Recording Your Own Works

The program you used is not adequate, you need a program like "cool edit" ...

As already stated, the Windows "sound recorder" is not suitable; usually, medium/high quality and a capacity greater than 60 seconds are needed.

What matters:

- the source used (toy piano, electronic piano, electronic organ, live, etc.)

- what you use to record (computer, voice recorder, etc.)

- what you will use the recording for (for CD -> high quality, personal use -> medium/high quality)

To understand each other better, let's make an example and assume you want to record with an electronic piano, via the computer's sound card, to then put on a CD, a piece to play for your friends.

You must identify the type of output the piano has and the type of input the sound card has; for the connection, I recommend using the highest quality available to you (the stereo input of the sound card is fine).

At this point, you must also have the appropriate software; since Cool Edit is paid, I recommend freeware like Audacity Portable; after downloading and installing it, from the main screen select the input from which the computer must record and, by clicking on the Record button (red dot), the recording begins.

From there, by selecting the part of the track that interests you, you can add effects, etc.

To save the tracks, you must select the track you are interested in and going to File, Export, select the mp3 format; it will ask you to select the place where to save the file and, furthermore, it will ask you to find the Lame codec (it is used to encode MP3s: do a search on your computer for "lame_enc.dll" and copy it to a convenient place because it will ask you for it every time you want to save a file).

Aside from quoting the other excellent suggestions, I would take a look at this link

http://www.midijunior.it/utility/midiabout.htm

Just to get started

In my opinion, it is important to understand what type of recording you are going to perform on your PC because with a computer you can record either MIDI signals or audio signals.

MIDI signal is a standard adopted around the early '80s which consists (without getting too technical) in allowing computers, MIDI keyboards, or anything that adheres to this standard to communicate. By using a universal protocol, you can connect multiple keyboards in "daisy chain" and have them communicate with a MIDI sound generator or a computer.

A very important thing to know is that the MIDI signal has no sound itself; therefore, to hear a MIDI sound, it must be assigned to a sound generator, and here the quality of the sound generator matters.

If you have a MIDI track and connect it to a sound generator like the one in Windows, you will get quite nasty sounds, whereas if you connect it to a sound generator like a sampler, the quality is obviously much closer to being realistic.

The convenience of MIDI is its versatility and its low "weight"; in fact, a long track only weighs a few Kbytes.

(Briefly stated) the MIDI signal contains information regarding: note, note duration, volume-attack of the note, and decay... as well as the type of sound that was intended to be assigned, for example a piano, a violin, or a drum kit, etc.

Audio files are another story; they can be analog or digital. The former is, for example, what you play through old cassette tapes or vinyl records... the latter is the digital file... what you play via CD.

The PC uses digital signals to play back or to record, so it converts all sounds into numbers on a binary basis (0 1, indeed "digit" as in digital).

A CD audio file is composed of a sampling frequency of 16 bits and 44.1 KHz; therefore, when we play an audio CD, we are playing a format called Wave, which weighs about 10 Mb per minute.

Another format is MP3, which eliminates those frequencies that are not audible to the human ear, making it "lighter." MP3s can have different types of frequencies; however, on average, an MP3 file weighs about 1 Mb per minute (a significant saving).

Now you must understand what you are recording on the computer: MIDI signals or audio signals.

A dedicated sound card is important; in fact, using the integrated motherboard sound card is not very convenient, which is why the sound coming out isn't the best. There could be problems with crackling sounds or hearing pops (which is a driver problem), or hearing the sound with background hiss (which is a problem with the Analog-to-Digital converter located on your motherboard's sound card).

Stellina, use Audacity, simple and free. It has more or less the same functions as Cool Edit (to be purchased).

Ciao.

Thanks everyone, I will do some practice

The other users have already given you some excellent suggestions.

If you really want to continue using the Windows recorder (there's nothing wrong with that), you can proceed like this.

Record 10 seconds of silence (without a microphone connected).

Stop the recording with the black square and select "slow down" from the effects.

Click it a few times until the value you find on the right is to your liking.

Then save the wav file (which is empty).

Every time you want to record yourself, open it and start recording over it, then save it with another name.

Thanks Foster12 also for your opinion