[joe-frank-list] recording techniques/legal issues, etc

Justin Kempton justin at kempton.com
Fri Jun 24 20:47:09 PDT 2005


Radio-ready audio.

As an experiment a few years back I did exactly this (minus the radio 
publication). Ebay has good deals on recording equipment. I settled on a 
DAT ($400) from Sony, and a stereo condenser mic also from Sony ($100). 
You could just as easily use a Mini-disc recorder, and in fact, I 
recommend trying these instead. Mini discs are cheaper, and the media is 
also more flexible.

Transferring the audio to the computer has been and continues to be a 
major problem. Oh, by the way, digital recording is the way to go on all 
of this. Editing is a breeze once you get the files into a computer, 
which brings me to the problem. Because of some major lawsuit so many 
years ago, Mini-disc recorders lack the technology to transfer files 
recorded over the mic to the computer directly as files. Instead, the 
audio must be transfered using optical wires, and this process happens 
in real-time. When dealing with hours and hours of recordings, this 
becomes a real hassle. Hope remains.

There are several hard-disk based recording devices coming to the 
market, including one by Archos.
http://www.archos.com/products/catalog.html
I have not been able to hear the quality of the recording, but was told 
it is excellent. Someone should look into this product though, because 
it has the most open ended format, being direct to Hard disk recording, 
and USB connections. One drawback is that Archos drive (die) when 
plugged into Macs. My friend has one, and for some reason the Mac killed 
it once it plugged in. Apple is aligning itself with the whole copyright 
protected music industry, beware! Their new computers are planned for PC 
chips, precisely for the copyright meta data. I use PC's, they are 
great. Apples are known for the their Top-End audio recording though, so 
consider them. PC's still, rule in the cheap, open-source friendly 
bottom end of music creation, for that reason, I love them.

Once the audio has been digitized, and resides on your computer, you 
need a multi-track audio editing program to do something Frank Esq. 
There are two programs I recommend. Acid 4.0, and CoolEdit2.0 or later. 
CoolEdit recently was purchased by Adobe. It's original program is 
brilliant, the new version by Adobe has nothing new about it besides the 
logos. Acid is owned by SonicFoundry, and has many different versions of 
Acid. Acid is cool for making layers of beats, (perfect for background 
theme creation).Both of these are great, and I lean toward CoolEdit for 
ease, and Acid for effects. Both can give you realtime effects 
processing, including reverb, and distortion.

Acidized music is huge. There is tons of music/beats/and theme sounds 
and transitions out there free to use for background themes so long as 
you buy the ACID disc. Go to GuitarCenter or SamAsh for these discs. 
They cost around $40, and are worth owning.

The music. Music is not free. I suggest making your own, or teaming up 
with some musician wanting to get their stuff out (like me). If you need 
some background themes, all I need is a credit, and possibility of $ 
when you make a million dollars :)

I hope this is helpful.

p.s. You can see what I did with all of the above here :
http://www.writersmugs.com/paranoia/index.php


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