So, I love that Gmail lets me make free calls anywhere in North America on my laptop, especially considering how much of my current thesis project has to do with phone interviews across the states.
As per my title line, is there any practical way of recording this, short of holding my tape recorder up to the PC speakers? Some sort of new software for the PC, perhaps?
You shouldn’t need to mess about with 3rd party apps. Windows comes with a sound recorder built into it which I believe will also record sound coming into the laptop through a microphone. Give it a go and see:
^ Yes, but only if you know enough to swtich your default input device in the Volume Control. It needs to be set to Stereo Mix, or something like that.
Also, I don’t know if it’s changed in later versions of Windows, but Windows XP’s sound recorder will only record to WAV or to really low quality formats. I finally buckled down and got Audacity.
If it isn’t being played through your speakers, it won’t record it, I’m afraid. Your best bet for your end of the conversation is probably to get Audacity and record your half of the conversation, then use it to overlay the two recordings. The Sound Recorder built into Windows 7 will work to record your mic, but will save into .wma format only.
It would still be easier to use the Windows recorder then convert the file into .mp3 or whatever is needed if .wma won’t suit, in my opinion of course.