Yesterday while my son and I were out Christmas shopping, we purchased a small cheap mike for the computer at Radio Shack.
He hooked it up for me, and I played a few tunes ~
Boy, I didn’t realize how many times I had to take breaths during one tune
!!!
Mary
Will you explain to me how you did that?
I have a computer, it’s got a mike input.
I’m the complete idiot compterwise.
Hee Hee Jim: You’ll notice both you and I don’t have avatars!!!
Actually, I asked my son to do it for me, and I didn’t watch.
Wait, let me get him…
Mike Writes:
“I just plugged the microphone into the “mic in” port on the sound card on the back of the computer. After that, you can just use sound recorder, which should be on your start menu under programs → accessories → entertainment, to record through the mic.”
Well, that didn’t sound too difficult, unless you’re me 
I wanted to get something going so that I could do a couple of Scoiltrad lessons in the near future. I bet it’s somehow more complicated than this, though :roll:
Mary
Your quite right as to the reason I have no avatar.
I think I’d better get a son. Thanks.
Well, my sound recorder has a one minute max, and
I can’t figure out how to extend it.
Also my cheap mike from radio shack can’t
record worth a damn, I think the battery
must be dead. Any wya to extned the time?
Advice?
I bought a cheap recorder from radio shack, too,
but it plays back at a higher pitch than I
record. OOOOGHABOOGABOOOOGA, I say.
I just want to record myself. Onward through the fog.
Jim, and all, here is the thead over on the whistle side that might shed some light and resources on you:
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=16447
Everything I might say is there. Good luck.
I’m using a bit more complicated setup but it’s fairly cheap and sounds great, I got a budget condenser mic on Ebay for about $150, a behringer 8 channel mixer from guitar center for around $80 on sale and then a good mic cable for about $40 (the cable is where it really counts, you could have a good neumann mic and still get a crappy sound with cheap cables), then I bought a copy of N-track studio, great piece of recording software, very much worth the money, you’re only limited by your CPU power and hard drive space. setup is fairly simple, plug the mic into the mixer and the “tape-out” from the mixer to the line-in on the sound card.
the problem with recording to the mic-in on the computer is that it’s not designed for recording audio, it’s designed to be used with a computer mic and no matter what you do it’s never going to sound very good even with $10,000 worth of gear behind it.
Well, you got that right, my sound is terrible on this mike, and I didn’t know it would take so much expensive equipment to “sound like I normally do”… But is this what everyone is using to get their tunes on clips and snips, etc.?
Steven: I’ll read that thread in a little while, THANKS for posting. It will probably shed some light on the above query…
Jim: I have a few more sons! You are welcome to one of them when they reach college age ~ I woke up last night and laid awake wondering how I’m going to pay for their college!!! (I know, people, don’t remind me I should have thought of that before!) :roll:
Also, my microphone has a 50 second maximum ~ when I asked Mike how to extend it he didn’t know “without reading the directions” but since he never does that, wellllll…
Mary
On my computer, PC with windows XP, the standard recording program that comes with it is a very simple program, and it can only record 1minute. I don’t think this can be extended. What I do is, I use a cheap loop program, like Hip Hop or Dance E-jay. Don’t get turned of by the names. All the prerecorded loops is hiphop or dance (techno music), but there are 10 lines that can be recorded with microphone, you obviously don’t need to use the loops. So you can record 10 different lines, and mix to some degree the sound and stuff and burn it out on a cd directly from the program (ofcourse recuires a cd-burner). That works for me. I have recorded a demo this way. The sound is acceptible, but ofcourse it can’t be compaired to a studio recording.
Henke, that sounds great!!!
But I’m not into recording anything that involves that much effort, maybe someday I’ll want to burn a CD of my tunes, but not at this point 
Mary
Well Mary… There is really not much effort involved. These programs are very cheap, easy to use and doesn’t limit you to 1 minute tunes. Also there is a built in mp3 converter. Wav files are usually too big to send in e-mails, but with this program you can convert them to small, high quality mp3:s as well as burn them out on cd.
I don’t know what your intention was with recording, but I assumed it was eighter to put your music on the net or record a demo. You can do both with these programs. But if you want to record just to try out what it sounds like and for fun, the windows standard program is probably fine.
So, Henke: The Windows XP ~ is it necessary? My computer still has Win 98. I have to admit, you make it sound fairly simple, and I’m all for that!
I did just scan the other threads! Lots of good advice ~ I will most definately get something up and running while my son is home for Christmas! Thanks, everyone!
Mary
You don’t need windows XP. The version of Dance E-jay (2+) that I have came out when 98 (mabey even 95) was the standard program. It’s old but suits my needs fine.