Tasks 1, 2, and 3, are identical outside the computer.
Task 4 merely adds the use of your CD burner application into the Modus Operandi as a final step.
Free Software (not " Freeware")
Free software is NOT poor quality software that nobody will buy;
It is often far better quality than commercial software, and because its "source" is "open" - the actual software instructions can be read by anybody who knows how - if there are usage problems, they can be fixed easily and fast by anyone with the expertise. And there are usually many around the world who are happy to help you out.
If you are running it under MS Windows, then it means any propensity for its being hijacked by a virus or other malware is likely to be fixed before you even know there was one!
This is not the case for closed-source software like Microsoft and their MS Windows operating system, where "bug fixes" can take months, and sometimes never get fixed, because they want to release the next paid version to bring more income in.
While you may be asked to pay a small contribution towards open source software's development, frequently you pay absolutely nothing (apart from the download costs between you and your service provider as "bandwidth") for it.
Before I start the page, I would like you to know a bit about...
so that you don't think "open source" is all pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking on my part, because most people think that software developers are all hard-nosed businessmen. In actual fact there are many who are more interested in helping the community make choices, rather than being faced with "The Only Game in Town".
Now, to the subject at hand...
What you will need in order to perform these tasks
A custom cable to connect your computer with the sound source, whether it is a hi-fi system, a cassette deck, or whatever, and,
An editor software application (program) on the computer, to convert the incoming audio (non-digital sound) signal from being an analogue sound source to a digital signal able to be recorded, edited (and enhanced) digitally, and,
Enough understanding (rather than knowledge) to prevent you from being dangerous! But not enough for you to be a "guru" :)
You will also need to understand a little about the techniques of old-fashioned audio tape recording as well. This specifically means appreciating that you will permanently ruin a recording by recording at too high or too low a sound level.
If the incoming levels are too low,
the hiss from the tape cannot be removed from the digitised signal without a large financial investment in software, which will only go so far in fixing it, a "band-aid" solution.
If they are too high,
it means that the signal peaks are flattened, or even clipped, and distortion will be noticeable, and no software exists to restore what was lost, because the loss occurred BEFORE it became a digital signal that could be manipulated, or DURING the digitising process.
Absolutely nothing in the way of technical tricks can fix such problems. The only solution is to continually monitor the signal visually - and if possible to monitor audibly using headphones or speakers also.
Remember, if there was no need to monitor levels, nobody would have needed to develop volume meters :)
Importantly, the realisation that "set and forget" of sound levels just doesn't work -
unfortunately many trainee sound operators have not learned that, and solely by sheer luck have survived into being regarded as fully-fledged sound operators.
You will always need to sit and nurse the baby, concentrating totally on what you are doing, to a greater or lesser extent, and certainly not expecting to do something else as well. Sound recording should never be a multi-tasking operation by the human performing the task.
Once you are familiar with the specific equipment you are using, and the results it produces, it can become a lot easier for you from then on
Identifying where to plug things in on your computer
Here we can see the back-plates of four different computers, ranging from 5 years old up to about two years old. The backplates cover a series of plugs (correctly named "ports" in a computer, or "sockets" in general electronics), and they are fitted directly to a vertical printed circuit board to the left (in this view) of the backplates. This circuit board is called a "mother board" because other boards plug in to it, originally called "daughter" boards.
In the illustration below I have created a single image from digital photos taken from the rear of four "tower" personal computers. If yours is a "desktop" computer, simply rotate the picture anti-clockwise through 90o.
There is a variation in the number of plugs and where they are located. Don't let that fool you :)
What we are interested in are the audio, or sound, plugs, called jacks. Actually they are miniature jacks. The word "jack" carries over from telephony in the 1950s, and in particular from manual telephone exchange "switch" boards where operators completed conversation connections by plugging two 6.5mm (1/4-inch) plugs into two jacks on a panel of hundreds of jacks in front of them.
Computer sound jacks are round, 3.5 milimetres in diameter (3/16ths of an inch) and generally (but not always) colour-coded for function. The three on the left are older boards, while the one on the right follows the more recent standard of a horizontal row across the narrow dimension of the backplate.
The main "sound card" connections are made via these three plugs, all located at the rear of the computer.
In more recent computers, these plugs are sometimes duplicated at the front of the computer. Note the word "duplicates", and while likely to work most of the time, to do the job properly one should use the rear ones wherever possible, because front jacks have been known to fail, leaving the rear ones still working.
While other colours have been used, printed on to back plates, the colours more recently standardised boards use are:
red - microphone input, mono, equally both left and right channels
green - high level - stereo output
blue - high level - stereo input
Most backplates have stamped into them natty little symbols for microphone, input and output, although good light is often needed to see which is which :)
What about laptops?
Well, that's a good question. Here is a typical laptop front, which is where the sound jacks frequently are, although they have been known to be on the left or the right side too. There is no standardisation with laptops - as is the case also for network, monitor, TV out, USB, mouse and keyboard ports also. However this one below (an Acer) shows there is colour coding of the three jacks, even if the symbols of what they do are hard to see.
Cable to connect sound equipment to a computer
The cable that needs to be used is a special one, occasionally found "off-the-shelf" at electronics stores, but seldom at the supermarket type of department store like K-Mart, Big-W and so on.
It is a stereo audio cable, with a 3.5mm stereo mini-jack plug at one end, and a pair of RCA type audio connectors the other. Because it is essentially two seperate audio cables, they are often moulded or extruded in that way. As it has a limited application, one seldom finds them at discount outlets. This tends to make them a bit more expensive. I have bought them at Radio Shack (Tandy) and Dick Smith.
So if you use two readily available off-the-shelf cables, you may well end up with paying a lower price overall; below is a photo showing one way you can accomplish this.
My recommended software is Audacity
It may not be as pretty to look at as CueBase, or something like e-soft.co.uk offers at a very reasonable price, but it does the job as well, if not better, in my opinion. I have used both Audacity and e-soft products (but not CueBase), for about the same length of time, and my choice is to use Audacity - one of the main reasons is that it is available to download at any time without needing to find a registration number if it needs to be downloaded again because it got broken.
Here is a "How To" on using Audacity for this specific task viewed from the perspective of a Microsoft Windows user. Although I normally use the Linux version (or "port" as it is called), all the screen captures I have taken are in Windows2000 so that Windows users will feel at home. I have used the Windows version and can vouch for its behaviour being identical.
For those familiar with PortableApps for Windows, Audacity is available in a custom version that you can load on to your USB Pendrive or even a memory card, if you would rather not install Audacity to the PC which you use.
The interface, apart from the border colour etc, is the same as in WindowsXP and Windows Vista, and also in many varieties of Linux, BSD-Unix and Sun-Solaris. The program itself is no different in its looks, nor in the way it works. Just in what is referred to as "eye candy".
last updated 20th May 2009