I promised my VERY numerous kids that I would narrate a book tonight starting at 3:00 am. I really thought there would be no problem and could do it live. Now I find out that live is not an option for some kids. No problem, I thought, I will play live and record. NOW! How the F>>>>>>>>> do I get a recording onto a Windows product, the really only option I have, I have the other regular stuff like adobe and a free witchy-call-it to transfer MP# to withygullit format but that’s about it.
Any suggestions. I have 20 minutes and will have to wing it.
Not sure I get the question. In Accessories/Entertainment there is a little program for recording sound. As long as you have a mic you should be able to record.
Sorrry Much. I get no joy, No entertainment icons or any of the above. I guess I will go on live. For future reference; have I missed something? I have no entertainment sections, etc. I never need to record my sorry voice b4. Maybe I did get the full meal deal/
I think this has more to do with Windows than it does with MS Office.
If you have Win XP, try typing “sndrec32” after clicking on the Start Menu and Run.
If you have Win 7, try typing “sound recorder” at the bottom text box after clicking on the Start Menu.
That’s about as much as I can help as I don’t have much experience recording sound. You will need to have a microphone, though.
Let’s step back a bit here…
You promised to send narate a book, live. Sort of like a live radio broadcast? Is that right? If you want the live aspect you could use ustream.tv/
Many of my favorite small time talk radio hosts moved thier broadcast to it. I believe it has a builtin archive feature. That means… if your kids can not listen live, the broadcast will appear as an archived broadcast that they can click on anytime they want. Want radio? Just don’t supply a picture.
If you want to just narrate a book? I’ve used Audacity. It’s free, open source and easy to use.
I use it for narrating readings and books for my students. I like it because it is graphical and I can easily highlight the part of a recording where I “flubbed” and record over the mistake. The edit is undetectable.
I distribute my readings in the mp3 format. You must download a free plug in for Audacity to do this.
You can find Audacity at audacity.sourceforge.net/
Now I need some help… I want to add sound effects live in my readings… Under Windows NT and XP I used a feature called “Record What You Hear” that was built into Windows Sound Card Management. That feature has been deleted for some reason. I really need a way to record everything that comes out of my speakers including live sound effects. Thanks.
Thanks for your efforts. I guess I am too much of a neophyte with technology. I just wanted to broadcast. Now, I am just trying to find out how to record and save an audio file, which in my opinion, is not an easy task. Why the hell, with all the features provided by Offfice products, cant one just record a message of about an hour and send it to friends. I am just hopelessly confused.
Dude… office is not the program to use. Office is well, an OFFICE PRODUCTIVITY PROGRAM. It’s mainly for spreadsheets, letters and presentations that use short audio clips if any at all.
The built in sound recorder for Windows is only for short clips that are minute or two at most. And the file it creates WAV is the biggest and bulkiest one. Good quality for editing, but you don’t want to send it.
You need Audacity It’s free, does all formats … And it is as easy as pie to have mp3’s created and shared. I really have fun with sound effects and making my students voices sound like a monster or chipmunk…
PM me if you need some hand holding. We could do it via skype one evening after the kids have gone to sleep. Cheers.
Total set up time after download… I guess I could have you up and running… In less than thirty minutes.
From the sound of it, you already have the recording on some other device? If that’s the case, there’s going to be some cables involved, but the standard sound recorder in Windows will work. You can find it in the Windows Dock on the lower left of the screen under All Programs -> Accessories. You will find the settings in there to take input either from the microphone of the PC or the from the line-level input (which you can hook up to whatever you already recorded it with).
I have no idea how good this service is, but could the website mentioned on this BoingBoing post help?
boingboing.net/2012/01/03/one-cl … -reco.html
And the service itself:
recordmp3.org/
I don’t think it’ll give you sound affects (maybe you could use Audacity to layer those in later?), but it seems to let you just record an MP3.
I believe the OP was just trying to record something.
First he wanted to broadcast a book narration to a group of kids. He could not find a way, it seems.
UStream is one site that will let you.
Then he said that some of his audience could not tune in and he would like to record his “presentation” for those who could not. He then asked us for assistance in finding a program “in OFFICE” to allow him to do it.
To answer his first point, Ustream does let you broadcast live and it does let you archive it for those who cannot tune in.
Ustream is a video broadcast site though… My “fired” radio hosts that moved to UStream used the camera option during their stint between stations. I guess you don’t have to use the video option, but I’m not sure. But that IMHO would best fit his original request.
mabagal, you said that it looks like he has already recorded that on another device. I don’t see that. He could use an MP3 Player with a sound recorder. But in that case, he could just copy his finish file into his computer via USB. I don’t think he will use a tape-recorder. He also stated that he could not find the windows media recorder when an other person suggested it. Also, he wants to share this with people. Working with wave files is not the way to go.
Audacity I would say is still the best choice. Enigma, where are you? Anyone who is the least bit computer savvy can help you install Audacity or find another alternative. Once you get it up and running you will have a lot of fun. I use it for everything. Teaching, narrating and just playing around. Contact me if you would like some help.
You’re right on with uStream.
I had just assumed the OP had found some other way to record the narrative, maybe wrongly. OP?
The Sound Recorder in Windows 7 actually encodes to wma, but you’re right, mp3 would be a much better format to work in given it will work on pretty much anything whereas wma only easily work on Microsoft products. The advantage to Sound Recorder is that it’s one button simple, but definitely, Audacity is much more powerful.
If I were doing this, I’d do as you suggest and use uStream with my laptop or phone. If it was strictly for a recording I’d record the whole thing using my laptop or phone and upload the sound file in mp3 format to my public Dropbox and send the link out. That would be the simplest way that would work most easily for the largest set of people who want to listen to the file.
[quote=“mabagal”]You’re right on with uStream.
If it was strictly for a recording I’d record the whole thing using my laptop or phone and upload the sound file in mp3 format to my public Dropbox and send the link out. That would be the simplest way that would work most easily for the largest set of people who want to listen to the file.[/quote]
Public Drop Box? Tell us more about it. I’m sure it would help me 
, um… I meant him, a lot. Any recommendations?
Your idea of doing it right on the phone is great! But for me, I always flub when I read, so I really use the power of audacity. It’s so graphical and intuitive that I can quickly see, highlight and replace my flub speech. I think our boy Enigma is a self-proclaimed computer neophyte where I’m a self proclaimed computer idiot who has learn all this through making every mistake in the book. I think he will need to be walked through on how do download software, where his data goes when it is saved and how to convert files. …
What he is really doing is… I hate to say it… “Thinking too much…” Computers processes are like baby steps, you can’t see the whole picture, you will only get confused.
In Dropbox you should have folder called Public. Drop anything into there and right click. In the drop down menu you can then get the public URL for the file and share it out.
Like this (notice the URL for link is for the image below):
If you don’t have Dropbox yet, use this link to sign up. It will give you 250MB extra space and also give me 250MB extra space. Everyone wins. 
dropbox.com/referrals/NTY3MjA2NzA5
On the phone (iPhone), I’ve used GarageBand and/or iMovie to edit videos and sounds directly on the phone. This is especially convenient if you say go somewhere then take a taxi or public transportation back or have some downtime where you’d otherwise just be sitting around waiting. You can just edit it on the way back and upload it. For example, here’s one I took to show some friends. Took multiple videos at the track at 720p using an iPhone 4, spliced and edited it together in iMovie on the phone and uploaded to YouTube from the phone. All done while waiting for the next session to start. Since it’s a phone and not a desktop, the controls for this are quite intuitive and can be learned fairly easily.