Test Your Setup

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Plug in your microphone. If you can't find the jack for the plug, ask a neighbor or you TA.
If you haven't done so already, open Audacity. It should like the image below.
Next we are going to make a quick test recording to finish setting up the system. Don't worry about how good it sounds. Just record yourself saying "hello" or something.
To record, click on the red circle/record button and speak into the microphone.
To end your recording, click the square red/stop button. (See trouble shooting at the bottom of the page if you have trouble).
To listen to your recording. play back the recording by pressing the green arrow/play button.
Now we want to save this test file as an MP3. Under the File menu, select "Export as MP3..." Audacity uses the LAME plug-in to export to MP3, so it will ask you to help locate LAME. (A plug-in adds more features to a program.)
Click ok. Audacity brings up a navigation dialog (pictured below). The LAME dll (plug in) is located in the directory: "C:\Program Files\Lame for Audacity". Click OK when you see "lame_enc.dll" in the dialog, like in the picture.
Give your test file a name, like "test1.mp3". Audacity will then bring up a dialog for MP3 settings (see below). For now, just OK.
Now we want to delete any recordings you've already made from the project space in Audacity. If you have more than one recording, Audacity treats them as all tracks of the same recording. Since we will be making a new podcast, we don't want our test recording in the background, so we'll delete it.

Each recording has its own sound wave view. In the top left of these is a small X box that closes that recording. Close all recordings you have open.

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