Recording Device

Media Center will automatically detect your recording device. If there is more than one, select the one you want to use in the drop-down menu.

Recording Source

Choose the source and volume level for your recording.

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Line-in records whatever device is plugged into the "line in" jack on your sound card.

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Microphone records whatever is plugged into the "mic" jack on your sound card.

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CD Audio records in analog mode from your computer's CD drive. CD Audio only works if you have an audio cable connected from your CD drive to your sound card.

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Mixer records directly from the sound card regardless of the source. When you select Mixer, you have complete control of what gets recorded. Double click the speaker icon in the system tray and select Options > Properties > Recording and check all the recording sources you want to control. Now set the volume, mute, and balance controls the way you want and begin recording. If there is an "All" or "Sum" recording source in the mixer, use that to control the overall recording volume

Recording Volume

The volume control sets the recording level. This has a large impact on the quality of your recordings - too high and you will hear a lot of distortion (crinkling and crackling sounds during loud sections), too low and the background hiss will overpower quiet parts of the music.

Use the Auto button to let Media Center automatically adjust the volume to get the best compromise between loudness and low distortion. Press "Auto", start your audio device playing at a relatively loud section, then press the Start Test button. After about 30 to 60 seconds of monitoring the input signal, the volume will be set to the best value. If the system can't get adequate signal even with the recording volume set to maximum, it will suggest that you increase the volume on your external audio device and run the test again. On the other hand, if it can't get rid of clipping distortion even with the recording volume set to minimum, it will suggest that you decrease the volume on your external audio device and run the test again.

Wait for Sound before Starting Recording

If this is checked, the recorder will monitor the recording source and wait until it detects a signal strength greater than the "Maximum gap level" setting before it will start recording. For example, if your gap level is set at 5%, it will wait until it detects a sound signal that is greater than or equal to 5% of the maximum possible signal before it starts recording. Note that if your gap level is set to zero, the recording will start immediately regardless of how this checkbox is set.

If this is unchecked, recording will commence immediately when you press the Start button.

Maximum Track Length

You can set a maximum length of a recording here. This is particularly useful if you have disabled track splitting.

Split Tracks

When this is checked, Media Center automatically senses the silence between song tracks during a recording session and creates separate files on disk for each track. The settings here determine how the gaps between tracks are recognized by the system. See the "Troubleshooting" section of Recorder Help for more information on how to make adjustments.

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Minimum gap between tracks (ms). When Media Center detects a silent section for this length of time, it considers it the start of a new track. This value is in milliseconds (1000 = 1 second). The default is 2200.

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Maximum gap level (percent). This is how Media Center determines there is a "silent" section in the music. Since there is always some background noise in any source material, there is never true silence. The number here represents a percentage of the maximum volume level that the source is capable of. When the recording level falls below this percentage, Media Center considers it to be silence. The default is 7.

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Minimum track length (ms). Any tracks shorter than this value will be discarded. The units are milliseconds so for example if you don't want to keep anything shorter than 5 seconds, enter 5000 here. Set this to zero if you don't want any tracks discarded. The default is 4000.

This may need some adjustment to work optimally with different source material. You can also turn "track splitting" off but beware that very large disk files will be created while the recorder is running. You may want to set a Maximum Track Length when track splitting is disabled.

See Line-In Recording Tips for more details.