WAV Sound Recording

Wav Sound Recording:
The Tutorial

Before the software is started, we have to make sure that the sound settings are correct, the volume control icon on the system tray can control these settings. Double click the speaker icon (at the bottom right-hand of the screen).

Now that you have clicked the speaker icon, you'll see a screen similar to the one on the right. These controls have nothing to do with recording, these are playback volume controls, but it helps to understand them. The controls will remind you of your stereo system, there are 4 different controls in this example, there may be more or less on your machine, lets explain them..
Volume Control - This is the overall volumn for the whole machine, moving this up or down will have an effect on the volume of all sound.
Wave - Wave is long for 'Wav', if you are ever playing an audio file, you can change the volume with this control.
Midi - Midi is sounds made with a keyboard, they are not Wav files.
CD - CD is whatever music you are playing with your CD-Rom, useful for programs like CD-Player.

Still on the volumn control window, we can now change to the recording volumns through the options menu - properties (see picture on the right).
Select Properties and see the next part of the tutorial.

Now you can see the volumn control properties, there are various items within' the properties, let's go through them...
Mixing device - Is a piece of your sound card, leave it alone unless you know what your doing.
Adjust volume for - This is the part where we can change the volumn for recording, 'Playback' should already be selected (we've already explained that part), so change the button to 'Recording' (as shown in the picture). 'Other' should be ignored, it is not relevant in this example.
Show the following volume controls - Pretty self-explanatory, you know how we explained volume controls?, You can choose which ones you want to see by checking these boxes. For the example, you should check them all.
Make sure 'Recording' and the right controls are selected, then click the 'OK' button.

You'll notice that the volume controls have now changed from playback into recording, this is because we changed the properties to show 'Recording' (remember that part?). Only 2 volume sliders are shown in this picture, that's because we only selected to see 2 in the properties box (see above), I asked you to select all the volume controls within' the properties box, so you should see more than 2 sliders, probably 4 or 5.
The next part is quite tricky, because it is different for a lot of computers. The 'Select' checkbox determines which device you want to record from, in the picture you will see 'Microphone' & 'CD', because 'CD' is selected, when you record a sound it will ignore everything but the CD-Rom, if you are playing a CD, the sound recorder will only record the music you are playing (when you press the record button). If you select 'Microphone', the sound recorder you are using will ignore everything but the microphone, so, if your microphone is pluged in (correctly), your sound recorder will only record the mic when you press the record button. If your new to computers, that's a lot to take in, but read over it and play around with the buttons until you understand.
Here's the tricky part, it can be easy or difficult depending on your sound card.. Some sound cards will only let you select one device at a time, others will let you record from multiple sources, if that is the case, just select the device you want to record from (IE, Mic or CD), in the picture, the CD is selected. The volume of the recording sliders is also quite tricky, some sound cards are more sensitive than others, which basically means that if your recording volumn is too high, the sound file will be too loud and probably unlistenable, the majority of sound cards have a simple sensitivity that can be set to high and it won't affect the sound, others, you'll have to move the sliders down so that the wave is not too loud. For this example, I would suggest moving all the volumn sliders into the middle, so that the sensitivity is set to average. There are more problems which can come up, but the majority of sound cards should be OK.
To demonstrate this tutorial, select 'CD' only, so that only your CD player can be recorded, and be sure to set the volume slider into the middle. Close the window and the settings are automatically in action.

Now you have learnt how to change the volumn on devices and select a recording source.
If you followed the instructions correctly, your computer should now be set to record from the CD at an average volume.
Please make sure you understand everything so far, before procedeing to the next part.
Before you can record a sound file, you need sound recording software, this is the next part of the tutorial. You can choose 2 different options from this point on, 'Sound Recorder' or 'Cool Edit', these 2 options are different types of sound recording software, you've probably heard of Sound Recorder before, it is a sound recorder that comes free with Windows... but Sound Recorder has problems in that it cannot record more than a few seconds of sound. 'Cool Edit' is a feature packed sound recorder developed by Syntrillium, not only can it record more than a few seconds of sound, but it also has a huge amount of options. To download Cool Edit, Click Here. If you feel more comfortable with Sound Recorder, then choose it before moving on to Cool Edit.

Sound Recorder | Cool Edit