Recording sound with your computer's microphone input

a. Connecting and adjusting a microphone for recording spoken comments.

	1. For recording voice, use a headset with an attached microphone, rather than a separate hand-held microphone. This type of headset leaves your hands free and keeps the microphone at a fixed distance from the mouth. Position the microphone to the side of the mouth, not in front. (This will avoid pops and other noises caused by some consonants).  For recording group singing or instrumental music, use a stereo microphone like the RadioShack 33-3028, $30.

	2. The headset has two plugs, one for the microphone and one for the headphones. Plug in the microphone plug into the microphone jack on the back of the computer.  Plug in the headphone plug into the speaker or headphone jack on the back of the computer. Usually the plugs and jacks are labeled with a picture or a word to indicate their function. Ignore the colors of the plugs and jacks; they won't usually match because different manufacturers use different color coding schemes.
	
b. Check the sound settings.

1. Double-click on the volume control (little loudspeaker icon) in the taskbar on the lower right corner of the screen.  This displays the master volume control panel.

2. Make sure that none of the Mute boxs are checked and that none of the volume controls are turned all the way down (set the about half-way up to start with - you can always change this later).

3. Select Options --> Properties and click on Recording and click OK.  Then make sure the Select checkbox is checked under "Microphone" (it may be called "Mic."). 

4. If your computer has an Advanced button below "Microphone", click on it and make sure that the Mic Gain box is checked.  Close all the boxes.

c. Simple method for recording short soundbites, using the Windows Sound Recorder:

1. Create a folder on the desktop to save your sounds in: 

1. Right-click on the desktop.
2. Select New --> Folder.
3. Type "Sounds" and press Enter.

2. Select Start --> Programs --> Accessories --> Entertainment --> Sound Recorder. 
 
3. Click on the round red button to begin recording.  Click on the black square button to stop.  Click on the black triangle to hear what you have recorded.

4. If you are satisfied, skip to step 5.  If not, Select File --> New, click No, and repeat step 3.

5. Select File --> Save, navigate to the "Sounds" folder on the desktop, type in the file name "test1" into the File Name box, and click Save.

6. Select File --> New to clear the old sound and repeat steps 3 - 5 to record another sound, giving it the file name "test2".  Close Sound Recorder when you are finished.

d. Making high-quality recordings with the Cool Edit 96 sound editor program

1. If Cool Edit '96 is not already installed on your computer, refer to the handout "How to Install Software used in the Digital Sound and Music Workshop" for instructions. 

2. Launch Cool Edit and select the buttons for "Save, external clipboard,..." and
   "Amplify, envelope, ..." and click OK.

3. Select File --> New, then click the buttons for stereo, 16 bits, and 44100 in the New Waveform window. 

4. Click the Record button to begin recording, Stop to stop, Play to play what you have recorded.

5. If you don't want to keep that sound, select File --> New, click No, click OK, then repeat step 4.

6. Editing.  To delete sections of the sound file that you don't want, drag the mouse pointer over that portion of the waveform and press the Delete key.  To hear just one section of the sound file, drag the mouse pointer over that portion of the waveform and click the Play button. You can also Cut, Copy, and Paste sections of a sound file just like a text file.

7. Adjusting volume.  In order to compensate for differences in the volume (loudness) of several successive recordings, it's useful to use to the "normalize" function  (select Transform --> Amplitude --> Normalize and click OK) before saving each sound. 

8. Select File --> Save as... , navigate to the "Sounds" folder on the desktop, select "Windows PCM (.wav)" from the "Save as type" pop-up menu, type in a file name into the File name box, and click Save.  WAV files recorded in the "stereo, 16 bits, and 44100" setting will be able to be burned onto an audio CD using MusicMatch or Windows Media Player 8.  See the handout "Recording and Writing Audio CDs".

9. To record another file, go to step 3. Close Cool Edit when you are finished. 

(c) Tom O'Haver (to2@umail.umd.edu), March 2004