How to get better quality recordings?

[_Daisy_]

I have absolutely no technological experience, and I always have the hardest time trying to make wavs because half the time you can barely even hear me through all the feedback and crackling static. I've just been using the crappy built in cam/mic that's on my computer. Is there any way to reduce the noise without actually buying equipment?

[Blah!?]

What program do you use to record? If you use Audacity, I have a little bit of a solution.

What you can do is open up your recording devices menu (right click the volume control icon in the bottom right. I'm assuming you're on PC, but if you're on a Mac it should be similar.) and then turn down the physical volume of your microphone. It'll probably start out at maxed. I'd lower it to 50% to start and then adjust it from there as needed.

Then, open Audacity and increase the volume of your recording on Audacity's menu. Essentially what this will do is reduce the sensitivity of your physical microphone, making it less likely to pick up background noise, but it'll also boost the volume of your audio after it's been recorded so it's still loud enough to hear. Finding a good balance is key to making this work, but once you find these settings, it's just a matter of playing around with them until they work.

[_Daisy_]

Thanks!! I've been using just the typical YouTube "record" option, but I may try my hand at Audacity the next time I'm feeling adventurous.

[InsertNameHere]

Also, if you have an ipod or something like that, I find their recording quality to be amazing compared to my pc (I have an iPod touch, but before that just used my old mp3 player, which was still better than my pc mic). Then I used dropbox to transfer the videos to my pc for editing and removing video etc.

Don't know if this helped, but I hope it did.

Regards