Hardware & Software for Stereo Recording on a Laptop

[Falcon9519]

I have a Dell Vostro 1520 running Windows 7 Professional. I have been recording in mono, by inserting my patch cord from my digital piano into the mic jack on the front of my computer.

I have the opportunity to avail myself of the services of a professsional computer technician this week. I please would like to know the following:

What software & hardware do I need in order to be able to record in stereo on my laptop? My digital piano has two outputs with RCA jacks.

How do I connect this hardware to my computer? As I mentioned, I am only currently using the mic in jack on the front of my computer.

Thank you for your time and assitance in this regard.

Yours truly,
Laurence

[kozikowski]

Some laptop computers allow you to switch the one connection between sensitive, mono, Mic-In and high-level, Stereo, Line-In. A lot will not. For those people, there is the hardware route by using a UCA-202, like this...

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/UCA202.jpg

This seems to be a good price-point/performance balance. Anything that works like this unit is appropriate.

Large, deskside Windows machines and most Macs have Stereo built-in and don't need additional hardware.

Koz

[kozikowski]

Audacity 1.3.12 works just fine.
Koz