Thread: Need help with audio capture

Hi.
I have a problem with neighbours from hell living above me, this is not homework. I am proficient in C++, but I haven't written much of anything at all for windows and I need an app created, or help for me to create, or be pointed to freeware that does what I am looking for.

I want a service running in the background that captures audio constantly from the mic port on my windows 10 pc, checks decibel limit, discards any sounds below 50 Db, and records any above that, and keeps a log file of time of sound, duration sound exceeded 50db.

Basically the people upstairs are driving us crazy. They are young twenties, unemployed, party day and night, are aggressive when asked to quieten down. We own our flat, so can't move away easily, whilst the neighbours from hell are tenants of a landlord that can't be traced as the only address anywhere for him is the flat upstairs. The noise is excessive and without proof nothing can be done, and the onus of proof is on us. A joke i know, but that's the way it is in these times of austerity politics

Would anyone experienced with windows build this for me, or help me build it please.

I've thought about this some more. It doesn't need to be a service, just an app that minimises to the notification tray. I want to record a near quiet baseline when neighbours are out, a normal noise baseline when neighbours are out and we carry out normal activities then i fancy a producer consumer queue with the producer putting 30 sec chunks of WAV in the queue and the consumer(s) analysing the fragment for excessive volume spikes, saving spiky fragments and writing to the log. That should give me the actual sound and a record of the noise spikes. I'm a little lost where to start on Windows but I'll check out your links, and think some more over the problem and see what I can come up with.
Open to different design suggestions.

Have you looked into "sleep talk" software? It is designed to record you talking during sleep, but I believe only records when sound exceeds a certain threshold. I'm not sure if the sound trigger level is adjustable, but maybe this would be easier than a custom solution.