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The mixer is surprisingly complicated for
the simple tasks it handles. Worse yet, it hides some of
its controls.
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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.
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