Does Vista OS Include an Audio Recording Program?

It should have a program called Sound Recorder. At the start menu, click on All Programs, then click on Accessories and then click Entertainment. This is where it's found on XP. If Vista doesn't have the same Start Menu structure, you'll have to do a file search for sndrec32.exe.

Not sure about Vista, but most recent versions of windows up to XP have Windows Media Player which allows you to rip tracks off of CDs.

There is also the 'Sound Recorder' utility under Windows/Accessories/Entertainment though it is not very user friendly.

If it's a .wav file you might try downloading the free Kristal Audio Engine. Or do a search for a sound recorder program that uses the same file format that was used for the CD.

I presume the interview can be played on/from the website where it is stored?

If so, the audio already exists in digital form in a file. Fidelity wise, you'll be far ahead if you can capture that file, rather than running the audio through another recording program (either on the Mac or on Windows).

With Linux that is fairly easy to do--play (i.e., listen to) the file from the website, then look in .tmp for a recently added file. It probably won't be named with a normal audio extension, but it will be in some valid audio format such that you can rename it and then play it using a sound player native to the OS.

(You may want to take a snapshot of the .tmp directory before you play the interview from the website, then look for a file added when the interview has completed playing.)

There is probably a simple way to do this in Windows as well, but I can't give you the details.

rhkramer, Hello,

Thank you for your advice.

Unfortunately I just looked at the website and they've taken the recording down so I can't play it anymore.

However, on my Mac there is a thing called History and it lists all the websites I've visited going back nearly a year.

I'm not too good with technical stuff but will I be able to go back to the day that I made the recording and take it from the website as it was on that day?

Guest wrote:

"However, on my Mac there is a thing called History and it lists all the websites I've visited going back nearly a year.

"I'm not too good with technical stuff but will I be able to go back to the day that I made the recording and take it from the website as it was on that day?"

I don't think so, and really doubt it--I suspect that History feature records only the URL of sites you've visited, not the actual content (or maybe some of the content--but a year's worth of videos and audios--like I say, I doubt it).

But, it should be fairly easy to test--go ahead and listen / view something from the Internet, maybe wait a few days, then disconnect yourself from the Internet (pull the wire or whatever), then see if you can listen / view it from History.

(Or, of course, find the "real" site in your History (from up to a year ago), and see what you get.)

Good luck!

Wave Corrector is a very handy application for transferring vinyl records to CD digital version and clean up the quality (get rid of the needle clicks) There is also a Linux version, but not sure about the Macs.

http://www.wavecor.co.uk/

It can be used to record streaming audio if you revise the Windows input setup from Phono/Aux etc to Line In, or whatever device your input may be.

Firstly, what format did you use to put it on the CD?

If it was MP3 or .CDA format, then your friend has a problem with her PC.

If it was anything else, then you made a mistake.

Take the original recording that you made and convert it to one of the above mentioned formats, CDA is audio CD and can be played on most CD players (and PCs).

Audio converting software is available for free from reputable web sites. Audacity is a good place to start, you can record in real time (the next time) and save it in the format of your choice, but you will also need burning software to put it onto a CD.

Or connect a cassette recorder and play it over your sound card onto the recorder....

A word of warning, CD players older than about 3 years old may have trouble playing CDs you burn yourself. Its a bit "hit and miss", either it does or it doesn't, experiment. The problem being that burnt tracks are thinner than standard audio CD tracks...

You don't need to buy any software, there is enough free stuff around.

You could try Internet Archives Wayback Machine, they have archive copies of billions of web pages. There's a video here showing how it works.

Thank you Nigh for that reference to Wayback Machine - that is awesome isn't it?

Unfortunately it doesn't have the web page that I needed but It's such a good site I've bookmarked it for future use.

I did eventually solve the problem as you may read below but thanks anyway.

The internet is the best isn't it?

I'm an old guy but I've never seen anything as fundamentally valuable as this in my lifetime - you can ask a bunch of complete strangers a question and get expert advice back within a day - to me that's just awesome.

Thank you all for your terrific advice.

I found the problem - yes, it was a loose nut behind the steering - me!

Yeah, I didn't know that different systems, ie Mac and Windows, don't play each others stuff, so I just saved it to the default format on my Mac and it turns out that that is only playable on Macs.

So now I've copied that file to make a WAV file and I burnt that WAV file onto another CD and hopefully that is the one that Windows will favor so it should work on my friend's PC.

It means a lot to my friend too because it's a recording of her daughter being interviewed on radio and when the website dropped the recording off the site I thought I had screwed it up for them so I'm hoping it's going to work OK now.

It turns out that all your advice pointed me to the right place so I'm really very grateful and I hope that you all have a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year!

Thanks again, I've learned a lot.