If you’re using your computer’s default microphone, all you have to do to start a recording is hit the big red record icon. Now, you can open Audacity - and you should see a screen that looks like this - with recording and playback buttons in the upper right corner.

I’d strongly recommend using headphones as well. Next, if you have a USB microphone, now is the time to plug it into your computer. In this video I’ll walk you through the steps of using Audacity to make a voice recording.įirst, download and install the latest version of Audacity from the website. There’s also a transcript of the video below. You can download Audacity for free from the /Download page, and once you’ve done that, follow the steps in the video below to set up the program, record your voice, and save your recording so that you can save it for later, edit it, or send it to the person who asked you to make that recording. And it’s generally a good idea to mute your phone so that you’re not interrupted by chimes during a recording session. You should also close any other applications running on your computer that may make noise or use your computer’s system resources while you’re recording. And if you don’t have a USB microphone, a headset that plugs into a USB or headphone jack will probably sound better than your laptop’s built-in speaker. If you have a USB microphone, you should plug that in before starting Audacity. It will also prevent the microphone from picking up sound from the speakers and adding echo or distortion to your recording. This allows me to communicate with the guest over the internet, while they make a high quality recording of their voice on their own computer without any of the glitchy audio you sometimes hear on internet calls.Ī bit of advice: always wear headphones while recording, as this will allow you to hear yourself and notice any problems with the recording. You can even do this while using other software such as Zoom – for example, as a podcast producer, I often ask guests to use Audacity to record their own voices while we’re participating in a Zoom call. But you can also use it to make a high-quality recording of your own voice using a laptop or desktop computer. It’s a powerful that you can use for music, radio, or podcast production, among other things. Audacity is a free, cross-platform tool for recording and editing audio on a Windows, Mac, or Linux computer.

Audacity record desktop audio