How to Record Audio

By Zhigen Lin

Would you like to record audio? In this article, I will show you how. To create an audio product, you only need audio recording software and a microphone. Recording audio can be a time-consuming process, but even beginners can make a professional-looking audio CD or just a downloadable .mp3 file.

To find software, simply type these terms into Google, for example, search "Audacity" or "Sound Forge".

First of all, you need a microphone. Usable microphones cost about US$30 and very professional ones cost up to $180. Note that most computers can even use those large karaoke microphones.

Next, you need software. Audacity is an award-winning free digital audio editor application. Audacity won the SourceForge.net 2007 Community Choice Award for Best Project for Multimedia. Audacity was created by Dominic Mazzoni of Google, while he was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University, and it is licensed under the GNU General Public License. Dominic Mazzoni is still the main developer and maintainer of Audacity, with help from many others around the world. I recommend you download the latest stable release, because beta versions may have bugs.

If you want to pay for more fancy audio software (although I think that Audacity can fit pretty much everyone), you can choose from several options. Sound Forge is award-winning audio software made by Sony. Sonar is another option, from Cakewalk.com.

Audacity is pretty easy to navigate. The buttons are very clear. You can find an introduction on using the software under "Contents" in the help menu.

Check out Best AVS Audio Tools here.