Getting Started Recording Lectures at Home

[AppEnt]

I am wanting to start recording at home. I plan on recording lectures for the purpose of burning them on CD for distribution and to post mp3's on the web. I would also like to be able to add some music at the beginning and end. Here is what I have:

1. Dell Inspiron laptop; Windows XP Pro; Sound card that came with the computer; Adobe Audition 1.0

2. Samson S11 Cardioid Vocal Mic; Crate Acoustic 125 amplifier with an instrument input, vocal/mic input, and aux input, it has a line output and effects loop

What things do I need to accomplish this as simply as possible?

Thanks,
AppEnt

 

[distortedrumble]

try looking into a condensor mic....Lectures by highschool and college association are nap time. to have them on mp3 with a dry/thin sounding voice would have me switching to one of my metal band's mp3s pretty quick.....unless i needed to listen to it for an important grade...but anyway!

http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i-MII-MOBILEPRE.html
$149 this will give you a good quality sound much better than whats on the lap top and its USB so you dont have to do too much switching between anything.

http://www.americanmusical.com/item--i-MAS-MXLV67G.html
the condensor microphone that should do the trick. $99.95

 

[Rokket]

Are you planning to record your own music for the CD or use songs from popular bands? I am thinking (but I could be wrong) that you may need permission to do that. I'd check into copyright laws concerning that.

Other than that, if you go with what distortedrumble suggested, you pretty much have what you need to accomplish this. Does your laptop have a CD-RW drive? That's the only thing I didn't see mentioned. You should be able to record your lectures in the software, and add the songs in where you want them and burn them easily to CD from there. If you do have the CD-RW drive, the easiest way to do this is to record your lecture as a .wav file, and then use the software for your drive to build a session with the songs and the lecture in it, then burn it that way.

 

[AppEnt]

Yes, I do have a CR-RW and a DVD+RW. The music has been made by friends of mine, so the permission is not a problem.

Thanks,
AppEnt

 

[AppEnt]

Also, what settings should I use for recording and then encoding the MP3? Things such as sample rate, frequency, etc.

Thanks,
AppEnt