Face forward - even if not moving forward

Glad you liked it Lucy. I've been a sound tech guy for over 14 years now. I know how to use the software fairly well, but the microphone is always the most important part of any recording. I really liked it when I first borrowed one almost 2 years ago. It's taken that long to get the money and find a place (relatively) close that even sells them! That 4-minute-plus clip was just under 800KB in size! (actually, it's just over 3.5 minutes - ed.)

My brother was doing the introductory part. He was born here in Canada but has been living near Washington D.C. for most of 20 years.

Thanks Anne. All these years of playing with audio equipment are paying off.

Oddly enough, word is getting around that I can handle sound fairly well. I've been booked to do sound gigs 8 times this year and another one is coming up in November. Always learning something new... (like being scared half to death one night when a sound tech from a church "gave me the keys" to their brand new $75,000 sound system; it seems that after watching me for 10 minutes, he was confident I knew what I was doing; that was amazing.... )

I mentioned yesterday at work that I bought this microphone and how much I liked it. Now they want to "kick the tires" to see if it would be a suitable recording mic for use on the mission field!

@ Lucy and Lindsay. At least two women appreciate having me say their name.
I guess I've begun a bit of a trend in Opera blogging.

I'm hoping you won't take it personally, Lindsay. I didn't think I would rate so highly on your "manly" scale.

P.S.: I just noticed you refused my proposal before I took it back (citing some thing about being married already). No more of this "Indian giver" stuff, eh?

The inspiration to do a voice recording came from listening to another Opera friend read her poem as a post. Wow, did she have a sultry voice!

You have may have to look hard to find a decent one B. This particular microphone (pictured above) is kind of pricey and hard to get (even here). Like you suggested, I purchased this microphone specifically with the intention of doing audio book type recordings with my laptop or a desktop. There are even professional grade hand-held units too (can you say more $$$$?).

But, of course, as you all can attest, it does a fine job of audio reproduction. I'm glad, Bianca, you have such a high opinion of what my voice sounds like. Not bad as a one-take coming from a guy who stuttered terribly throughout most of his childhood (but that's another story for another day).

Well..what I've done is load the media file to my ISP server area (Opera doesn't allow that sort of thing - viruses, I guess). I then add a link to the comment or use an embedded flash audio player like in the original post up top (Ctrl+U allows you to see the code and copy/paste it out).

The key thing with the video file is that it's in a format most people can use; .WMV, .MOV, or .MPEG are common. But yeah, B, if you're on limited dial-up, it might take 14 years to upload.... Maybe try just a cheap simple microphone that plugs into your PC and do a simple .WAV file.

Maybe I could make my first cartoon as "Henry Fixit" to set up this sort of thing for you B!

Hey Lindsay, you should be able to find Sound Recorder if you go here from the start menu: Programs > Accessories > Entertainment. Under Edit > Audio Properties, a box should come up and look for an audio device in the Default Recording box (there should be something there if you have audio to listen to music).

When you click the red circle 'record' button and begin speaking, you should see some bumps going across the little screen. Stop the recording by clicking the square button. When you click the single arrow button, it should play back what you have just recorded. Save that file using the File > Save menu. Hope it helps!

Well, I'm thinking of what I find using Windows XP. Did you actually find 'Sound Recorder'? You have Vista, right? It does not have 'Edit', it may have something else to display program properties (huh, forget that; I just found out through my searching that Vista's recorder is worse than previous versions; time to look for freeware audio recorders).

Basically, what I'm getting at is that your computer does have a microphone and there is no reason it should not work - it should be just a matter of finding which program you can use to do recording (and maybe editing) with. Personally, I use Wavepad http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/index.html . For the trial period, there is full functionality; but when that's done, you can still use the program in a limited capacity for audio recording and editing (and even that is more than I use regularly).