I'm trying to record a youtube performance on my answering machine. There is so much static/background noise created when I do this that it sounds terrible. All I have is a Dell Inspiron laptop with its own speakers and a rather old answering machine, so there may be no way to do this so it sounds good(only my speaking voice seems to record OK).

But if anyone knows some simple tricks that might make it possible to make a decent recording, I'd greatly appreciate hearing about it.

Are you trying to record yourself or simply record something that's on YT? If the latter, there is software for "grabbing" YT vids.

For Windows/PC users: Youtube Grabber

For Mac OS X: YouTube Video Grabber 2.0 Requires OS 10.4 or later. Converts files to .mov format.

[edit] If you use Safari as your browser, you can download the .flv files directly via the Activity window.

another trick for downloading from youtube is to type the letters "pwn" immediately before the "youtube" in the URL

so for example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mia9woisQZo

becomes

http://www.pwnyoutube.com/watch?v=Mia9woisQZo

at which point you get a page offering MP4 and FLV versions of the video

which must annoy youtube but suits your purposes

That's pretty cool.