Need help getting started

[hoakieman]

Hi All, I am new to Audacity and am not the most technically inspired. I want to record myself reading from a book onto my laptop, using WIN XP, I could not find anywhere in the instructions as to if Audacity records onto the computer hard drive or onto my CD drive and how to control the recording if I need to stop and come back to it later. I would appreciate some basic help in getting started.

I really like the idea of using Audacity and am not computer illiterate, but I am Older and a lot of my brain cells have retired even though I have not. Thanks for any help and advice, I amusing an older Dell Inspiron E1705 laptop with a RW CD and DVD player.
Hoakieman

[waxcylinder]

A good place to start is the set of Tutorials in the Audacity Manual - they should help you get started- see: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tutorials.html

Although this set is primarily aimed at LP/tape conversion much of it will apply to your needs: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tu ... to_cd.html

WC

[hoakieman]

OK, That helped, I needed to know if Audacity would record directly from the microphone to the CD or if it made its own file. Now I know what to do. I looked for it in the manual myself, but did not find it, thanks for the link. It took me right where i needed to go.

[waxcylinder]

glad to be of help

We've actually restructured the manual slightly (for the next version of Audacity) to make those tutorials that you needed a bit more visible and discoverable on the front page.

Would this (slightly) revised front page have led you in the right direction: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Main_Page ?

WC

[Trebor]

I could not find anywhere in the instructions as to if Audacity records onto the computer hard drive or onto my CD drive ...

Audacity doesn't write (aka "burn") data onto a CD / DVD , you'll need other software to do that ... http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/bu ... _a_cd.html