Introduction
In case you were wondering how to record sounds coming from your sound card and not from your microphone, here's a simple trick that will help you accomplish this goal. We are basically looking to record any sounds that are coming from the applications you have started on your computer and which you hear in the speakers. To do this, we only need Firefox or Internet Explorer to be installed and the Freecorder 4 plug-in by Applian. Before proceeding with this tutorial, you need to keep in mind the copyright laws when recording anything!
Install Freecorder 4 by Applian
You can download the file from here: http://www.applian.com/sound-recorder/
To install, simply get the installation kit from the link above and follow the instructions. You will be presented with two options, to install the plug-in either in Firefox or in Internet Explorer. For this tutorial we installed the plug-in in Firefox.
Recording your first audio track
In order to record anything from your computer with Freecorder 4 you need to have Firefox or Internet Explorer open, depending on which browser you decided to have the plug-in installed in.
When you open your browser, you should see that there is a new toolbar installed. In that toolbar you will see the tools that we are going to use to create recordings. Figure 1 shows part of the toolbar:
Figure 1: Freecorder 4, The toolbar
To create a recording, click on the Record Audio button. You should see a window similar to the one in Figure 2 pop-up:
Figure 2: Freecorder 4, The recording window
Note that if there aren't any sounds playing in the background, the application will simply wait until there is something playing and then records it. When you are done recording, hover over the lower right corner of the window and a message will appear saying "stop recording". To playback your recording, simply click on the Play button from the toolbar in your browser and a folder will open containing all your recordings. Choose the file you want to play and open it
with your favorite mp3 player.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact us at the STA Program, sta-help@trincoll.edu or at x2589.
