Dave, I want to record some of my songs and share it with my family but a couple of them are insisting on MP3 format only. I’m using Sound Recorder on my PC. How can I save my recordings in the correct format?
Nowadays most computers can play a variety of audio file formats, so I’m not sure why your family are insisting on MP3, but it’s not too difficult to manage. The problem is that while Sound Recorder for Windows has the ability to record and save in a variety of formats, it doesn’t sem to have a “save as” option so your older recordings can’t change formats within this program. If you want, there’s a great open source audio recording tool that can do the job – and a lot more besides – called Audacity. Grab a copy, skim through the welcome info, then open up your existing recordings and “save as” and specify MP3.
In terms of Sound Recorder, however, you can change its default format for new audio recordings to MP3 so you won’t have to fuss with Audacity after the first batch of conversions. Here’s how…
BASICS OF SOUND RECORDER
You’ve gone through this before, but let’s touch on the basics of this great little Microsoft app before we proceed. Here’s the main screen once you launch it; search for “sound recorder” from the Taskbar to find it on your PC:
It’s a straightforward interface: Click on the red circle to begin a recording, it’ll show the running time and the red circle becomes a black “stop” square to click on when you’re done recording. Chosing a mic? You can do that by clicking on the lower left corner:
Notice that you can leave the default to, say, the built-in mic on your computer, but have Sound Recorder use a different external microphone just for its own recordings. Helpful.
SOUND RECORDER CAN’T ACCESS MICROPHONE
It’s possible when you try your first recording that you’ll either get a pop-up asking you to grant permission for the app to access your microphone or get this message instead:
If this appears, click on “Settings“, which will place you here:
Make sure you have Microphone access enabled at the top then scroll down to “Sound Recorder” and ensure it’s enabled (the slider icon should be blue and say “On”, as Game Bar and Feedback Hub demonstrate above. Close the Settings window and you’ve fixed the access problem.
RECORDING AUDIO IN SOUND RECORDER
Now click on the red RECORD button and it’ll start recording the audio…
Notice the red button is replaced with the black STOP button (the square). All good, and you can sing, play a musical instrument, get your dog to bark, or share a poem easily enough.
Press stop and you can play it back to listen to how it sounds. Straightforward…
Now the question is: How do you share the recordings with family and friends?
SHARING RECORDINGS FROM SOUND RECORDER
It’s not at all obvious, but the save and share features are tucked away in the top right corner. The box with the arrow coming out of it is, of course, “Share”. A click on that and…
You can directly share your recording through Outlook, Skype, WhatsApp and even to individuals through Outlook, as desired. But… what format is it in?
CHANGING SOUND RECORDER FORMATS
And so, finally, we’re where you were hoping I’d start. 🙂
To change the audio recording settings, click on the tiny “•••” button on the top right. That brings up a little menu:
These features should be separate buttons along the top as a toolbar in my opinion, but they’re tucked away in this little menu instead. To start, choose “Settings” (we’ll come back to the “Show in folder” option momentarily). Sound Recorder Settings are fairly austere:
These are the two settings you care about: Recording format and Audio quality. Recording format offers a surprising number of choices:
Here’s where you can choose “MP3” to capture and save all subsequent recordings in that format. Note that both MP3 and AAC are widely compatible with Mac, Chromebooks, Linux, and mobile devices too, but at this point, MP3 is probably still the most compatible across the board.
Since you’re recording yourself singing or playing an instrument, why not have it sound the best possible too? A click on Audio quality reveals:
I recommend you choose “Best (highest quality, larger file size)”.
RECORDING IN MP3 FORMAT
Now your dilemma arises: All of your older recordings are in whatever format was the default before you changed it, so earlier songs are in AAC format. You can use Audacity to convert them or perhaps you just want to re-record them in the new format. Without any further change, all subsequent audio recordings in Sound Recorder will be in MP3 format!
A click on the “•••” icon and “Open in folder” from that menu and you can see my newest recording is indeed in MP3 format, even though it looks identical to the earlier AAC format files:
Notice that OneDrive is helping out here too, hosting one of my recordings in the cloud (that’s the blue cloud icon under Status).
Hope this all helps you out and good luck with your songwriting!
Pro tip: I’ve been writing about Microsoft Windows for many years. Please check out my extensive and well-documented Windows help area for over 1,000 useful tutorials!