Good luck,

Alan

Thanks for the info on Audacity. It haven't had much time to check it out after downloading it, but I did a quick test recording and it seems to be working. It even sounds pretty good using my mac's built-in microphone!

Kim

Thanks for the information. My main goal for recording is to listen to myself and work on improving my playing. My little cassette recorder is of too poor a quality to use (everything sounds bad!). And spending as little as possible is probably a good idea for me.

I really like Alan's suggestion of Audacity and plan to try that out. But that still leaves me needing a microphone. Do you have any recommendations?

Kim

I know you have a Mac, but I simply use the basic recording app included with Windows. I'm sure the Mac has something similar.

I should say that I've only used this for the guitar as such but it has proven adequate for the purposes of self-evaluation. However, if your goals go beyond this you will most likely want to look at other options such as that suggested by Alan or Dave.

As for a microphone, if you're only looking to do simple recording for self-evaluation then you're not going to need anything special. I simply use the mic that came with the set of headphones I purchased.

My suggestion would be to pick up something fairly cheap then look to invest in something greater when you're looking to do more with your recording.

Good luck.

Thanks for responding. I took Alan's suggestion (yeah freeware!) and downloaded Audacity. I'm pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to use. And my mac's built-in microphone seems to be pretty good for recording. So now I have my nice cheap (actually free) set up for self-evaluation.

Later,
Kim

Excellent! I can't remember if you can export your sound file from Audacity directly to .MP3 format, but if you can't, save your recording as a .WAV file and then you can convert it to a .MP3 in iTunes. If you have any problem with that stage, let us know.

Send me something when you want some feedback-
http://www.harmonicalessons.com/members/dcforum/DCForumID4/126.html

Play on,
Dave Gage

To Dave's question about saving Audacity files as mp3's - you can't do this out of the box. There is a link on the Audacity site to download a plug in (also free). That plug in will allow you to do a Save As... and save the file as an mp3 rather than a .wav file. Much less space on your hard drive and easier to send to folks.

Alan

Thanks so much for telling me about Audacity. It's great! I downloaded both the stable version and a beta version. The beta version handles importing and exporting mp3s much better.

Later,
Kim