A CD is limited to about 650MB of data. 16 bit/44.1KHz sampling rate audio, in mono, uses 5MB a min. So stereo music uses 10MB a min. So that is about 74 mins.
You CAN use a lower sampling rate. Yes, you will obviously get more minutes of audio on the CD. But if you want to CD to play on a CD player, it will still need to be a stereo, 16/44.1 file that gets burned to it, because that is all a CD player can play.
Now, if you don't care that your CD can't play on a regular CD player, then I would suggest recording a mono .wav file at 16/44.1. This will give you about 148 mins of music.
If you are looking to get even more, try converting it to mp3, at 128kbs. This will be higher qaulity then stereo music being converted to 128kbs, because 128kbs is the TOTAL amount of data per second, so on a stereo file, each side is actually only 64kbs. But a mono file would enjoy that full 128kbs. An mp3 at 128kbs is 1/12 smaller then the original .wav file it was converted from, and will sound mostly as good, especially for a voice over type thing. This would give you something like 12 hours or more on a CD!
Most every new Media Player or what not on a computer will automatically play mp3 files. So if your CD is voice only, you could do this. But if you are going to be doing like an .avi thing, you would of course get some pretty poor quality, because most of the authoring software for .avi will further compress the audio, so it may be better to start with better audio.
If you need to stay with .wav files, go for lower sampling rates instead of lower bit rates. You can get okay voice quality at 22KHz sampling rate. But, RECORD THE FILE AT THE BIT/SAMPLE RATE YOU WANT! You will have nothing but problems if you try to sample down, or chop off bits later.
Hope this helps.
Ed
