Technical advice needed:

[House of Mustard]

So, my wife wants to record my daughter singing, and burn it on a CD.  I have a CD burner, so that's taken care of, but I have no idea how to record her and make an audio file.  Anyone have any idea?  Do I need extra software (ie, stuff that isn't standard on Win XP)?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

if you want quick and dirty, you can use the native sound recorder (Start / Program / Accesories / Entertainment / Sound Recorder). I don't recommend doing anything long though.

WavePad, I think, is the name of the freeware I use for stuff like that. It let's me do a little more with it than the sound recorder and compresses the file to mp3 if you want (for smaller file sizes).

It's also good for cutting off the ends of files like the live version of "Cryin'" i have where Steve Tyler decides to cuss at the audience after the music ends.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

yeah, wave pad's the one. You can get it here

[House of Mustard]

Cool, thanks.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

or Garageband on a Mac... nice program

[fuzzyoctopus]

What a delightful name for a piece of software. (not being sarcastic. It's very descriptive and cool)

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Garageband, yes its a very handy piece of software too, Its made to have an amature or professional musician record without the benefit of a band. You just plug your instrument in (or microphone) and add backing loops to your music. The number of loops availible are so huge that you can easily create your own song and not have it sound like its backed by a drummer named Casio. Its probably the easiest piece of music makeing software I've ever used. Its a memory hog though. The only reason you want to add a microphone is that the mic built into the mac isnt studio quality. It is nice though that the software is preloaded onto every mac.

[House of Mustard]

Wow.  I've been using that all evening.  It's neat.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

CoolEdit was my preferred music program, but it's quite costly.