ways that you can capture your gameplay efficiently on an Xbox with your voice so that you can share your gaming highlights and nuttiest plays with your friend groups or on social media. Even if you want to become a content creator in today’s increasingly lucrative gaming world and can’t figure out a way to record your gameplay on your Xbox you can check out the list below.

So without further ado, let’s look at several ways to record your gameplay on your Xbox with voice.

How to capture Gameplay on Xbox?

The first thing to figure out is how to capture your gameplay on an Xbox. Xbox is a highly capable console with lots of great attributes. You can easily record your gameplay on an Xbox once you know how to enable it.

There are several ways to record your gameplay without compromising much of your game’s features. The trick is to use built-in features or some light software that will help you immensely. Below I have listed many ways to record your gameplay on an Xbox.

Use Xbox built-in features

If you are a casual console gamer, you might not know that Xbox includes a built-in feature system to capture or record gameplay and sharing options. It allows you to clip a shorter length of gameplay, which might be what you need. You can save up to 30 seconds of your gameplay with your Xbox. Moreover, you can record your gameplay for longer durations. Also, you can screenshot your gameplay moments with this feature.

You can use or enable this feature in these simple steps;

1. Step 1: Start playing any game on your Xbox.
2. Step 2: When you feel like you need to record your gameplay, press the Xbox button on your console, and a guide will appear on your screen.
3. Step 3: Once you navigate to the record and capture a section of the pop-up guide, you can see the options of “Record what happened,” “Start recording,” and “Capture screenshot.”
4. Step 4: If you want to capture the last 30 seconds of your gameplay, click “Record what happened,” it’ll do just that. Or if you want to capture the whole gameplay, starting from the moment you click “Start recording,” it will record your gameplay footage. Similarly, screenshots can also be taken by simply clicking “Capture Screenshot.”
5. Step 5: When you feel like you have recorded enough of your gameplay, repeat the same steps and click on the “Stop recording” button, and it will save your gameplay on your internal memory of the console.

Use Windows Game DVR

Game DVR is another great built-in option in the Xbox and Windows operating systems that provides a great set of features for game optimization, recording gameplay, and sharing that gameplay with your friends. The only drawback of using game DVR is that it requires significant processing power that might affect some games during their runtime. For this reason, many Xbox users have it disabled. Still, one thing to note is that it has exceptional gameplay recording capabilities useful for capturing full-length gameplay to more minor duration cuts. It runs in the background and buffers your gameplay so that once you finish your session, you have the entire gameplay in one of your dedicated folders. Here’s how to use the Game DVR feature to record your gameplay.

1. Step 1: Press the Xbox button twice during your gaming session, and a pop-up will appear on your screen.
2. Step 2: On that pop-up sidebar, go to the “Snap-on App” option
3. Step 3: You will see the “Game DVR” option right in the middle of the sidebar.
4. Step 4: Once you click the Game DVR option, it will start recording, and to end the recording, you will have to click the “End Clip Now,” and it will save your clip.
5. Step 5: You can customize your gameplay metrics by going into the “Broadcast & Capture” section and selecting “Advanced settings.”

Use a Capture Card for Recording your Gameplay

Capturing gameplay in consoles usually requires lots of storage space which can get out of hand once you start recording your gameplay. If you are using your gameplay footage for content creation purposes, you can use a capture card to transfer that gameplay to your computer. Capture cards reduce the recording load off your graphics processor so that you can get maximum efficiency out of it for your games. Moreover, capture cards help store gameplay footage so you can edit them later and post them wherever you like.

Capture cards are more of an extensive option for recording your Xbox gameplay and might not be suitable for casual gamers and users. But I still included this option because it is a great way to capture your gameplay.

1. Step 1: You will need two HDMI cables, one USB cable, and a capture card from Elgato, NZXT, or any good brand.
2. Step 2: Connect the outport of the Capture Card with the HDMI cable and Insert another HDMI cable into the AV side of the capture card.
3. Step 3: Now take the second HDMI cable whose one port is inserted into the AV of the capture card and insert its other end into the HDMI port of the Xbox
4. Step 4: Now customize your recording settings for the captured gameplay, such as resolution, quality, etc., on the Xbox
5. Step 5: Install the proprietary software of the capture card on your computer and start playing and capturing gameplay on your Xbox.

Connect an External Hard drive to capture your gameplay.

Although your Xbox might have enough memory to support and store your desired games, more than its memory will be needed to hold all the recorded gameplay. Captured gameplay files can get a lot heavier depending on their recorded settings. For example, two minutes of recorded gameplay in full HD can get around 800 MB in size. These captured clips can take much of your internal memory without leaving much to install other games. If you want to record full-length gameplays, get an external HDD of good write speed and quality, and you can follow these steps to set it up.

1. Step 1: Get a good quality external hard drive with USB 3.0 or any other of your choice.
2. Step 2: Format your hard drive with the NTFS option enabled.
3. Step 3: Connect the hard drive to your Xbox to a USB port of the console.
4. Step 4: A pop-up message will show on your screen asking you the purpose of this hard drive. Select the option “Choose for media.”
5. Step 5: Now press the Xbox button on your console, and a sidebar will appear on your screen. Go to the “settings” tab on it.
6. Step 6: Go to the “Preference” option in the settings menu and select “Broadcasting & Capturing.”
7. Step 7: Click on the “Internal” option below the resolution settings for gameplay capture and change it to external.
8. Step 8: Now, every gameplay you record via “Game DVR” will go to the external hard drive into the folder of the same name.

How to Capture Gameplay on Xbox with Your Voice?

Although Xbox offers a good set of recording and saving gameplay options, it doesn’t capture the voice from the mic or game voice chat. It doesn’t matter whether you have a mic; your voice will not be recorded with the gameplay in your clips. This is not the case for both PC and PlayStation, and they allow the recording of the mic input right out of the box.

Microsoft doesn’t allow a voice recording option with the gameplay on the Xbox. But that doesn’t mean you cannot work around that. There are several ways to mitigate this problem. You can always record your voice separately in the recording section of the Xbox, and then you can put it as a commentary on your gameplay footage. Still, it is a hassle to do, and if you want to capture the live moments from your gaming sessions, then the best way is to record your gameplay simultaneously with your voice.

As mentioned, there are several ways to record your voice and gameplay together on the Xbox.  I have compiled a few best hacks that are easy to understand and simple to implement by yourself.

Setting up the Microphone

The first and most crucial step is to set up the microphone you will use to record your voice with the gameplay. The best way to do this is with headphones with a built-in microphone. This way, you won’t have to hassle with a separate microphone. Another option is to use a separate microphone to record your voice connected to your Xbox via a USB or a jack connection. Either way, you will have to ensure that your microphone is properly connected and configured in the internal settings menu to start recording your voice whenever you capture your gameplay by any of the above options.

Gameplay and Voice capture with Twitch

Xbox doesn’t allow real-time voice recording in tandem with the gameplay capture. So if you want to do that, you must capture your gameplay via “Twitch.” It doesn’t require you to buy a capture card and uses only your Xbox’s processing power to capture your gameplay. Follow these simple steps to record your gameplay with voice using the Twitch Xbox app.

1. Step 1: Press the Xbox button, go to the right, and select “Broadcast & Capture.” Go down to the “Advanced settings,” and you will see the option of “Mic On.” Click it so it is enabled, and every time you capture your gameplay, your voice is also charged with it simultaneously.
2. Step 2: Now, Navigate towards the “Microsoft Store” on the main screen and search for the “Twitch” application. Once you find the application, click download.
3. Step 3: Now, create an account on Twitch; if you don’t have one already, adjust its privacy settings to your need.
4. Step 4: Once you are done with that, go to the “Broadcast” section, located at the top middle of the main menu of the Twitch app.
5. Step 5: As the “Broadcast” section opens, you can see some options for streaming and capturing your main screen. You can adjust your “microphone level,” “Party Chat Voice Level,” “Gameplay Sound Level,” “Stream Resolution,” etc. Keep the “Bitrate” at “Automatic,” and the app will automatically detect the best bitrate for your device.
6. Step 6: Click on “Start Streaming,” and your main screen will start recording onto the Twitch app, and you can run any game you want to play and record.
7. Step 7: Once you are done with recording, go back to the Twitch application and click “stop streaming.”
8. Step 8: If you go to “Twitch. tv” and sign in with your account, you will find your clips as a “downloadable VOD” in the “video producer section.”

This method allows you to record your gameplay with voice without recording your gameplay and voice separately and then edit and combine those two files in editing software. Moreover, you get to experience your clips with a real-time voice-over from yourself, which can provide a theme for your pins. The only other method to capture your voice and gameplay with the Xbox is a capture card.

Other methods

The only other way to capture your gameplay and voice in a single file with an Xbox is by using a Capture card if you are willing to make a career shift or are trying to make a career out of streaming or content creation by playing different types of games on your Xbox.

The capture card allows you to transfer your live gameplay to your computer to stream or capture it. You get the recorded files of the captured gameplay with your voice and all the voices in the party chat, which can suit your content. Moreover, your gameplay isn’t affected, and you get consistent framerates in your games as the capture card reduces the recording load from your Xbox.

This method is extensive and expensive, requiring a few more components to execute fully. But if you are willing to go all out with a capture card, you can look at my steps for successfully setting it up.

Conclusion

Xbox is a powerful console that can easily handle most of the games. Moreover, it offers an extensive library of games, making it a highly desirable console. However, if you want to record your gameplay on an Xbox with your voice, you will find it relatively hard to do as Microsoft still hasn’t introduced such a feature. Xbox’s main competitor, the PlayStation, offers these types of components without the need for tweaking or hacks. While Xbox is an exceptional console, things like this make it unattractive for people who want something more than games.

Most of these consoles have made their market and demand based on the exclusive games and titles that they offer over the years. The same is true for Xbox, as it has the added advantage of including every game released for Windows in its library. Also, many people are accustomed to the controllers that these consoles offer. Xbox’s controller has been liked by many, to the point where many gamers use Xbox controllers on PC too. Reasons like these make Xbox a highly demanded console with a broad and enthusiastic following.

If you want to record your gameplay on the Xbox, you will find this article extremely helpful, as I have thoroughly explained and listed various ways of capturing your gameplay with voice. So, if you want to capture your gameplay efficiently on your Xbox, follow this guide’s instructions, and you will get all the help you need.