Creating Audio Voiceover with Audacity for Online Courses

  1. Download and install free Audacity software from
  2. Attach headset/microphone to computer. Note: Be sure to do this before launching/opening Audacity—so your computer can identify the headset.
  3. Double-click Audacity icon to open (see below).
  1. Find a quiet place to record. Some electronic devices or air conditioning, fans, etc. may create background noise.
  2. Locate the Microphone Input button/menu on the toolbar. From this list, select your headset:
  3. Also, locate the Audio Output button (with speaker icon) and select your headphones for listening to what you record.
  4. Turn up the Speaker Volume (slider) a little and turn up the Microphone Volume a lot (to about 80-90%):
  1. Push the red RECORD button to begin recording—and push the blue PAUSE button to stop/pause recording. Avoid using STOP unless you’re done. (Otherwise it’ll start recording a new track, recording over the original, giving you a messy overlapping recording.)

A few other tips:

  1. Position the headsets microphone slightly below your mouth (this reduces the pops and sibilance)
  2. Don’t touch the microphone during recording (it will show up as static in your recording).
  3. More silence is better than none. Long pauses can be removed easier than they can be added so if you need to collect your thoughts, just let the recording capture the silence. Take a few beats in-between each slide so there is ample silence.
  4. The silent sections should show as a pretty flat line while your audio waveforms should be pretty tall and well-defined (very jagged).

After Audio Recording is Complete

1. After you have completed recording all of your audio for your slides, click the stop button (see below).

Note: You will not be able to save your project unless you have clicked the stop button.

2. Go to File > Export Audioand create a new folder to save all of your audio files. For example, make a new folder called audio in your My Documents folder and save any Audacity files there. This will help prevent lost or misplaced files.

3. Click in the field next to File name: and type in the name for your presentation. Click Save.

Note: Keep the default save format of WAV.

  1. Send the necessary files to Dropbox.(See directions on creating a Dropbox account below.)

Creating an Account on Dropbox.com

This help sheet explains how to create an account on Dropbox.com. You can upload up to 2GB of data to your Dropbox account. In addition, you can share your folders with other users.

1. Go to

2. Click Download Dropbox. A popup window should appear.

3. Click Save File.

4. In your Downloads window, click Dropbox 1.1.23.exe.

4. Click Install. Follow the prompts.

5. Select I don’t have a Dropbox account.

6. Click Next (see below).

7. Enter your email.

8. Click OK. Your dropbox account is now created. You can access it through youtStart (PC) or Finder (Mac) menu through the icon on your desktop. Alternatively, you can access it through the Dropbox icon on your desktop. You will need to share a folder with Corey Burgess: or Xuan Zhao: n order for our production staff to access the files on Dropbox.