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I asked Fiddlerman for this forum section because we do the group projects and a some folks here post progress recordings. People who haven;'t recorded before often have questions, and while they usually get answered, it can be hard to find those topics using the search engine for this forum.
To start recording their violin, all a person absolutely needs is some sort of microphone or pickup to turn the sound into an electrical signal and some kind of recording device to store a copy of that signal. Since anyone reading this obviously has a computer, and most computers have some sort of soundcard in them somewhere, all that most people need to start at "bare bones" level recording is some recording software.
I usually use Audacity. There are versions for Windows, Mac and Linux, and it is free. It also can do quite a lot.
Most folks probably have some sort of mic, either built into the computer or monitor, or maybe in their webcam or as a headset they use for something like Skype. If anybody didn't have something like that though, there's a couple of quick "rough and ready" options posted
https://fiddlerman.com/forum/r.....or-violin/
https://fiddlerman.com/forum/r.....2-or-less/
So you probably already have what you'd need to start, or it can be gotten pretty quick without breaking into the piggybank too much.
There are other folks here that I know for a fact have experience with recording, so I don't plan on being the only one posting in this section, of course. But I felt it would be good to dive in and get the ball rolling.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
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I use M-audio interface with mixcraft 6. I like the sound i get...
well minus my playing ha ha ha ha haha 
~Grofica
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Cool! I've heard the M-audio interface is a good USB method.
My setup for recording is a bit more "old school"/analog. I use an old modified SBlive card in the computer, and feed the line-input of that with the out from a small stereo mixing panel (Behringer UB802). For acoustic instruments, I use a Marshall MXL990, which is one of the less expensive studio condenser mics. Sometimes I'll record electric with just a patch from the line-output of the guitar amp into the board, but most often I'll use the mic for that as well, to get the sound of the speaker cabinet.
I haven't worked much yet myself to fine tune the setup to get the best sound, because my playing so far isn't good enough yet in my opinion to spend time on trying to get a "great take" LOL
Audio takes of my electric for here, I didn't even use the amp, just jacked the violin directly into the board. The few recordings of samples of my acoustic violin were kept to a very minimal mic-mixer-soundcard line, since I was getting thoughts on the tone of the instrument itself, not how much I could "fix" it with fx and sound treatments.
I know I can get sounds I like out of my setup.. But so far my playing is the barrier to getting a "take" I'd actually like. LOL So yeah, ditto on the "minus my playing", Grofica.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
Great topic, Daniel.... thank's for getting it added. I never knew where to post a video before, there are two categorie's Share and Share a Video, never really knew which one to use.
Process made simple now. 
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Daniel, are you a Linux user? I am since '93.
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Yes, mostly Linux Ubuntu. I didn't keep track of the actual year I switched over, but it was several years ago. I got sick of viruses and paying more for reduced functionality for the things I wanted to do with every new Windows release.
I keep an old machine in good repair that has no capability to connect with the internet that runs WinXP in my digital studio, because hey.. I paid good money back in the day for Cakewalk, Audition, Fruityloops, Jammer, and etc.
But for acoustic recording I use my main machine and Ubuntu with Audacity. Not as pretty looking sometimes, but it works reliably and one can get good recordings, do some multitracking, whatever.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
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Daniel, I've used Red Hat/Fedora, Suse, and Ubuntu, each for some years, and Unix going back to '87. I switched from ubuntu to opensuse about a year ago, and I like it fine. I use MuseScore for writing and playing scores. I always prefer cross-platform apps. Thanks for pointing out Audacity. Also thanks for the idea of starting this recording forum. At some point I think I will be rigging a fiddle with a pickup or a condenser mic as you showed.
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Pretty much any computer, a copy of Audacity, and any sort of a mic or pickup and one can at least start recording. There will always be many ways one can improve on the bare minimum, but improvement is what you do *after* you start doing something, to my way of thinking.
Even very basic and primitive gear *can* get some usable sounds, and that can be enough to start with.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
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