Sound recording

Ways to record

1. Microphone: capture your speaking or other outside sound from your microphone or sound from any audio-out terminal plugged into Microphone port (but lower recording quality than plugged into Line In port).
2. Line In: capture sound from any audio-out terminal plugged into Line In port, such as from Cassette player, VCR...
3. Stereo Mix: capture sound from your PC speaker (~ record what you're listening from your PC speaker). This is the easiest way to capture audio streaming from media player or internet. Recording quality is the best of all.
4. CD Player: capture sound from your CD player.
5. Mono Out: capture sound from your PC speaker but just Mono sound.

How to record

Use a recorder software to do that. In this tutorial, I recommend Audacity - an opensource audio editor and recorder, simple interface and easy to use.

1. Download & Install Audacity: Normal version | Portable version.
2. Download LAME encoder to save MP3 files: Audacity | LAME site | Free-codecs.com
3. Unzip and copy LAME files to folder \AudacityPortable\App\LAME (for portable Audacity version).
   
4. Run Audacity.
5. Go to Edit menu > Preferences... > tab Audio I/O > Recording section: select Device = Microsoft Sound Mapper - Input và Channels = 2 (Stereo) > OK.
   
6. Choose the way to record from Mixer combo box: Stereo Mix, Mono Out, Microphone, CD Player or Line In.
   
7. Play your sound.
8. Click Record button to start recording, Pause to pause/record and Stop to finish recording.
9. After recording, you can playback, cut, mix, filter... your recording sound.
10. Export to MP3 file: Go to File menu > Export As MP3...

Other things

For the best quality of recording, adjust some sound settings, such as:

• Adjust playback volume, wave volume, channel balance... Mute which is not necessary to reduce noises.
• Adjust recording volume, channel balance... Unselect which is not necessary to reduce noises.