Windows recorder sly work-around

Tom O'Farrell · Post by **Tom O'Farrell** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 11:09 am

The thread on windows media player reminded me that a lot of folks maybe don't use the recorder that comes with windows because they think it has a 60 second limit. It does on the surface but a work-around to give you a greater file length is to open it up and start recording, after about 30 seconds has passed (you are recording nothing or your own voice if you want) click on the timeline to the right of the moving cursor, but do not stop the recording, after another 30 seconds do it again and keep doing it until it runs out finally at about 267 seconds which is it's maximum on my laptop anyway. Now save the file as a template for future recordings. Also look at the various recording settings you can make, in options, it has a multitude, with a cheap microphone you have a bargain basement recording ability here. Cheap and nasty but better than nowt. Methinks.

billw · Post by **billw** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 11:44 am

Thanks! Funny, that. I just told all my kids to send me recordings of my grandchildren, using Sound Recorder. It really does work well, and I'll pass the trick along to my darlings.

Now, while it's agreed that Windows Sound Recorder is a good thing if you don't have better, better is free, and may be more relevant for you as a musician, but it takes a bit more work. Have a look here:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Audacity is free, recording time only limited by your hard drive, and a really nice editor for your sounds, too. Also exports in multiple formats.

Not as good or complete as Sound Forge, but also doesn't cost hundreds of dollars. Do read the installation instructions. It requires that you install a little DLL on your machine (Windows) that it uses. It's easy and free also.

Enjoy!
Bill Whedon

CHCBrown · Post by **CHCBrown** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 12:12 pm

Ditto on Audacity.

Learned about here on the good old C&F site. It solved the volume and time limit issues Sound Recorder posed. I'm no techhie and I had no problems at all loading and running it.

Thanks!

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:34 pm

Thanks for bring this up... I've had Audacity installed for some time now and had just never gotten around to playing with it much. I like it... seems like it can do a whole lot more than I am about to be able to utilize, but it definitely gives a better quality recording than what I was using.

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:38 pm

Interestingly enough, one of the reasons Audacity started was because of the limitations of the Windows recorder application.

Audacity started to be a more fully-featured recorder, but it's grown into a very full-featured home studio with multi-tracking and very extensive editing capabilities.

I've only started to scratch the surface of what this extremely powerful program can do.

--James

monkey · Post by **monkey** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 8:26 am

Google for 'Goldwave'

it is a shareware downloadable digital musical production tool. i use it all the time to create my MP3's for my Myspace site. its very simple and untuitive to use