Sound help for compleat novice

[Dave Horsfall]

Is there a simple "how to" guide for getting sound to work with FreeBSD?
The handbook seems to concentrate on playing MP3 files and ripping CDs.

I suppose I'd better start from the beginning...

FreeBSD 4.10-BETA, Acer MX3-W Pro m/board.

dmesg | grep pcm:

pcm0: <Intel ICH (82801AA)> port 0xdc00-0xdc3f,0xd800-0xd8ff irq 9 at device 31.5 on pci0
pcm0: <Analog Devices AD1881 AC97 Codec>

cat /dev/sndstat:

FreeBSD Audio Driver (newpcm)
Installed devices:
pcm0: <Intel ICH (82801AA)> at io 0xd800, 0xdc00 irq 9 bufsz 16384 (1p/1r/0v channels duplex)

mixer:

Mixer vol      is currently set to  75:75
Mixer pcm      is currently set to  75:75
Mixer speaker  is currently set to  75:75
Mixer line     is currently set to  75:75
Mixer mic      is currently set to  75:75
Mixer cd       is currently set to  75:75
Mixer rec      is currently set to  75:75
Mixer line1    is currently set to  75:75
Mixer phin     is currently set to   0:0
Mixer phout    is currently set to   0:0
Mixer video    is currently set to  75:75

The sound works just fine when playing CDs or MP3 files, but how does one
record?  Not knowing any better, I plugged the audio source into the
mic input, and just did a "cat /dev/audio".

What I seemed to end up with was a raw .AU file, which few programs can
recognise (I tried SoX and Audacity).  If I copy it back to /dev/audio, I
hear the original, but I have a feeling that I'm missing something.

So, is there a "better" way?  I'd be looking to produce MP3 or WAV.

-- Dave