Recording and sharing audio
Audio can be recorded on any device with a microphone and storageThe hardware of a computer that stores data long term, such as a memory card or hard drive.. Devices commonly used to record audio include:
- smartphones
- PCs or laptops with microphones
- tabletA computer device a little smaller than a laptop but with a built-in touchscreen, usually without a keyboard.
- dictaphonesA small handheld device for recording speech. Older versions used cassette tapes. More modern versions use memory cards or internal memory.
To share your audio, you may want to post it to an online service such as iTunes, SoundCloud or MyPodcast. An audio file shared online is often referred to as a podcast, especially when it is voice only.
Podcasts can be downloaded and listened to using mediaplayer software, an app or streamed directly from a browser.
Audio file formats
Audio can be recorded in several different file formatsThe way that a specific file type is saved, eg. a picture file is different from a text document. Different file formats have different file extensions, eg. *.jpg or *.txt)., the most common ones are:
- MP3
- AAC
- WMA
- WAV
- FLAC
- OGG
Podcasts are usually in MP3 format because of the format’s relatively small file size.