How to Record a Sound on a Windows Computer

By eHow Computers Editor

You can use the Windows Sound Recorder to record your own warning beeps or other sounds. You'll need a sound card that supports sound input, a microphone and speakers.... Read full How To Article

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How I Did This

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published this on
April 29, 2009

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I used the steps in this eHow to record short sound bites for my website. It involved using the Sound Recorder that comes packaged with Windows XP. This windows utility enables the user to record sound clips of up to 60 seconds. The writer has given simple, clear instructions for using...

the recorder for this purpose. Here’s how I did it:

Things I Needed

Sound card

Microphone

Speakers

Selecting my Input Device

Like most of the newer computer models, my laptop already has built-in speakers as well as a sound card to support sound input. I shopped around online for a microphone but decided not to buy one because I realized that I could use the same headset I use for voice or video chats online. While the sound quality is not perfect, it was sufficient for my purposes.

Any other input device can be used to record sound using the Windows Sound Recorder, so long as it can be connected to the computer via the Sound In port (the microphone port). You can also record using the computer’s built-in CD player and the Windows Media Player.

Setting Up

Plugged my head phone jack into the Sound In port (Audio In). On my laptop, this port is located on the side. Like most computers, this port has the icon of a microphone next to it to distinguish it from the head phone port.

Plugging in the headset automatically turns it on, but if I used a different type of microphone, I would probably have had to turn a switch on.

Recording my Sound Bite

To open the Sound Recorder, I clicked on the Start button in the bottom left hand corner of my screen. This opened the Start menu. I selected Programs from the menu, and then clicked on Accessories. In the dialogue window that opened, I clicked on Entertainment and then clicked on Sound Recorder. This opened the Windows Sound Recorder.

I clicked on New to begin a new sound recording. I then clicked on the Record button to begin the actual recording. The record button is the one with a red circle inside it, and is located in the bottom right hand corner of the window.

After I finished recording the sound, I clicked on the Stop button. This is the button to the left of the Record button with the black square inside it.

Playing Back and Saving my Recording

After stopping the recording, this changed the appearance of the Sound Recorder window, so that the Play and Rewind buttons were enabled. I used these buttons to test the recorded sound of my voice. I re-recorded by sound bite twice before I was satisfied with it.

To save the final recording, I clicked on File in the menu bar, and then selected the Save As command from the drop down menu that opened.

After naming the sound file, I saved it to a folder that I had created to hold all of my recordings. I have been able to use the recorded sound bite for my website and on other projects.