How to Record Audio with Your Computer

Learn the basics of recording voice and music onto a computer using microphones, audio cables, and USB adapters.

CNET How To Record audio onto your computer Donald Bell: If you need a recording audio with your computer, it's not exactly obvious how to get started, its not there's a record button on your keyboard and just about every computer Mac or PC, laptop or desktop will have a slightly different set of options to work with, and that's only the first step, take a look at your computer and see what kind of audio ports have includes. For example, this Mac includes a line input, and a headphone output and also offers a built-in microphone. On the back of this desktop PC, the soundcard includes a stereo line input, microphone input, and a stereo line output. You also have USB ports, which you can use to hookup a USB microphone or an external soundcard. The port you want to use really depends of what you are recording. If you're dictating a memoirs or just recording something around your computer that doesn't need to be high quality or in stereo, you can get a way of plugging in cheap microphone or headset with the mini jack plug into the mic input. If you're recording music from something like a cassette deck, a CD player or even an Mp3 player, you'll want to use a stereo line input on your computer and a mini jack cable that has the right connection type on the end that it attaches to your audio source. For portable device, this will probably be a cable with mini jacks on both ends, but if your cassette deck or your home stereo, you want something RCA jacks on one end. Finally, if you're a musician or a podcast or looking to make high quality voice and instrument recordings, you want to pickup USB microphone or a pro audio external soundcard. The mic input on your computer and the mic's used for, really aren't designed for quality audio. Mechanical noise from your computer can bleed into the recording and these mics are often made to pickup sounds from all of your room. A good broadcast or instrument mic will focus on the sound directly in front of it providing a cleaner and more professional sound but they need pro audio connections or USB in order to work. Okay so you figure out your ports and you have the better idea of what you'll need to make your recording happen. The next step is selecting the recording input source on your computer. For example, on this Mac, let' say we want to use this USB mic instead of the built-in mic or the line input. We're going to open up the system preferences, select the sound setting and make sure the USB mic I plugged and selected from the menu. It's the same process on PC except you need the look under the control panel settings. In both cases, you also have the ability to adjust the recording level of the microphones so that's not too louder or too soft. Finally, there's software, if you already have some software you're comfortable with great, if not I recommend checking out Audacity. It's a free Mac and PC audio recorder you can grab from CNET on download.com. Audacity can seen overwhelming at first but if you open up the preferences in the software and make sure the recording input is the same one you select in your computer sound menu. You should be open and just hit the record button and see your recording unfold in front of you. After that export your recording to universal format such as AIF or WAV and you should be able to just drag the recording at the something like iTunes or you can burn it to the CD or converted to Mp3. So there you are that's computer audio recording in a nutshell, for cnet.com I'm Donald Bell. CNET How To