Spoken like a true digital audio editing whiz kid.

You did have me a bit worried earlier though

I fear that the likely acoustics and limitations of your recording equipment will probably result in poor sound quality, but It is quite possible you can improve this substantially by applying sensitive equalisation, found in the effects menu.

From what I can gather there are some members here that might have the necessary expertise to help you out with that, but if they fail to come forward you could initially try with the existing Audacity presets, and if that doesn’t produce satisfactory results ask for assistance on the Audacity forum in the Audio Processing section: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewforum.php?f=28

I’m sure somebody there would be willing to help out if you can create a short sample of the recording.

BTW, one more thing; it may be worth mentioning that what you are doing is likely in breach of current UK copyright legislation.

Indeed it appears that what I am doing in making digital copies of records I have already purchased outright, or been given for free to promote when I was more active on DJ scene, may also contravene current legislation.

This is patently ridiculous, so if there are any music industry executives out there please pm me and I will gladly supply my personal details so you can take me to court and we can get this nonsense overturned.

Almost. The correct term in Audacity is to export; you are moving one format (MP3) to another.

I think the first thing to do is to download the latest version of Audacity. FWIW I am currently working with version 1.3.13 (beta).

Editing the files then is actually quite easy to get the hang of, but it is key to make a copy of your existing file in Windows then work on the copy, in case you muck things up.

The key tools you will need to learn are on the edit menu (delete, silence audio) an don the effects menu (fade in/out to get smoother transitions). Use the magnifier glass icon with the +/- signs to zoom in and out of audio segments to get better definition on these transitions.

Separately, I would download the free version Media Monkey to ultimately burn the CD’s when you have prepared the audio segments and exported them in wav format.

Good luck!

My apologies if I was a little abrupt yesterday, but there are various fundamental principles involved in the task you are undertaking for which this is IMO neither the time or the place for a wide-ranging discussion.

However, I’ll try to expand briefly. You already have a digital recording on your recorder. Re-recording this can at best preserve the quality already obtained, but as you have already observed it is more likely to - perhaps significantly - deteriorate it for various reasons related to the process you follow.

A typical audio CD can hold something less than 80 minutes of audio which stored digitally equates to 700mb of data, using the standard conversion rate (parameters).

In order to squeeze a 2 hour recording onto less than 128mb of data, your recorder is using something known as audio compression. This is akin to different digital camera sensor sizes; a 16 megapixel camera can take pictures with much more detail than a 10 megapixel sensor camera.

The smaller file size is directly proportional to the loss of detail and is analogous to the quality of your recording.

Therefore you should be working on the recording you already have, and not subjecting it to further degradation.

How you then proceed depends on where you intend to play the CD created. If you want something that can be played anywhere you need to slice your existing digital file into approximately 70minute segments, then **convert** the digital file have into the .wav format conventionally used in CDs.

Depending on the format of your existing file (could be MP3, could be something else) you might do the conversion in Audacity or something else like another free piece of software called VLC. You then need to ‘burn’ this to a blank CD. For this I use something called Media Monkey, which is also free.

If on the other hand you want to play the CD solely on a newer model that supports MP3 files you can put the entire 2 hour recording down on one of those.

So to recap, the first step is to figure out what file format you already have on your hard disk; right click on this in Windows explorer then read this off the properties dialogue.

With respect this is far from the only area in which your understanding is incomplete.

And since you are disinclined to follow the steps I have suggested, I’m afraid I can not help you any further.

No need to do that for my sake.

However, it might be useful for some if they wish to record for example something on the BBC iPlayer, or Youtube assuming they don’t know how to acquire the mp4 files directly.

As for me my interest in Audacity is almost solely ripping vinyl; I have just done around 30gb of 12” singles in the past few months, and estimate I have roughly the same to go to complete my essentials. Unfortunately I doubt I’ll be able to sustain the recent pace for much longer –Phew!

If you select 'stereo mix' as the input device Audacity will record whatever is playing through your speakers.

If your recorder has a 128mb capacity it will fit comfortably on a CD several times when full. So you don’t need Audacity to record anything, although it might be needed for file conversion.

Step 1 is to get the digital file from your recorder onto your computer. Not sure how to do this off hand but if it is a usb device you can probably access it like a SD card or your camera files.

Then report back the file type extension the recorder uses. (right click on the file in windows explorer and click properties)

The key thing is to try to understand exactly what you are trying to achieve.

It sounds like you are trying to record a CD that is being played in Windows media player. Is that right?

If this is so the set up you employed will have recorded not only the mic input but also various windows system sounds, beeps and clunks, etc.

A better way is to use a program such as the free "media monkey" to ‘rip’ the audio directly to you harddisk in a suitable format. You can then edit the pure audio files in Audacity if you wish.