What do you need in terms of equipment to make audio recordings? Apart from suitable software (and you can find out all about that here) you need a PC (Windows or Mac) and a microphone.

If you have a microphone then simply plug it into your soundcard.  The diagram to the right shows a typical modern soundcard with a variety of sockets. The microphone socket is coloured pink.

Don't worry if your soundcard is not as complex as the one I've shown. You may only have 3 sockets on yours a pink one (microphone), a pale green one (headphones) and a light blue one (line input).  If your PC is older it may not have a sound card that is colour coded -but it will be clearly marked which socket is the microphone.

If you do not have a microphone handy, you may wish to buy a new headset with attached microphone, and use this instead of your sound system for listening to audio and music. You will find a headset especially useful if you use Skype to make free phone calls to other i-church members. 

A number of people have purchased a headset from amazon.com for around £20 for a good pair. You can also find headsets in PC World or other good computer shops. many are now labelled "Skype ready" or "Skype compatible" - these will be absolutely fine.

Now go and test your microphone. The best way to do this is to try and record a few seconds of your own voice and play it back to check for volume etc. If your recording is too quiet it might be that you need to change the volume of your speaker (or headphones) or it may be that you have set the recording level too low.  If you are using Hi-Q Recorder, you can experiment with sound levels by clicking on the options button.

In the centre top you can see the Input Source (set to Microphone) and a slider to the left. Move the slider up to increase the recording level. You can Preview the level by speaking into your mic, and watching the two black lines move up and down the slider scale. You want them to just get to the red band at your loudest level of talking.  You can set all the volume levels for all your audio devices by clicking on the "Play Volume" button.

Click OK when you have done this and try another test recording.  When you are happy with your recording levels (and I know your voice sounds funny to you, but that IS how you sound. honest!) you are ready to start recording. Good luck!