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Post by BrettVW on May 19, 2011 10:15:08 GMT -5
I just downloaded Audacity to record the next two weeks of AT40 since I will not be around on Sunday nights. I tried to test record, and keep getting an error message that starts with "Error while opening sound device." Does anyone else use Audacity, and know what could be causing this error? Thanks!
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Post by at40oregon on May 19, 2011 10:35:38 GMT -5
I've been using it since last year, and once I had it set up properly - both installed and with all the settings properly set - it worked beautifully. It's an easy to use tool to get streaming recording done. But it took a while to get there; it's not very intuitive. I got a similar error early on in the setup process, and then had more difficulties in which it either still wouldn't "hear" the stream, or would give me a really bad recording of it. Look through the menus and you'll see there are quite a few setup options, a number of them quite technical and some relating to your specific system and sound card. My best suggestion: what I did, which was to start Googling "audacity" plus specifics of your system but any error message or problem type you encounter. It's frustrating that they didn't set it up in a more intuitive way, but it really is a good tool once the settings (for your computer) are right.
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Post by shadster on May 19, 2011 13:07:54 GMT -5
if you have another laptop you can use a mini to mini cable, headphone out on the 1st laptop an mini audio input on the audacity laptop. i was ablle to get it to record from the audio input without any setup. but i dont use it or anything to record. if i record a stream, which is rare, i record to my portable media player
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Post by matt on May 19, 2011 13:31:59 GMT -5
I use Audacity on my Windows 7 laptop with an Intel iCore processor and on my Windows Vista desktop with an AMD dual-core. I don't recall having this particular problem, but it has taken me sometime to learn all the things it can do, how to troubleshoot, etc. Maybe check to make sure the right outputs and inputs are selected? (I made that mistake early on)
As far as recording from a stream, this can actually be done all with one machine. You can take the mini-to-mini cable and loop from the headphone/speaker output to the line in/microphone input. The trick there is you have to go into the Windows audio settings under recording devices and properties for whichever input you are using, and turn off/uncheck the box that says "Listen to this device". If you don't do this, your recording will sound like a garbled mess of echos. I would also recommend checking the box that says "Disable all sounds effects" under the Enhancements tab, and turning off all Windows sounds, otherwise during playback you will hear any Windows sounds that occurred while recording. The other negative is that you can't listen while you record, so you have to wait until the recording is done to find out if everything came out okay--however, once you start recording this way you can kind of tell what's going on by watching the blue EKG-like graphic sound wave--at least you can tell if your stream dies, if you are getting dropouts, etc. I haven't had too much trouble with not being able to listen during recording, because I often can't sit and listen anyway and end up listen to the shows in my car or at work.
I like to use one computer per recording so you can have a multiple recordings going at once with minimal gear. I don't know if it's possible to loop the stream internally without a cable, but I am skeptical about that.
Another cool feature of Audacity is the timer--you can set the recording timer to start and end at a certain time (just like a VCR). Makes it nice for shows that start at 5 a.m. or earlier, or end at 2 a.m., etc.
Audacity is a really good freeware program IMO--still surprised that it can do so much for free!
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Post by Mike on Jun 20, 2011 21:42:17 GMT -5
Got a question. The volume is VERY low on my 2-27-88 recording, even with Windows Media and my laptop both independently set to their maximums. How do I raise the volume - do I have to import it back into Audacity, raise the volume of the file, then re-export it with the new setting? Or can't I do that?
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Post by matt on Jun 21, 2011 11:58:19 GMT -5
CRZ108 - You certainly can import the audio file and use the Amplify function to boost the audio (you may need to play around with the dB setting to get the desired volume boost, but I believe that 3-dB roughly doubles the volume, 6-db is x4, 10-dB is x10, etc.). I am not sure if you will encounter distortion, but if your initial recording is clean, it should be able to boost without much distortion since it is a digital file (I think). Worth giving it a try.
I encountered something like this on a laptop that I tried to use. I have a Toshiba laptop, and so does my wife. However in recording the exact same way on each one, mine seems to record fine, but I can't seem to get hers to record with much volume. Haven't dug very deep to figure it out, but it seems strange that there's that much difference.
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Post by Mike on Jun 21, 2011 14:36:57 GMT -5
I think the volume setting was just low when I exported it originally; my 2-27-88 is the only one with such a low volume.
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Post by bestmusicexpert on Jun 21, 2011 14:37:39 GMT -5
I use Total Recorded and the shows sound fine. Never used Audacity though.
Total Recorder has a timer for length of recording and a scheduler as well!
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Post by kahunaburger61 on Jun 22, 2011 1:26:53 GMT -5
Downloaded. If you have Windows 7 or Windows Vista you can't down load Audacity 1.2.6 , you can only download Audacity Beta 1.3 .
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Post by Mike on Jul 19, 2011 12:50:50 GMT -5
I have a question for those who might know - what's the file quality comparison between MP3 format and WAV format? I'm not necessarily asking about sound quality, but rather...will either format degrade faster than the other, if at all? Reason I ask is that I'd completely overlooked exporting into MP3 format up until now. Some of you know already that I had file size issues with the shows I have; all of them are in WAV format, thus the huge file sizes. What I'm essentially asking is, is there any major reason to go with the larger-size WAV format over MP3s? Because if there isn't, then I'm going to convert all my shows to MP3 immediately. (P.S. A BIG thank-you, again, to those who responded in regards to last weekend's 7-16-88 show. )
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Post by matt on Jul 19, 2011 15:08:01 GMT -5
I have a question for those who might know - what's the file quality comparison between MP3 format and WAV format? I'm not necessarily asking about sound quality, but rather...will either format degrade faster than the other, if at all? Reason I ask is that I'd completely overlooked exporting into MP3 format up until now. Some of you know already that I had file size issues with the shows I have; all of them are in WAV format, thus the huge file sizes. What I'm essentially asking is, is there any major reason to go with the larger-size WAV format over MP3s? Because if there isn't, then I'm going to convert all my shows to MP3 immediately. (P.S. A BIG thank-you, again, to those who responded in regards to last weekend's 7-16-88 show. ) CRZ--I would definitely convert your shows to mp3. WAV files are the original Microsoft format for audio files, and are basically raw uncompressed audio, while mp3 is capable of compressing the audio files without sacrificing audio quality, depending on the bit rate (I export mine at 192kbps, though you could probably go down to 160kbps). Yes--you will run out of disk space in a hurry if you leave the shows in WAV format. However, when I record a show, I keep the uncut files as WAV files for editing to avoid any sampling losses from resaving multiple times (this is probably overly anal and won't make much if any noticeable difference however, unless you re-save/re-export the same mp3 file several times). Once I have listened to the playback of a show and am happy with how it is cut and assume it will need no further edits, I will discard all WAV versions of it. Another thing to possibly try is AAC format (uses file extension of .m4a or .m4b). This is the format that Apple is using for all their songs on I-Tunes, and actually uses a more efficient compression algorithm than mp3, so files can be compressed down even further with the same audio quality. I have considered converting to AAC, but since just about everything these days accepts mp3's, there's less of a chance of compatibility issues.
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Post by Mike on Jul 19, 2011 17:25:17 GMT -5
CRZ--I would definitely convert your shows to mp3. WAV files are the original Microsoft format for audio files, and are basically raw uncompressed audio, while mp3 is capable of compressing the audio files without sacrificing audio quality, depending on the bit rate (I export mine at 192kbps, though you could probably go down to 160kbps). I'm not sure if Audacity allows me to convert in 192kbps, though I'll check.
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Post by matt on Jul 19, 2011 17:33:02 GMT -5
CRZ--I would definitely convert your shows to mp3. WAV files are the original Microsoft format for audio files, and are basically raw uncompressed audio, while mp3 is capable of compressing the audio files without sacrificing audio quality, depending on the bit rate (I export mine at 192kbps, though you could probably go down to 160kbps). I'm not sure if Audacity allows me to convert in 192kbps, though I'll check. It should--but there's a plug-in that you have to download from the Audacity web site to enable the conversion to mp3. 192k is one of the choices of bit rates.
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Post by Mike on Jul 19, 2011 17:46:24 GMT -5
It should--but there's a plug-in that you have to download from the Audacity web site to enable the conversion to mp3. 192k is one of the choices of bit rates. OK, I found it - once I select Export, I click Options at the dialog box that asks me to save the file. It gives me the choice to go as high as 320! Does higher bit rates increase the file size? I ran into needing the plug-in yesterday, so I downloaded it earlier today.
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Post by matt on Jul 19, 2011 22:44:05 GMT -5
It should--but there's a plug-in that you have to download from the Audacity web site to enable the conversion to mp3. 192k is one of the choices of bit rates. OK, I found it - once I select Export, I click Options at the dialog box that asks me to save the file. It gives me the choice to go as high as 320! Does higher bit rates increase the file size? I ran into needing the plug-in yesterday, so I downloaded it earlier today. Yes--the file size will increase proportionally with the bit rate (i.e. a file at 320kbps will be twice as large as a file at 160kbps). What you will probably want to do is to go with as low of a bit rate as possible without any noticeable loss in audio quality. I started saving/exporting the shows at 256k, but went down to 192k when I realized there was no difference in quality. I have a buddy who records at 160k and his shows sound great too.
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