Re: [solved] Re: Live recording

[Rodolfo Medina <rodolfo.medina@gmail.com>]

Jeremy Nicoll <jn.ml.dbn.25@letterboxes.org> writes:

> On Thu, 17 Aug 2017, at 01:37, Rodolfo Medina wrote:
>
>> Thanks...  But for my present needs, it seems that sox and audacity are
>> sufficient: with sox I record tracks from multiple audio cards into
>> different files; then with Audacity I merge those tracks into one final
>> file, and have the possibility of adjusting at pleasure the balancing
>> between left and right channel for each track and also adjust the relative
>> volumes.  In my litte basic experiments, I don't note any minimum effect due
>> to time drifting or so, about which I read...
>
> You do realise that merging files, adjusting balance etc are all possible
> with sox?
>
> One reason I do that sort of thing with sox is that by keeping note of the
> commands I used to do each stage, I automatically document how I manipulated
> a set of audio files.  Documenting anything done via a GUI as in Audacity is
> a great deal more difficult.
>
> It's worth documenting what you do so that if necessary you can exactly 
> repeat the process at a later date.


Thanks...  In fact, what you suggest is exactly what I wanted to do but didn't
manage to...  In fact, suppose I have two files: piano.wav and voice.wav,
created by sox in recording piano and voice respectively, simultaneously.
piano.wav is a stereo file, with the two channels, left and right, inside it;
whereas voice.wav is a monophonic file.  When I put them together to create the
final, say, result.wav, I must properly allign them.  Now, Audacity makes this
job easy thanks to the graphical possibility of seeing the waving forms and
magnifying them.  Instead, with sox, I tried to use the `delay' option with no
success.  Maybe can you suggest a better and proper way to do that...?

One more thing: I remember, Jeremy, your suggestion of purchasing a
multi-channel audio interface, to be preferred to a mixer, and will do in
future.  But do you think that the solution I'm adopting for now: different
files on different single-channel audio cards and then merging them - dou you
think this is a good solution as well...?  What difference between this cheap
one and more or less expensive multi channel interface...?

Thanks,

Rodolfo