In Class:

Introducing Sound Recorder

Have fun creating multi-track demos with effects

Assignments/Readings for Next class:

How to configure my computer for sound!

If there is no midi jack on the computer, you can take a dual ended cable and plug one end in to the headphone jack on the keyboard into either the mic input or the line in input.

Start menu, settings, control panel. Click on sounds and multi media, then the audio tab.
Make sure that you choose the sound card on both the preferred device on the playback and recording. Leave the midi area alone.

Double click on the speaker icon on the bottom right corner. Go to properties and make sure that all boxes are checked both under recording and playback.

If you are getting a weak signal, click on the advanced setting and check the one mic boost box.

Now, time to record!!

Using sound recorder. Under the start menu, accessories, entertainment, sound recorder.
To get more than sixty seconds of record time, unplug your mic and just let it record dead air for the sixty-second time limit, and the just keep hitting record until you reach your desired length. Save the blank space as a template and leave it on the computer. When you need it go to file, open and the template will be there. Now, all you have to do is record over the dead air and save it again. The template will always be there, unchanged.

If you want to record from some other source than your mic, go back to your recording options under the sound menu and check the box for the wave out mix to record from your computer. You can record for sixty seconds or as long as your template is for.

The mic jack isn't just for the mic. You can connect anything you want to the other end of the dual end cable. Even your old records can be transfigured into burned cd's or mp3's.

***Note*** For the records, you can go to www.hitsquad.com and use some programs that they have to clean up the audio signal. It will get rid of all the poops scratches and other funky sounds associated with the wonderful world of vinyl!

Now, when you record and you find that your signal is distorted, you can bring your mic balance WAY down. If this still doesn't fix it then turn off the one mic boost that you may have turned on earlier.

Time to practice!
Try recording a duet or even a round with yourself. First, lay down the track that you want on sound recorder. SAVE this file, it should save as a wav file. Now, open your windows media player and find your file. Hit play on the media player so that you know where to come in at and then record on the sound recorder. The ideal situation is to not have the mic pick up on the media player file.
Now, for the cool part, click on edit, mix with. You now choose the file that you were playing on your media player. Save the file as what ever you want and replay it back on your media player. Check it out, you just sang a duet with yourself!! This is a term called "multi tracking." You want to do something fun, go to the effects menu and play around. Oh, just to let you know, if you click the add echo just once, you will get a little echo, keep clicking it and you will get more and more. If you find something you like, resave it!