Topic: Audio MP3..tape etc

Trying to help out an old friend... and figure I'd start here. So now here he is...speaking for himself <BG>

"I'm trying to find a way to get voice and music recorded
in MP3 format. Currently I'm using a turntable, 2 CD units, a mike and a
tape unit all which are fed into a mixer board, then fed into a cassette
tape recorder.
I want to put it on a CD or even on an MP3 file.

I have lots of HD space and a burnable CD unit on the computer.

My problem is to find a computer based recording program which is simple
enough to use. I have Pro Edit, and Music Match however, these programs are designed for high end users who want to record original music with a kazillion features which I don't need.
I only want to feed a stereo line into a program, transfer to a wave file,
then to a MP3 file and either send via the net or burn on a CD and send in
the mail.

When I discuss this with other people they get all fired up and start trying
to tell me about how I can manipulate the input and take out pops and hiss
etc. I don't need that stuff, I just want a simple recording system to be
able to upload a two hour, canned program of a radio show."

He says 2 hours worth of stuff...which seems, to me at least, like an awful lot to cram onto a CD... he then talks about sending it via the net if he gets any takers... would that be an FTP situation... and my gawwd!! how long would that take even with a cable connection and how big a hard drive would be needed?

The 'voice' part seems relatively straight-forward. Mic into soundcard... could use Windows recorder.

Getting all the other *sources" turntable, cd's 'seems' to be a case of 'line out' from mixer...to "line in" on the sound card. Yes/No?? and I guess now that I think about it... the mic doesn't need to go directly into the soundcard if it's already going into the mixer.

My friend George is heavily into bluegrass music...knows more about it... its history has more of it etc..than any 10 nose pic...uhhh I mean *flat* pickers you care to name.

Anyway... he figures there's a market..and has had some interest from the cassette's he's sent out... but these days it's hard to find a radio station that still uses tape of any description.

Since this forum is Multi-media... thought I'd ask

Hope I haven't been tooooo confoooozzing.. but hey... this *is* the Asylum! <BG>

Thanx for what comes back

nj

Okay it looks like you are looking for the simplest method. So here's what I'd say

First I'd put everything through the mixer and from the mixer to the line in input.
I'm sure you know this but it's important to use the line in not the mic in since a line signal to a mic input will blow out the cards mic input preamp.


There are of course a lot of programs to do something like this. but I think you can just use the Windows Sound recorder component. (There might be a time limit on this though) I used to use Sound Forge for recording my own tunes but I have an Audio Engineering background.

I'm sure if you can't use the windows util there has to be a freeware wav recorder somewhere and if that doesn't work let me know and I should be able to get you a copy of forge. It's a little more than you need but it's good for recording.

Once you have recorded the Wav. Then MusicMatch Jukebox can easily convert the Wav file to MP3 and also burn CDs it's really good for this. The other prog, that I use for this a lot is Nero Burning Rom which is freeware.

MusicMAtch gives you the option of burning Mp3 (data) of CDA (CD Audio) for transportation of files You can fit a crapload more Mp3s than CDA files on a disk. But CDA will play in a CD Player.

Easiest way to transport the files at high quality is to encode to MP3 and zip them.

Audio is huge and takes up a lot of space, you are just going to have to deal with that so transporting over the internet is going to be a pain. unless you stream them and thats a whole nother story




Walking the Earth like Kane

Big thanx BitD.

I used to have Soundforge... will look around.

Bit confused with zipping the mp3's... am I correct in thinking these would be self extracting zips? Don't quite understand how if a radio station slipped it in a CD player to go on-air... how the zips work.

Again big thanx... back at it!

nj

BitD...

So just how much audio can one jam on an average CD?

thnx

nj

Most CD's are standard at 74 min. There are some 'newer' ones that can hold more but 74 min is the standard.

I think I understand your confusion. Music is commonly put onto a CD in one of 2 possible 'file types'. The first is called MP3. This is a standard file (think of it like jpg or gif or txt). It is a data format that the computer can read and decode as music. This is NOT like the CD's that you buy in the store.
Those CD's are burned with a 'file type' known as CD-A. This is still a regular computer file type (again, kinda like jpg or gif or txt). That CD player that you buy in the store, or that is in your car, or that the radio station has...that has a small computer inside of it. That computer (typically) ONLY knows how to read CD-A files. (Some newer ones can read MP3 and DVD files...but let's stick to the basics.) When you put a CD in your CD player, the CD player looks at the data and, if it is in a CD-A file format, decodes it into music. If it is MP3 format...it doesn't do anything.

mobrul



[This message has been edited by mobrul (edited 07-13-2001).]

ah ha.... thank you mobrul.

The 'mystery is beginning to reveal itself!

back at it...

thnx

nj

LMAO

"That CD player that you buy in the store, or that is in your car, or that the radio station has...that has a small computer inside of it."

...and bees fly around from flower to flower and collect honey.


(sorry, im an asshole. but sometimes i cant resist. )

Well, soundforge is a great program, but since you said you have a recording prog already you should use that. Just learn enough about it to be able to record a simple stereo wav file. A two hour file should fit a 2 Gig wav file. Once you have that, there are several freeware or shareware wav->mp3 encoders on the net. Any of these should fit your purposes. However, mp3 is a lossy compression format, so if you can, keep it as a wav.

Most cd burning programs will allow you to record a standard cd (CD-A format) using a wav or mp3 file. However, as has already been said, a standard cd will only hold 74 minutes of music. You can fit a lot more if you burn it as an mp3, but again, most standard cd players won't read mp3.

Also, hopefully whatever prog you have will allow you to edit wav files. That way, you can either record each cd track as a separate wav, or record a single wav and split it up using the prog into different tracks.

I've been recording using a computer for a long time, and I can definitely recommend sound forge if you're going to be doing this for a while. However, you should be able to use whatever tools you have available.

Let me know if you need more help, or if you didn't understand what I was trying to say (most of the time, I don't understand myself ).

Grumble, it's okay. The first step is admitting it.

MIDI to WAV?
or
MIDI to MP3?
Haven't been able to do this yet...any help, silence?

mobrul

An update...

Things are coming along pretty well. All the analog is getting into the computer via mixer...
My friend is using cool-edit pro... another friend is showing him how to use it.... 'cooledit' apparently does what he needs... so I guess he's off to the races.

Huge thanx ppl.

I have a soundcard question of my own... but not today... not enough time.

nj