What is needed to Record speech audio into PC

[MatthewMark]

I just downloaded Wavepad. I need to record audio from several meetings in my home in about two weeks from now. I have an HP m8200n with Vista. It's technically called a media center by HP.

 

We will have 4 people in my living room and I assume I'll need 4 microphones.

 

I don't need fancy, just as clean as possible. I'm not looking for separate tracks though I guess that could be helpful somewhere down the line.

 

Can anyone tell me what equipment I will need. As you can imagine, as "barebones" as possible.

 

Can I hook two mikes in a Y connector into the same input channel?

 

As you can tell, I know nothing except "concept".

 

Thank you,

 

Matthew

[Guest nchto]

Firstly have a look at our audio recording software options: www.nch.com.au/software/soundrec.html

 

We also have a aetting up to record voice tutorial: www.nch.com.au/kb/10010.html

 

Please be aware that most soundcards only allow input to be recorded from one device at a time. If this is the case with your hardware then you will only be able to record from one microphone (your hardware will also dictate if this is in stereo or mono). A way around this is to use a device which combines the audio together from multiple sources into one input for the computer, but you'll have to ask your local electronics store for more information about these. This would result in all the audio being saved in the one channel.

 

If you would like multichannel recording, then have a look at this hardware: www.nch.com.au/vrs/acc/index.html#SND

 

You could then use a program such as MSRS to record each channel individually and combine them into the one file. Software such as Express Scribe can then be used to listen to each channel individually, or all together at once.