How to Set up to Record Your Podcast on Audacity

Audacity is a popular digital audio editor, because it's free and it's easy to use. You can directly record your voice into the computer, just with the click of the Record button. Here's how you can set it up.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• microphone
• headphones
• computer
• Audacity

1. First, set up all your outer equipment. Hook up your microphone and your headphones. Headphones are needed so that you can listen to the sound from your computer without the microphone picking up excess noises while recording.
2. Open up Audacity.
3. Before you begin, you want to set up your Prefences. Click on File/Preferences. The first tab is Audio I/O (Input/Output). Check to make sure your recording options are correct.
4. Underneath "Recording," there is a Channels option. Generally, for podcasting, you want the channel to be: 1 (Mono), because you're only recording on one microphone. There is no need for 2 (Stereo sound).
5. Also, before you record, you want to check and set the Sound Settings on your computer. Go to Control Panel and find Sounds and Audio Devices Properties. Click on the Audio Tab. Set the Sound playback and Sound Recording.
6. Click on the Audio Tab. Set the Sound playback and Sound Recording. Underneath Sound recording, click on Volume, select the volume meter that says Microphone and adjust it accordingly.
7. Now, you are ready to record. All you have to do is click on the big red Record button and start speaking into your microphone.

Tips & Warnings

• Under preferences, there is also an option to "Play other tracks while recording," if that is something you want to do.