HOME
TOPICS
ABOUT ME
MAIL

 
The mixer is surprisingly complicated for the simple tasks it handles. Worse yet, it hides some of its controls.
  technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

T e c h n o f i l e
Recording sound on your computer, Part 2: How to set up the Windows sound controls for recording


June 14, 2003


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, The Post-Standard

   Recording music on a Windows PC takes three steps. The first, as I explained last week, is best done by treating your PC as if it were a tape recorder and connecting your computer into the tape monitor loop of a receiver. (Read the first article here.)
   The second step isn't quite as straightforward. Before you can make audio recordings on your PC, you have to convince the PC's hardware to cooperate with the PC's software.
   The hardware is the audio circuitry contained on a sound card or in a chip inside the PC. The software is a pair of programs -- one that gets the audio signal into the right places, called the mixer, and one that actually does the recording.
   The mixer is surprisingly complicated for the simple tasks it handles. Worse yet, it hides some of its controls. I'll take some time this week and explain how the mixer works. Next week we'll look at five Windows recording programs, ranging in price from a Donald Trump special to a totally free program.
   (Mac OS X users should look at a similar series running in my Mac column in the Wednesday newspaper.)
   The easy way to get the Windows mixer to show up on your screen is to double click the yellow speaker icon in the tray, near the clock. If you don't see the speaker icon, open the Control Panel and then open the "Sounds and Multimedia" applet and put a checkmark in front of "Show volume control on the taskbar."
   (The sound section of the Control Panel might be called something else in your version of Windows, but you'll be able to spot it easily.)
   When you double click the speaker icon in the tray, Windows opens one of two volume control panels. The other one, for setting recording levels, is normally hidden. You might think it's odd that Windows doesn't let you open both of them at the same time, but in fact you can do just that.
   With the playback control open, click the "Options" menu, then click "Properties," and choose the "Recording" button. Click "OK."
   With the "Recording Control" window open on your screen, double click the speaker icon again. Windows will open the playback control window. You'll now have both the recording mixer and the playback mixer open. (On my Windows PC, sometimes the second mixer window will open precisely on top of the first one, hiding the first window entirely. If you see only one mixer window, move it off to the side to see if it's covering the first one.)
   Click the "Options" menu and then the "Properties" option in each mixer window. In the Recording Control, remove checkmarks from all possible recording sources in the "Properties" window except for "Recording Control" and "Line-In." In the properties of the Volume (or playback) Control, remove checkmarks from everything except "Volume Control," "Wave" and "Line-In." Click OK in both windows.
   (We're almost done. Hang in there.)
   You should have two smaller windows on the screen now, one that controls recording and one that controls monitoring and playback. The recording control should display two vertical sliders for setting the recording level and two horizontal sliders for left-to-right balance. The playback control will have three pairs of sliders that do the same thing for playback.
   Make sure all of the "Mute" boxes are unchecked. (A checkmark in a "Mute" box means the control above it is turned off.) Slide all the vertical controls about one-third of the way up and make sure all the horizontal sliders are centered.
   At last, you're ready to make your debut as an audio engineer. All you need is recording software. That's coming next week.