You can record either on your desktop / laptop OR on your mobile phone.
If you are recording on desktop / laptop:
1. Download Audacity (its freeware, and its safe) – http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
2. Also please download the dll file that will allow you to export as mp3.
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To Record:
A. Find a quiet room with as little ambient noise as possible.
B. If your laptop has an inbuilt mic, use it. Otherwise, just use any external mic.( The iball headsets with mic are available really cheap on ebay.in If you have one from anywhere, just use it) Open Audacity and click on the record button. Record a test sentence. Stop.
C. Hear the test sentence by clicking on the “play” button.
D. Adjust your volume, if required. Test again. When you reach a comfortable volume, start recording. It should not take more than 1-2 test sentences.
E. If you want to pause in the middle of recording, please use the Pause button. To resume, press the Pause button again.
F. If you have made a mistake, press the stop button. Then go back and listen to the wrong part. Select that part and delete. Then position the cursor at the end of the stream and press record again. A new stream will start recording. Dont worry about it. It will automatically be intergated into the mp3 file. Just make sure that the pointer is at the end. If it is anywhere else, both voices will be played out simultaneously.
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3. Finish recording.
4. Check recording(using the Play button). You can correct it using the “Effect” menu.
5. Using the “File” menu, export as mp3.
6. Save the mp3 file.
7. Upload the mp3 file as a google doc using your gmail id. (OR, just email it to eshabraille@gmail.com)
8. Ensure that the privacy settings of the document are “Anyone on the net”. Also, please share it expressly with eshabraille@gmail.com . Allow editing.
9. Once you share it with eshabraille@gmail.com as a collaborator, i will automatically get an email (unless, you have expressly removed the checkbox that sends mail in the collaboration popup)
10. Thank you!
If you are using your mobile phone:
1. Sit in a quiet place with as little ambient noise as possible.
2. Record using your voice recorder. Please use your handsfree(incl. mic). In mobile phones, this really helps to cut out ambient noise.
3. Check file on playback.
4. Send file to us as email or as Google Doc. In this case, we will download it and convert it to mp3.
If you are technically inclined, please download any freeware that converts mobile phone formats to mp3. The freeware that i m using is called Mobile Media Convertor.
Using this freeware, the file can be converted to mp3. Then email it / share it as a google doc. Please follow steps outlined above. Please share it expressly with eshabraille@gmail.com, incl. edit rights, for us to be able to share it with others.
So, Happy Recording.
If you are recording from Youtube videos:
1. Open Youtube.
2. Search for a video that is relevant. (I use some Tenalirama videos) The video should have good audio quality. Please play the video with your eyes closed to ensure that it will make sense as audio.
3. Run Audacity or any other recording software parallely. Record.
4. Check recording using the Play button in Audacity.
5. If the recording is fine, please use the File menu in Audacity to export as mp3.
6. Please email or share as google docs. please remember to expressly add eshabraille@gmail.com as a collaborator with edit rights. We will then be able to share the url of the document.
7. Once you add eshabraille@gmail.com as a collaborator, we will get an email.
8. Thank you!
Esha - The Braille Place 