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CD Production


Rod

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My understanding of electronics is negligible...I don't speak the language.

 

If I wish to record my Anglo direct onto CD through my laptop computer I guess I shall need a microphone, and possibly special software ? And of course a blank CD. Has anyone any specific advice or recommendations ?

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My understanding of electronics is negligible...I don't speak the language.

 

If I wish to record my Anglo direct onto CD through my laptop computer I guess I shall need a microphone, and possibly special software ? And of course a blank CD. Has anyone any specific advice or recommendations ?

The free Audacity software is very user friendly and quite handy for quick and easy audio editing. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

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My understanding of electronics is negligible...I don't speak the language.

 

If I wish to record my Anglo direct onto CD through my laptop computer I guess I shall need a microphone, and possibly special software ? And of course a blank CD. Has anyone any specific advice or recommendations ?

 

As far as hardware is concerned, you could probably get away with the built in micro on your laptop, but more than likely the recording quality will be poor. The minimum I think is necessary to get decent sound quality is a condenser mike and (as the microphone needs power supply, so-called phantom power), an external sound card that you plug into your USB port. Of course this is an invitation to protest; some may have achieved good results using a dynamic mike (which can be plugged directly into your internal sound card if the laptop has one) or even the built in mike... I guess it all depends on what you consider acceptable recording quality. Needless to say there is no ceiling as far as the money you can spend on recording hardware is concerned.

 

My setup is this: An Alesis i|o2 external sound card (it even came with a software license for Cubase for free which is the commercial counterpart of Audacity), an AKG condenser large membrane mike, a cable and a mike stand. All of it together was I believe in the ~ 280 EUR range. I consider the recording quality very decent. Next step in improving would be to seal the walls against outside noise.

 

Something else you need to consider is that your computer will generate noise while operating which will feed back through any microphone in its vicinity (eg fan or hard drive), so you may also have to worry about silencing your setup (which in the simplest case may encompass extending the microphone cable so that you can move the computer to an adjacent room; again, silencing computers is a bottomless niche occupation as well but when purchasing a desktop computer you can specifically shop for silent machines).

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Rod - my solution, if you seriously want to start recording yourself, would be to purchase or borrow a Zoom H2 Handy Recorder or equivalent.

 

Zoom H2

 

The machine has two mics - one in the front and one at the back. It comes with a screw-in table foot and a screw-in handle for mic stand use. It can also be screwed on to a standard camera tripod. The front mic records at an angle of 90 deg - and the back one at 120 deg. The back mic is therefore good for picking up both sides of the concertina. The audio is recorded on to an SD card, and the machine can be connected to a PC/Mac with a USB cable. When connected, the SD card appears as an icon on the desktop and can be copied from the Zoom to the computer very quickly.

 

Once the audio is on the computer, you can use free software such as Audacity to edit it (as a ".wav" file). Once edited, a collection of .wav files can be burnt to a CD.

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Rod - my solution, if you seriously want to start recording yourself, would be to purchase or borrow a Zoom H2 Handy Recorder or equivalent.

 

Zoom H2

 

The machine has two mics - one in the front and one at the back. It comes with a screw-in table foot and a screw-in handle for mic stand use. It can also be screwed on to a standard camera tripod. The front mic records at an angle of 90 deg - and the back one at 120 deg. The back mic is therefore good for picking up both sides of the concertina. The audio is recorded on to an SD card, and the machine can be connected to a PC/Mac with a USB cable. When connected, the SD card appears as an icon on the desktop and can be copied from the Zoom to the computer very quickly.

 

Once the audio is on the computer, you can use free software such as Audacity to edit it (as a ".wav" file). Once edited, a collection of .wav files can be burnt to a CD.

 

yes, you are absolutely right, Will. Didn't even consider it because Rod was asking for an in-PC solution... For a standalone recorder, the Zoom is a classic. An alternative appears to be the tascam DR-07MKII.

 

The one scenario where you may prefer using a PC over a portable recorder is if you wish to record several tracks over one another (eg accompany yourself with a guitar). I believe that's not easy to do with a standalone recorder (except you use a more sophisticated one like the Boss BR micro, but that one's a little awkward to use). But apparently Rod is asking for a single track recording device for which your suggestion is perfect.

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Rod - my solution, if you seriously want to start recording yourself, would be to purchase or borrow a Zoom H2 Handy Recorder or equivalent.

 

Zoom H2

 

The machine has two mics - one in the front and one at the back. It comes with a screw-in table foot and a screw-in handle for mic stand use. It can also be screwed on to a standard camera tripod. The front mic records at an angle of 90 deg - and the back one at 120 deg. The back mic is therefore good for picking up both sides of the concertina. The audio is recorded on to an SD card, and the machine can be connected to a PC/Mac with a USB cable. When connected, the SD card appears as an icon on the desktop and can be copied from the Zoom to the computer very quickly.

 

Once the audio is on the computer, you can use free software such as Audacity to edit it (as a ".wav" file). Once edited, a collection of .wav files can be burnt to a CD.

 

yes, you are absolutely right, Will. Didn't even consider it because Rod was asking for an in-PC solution... For a standalone recorder, the Zoom is a classic. An alternative appears to be the tascam DR-07MKII.

 

The one scenario where you may prefer using a PC over a portable recorder is if you wish to record several tracks over one another (eg accompany yourself with a guitar). I believe that's not easy to do with a standalone recorder (except you use a more sophisticated one like the Boss BR micro, but that one's a little awkward to use). But apparently Rod is asking for a single track recording device for which your suggestion is perfect.

 

Jody, Ruediger and Will. Many thanks for your interest and valuable comments all of which I shall pursue further. My only experience to date is, long ago, playing into the microphone of a simple audio cassette tape recorder. On play-back I was agreeably surprised at the quality of sound which resulted from this very simple approach. That gives you an idea of my expectations ! Listening to what one is playing and then sitting back and listening to a recording of what one has played can of course be a very interesting, valuable, useful (and even sobering) experience ! In a perfect world it might even result in a bit of self-satisfaction.

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I'll go with the others and suggest you get a field recorder (not familiar with the Zoom but I'm sure it's good. I have an Olympus LS-10 and that's a cracking little gadget). Be warned, though. If the recording bug really bites then you can have a second interest that rivals concertinas for cost. You can easily spend hundreds on a single mic, and then you add in recording software, audio interface, preamps, control surface, oh yes a patch bay would be useful and you could really do with some room treatment and bass traps and ... well, you get the picture.

 

Chris

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I'll go with the others and suggest you get a field recorder (not familiar with the Zoom but I'm sure it's good. I have an Olympus LS-10 and that's a cracking little gadget). Be warned, though. If the recording bug really bites then you can have a second interest that rivals concertinas for cost. You can easily spend hundreds on a single mic, and then you add in recording software, audio interface, preamps, control surface, oh yes a patch bay would be useful and you could really do with some room treatment and bass traps and ... well, you get the picture.

 

Chris

 

Thanks Chris for your words of wisdom and caution. I'm unlikely to become involved in anything too complex or costly. In the days when I played around with tape casettes I had yet to acquire a computer. It makes sense for me to now think in terms of convential CDs, which I guess have probably all but consigned casettes to history, and, I suppose, also make a bit of editing a realistic possibility ?

 

Rod

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I'll go with the others and suggest you get a field recorder (not familiar with the Zoom but I'm sure it's good. I have an Olympus LS-10 and that's a cracking little gadget). Be warned, though. If the recording bug really bites then you can have a second interest that rivals concertinas for cost. You can easily spend hundreds on a single mic, and then you add in recording software, audio interface, preamps, control surface, oh yes a patch bay would be useful and you could really do with some room treatment and bass traps and ... well, you get the picture.

 

Chris

 

Thanks Chris for your words of wisdom and caution. I'm unlikely to become involved in anything too complex or costly. In the days when I played around with tape casettes I had yet to acquire a computer. It makes sense for me to now think in terms of convential CDs, which I guess have probably all but consigned casettes to history, and, I suppose, also make a bit of editing a realistic possibility ?

 

Rod

 

Rod,

 

I'm not sure if I understand you quite right, so apologies if I should be too far off...

 

CDs (as in compact disks) have consigned magnetic tapes to history (well, that holds true for 99,9% of magnetic tapes, but that's a different story), but they (CDs) are well on their way to be flushed down history as well... CDs (as well as their next generation, DVDs) are nothing but one of many storage mediums for digital data. There are also hard drives (used for examples by DJs who take the pop musical history from the 60s to today to one of their parties - all one one hard drives), flash memory devices such as mp3 players, USB sticks etc. pp. All of these can carry everything that can be represented digitally - music, videos, documents, computer programs - you name it.

 

Editing as in manipulating digital music (or for that matter digital videos, documents etc) is completly unrelated to the storage medium. Editing normally takes places on the computer these days, but there are also limited possibilities of editing (= post processing after recording) on the hardware devices mentioned by Will. Once editing is complete, you'll end up with one digital representation of the process (a file) that can be stored on either a CD, a USB stick, a hard drive, even a magnetic tape...

 

so editing and storing are really two very disjoint processes.

 

Again, apologies if I should have totally misread your post and only stated the obvious...

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yes, you are absolutely right, Will. Didn't even consider it because Rod was asking for an in-PC solution... For a standalone recorder, the Zoom is a classic. An alternative appears to be the tascam DR-07MKII.

 

 

I have the simpler tascam DR-07 and it's fine for reasonable quality recording.

 

One other thing to remember is that you can also use these devices to record directly onto your computer - i.e. use them as an external microphone (and pre-amp). This is probably better quality than using a simple microphone going through your computer's pre-amp (I've found), and a lot less hassle than setting up "proper" mics/external pre-amp etc. With my tascam, that involves plugging the line-out from the tascam into the line-in to my computer/audio card. I think I remember reading somewhere that the Zoom H2 works as an external USB microphone, which would (probably) be even better - not sure though.

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Rod - my solution, if you seriously want to start recording yourself, would be to purchase or borrow a Zoom H2 Handy Recorder or equivalent.

 

Zoom H2

 

The machine has two mics - one in the front and one at the back. It comes with a screw-in table foot and a screw-in handle for mic stand use. It can also be screwed on to a standard camera tripod. The front mic records at an angle of 90 deg - and the back one at 120 deg. The back mic is therefore good for picking up both sides of the concertina. The audio is recorded on to an SD card, and the machine can be connected to a PC/Mac with a USB cable. When connected, the SD card appears as an icon on the desktop and can be copied from the Zoom to the computer very quickly.

 

Once the audio is on the computer, you can use free software such as Audacity to edit it (as a ".wav" file). Once edited, a collection of .wav files can be burnt to a CD.

 

The H2 has 4 mics not 2. They are arranged in two pairs either at 90 deg or 120 deg or you can us all 4 at the same time, useful for recording at sessions if you place it the middle of the room.

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I'll go with the others and suggest you get a field recorder (not familiar with the Zoom but I'm sure it's good. I have an Olympus LS-10 and that's a cracking little gadget). Be warned, though. If the recording bug really bites then you can have a second interest that rivals concertinas for cost. You can easily spend hundreds on a single mic, and then you add in recording software, audio interface, preamps, control surface, oh yes a patch bay would be useful and you could really do with some room treatment and bass traps and ... well, you get the picture.

 

Chris

 

Thanks Chris for your words of wisdom and caution. I'm unlikely to become involved in anything too complex or costly. In the days when I played around with tape casettes I had yet to acquire a computer. It makes sense for me to now think in terms of convential CDs, which I guess have probably all but consigned casettes to history, and, I suppose, also make a bit of editing a realistic possibility ?

 

Rod

 

Rod,

 

I'm not sure if I understand you quite right, so apologies if I should be too far off...

 

CDs (as in compact disks) have consigned magnetic tapes to history (well, that holds true for 99,9% of magnetic tapes, but that's a different story), but they (CDs) are well on their way to be flushed down history as well... CDs (as well as their next generation, DVDs) are nothing but one of many storage mediums for digital data. There are also hard drives (used for examples by DJs who take the pop musical history from the 60s to today to one of their parties - all one one hard drives), flash memory devices such as mp3 players, USB sticks etc. pp. All of these can carry everything that can be represented digitally - music, videos, documents, computer programs - you name it.

 

Editing as in manipulating digital music (or for that matter digital videos, documents etc) is completly unrelated to the storage medium. Editing normally takes places on the computer these days, but there are also limited possibilities of editing (= post processing after recording) on the hardware devices mentioned by Will. Once editing is complete, you'll end up with one digital representation of the process (a file) that can be stored on either a CD, a USB stick, a hard drive, even a magnetic tape...

 

so editing and storing are really two very disjoint processes.

 

Again, apologies if I should have totally misread your post and only stated the obvious...

 

Ruediger......no need for apologies. Unfortunately none of this is obvious to me but I am now learning !

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