Comments

Elkan wrote on 7/24/2009, 5:41 PM
Buttons?? I'm not into music maker, but: Your soundcard has to be able to manage recordings; u should have the right driver - asio4all is the usual.

What is your set-up on the hardware side?
siglersmalz wrote on 7/25/2009, 1:27 AM
Down at the bottom of MP3 Maker you will see your media player interface.  It has a big play button.  You should also see a stop button (square icon in it) and a button with a red dot.  The red dot button is your record button.

Click it and it will open up the recording dialogue box.  You will have various options, including the input device being used for the recording.  My computer has "Primary Sound Capture Driver" as the default.

You will also see "Format" where you select the resultant computer file (mp3 for example) and the recording quality.

Good luck,

Tim
siglersmalz wrote on 7/27/2009, 1:11 AM
Hmm - Static?  I'm guessing you are hearing distortion.  Make sure the mic volume input is set to an appropriate level.

In the lower right-hand corner of the Vista desktop, you will see a white speaker icon with sound waves coming out.  If you hover the mouse over it, you'll get a pop-up with "Volume:##" where "##" is the volume setting.

Click that icon once and you'll get the master volume slider.  At the bottom of the volume slider, you'll see "Mixer".  Click that to open your Windows sound mixer.  That mixer is context sensitive and has never really made sense to me, but make sure the master volume (probably "Speakers") and your mic volume are not all the way up to 100%.  I keep mine around "80".

The next thing to do is set your mic volume on your sound card.  Open "Control Panel" then "Hardware and Sound" then "Sound".  From there you should see a window with a tab called "Recording". 

Generally, you have to play with sound level settings in these interfaces and then also within the software, in this case, MP3 Maker.  With enough experimenting, you should be able to get fairly decent recording.

Of course, you want to make sure you are using a decent microphone, too.  Never use the built-in mic in the laptop.

Good luck,

Tim