Michael West wrote:
Quality is pretty subjective, I don't care for more than voice recordings done with the standard run-of-the-mill PC microphone, like the ones that came with "voice" modems.On Sun, Sep 14, 2003 at 12:20:44AM -0600, Jacob Anawalt wrote:Michael West wrote:Since you said simple, here is the simple system I've used for recording from the line-out of my mini-disc player of recordings I've made or of other audio I want a digital copy for portability.I would like to record single track audio to my computer. I do not need to sync to video, I have little interest in editing. However, I wouldlike high quality recordings. What do I need from a software/hardware side torecord org-vorbis or wav files from a high quality microphone?Hook the line-out of the source device to the 1/8" line-in of your PC sound card. (Unless you have a better PC sound in option.) Use rec (from the sox package) specifying the data size, output file, format (WAV), and the sampling rate you want. Encode the WAV file to ogg-vorbis format.I noticed that sox (at least the version in Sid) has ogg support. Maybe you could record right to vorbis if you have a fast enough computer. It's worth giving a try, since the WAV files will be quite large.Recording a tape of Let Sleeping Vet's Lie (audiobook) to ogg to listen to from my computer instead of my tape deck later:rec -V -c 1 -s w -r 44100 lsvl-2.wav oggenc -b 8 lsvl-2.wavSox is quite flexible. The manual might be a bit of a read and disqualify itself on the 'simple to use' grounds, but it's a 'simple system' of command-line recording that I quite like.JacobP.s. Don't make the common mistake of recording by hooking to the mic jack on your sound card. Most consumer grade sound cards don't do a very good job of recording off of the mic, and even if they would people often give them the wrong type of input since they are made for a _microphone_ and not the output of say your headphone jack on your mp3 player. The best recordings will be line out to line in, and if needs be use an external mixer/equalizer's line out.Thanks, I was hoping to avoid an external mixer/equilizer since I would like to make this system portable. I should have mentioned this in my original post. Maybe I should just get a mini-disk forportability and do as you suggest for the rest.sox sounds perfect. I am glad there is a command line option to dothis.Is there a mic recording card available which could allow quality recording directly to my laptop?
If your high quality isn't approaching the realms of hi-fi, then you may be able to find some sutible PC mic to plug into the mic jack on your laptop. I wouldn't expect to get a good recording of a band performance using that setup, but I won't say that it is an impossible goal.
I wasn't trying to discourage the use of the mic jack, just trying to point out a common mistake of trying to use it from impedence mis-matched and/or powered sources, like plugging a cable from the headphone-out jack of a stereo to the mic in jack. Your sound circuits may withstand the abuse, but they aren't going to give you the best possible recording. If you want to give your mic jack and recording circuits a fighting chance, use a quality microphone designed for/impedance matched to your PC's microphone circuits, and run a few tests to find the optimal gain setting.
I do field recordings of bird songs or other animal noises and I sometimes will record a talk. I origionally got the MD, a Sony MZ-R700, with the intention of making these recordings. I was impressed with the quality of a 'compressed' recording and the amount of sound I could stick on a relativly small amount of media. The digital editing seemed like a good idea. Post-purchase I found some serious shortcommings. No 'digital out' of my recordings. Real-time transfers of a recording (come on, I've been able to copy tapes at 2x for years, and this is _my_ work, not 'piracy'). Real-time transfers _to_ the MD player. Non-linear editing on the MD is possible, but a bit cumbersome to work the little controls. The MD player will sometimes spin-up during the recording and if I don't have it burried in a backpack or coat my sensitive microphone (for the bird calls) would hear this. Other disk-storage based recording solutions should also be considered for how their disk mechanisms will affect the recording.
Since then I've gotten a T-Mobile PocketPC for other reasons and have decided that it does a fair job recording the bird calls. It will record to SD memory, so with a 128MB card I easily record all I want on an outing. With a few SD cards I could go even longer. The built-in microphone is sensitive enough for the recordings I make. Since I turn the speaker off, the device makes no noise as I record. Because the built-in mic is sufficient for my needs and the device makes no noise, I don't have to carry a mic on a long extension. I don't care about stereo, so recording mono gives me more minutes per megabyte. I record the bird songs at 44.1Khz 16 bit mono (86 KB/s or 5.03MB/m). The device has options to lower the sample rates/sample size and thus the bandwidth to 8KB/s PCM and 2KB/s GSM. Overall the operation of a quick recording happens much faster and I am happy to not constantly fuss over wires. I can transfer the recordings as WAV files from the PocketPC to my PC via USB.
I still use the MD player to hold a few cassetts of some of my favorite books on tape for trips, and to do recordings of conversations and meetings or when I read a book outloud so it can be listened to later, since it will record up to 320 minutes in LP-4 (stereo) mode on one disc. I also use it to record family musical performances because I generally prefer to have them in stereo (I have a stereo mic from radioshack that works well enough for me) and even if I recorded in mono, a 128MB recording on my PocketPC is only about 25 minutes. Still I grumble as I feed the recording to my computer in analog at real time.
To me the advantage of the MD recording or the PocketPC recording over the laptop is portability. The difference in size between those devices and a laptop may not matter for you.
Jacob