Hi there. I wonder if any of you can help. Being a complete novice at recording and all things technical, I’m having problems with some basic things… (I only need to record my speaking voice)
First question, should I record in stereo or mono… it is only my voice, but other people may want to add music etc afterwards.?
2nd question, Is there a diagram anywhere that says what various buttons etc are, but in plain English… I just don’t understand the technical terms?
3rd… After recording and editing and saved to WAV and Mp3 when playing the latter two on my laptop the output is quite quiet, even with the volume on laptop on it’s highest… is there anyway I can make the actual recording louder and if so, what buttons should I press or slide? The volume level is fine when listening through headphones.
OK, I’ll stop here for now… I could go on!!!
I really would appreciate some help as I’m just starting out being a Voice Over and I need to be able to produce good quality stuff and know what I’m doing!
Veronica
The Reference section of the front page of the Manual is a good place to start - see: Audacity Manual
The image is clickable so you click on the carious elements like the “various buttons” and that will take you to the appropriate page in the Manual,
You can also just hover your cursor over that image and relevant hover texts will appear.
WC
Mono should be fine - you can always mix it with stereo music later - but the output then will be mixed to stereo.
This tutorial from the Manual should be useful to you: Audacity Manual
and this one too: Audacity Manual
WC
A good level to aim for in recording -6 to -9 dB which is roughly half-height or 50% in the waveform view. In 2.1.0 Audacity we changed the meters to enable you to see more easily when you are in the range as they fade from green to yellow - see this page in the Manual: Audacity Manual
You can then later boost the sound level with either the Amplify effect or the Normalize effect s- see: Audacity Manual
and: Audacity Manual
WC
And Question-4 is … ? 
Oh thank you all so much… my evening is now sorted!!!
Lol…When I’ve got topside of questions 1 - 3… I’ll be back with Question 4 and more!!!
Thank you again, really appreciate your help.
Veronica