Basic hard/software to begin recording voice

[Peaches BC]

Greetings:
I am trying to find software and hardware needed to record Spanish and English lessons. Transfer them to a CD which I play in my car or laptop. Can I simply add a mic to my laptop? I would like to be able to pause, rewind or edit to correct errors. These segments would be three to four minutes in length which I would ultimately add to an ipod or select by subject. I would like to identify the segments by name rather than using titles tract 1 or 2.

Any help will be appreciated. Thank you.

Bob

 

[Nick98338]

First, Microsoft's way. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/knowledgecenter/mediaadvice/0081.mspx

Really, for the recording part, you only need a small, cheap microphone (5 dollars) and the "Sound Recorder" accessory that is built into all versions of Windows. That presumes you are using a MS Windows operating system on your computer.

The *edit* part gets a little more complicated. The "Sound Recorder" can do some very simple editing, but it's not easy to use. There is a lot of "shareware" out there that can help. One program that I have used is called "YoGen". It works fine.

For naming the tracks and burning them to CD. Most all of the CD burning software out there can do this for you. Roxio, Nero, several others, allow you to name tracks whatever you want, put them in any order you want, then burn them on to CD.

For the ipod, you just need to convert your tracks to .mp3 format before you transfer from computer to ipod.

 

[Fusco]

Another good program to use is Goldwave.

 

[TimOBrien]

My obligatory standard reply that I keep in Wordpad:

Immediately get a good beginner recording book (spend $20 before spending hundred$/thousand$) that shows you what you need to get started and how to hook everything up in your studio:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/07...ce&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance

Good Newbie guide that also explains all the basics:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm

Other recording books:
http://musicbooksplus.com/home-recording-c-31.html


Plenty of software around to record for free to start out on:

Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net

Kristal: http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

Other freebies and shareware: www.hitsquad.com

 

[Nick98338]

I just re-looked at Nero. Known mostly for CD & DVD burning. It also has a wav editor and a sound recorder built into it. So with just the one program you can record, edit the recording, and then burn the recordings to CD.