One of the best things about computers is that they can do a fine job of replicating hardware that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Take the recording studio, for instance. You probably wouldn't find it worthwhile to build a studio in your home for recording yourself singing "Happy Birthday" and sending it to a relative. But what if you could do that using only your computer and a free, easy-to-use software application?

Many of the music industry's top producers now rely on computers, rather than tape machines, to record, edit and share audio. And by following our simple tutorial, you can do the same, no matter how little you know about computers. It's easy—just think of your computer like one big tape recorder that creates tapes that anyone who's connected to the internet can play.

In this tutorial, we'll show you how to record the song "Happy Birthday" onto your computer, edit it if necessary, and email it to friends and family. You can use the same techniques to record songs, interviews, birds chirping, or any other sort of audio, but we figured "Happy Birthday" is a good, basic example that anyone can use.

1. Do you need speakers or headphones?

First, you need to determine how sound is going to get onto and off of your computer. Most computers have speakers for playing back audio. If yours doesn't have speakers, you can connect headphones to the headphone jack instead.

2. Do you need a microphone?

Microphones are slightly trickier than speakers. Although many desktop computers ship with a microphone, users often forget to plug them in during set-up. As for laptops, many of those come with microphones included, but you still might want to use an external microphone for recording.

If you need to pick up a microphone, we recommend a USB model, because they're easy to set up, compatible with a wide range of software, and tend to sound nice and clean. You can find them online for under $20, although higher-end models are available too.

3. Download LAME*

We need to take one little detour on the road to recording audio so that you'll be able to export your recordings in the MP3 format, and so that other people can listen to them easily.

You'll need to download something called the LAME encoder in order for this to happen. Don't worry; we'll walk you through it.

Download the file lame_enc.dll from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/lame. Save it somewhere on your computer where you can find it easily. We recommend creating a new folder as you're saving the file and storing it there.

4. Install the audio software

There's a big world of audio software out there, if you find yourself wanting to record more complicated audio projects. But for this simple recording project, the free Audacity* program (Mac* and Microsoft Windows* compatible) is the perfect option.

Download Audacity at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ and follow the installation instructions.

5. Set up your audio preferences

Before we start recording, let's make sure Audacity is set up the way we want it. Within the program, go to Edit > Preferences. Under the Audio I/O tab, select your preferred speakers from the Playback dropdown menu. Then, select your microphone from the Recording menu.

Now it's time to show Audacity where the LAME MP3 Encoder is. Stay in Edit > Preferences, but switch to the File Formats tab. In the MP3 Export Setup section at the bottom, click the Find Library button, navigate to the folder where you saved the LAME files in Step Three, select it, and click OK.

When you're done changing preferences, click OK again, this time in the preferences window.

6. Record your first track

Believe it or not, you're ready to start recording. With the microphone six inches to a foot from your mouth (or equidistant from everybody if you're recording a group), hit the big red Record button in Audacity to start recording.

See the wave form that gets created in Audacity? That's a graphical representation of the sound you've recorded.

Since you're recording onto a hard drive, there's no tape to waste. Feel free to record as many "takes" as you want until you get something that sounds right. Then click Save Project and name your song.

Don't be intimidated by the wave form that represents your recording; think of it as one big sentence in Microsoft Word*, which you can cut, paste and add effects to, just like text. We'll show you the tools soon, but first it's time to add some more tracks.

7. Add more tracks (optional)

With your first track recorded, feel free to mess around with the various controls in Audacity (Play/Pause, Stop, Rewind and so on). Audacity works just like a tape recorder, except it's harder to make mistakes (if you make an edit you don't like, just hit CTRL+Z to undo, just as you would in a word processing program).

Audacity is actually more like a multi-track tape recorder, in that you can use it to lay down additional tracks that play at the same time. If you or someone you know knows how to play an instrument or can sing in harmony, you can record their part right underneath the first one you recorded.

To help yourself stay in tune with the track(s) you already recorded, listen along to your previous recordings by plugging headphones into your computer. Then, under Edit > Preferences > Audio I/O, select Play other tracks while recording a new one. Now you can hear the tracks you've already laid down, as you record the new one—just like a real music industry pro. However, if you use speakers for this instead of headphones, you might encounter some feedback.

In this example, I added a track of hand claps to back up my vocal recording of "Happy Birthday." As you can see, the hand clap sounds are represented by sharp spikes in the wave form.

8. Add effects (optional)

If you'd like to have some more fun with audio editing, try adding some effects to your tracks. Using the Cursor tool, select a portion of one of your tracks, or the entire track. With the region selection, open the Effects menu and then choose one. Play the area back again by clicking the Play button (the space bar works too for play and pause). Don't like the way it sounds? Click CTRL+Z to undo.

In this example, I'm changing the pitch to the "Happy Birthday" vocal track so that it sounds like my voice is actually much higher.

(The Audacity Web site contains information on how to extend Audacity's capabilities further with additional effects plug-ins.)

9. Export your song

Once you're happy with your tracks, even if you only recorded a single one, it's time to export them all into a single song, so you can store it, post it online, or email it to someone (the last option is helpful if, like us, you recorded "Happy Birthday" and want to send it to someone).

Choose File > Export as MP3, and then fill out whichever fields you'd like. This song information will show up when people play the track on their computers or MP3 players. (If you'd like to change your MP3 export settings from the defaults, you can do so in Edit > Preferences > File Formats.)

10. Audacity tools

See those tools at the upper left of the Audacity window? They represent four different tools. We've already been using the Cursor tool, which is the default in Audacity. Here's what each of the tools do.

Envelope tool (advanced): Select this if you want to add dynamics (loud/soft variations) to a track. Click the top or bottom of the wave form window at the beginning and end of where you want a volume change, then drag the envelope up or down to have that area play back louder or softer.

Draw tool (advanced): While zoomed all the way in, you can use the Draw tool to reshape waveforms, literally drawing sound. It's as painstaking as it sounds.

Magnifying Glass tool: With this tool selected, you can zoom in on any wave form, all the way down to the level of a single sample. Hold down the Shift button and while clicking the wave form with the Magnifying Glass tool selected in order to zoom back out.

Time Shift tool: Choose this one if you want to slide any chunk of audio to the left (earlier) or the right (later).

Multi-tool Mode (expert): This lets you edit envelopes and select audio from left to right.

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