[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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