Audio recording program for Windows
29 Sep 2005Aside from Audacity, does anyone know of a good (free) audio recording program for Windows (XPish… Media Center Edition, actually)? Only needs to do a single track, but I’m just not a huge fan of Audacity’s interface, and was mostly just curious to see what else was out there.
And no, I haven’t abandoned my Ubuntu behemoth, it’s just that we’ve got a baby Shuttle computer downstairs that has much better quality audio stuff going for it. The mic itself is slightly-but-not-much-better-than-the-average-PC-mic (it’s a now-discontinued Andrea product), which means you actually can hear the difference in line noise. Just. Well, okay, more than just, it’s probably the best cheap/free headset mic I’ve ever used, but that still probably isn’t saying huge amounts. Bah, whatever… the point is, whatever the soundcard I’ve got in my day-to-day computer (some C-Media thing) is crap and ridiculously noisy, and the Shuttle’s AC’97 is loads better (because it’s probably about five years more recent than the sound card in here, and also because its output is digital going to some Sony receiver that does things nicely enough. At least part of the problem with this PC is that its output is lousy.)
So yeah. I’m using XP Media Center Edition (I was planning on posting photos of the few-month-old box sometime, I promise! It just slipped past me/I couldn’t be bothered/It was downstairs and I live at the other end of the house/You’ve all probably seen these things before and it’s not really that exciting/It’s Dad’s toy not mine and I’m still vaguely convinced he shouldn’t have got it/Insert myriad other reasons for not blogging here.), and want to know what people who haven’t got money to spend on software they rarely use are using for occasional audio recording.
Slightly-crazy idea: Is Windows Movie Maker any good for recording audio? I recall you can use a commentary track on that… I’m thinking it’d be possible just to throw in a blank screen and extend it for however long I needed to record for. I’m a fan of not having to install more software, especially on something retarded and intended purely for… watching TV (hah!) and doing other such crap. So yeah. Comments? Please? For once?
Yeah, I know whenever I ask for comments I seem to get less than usual on posts… meh :P Failing feedback, I’ll give Movie Maker a go and if it’s too horrible then Audacity it is.