Moo0 VoiceRecorder

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET staff on August 20, 2012

Moo0 VoiceRecorder is a supersimple sound-recording app for Windows. With a few clicks, you can start recording your voice and other sounds via microphone. But VoiceRecorder also records system audio, including Web audio, Skype, Internet radio, and line-level audio via external inputs. It supports just two formats, but they're the most common types, WAV and MP3, and it offers Cut Silence and Over-Write options. You'll need a microphone to record voice audio, obviously.

VoiceRecorder's semitransparent interface can be customized from the Setting menu, which is where this simple program hides all the bells and whistles, such as an MP3 Recording Quality submenu; skin, language, and transparency options; File Naming/Renaming Rules; Hotkeys; and Cut Silence settings, including volume threshold and silence duration. The interface may be small, but it manages to include controls for Keep on Top, Boost, Volume, and other functions at the ready. A drop-down list offers three recording modes: Only Voice, which records microphone input; Only PC Sound, which records various system audio sources; and Voice and PC Sound, which records both. The Boost control menu boosts or reduces the input by 10 percent steps. When everything's set up properly, VoiceRecorder shows a message proclaiming it Ready for Recording. Everything was fine until we pressed Start Recording, at which point VoiceRecorder produced an extensive and confusing message blaming an unspecified Microsoft decision for the inability to automate a long list of procedures, including some in Asian characters. But it more or less told us how to enable a microphone and sound options. The Windows Sound properties opened, too, confirming that our microphone was installed, activated, and selected as our default sound source.

Nevertheless, Moo0 VoiceRecorder easily recorded good-quality audio sourced by our microphone, and played it back with a counter and volume slider. It also displays a small but useful audiospectral graph. We enabled the optional Max Duration panel on the interface, too. All you have to do is enter a recording duration in minutes and press Set. VoiceRecorder will automatically stop recording when time's up. This extra feature is useful for practicing speaking in public and creating announcements.