We're going to keep this simple, because at this stage all we want to do is simply record in quality and export sound in two formats.

WAV - hi quality but large file size

MP3 - hi quality and highly compressed file size

1 is simply the controller which works like a tape recorder. Rec, Stop, Play etc

2 is the output meter - usually this will be in green, and move as the sound volume level increases and decreases. Good to check just how loud your recording will be.

3 is the sound input meter - usually in red, this will move rapidly up and down monitoring the level of volume being input

4 is where each sound file is placed when you start recording each time. Every new click of the 'rec' button places a new sound file on this canvas. You can start and stop each recording and 'layer' the tracks on top of one another, but for now all we want to do is start, stop, pause etc.

When you are happy with the result, the tracks are "mixed down" into a single mono sound track at the export stage - more about that later.

So, after a short example, I've recorded my voice saying something here - you can see it is rather quiet on the scale but sounds like this

We can even see how long it lasts on the linear scale. 4 seconds for this.

Now, let's set up the prefs

Quality

We just need to ensure that we don't to too high a quality, so settings like these for a reasonable quality wav export will look like this.

Quality is good enough at 22khz

File Format settings

Until we download the .MP3 plug-in (later) we can only export to wav format (this is the large uncompressed format) but we'll be able to experiment using this export format.

Choose 16bit PCM

- you can choose 8bit PCM , but the quality begins to suffer at this rate.

16bit PCM is good.

bit rate is 128

Finally the In/out settings

We don't need stereo for web or powerpoint, so mono is good enough. It also allows us a smaller file size in the final 'mix down'

That's about it - experiment with it and make some recordings and then when you are happy and comfortable with the controls go to ...

Give it a filename and remember

• the name must only contain characters and no spaces eg "my_sound"
  
• It must reside along with where you are storing the powerpoint - a good idea is to create a folder for the powerpoint and another folder for the media files
• If you are sending the powerpoint to anyone, you have to zip up the entire package and send the entire zip. Think of it like a ham & cheese sandwich .
  No use just sending the bread !!