Podcast
Features
Comments
April 24th, 2001
Let’s use this space to further explore issues that are brought up in the Tools Column. I’ll answer what I can, and hopefully other folks in this community will be able to answer even more. Sadly, I won’t possibly have enough time to micro-manage individual computer quirks, or replace tech support for complicated hardware problems. But I’ll do what I can.
–jeff
OK, I’ll start. I’ll cover this in a future column, but until I get there, here’s a quick tip for using ProToolsFree.
Although this version of the program is limited to 8 audio tracks, adding a "master fader" or aux channel does NOT count against your track total. Under the file menu choose "new track" and when the dialog box opens, choose "create 1 new" and select "master fader" as the type of track.
You don’t need a master fader for your audio to route to a stereo output, but it makes it much easier to keep track of your final levels, balance, etc without parking your DAT in record the whole time. And perhaps more importantly, you can easily apply signal processing to the entire mix by using plug-ins on the master fader channel.
This way you don’t need to capture your mix, and then apply limiting or EQ to the bounced track for that final tweak, you can apply these processes to the master fader channel and save a step.
Aux channels work in much the same way, but you need to send audio to them from the audio channels. This is a crucial technique in music mixing, sending outputs from several channels to a single reverb or echo, for instance, and returning it to the mix. It’s a good way to save computer resources too, by only using one effect, rather than inserting plug-ins on several channels.
I’ll cover this in more detail in a future column, but in the meantime, if you’re not doing it now, try adding a master fader to your production, and let me know if it helps.
I find Master Faders to be a HUGE help. I’m still using 4.x on an old Nubus machine, but I assume it’s similar on ProTools Free.
I use the WAVES plugins and being able to put a touch of limiting to the master fader in the final mix (with the fabulously-named L-1 ULTRAMAXIMIZER) is a life saver.
It’s also useful to be able to change your overall program level. For instance, NPR likes a rather low overal level, whereas you can print much hotter to a CD. Using the Master Fader allows you to make these changes easily and still go out digitally.
Jeff,
I have several cassette tapes (the standard size, not the minicassettes) containing interviews that I’d like to digitize. I have downloaded Pro Tools Free – but I still don’t know what hardware I need to get the audio from an everyday tape recorder into the computer. Can you help?
P.S. I have a Mac Powerbook G3.
Bob
Hi Bob,
Most of the G3 powerbooks have analog audio inputs, although only line-level. That’s OK for your purposes, and in fact I would never recommend plugging a microphone straight into the back of a computer.
You can simply use a dual-RCA to stereo-mini cable, like one would use to connect a Discman to a home stereo, and plug the outputs of your cassette deck straight into the audio inputs of the Powerbook, and record away.
However, I would suggest using a mixer as an intermediate step, so you can better control the level of the audio going into the Mac.
And in a perfect world, you could use an external analog-to-digital converter and go in through the USB input. But, as we have discussed over in the USB audio topic, there are still big troubles getting ProToolsFree to recognize USB audio.
On the ProTools end, choose "new session" from the file menu, and then under file, choose "New Track" (or command-shift-N) and when the dialog box opens, select 2 new audio tracks (for stereo).
Click on the "rec" button in each track, in either the mix or edit windows. play some audio, and take a look at your levels. Adjust the output of your mixer until you have strong levels, but NO red on the meter. (Click on the red box at the top of the meter to clear it, if you register a clip, and it is staying red.)
If you are not seeing any audio level, and you are sure your cabling is correct, check your hardware setup, and the Mac’s sound control-panel, to make sure the built-in sound inputs are selected.
Then, hit the record button on your transport control, then play (or command-spacebar) and you are recording. Play the cassette, and you should be on your way.
If you are still having trouble, please post again and tell us what’s happeening (or isn’t.)
"Hardware setup" above refers to a menu item. You need to check this any time you alter your incoming source of sound. In this scenario, you’d want to be set for "Analog" input (not Digital) with your sample rate (48 or 41.1) set internally. Pick one sample rate for the entire session. Don’t mix ‘em! You’ll know if you did because some voices will sound either slow and drunken or fast and manic.
Oh, and Bob, I think I danced around your original question about what hardware you need. You might want to try using the analog inputs first, and see if you are happy with the sound quality. If not, getting digital audio into a laptop is a bit more of a challenge. . The best option night now is the Tascam USB interface, which actually has drivers that wil work with ProToolsFree. It’s a bit more expensive than a simple interface, but it has the prime advantage of working. And the additional features, like faders and transport controls might be really nice as well.
As we get more solid details of what works and what doesn’t, we’ll be sure to post info here.
Jeff, you’ve alluded to most of this above, but let me ask a little more advice from you, or any others who know.
At our baby radio stations we just installed ProTools Free on all available iMacs. Getting sound in and out is the problem. We want each staff member to be able to do it at their own desks, going from and to Sony D-8 portable DAT machines.
1) Analog. The level from the D-8 is very hot going into the external mic audio input on the iMac. Do you know of a simple (read: CHEAP) level-matching device (mini-mixer) that would help us get good levels going and coming from the D-8? Also, has anyone tested to see how ratty this method is vs. going digital? Is it very noisy, or still better than the old days?
2) Digital. Is the Tascam unit the only option right now? Is there a URL for that? Anyone know who sells them cheaply? Do they allow you to go both to and from a DAT machine in the digital domain via USB, no problem? What cabling is required? Is there something better about to come on the market in two minutes?
…finally, do the plug-ins work in ProTools Free? We get a DAE error when trying to normalize, etc.
This is an amazing problem, given the level of technological advancement of all this hardware. ProToolsFree seems to be going out of its way to not take digital signals. I guess that is the hidden incentive to move up to the hardware-based systems.
But, there are some ways to work around this. The Tascam is rumored to work, but I haven’t done it myself, so I’m still reluctant to guarantee it. I’ll post a URL for it in a minute, I have it somewhere.
The other route is one that Barrett has talked about a bit, and it seems to be the best way to go for now. That is: record into a different program, like Peak, or Deck or anything that can see a USB interface. If the program will let you, record the files as SD2 file types. If not, use aiff on the mac, wav on PC. Then in ProToolsFree, choose import audio and you are ready to rock. You may have to rebuild the wavefore overviews of AIFF files.
As for the USB interface, this is purely a matter of what interface will talk to what program. There is a USB input device called the iMic that is REALLY cheap, about $35. Check out the USB audio topic for a link. It provides a line-in or mic-in, and at least the conversion is happening outside the computer. At $35, I’m sure it is not the most beautiful conversion in the world, but it’s probably better than the built-in.
ProToolsFree, in general, does not like the iMic, although the digi discussion groups report occasional success. But it is not actually THAT biig of a pain to record your soundfiles in some other program, and just make a folder of carefully labeled soundfiles for project X, and then import them for editing in PTFree.
I may be overly optimistic, but I cannot imagine that this problem will persist, as most of the new Macs have no sound input at all. Digi has got to address this. You’d think.
What’s the cludge? Get a cable from radio shack that is designed for walkman headphones. It is basically a stereo mini extension cable with a volume control on it. That way, you can adjust the output level of the D7 down to a healthy level for the mic input to look at.
Sending line-level signals into a microphone input is always bad news. There are line transformers that will knock those levels down precisely, but especially given the vaguaries of field recording, a variable conrol can be just the right thing.
As for plug-ins, yes, they work in PTFree. I don’t think normalizing is considered a plug-in, but regardless, I have done this many times in PTFree on my G4. DAE errors are very confusing. Often, it’s just a matter of needing more RAM. Try normalizing a really small segment and see if it will do it.
Right now, how are your machines configured? (How much RAM, etc) If you have enough physical RAM, try assigning more RAM to DAE (select the DAE application, go to "get info>memory" and increase the preferred size.)
Also, in memeory land, in the documentation that comes with the program, in the users guide, there are some step-by step instructions for setting up the memory configurations, including a counter-intuitive direction to set the memory cache to a custom size of 512. It’s all voodoo, but try it, see if that helps.
Fun ain’t it?
http://www.tascam.com/products/us428/index.cfm
For the Tascam thingy.
Over on the Air mailing list, a few folks were discussing recording directly to CDR, or CDRW. Gregg McVicar says that at RadioCamp, they always dub the field recordings onto CDR. That way, they have a back-up, and then they can input the audio into the computer via the CDROM drive.
Of course this requires an extra step, and an extra piece of hardware, but the step is a valuable one we often forget: making a back-up, and the CD recorder hardware is something you will find yourself using.
We’re talking about stand-alone CD recorders, not computer-based devices. The down-sides are that the affordable machines use only "music" CDRs, which cost a bit more, and are (a little) harder to find. But still, the recorders are priced from the upper $300 to the mid $400 range, and the music CDRs (which pay a royalty to…somebody…) are still cheaper than DATs.
You can get a more expensive "Pro" machine, for $800-$900 or so, which will use any kind of CDR. And they are built better.
This is a bit of a work-around, but it’s not a bad concept.
Jeff, you suggested the steps quoted at the bottom of this message.
Everything worked, just like you said, until I hit record, and ProTools gave me this error message:
"Unable to allocate disk space. Your disk might be fragmented."
Can you help? I de-fragged my disk today with Norton Utilities, and I’m still getting that error.
I hear the audio fine, coming out of the speakers – it just won’t record anything.
>
>On the ProTools end, choose "new session" from the file menu, and then
>under file, choose "New Track" (or command-shift-N) and when the dialog
>box opens, select 2 new audio tracks (for stereo).
>
>Click on the "rec" button in each track, in either the mix or edit
>windows. play some audio, and take a look at your levels. Adjust the
>output of your mixer until you have strong levels, but NO red on the
>meter. (Click on the red box at the top of the meter to clear it, if you
>register a clip, and it is staying red.)
>
>If you are not seeing any audio level, and you are sure your cabling is
>correct, check your hardware setup, and the Mac’s sound control-panel, to
>make sure the built-in sound inputs are selected.
>
>Then, hit the record button on your transport control, then play (or
>command-spacebar) and you are recording. Play the cassette, and you should
>be on your way.
>
>If you are still having trouble, please post again and tell us what’s
>happeening (or isn’t.)
Ok, slipping off topic.. well, off PTfree and into general ‘Tools’…
I know Jay has recommended
>Beyer M-58, a dynamic omni which is great for interviews.
PT free, the Tascam 428 thingie and has equipped his minions with the Sony TC-D5M for it’s ability to hit rocks across parking lots, among other things. What else are some solid Transom recommendations– like minidisc players, accessories, media (someone recommended a type of tape earlier, but I couldn’t remember which thread it was lurking in).
Jay, I can’t really understand why you decided on iMacs for the office, since price is a concern. Combined with the problems Macs have with audio, evident on this board, and the increasing inflexibility of the platform this seems like a horrible recommendation for a piece of expensive equipment. So what was it that made the case in favor of Mac? (this isn’t about general Mac v. PC BS, just the Sound issues)
We didn’t buy the iMacs; they belong to the radio station and we’re trying to get them to harness and make do. You’re right; they’re not a great choice.
We (Atlantic Public Media) bought older beige G3s off Ebay and installed the Digidesign AudioMedia Card which comes with ProTools 5x. Much better solution.
Excellent! Thanks for clarifying. The G3′s off of eBay sounds like a great idea, too.
Hi Bob,
I’ve seen this alert, and I’m a little mystified by it too. I’ve been able to import audio and work with it, which seems to indicate that there is adequate contiguous disc space, but when recording directly into ProTools, it chokes.
It really might be an issue of fragmentation, or it might be a disc-access speed issue. The bad news is that there are two things that might be shutting you down. First is that ProTools doen not really like recording to your system drive, although it will usually do it anyway. It would prefer that you record to a seperate drive. This is a pain for you, using a laptop. You can get external firewire drives, and this would almost certainly solve your problem, but thay are about $350 for a 10 gig. Don’t get a USB external, it might work, but the performance is on the edge.
The second, related problem is that the built-in drives, especially on laptops, are not the fastest in the world, and ProTools might be trying to allocate more space in real-time than the disc will allow. the irony is that it will probably work fine, but the system doesn’t think it will, so it won’t allow it.
Here’s a test, try just recording one channel, see what happens. the reduced requirements might let you do it. It won’t fix it, but it will give us more data.
I’ll keep looking at this…
the imac gives you back your deskspace (small footprint)
and your soundspace (no fan). both of these qualities,
quiet and small, are valuable to me.
thus i chose to work on an imac.
the only other choice is a cube.
Fan noise is really only an issue if you’re in a soundproof room (if the other ambient noise isn’t worth getting rid of…) or if you don’t want your signifigant other to catch you surfing for porn at 3am…er, or so I’ve heard. With all do respect to Mr. Jobs, fans aren’t really that loud (if your using ball bearing instead of cheapy sleeve). I have 9 of them in my system because I’m into overkill, and it’s still very quiet, even quieter when I put the sides of the case on… I’ll get around to it eventually.
Since the deskspace issue doesn’t have anything to do with sound, and is so easily trounced upon when you consider the fact that PC’s provide more deskspace when you put the tower where it belongs (on the floor), I won’t even touch on it here. I especially won’t mention how ridiculous the iMac is in comparison to a tower on the floor with a digital flatscreen on the desk. Nope… not a peep.
have you ever worked on a chine w/o a fan? i switched to fanless a couple years ago and will never again buy a fanned ‘puter.
Hi Jeff,
You wrote:
>You can get external firewire drives, and this would almost certainly
>solve your problem, but thay are about $350 for a 10 gig. Don’t get a USB
>external, it might work, but the performance is on the edge.
What if I used the hard drive on my spare desktop Mac? It’s a couple of years old, but I’d use it only to record onto… I’d connect the laptop (running PT) to the desktop via an Ethernet cable. Would that work? If not, I might have to get the $350 drive – ouch!
>Here’s a test, try just recording one channel, see what happens. the
>reduced requirements might let you do it. It won’t fix it, but it will
>give us more data.
I tried – same error.
What’s really ironic – I’m just trying to do the simplest thing here.. just digitize some basic spoken audio. Just one track, and I don’t even care if there’s some noise. I just want to digitize some very simple audio… is (very complicated) ProTools the only possible way I can do this?
Bob
Beedge, I’ve been on a fanless (laptop) all day. I’ve been getting it ready for my chairman (idiot proofing). Not having fan noise is no big deal. I live and work in environ.s chock full of ‘ambient’ noise, fan noise doesn’t even register. The hard drive makes much more noise… I wish IBM would hurry up development on magnetic RAM so that solid state HDs will be viable. HD noise bugs me.
Bob, your work-around should do the trick if your problem is only with recording. Have you tried editing existing sound files to make sure that your problem is limited to recording? If it is just recording, using a different program to record with (on the same machine) should work, too. If you have enough free space you could partition your existing drive if PTfree just doesn’t want to write to a system drive.
One last thing: Jeff, can we expect a column on using mixers (like the Tascam). So many knobs and sliders, so little time.
bob:
> to the desktop via an Ethernet cable
the following is just a guess, cuz i never tried it
but squeezing realtime audio down a 10M e-net
might be a bit more than the transfer-rate can handle.
not sure, tho, but most e-nets seem kinda pokey for large files.
worth a try, tho. and if you have a 100M e-net, then you’d be stylin.
do both your ‘puters have firewire?
cuz you can certainly firewire over (in target disc mode)
with plenty of speed to spare.
btw, bob, is your disc allocation setting in PT prefs (Special>Prefs – Operation)
set to "Use All Available Disk Space"?
jeff says:
> ProTools does not really like recording to your system drive
writing any large file (graphics, audio, database, video)
to the same drive where you keep your operating system
is just a bad idea. asking for fragmentation and failure.
i’ve been partitioning disks for years with great success.
helps keep os happy, and makes defrag a snap.
generally i make four partitions:
boot, apps, docs, sound.
that way all the writing, rewriting occurs away from os and apps.
sure it’s the same drive, but that’s not the way the system treats it.
—
and, dear a knight: you seem not to be getting it.
> Not having fan noise is no big deal.
may not be to you but is to me. i hate fans when doing sound-work
and am glad mac gave me a way to kiss them goodbye.
Remember, Barrett lives in Montana.
Bob, I forget: do you have PLENTY of memory? These various problems seem to crop up when memory isn’t sufficient.
And Bob, make sure you did the little weird move in the memory control panel to set your disc cache to the custom size of 512 K. That actually made a difference for me.
If you haven’t seen it already, Jeff has written the next installment in his Working with ProTools Free series, this one on Setups and Troubleshooting.
http://www.transom.org/tools/editing_mixing/20010504.nowwhat.jtowne.html
Along with Barrett’s material, and other stuff we’ll be pulling in, we’re developing a darn good resource over there in the Tools section. Go exploit it.
I am using Pro Tools Free on my G3 Powerbook and would like to know how to best (cheapest) output my finished/edited pieces onto a source that i can hand out to people. The PT Guide says i can bounce to a file on my hard disc, or to a RW-CD drive or to a web-type of audio: is it really as simple as bouncing to cdrw… if so, is this the best way to get to a finished piece? sorry if this is a bonehead question, but i have yet to try it and i can’t afford to rush out and spend the dough on the external cdrw to try it… i tried, our of curiosity sake, using a 1/8 to 1/8 cable from external speaker to the mic input on my MD Player but that caused too much distorion– i was able to get it to my MD without distortion, but had to drop output level which resulted in a wall of line-level white noise… please advise…
Well, if your just trying to get it out there you could just bounce it to tape. You don’t need to worry about making the tape perfect, either, since you don’t expect anybody to use this distribution to go directly to air, right? Just hook your line out to your tape deck’s line in with whatever cables will work (usually a 1/8" stereo male mini to 2 RCA male cable- radio shack, cheap). Unless you know that the people who will be playing this have CD players in the car, tape is a wonderful way to say "Here, lookie what I made!"… and chicks dig it.
Thanks for the quick reply… I am working on "spec" pieces that i am planning to send out for consideration to air… ("This American LIfe" "Transom" "Lost and Found Sound," etc…). What do you recommend on a technical front if i AM concerned about broadcast quality… how do i achieve this with my existing system: powerbook g3 w/pro tools free…
dc
You should look into an external Firewire CDR. Take your finished production, select it all (or the parts you want to use) and choose "bounce to disc" under the File menu. This will create a new stereo file, which will include all your processing, mixing moves, etc. The bounce dialog box will ask you how you want to save the file, you should choose "stereo" because that will be easier to deal with in the CD burning stage.
Then you need some CD burning software. Your CDR will probably ship with Toast, or some similar product, which will be fine for simple burning of a soundfile to CDR. USB is pretty slow for audio CD writing, so I would highly recommend a firewire device instead.
By bouncing and burning, you eliminate all the noise/level/interface issues you have when trying to output from the analog outs of the Powerbook.
Thank you for the prompt, helpful advice… can’t tell you how wonderful this site is… priceless… I can’t say it enough, thank you thank you thank you…
dc
You’re kind to say so and we appreciate it.
Let us know, too, how we can be better. Criticize us. Gently, though, because we’re sensitve public radio types.
Hi Jeff, Barrett, and everyone -
I bought an external Firewire drive and was finally able to digitize an audio tape.
After about 30 minutes of recording (split over a few different tapes), I got this error in ProTools Free:
> DAE error -9060 was encountered.
And ProTools now refuses to record anything, into any session. Just keeps giving me that error.
I have searched on the digidesign.com website, and their tech notes are all about running a disk check on the audio disk (I did; it’s fine) and upping the memory settings for the DAE app (I did; made no difference).
I also re-installed PTF and it made no difference.
Can anyone help? I hope?! Since I’m dead in the water if I can’t get through this.
Thanks for any help.
P.S. Yes, my memory settings are just what Jeff recommended: Virtual Memory off, Disk Cache set to 512k, RAM Disk off. There’s plenty of space available on the external drive (30+ gigs free). In short, it seems that I have all the right software, hardware, settings, memory, and available space – and this error doesn’t seem to be covered very well anywhere online.
P.P.S. The external drive is an EZQuest 40gig Firewire.
Hi Bob, welcome to DAE hell…
I really don’t know why these DAE errors don’t report themselves in some way we could understand. But a quick dive through the digi site, including their answer base, showed a few FAQ responses to this problem, almost all to do with disc formatting. It is possible that your firewire drive was set-up with a drive utility that ProTools doesn’t like, and it let you get away with a little, but eventually stopped writing to the disc. The disc should have shipped with some sort of disc-formatting software, and if you are lucky, it’s HDT (Hard-Disc Toolkit) If not, you may need to get this program. (Oh great, MORE stuff to buy!)
Before you do anything, make sure that you have your disc allocation set to record to the firewire drive (setups>>disc allocation.) This sometimes defaults to your internal drive, so make sure that you are set to record tracks to the firewire drive, and PT isn’t trying to record to your internal drive.
That’s probably not it.
Annoyingly, the only solution for this is to reformat the firewire drive. This will blow all your data off that drive, so back it up, or copy it over to your internal drive if you have space, and do a reformat of the firewire drive with HDT, which is the only formatter they approve of.
Before you do that, the only other quirk they mentioned was an extension conflict with some ATTO init (which you probably don’t have.) But it’s worth trying clearing-out the extensions, to make sure something obscure isn’t messing with PTFree.
This isn’t bad practice anyway, ProTools always runs better with minimal extensions. In Control Panels, open the extensions manager, and go in and deactivate absolutely everything that doesn’t seem crucial. Save this set-up as "protools" or some such name, and restart your computer, Try recording again. It’s possible that you just have some quirky extension conflict.
The bad news is: probably not. It probably is your disc formatting. While you are re-formatting, it might not be a bad idea to partition that drive into 2 or 3 sections. It will make defragging the drive way faster, because the machine will think it has 3 10-gig drives, and can just optimize one at a time. The only down-side is that you could run out of space in one section, but you really should be keeping your file sizes down, and not doing continuous records of huge soundfiles, unless absolutely neccessary.
Try it, good luck! Really, once you get these demons tamed, it will be great! (OK, easy for me to say, I’ve somehow magically avoided most of these DAE problems…fingers crossed…)
Jeff,
Thanks for your help! I really appreciate your comprehensive answer. I hope to check in again once I’ve fixed the DAE problems.
Thanks again – Transom.org is a great resource.
Bob
Well, I’m loath to admit it, but in a pinch recently, I loaded some music into the G4 through the analog inputs, violating all my rules of proper input. I plugged the headphone out of my DAT into the mic input, turned the headphone volume down until the levels looked good on the PTFree input meters, and recorded away.
I’m shocked to say it sounds pretty darn good.
It shouldn’t sound good because headphone outs and mic ins are at drastically different levels, and shouldn’t really interface without loads of noise. And headphone outs are notoriously hissy. But I’m not hearing it.
It shouldn’t sound good because inputting a very low-volume mic-level signal requires that it be pre-amped inside the computer, where it can get polluted by stray electromagnetic energy inside the case. Plus, the Mac doesn’t exactly have fantastic mic preamps. Yet, it sounds pretty good.
It shouldn’t sound good because the digital conversion is happening inside the computer case, again a spot rife with interference.
But I loaded in several tracks of music, many with quiet passages, and I don’t hear excess hiss, or weird interference, or random humms, even when listening close on headphones.
I did save compounding the noise problems by bouncing the mix and burning to CDR, so I didn’t need to convert again to analog and back to digital.
So, although I still highly recommend keeping it digital whenver possible, in a pinch, work-arounds such as this will get it done, and even sound OK.
OK, this is getting back to basics a little, so my apologies in advance for regressing. I am buying a new computer specifically for audio editing (using Protools Free). Obviously I’d like to configure a system that’s ready to go when it arrives. I had hoped to import sound into my computer from my DAT recorder (Tascam DA-P1) via a sound card with digital inputs/outputs. But doing some research here and elsewhere leads me to believe that this just won’t work because the sound quality will be too poor. Is this correct? And are the only options either (1) to import the sound to a CD first and bring it into protools via the CD or (2) to buy an USB/mixer? The USB option is really expensive, it seems. So I guess my question is whether there are any really good sound cards out there that can handle digital imports? Also, are there are any internal CD burners that allow sound to be burned from outside sources (taka my portable DAT recorder)?
Thanks
Sorry if we’ve been confusing about in/out options. If you are planning to buy a desktop computer, into which you can drop a sound card, you options are much improved. We have been gnashing our teeth about the audio and driver problems related to USB, crucial for laptops or iMacs or Cubes or other boxes into which one cannot install a PCI card.
But if you can put in a soundcard, your options are much better. You can get a digidesign Toolbox card, (for Mac or Windows) for about $400-500 which will provide very high quality stereo digital inputs and outputs as well as 4 channels of analog. It ships with ProTools LE, which has a few more features than ProToolsFree.
If you are in the windows camp, there are discontinued (but fully fuctional) Lexicon Core 2 cards going for $170-$200 many places, that also provide spdif digital I/O as well a 4 analog ins and 8 outs (and ADAT, if that helps you…) The cards ship with Cooledit Pro SE, which is a workable editor. This card cannot interface directly with ProTools Free, but you could record into it and then import those files into PTFree if you prefer to edit and mix in that environment.
This card can theoretically work with a Mac, but there is very little Mac software that will interface with it, Cubase the only sure bet, so I can’t recommend it.
There are actually loads more brands for windows machines, like Event, MAudio, Aardvark, etc, but take a cruise around the digidesign website to find recommended specs. They discourage using several types of inexpensive popular soundcards.
Hi Jeff and crew –
With your help I overcame the nasty DAE error a few weeks ago – thanks again.
But now, out of the blue, ProTools isn’t letting me bounce a file to RealAudio – something I’ve been doing successfully for awhile.
It says:
>DAE was unable to complete this operation. One or more audio tracks
>is too dense near the current location. (-9121)
The digidesign.com website isn’t much help, saying only that "The literal definition of this error is ‘Playlist is too complex.’ Try bouncing tracks or adjusting memory between DAE and the System."
Per my previous messages, I have tricked out my system with every formatting, memory, etc. operation that is suggested on Transom.org… so what am I missing?
Any hints much appreciated – transom is a big help!
Thanks.
Bob
P.S. The audio I’m working on is NOT complex – it’s quite simple. Single track of 16-bit spoken audio, that’s all.
Jeff,
I’m considering purchasing a Sharp MT90 minidisc recorder and the $99.00 Sony mic (can’t remember the p/n). I have a Mac G4, single processor 500 mhz. Can I take the headphone output of the minidisc and feed it directly to the mic input on the back of the Mac? Can I then digitize audio directly into ProTools Free? Or will I need to install a sound card in the Mac?
Thanks for the help.
Regards,
Thomas
Does anybody know if there are any internet marketplaces or auction websites that specialize in second-hand radio equipment?
Yes, you can do exactly as you describe, plug a stereo mini cable with "Male" plugs on each end from the headphone out into the microphone in. Adjust the headphone-out levels on the minidisc for optimum gain in ProTools.
As I mentioned elsewhere in this forum, this violates every rule of good level-matching, and i would have been reluctant to suggest it, except that I’ve been doing it with good results.
In a perfect world, you would want to stay digital, taking the digital output of a minidisc (which he portables don’t generaly have) to the digital input of a soundcard. Keeping it digital, eliminating a few steps of D/A, A/D, will keep your sound cleaner, brighter, with better stereo imaging. So think of that scenario as something to work toward.
But, for now, a simple analog load-in will be OK. I’ve been surprised how good this sounds.
Hi Jeff and all,
I figured out more about the DAE error – it is appearing because I applied a filter on my audio track. i.e. i clicked "Process" to apply a gate filter to take out some of the tape noise.
Before using the filter, I can bounce the audio just fine. After using the filter, I can’t even bounce one second of audio.
I’m trying to bounce to Real Audio format for a 56k modem.
This is probably an easy answer – but what am I doing wrong? Is one not allowed to use the PT filters before bouncing audio?
Bob
have you tried just bouncing to a stereo SD2 file, with the filter applied? This is a very useful technique if what you are trying to do exceeds what your computer feels like doing. Then you have a file with all processing applied.
Then, you can bounce the processed file to whatever format you want, without asking the computer to do both things at once. What seems to be happening is that applying the filter and making a conversion at the samee time is too much for your system to handle. So, use two steps.
Sorry, left out some details:
When bouncing, *don’t* click "convert after bouncing," and bounce as "split stereo". Then import those files back into a session, and rebounce, with no processing, and that time, use convert after bouncing.
For those of you not using this feature, PTFree does a pretty decent job at encoding a bounced file to Real Audio, and several other formats. It has an MP3 ripper too, although it’s a time-limited trial version, you can buy it if you like it. I’ve only played with it a bit, but i have liked the sound of the resulting MP3 files.
I still not sure why your computer wouldn’t do the bounce/convert because the convert actually happens after the bounce, not at the same time… odd. My G4/400 with 320 megs of RAM had no problem bouncing to RA with a couple of filters on. (With Netscape open so i can update this post.)
But try the work-around and see how that works.
Hi Jeff. I just posted this on another thread, but it looks like I should have directed my question to you instead. I’m looking for a sound card to use with Protools free on my laptop and I’m having a hard time making sense of all the information out there. I have a Dell Inspiron 7000 with a pentium II chip and 96MB RAM. I’d like to get an external sound card with easy input/output to use with my mini disc recorder. Any suggestions? Thanks.
I just started working with ProTools Free this week and read through all the posts from McKaye and others beforehand. I got it to work Monday night, but then hit a wall Wednesday when I returned, with the same settings. I am using a G4/400 with a Maxtor 80Gb Firewire external drive and sending sound direct from the Sony TCD-5M to the mic port on the back of the tower.
Here’s what worked for me. My firewire drive was not fragged at all, but my G4 was severely fragged. I Norton’d it and this solved the problem on restart. Perhaps b/c ProTools keeps a DAE folder on the G4 drive, it is smart to make sure ALL the drives involved are defragmented. Just a thought. Anyway, all seems to be working smoothly now.
Is there sofware that will run on a pc to convert
a wav to an sd2 file?
Maybe someone could help…
I just graduated from Columbia’s Journalism School where I concentrated in radio production.
In order to cut my own pieces I have a G4 mac laptop. It has no audio line in.
But I do have a USB imic. I have in the past been successful in getting sound into ProTools from the (big) professional HHB minidisc recorder. Now I am trying to import sound from one of the little minidisk recorders– the SONY MZ-R70 but now I am not getting levels. I have a cable (it’s called attenuating audio cable?) plugged into the imic and then plugged into the minidisk. I’m wondering whether I have it plugged into the wrong jack on the minidisk–have tried all. Or whether there is some trick to launching protools before you use the imic?
Has anyone done this– can someone please advise a poor student ?
– cheers,
Abby
Two issues:
First is that I don’t think you need the attenuating cable, because the iMic will take a line-level input. No sense knocking the level down and then boosting it back up later.
Second is that last time I checked the forums, people were NOT having any luck getting PTFree to acknowledge the iMic. How had you been loading audio in from the HHB?
This is, of course, a crazy situation, you have a smoking computer and no way to send audio to PTFree. It’s just weird. The work-around is to input audio to a ddifferent audio program via the iMic, and then import those audio files into PTFree.
Hey Jeff, have you checked out the DataPlay format that is coming down the pipes this fall/winter? I looked through the upcoming DP devices and only found one that has a Mic port. Hopefully more are to come, since there are some DP drives in the works that will overcome the hurdle that MD never really handled with any grace– how to move sound onto the PC. More info can be found in this article.
Hope all these links remain unbroken.
I am SO skeptical about any new formats, that I have great doubts about these claims that these devices will replace CDs. I’d be happy if we could get to a generic data recorder, into which one can plug a digital camera, or a microphone, or whatever, and I think this is what dataplay could theoretically do, but I have doubts about how well it will do it, especially since its primary selling-point is that it somehow discourages piracy.
It will be interesting to see, but I’m not jumping-on anytime soon.
What would be really handy while mixing would be meters showing the level of the full mix. Anyone know of software that does this on the Mac? The only way I know to watch levels is to hook a DAT machine to the computer, put the DAT machine in pause and record, and then watch the DAT machine’s meters while mixing. Is there a better way??
ira, baby; whatcha doin slummin over here at transom w/ we rabble.
you can create Master Fader tracks in ProTools w/ meters that show the level of the overall mix, and will dynamically reflect level changes on individual tracks (aka, as you mix). go to File>NewTrack… , the dialog box will open w/ a pull-down menu at right (where it says "AudioTrack," the default type of new track). pull-down the list and select MasterFader(stereo). a MasterFader track will then appear in both Mix and Edit windows. you can use this to monitor and adjust level of overall mix. i’m sure jeff can tell you more.
That Master Fader is also very useful for applying final EQ or compression or volume adjustment to the whole mix if you need it.
In the collection of plugins by "WAVES," I tend to use the impressively named L1-Ultramaximizer quite a lot. It’s a smart look-forward limiter with virtually transparent sound. It not only really helped fix much of the archive tape from Lost & Found Sound, but it just adds a nice edge to a sometimes muddy voice like mine.
As for metering, I still tend to monitor my final mix level from the DAT meters going in.
Hello.
I’m the owner of a Mac G3 laptop and am interested in doing more freelance documentary radio. So far, I’ve managed to do work with an analogue recorder (friends have digitized files for ProTools) and Free ProTools. But I’d like to develop a system with my own equipment that will allow me to work more independently. I don’t have a lot of money to burn, but would consider investing in some equipment and software. Could you provide some advice on what equipment and software you’d recommend I procure? For instance, would you recommend I purchase a minidisk recorder instead of DAT or analog recorder? (It seems easiest to upload minidisk files into my laptop. Is it?) If so, which make/model would you recommend? (Would I necessarily need to purchase a sound card for it?) And do you think I ought to invest in the retail version of ProTools? Or any other software/hardware? I know these are pretty sweeping question. Anyway, I’d appreciate any help you could offer.
Thanks very much. I look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
Josh
Master faders were the subjects of messages #1 and #2 of this very topic, and as Barrett and Jay have already said, they are very useful for not only keeping an eye on the final levels, but to apply some processing to the whole piece. Compression or limiting is especially handy, but perhaps the whole thing needs some EQ, or some volume massaging. Remember you can go in and either ride the fader or draw volume automation on this track just like any other, so if the whole mix is getting a bit loud or quiet, you don’t have to go back and adjust every element if the relative balance is good.
A related technique is to use aux channels, and to route all the actuality channels to one aux bus, all the music to another (stereo) bus, so that all similar elements can be processed together. It’s a good way to save plug-in overhead: just use one compresser or EQ for all similar sounds, rather than one on each channel.
But back to the metering. The master fader is really good for watching your final levels (and even better if you plug-in the L-1 or other similar brick-wall limiter, so you know you NEVER hit digital overs.) Just don’t overdrive the limiter, you’ll get crunchy sound even if you don’t ping the red lights.
But ultimately, I watch my DAT machine too, if it says it registered an over, it (probably) did.
Hi,
I’ve just entered an interview onto a stereo audio track in Pro-Tools version LE for PC, and it let me name the first couple of regions I divided, but now I keep getting an error message "ACCESS VIOLATION OCCURRED" whenever I try to name a region.
This happened to me yesterday as well, and I thought my session might have been corrupt, so I started a new one and it happened again. Then today I thought, maybe my whole folder is corrupt, so I opened a new folder and a new session.
I entered some music on a different track, named it ok, then the problem occurred after I entered my whole interview and began dividing up tracks and trying to name them.
I don’t know what’s wrong with it and no-one here is able to help.
Has anyone there seen this before "ACCESS VIOLATION OCCURRED", if you have and you know what the problem is, please let me know.
thanks!
Cinnamon
Here’s what helped: "…you should be able to see input levels on the meter for this channel. (If not, go to your computer’s sound control panel and make sure your sound input is set to "Built-in")."
Trouble was, I still couldn’t change anything.
Here’s a sentence you could add to further help us greenies:
Quit Protools, then go to Apple – Control Panel – Sound to change the input source to "sound in."
Thanks again for "Working with ProTools Free." It is such a workable, short length that it gave me a needed push. I’d been frustrated by things such as not getting enough volume into a new borrowed PowerBook. And I felt very overwhelmed when I read about problems with Macs… like the fact that everyone else was having problems getting the volume low enough… so I was jumping to conclusions about big problems instead of seeing little hurdles close at hand.
Thank you Jeff!
The first dialogue box I got asked me whether I wanted 16 bit or not. Does it matter?
Yes, it does matter, choose 16 bit (for now…)
PTFree is working within the Mac sound manager, which only operates at 16 bit on OS 9 and earlier. OSX offers some interesting possibilities, with support for 24-bit soundfiles and multi-channel audio. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As we have occasionally discussed in other sections here, I think it’s not worth it to work at higher bit depths on a radio show, even if it is technically supported by your system. Yes, it sounds better, but if your final delivery is the 15khz Fm signal, or an internet stream, nobody will be able to hear the difference. And in the meantime, 24 bit files are much bigger, eating more hard drive space and more processor cycles to work on them.
But the short answer is to use 16 bit because that’s all the PTFree supports. Why does it even ask? Who knows… The ProTools LE systems and full-on Mix systems will record 24-bit audio, and there are good reasons for doing that, but for doing radio stories, especially loaded in through analog inputs, it’s not worth the additional overhead.
Hope to see some of you folks in Chicago at the AIR conference. Please say hi if you run into me, although I’ll be sequestered over at WBEZ for a good chunk of the time, flogging a ProTools system for training sessions. I’ll be happy to talk tech, or never mention a soundfile or keyboard shortcut and just discuss movies.
Hey, Jeff.
Your ProTools Free at the AIR conference was most helpful. Thanks.
My wretched 2 year-old Gateway PC is tired — young but tired. I’m considering buying an iBook with CD-RW to use as my ProTools Free audio station. I figure the risk of buying a mixer and a separate hard drive and whatever else I need for a deficient PC is too great.
So I need to know. What do you think of the iBook G3 (see specs below)? I see that you’ve recommended G4s and Powerbooks on this site. But you were also enthusiastic about Maria Martin’s computer in our AIR session. I think hers was an iBook. If so, could I really use an iBook alone without using a separate mixer? I imagine you’d recommend I add memory.
600MHz PowerPC G3
System bus @ 100MHz
256K L2 cache @ 600MHz
128MB SDRAM memory
15GB Ultra ATA drive
CD-RW drive
Rage 128 Mobility
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
56K internal modem
VGA video output
2 USB & 1 FireWire Port
Airport Ready
Best,
Melissa
Jeff or whomever…
I have hung on desperately to my vintage Nubus machine because I like the Waves TDM real-time plug-ins, esp. the remarkable L1 Ultramaximizer.
But this old machine won’t run the new versions of ProTools and file exchange has become a hassle. And it’s SLOOW.
What kind of rig — computer, software, cards — do I need to keep the real-time features? Is TDM necessary anymore for real-time or will WAVES go native? Is there any particular advantage (this is only for radio documentary post-production) with the Digi 001 setup vs. the basic Toolbox with card?
The shortest question is: what should I buy to replace the venerable Nubus rig?
Hi Melissa (thanks for hanging in there through the oddness of the physical set-up of the AIR training session. The next day worked MUCH better!)
And Jay, too.
The iBook described above will rock for PTFree. I’m about THIS close to getting one. The only issues will be the same for any laptop in particular, and single-hard drive system in general: disc access speed. If the disc is not kept very well de-fragmented, it may complain about trying to access the program and write audio to the same disc at the same time. That being said, I do have reports from the field of folks doing just this: recording live to an iBook’s internal drive. This issue can be solved with an external firewire drive, or mitigated by partitioning the internal drive, so at least the machine "thinks’ it has two drives, one for the system and program, one for the audio data.
More generally, Jay, for the scale of overhead involved in radio production, these days TDM is almost overkill. With any new machine, (especially 500 mhz and up) and a good load of RAM (at least 256 megs, which is CHEAP!!! Buy RAM!!!) the RTAS plug-ins will do everything you want.
All the Waves stuff works as RTAS (Real-Time Audio Suite, which relies on the host computer to do the heavy lifting. TDM does the processing on its own chips).
The only advantage of the digi 001 over the Toolbox is additional inputs and outputs (you probably won’t use more than two simultaneously for radio production, right? Unless you are getting really fancy doing aux sends through external analog processing) AND!! that the 001 has two XLR mic inputs on the front panel of the break-out box. This makes it stand-alone, especially if the primary dump-ins are happening digitally.
I’m still a fan of routing analog inputs through a mixer, but with the 001 you could get away without one, even tracking narration straight into the computer.
Jay, go for it. You wouldn’t believe how much more snappy a PTFree or LE system is on a new G3 or G4 compared to your older TDM system. I suspect it will actually have MORE power. I can’t imagine you would run into system overhead problems unless you are regularly doing 16-channel mixes with plug-ins on all the channels.
Some of the plug-ins can eat a lot of computer resources, but a couple compressors, EQs or limiters won’t tax the system too much. (Especially if you use aux busses– coming soon in a Tools column!!)
Can you recommend an inexpensive MP3-type recording device to download
programs from the Internet archives? Burning CD’s takes too long, and may be more expensive in the long run since CD’s are not
re-recordable.
im trying to figure out how to get my interview from my mini-disk to my computer so that i can edit it in protools. i have an optical digital cable and i have a mini to mini cable. i dont know how to get it to start recording in protools so that i can edit it. please help me.
thanks
pati
Depending on which minidisc you have and if you have an audio interface connected to your computer, the digital connection may or may not be of use. If you have a small Sony portable minidisc, the digital cable is, frustratingly, only for loading digital audio IN to the minidisc (from a CD player, for instance) not out. If you have a minidisc with a digital out, then the optical cable would be great, if you have something to plug it into on the computer end. This would require some sort of add-on interface that accepts a digital input. Many of them only have coax digital in on an RCA jack, but this can be converted (HOSA and a few others make optical-coax converters that are not too terribly expensive) if needed.
But, most likely, the answer is to use the mini-to-mini cable. Take the headphone output of the minidisc, and plug it into the audio-in on your computer (presuming you don’t have a new-ish iMac or iBook, which don’t have audio inputs… in that case you will need an USB interface.)
Before you launch ProTools, make sure your computer is set up to accept sound from the "external" microphone or line input. On an Mac, it’s under the Apple menu>> control panels>>sound (or monitors and sound) click "input" select "built-in" select "external mic."
Then launch ProTools, open or create a session, make a new audio track (under "file>>new track") if needed and click the rec button on that track to put it in record-ready. Don’t record yet, but play your sound from the minidisc. You need to control the level of the audio from the minidisc, that’s why you plugged into the headphone out. Change the headphone volume until the levels are good, as high as possible without hitting the red at the top of the volume scale.
When you’ve set a good level, go back and cue up your minidisc to where you want to start dumping, then click the red record button and "play" on the transport panel (or just hit "command spacebar") then start the minidisc. When you are done, hit the spacebar again, and that’s it.
Using the headphone-out is not ideal, but it will get the job done in many circumstances. It’s better to have a digital connection if possible, or an adjustable line-level inout, but you would need additional hardware for that. Try this technique and see if it works for you, it might be just fine.
Hi:
I am interested in making recordings. I am a beginner looking at the Marantz pmd222 or at a sony dat recorder. My question has to do with editing…which one is easyer to do editing on?
You can’t really edit on either one. You need to take your sound off the cassette or DAT format and put it into a computer, edit, and then master it back to a portable format.
I’d definitely recommend getting a DAT recorder because it give you the least degradation of sound during the process above.
Another chapter in the ongoing saga of getting audio into a Mac using ProTools Free. I have a G4, an external 80Gb firewire drive, and a Sony TC-D5M.
The specific problem I am having with ProTools today is the input sound level is very low when I have ProTools launched. I tried a couple of different analog cables, then thought to check the level in the Sound Control Panel. The level is fine when I hit play while in the Sound Control Panel, which you have to quit protools to use. Relaunching ProTools, the problem returns. The sound level is barely registering in the green. What I am afraid of is a damaged mic port on the G4. But I hope it’s just a software issue. One with a quick solution…
Jeff,
Quick question. I have a stereo recording in Protools LE. The high-frequency drum sounds on one channel are too loud, so I would like to run the appropriate plug in on part of just that channel. How do I select part of only one channel?
Thanks,
Bryn
>Jeff wrote: Jay, go for it. You wouldn’t believe how much more snappy a PTFree or LE system is on a new G3 or G4 compared to your older TDM system.
We’re about to spring for it. Jeff, what would be your optimimum machine, memory, external drive set-up, etc.?
I’m going to get the WAVES Native Bundle too. How about their "Restoration" software — hums, pops, clicks, etc.? Have you heard anything about it?
I just cut a first piece using ProTools Free… and had nary a problem… but in starting a second piece of work, i am having some bizarre problems in that sections that i highlight in order to edit, don’t stay highlighted once the selected region stops playing. Normally, when i select a region, the track stays highlighted until i deselect it… so that i can play with my in and out points… I made no changes to the settings between my first session and my new second session and have tried various settings within the operations preferences, but still, no luck… any thoughts? what is happening…
I’m preparing to buy a MiniDisc recorder, and would appreciate some feedback on specific models, especially on their ease of interfacing with G3/G4 Macs. The Sony MZ R-700 seems to be a model that addresses the needs most of us share: external mic input and USB PC link. However, I remember someone’s posting about an MD with a PC link that only allowed PC-to-MD dumping, not vice-versa. Anyone know if that’s a problem with this model? Also, since some people have suggested that Sharp’s models are more durabably built, what would be a model with equivalent features to the above Sony? Any advice on what would be involved when transferring MD tracks to a Mac would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the great forum and other resources. . .
Susan, one fix for your problem would be to feed your audio into the USB port with the iMic. You can use iMic software to vary levels without having to quit/restart ProTools.
Another fix would be to feed the audio into the mic port with a cable that has a thumb wheel volume control. You get finer control this way.
Feel free to email me for follow up questions.
Merlyn, yes, the PC link only goes one way and is pretty worthless. I threw mine away. You’ll want to get the iMic device for USB audio interfacing with the Mac. I think they sell for around $35.
With the G3 and G4 you have audio input jacks so you don’t even have to use USB. Is there a quality difference? Not if you use the iMic.
You won’t get a simple answer for your Sharp vs. Sony question. I’ve read some very strong opinions in favor of Sharp but most of the people I know have bought Sony models.
I think all of the Sony MD’s will do the job–but stay clear of MD-R70 because it doesn’t have line input.
Why do many veterans use the Marantz PMD 222 when you get superior sound from a $100 minidisc recorder?
Is there any reason at all to get an analog tape recorder?
Thanks very much for all the info, Sarah. Happy Holidays!
Hi there,
I hope I’m not being redundant here, but I am in need of some advice about loading minidisc recordings onto my Mac G3. I have Protools free installed and have recorded successfully from CDs. What kind of adapter do I need to load up the minidisc recordings?
Thanks so much for your help.
Regards,
Allison
Allison,
I have had success with a freeware program called SoundRecorder 1.0 available at hitsquad.com… it allows you to import audio through the 1/8" mini-plug… allows you to save files as .wav, aiff, sound designer, etc… and it has playthrough monitoring and stereo or mono recording capabilities… with a meter to monitor your levels… the audio comes in clean and with no line level noise from that buggy little miniplug… when i try to import audio straight into protools free via the minplug i always get too much hiss, line level noisel… try sound recorder 1.0. it is among many such programs, but this one is simple and with good metering… good luck.
Dean
Hm. I have been trying to get an answer to this question for months. Excuse me for repeating it but I’d really like to know–
Why use a Marantz PMD 222 when a) they are more expensive than minidisc recorders and b) the audio is inferior?
I have a Sony minidisc recorder and it works great. What am I missing by not using a cassette tape recorder?
If you’re getting good results with the minidisc, stick with it. The cassette recorder is somewhat hardier, less finicky, and has beefier mic/cable connectors. That’s about all it offers. And beginners found it simpler to operate, as we were transitioning from the analog world, but I think that advantage has passed.
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Uh, can you phrase that in the form of a question?
I have been using a JK Audio in-line audio phone patch to record interviews and such but I can’t get rid of the annoying hum that is coming from what JK Audio tech thinks is the result of the power supply… i tried using this handy little box on several different phone lines at different locations, tried different recording devices, different cables, etc… ProTools has a plug-in filter to remove this noise, but it is only avail. on the real costly protools… does anyone have any ideas on how to get rid of this hum? I tried the Raygun demo… but it didn’t seem to clean it up either. Any thoughts?
Thanks,
dc
This may be ground previously covered, but here goes …
I’m desperately in need of a computer upgrade. Nowadays I run ProTools Free, but it’s unreliable on my G3 laptop, so I’d like to move to a G4, and eventualy to a better proTools system. The new line of G4 iMacs (http://www2.warehouse.com/product.asp?pf%5Fid=CPU1781&cat=mac&blind=no) are so [relatively] cheap and well-equipped that I feel something must be wrong with them. Is anyone doing on protools on one of these new machines? Anyone out there who could confidently recommend or caution against it?
My daughters and I are planning on doing an oral history of my 84 year old mother who is dying of cancer. What kind of equipment do you recommend? As of now my only clue is from This American Life’s FAQ which recommends either a Sony TC-D5M at $999 and/or a Marantz PMD222 at $375 with an Audio Technica shotgun mike for $239. Will I need more i.e. a second mike, a stand for the mike, headphones, etc.?
Also what do you recommend for editing equipment and/or software.
Lastly is there a book(s) that would guide me in figuring things out. I’m great at photography but an absolute audio novice.
Thanks for you help.
- Kevin Funabashi
Kevin, quickly go to the Transom Tools section. You can get there anytime by clicking "tools" at the top of this page. What are you waiting for?! There is a lot of stuff for you to start reading, now get!
Kevin,
Though I’m not a seasoned expert, or even a bland expert, let me say I wouldn’t take the suggestions from TAL for this kind of project.
Though there are many who might disagree with me, here are my suggestions.
Use a minidisc to record. Any kind will do. Try to get one from $100 to $150. Buy it new. Then spend some time getting to know it. It won’t be intuitive like a tape recorder. My advice is to forget tape. As for DAT, too expensive.
Buy lots of discs. And AA batteries.
My strongest suggestion is to use a stereo mic. Sony makes some nice ones. If money is a concern, try out a $25-$35 Radio Shack stero mic. 98 ears out of 100 won’t be able to tell the difference for voice recordings. There some kinds of interviews where you’ll want to stick a mic into somebody’s face. This doesn’t sound like one of them.
For editing, Macs are nice and PC’s will do. For a PC, you’ll need 256K ram to use ProTools. But don’t think you have to use ProTools. If you’ll just be cutting and rearranging, there are simpler programs to use. Using ProTools for editing reminds me of the time I figured depreciation for my taxes. It can be done. People have done it. And that mantra might get you through it.
Again, I’m not an authority, but I couldn’t resist sharing with you what I think.
Thank you for publishing the various mic techniques and illustrations on your site. I found your article to best the most easy to read on the web and it is very helpful. I am recording a bluegrass/gospel album next week with only two mics as requested by the client and I wanted to gain more data on m/s, x/y, a/b, and Decca Tree approachs. I will use 2 Neumanns through Neve 1066s mic-pres into Pro Tools with no compression. Your site gave me all the info that I needed and refreshed my memory on the various techniques. Thank you and I let you know how the album goes. http://www.thepopmachine.com
Jeff
I am using protools free on my G4 933 mhz mac. Well, trying to. I have a soundblaster live sound card and I can easily input midi into protools free software. however, it is not recognizing audio input if i use the line in port or the microphone port (even though these ports work with cubasis software fine). Do you know what i might be missing that would allow protools to recognize the audio input?
Jeff,
What’s the best way to make sure there’s a uniform level among several tracks on a CD sampler of my work.
My general method for setting levels when producing a multi-track radio feature doesn’t seem such a sure bet when I’m trying to put together a sampler of several different pieces produced over a six month period.
Here’s how I master when producing a radio piece:
I use PT LE 5.1 on a Mac G4. I feed the analog outs from my Audiomedia III into my Mackie board and then use the Mackie meter to judge levels. This works reasonably well.
When I’m producing a CD sampler, I use the same process – putting the sound files of each piece into PT and then looking at the Mackie meters. If one sound file is lower then the others then I rebounce it at a slightly higher level.
Is there a more surefire way to do this?
I’ve long heard talk of Waves L1 ultramaximizer, but I’ve never seen it work. Would this solve the above problems? I may be willing to make the investment in the L1 if it is a good tool.
Great tips. Great site. Thanks. Onto my question(s).
I have edited several programs for a client (just voice), each around 20 minutes long.
1. In order to create a file that I can burn to CD, am I correct in assuming that I have to "bounce to disk" in real time? No quicker way, as with Cool Edit?
2. Can I then "normalize" the resulting file for burning without importing it back into ProTools and bouncing it again? If so, how?
I know I probably should go through and match gain region by region, but the client’s budget won’t allow for spending that much time on it. I thought perhaps normalizing the file will give some consistency to the programs.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions (or recommendations for other programs that can do it).
Hey sorry,
didn’t mean to be so distant…to ignore so many messages… for some odd reason this topic was displaying in my web browser as having no new responses for some time, so I was not actually looking at it. Just goes to show you where you get when you trust your meters.
But seriously, to try to sum-up a few of the questions that have accumulated (and thanks for the kind words)
First, getting tracks onto a CD, with good levels. Yes, you must have a complete, coherent file to burn a CD track from, so that will require a bounce, or something like it. And frustratingly, PTFree only bounces in real-time. Some other versions, and other programs bounce faster. But let’s say we are in PTFree: If you have only done simple editing on a mono track, you can save a little time by using the Audiosuite command "combine" which will make a new file out of whatever contiguous regions you have selected. It will do it faster than real-time, but it won’t apply any effects or mix maneuvers, so this is only helpful as a CD prep if your stuff is all at a good level and needs no EQ or other processing.
A variation of this would be to select your entire track and do a normalize under the audiosuite menu, selecting the option that will make one continuous file. This way you both normalize your track and make a single file out of the various regions.
Often a voice track can really benefit from going in and tweaking the levels of individual phrases, but if there is not the time or the budget for that, it is by no means necessary. In fact, this can be over-done, it’s only natural to have some dynamic rising and falling of voice levels during a conversation.
But these techniques are best for mono material, beacuse most programs that will burn your CD don’t know what to do with split-stereo files, so if you combine or normalize the files, then go to burn them, many CD burning programs will see these as seperate tracks, not left and right of a stereo pair. And by the way no NOT process the left side differently than the right, except to fix some problem, your stereo image will wander if the two sides are not treated identically, and that just sounds odd.
In PTFree’s bounce menu there is an option to output a stereo file, and this is the best choice when outputting files to burn to CD.
As for getting a consistent level between tracks, this is the big trick, and one reason why mastering engineers still have jobs. In a burning program like Adaptec (Roxio) Jam, you can make gain adjustments in the assembly window, either by normalizing or by applying custom gain changes, and listen to the relative volumes by previewing the tracks. In Toast, or other such programs, you can’t make thise adjustments at that stage, so you need to do it before the bounce.
Monitoring though a mixer, and watching the levels is a good system, although you can accomplish the same thing by creating a stereo master-fader within ProTools and watching the levels there. Applying a limiter, such as the Waves L1 Ultramaximizer, can also be a good tool, but it won’t guarantee a consistent level, Neither will normalizing each thing. It comes down to peak vs. average level, and this is affected by many things: the amount of compression on individual elements or the final mix, the nature of the sounds themselves (a normalized flute will sound WAY louder than a normalized drum) and the frequency balance of the tracks.
Old-style VU meters, with needles on them, were actually quite good at indicating average levels, while missing peaks. Digital bar-meters are great at measuring peaks, but are harder to translate to average levels, even when set to display that. So you need to depend on your ears, along with the meters, and a consistent monitor level. Try to leave your monitor volume at a set level, perhaps turning up and down to check the mix at different loudnesses, but with a standard spot that you can get back to.
Normalizing will get you in the ballpark, but you will often need to tweak things a bit from there. Of course, once something is normalized you can’t really raise its level, but you can raise its AVERAGE level, by compressing or limiting it. And there’e nothing saying that you must bang the top of the meters at all times, so if it sounds better to let a segment sit back a few dB, let it.
So the system I would recommend would be to normalize each track, then listen to them in succession, and if something needs more loudness, try giving it a bit of compression or limiting (applying appropriate make-up gain). If something seems too loud, back it up a dB or two, or listen to see if a certain frequency is punching out, in which case you shouldl roll that back with EQ.
The one caveat I would have is that compunded processing will eventually dull your sound, so keep earlier versions, and back-up and apply the new processing earlier in the game, rather than normalizing then compressing, then re-normalizing and then EQ in etc…
I agree with an earlier post suggesting a minidisc for your oral history project. Unless you are going to do lots of reporting or field recording, it seems silly to spend thousands of dollars on gear. Of course you want to preserve this well, but a minidic and a decent mic is more than sufficient for the type of interview you are thinking of. If you are careful with your recordings, and tracnferthem to another medium (like loading them onto the computer and backing them up) you shouldn’t worry about the stability of minidiscs. So get one of the inexpensive portable Minidiscs, and for your circumstance, you might even want to try these super-cheap Radio Shack stereo lavalier mics. Theya re two very small omni mics on a tie clip, and cost under $20. They plug right into the stereo mini jack, and will take power from the Sony "plug-in power".
I’m normally a bit snobby about mics, and gererally opposed to lavaliers, but I’ve gotten decent results from these mics, and in your circumstance, you could clip it onto your subject which would allow you to have more of a normal conversation. You’ll get better sound quality with a better mic pointed right at your relative’s mouth, but your arm will also get very tired if you are recording hours and hours of stories. Think of the context, you aren’t trying to make it sound like an interview in a sound booth.
Then when it comes time to edit or just archive these, you can roll the outout of the minidisc into almost any computer editor, We talk about ProTools Free here because it’s well, free, and very capable, but there are plenty others that will let you record audio and edit it. Stay tuned, we’ll have a good overall FAQ about how to do this… very soon… really….
Howdy… didn’t get any response to my 60cycle hum/buzz Q last week… anyone have any experience with the following:
I have been using a JK Audio in-line audio phone patch to record interviews and such but I can’t get rid of the annoying hum that is coming from what JK Audio tech thinks is the result of the power supply… i tried using this handy little box on several different phone lines at different locations, tried different recording devices, different cables, etc… ProTools has a plug-in filter to remove this noise, but it is only avail. on the real costly protools… does anyone have any ideas on how to get rid of this hum? I tried the Raygun demo… but it didn’t seem to clean it up either. Any thoughts? I was able to remove some of the hiss and other thangs with the audiosuite eq/filters, but the hum, she is still there… also, can’t seem to find any software (beyond Raygun) to get rid of pops and hisses off of old albums… Raygun demo gave me no confidence in its abilities… got any ideas to these Q’s… thanks…
Thanks,
dc
I haven’t used this box, but I did a Google search to find their web site and, coincidentally found this review, in which the reviewer returned his unit to the company for repair because it had a terrible hum!
Looking at the detailed description of the device, the web site indicates the power supply is 16v AC — so that tells me that any rectification, filtering and regulation of the power supply occurs inside the unit, and not in the "wall wart" that plugs into the wall. Maybe there’s a bad filter capacitor or a cold solder joint inside the case.
I don’t understand why the "JK Audio Tech" would suggest the problem is in the power supply and NOT offer to repair it, or why you would be looking for a method to clean up the noise AFTER you’ve recorded it rather than eliminate the noise in the first place.
There must be something more to this story…
That’s useful, Tommy, thanks for helping. The basic internet sleuthing techniques are useful too.
The big problem with 60 cycle hum is that it’s not just at 60 cycles. It’s very hard to get rid of it once it’s on your audio. As Tommy mentioned, the first order of business is to get rid of the hum in the unit, rather than systematically removing it each time. Of course, that doesn’t help you right now, with the hummy tape. So, trying to get rid of it, there are a couple of things that will make things better, but probably not remove it completely. I recently whacked this exact hum from – what a coincidence! – a Gentner phone hybrid. I used the Waves restoration tool X-Hum. It’s VERY pricey ($1,200 for the bundle), but if you just have an emergency, you can download a demo that is fully functional, but will expire in 30 days. If you find you like it, please do buy it, although the Waves plugs are expensive, they are very good and should be supported.
http://www.waves.com
What this plug-in does (as do others like it) is apply a series of notch filters (very narrow and deep parametric EQs – high "Q" values and very high amplitude cut.) It drops notches at 60hz, and at several harmonics of that frequency: 120hz, 240hz, 480hz, etc… You can tweak the frequency, andd the harmonic ratio, etc, but the defaults are pretty much right-on. That ground hum is from the AC power cycling at 60hz, so that’s always where the hum is (except if you’re in Europe, or other places with 50 cycle AC.)
The problem with high-Q filters, such as notches, is that they start to "ring" on their own, so one has to find a happy medium between knocking out offending frequencies and adding weird metallic audio artifacts.
So a pass or two with the de-hummer made things much better, but it didn’t eliminate it completely. Whacking all of the offending harmonics would end up making the source audio pretty beat-up, so you have to take what you can get.
Another way to go is to try a broadband de-noiser that "learns" from a clip of noise, creates a noise profile and applies countermeasures. Beacuse this hum is pretty steady, you can get some decent results like this too.
The down-and-dirty solution, which is very hard to do well, but will work when the gods are smiling, is to find a clip of "clean noise" that is to say, just the hum. Loop it in your audio editor – be careful, you must loop it cleanly so that the frequency stays stable over the edit, zoom WAY in and trim the edges so that when you duplicate a bunch of copies and butt them against one another it maintains a smooth wave. Loop it to be as long as the clip you are trying to clean.
Then, put this soundfile of pure hum on another channel so it will play along with the file you are fixing. Zoom way down to the individual waves in a spot on the original sound that is mostly buzz and nudge or drag the hum loop so that the peaks and valleys are lined-up with those of the original file. Then, flip the hum loop channel out of phase (this is usually a button on a digital editor’s virtual mixer, often identified by a circle with a line through it). Adjust the volume of the hum loop while both soundfiles are playing, and you should be able to hear the hum cancel itself out.
If you don’t have a phase-reverse button handy, you can get the same results by nudging the hum loop sound file so that the peaks of that file are coincident with the valleys of the one you are trying to clean, which is exactly the same thing really, you want the two hum waveforms out-of-phase with one another.
This technique only works with very steady-state noises that don’t change in volume, etc, and will work best on an unedited file (edits might shift the regularity of the phase of the hum waves.)
It’s very hard to get this to work well, but when it does, which might require some careful volume automation of the hum track, it’s pretty amazing.
But again, try to get rid of the hum before you record, it’s a big pain to get rid of later. Make sure the cables are all good, and make sure that all your electrical devices are plugged into the same circuit of power (use a power strip). Phones are tricky, because the phone line has its own ground, and so does your recording gear… try ground-lifting your recorder and/or hybrid coupler if it requires power.
I know some folks have had good luck with a little box called the "Ebtech Hum Eliminator" which purports to break the ground loops that cause this, without affecting the sound.
http://www.swizzarmy.com
Good luck!
Jeff, have you actually used that phase trick? Is it more effective than the Sound Restoration software? If so, I wonder if they could automate the same trick.
Yes, I have actually used the phase trick and….
usually it doesn’t work too well.
But I have gotten lucky before, and improved things. I’ve never gotten it to really totally clean anything up. If you can get the sounds to lock-up just right, it can make things better. But the short answer is no, it’s not better than restoration tools. The most you can really hope for is to knock the hum, or buzz, back during quiet portions. It’s very hard to keep things in snyc throughout, even if you haven’t edited anything. And it won’t work at all if the noise is fluctuating.
So, sorry if Î gave false hope, but it’s worth a try.
Thanks a bunch… much help. For the record, I returned the jk inline patch and picked up the jk "quick-tap" which is a transistor based unit. Cost about 59 bucks and it’s cleaner audio than the 200$ plus patch– imagine that! Anyway, you can’t control the levels, or send audio down the line, but you get both outgoing and incoming audio (mono); but it’s hum-free and what minimal hiss there can be knocked down with the use of the filters on the protools free audiosuite EQ.. i recommend this as a quick fix for those on a budget who need to record phone interviews…
thanks again,
dc
Dear Jeff,
I’m thinking about investing in a stand-alone CD recorder. Do you have any experience with these units? Are there some that you would recommend or warn against? I basically want the capability to transfer many hours of old recordings(already transfered to DAT) directly to CD without having to pass through the computer.
Thanks in advance for the help.
John Blythe
My understanding is that audio CD recorders (sold as an addition to your audio system instead of your computer) will only work with Audio CDs. These are much like recordable CDs you would buy for a computer, except they are specially encoded to identify themselves to the recorder that they are OK to use. Like cassettes, I think the manufacturers of these CDs pay a "piracy tax" to music publishers. For this reason (plus limited sales to a captive market) the Audio CDs cost MUCH more than computer CD-Rs. You might spend less initially (as opposed to, for instance, buying an iMac to to the job), but over the long term you will almost certainly spend more with Audio CDs.
Hi Jeff,
I’m working on a power Mac G3 and my Pro-Tools sessions are on an external hard drive (SCSI). As of next week I’ll be working at home so I need to buy a Mac–but what I really need is a lap-top. So could you please help me figure out what I should buy that will enable me to work on my existing sessions? Should I toast them (sorry if I’ll improperly flexing the lexicon here)? Should I buy a firewire? I’ll be loading most everything analog from a mini disc and cd’s .
Many, Many thanks for your advice, Chelsea
There are two types of stand-alone CD recorders, which act as an independent recording device, not as a computer peripheral. There are consumer machines, which can be pretty cheap, about $300. These will require you to use CDRs that are labeled as "Music" or "audio" CDRs, which are funtionally identical to all the other CDRs, except they are more expensive because a tax is paid to cover your inevitable sin of duplicating copyrighted music.
Then there are "Pro" machines, which can use the cheaper data CDRs, presumably because audio professionals will use them for "legitimate" purposes, not for bootlegging….or something…
The Pro machines are generally good choices, they will have multiple input options, and good-to-excellent converters, and the additional purchase cost is compensated by the cheaper media.
HHB makes good machines, I use one and I like it.
The consumer devices sound fine, so just do some math andd see how much the media cost affects you.
"Toast it" works for me!
That is not a bad techique, (burning your files to audio CDs with Roxio Toast) as it allows you to transfer the files and forces you to make a back-up.
I was doing that for quite a while, but I must say that i prefer the second option you mentioned: the firewire drive. I got an 80 gig Maxtor 3000DV 7200rpm drive for $299. Now i use it all the time to move sessions from my G4 to my iBook and vice-versa. Copying files goes pretty fast, and moving the drive is simple: Copy files from the old Mac to the firewire drive, drag it to the trash, unplug it, plug it into the new Mac, it will show up on the desktop in about 5 seconds. Now copy the files to the new mac’s drive. You don’t need to power anything down.
In my current configuration, ProTools Free will NOT play files directly from the firewire drive, although MOTU’s Audiodesk software has no trouble recording and playing multiple channels. I’ll let you know if that changes.
So the answer is: either way works. If you don’t have the money for a firewire drive, buy a spindle of CDRs and start burning. But i think in the end you will prefer to have the firewire drive. Even if the blank CDR only cost 25 cents, it’s still galling to burn one to move a 50 meg file that you really need to move NOW!!!
CDRW is another way to go, but they are kind-of a pain to work with, requiring erasures that take a long time…
So, get a firewire drive!
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but this is my understanding. I think there’s a cheaper solution than getting a firewire drive for transfering large files between the G4 and an iBook.
You can get an ethernet hub for as little as $30. You’ll need a couple of ethernet cables, but if you ask around, you can probably get those for free. That should do it.
If you want to do it the EASY way… OK…
Sarah, thanks, of course, you can network the two computers and copy the files over. I was getting caught-up in the need to store large files as well as move them, an immediately thought of another drive. And having these back-ups, either on an external drive or on CDR is good.
Another advantage of copying files to an external drive is that the two machines don’t need to be in the same place at the same time.
But you are absolutely right that it would be cheaper and easier and faster to just network the two. I don’t even think you would need a hub, just a "crossover cable" to connect the two ethernet ports (but I’m not all that good at networking…anybody got advice for the cheapest, easiest way to do this?)
Sometimes it’s the obvious answers that elude me! Thanks again!
sorry, i haven’t been paying attn, and am too lazy to scroll back on the posts, so if might have prob all wrong.
but if the ? is how to transfer files b/w two firewire equiped macs, eg, a G4 & iBook, than the answer is both beautiful and simple.
you connect the two ‘puters firewire ports together (6pin-6pin fw cable, like tfor fw cdrs and harddrives). then, with one ‘puter started up, press "t" on the 2nd ‘puter and start it up. the internal hd of the 2nd ‘puter will show up as a volume on the desktop of the first. you can then transfer files either way all you like (at fw transfer speeds).
the "t" stands for mac’s built-in firewire Target disc mode that allows you to use a computer’s internal harddrive as an external volume on another ‘puter via fw port. btw, i’ve used this to repair and extract files from damaged discs on ‘puters that wouldn’t startup, but whose hd’s could be seen by another ‘puter via this target disc mode.
I’m with Jay, you’ll be geiing the special award plaque later by FedEx…
I know traditional networking isn’t all that complicated, but i always get confused setting-up users and all that…
I had read something about starting-up holding the T key, thinking this might be an easy way to partition the iBook drive, but never made the leap to doing that to transfer files.
love it.
thanks barrett!
Hi, I have managed to figure out how to transfer all those wierd & wonderfull sounds that I record on my MD to my Mac via the iMic,,,, good,,,,,,, now if anybody can suggest a simple but good sound editing software with which to clean it all up, I’d be most appreciative. I guess you could say that I record haphazardly, so once I get it into the Mac I want to tidy the sounds up & do simple stuff like fading in/out,,,,,,,,, the sounds will eventually be used to fade in & out as the images in my slide shows do,,,,,,,, and if I get really clever one day maybe make CD’s to send out to prospects. Any suggestions? Thanks, Paul.
Hi Paul,
as you may be able to tell from elsewhere on this site, I’m partial to ProTools free… give it a shot, it’s a free download.
http://www.digidesign.com
Also, Barrett likes Sound Studio, a quick and easy two-track editor. find it at
http://www.felttip.com/products/soundstudio/
i have set up os 9 in a new imac to run protools and tthat is working fine. my question is; i have made changes such as disk cache etc in os 9, do i need to redo these changes to run osx? thanks for your help!
Hi Curtis,
I have just started switching between OS9 and OSX (and must say, I’m liking OSX…) so I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure that you have completely different system settings for each OS, so system changes you make in OS9 shouldn’t affect your system in OSX. This is both good and bad… you can have completely different preferences for each OS, but you have to duplicate some set-ups if you are frequently working in both.
Let us know how it goes!
Thanks for your reply! Really appreciate it. I called the Apple store where we bought the imac and they said the same thing you did, that there is no connection between the two os’s. Have go pro tools running perfectly on 9 and do all our administrative chores on 9. X is really cool and is a fun environment to play around in!
I do have one question about pro tools…. Is there way to mark an in point and hold that point and then is there a short cut that will take you back to that in point. As we make our cuts we keep losing our in point. I’m sure this is easy but we haven’t been able to figure it out. thanks for all your help~
So I’ve spent about an hour on this site and I feel like I’ve learned most of what I need to get started. Got a Sony MZ-R90 mini disc, a Byer M58 microphone, and headphones. I’m interested in getting a ibook and leaping into ProTools. Here’s the big question everyone is curious about. What else do I need to get my audio into the laptop? Will an imic do it or does it not work with the free pro tools software? Someone told me the $500 ProTools MBox with software is the only sure fire way to do it. Is this true? Also for basic radio pieces is the ibook okay or is the G4 powerbook a lot better.
if you are losing your place frequently when trying-out edits, you might want to use markers in the timeline. Make sure that under "display>>ruler view shows>>" "markers" is checked. (It might be on by default, it’s the pale blue strip near the top of the edit window.)
there are several ways to drop markers, whether the audio is playing or not, you drop a marker at the playhead location (or the beginning of a selected region) by clicking on the little yellow icon at the left of the markers ruler or hitting ‘enter" on the numeric keyboard. Or you can control-click on the marker bar at whatever location you want. In each case, you will get a dialog box with options to name the marker, and to save various aspects of the display and preferences.
This is good for marking sections of a large piece, but can also work to temporarily mark tentative edits. If you want to get rid of a point, drag over it in the ruler to highlight it, then delete.
If you just want to quickly mark one point, "command-comma" will drop a sync point, which has additional capabilities, but can also just be a fast marker. Those are a couple of ways….
Hi Mary,
an iBook is quite capable for most editing, I’m doing work on one (the 600mhz, small, square, white model…)
As for interfaces, we’re just about done with an overview page for this, there are lots of them. I’ve used the M-Box, and it’s really good, but it is $450. If you have at least Mac OS 9.2 you should be able to select USB audio as "built-in" sound in the sound control-panel, and then PTFree will play along. So you can go with a USB interface that has suport for the Mac Sound Manager. The iMic will work, and is the least expensive proposition. The Edirol UA-1A is a little quirky (see the USB audio topic here in Tools talk) but it works if you are careful with your levels, and is only about $80. Keep in mind that your model of minidisc does not have a digital-audio out, so you need an analog interface. But there are piles of new USB interfaces, we’ll try to keep reports up-to-date as we try stuff out.
Please, everyone, let us know how different interfaces are working for you, or not…
Enjoy!
I mistyped my mini disc model number. It’s actually a Sony MZ-R900 and it seems to have a line in and a line out(the line out has a headphone icon and then a slash and then says line out). Am I correct? I just may wait until you finish your overview page before I pick an interface. When do you think it will be posted? This site is invaluable. I’m a longtime television and radio producer of the old fashioned variety (namely I’ve gotten away with having other people edit my work) but I’ve never done any editing myself. I’m determined to learn. ASAP. I’m told it’s easy. At least I know where to go when I’m completely lost. Thank you so much.
We’ll roll out the FAQ any minute now, Mary. I think we’ve been waiting to make it perfect, which is stupid. We’ll post it as a work in progress and Transom visitors can tell us what’s missing.
The "line out" on your minidisc recorder is an analog line out, not digital. Actually, it’s the headphone output, so it has a little gain control in it. You can use this for headphones or to feed another machine’s analog input for dubbing. The headphone volume control can be used as a gain control to match levels. The only problem is that this kind of output is noisy — electronic hiss and less than crystaline sound. That’s why it’s preferably to load your sound digitally because the noise is absent. Still, it’s a viable option, and less noisy than cassettes used to be, etc.
Maybe, since you’re so determined to learn all this quickly from scratch, you can be our FAQ guinea pig. Keep posting questions and we’ll incorporate them.
Jeff, you know what should go in our FAQ… a quick description of the difference between analog and digital ins and outs, both theoretical and practical. It’s endlessly confusing to new recordists.
Life used to be so simple.
Good point, Jay, I’ll work that in.
if you received cds recorded in protools5.1 with midi(programed)& waves, how would access the files on any other pro tools version. is it always automatic access?
Jay, I will more likely be your stupid questions guinea pig. Like, why does my digital mini disc player have an analog output? And, should I have known that and then chosen a different one to buy? So that means the adaptor is for two things: to convert the audio to a digital signal and also to get it into the laptop which doesn’t have a digital line in? Do the mac laptops have a digital soundcard or is that what the ProTools MBox gets you? What is the main difference between the $35 imic and the $500 MBox? Is there a qualitative difference? (note the entry on the macintouch site saying the Imic doesn’t work with the ibook: http://www.macintouch.com/audiorecord2.html#nov26)
Another stupied question — everyone here loves the mac laptops which have no digital input. Am I correct that Sony laptops and others have convenient little outputs and inputs?
One final stupid question? For mono recording is there a difference on the mini disc recorder between the mono setting and the LP2 setting?
As with most software, you can usually move UP in versions with no trouble at all, so a file you created in PT 5.0 will open perfectly fine in 5.1 or 5,2 or whatever. But going the other direction usually requires a "save-as" step in the file menu. So if you are working in 5.1, and want to open the file on another system that is running 5.0 (like PTFree) you have to save the session as a 5.0 file. Doing that should allow the session to open in the earlier version, and it should work fine, if you haven’t exceeded the capabilities of the earlier program.
This can be a problem when using PTFree to work on a file created in 5.1 LE or a full-blown TDM system: your session can’t have more than 8 tracks, must be at 44.1khz sampling rate, and 16-bit depth. (Actually the session can have more than 8 channels, but PTFree will only display and play the first 8.)
Also, if you are using plug-ins, when opening the session on a new system, PT will attempt to load the correct plug-ins, but if the new computer dosn’t have them, you’re out of luck. So if you are doing specific processing and you’re not sure if the next syatem has these plugins, you might want to bounce individual tracks with the plug-ins applied.
But if you observe these restrictions and keep your session simple enough to move back, it should open fine if you "save-as" the proper program version.
Hi Mary,
Yeah, where IS the digital output on those minidiscs? It doesn’t seem right, does it? I’m with you, I bought one of the little Sony minidisc recorders, which said it came with a digital cable, so i figured I’d be set. But as you discovered, there actually is no digital output, only an input.
The answer is easy: these were made as consumer machines, and in order to keep size and price down, they built these devices with only the features the average user would want. They imagined these being used as a portable listening device, and that’s about it. They supplied a digital INPUT so you can load CD tracks onto minidiscs, and some models even have a USB connection, but that similarly is configued to load music from you computer ON to the minidisc, not the other way around.
And I suppose it’s true that most people with these machines never would need to output digital audio. It’s odd though, you’d think, given that the audio is digital already, how hard would it be to just include a digital output?
But, you didn’t make too big of a mistake, the only minidisc recorder i know of is the $1500 HHB. This is an excellent machine, but that’s quite an investment, at least to start.
So, you are stuck outputting your sound through the analog outs. But you are still ahead of the game from a fully-analog machine, like a cassette, the minidisc audio is still cleaner and clearer because it was recorded digitally.
On the computer end, I don’t know of any computers that have digital inputs, not even the Sony VAIOs. Another mystery, you’d think it would be pretty easy to just include that, but I suppose not that many consumers would ever do it…
I was irritated at Mac for eliminating the audio inputs on the new machines, but ultimately, it’s not that terrible of a thing, you can indeed get an interface that suits your needs, and it will likely sound better than the built-in sound would have. I use an iBook for audio, with various USB and firewire interfaces, and it sounds great.
As I’m sure you already suspect, there are indeed some significant differences between the $35 iMic and the $450 MBox. the MBox does indeed have digital inputs and outputs, along with high-quality microphone inputs, complex monitoring options, insert points, etc. So you will be able to get a much better quality signal into your computer with the MBox. But, a device like the iMic might be just fine, depending on what you are doing. If you are simply loading-in tracks from your minidisc, it might do just fine.
There are many other USB interfaces around, which can be used with Macs or windows machines, (the MBox is Mac only for now…windows support soon) including a $100 box from Edirol that allows digital input. There’s much more over in the USB topic, and also in the FAQ which is coming any second now.
And finally, the LP2 mode is fine for mono recording, but keep in mind that not all minidisc players can play back a disc recorded that way. So you are fine if you will always load-out on your machine, or a similar one, but if you think you might send that minidisc with the audio on it to someone else, you might not want to use that mode.
I’m sure I forgot something…hope that helps in the interim!
Jeff,
I’m holding my breath until you post the FAQ. Tell us what’s the best choice for the technically illiterate and rate them most expensive to least. Which do you use and what’s firewire?
About the recording levels — with the recorder I have you can choose stereo, LP2, LP4 and mono. With a mono microphone which is the best? And which can be played back on most machines?
We don’t have a comprehensive model-by-model shoot-out of minidisc recorders on the FAQ, but there will be some helpful information.
It’s sometimes a bit tough to sort through, but there are product comparisons on the very informative site minidisc.org
And just a quick clarification, the settings you refer to: stereo, LP2, LP4 and mono, change the amounts of data you can record, with varying degrees of audio impact.
Stereo is the default setting, and uses the most disc space, but is also the best quality and most compatible with all players. Mono is the same audio quality, but uses half the disc space (so you can record twice as long on one disc) but this mode is not playable on all machines. LP2 is a "long-play" mode that is still stereo but that applies additional compression, resulting in more audio degradation, but maybe not so much that you care. Not all machines can play back LP2. LP4 is even more compressed, and should really be avoided for audio-quality reasons. There are even fewer players that will play-back LP4 files.
You should do some experiments and see what settings you can live with, but in general for doing audio recording that you care about, use the highest-quality settings: stereo or mono. For mono voice recordings, it doesn’t really matter which of these you use, if you will always play-back on your own machine. if you might give the disc to someone else to play, be safe and use the stereo setting.
It seems to me that the only good reason for using LP2 for radio stories is if you have to make an uninterrupted very long recording, or you’re caught without enough blank discs. In general use the best quality you can.
When i first answered some of Mary’s minidisc questions, I somehow lost part of a sentence… as i was mentioning the HHB minidisc recorder, I MEANT to say that the HHB is the only machine I know of that has digital and USB outputs.
Also, I said that LP2 was fine for mono recording, and that’s not quite right…LP2 has nothing to do with mono-ness or stereo-ness, it’s just a "long-play" mode, analogous to the long-play modes on VCRs or some DAT machines. It allows longer record times, but does reduce the quality some. I meant that LP2 is probably fine for voice recording in the field, but each engineer should try it and listen for audio quality losses and decide if the increased recording time is worth the sacrifice of sound quality and reduced compatibility.
I, too, just picked up a mini-disc to do voicework for Radio; it’s a Sony MZ-700. And, just like Mary, I was confused and confounded that it had no outs, other than the headphone jack.
I have since sorted that out (before coming to this place), but the discussion was most enlightening.
I wanted to clarify something Jeff said about being able to use the Sound Control panel to select USB as an input.
I have only system 9.1, so it’ll require a step up to get USB happening. If I understand you correctly, you are advocating taking the line out on the mini disc, and plugging it into my PCLink, and using that as an in, as opposed to the line-in on my soundblaster, which PTFree doesn’t recognize.
Am I right? If so, next question. Rather than updating my system, is there any freeware out there (as I just blew my budget picking up this machine. Yes, I know it was only C$300; I don’t have much of a budget) that I can use to get the audio in.
Also, I’m having a heck of a time with PTFree; I much prefer the interface for CoolEdit over on the Wintel machines, but that’s just me.
Jeff and all,
Thank you for all the info on getting analogue sound into the mac. Your FAQ page will be a lifesaver. My station got a Sony MZ-R700 md and an emagic multichannel interface for me to get its audio signal into my iMac. (newer g3) I downloaded SPARKme as well as ProTools free editing software. Am in the process of spitting and fuming and trying to configure the whole mess. Any suggestions on using SPARKme vs. ProTools as an editor?
Also, for non-field recording is there any reason not to get a decent sound card and mic directly into the iMac? It seems so much easier than going through all the fru-fru of setting up the interface each time. The sound engineer is pretty picky about sound quality.
again, thanks,
Daniel Ferri
Please excuse my zoning on this one, the PC Link you refer to, is that the USB cable that came with the minidisc? If so, sadly, no, you can’t use that. If it were only that easy… that cable will only load audio onto your minidisc from your computer.
What i do recommend is getting a USB audio interface, and there are a range of prices and capabilities…(watch this space!) and taking the line-out, or headphone out, depending on your minidisc model, into your new USB interface to load into the computer.
If you already have a soundcard in the computer, you can just try that and see if you like the quality. Trent, do you have a soundblaster in your Mac?!?
As for editing, please, try to stick with PTFree for a little while, i really do think it’s a familiarity issue, you’ll get used to it, and it’s a pretty smoking app, even just for editing 1 or 2 tracks. We’ll walk you through it here!
Spark ME is only for OSX, so i have just started to toy with it, can’t say anything yet.
And Daniel, for recording straight into the iMac, remember you can’t put a card in there, but you can use an external USB or Firewire box, and do just what you suggest, record straight into the computer (listen for fan or drive noise, unless you have a booth) . the MBox is built for this, plug a mic or two in, hit record.
Hi Jeff:
Thanks for responding. I was going to upgrade to OSX, but your advice saved me the headache. As I said, I don’t really have the cash to pick up an…iMic? iMix? Whatever the USB cable is, anyway.
So then, if PTFree *won’t* recognize the analogue input from my Soundblaster (as it tells me right on start up that it only recognizes "Built in" inputs), what’s the best way to get sound into my computer? Or will it recognize the Soundblaster Line In, and I’m just doing something wrong?
Jeff,
How’s that FAQ coming? Please include options for the G4 Powerbook and the ibook. I’m getting the hard sell from a Mac salesperson who says you can put a sound card into a G4 and thus ameliorate some of the USB difficulty.
Trent, which computer do you have?
Ultimately the answer is if you can select the sound-in you want in the Mac’s sound control panel as "built-in", and ProTools Free will launch, then you are set.
But if you have your Mac OS at 9.2, you should be able to recognize a USB input, like the $35 iMic, and use PTfree. (Sure, it’s not free, but, hey it’s only $35, and PTFree is free… it’s not a bad deal. )
Be sure to select the sound input in your sound control panel BEFORE starting your editing program, whatever it is: once a program has grabbed onto the sound settings you can’t change them without quitting the program.
Now the G4-iBook difference: your salesman is partly right, but not actually helping you. The G4 TiBook has a PCMCIA slot where you could use a card-bus audio interface. But there aren’t too many of these (one from Hammerfall and one from Event are all I’ve found–and niether is cheap!)
The more pertinent asnswer is that there really isn’t a USB "difficulty". There are several USB interfaces that work just fine, and cost loads less than a PCMCIA card.
Now, in the end, do you want a G4 or a G3 iBook? It’s a tough call, the G4 does indeed have more power and a bigger screen, and will run OSX better, but it’s more expensive and bigger and heavier.
The iBook, even with just a G3 chip is more than sufficient to run PTFree or LE with a USB or firewire interface – I’m doing it right now. It’s cheaper, and smaller, and might even be more durable (I’ve already dropped my iBook onto a hard floor at an airport, and it’s working fine….)
So, you can use either machine, and in either case, unless you are doing some high-end multitrack work, I would suggest you use a USB interface. On balance, a cheaper iBook with a $450 MBox interface will be MUCH betther than a Ti Book with a $35 iMic. So, weigh your priorities.
But the G4 laptop gives you very few additional options. A TOWER gives several more possibilities over a laptop or an iMac, but those options (installing a PCI card) are not much cheaper or better than the state of the art of USB or firewire.
Okay I think I’ve got it. Going to get and spend next week then I can begin to torture you about actually USING all this stuff.
Hi Jeff:
I’ve got the 400-series G4 (464? Whatever the number was), with OS9.1.
The other issue with the iMic is that I am in the middle of absolutely nowhere; I drove two hours (one way) to get to the closest city and buy the one MiniDisc in town; I doubt I would be able to find an iMic within 8 hours (one way), and I need to start actually doing some editing on a radio piece I’m putting together for CBC.
I tried setting the control panel to Soundblaster Line in, but it didn’t seem to work. I will try it again and see if it was something else I was doing that was the problem.
I’ll keep you posted if I figure it out, or ask a few more questions if I can’t. If I can, the questions will probably be around PTFree.
Okay, Mr. Soundwiz. Riddle me this.
Yesterday, when I started up my computer, and went under my sound control panel, I got the full list of inputs: CD, Soundblaster Mic, Soundblaster Line In, Soundblaster Midi In, etc.
Today, when I start (and restart, and restart) my computer, the only Input device listed is the Built in CD. None of the ins on my Soundblaster are registering.
The Soundblaster card *is* registering as an output device, but not an input. I’ve scrapped the Pref file. I’ve restarted the computer. I’ve tried casting Heal Light Wounds at level two, but still, nothing.
It does this. 70% of the time, when I start, it doesn’t recognize the Soundblaster as an input device. But if I put my hand on the monitor and face west and lift my leg just a little higher…there.
And then again, maybe not. Most of the time, I don’t worry, because most of the time, I’m not trying to get sound into my computer. But now I am. And now it is becoming annoying.
Any thoughts? I thought I might not have screwed in the connections tight enough on the card, but it’s recognizing Creative Audio as an output device. And it does, as I say, recognize the Ins every once in a while.
And it is starting to get on my nerves.
It’s a G4 433. I wish they had catchier names like Bill and Bob. Or, do it like the iMacs: Indigo. Fuschia. Baby Barf Brown.
Hi Trent,
that G4 does have built-in sound, doesn’t it? (I have a G4-400, and I use the built-in line-in at times, and it sounds surprisingly good. It’s a little stereo mini jack with a microphone icon, on the back, above the mini sound-out jack)
You should be able to select built-in sound as an input, even with a card installed, but if you can’t, my suggestion is: shut down the computer, take out the Soundblaster card. Bury it in the yard and forget about it (OK, I’m kidding…but seriously, why do you have a soundblaster?) A less-extreme version would be to make an extension set in extensions manager that disables the soundblaster card, then restart.
Now, start-up the Mac with the card out (or disabled), don’t start any programs yet, and then open the sound control panel. Click on "sound-in" in the left panel, choose "built-in" in the upper right panel, and "sound-in" in the lower right.
Now, you can plug your minidisc straight-into the sound in, with a stereo-mini to stereo-mini cable. if you use the headphone out, you can adjust the output gain to give you the best level.
Start-up ProTools, or whatever you are using, enable the record on channels one and two, (click the red record buttons on either the mixer channel or the editing display, if don’t get a signal, you may have to check your hardware set-up in the editing program, select "built-in".) Play some sound, you should get meters bouncing. Adjust the output off the minidisc to give a healthy signal, and start recording.
And for not finding an iMic in your neighborhood, don’t feel bad, I live in Philly and i can’t find one in stores either. Get it on the web. Or the Edirol UA-1A USB interface will do the job for $89, although you have to watch your levels (it seems to boost them for no good reason…)
Oh, and if you haven’t actually buried that card in the garden yet, you might just want to try re-seating it. Sometimes cards get a little loose or corroded and just pulling them out and putting them back in will help lots.
But it’s very likely that PT just will not play along if the Soundblaster Card is selected as a sound in or out. Use either the sound control panel, or the extensions manager to get built-in sound going, and use that little miniplug on the back of the Mac as your input.
The other work-arounds are to record into a program that WILL see your card (if you can get the card rocking again…) then open those files into PT for editing and mixing.
Or if you have some techie friends, get your files transferred to CDR, as either aiff or SD2 data files, or even plain-old audio files if you know someone with a stand-alone CD burner. That way, you don’t have to worry about the sound inputs, you can just import the files.
Hi all,
I’m new to all this, so bear with me. I want to buy some recording equipment, but I don’t have loads of money. What do y’all think about the Sony digital voice recorders? I know that cost around $200 and the quality is supposed to be pretty good. Does anyone think these are a worthwhile investment?
thanks
Hello all– Jay sent me in here to get some answers. I’m a complete novice, but I have a couple projects in the works and need to get them onto a computer– and then back out– soon.
I’d love to set up a home studio– right now I have an iMac, a pretty good one. I need to get sound onto it from 1) regular cassette tapes and 2) DAT. Then I need to get my voice on there, too, and spit it all out somehow (though I’m assuming a CD burner is the best way to do this?).
Does someone have time to break this down for a total technophobe?
Better and better.
Jeff: My computer does not have a built in line-in. I bought a soundblaster for the same reason I do most things; I couldn’t afford anything better, and I thought it would work getting sound in.
But it doesn’t. Even the folks at Creative tell me that there is no solution. The problem, says they, is that because my Mac doesn’t have a line-in, the input management part of the Apple Sound software control panel doesn’t install. They also tell me that there is no way around this.
Sigh. I bought the card a year or so back because I figured it would do the trick when I needed it, but I didn’t need it until now. And now it won’t do the trick.
If I could find perhaps a program other than PTFree that I could use to get sound into my computer, but I haven’t the foggiest idea what might work. Like I say, when I play sounds on the MiniDisc, it comes out the speaker, but is it actually making it into the computer? I don’t know.
If I would’ve known at the time that I needed a USB in instead of a Soundblaster, I woulda bought a USB in. You live, you learn, I guess.
Trent, I feel your pain, I really do. I did much the same thing when I bought a Lexicon Core 2 card as a digital/ADAT interface for my G4, only to discover that it destabilized my machine, and I couldn’t get any software to actually work with it…
But, here’s what i suggest: try a few demos of programs and see if you can record sound via the soundblaster. Felttip’s Sound Studio offers a 14 day free demo, and bias offers trials of Peak and Deck. It’s worth a whirl.
But I think in the end it’s just going to be worth dropping $35 on an
iMic. In the short term, do you have any friends with a standalone CD burner? If so, dub your stuff onto CDR and load it in through your CDROM drive.
But I would have a little hope, if you are hearing sound through your computer speakers, it seems like it is routing audio into your system. You might even just want to try freeware such as , see what you get…
Good luck!
Amy,
I haven’t tried out the new ones, and it’s true they look kind of cool, and some even have USB connections for dumping TO the computer(!). But in general these devices are built for transcriptions, or quick memory aids, and don’t have very good sound quality. They tend to record at a low bit-rate and sampling frequency, so the sound is a bit gurgly and grainy and muted, like an answering machine.
But… I’d be happy to be proved wrong, anyone actually found a good-sounding one?
Hi Whitney,
thanks for posting, and please do stay in touch here. I don’t mean to dismiss your questions, but please take a cruise around some of the columns and our new FAQ. I’m confident that most of your questions will be answered there. But please do not hesitate if you need more specifics, or if we were not clear about something in the columns…
OK. trying to be more specific about my questions– but you kind people must understand that I really don’t know anything at all about this stuff.
I guess a USB device is the way to go, given my iMac– but the FAQ doesn’t say what KIND of "device". A DAT deck? Some sort of sampler thing?
Never mind. I don’t even know what we’re talking about here, from the get-go, I guess. I’m going to go away now.
Whitney, if you are really starting from ABSOLUTE scratch, you might try to find a friend nearby who can just show you how things connect in the physical world, etc. The web/phone are okay for fine-tuning, but for the gross motor stuff, make a nice dinner and invite your techiest friend over. Show him/her the Transom FAQ and ask questions.
Then come back and we can fill in the blanks left by the wine.
Actually, right after I gave up here, I called my friend Marc, who is a sound designer, and I’m headed over to his house tomorrow afternoon to get my first tutorial.
It’s weird– I’m very good with computers and figuring stuff out electronically… once the components are set up. There’s something about knowing what I need and where to put it that scares me. So hopefully Marc will be a great help.
I don’t think I can have any wine, though, because I’m going to have to come back to the office after our meeting.
Hi there…
I’m just beginning to set up my PC (sorry, not a Mac) to
handle radio editing (I’ve done quite a bit, but always on a Mac,
always on communal machines, and not in more than a year). I’m using a Sony MD and an electrovoice to record, and will be using the ProTools Free version for editing–assuming I can actually install the program correctly. But my question is
this: what do I need (ideally) in a sound card, and why? I can do my own specs research once I know exactly what should be there, but I need to know the basics–e.g. how many channels out (and why). I’ve checked the Tools FAQ, but there’s not enough there for me to really get a handle on what my sound card should have.
I know it should have an S/PDIF-in line, but what else? I’m mostlygoing to be using my computer for mixing and then burning the finished pieces to CD (which will voice and ambient sound)? I’d rather not pay $200 or more for a sound card if there are other ones that might work almost as well, but I also don’t want to sacrifice sound quality, nor screw myself if I ever need additional options in the future. Oh, and another question: do I really need a mixer?
I’d appreciate any insight… Much thanks!
I know Jeff doesn’t like them, but I’d go with a good card (or external) from Creative. They’ve improved as they’ve bought out better companies… really! Just be sure to avoid the "value" line, they’re usually missing all the digital ins and outs.
I don’t have anything against Creative as a whole, I just wouldn’t put one in a Mac (now we know…thanks for taking the bullet on that one, Trent) and as you said, i wouldn’t get the basic consumer one. i haven’t surveyed their models, does anyone have one they like?
You might want to start out with whatever is in the machine. If you don’t have anything, or it sounds terrible, look to upgrade. If your machine has USB, a USB interface is simple and flexible and portable between machines, and converts outside the computer. We have a gear guide with lots of links that will be up any minute now…
As for channel counts, etc, I really think that stereo in and out is sufficient for about 99.999% of what we do. And digital ins and outs are good, but only if you intend to feed a digital signal in or out. If you are loading in analog from your little minidisc, and burning CDs, you don’t need digital I/O.
In a perfect world, something with a breakout-box that gets the analog-to-digital conversion stage away from the inside of the computer is better, but not crucial. Try to get something with line-level ins, not microphone level in, so you don’t have to knock-down the level of your minidisc tracks just to have the soundcard amp them back up inside the computer. I like 1/4" connectors better than RCAs, and RCAs better than mini jacks, but any of them will work.
Again, if anyone has a PC soundcard he or she really likes, please let us know which one, and what you like about it. (even better if you can tell us if PTFree will "see" it.)
Okay, so from the responses I’ve seen (I asked a similar question on Radiocollege, too, just to try to get more opinions), it seems as if I should be okay with a middle-of-the-road sound card if I splurge and buy a USB mixer. That way, I won’t need a digital I/O, nor will I have to worry about my sound card screwing up the files when I stream them in. Since I’m starting from scratch–i.e. no sound card whatsoever–this seems like it might be the best option. And I really like the idea of converting analog to digital outside the computer. Am I understanding this, or am I still a bit off-kilter?
If anyone knows of a sound card that PT Free *won’t* see, I’d love to know. And I’ll hold off on buying the USB interface until Jeff’s gear guide is up and running, because I’m still (obviously) completely illiterate in this area. Many thanks.
Have been asked to string a story for CBS news. They want me to feed the sound from MD recorder directly into my cell phone.
What are my options?
Hal
Lauren, I have a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 MP3+ by Creative and am very happy with it. It comes with Sonic Foundry’s Sound Forge XP 4.5, which is a two-track audio editing program that lacks many PTfree features, but has a far more intuitive interface. Plus, it doesn’t try to hijack your audio properties like PTF does– if Windows can hear/play a sound, SFXP can record it. Great for sniping audio from streaming sources. SBL5.1MP3+ is recognized right off the bat by PTfree. You can find this model at bargain prices, since it isn’t the latest Creative offering. Note: Once, while dumping audio into Sound Forge through this card, I experienced a skip… it repeated a ~3 second clip of the audio once before continuing on. It was an odd occurance that I haven’t had happen since. I’ve also heard an odd beep during playback with this card on a few occasions. The beep isn’t repeated on replaying the clip and has never shown up in a recording. It has always coincided with heavy HD traffic in the background (like when moving files between HDs).
The current crop of Creative cards is the Audigy line. With Audigy, Creative has left the "value" line behind (at least for now). All models include the same base card, with these Input/outputs on card: Analog / Digital Out (Analog Center & Subwoofer / 6-channel SPDIF Output), Line in, Microphone in, Line level out (Front) / Headphone out, Line level out (Rear), SB1394 port (firewire), Telephone Answering Device in, Analog CD Audio in, Digital CD Audio in, Expansion header to an external 15-pin MIDI / Joystick port.
The "Game" and "MP3" lines vary from each other only by the software included, they are priced at $100. The Audigy Platinum comes with all the software of the "Game" and "MP3" lines and comes with the Audigy Drive Front Panel, which adds the following ports to the front of your pc: PCM SPDIF In and Out (RCA/Coaxial Jack), Headphone Out (1/4" Stereo Jack with Volume Control), Line In 2 (1/4" Stereo Jack, shared with Microphone In 2), Microphone In 2 (1/4" Jack with Gain control), MIDI In (mini DIN), MIDI Out (mini DIN), SB1394 port (firewire), Infra-red Receiver, Optical SPDIF In and Out, Stereo Auxiliary In (2 x RCA/Coaxial Jack). It’s $200. Then there is the Audigy Platinum EX ($250), which has the External Audigy Drive. The External Audigy Drive has all the same connections as the Front Panel, but places them outside of your pc’s case, making them even easier to access.
There is also the $150 Extigy. It’s an external USB soundcard that is compatible with desktops and notebooks and has the following ports/controls: Master Volume gain control knob, Microphone gain control knob, CMSS button: When enabled, stereo sources will be up-mixed to 4 or 5.1 channel output depending on the speaker configuration. When disabled (Direct mode), audio sources will be reproduced without any up-mixing, Optical SPDIF input (one square connector), Optical SPDIF output (one square connector), Line input (one 1/8" stereo analog connector), Microphone Input (one 1/8" mono analog connector), Headphone output (one 1/8" stereo analog connector), Infrared sensor for receiving information from the Remote Control unit, Front left and right speaker output (one 1/8" stereo analog connector), Rear left and right speaker output (one 1/8" stereo analog connector), Center speaker and subwoofer output (one 1/8" analog connector), Digital speaker output (one 1/8" 4-pole connector for 2, 4, or 5.1 digital speaker output to Cambridge SoundWorks or Creative Inspire™ range of speakers), SPDIF input (RCA / Coaxial connector), MIDI input (one standard 5-pin DIN connector), MIDI output (one standard 5-pin DIN connector).
No Audigy (or Extigy) model includes Sound Forge XP (Booo!).
It used to be that when you obtained a book contract, that you would be assigned an editor. The editor did more than spell check, but would suggest changes to the chronology or suggest sections for the backstory or transitions from one line of thought to another. This function has virtually disappeared, and I don’t believe that this is a good thing.
But, it still works for celebrities, right? What’s wrong with having a story provided by one person and having it crafted by another? Nothing, right? This is the basis of many fields… architecture for one. Architects don’t really need to concern themselves with all the details of building their designs, they just come up with the designs and let the pros build it (~simplified!). Can/Should transom act this way?
There exists, in large quantities, those who are able to provide great content for the realm of Public Radio but are not necessarily gifted with the abilities or knowledge to edit that content. Thus far, transom has provided a beginners guide to radio, assuming that the beginner would be able to do his or her own editing. What about the Whitney Pastoreks and Carol Wassermans of the realm? These people provide fantastic content for the rest of us… should we really bog them down with the finer points of audio editing at this point? Shouldn’t these be skills that they pick up and develop on their own should they choose to? Perhaps transom lacks the funding/manpower to do the editing for every piece that crosses the desk, but shouldn’t some alternatives be developed?
We try to work both ways. We believe in opening the process, showing the backstage wall and all the workings… so anyone can comb the site and find most of they they need to tell a story on the radio, if that’s what they want to do.
But we also sometimes collaborate, when we can afford it, and when someone really wants to, and when the idea/talent is a good fit.
As for Whitney, my understanding is that she doesn’t so much want the corn as to learn to plow.
And, of course, we did Carol’s editorial and technical work for dozens of her essays, just in the way you suggest, enough so that she’s easily able to plow on her own.
Yes! I want to learn to plow!
Wait, huh? Jay, you lost me with that one.
Andy, thanks for asking the question, but as someone personally cited, I can say: I have been nothing but THRILLED with the support I’ve received from a certain person whose name I won’t mention but whose initials are Jay Allison. He’s been encouraging, straightforward, and helpful beyond my wildest dreams. But he’s a busy guy (hi Jay!), so he doesn’t have time to hold my hand. TOTALLY fine.
I can’t think of another instance in my life where I’ve gotten so far in over my head so fast, and now I’m learning what to do when that happens. Maybe one person can’t do it all for me, but a series of people are teaching me what I need to know as I go along…
That being said, I still have no idea how I’m going to get this stuff edited. But I trust something will present itself eventually. No worries. Well, ok, a few. But that’s why I smoke, right?
Hal,
I don’t know if you’ve already solved this one, but I’ve two thoughts. First would be to ask an engineer at CBS how they usually achieve the feat. Failing that, you could try taking apart one of those wired earpiece/micro units that people who don’t like irradiating their heads use. I’m looking at the one for my motorola right now: two wires up to the micro, and only one from the micro to the earpiece. So with a pair of scissors, an extra stereo-mini jack and some electrician’s tape, you should be able to get a mono signal into the phone. If it’s too strong, you should be able to lower it with the volume control.
Frankly, I’d call CBS first.
b Now, a question of my own:
Anybody know of a good source of info on compression/limiting/noise gating for complete beginners? When are these used and why? I’m a freelancer (just started in radio a couple months ago after years in print) producing packages for news; should I be futzing with these things at all or should I leave it up to the engineers at the various programmes? I started wondering about these mostly because I was looking for a way to cut down my own breathing and mouth noise; are these what I need or is there a better way?
Also, any tips/experiences you’d like to share on soundproofing on the cheap would be much appreciated. Most of the stuff I’ve found on the web is about trying to contain the sound of drums in a studio; i want to keep the sounds of kids and cars
i out.
Thanks,
Jared
Dear Jeff,
I have XP. Does it mean I would not be able to use Protool? I need a free ware that can allow 8 tracks editing.
Thanks for any advice.
Tim
Sorry folks, i was on the road, and the promised local internet connections wouldn’t let me on… so… I’ll try to catch up on a few things.
Tim: sadly, right now, PTFree does not work with Windows XP (at least a few people have told me they can’t get it to work…) I don’t know offhand of any other free programs that allow multitrack editing. Cooledit and Sonic Foundry’s Vegas are decent choices for this purpose on the PC, but they aren’t free.
This is getting messy, but some have suggested creating a new partition on your hard-drive and installing an older operating system that will run PTFree, and simply switching to that OS when you need to use PT, then back to XP the rest of the time. But this is getting beyond my area of expertise, so you should find someone who knows more about the specifics of installing multiple operating systems on a PC before trying this.
I have both OS9.2 and OSX on my Mac and i have switched between them with no ill effects (it requires restarting the computer) so the overall theory is sound…
Minidisc into Cell-phone That’s a fascinating question, please let us know what you discover. I agree that there ought to be a way to rewire a headset-mic attachment, but how precisely to do it? Remember the input on the phone is looking for a microphone level signal, and the output of your minidisc is line-level, or headphone level, both of which are MUCH louder than a microphone, so you may need to knock that level down with an attenuator even if you do wire something up correctly. I wonder if they are used to just holding the heaphones over the cellphone mouthpiece? Even with a pro telephone hybrid, I don’t know how one would connect a cell phone.
Compression/expansion/gating/limiting
In general, I would suggest leaving these processes alone if you are not mixing your own pieces. All of these can improve your sound, but are difficult or impossible to un-do if done poorly. Some microphone pre-amps have these capabilities built-in, so that one can get a smoother, cleaner sound, and if used well, they are effective tools.
The quick overview is that compression will reduce the overall dynamic range of your audio signal, that is to say, the difference between the quiet and loud sounds will not be as great. One can apply different ratios of compression, so that, for instance, as the original sound gets louder by 4 dB, the compressor only allows it to increase by 1 dB. This effectively makes the signal quieter overall, but because the peaks are not as high, one can apply "make-up gain" so that the average level of the audio is higher.
This is very helpful with certain sounds, and voices can often benefit from some of this "smoothing". But if it is over-done, the signal can sound very unnatural, squashed or dull, or one might hear artifacts of the process like "pumping" where the background ambience is getting louder and softer in a weird way. Also, as the average level is brought up, some sounds, like mouth noises and breathing, may seem too loud. Find a happy medium, too much compression can sound lifeless and dull, but too much dynamic range can make it hard to hear the quiet parts.
Limiting is a variation of compression, where a very extreme ratio is applied, so that no increase in volume is allowed past a certain point. Works great in theory, but anyone who has used the limiter on a tape deck knows, it can distort the audio, or give an unnatural sound, if set incorrectly, or too much level is fed into it.
DSP-based limiters, like the TC Finalizer, or the Waves L1 plug-in do "look-ahead limiting" which allows the devices to adjust their settings by adding a tiny delay and analyzing the next few samples, in effect, looking into the future by a few milliseconds and deciding how much gain to reduce.
Expanders are like reverse compressors, they increase the dynamic range, making quiet sounds quieter. As the sound drops below a certain threshold, the volume is reduced by a greater ratio. This can be very good for covering background noise, or for reducing breath sounds, but must be done carefully, or the drop in volume between loud sounds can sound weird.
Gating is like an extreme expander, when sound drops below a certain level it isn’t reduced, it’s cut-off. Gating rarely sounds good if left out in the open, and is mostly useful in multitrack applications, or in live-sound to reduce bleed between microphones, effectively automatically turning off a channel that isn’t being actively used. But ambience gets cut-off abruptly, so unless there are enough other sounds to mask this, it can be unpleasant. Try expanding, it’s smoother.
and finally, for now…USB AUDIO Interfaces if you get a USB audio interface, you don’t really need a sound card at all, these devices will act as your sound card. As helpfully illustrated by a recent post about soundblaster cards (thanks!) the choices are dizzying, but keep in mind that many of these soundcards are made for enjoying video games, etc, and are very good for creating big, hyped sound, but might not do a good job of getting clean, accurate audio in and out of your machine. Skip the surround-sound and amplifier options, and concentrate on good-quality connections, well-matched to your input and output devices. This is true for an installed soundcard or an external USB interface.
Per Jeff’s advice I took a deep breath and bought an ibook and an Mbox. Here’s what I’ve learned. First off, when you buy an Apple you can ask for a computer that’s come out of an opened box and they’ll give you 10 percent off. You can get an additional ten percent off if you’ll take a model with a pixel missing. Here’s the Mbox wrinkle. It’s easy to get sound into the computer via the MBox. However, once you’ve loaded pro tools and saved your session, you can’t work on it later without having the MBox connected. It needs to be connected all the time whether you’re working or not. Lugging around the MBox makes the set-up less portable than I’d like. Anyone know if I can download PT Free and just use the MBox to transfer the audio from my minidisc player? I called PT (many, many times this week) and they say the reason is basically to marry PT LE to digidesign hardware so they can make money and stay in business.
After I installed PT LE I was getting DAE 6009 errors. I spent the better part of a day figuring this one out. It turns out you just unplug the USB connector from the computer port and then plug it back in again.
I realized before I went on my shopping spree that PT was not going to work with the OSX operating system that came with the MAC. I didn’t think it would bother me, but it’s kind of annoying to have the updated system which is better by most accounts and not to be able to use it.
That’s all for now. I hope I’ve enlightened some other lost soul out there.
I spent some time speaking with a sound engineer from a company called USBStuff who says that Roland makes several devices, the UA1a, and the UA3 and UA5 that will take analog input from the headphone jack of a minidisc player and send it into the USB port on a Mac, (I assume a Windows based system also)
The engineer says that the UA1a (88dollars) is simply cables that carry the signal, stereo out and in; the UA3 (180dollars) and UA5 (290dollars) will also, but are more like multichannel interfaces, the UA5, being more expensive is also more sophisticated.
From what I hear about the Mbox, and from my experience with the emagic interface, it seems that a simple cable to get the sound into pro tools would be a great deal easier. I hate all the readjustment of settings I have to do each time I want to deal with the interface. From Mary McGrath’s posting that seems to be even more of a problem with the Mbox.
Also, if a simple and less than nintey dollar cable can bring the sound in to the editing software, why bother with the other expensive and complicated stuff? Or am I missing something here?
Does anyone have experience with these or anything similar?
Daniel Ferri
anyone know a way to mend (one of the PT Audiosuite gizmos, for instance) my too-hot minidisc telephone interview voices? It’s not the quantity, but the quality…hate having to do things over with deadlines looming. Thanks!
Do you have to use a cell phone? If you use a regular phone, you can get one of those $15 Radio Shack gizmos, "Recording Controller," which has a playback switch, and plugs into the handset with an RJ45 connector, and the MDR with the standard 1/8" miniplug.
RS’s Recording Controller For Cell Phones does not have the same–record only.
don’t know if this should go here or in editing and mixing but in order to avoid starting a whole new thread i guess i’ll ask here.
so i’ve been thinking about stepping up to the mbox just to have the full version of protools and eventually hooking things up through a consumer minidisc deck with digital outputs in an effort to keep things all digital. but what about monitors? i’ve read all this stuff about how your standard hi-fi speakers from your home stereo system won’t do the trick as they’re intended to boost certain signals that sound good at home but won’t sound good in say in the car stereo or clock radio. but is that more related to the music side of things? how crucial is it in the radio world? basically i want to know if there’s a way to mickey mouse things so i can get up and running without laying out a lot of cash.
Mary,
congrats on the M-Box, you will learn to love it, really… It is true that the Achilles heel of this system is that the box must be connected for the program to run. This is part pure commerce, but it is part tech too, the MBox allows you to record at higher bit-rates and different sample rates, and use more than 8 tracks, none of which are possible with PTFree. Do you need these things? Probably not, but it does indicate that the MBox is actually doing some work, not just acting as a big, heavy copy-protect dongle. And it has very nice quality Mic preamps, digital and analog I/O and easy level adjustments, headphone jacks, etc, which make it FAR superior to some of the other less-expensive interfaces (like the Edirol/Roland UA1-A or UA1-D).
There are a couple of tricks by which you can run both PTLE for the MBox and PTFree on the same machine: it’s a little complicated, so I will double-check all my references and post the precise procedure here soon. The short version is that by renaming a few files and folders, you can make the computer find the appropriate DAE folder and prefs file, etc upon launching one of the versions. This way you can record good quality audio into PTLE via the M-Box, then edit in PTFree without the box connected. I’ve done it on the iBook, and it works fine, and is only a little tedious to rename things and restart.
An alternate tactic is to make a new hard drive partition with a duplicate system folder, and the appropriate files for one of the versions of PT, while the other version resides on the other partition. Then one could choose an alternate start-up disc which would then load the appropriate components upon restart. i have NOT tried this yet, but it should work…
Yes, it’s true that it’s a bummer to not be able to use OSX with these programs yet, but trust me, bouncing between the two OS versions can create a great deal of confusion itself, and so until you can stay in OSX all the time, you might be better-off just living with 9.2.2 for now… Deck and Spark have OSX versions if you really want to be OSX native.
As for the Edirol/Roland interfaces, as I posted over in the USB audio topic, the inexpensive UA-1A and UA-1D can be very handy tools: I carry a UA-1D in my laptop bag all the time, so I can load digital audio onto the iBook at any time, directly into PTFree. And it has been working great doing that.
However, it requires some work-arounds and leaps of faith. When one selects the digital-only UA-1D as the audio input source in the sound control panel, the audio output routes out of the UA-1D too. Which means that you can’t hear any audio on the computer’s speakers or headphone-out while this is selected. You can listen to to DAT or minidisc you are dumping out of, but I would prefer to listen to the computer. You could connect the output of the UA-1D to a device with a digital input, but that’s getting a bit complicated just to monitor something…
You can unplug the interface after load-in and work just fine from then on, but PT every once in a while gets freaked-out that the audio input hardware can’t be found and quits. It doesn’t crash the computer, it just quits the program, so if you save often, or even shut the program down after recording and then start it up again with built-in sound selected as the output, you’ll be OK.
Another quirk is that the UA-1D only outputs digital audio at a 48K sample rate. This is odd because Mac built-in sound is only 44.1K sample rate. The output is at the correct speed and pitch, so it is apparently sample-rate converting it on the fly. It still sounds OK, but it’s annoying if you are trying to keep all your audio at a single sample rate. Your digital audio needs to be at 44.1K to digitally transfer it IN to PTFree, so it’s just odd to digitally dump it out at a different sample rate.
The UA-1A, which is analog-only, has its own quirks. One is that different audio devices have different standards for what unity-gain of a line-level signal should be, even differences among audio gear rated as having -10 or +4 dB outputs. For instance, the RCA Line-Out of my Tascam DA-20 DAT machine, supposedly at -10 dB, when plugged into the UA-1A will overdrive the inputs of PTFree if my signal exceeds -7 dB on the Tascam meters. A different DAT machine or minidisc might have outputs that are louder or quieter, but there are no input trims on the UA-1A to compensate for this, so one needs to use some sort of variable input, from a mixer or a headphone out, or something.
That being said, this will work fine for dumping audio to the computer from a minidisc headphone out. You can play your audio, and watch the meters on PTFree, adjusting the minidisc headphone level until you get an optimum signal.
The annoyance comes in with a similar scenario as with the digital unit: when the UA-1A is selected as the audio in, the output is routed through it as well. Not a huge deal, but now you are stuck with a line-level out on RCA jacks, with no ability to listen to the computer audio through the computer speakers or heaphone jack. It’s fine if you have the UA-1A outputs hooked to an amp and speakers, but it’s not so good for being portable. As with the UA-1D, one can simply listen to the dump-out source, and watch your meters and hope it’s OK, but you won’t know for sure until you disconnect the device and listen back to the recorded soundfile.
At least the M-Box lets you listen to your souce and/or the computer audio without switching or unplugging anything.
So… all of these interfaces have pluses and minuses. But they can get the job done with a little patience.
Jeff,
As soon as you report that the hard drive partition will work, I’m there. In the mean time I’m plugging away. Two questions, in terms of loading in sound — what’s the right process? Should I max out the mini disc with the headphone gain and THEN adjust the input on the MBox? Also, the inputs for the minidisc are these source thingamajigs which get connected with rca cables with adaptors on them. Is it best to add a Y cable and use one input, use the red and white ends in separate source inputs or use either the red or the white in one or the other input? Sorry for the imprecies verbiage. The MBox is not handy at the moment. Also people talk about assigning a certain amount of Ram to Pro Tools. My ibook came with 256 Ram. Do I need to be thinking about this?
Somewhere, Barrett Golding posted full description of how to make ProTools Free work on the same machine as the full version. If we can find that, Josh could add it, along with Jeff’s info above, to our FAQ, for which I think it qualifies. Barrett, where is that?
~here’s the short version of this eem:
for those considering using Digidesign MBox on a iMac/iBook: the bundled ProToolsLE will not run unless you have MBox plugged in. ProToolsFREE will run w/o MbBox plugged in, but PTfree has limitations that PT-LE don’t. one solution, if you don’t want to lug MBox w/ you everytime you want to launch PT, is to have both PT-free and PT-LE on your ‘puter. but those two versions of PT cannot run on the same ‘puter. unless you trick it. to learn how, read (or skip to bottom of) the…
~interminably long, hopelessly complicated version of this eem:
some time back i had called Digidesign wanting to buy the pay version of ProTools FREE, but not seeing anything on their website that would run w/o external hardware.
what i wanted was to upgrade PT, but to a PT vers that would use Mac’s native sound engine, as PT-free does. Digidesign told me that none of their for-pay apps use Mac’s native Sound Manager, aka, all require external hardware (like a pci-slot Audiomedia sound card). i asked if they we’re writing a vers of PT that would not require a sound card. they said no. (i also asked if they were writing an OS X vers: also no).
when i heard the announcement of DigiDesign’s Mbox USB audio interface, and it’s bundling w/ ProTools LE, i again called to ask if PT-LE would run w/o the MBox plugged in. answer: no. again, PT-free will. but PT-free and PT-LE will not run on same chine.
why do i care? cuz i need an MBox-like interface to get sound thru usb port. but after sound’s inside, i don’t need the box anymore to play/edit/mix sound. and my portable computer becomes a lot less portable if it needs an MBox attached, just to ran a particular program.
the solution would be run PT-LE most of time, and PT-free when MBox ain’t attached and i don’t need to capture audio-in. but PT-free and PT-LE can’t get along on the lone prairies of a single harddrive. at this point in my long recitation the Digidesign tech guy mentions: well, there is a way to trick your cpu in running both PT-LE & PT-free. Digidesign, of course, neither recommends or supports it but… i say: hold it right there, i’m gonna send an email so i can share the heretofore unheard of gambit with the AIRheads. (have not tried this yet, as i don’t yet have PT-LE.) here’s are the instructions, in their full Digidesign-disclaimed glory, to install and run, at separate times, both PT-LE and PT-free on 1 computer:
From: George_Cochrane, digidesign.com
To: Barrett Golding
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 12:33:09 -0800
Subject: Re: PTfree & PT LE on some computer
Hi Barrett, thanks for your interest!
You wrote:
———————————————————
hi, i just called with questions about Mbox and whether ProToolsLE would run w/o Mbox connected (for instance on a non-pci equipped iBook or iMac). you answered it would not. but PTfree would. i would prefer to use LE when possible, but sometimes having the mbox connected is inconvenient, especially in field. so a solution would be to install both PTfree and LE.
—————————-
Possibly. Remember that PT Free is limited to 8 audio tracks, so if you go beyond that in PTLE, your session will open in FREE, but only the first 8 tracks of it will be accessible. Also, I told you this on the phone, but just to clarify for anyone that might read this: The usage of different versions of Pro Tools on the same machine has not been tested and is not supported, condoned, or even mildly encouraged by Digidesign. The technique I describe here came from customer feedback. If it doesn’t work, trial and error or a re-install are really the only ways to fix it- tech support will not support this sort of setup. There, now that we’ve got that out of the way..
—————————-
i had heard that PTfree and LE could not be installed on the same harddrive. you mentioned they could, by doing a few flourishes w/ duplicate installs of certain OMS/DAE files/folders: None of which Digidesign Supports or Recommends, i understand, but which you would be nice enough to describe for me in an email that i could share w/ other members of the Association in Public Radio with the same question (many use iMacs/iBooks for audio productions).
—————————-
Generally, the idea is as such: On a mac system, one would install PTLE, say. Then, you’d rename both your Digidesign folder and your DAE folder (found in the System folder) to something like "Digidesign2" and "DAE2". Also, you’ll most likely want to go to the Preferences folder within the System folder, and put things like the "Pro Tools LE 5.1.1 Preferences", "DigiSetup" and "DAE Prefs" into a new folder on your desktop called something like "LE Prefs".
Then you’d install PT Free. Each time you wanted to switch back and forth between the two versions, you’d just rename whatever version you want to use’s Digidesign and DAE folders back to "Digidesign" and "DAE", and put the respective preferences into the preferences folder. The key here is you don’t want any stray preferences from the other version in that folder when you’re trying to run a certain version, and you don’t want to get your DAE folders mixed up, either.
OMS, you can leave alone. The same version works with both PT versions, as far as I know.
According to some customers, this can work just fine. I haven’t heard this being done between PTLE and PTFREE specifically, but I see no reason why they should be any different.
—————————-
and one last question: are 5.0+ versions PTfree and PT-LE seessions always compatible, if on same platform, w/ same plug-ins, and assuming sessions are w/in PTfree limits (16bit, =<8tracks, 44.1K)
—————————-
Yes. The one thing to remember is if you’re running PTLE 5.1.1, you’ll want to "Save A Session Copy As" your session as a 5.0 document, so that PTFREE can read it- it’s a 5.0.1 version. LE 5.1 can read 5.0 sessions, no problem.
Hope this helps! Have fun with these rigs!
George Cochrane Product Specialist Digidesign
The line-out (or headphone out) on the little minidiscs is a stereo mini (1/8"), while the line-level inputs on the M-Box are combo-jacks that can take either XLR or 1/4", so the best bet is to get a cable that is wired with a stereo mini on one end, that splits to left and right 1/4". DON"T get a splitter that sends the same signal to both 1/4" jacks, and done get a cable with a mono mini jack. It might be easier to find a stereo mini-to-2 RCA jacks, often used to connect a walkman or discman to a home stereo. You can put adapters on the RCA jacks to bump them up to 1/4".
As to which cables to connect, it depends: the default position is to plug both the left and right (white and red) into the MBox. Whether you actually record sound onto the computer from both inputs depends on how you recorded your source. If you recorded stereo, load both channels. If you recorded mono, and it recorded the same way to both channels, just pick one, there’s no point to eating up extra disc space by loading two channels of the same thing. If you recorded so that the audio sounds better on one channel than the other, use the good one…
I’m not sure there’s a rule about how loud to set the output of the minidisc, versus the input of the MBox, you might need to experiment with that. I suspect that you will get better sound if you leave the minidisc at a moderate level, not too quiet, so that the signal is above any baseline headphone-amp noise; but not too loud, the MBox will have cleaner amplification than the minidisc.
Assigning RAM: This is a delicate dance, it’s true that it helps to assign more memory to ProTools, but if you assign too much, DAE won’t have enough to work in. For now, leave it at its defaults and don’t run any additional programs at the same time. If you get more RAM (It’s easy to install, and cheap these days…) then you could think about assigning more RAM to the ProTools program, and to DAE. But you should be OK for now, unless you were planning on running lots of plug-ins. 256Megs is decent, you shoudn’t have any problems. Start up ProTools, then click on the Mac finder and select "about this computer" from the apple menu. How much free RAM do you have?
I saved Barrett’s correspondance with digidesign about the PTFree-LE workaround…it’s somewhere around here. Was it on the PAG? Anyway, I’ll find it, I made a couple of small tweaks to it to make it a little easier to remember where everything goes, and will post it on the FAQ.
–jeff
I have two older macs – a PowerMac 6100/60 using OS 8.1 (don’t laugh, please), and a Power Book 1400c/133, which I think is also OS 8.1, both hand me downs, which are fine for personal use. Is anyone out there using older macs for editing, in particular with ProTools? Comments? Recommendations? Does the fact that I have a Bournoulli drive mean anything? Updating is not really an option right now.
How must it feel to be obsolete when you’re 6 years old?
Jeff: How do I order the $9.95 CD Rom for Pro Free. Mailing address?
Thank you. Charles Jeffries. jeffries22juno.com
You know Charles, that’s a perfectly good question, and i have no idea how to do it by mail! I’m not sure if you can… But, given that we are here on the web, follow this link and you should be able to do it on-line or get info:
http://www.digidesign.com/ptfree/
Good luck!
I’m using some older Macs — a 6100/66 in particular, but have done only a LITTLE audio editing on it. You can do it, especially if you’ve put in as much RAM (memory) as the Mac can hold.
I wanted to mention that there are some known problems with some of the Mac OS releases. I thought Mac OS 8.1 was OK (better than Mac OS 8.0) but I recently had to reformat my hard drive after having weird problems under 8.1. On a lark I upgraded to Mac OS 9.0.4 and it actually runs, but slowly.
The Bernoulli drives were widely considered to be unreliable and you probably can’t buy new cartridges anymore. A ZIP drive is actually very similar (basically a high capacity floppy drive), and the cartridges are still available, though falling out of favor because they’re very slow and expensive compared to CD-Rs. I have several ZIP drives that work great on older Macs, but I don’t use them any more.
I burn CDs on my PowerMac 6100. As long as the source files are not fragmented on the hard drive, it works fine at the 8x speed of the burner. The blanks are 15-30 cents each at office stores.
Thanks, Tommy
I figured on cramming the 6100 full of RAM. I haven’t had too many problems with 8.1, but then, I haven’t done much of the fancy stuff. Anyone else using older Macs and have general PT advice to share?
I am in the process of buying a new computer (Mac, laptop) with the intention of using ProTools Free. I wanted to know about the program’s compatibility with OSX which I believe comes loaded on all new machines.
Thank you,
Sarah
Sarah,
I;ll take a crack at answering your question. For starters you can’t use OSX with PT, you have to use OS 9, which means you won’t ever use OSX. And, you can’t use PT Free with a Mac laptop. The Macs have don’t have a digital audio input so you have to buy a piece of hardware that works with the Mac USB technology. I was new to this game recently and took the advice of the folks here and bought an ibook and an MBox made by the people who make ProTools. It comes with the non-free version of Pro Tools called PTLE which is better suited for musicians than radio producers but which I believe you must use with the MBox. In any case, it all works well (the MBox will cost you about $450). The only thing I didn’t know going in is that you have to have the MBox attached to your computer at all times so it makes your set-up a little less portable. Question for Jeff: if Sarah doesn’t need all the bells and whistles of PTLE can she buy an MBox, give away the PTLE disc and download PT Free and just use that or do you need LE to load audio into the laptop? Hope I’ve helped Sarah. Start reading this site from the bottom up (read the 180 previsous posts) and you’ll find the answers to all of your questions.
Hey, I just bought an MBox, so I’ll be sure to report back when I’ve set it up and give the lowdown. I’m hoping it will be the answer to my prayers. Then again, I could still end up being an idiot technophobe.
I loaded Pro Tools free on my Dell PC. The display is perfect, but there seems to be no connection to my sound card. It neither plays nor allows me to record from an outside (analog) source.
I work with Pro Tools at the university, but we use Macs with the dedicated sound card (digidesign).
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks. John
I think ProTools Free mostly doesn’t play well with PCs. But Jeff just posted on the AIR list that he got it working on a DELL, so I defer to him.
Jeff, should we put together a FAQ on Audio Workstations for the PC? Is there interest out there?
Hi,
I wrote a few months ago asking about getting my minidisc files onto my Windows machine for editing. I canot bring the file directly into ProTools, and I read in one of your columns that another program would be needed to record my audio onto my PC and create a .wav file that could, in turn, be imported into ProTools. Among the tools mentioned was Cool Edit, and I tried it with sketchy results. Your column had mentioned other programs, and I’m wondering what these could be.
Also, I did receive a response to my initial message that this topic of getting minidisc files to PC via another program for import to ProTools was perhaps grist for another column or just a FAQ. I wrote back in March, and I’m wondering if there’s been any program on the column or FAQ — or if anyone has any suggestions for programs. I’m running Windows ’98 and have plenty of memory and hard disk space.
Thanks.
Sonic Foundry’s Sound Forge XP 4.5 works great for me, but, then again, so does Pro Tools Free.
I’m interested in Jay’s idea of a FAQ on this topic. so count one affirmative response.
I’m having a problem duplicating CDs and am wondering if anyone out there has had the same problem.
We use a Multiboards Technology DRS-1000 series duplicator to make CD copies of our weekly radio show. We’ve been using this duplicator for about two years and have had no problems. We use a Lacie
burner to burn the master. We burn the masters and copies on HHB CDs. We usually burn the master at 12x speed. Until recently we used Adaptec’s EZ- CD4 (the basic version).
Recently, we began using a second workstation. It’s a Dell OptiplexGX300. We added a Sony CD-R (the model is CRX-185A1 — 32x10x40)and updated to Adaptec’s EZ-CD Creator 5 (the full version).
We’ve been able to burn the master using the Sony burner. The master seems to play ok on various consumer CD players that we have. However, when we try to duplicate using the Microboards duplicator, we’re unsuccessful. The duplicator doesn’t seem to read the master.
When we burn CDs using EZ-CD Creator5 and the LACIE burner, we have no problems making duplicates.
I’ve checked with Microboards and Sony tech support. Neither can think of any reason for incompatibility between burners.
I’d think it might be something to do with the software and the Sony burner, except that we’re actually able to burn CDs on the Sony using EZ-CD Creator 5.
Does anyone have theories?
Thanks in advance for your help.
John Blythe
Whoops. That should be a Microboards Technology duplicator. I imagine that was self-evident, but just wanted to make sure.
John
Sorry folks, I’ve been a bit snowed-under here, and I’m just now digging out. I’ll try to get a few of these questions now and the rest as soon as possible.
First as to PTFree for the Mac: you CAN use it on an iBook, I do it all the time (in fact on my last trip to and from from California I used the time on the plane to mix 7 tunes that I had multitracked into the laptop with a MOTU firewire interface, then imported into PTFree. It’s good to have 2 batteries!)
you do not HAVE to have an MBox, although I highly recommend it.
But it is true that you have to use SOME external device to import sound, in my case I had used a firewire interface to record into a different program, and then I opened those files (conveniently already SD2 format) on PTFree, which allowed me to work without the interface connected. I also use cheap little Edirol UA-1D or UA-1A interfaces to record directly into ProToolsFree, via the iBook’s USB port. I have poted before about the quirks of working with these devices, they are not convenient, but they do work.
BUT I wholeheartedly encourage the use of the M-Box, I think it’s a fantastic interface, fully worth the $450 to avoid the work-arounds and clumsiness of the kludges. And it sounds good.
Sadly, you do indeed need this Box connected at all times, and you must use PTLE with this device, not PTFree.
However, there is a work-around, and I promise to find it and post it here tonight!!!! By renaming and moving some files, one can run both the MBox and PTFree on he same machine. This is not just theoretical, I’ve done it, and lived to tell the tale.
Now, over on the PC front, it’s true that it’s dicier to get PTFree running smoothly on a windows machine, but it is possible. Gregg McVicar posted a very helpful link to the music retailers Sweetwater Sound that gives some tips about tweaking your PC for best use. I’m not sure if this link will stay up in perpetuity, so I’m asking them for permission to "reprint" it here. But for now, here’s the link:
http://www.sweetwater.com/insync/techtip.tpl?find=05/22/2002
If your system was not recording or playing sound, there are several possible problems. The most likely is that you need to select your sound card’s inputs and outputs in the ProTools set-ups section, check "hardware" and "playback engine" and see whether your soundcard is selected as the device to route sound in and out of the program. Also, the digi site has some specific info about soundacard compatibility, not all soundcards will work.
Check out that article, and let us know how you are doing.
Big, HUGE thanks to Barrett Golding for figuring this out, and to the tech at digidesign who confirmed that this should work.
***This is for switching between PTLE and PTFree on a Mac only***
The digi tech did go to lengths to say that this is UNSUPPORTED and NOT RECOMMENDED by digidesign, and digi tech support won’t help you fix this if you mess things up. So proceed at your own risk. A complete re-install of ProTools would be the only fix if you really confuse things. (not that big of a deal.)
But if you are careful and systematic, this is not too hard, I’ve done it a few times.
I’m paraphrasing the mysterious digi tech, but these are the steps. (don’t use the "" marks as you rename things, they just indicate the exact names you should look for.)
First, make two folders on your desktop: one named "PTFree preferences" (or something specific like that, the exact name is not important) the other named "PTLE preferences".
Install the version of PTLE that came with your M-Box.
After the install is complete, you can use LE, but when you need to switch to PT Free (if you want to edit without dragging the M-Box around, for instance):
Rename both your Digidesign folder and your DAE folder (which is in the
System folder) "Digidesign-LE" and "DAE-LE" respectively. (again the exact name isn’t important, except that you are sure which version it is, and that is no longer just called "Digidesign" or "DAE")
Open the Preferences folder (which is in the System folder) and drag "Pro Tools LE 5.1.1 Preferences", "DigiSetup" and "DAE Prefs"
into the folder you made on your desktop called "PTLE Preferences".
Then install PT Free.
That install will make a new "Digidesign" folder and a new "DAE" folder, and as you run the program, new preferences will be created.
You can now run PTFree, but not LE.
When you want to switch back to LE, you would rename the new "Digidesign" folder as "Digidesign-PTFree" and rename the "DAE" file as "DAE-PTFree" (or something similar, as long as you are sure to remember which version it is, and as long as it is not simply "Digidesign" or "DAE".)
Open the system folder, go to preferences, and drag the "Pro Tools Free v5.0 Preferences", "DigiSetup" and "DAE Prefs" into the folder on your desktop called "PTFree Preferences"
Then open up the folder you made on your desktop that you called "PTLE Preferences" and drag those back into the Preferences folder.
Rename the "Digidesign-LE" folder as just plain "Digidesign" and the "DAE-LE" folder just "DAE". Now you are back to the LE set-up.
Each time you switch, you just need to change the names of the inactive versions of the Digidesign and DAE folders to something other than the default name, and make sure the versions you ARE using are simply called "Digidesign" and "DAE". I highly recommend that you name the inactive folders with the version they are, not just #1 or #2, or whatever, just so you always know which is which. And then move the preferences files associated with the appropiate program in and out of the prefs folder.
the digi guy told Barret: "The key here is you don’t want any stray preferences from the other version in that folder when you’re trying to run a certain version, and you don’t want to get your DAE folders mixed up, either. OMS, you can leave alone. The same version works with both PT versions, as far as I know."
That’s it. It’s a little dizzying, but not hard.
Again, huge thanks to Barrett Golding for figuring this out, and sharing it with us.
Barrett and I were also discussing how one could make two different partitions on the start-up drive, each with its own system folder, but one with PTFree installed, the other with PTLE installed. Then one could choose a different start-up folder depending on what version you wanted to use. We haven’t tried this yet, but it should work, and it would avoid all the file renaming.
More as we learn more.
Just letting everyone know the good news that me and my MBox finished off my first ever NPR piece yesterday, and it will be airing during Morning Edition tomorrow (friday)! I am quite sure that I didn’t use even a quarter of its capability, but it successfully got my cassettes, DAT, minidisc, and CDs all thrown together into one big heap, edited, and back out again.
I have some specific questions (mostly about ProTools), but I wrote them down at home, so of course I have no idea what they are. One thing is, I experienced some weird popping noises that would come through on the MBox input. If I unplugged and then plugged back in the USB, they’d stop… but I wonder what that was?
Anyway, I would like to send along a big THANK YOU to the Tools department here for having such great and valuable sound editing info available online. I didn’t need anything but this website to stumble through on my own. Rockin’.
You are living proof of something. It should be remembered that about a month ago, you posted these sentences in this topic:
>"I’m a complete novice, but I have a couple projects in the works and need to get them onto a computer– and then back out– soon."
>"Does someone have time to break this down for a total technophobe?"
See? Living proof.
I like the way you’re not sure what I’m living proof OF, Jay.
You and my mother should get together and try and figure that out.
I normally input sound to my Powerbook G3 (Pismo), via an Edirol UA-3 mixer (great little USB interface) plus SHURE SM-7a mic. I edit simple voicers on Sound Studio.
But the mic input level is a tad low. Can anyone suggest a simple pre-amp, no fancy bells and whistles needed for this simple, single mic, mono recording?
Thanks.
if
What about AFTER you get the audio from the MD into the iBook? And after you edit the cuts? But before you bounce it…..
Is there anything in the "Audiosuite" window worth doing to make voices sound better? Compressing it a little? Normalizing? Any of those other fancy things that I don’t understand?
Background: I use my MD for evening news reports as well as features, so sometimes I go out in the field, interview people, and use PTFree to pull actualities, recording my wraparound in the studio. But what if I wanted to record myself in the field and make an MP3 of the whole story? Should I do any of those fancy things in the Audiosuite window to make it sound better, or just send it and let the engineers tweak things as it goes out on air?
Thanks so much for this site — I was stuck using cassettes and cutting tape until I discovered this amazing site.
this is the Ask Jeff topic, i know, but i’m gonna chime in w/ my answer to Tim’s pre-Bounce question. i, along w/ many other producers/engineers (including jeff, i believe) use the Waves suite of digital audio-processing software. specifically, once the final edit of a voice track is done, we often process it w/ their L1 Ultramax compresser/limiter — works with PT and most other editing programs w/ plug-in architecture. kinda gives the voices a punch, and makes mixing easier, and the mix better. the Native Power pack which runs on Macs is about $300, and as soon as you can scrape up the semolians is well worth it:
http://www.waves.com
I’ll agree with Barrett that the Waves plug-ins, which work as Real-Time-Audio-Suite (RTAS) effects, are great. The real-time thing simply indicates that the processing is applied in real-time, as if you had a physical device plugged-in. The non-real-time stuff, such as gain and normalize, are applied off-line and create a new processed track. The proceedure is pretty fast, and the new track drops right where it should in your edit window, but for maximum flexibility and undo-ability, it’s great to leave the soundfiles alone and just tweak the processing.
The Native Power pack is a good choice. Some (but not all) of the plug-ins can be purchsed "a la carte" but that gets pricey fast.
I’m really happy with the Renaissance Collection, (less than $300 at most stores) which is simply a compressor, an EQ and a reverb. Simple, but really great sounding stuff. The compressor also has an L1-ish peak-stop limiter, but the L1 is much more tweakable.
But back to your original question, to which I say, yes, some compression, and/or limiting can often really help voices, reducing peaks and getting the average level higher, therefore more comprehensible.
Be careful, too much compression can make things muddy, noisy and, well, weird sounding.
If your levels are pretty close to ideal, i wouldn’t bother normalizing tracks, it creates a new file, and even though digital, degrades the sound by a tiny bit (although usually worth it for the accompanying improvements.) Highlight a representative segment of your soundfile and go to the audiosuite menu and select "gain". Then click on "find peak" which will tell you how much "headroom" you have before hitting overs.
If it’s only a couple dB, leave it alone and proceed to compression. If it’s pretty low, more than 5 or 6 dB of headroom, I’d go back to the audiosuite menu and choose "normalize" to process the track. You can choose to increase the gain to less than 100% of the maximum, but in most cases you might as well let it go to full scale (unless you know for sure than something else you will do is likely to add gain, such as boosting certain frequencies with EQ.)
Inserting a compressor on an individual track is a good way to tame a widely-varting voice level while leaving the rest of the audio alone. Inserting compression or limiting on the final stereo (or mono) master fader is a good way to keep your overall levels consistent, and even provides a kind of "ducking" where the background tracks are pushed back a bit when foreground tracks are playing.
To use inserts, go to the mixer window in ProTools (other programs work similarly) and at the top of each track display you’ll see a set of 5 boxes with black dots. Click on a dot, then choose "plug-in" and a drop-down menu of all your plug-ins will appear. Select the appropriate one, and that’s it, you have processing applied to the channel. When you choose this processor, (or click on it in the track display of the mixer) you get a box with controls, and metering. Play some audio, and tweak the controls until you get a result you like. The defaults are often pretty good, and there are often presets that will get you pretty close.
The one thing to be careful about it that these processes can change the volume of your track significantly. Boosting or cutting certain frequencies with an EQ will raise or lower the overall volume of that track. Compression often knocks the peaks back a bit, making the whole track quieter. In the example of a compressor, almost all have a way to compensate, called "make-up gain" so you can push the levels back up to where you want them, even as you are reducing the gain on certain segments. This can be very handy, but be sure to watch the meters in both the plug-in window, and on your project’s tracks and master faders.
In general, if you are looking to make your voices pop-out more, I would try some gentle compression (the plug-in that comes with PTFree or LE isn’t bad at all..) try a ratio of 3:1 or 4:1, and adjust the threshold so that the gain-reduction meter is showing about 4 dB of reduction during the loud parts. Use make-up gain, about equal to the amount of reduction showing on the meter, to make the whole track louder.
A bit of EQ can go along way too, depending on your tracks, the addtition of a little EQ, at, say 3,000 hz can really bring out the consonants (or cutting there can tame sibilant sss sounds.) Rolling off some bass can clear things up, or rolling some in can warm it up.
Experiment! Even if you don’t invest in Waves or other add-ons, the plugins that come with PT are pretty powerful.
Ira, there are a bunch of decent, inexpensive preamps out now. ART and BlueTube make some small (half-rack or less) mono or stereo devices with varying capabilities, there’s even a BlueTube with a digital output (the DigiTube?). You should be able to get most of these for between $100-200.
Most of these types of preamps are hyping their "Tube Warmth" which is true to an extent, but they gloss over the tube noise that accompanies. The hiss might get buried in a rock and roll track, but out front on a solo voice, you can notice it, This is aviodable, though, by not using too much tube gain, or "drive".
A couple of these devices even have a built-in compressor, which can be handy, to keep levels under control on the way in… just be judicious…
M-Audio used to make some really nice-clean non-tube preamps, I’m not sure if they are still doing that or if they have turned their attention to computer interfaces completely.
If you win the lottery, there are gobs of beautiful single channel preamps, from Grace Designs (only about $600) or Avalon (for the low-low price of, today, for you….$2,000.)
Lok through a music gear catalog, there are billions. I have a Blue Tube that I got really cheap, that’s a good utility stereo preamp.
We mentioned before that if you are doing sessions in PTLE and want to work later in PTFree, the session types are not compatible. You can open a PTFree session in LE no problem. But if you ant to work in Free, you must save your session as PT version 5.0.
BUT… the save-as dialog doesn’t give you that option!
The trick is to use "save a copy" and thay will bring up a dialog that allows you to choose the file format. You do not need to copy the soundfiles (there’s a check-box for if you want to do that) unless you are indeed movign the whole deal to another disc. if you are simply working on the same computer, and the same hard drive, just save the session as 5.0 -works fine.
I just did the PTFree-LE toggle on the iBook about 5 times last night, and although it gets dizzying, no problems.
Jeff and Barrett, this stuff is good. Let’s add it to our FAQ.
Jeff,
Thanks for all the information about moving between PTLE and Free. It’s a little scary, but I’m going to try it. So in addition to moving between the two copies in the system folders, you need to save a copy of your project as 5.0. That’s for working in PT Free. The other has already been saved to work in LE, right?
I’ve been working on a piece that I won’t get to mix myself because a certain union shop won’t let me. Could someone describe the "final mix" stage; that is, once you’ve got narration and actuality, what is it you need to do before you bounce the piece onto a cd and send it off to radioland?
Hi Mary,
Yes, follow the directions we listed above about what files to move, or rename, carefully… and you shouldn’t have any problem. And yes, the LE session will save as 5.1, but PTFree will not open a 5.1 file, so while you are still in LE, save a copy as 5.0. As you do this, a little warning box will come up telling you that the session can not contain more than 8 tracks, or be at 24 bit, and can not use any plug-ins that you don’t have in PTFree… so in case one has created a real monster session in LE, a little housekeeping is in order, make sure there no more than 8 tracks, if you think you will toggle the program versions, do NOT record at 24 bit, etc.
Then when you save in PTFree, it will save as a 5.0 file, but if you want to move back, LE will open this with no problem, it will simply ask if you want to switch the audio engine from built-in to M-Box, which you do want.
Are you asking how to best prepare your tracks for someone else to mix, or how to do the mix yourself?
In the first case: You should ask the engineers you are working with what they prefer, because there are a million ways to do it. They will likely want the actualities with some heads and tails of ambience that they can bring up and down in the mix, although if there is no appreciable background noise, it might be better to give them tightly-trimmed acts. Ask.
make sure the narration is nicely trimmed, so they don’t have to search around for exact start and end points.
You should ask them if they just want one big soundfile with all the narration (this is much easier for you…) or if they want each narration on a separate track. Same question for the actualities, there are benefits to either way of doing it.
If actualities are in stereo, make sure they remain in stereo (check your mixer window and make sure the left and right channels are panned left and right, or a stereo channel in 5.1 has its pan indicators all the way left and right.) and that you choose "stereo interleaved" in the bounce window.
Mono tracks, such as narration can be handled in different ways: again, check with the engineers to see what they would prefer. You may want to pan the track fully to the left and bounce it out as a mono file. If you take a mono track that is at full-volume (normalized) and pan it to the center, the left and right channels will each have the same signal, but down about 3 dB. If the engineers on the other end load just one channel (why waste two tracks on a mono narration?) your track will be 3dB quiter than you intended it to be. They can compensate in the mix, but you are loosing some audio resolution.
Speaking of normalizing, I would do that to each individual narration or actuality, unless you are applying processing that will add gain. You want to give the mixer each element in an ideal state, so he or she isn’t spending all day getting things back to a decent level.
As for applying processing, in general, most mix engineers would prefer that you didn’t mess with it too much, and let them do the EQ and compression, etc. It’s very hard or impossible to un-do these things if you did it badly. However, if there are some specific problems that you know you can fix, cutting a problem frequency with some EQ, for instance, and you are sure it sounds better, go ahead and proecess the track, giving them a better-sounding element to mix, will be appreciated. Same goes for compression or limiting, in general you should leave that for the mix, but if you have problematic tracks that you can get into better shape, the mix engineer will likely appreciate it.
If you want to be a real pro, you can send processed and unprocessed tracks and let them pick.
Then select each section you want to bounce (click with the grabber tool, shift-click on any additional regions that may have been created by edits. ) Be sure that the very beginnings and ends are selected, it’s easy to accidentally fail to include a fade in or out. The right and left arrows on your keyboard will navigate to the beginning and end of a selection to check.
Bounce out each track being sure to name them carefully so that you can keep track of what’s what. If you are making individual tracks for each narration and/or act, make sure they are burned to the CD IN ORDER!!! (Simply naming then Narr1, Narr2, etc can make this easy) There’s little more irritating as a mix engineer than having to chase all over a DAT or CD, or be shuffling and reshuffling soundfiles just to get set-up for a mix. (That’s another benefit if just burning one big file of narration, in order, with decent silences in-between each segment, 3-5 seconds, so it’s easy to eyeball the breaks. Of course you risk having a hurried engineer clipping a head or tail this way….)
Send room tone. (You did record room tone didn’t you??!?!) Some of the ambience of the room where the acts were recorded can be crucial for easing transitions, even if it seemed like a quiet room. If you didn’t do it this time, next time, at the end of the interview, with or without the subject, sit quietly for a minute, recording the "silence" with your mic oriented about where you had it, and at the same volume as during the interview. Even if it doesn’t seem like you can hear anything, some room tone can make an edit work, by cutting some tone onto the end of a tight break between (or before or after) words, and then fading that tone up or down.
if you are sending music or ambience, send more than you think they’ll need, but with clear indications if there is a "post" to hit, or a specific section to use.
The biggest thing is to be organized and documented: make sure to have your elements in a logical structure on the CD, and that there is clear documentation indicating what’s what.
As for doing the mix yourself… that’s a big issue. I actually have a column started about that, so look for that soon.
We do most everything in-house, but we send and recieve a bit of audio now and then. so I’d be interested what others’ experience has been. What formatting do the folks you send elements to want?
I’m looking at one of the many music-store catalogs, and here are some specifics about cheap preamps.
The PreSonus Blue Tube (stereo) is about $150, and can be had for less. I use one sometimes, and I like it, just be careful with the tube "drive" control, things can get hissy and hummy fast. But there is a gain control seperate from the "drive" that pushes some volume. It provides phantom power, and a 20dB pad if you need it.
The ART Tube MP is only about $90. Single-channel, similar controls.
Theres a Tube MP Studio for about $110, that is simialr, but with a built-in limiter. Sadly, i recall hearing the limiter doesn;t sound all that great.
DBX makes the "Mini Pre" for about $100. Very similar to the ART.
There are lots more devices for more money, that start incorporating more elements as a "vocal channel" a pre-amp, compressor, de-esser, EQ and limiter. These can be a nice front-end if you want to get really polished tracks on the way in.
I have a cheap ART tube preamp in the studio. As you correctly point out it is indeed noisy–too noisy I feel–to record through. However, I have found it to work very well on mix down, when its gain can be kept turned down below its hiss threshold.
P.S.
It is refreshing to find a web site which educates its visitors in a clear, no nonsensen, no hard-sell way. Congratulations!!
C.Furet,
Sound Engineer,
Bristol,
United Kingdom.
okay, I’ve spent way too much time looking for post that some one made about the best place to go in nyc for audio equipment. A couple of people mentioned a particular place that I cannot recall the name of, recommending it for their knowledgeable yet far from snooty sales crew. anyone?
After a little more searching, I found this from Susan Jenkins in the section on mics and recording, so just in case anyone else is wondering, this is what Susan had to say:
…"Professional Sound Services on W 43rd. They even allow you to bring in your equipment purchased from B&H down the street and test it out in their space (when they haven’t had something in stock that I wanted). I’m an indie producer and most other audio places I’ve encountered here won’t give you the time of day unless you’re affiliated.
They make cables to order, btw.
311 W 43rd St Ste 1100
NYC 10036
212-586-1033
"
Any other recommendations?
I was wondering if anyone has experimented with using the new Nomad Jukebox 3 as their main recorder? It has an optical/analog input just like an MD, but it also has Firewire and USB connectivity. It will encode in MP3 and WAV format, and has a 20 gig hard drive. One review indicated that there is no way to monitor levels, but that it normalizes the recording volume internally.
Hmmm.
Transom is a great site, by the way!
Hello -
Could anyone point me out to a good resource or provide some basic instructions on getting recorded sound from my minidisc to my iBook? I have protools free. I have Edirol’s USB audio interface cable – "UA-1A". It’s a converter into which you can plug audio jacks and then plug the whole thing right into a laptop’s USB port.
I’m hitting record in protools and pressing play on the minidisc and nothing…I know I’m missing something big, and that minidiscs aren’t quite designed to send files out, but rather to bring files in for recording, but I thought I had all the right pieces. Alas! What am I doing wrong–or not doing?
I’ve searched the archives and not been able to find the troubleshooting help I need – but if I missed a previous answer, apologies.
Thanks in advance for any help.- Kristin
Kristin, Protools has problems with USB interfaces. Try using another audio program to record the sound and use PT to edit.
have you set the Soundcard’s software input -controls to USB Audio; or in case of Mac, the Sound control panel (or control strip) input needs to be set to USB Audio?
Hello, Transom experts:
I’ve got an HHB Portadisc. It has a USB plug out. And according to the HHB folks, the plug is universally beloved by Mac and PC systems. I have a new IBM Thinkpad. I’m running XP Pro. Guess what? Doesn’t recognize the USB device. A brief history: I just sent back a Gateway laptop running XP Pro because IT wouldn’t recognize the device. In fact, about half the laptops I plug into won’t recognize the Portadisc. HHB says drivers SHOULD be loaded in the Pro OS. They’re stumped. I’m stumped. I’m ready to go the Aardvark external device route or something just as drastic. I’m here looking for simple solutions. Does anyone know why my laptop and OS won’t recognize the Portadisc? Any solutions? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. -Claude Morgan
Hi Kristin, you’re on the right track, you have the right gear, and I’m sure you just need to change some settings. I’m not sure what version of the Mac OS you are running on the iBook, but it gets much smoother if you are running 9.2.
As Barrett suggested, check the settings in the "Sound" Control Panel (click on the apple menu in the upper left-hand corner of your screen, go to control panels, then sound.)
One important note that is not intuitive: you must not have any sound software running at the time you try to change these settings, so wait to boot-up ProTools until after you do this. Click on "input" and the Edirol UA-1A should show up as a choice in the list. Highlight the Edirol, then close the box. If the Edirol interface doesn’t show up in the list, go to the Apple system profiler (also under the Apple menu) and click on "Devices and Volumes". The Edirol should show-up as being attached to one of your USB busses. If not, make sure it is plugged-in firmly, there should be a red light illumniated on the UA-1A, indicating that it is getting USB power. Plug it directly into the USB port, not into a hub.
As you have probably discovered, the iBook probably won’t start-up properly with the Edirol plugged-in, so always remember to do the following in this order:
1) start up the iBook
2) plug in the USB interface
3) open the sound control panel, click on "input", choose the USB interface, Close the control panel
4) Start-up ProTools
5) Make sure your track inputs are set to inputs 1-2
6) click on the red "record-ready" buttons on the track(s) you wish to record onto.
7) make sure you have the mini plug end of a mini-to-dual-RCA cable connected to the headphone or line-out of your minidisc, the RCA end of which should be plugged into the USB interface. Play some sound. You should see meters bouncing. If you are using the headphone out of the minidisc, you can adjust the headphone level to give optimum signal level in ProTools (occasional yellows on the meters, but no red)
8) Because of a quirk of the Edirol UA-1A, you won’t be able to hear anything through your computer’s speakers or its headphone jack until you disconect the interface, because it is routing the audio output through the interface’s audio-out jacks, but you should be able to see levels on your meters. Either connect the UA-1A outputs to an amplifier and speakers, or monitor the minidisc to keep track of where you are.
This really should work. I do it all the time, with this same gear: a UA-1A (and UA-1D) and an iBook, and it works for me.
Good luck! Hope we covered something you were missing…
This kind of posting from Jeff is so nuts-and-bolts-useful. We’re trying to find ways to archive such information and keep it searchable/accessible for future generations, or at least into next week.
As a top-level index to TOOLS, Jeff, along with Whitney Pastorek, are undertaking a kind of narrative journey, starting with knowing nothing and ending up with a radio piece, describing and linking to the necessary tools, plugs and wires along the way.
They can use your help.
Post any burning questions about the process here and they’ll find a way to incorporate them into their saga.
1: Where can someone get a used Sony TD5-M portable cassette?
2: Have you or anyone you know used the emu Nomad portable hard disc? I know that many film audio people are switching to the higher end portable hard discs, but wanted to know what the quality of the low end was.
I don’t know the dif, but I got my tcd5m on e-bay (as per recommendations in the Tools section….)
This is just the kind of help offered by Jeff that got me up and running two months ago. I’m now pretty proficient in getting sound into the ibook, cranking up pro-tools and doing some basic editing. I get better each time I do it, but my Jedi Master Ben Walker is always showing me short-cuts and tricks that I can’t seem to repeat or remember. I’m ready for the slightly advanced course which I’d define as refining my editing skills, maybe introducing music (with stereo tracks?) and ways to edit it. I wonder if there are some tips transom could offer for the just-past-beginner producer, or if some of the all-stars out there could describe the next phase. After that I should be ready for a short course on mixing and a primer on the bells and whistles ProTools LE offers for improving the sound of a finished piece. (I have to use LE with my MBox). This is addictive. Now that I can do it I want to learn more!
cw: I have long recommended these venerable machines, and we still use them as loaners because they’re rugged and fixable, but if you’re starting out now, I think maybe it’s smarter to get a mini-disc recorder or some other portable digital device. We’re wrestling with this question in making our Transom TOOLS recommendations and have not fully settled the question, but, let’s face it, the audio cassette is pretty much on its way out. If you decide on cassette, go with TCD-5M rather than the PRO model. You can get them on Ebay.
Mary: For now, we’re focusing on the BEGINNER’S section, but maybe you can start keeping a log of the questions you’re encountering, which could help us move to part two. In fact, maybe you’d like to write it, with Jeff’s help, as Whitney is doing…
Im thinking about replacing my ancient mac with an emac "the most affordable G4 mac ever" which obviously appeals. Has anyone any experience/feedback? macmall seems to have the best deal.
Ill be using protools a lot, and email etc.
your thoughts gratefully received.
Thanks
There is an eMac sitting in my office right now. It is a huge, blindingly white monstrosity that seems to have a great deal of the functionality of your average Mac, but without all of the fancy bells and whistles. I cannot emphasize its largeness and whiteness enough, though. It’s almost pornographic.
From what I can tell, my co-worker has been pleased.
Though I’m wondering if you don’t have to be in education to get the eMac. Isn’t the "e" for "education"?
I’ve been editing on a PC with Cool Edit at our studio, but just got an iMac and Pro Tools for home. It’s going okay, thanks to this site and Barrett Golding, Jeff Towne, et al. (Thank you from the bottom of my heart!!)
The problem: On the Mac, I can’t get sound from my microphone into the computer. I bought an i-Mike, and can dump sound just fine from the minidisc.
the microphone is a Shure VP64A. I’m plugging it into the microphone hole on the iMike. I have the switch to amplification. I have the right setting on the sound control panel, with the gain up on the control panel. I get a tiny, tiny, barely audible wave form on Pro Tools. I tried using a mono and a stereo plug, with same results.
Also, when I try plugging my minidisc into the computer through the headphone out , I get a similarly tiny sound.(I tried that so I could control the volume input levels)
What’s going on? Do I need a pre-amplification device for the microphone? Another reporter can plug his microphone into his Mac without a pre-amp. I’m out of ideas. thanks for any help you can give me!
Robin
Just had a little field trip down to midtown to get quotes and see how much it would cost to get my sony tcd5m tuned up and I have to say Professional Sound Services is way cool in the helpfulness department. So just to put in the good word for those of you in NYC –
I know Sonys are probably on the way out (cassette, that is), but I’m clinging to the old school as long as I can. You can pry my dead cold fingers from the machine, and when they warm up again, I’ll embrace whatever new fancy stuff is standard of the moment. But as long as I can still get my little machine serviced, I’ll keep it and use it….
Protools Free lists 4 AMD processors as incompatible. Has anyone tried using protools free with an AMD K6? I have enough RAM and speed, so would like details on the purported problems.
Is there such a thing as a wireless microphone that can be used with a minidisc player? Where do I order one and does it fit a public radio budget? I know they make lavaliers for television, seems like there should be a similar solution for radio. I’m tired of tripping over cables.
Beachtek makes a transformer for connecting low-impedance mics to external mic inputs like those found on MiniDV camcorders and minidisc recorders. These handy boxes have two XLR inputs, pots for each, and a male miniplug for connecting to your recorder.
I use the DXA-4S for my Sony minidisc recorder since the recorder has a "plugin power" external mic input.
Dan, thanks for the tip on that Beachtek device. Here’s a link:
http://www.beachtek.com/dxa4s.html
It looks like a well-built device with some very nice features, especially the XLR jacks, adjustable inputs, mic/line switch, mono switch for recording to both channels from one mic, etc.
I’m not finding a price easily. Dan, ballpark?
We have mentioned another solution, an imedence transforming cable from Shure
http://www.shure.com/accessories/a96f.asp
I’m also looking into getting some quality custom cables built, I’ll let you guys know if it works out.
The issue is this: often low-impedance dynamic mics don’t generate enough signal to drive the high-impedance inputs of a little portable minidisc, or DAT, or camcorder. You end up with either too low of a signal, or a very hissy signal from cranking the input level up so high that the recorder’s mic preamp is working too hard.
There are a few ways of addressing this, the simplest of which is to increase the impedence of the microphone a bit. This can get you an extra 15 dB of signal, without needing external power for a preamp. However, one must be careful to use good transformers, or the sound quality may suffer.
This Beachtek device does this in an elegant way, but it is an extra box, and is probably not really cheap… the Shure cable is fairly unintrusive (it does place a big transformer sicking out of the back of the mic, but it is simply in-line with the cable, adding no extra boxes to carry) and it’s not all that cheap either, about $50.
I’ll let you know as I discover more options.
The more elaborate solutions are to get a "louder" mic, such as a condenser mic, or to use an external preamp, which would be an additional box that required power in some form.
Robin, you MIGHT be suffering from the same issues as some other minidisc users… where the particular mic you are using isn’t matching impedences properly with the iMic. The VP64 is a low impedence dynamic mic, so this is sometimes an issue.
However, it worries me that you can’t get much signal from your minidisc headphone output either…so I think something else might be going on. In the case of the headphone output, that should be plugged into a line-in, then the headphone level adjusted to provide an appropriate level. If you are getting anemic levels there, then there is something wrong with either the iMic, or the computer settings.
You said you could dump sound from the minidisc, using what outputs, connected to what? Are you confident of all your cables? You are plugging the mic cable into a mic input of the iMic, right?
This really should work, but if you are really banging your head against the wall, and can spend a little money, there are more sophisticated USB interfaces that provide XLR mic inputs with real gain-control, from M-Audio and Edirol, and they aren’t obscenely expensive, starting at a couple hundred dollars. They will sound much better than the iMic in any case, and give you mich more control.
But, if you just want to get this done, the iMic really ought to work for this… try all the different switch combinations, or try a different mic. You mentioned that a colleague was able to use his mic, is that mic a self-powered condenser? Let us know what you discover!
I will caution you that a wireles set-up is rarely practical for field recording. It seems great: no more tangles and true portability. But the problem is that the wireless mic needs a reciever, and that still needs to plug-in to your recorder, and if you want to monitor your recording (always a good policy) and be able to adjust levels, you need to have the recorder with you, so now you are lugging around not just the recorder, but a wireless reciever as well. That reciever needs power, and so if you manage to get a battery-powered one, it gets kind-of heavy.
To get the best sound, you really should be holding the microphone, so you need to be right with the subject anyway…
So it ends up being a big hassle to eliminate 3 feet of cable. Maybe you need a shorter mic cable?
There are, of course, the occasional applications where a wireless mic, especially a lavalier, can be a geat thing, if you need to clip a mic on someone (or something) who is moving in such a way that you can’t effectively track witha hand-held mic.
But i would urge caution, I’ve spoken to a few people who were totally psyched when they first bought one, and then found them almost useless in real life.
Wireless mics also can suffer from interference problems, they chew batteries like crazy, and the mics themselves are more heavy and cumbersome than the wired versions.
So make sure you REALLY want one….
For custom cables, esp. to mate pro mics with minidat/disc, check Sonic Studios. They have a very nice right-angle design on the mini end. http://www.sonicstudios.com
Jeff, have you checked out the headset stereo mics available from this site?
I haven’t heard these mics, they look very nicely buit. I’m not a huge fan of the head-worn mic thing, it does create a vivid stereo picture, but it seems to me that it alwys gets too much breathing and other weird noises. It’s definitely good for giving a you-are-there vibe, or for being clandestine, but personaly, I’ve always liked being able to shove the mic in places and positions where I can’t get my head.
That being said, I really liked the look of the wind-screened versions, although that’s getting a bit pricey between mics and windscreens.
Thanks, Jeff. Here’s what’s going on with the iMic:
I had tried all the different switch combinations; I was definitely plugging the mic cable into the mic input of the iMic. I still don’t know why it won’t work; but on the digidesign web site they do talk about the mismatched impedance levels.
Finally last night we hooked up some sort of a "Optimus stereo disco mixer" (because it was lying around the studio) to the iMic and are running everything through that. Right now it seems to be working fine. I have the output set on "amp" on the mixer and the iMic set on line level. It’s great to be able to adjust the output levels! Ideally I could bypass the iMic, but there’s no USB port on my "disco mixer" so it still needs to go through the iMic.
I don’t know if other people are having these problems with the iMic; it certainly seems worth it to me now to start out with a better setup, such as the M-Audio or Edirol, and skip these headaches. But the iMic is only $35, a powerful inducement to buy!!
Hello, I’ve having some problems loading sound from MD through iMic into my iBook — principally, in ProTools it shows that it’s recording, but no input levels are appearing and in the Edit Window, the sound appears as a straight line, without a waveform around the sound I just tried to input. When I’ve tried to switch things around in the sound panel, it tells me I can’t move anything ( output is set to "Built-In" in , but there is no Built-In option for input — just CD or external mic and I’ve got mine set on external mic)
This is my first shot at this stuff and Transom’s got amazing tips on how to edit once the sound is inputed, but I’m having probems finding much troubleshooting for loading the sound to begin with.
Thanks for any help…
Amy,
Did you end up buying a sony digital voice recorder? If so, I would be interested in hearing your opinion. I was thinking about buying one, too, but I hear the quality of the sound is not good.
Good luck.
I’ve only been home-editing for a few months; before that I was free-lancing for a station. I could definitely stand to upgrade my interface — which currently consists of the generic audio input card in the back of my Dell. I do pretty simple stuff at home, and NPR and all the shows I work for tend to do the mixing (sometimes by union requirement), so my technical needs aren’t that profound. At the end of the day, I’m pretty much a technophobe, luddite print reporter who somewhere along the line took the public radio vow of poverty.
I’m not even sure where to start. Transom has lots of info on choosing microphones and editing in Pro Tools, but unless I’m mistaken and haven’t found it, there’s no guidance on choosing interfaces, sound cards or software packages. (I use Cool Edit Pro and find it okay — better than PTF — but I’m very open to perusasive suggestions!) For instance, does anyone have any thoughts on the M-box?
Thanks!
Fred
Fred, they do talk about interfaces, sound cards and software packages briefly in the Tools FAQ and more extensively in the Gear Guide. Everything you mention– Cool Edit vs. ProTools, Soundcards, M-Box– and much much more has been discussed throughout these forums. Use the Search button (below) to find them.
I think the audio quality you get with an iMic is really quite good and more than adequate for radio work. I disagree with the recommendation that if you have the money, you should get something better. If you have the money, get a better mic, not a better USB interface. The iMic is just fine.
And the iMic works perfectly with PTF.
Kelly, your problem is common and I think Jeff answered it already. You have to set the mic as external before you start ProTools. I do this all the time. I load up ProTools, see that internal mic is selected, then I have to quit ProTools and start all over again.
As for setting levels, iMic has it’s own software control panel and you can monitor it in ProTools simultaneously. For fine tuning, I set the level a little too high and then scale it back with an inline variable resistor.
Remember that you need system 9.2 or higher for the iMic to work right.
I went to the NPR archive to hear what Whitney did for Morning Edition and found out that it was that great piece on White Stripes.
It doesn’t sound like the work of a newbie. It is one of the top short pieces I’ve ever heard. Ever.
It’s textbook excellence, in my opinion.
Her voice is great, for one.
Ah, but how tightly it was edited. Many times on NPR we hear just a little bit too much information. This piece made me sit up straight to be sure I didn’t miss a word. It was the economy of expression, not an MTV hyper pace. I longed to hear more, though after it was over, I didn’t feel cheated.
It’s beautiful. If you missed it, you’ve got to hear it.
Robert,
I’m interested to know how you get to the iMic software control panel. I’m not sure if I’ve seen it or not.
You can download iMic software from Griffin Technology.
http://www.griffintechnology.com/software/software_imic.html
I can’t imagine using the iMic without their iMic Control software.
Also on this site you can get the ASIO driver if you need it.
I vote a Transom t-shirt to Robert Wright for helpfulness.
The previously mentioned Whitney Pastorek White Stripes story is found HERE.
Robert, you’ll have to model the shirt on your blog. For some reason I have been imagining you doing battle with Adam Felber (his Mascot is Fanny the Roborat)
so-i know absolutely nothing about recording equipment, but all of a sudden, i have a matter of days to learn something about it so that i can try to capitalize on what i think might make for a wonderful documentary-making opportunity. i’m taking this dance class, and it’s about to end (don’t ask me why i didn’t think of this sooner.) first, someone has told me that maybe it’s just as good to record with a mini disc recorder as with a dat. any opinions?
second, i think it might be sort of tricky to collect sound from this class. not only does the room have horrible acoustics that causes peoples voices to become echoey at times, but we’re all moving around all of the time. so i’d like get peoples’ voices if i possibly can, but especially since i’m doing the class too, i figure that i’ll have to put the recording device in a stationary place off to the side. any suggestions as to what device/mike to use and even how to handle the volume since everyone will be relatively far away from the device?
or, i don’t know if this is a realistic alternative, but if you mike someone, is it possible for the mike to pick up voices of others around them? up how far away?
thanks for whatever help can be given.
dana
Thanks, Robert…
Thanks Robert, and everyone, for chatting amongst youselves while I’ve been preoccupied.
The short answers for the iMic stuff are:
Plug it in, go to the sound control panel and select it (USB audio) as the input source BEFORE you start your recording program.
As for levels, most anything with a variable input level (including a disco mixer!) will make your life easier, as long as that device isn’t adding noise. Yes, the iMic control panel will give you some adjustment of levels too, and you can always boost or cut levels in the editor, but you will get the best results by hitting the interface with a level that’s as close to ideal as possible. It’s kind-of like the "digital zoom" on cameras, yes, you can get a closer view, but it gets all pixel-y and grainy. The same thing can happen with audio if you try to compensate for a poor input.
Bumping up a few bucks to something like the Edirol UA-1A can solve some problems, but there is no input control at all for that, so I would only suggest using that device if you are feeding a variable level, such as from a mixer, or a headphone output from your minidisc. And that is line-level only, so you don’t have the option of plugging a mic in.
The iMic doesn’t have the greatest mic amplification, but as has been stated, it will get the job done, and usually sounds good enough.
But if people are feeling flush, I’ve been toying around with the Edirol UA-5, which is a very versitile unit. It’s about $300, which is getting steep, but it has XLR mic inputs, as well as 1/4" line inputs on combo jacks with input trim controls. It also has RCA line inpts and outputs on the back, and perhaps the best part: it has both coaxial and optical digital in and out. So it’s a real swiss-army knife, it will input or output almost anything, except AES/EBU digital signals.
The mic preamps do not have huge amounts of gain, a dynamic mic needs the inputs up rather high, but they sound pretty clean. You have to plug it in to A/C power, it’s not completely powered by the USB buss, but I think that is probably better for the mic preamp quality and A/D etc. (If anybody is feeling very James Bond-ish the guys at ProDigital will cludge a battery power supply for it. ) It needs to be plugged into the USB port of a computer for all of the digital I/O to be "live", but it will act as a stand-alone mic preamp even if there’s no computer attached.
So, another handy device. $300 isn’t bad, but I probably won’t keep it because it’s not quite portable enough: it’s about the size of an external ZIP drive, and needs AC power, so it’s just a little cumbersome for dragging around with the laptop. But if someone needs an all-around hub for a small studio, that will accept almost any kind of source, and output most anything too, it’s pretty darn good.
I plugged-up the USB cable, it was recognized immediately, and I dumped audio straight into ProToolsFree with no glitches at all.
It’s not quite as elegant as the M-Box, especially for overdubbing, and I like the mic preamps on the MBox a bit better. And remember the ProTools LE that comes with the M-Box has a few more capabilities than PTFree, which MIGHT come in handy….
But the Edirol UA-5 is $150 cheaper than the M-Box, and has optical digital built-in, if you need that.
So, Something to consider….
I have begun working with a Sharp minidisc recorder because I’m sick of running out of battery power with my old Sony DAT portable. I made another leap and bought an Mbox on Ebay.
The question is this: how do I get audio out of the minidisc recorder through the Mbox and into my venerable G3 Powerbook? I know there’s no digital out of the minidisc, and the only audio out is through the headset/line-out plug.
I know this isn’t rocket science but hey! I’m not a brain surgeon either.
I attempted to hook up the Mbox I’ve got at work to my G3 Powerbook and that didn’t work either. I seem to be facing a software problem.
I have a feeling your problem with the M-Box and your G-3 powerbook is your operating system. You need to be running OS 9.1 or 9.2, which is not what those powerbooks shipped with…. so if you haven’t upgraded the OS, you need to.
The good news is that i recently did that exact thing with my G4 desktop that came with 9.0-something. it’s worth backing up your data before doing this, although the upgrade is likely to be pretty painless. You will have to reset some of your default settings, including internet configs, so be sure you know what they are.
It’s not obvious on the Mac site, but do some searches and you’ll find free upgrades from 9.0 to 9.1, which will get you there. 9.2 is a bit better at accepting more USB interfaces, but 9.1 is fine for the M-Box.
Once you get that working, in order to connect the minidisc to the M-Box, you’ll need a slightly odd cable. I’m not sure if I’ve seen a lot of exactly what you need… so you sadly may have to resort to adapters. If you get a stereo mini-to-two RCA plugs cable, one that you’d use for connecting the minidisc or a walkman to a stereo, you’re almost there. (Make sure you get a cable with a stereo mini that splits to left and right outputs, not a mono Y-cable that splits the same signal to both outputs.) Then you need to adapt the RCA to 1/4" plugs, each of which will plug into the center of the big combo jacks on the back of the M-Box. They look like XLR mic jacks, which they are, but you can also plug a 1/4" in the center.
Conversely, you could get 1/4" insert cable, whihc has a TRS (tip-ring-sleeve) 1/4" connector on one end, and two mono 1/4" plugs on the other. Then you’d need to adapt the stereo 1/4" end to a stereo mini, to plug into the minidisc.
If your minidisc has a line-out, as opposed to a headphone out, use that, you can adjust the input volume with the top two knobs on the M-Box.
Repeatedly press the little inset buttons above and to the left of each input volume knob until the middle LED light over the "line" label lights up.
You’re good to go!
let us know how it’s working.
Jeff, that adaptation will take care of an analog transfer, but is there any way to get a digital transfer from minidisc through the MBOX? Do the little units have digital ins/outs, even optical ones? I know some of the quasi-pro units, like the HHB, have digital I/O.
A good source for various adpators beyond what you can get at Radio Shack, probably mentioned above, is Core Sound
Sad to say, the lower-class MD don’t have any digital outs. I’ve tried on both Sony and Sharp. God forbid that you should take Celine or Bruce’s latest! Of course, this may not be a real problem, given that the cheap machines don’t even offer any kind of automatic levels for recording.
For the digital tranfer of MD, you’d need to get another MD player of the rack-mount variety.
At least, Jeff, that’s what I’ve garnered. I’m perfectly willing to be wrong.
Jackson, you’re right, I don’t know of any portable minidiscs (other than the HHB) with a digital out. Please, somebody, correct me if you know of one! Same deal for a USB connection, the HHB has one, nobody else does.
All the digital and USB connections hyped by the manufacturers are inputs.
I don’t even know if this is a draconian copy-protect scheme, it might just be that average consumers never want to do this. So manufacturers figure: why spend the money building-in the option if nobody wants it?
Jeff, have you tried any of the mods detailed at minidisc.org to add a digital out. Ah, what I’d do for an oscilloscope.
You can record digital audio, mono or stereo, on a Canon digital camcorder instead of a minidisc recorder. You can use any kind of external mic.
And then you can port it digitally to a Mac via firewire. No analog.
That’s how I record our fiddle jams. The musicians feel flattered being videotaped but if you just point a mic their way attached to an audio recording device, they’re liable to bash you with a mandolin.
So, how does one get the audio from the digital camcorder into ProToolsFree? There seems like there would be an easier way, but here’s the only way I’ve tried that works.
1. Dump the video into iMovie.
2. Export the iMovie file to a QuickTime file. (You might first want to extract the audio and then delete the video. This might save time.).
3. Import the QuickTime file as a foreign into HyperStudio. (Do no use SoundApp.)
4. Once in Hyperstudio, convert it to an aiff file.
5. In ProToolsFree, set the session for 16 bit and use import audio.
Last Sunday I used the Canon Camcorder’s internal mic and I was astounded by how it good it sounds. (It sounds so good that I think I’ll conduct a comparison test with a Sony mic recording on a minidisc.) Could it be it sounds so good because there was no conversion to analog? I just know my ears are impressed.
Wow, Robert, points for creativity!! I’ve been a bit skeptical about the quality of those converters and or preamps, it’s usually not a big priority in the camcorder world. But hey, if it’s working, it’s working! Plaease keep us informed, especially if you A/B with a minidisc or DAT.
I’m guessing here, but one thing you might try is to import the video into iMovie, save as quicktime, then in ProTools, under "Movie", choose the "import audio from other movie" option, as if you were bringing CD audio in. That might save you a step.
I thought ProTools would be able to "import audio from other movie" but I couldn’t get it to work. Maybe it didn’t like the fact it was a stereo file. I don’t know. I spent about 10 hours playing around with it. The only way I could do the transfer is the way I outlined above (though the program is HyperEngine, not HyperStudio.)
Though I never stooped to analog, I’m wondering about the quality of the finished product. The audio on the DV tape sounds great–rich and full. After all the conversions, I have my doubts. When I have another block of time in which one of the choices is mowing the lawn, I’ll do a side by side comparison.
If I don’t find a shorter route from dv to ProTools, it might turn out better to feed the iBook with an analog signal. We’ll see.
Just stumbled across two things that I had been thinking about for a while, and i must say I’m really enjoying them! The first is a tiny little 128MB USB drive. It’s about the size of a small pocket knife and has no moving parts. The one I have is made by Jungsoft, called the "Nexdisc." It’s basically a simple replacement for a floppy, or a Zip drive, a convenient cross-platform storage device. On any new Mac or PC that has USB ports, you just plug it in and instantly it appears on the desktop. Drag files onto it, unmount the drive, and you’re done. You can get about 10 minutes of stereo 44.1 on one, so it can be pretty handy for taking a soundfile home to edit, or bringing the edited version back to the studio. Sure, CDRs are cheap, but there’s something galling about burning a few minutes of audio onto one.
There are drives of different sizes, made by different companies. the 128MG version I found was about $99.
the other thing is the Contour Shuttle Pro. It’s a jog-shuttle controller designed for video editing, but it can control ProTools as well. I’m not one for scrubbing audio, but if you are, this makes it really intuitive. But I like the idea of shuttlng through audio at high speeds, and oh, all right, I’ll admit it, the occasional scrub. But even better, there are 13 programmable buttons on it, which you can map to most anything you want to. there’s a built-in template that I found prfetty useless, but i quickly re-mapped the keys to select editing modes, tools, views, etc, even zooms and scrolls. There are keyboard shortcuts for all of these things already, but it’s great to be able to change tools, zoom, switch edit and mix windows, all without even moving my hand. The inner shuttle wheel was already mapped to nudge "+/-" which has been a big help on the iBook, which doesn’t have an extended keyboard with a numeric keypad.
I found a demo for cheap, but they can be had new for about $100. Contour is also coming out with a smaller, cheaper version with fewer buttons, but I haven’t seen a price on that.
Not vital, but a help!
i need a mixer so i could record my music and my voice. one that i could add fade.reverb,delay,echo,etc. please help
Is the gadgetlab wave824 compatible with protoolsfree?
Ronnie,
almost any hardware mixer you find can do the things you want. Most don’t have reverb or echo built-in, but some do. Just make sure that the channels have at least one "aux send" that you can route to a reverb or delay unit, which you then would return to the mixer, either on inputs designated as effects returns, or on regular input channels.
Most software-based mixers offer even more flexibility. The one that comes with ProTools Free allows you to stack lots of delays and other effects.
So what exactly do you need help with?
I don’t know for sure if that card is compatible, but if it uses the standard Windows sound driver, it should be fine.
ProTools Free will not launch on my Mac Powerbook G4 – message reads, Protools requires OMS v.2.1 or greater to run….????
Bruce — I ran into this same exact problem last night. While I can’t promise this will fix things (since I haven’t had time to try it myself) I think it’ll help.
Visit http://www.opcode.com/downloads/ and download and updated version of OMS there. Please post your results back here so I can see if I should proceed and do the same tonight
/mike
Dear Mike,
Thank you for pointing me in a possitive direction. After downloading OMS from opcode.com ProTools opened. I will mention that my Mac Powerbook immediately froze-up, wouldn’t run repair at first, crashed, froze, etc three times, and when repair finnaly did run there was a lot of red. However all seems to be OK now, ProTools opens and whats on offer appears to be all there and workable.
Thank you again,
Bruce
The OMS you need should be included with both the download and the CD of PTFree, make sure you choose to install it along with PTFree.
As always, things run smoother if you go through the extensions manager and make a new set with only what you need for ProTools. This reduces the chances of conflicts than can lock you up and crash the computer, but also makes every thing run a bit quicker too.
In any case, I’m glad to hear your system is running now!
Jeff:
Thanks for your help in the other areas of this site.
I think I misrepresented myself. I’m not so concerned about the "bulletproofness" of my USB device in terms of how many hammer whacks it can take.
I’m more concerned about how well/seamlessly/non-crashy they merge with OS X. Do you have any thoughts about that?
Finally, I’m down to the Edirol UA-1A, the UA-3D and the iMic. Do you have any guidance about whether or not RCA is preferable to 1/8" plugs or whether I should worry about digital at all?
Thanks again for the help.
Regards-
JN
Brooklyn, NY
Hi Jason,
I see what you mean about just wanting something that won’t mess up your system. I’ll have to cop to doing very little audio on OSX yet, although i hope to soon. The only thing i can tell you is that an Edirol UA-1A worked great on a flat-panel iMac running SparkME under OSX. AND, that it locked-up the computer when we restarted. I have found this often with various USB devices under both OS9 and OSX, that starting up with them connected to the USB port can be unstable. But they becaome active pretty fast, so it’s not that big of a deal to just unplug them when you shut down, and replug after start-up.
One thing about the UA-1A, or UA-1D, is that there are no monitoring options. There’s no headphone jack, and the outputs are not live during load-in. So you might be better off with something that has a headphone jack, whihc you could even connect to speakers in a pinch.
I know some folks had reported some trouble getting good levels and sound quality with the iMic, but others have been fine with it… ironically this interface, the cheapest one, I haven’t managed to road-test myself yet.
I’m not sure that RCAs are any better than mini plugs, they might stay seated a little better, and you don’t have the problem of whether it’s a metric or english spec on the mini jack…
And unless you are recording with a device with a digital output, there’s not much reason to get an interface with digital ins. I use the UA-1D to dump DAT audio into my iBook digitally, but it’s no help for loading tracks from my little Sony minidisc. I don’t think any of the little portables will have a digital out anytime soon, more likely they may one day have USB or Firewire outs so you won’t need an interface at all. But don’t hold your breath!
Are there any correspondence schools / on-line classes / "distance" courses" in radio journalism specifically? If you know of any, please respond to Jim Terr, bluecanyon2@juno.com
I’m in the market for new speakers, and I’m wondering: Are speakers intended for computer gaming and MP3-listening suitable for radio production? I’m tempted by the pretty systems at the Apple Store — like the JBL Creature speakers, which feature a subwoofer that glows from beneath like a UFO.
I don’t know as much as I should about this, but I gather that computer speakers have a narrower frequency range. How much does this matter? I’ll be doing a good amount of mixing with this new pair.
And I guess, in general, what are the main things to consider, as far as buying speakers?
(Apologies if this has been asked and answered elsewhere. Please point me to it.)
I recently saw an article about this in the November 2002 (Vol. 10, Number 11) issue of Digital Video magazine. I don’t think this column by Jay Rose is posted on http://www.dv.com yet, but probably will be soon.
In brief, Rose concludes that multimedia speakers are a bad choice for production and cautions against buying based solely on frequency range. Big dB jumps in less than an octave can destroy the balance between male voices, female voices, and music, for example. He recommends using a CD with examples of the kinds of sounds you typically work with as a way to compare speakers. Trust your ears, he advises.
The article gives more details, of course, but basically says using SoundSticks with your Mac is not a good way to get pro quality monitoring.
Good luck and please let us know what you end up using and the results.
Unless you are producing primarily for web streaming, where listening to this type of speaker might be advantageous, you’ll be much better-off with some small self-powered monitors designed for music production. Audix, M-Audio, Roland/Edirol, JBL, Alesis, Mackie and others make small-ish montors with built-in amplifiers that will do a significantly better job than any computer speakers. Some of these are only a couple hundred bucks or so, and worth the extra money. I’m borrowing a pair of Mackie 824s for a music mixing project, and they are fantastic. Of course those are rather expensive too…. but I was very impressed by a small pair of M-Audio monitors in a music store the other day, and I’ve liked the Audix as well. Sorry, i don’t remember model numbers off the top of my head. But skip the computer speakers, at least for something critical like mixing.
Hello,
I will be traveling to Jerusalem next Spring for my wedding and I am interested in sending "audio post cards" via email to my friends and family back home. Is there any digital recorder that you know of that would allow me to down load sounds to a PC and then attach them to an email? I was thinking about an Olympus Digital Voice Recorder (OLM DW90) but I am not sure if that will capture sounds such as the different church’s bell tones or the sounds of the people on the street. I would appreciate any advice you have to offer.
These devices are primarily meant to take voice notes, or dictation, so they are optimized for voice reproduction. So, much like a telephone, they concentrate on certain frequencies crucial for voice inteligibility and throw away less-important ones. That still might be fine for a little "you are there" clip to be sent via e-mail. Better sound quality is going to require a pretty big soundfile, so you might be better off using something like the Olympus.
I haven’t personally used any of these recorders, I doubt they’ll be much good for radio. If you wanted better quality, there are plenty of multi-stage solutions, but nothing quite as easy as the voice recorders for transfer to a computer…yet…
We’re hoping that soon there will be a simple procedure to record into a portable device and transfer files to a computer as data. All the pieces exist, but all the dots haven’t been connected quite yet to make it easy.
The biggest trick will be to keep your file size down, so your friends don’t ask for thier wedding presents back because you clogged-up their mailbox with a huge attachment. And also to use a common file type so everybody can listen to it: an MP3, or .wav or .aiff file or something fairly universal.
There’s still some time, I really think there will be some better digital recorders soon, so if you can wait, I would.
You might want to check out the Ripflash recorders made by Pogo Products. Unlike the voice recorders (Olympus, Sony, etc.), they record to MP3 (the Ripflash DX uses WMA) and have much better frequency response and sampling rates. They all have internal microphones and you can set them to use a wide range of sampling rates. Their newest model (Trio) will also apparently take an external mic without the need for a preamplifier. You can apparently upload recordings to PC over a USB cable using their software.
http://www.pogoproducts.com/
These are intriguing, but I’m still a little skeptical about how well they’ll work for radio. It seems that they record to mp3, which is not an ideal starting point…and I doubt they have really excellent mic preamps or digital converters. But as always, it’s worth a try so I’m curious if folks like them. The USB transfer function is good, but one would have to either convert the mp3 to another file type, or use an editor that can handle mp3s.
Jeff,
I was really just suggesting them as a possible solution to Lissa’s problem of "sending audio post cards via email to my friends and family back home". I’m also skeptical of whether these devices are up to more demanding uses. On the other hand I think they probably beat the Olympus and Sony voice recorders for casual recording of memos, "audio postcards", etc. because the ranges of available sampling frequencies, sample rates, etc. are vastly superior. The Ripflash devices also use MP3 which is readily useable by anyone. I’m not sure how they compare on reliability. Olympus and Sony may have the edge there. Both types of device are small, light and cost about the same.
Alan.
I’m heading to Australia in a couple months for a year’s study abroad, and I want to bring a recording kit with me. This will be my first time gathering sound w/out the benefit of an actual radio station’s studios and equipment, so I’m not sure exactly what I’ll need to record, transfer sound to my computer, and edit. Any suggestions for putting together a good-quality, reasonably-priced recording kit and editing set up? thanks! rachel
Hi Rachel, we actually put together some recommendations of some good remote recording rigs, which should show up as part of Whitney Pastorak’s White Stipes series, but in the meantime, let me see if I can find that part and post it here too… I’ll look!
Hello. Are there any tools/gizmos to cut out noise from my handset when doing a phone interview? I live in a noisy neighborhood…
Thanks,
Bryan
I just bought a sony minidisc with a usb connection so I could put the audio into my imac. Unfortunately the software is PC only. What can I do? How can I get the audio onto my Mac?
Nicola, the USB connection doesn’t go that way. It only allows you to dump audio from the computer into the minidisc, not from the minidisc into the computer. Yeah, say it, minidisc engineers suck. Well, that’s the nice way of putting it, anyway.
You’re going to have to dump the audio in using the analog connections.
hey i thought the m-audio 2496/pci/mac card could be used to record into protools free/..can you verify if this card allows audio into protools free..it work w/digital performer
This is a G3 Pismo an error that says not enough CPU power.. need to drop plug-ins. Dropped plug-ins, increased CPU usage to 85% (the highest allowed)still getting error. The really goofy thing is that I run the same software on an upgraded 8500 and I never have a problem… well not never but it’s workable.
Any help?
The M-Audio 2496 PCI card will NOT interface with ProToolsFree, as most external soundcards , even those by digidesign, will not (with the exception of the Audiomedia3 on PCs).
ProToolsFree will only work with "built-in" sound which, on the Mac, means the SoundManager audio device. For a while that meant the physically built-in microphone or line input on the machine, but now we have the benefit of USB devices that can be selected as the built-in sound source.
So USB devices that can operate as a Sound Manager device can work, whether analog, digital, or both. But PCI cards built to be integrated with other programs, especially those designed to use ASIO drivers, can’t talk to ProTools Free directly.
But you’re not completely out of luck, you can still take advantage of the good quality of your soundcard: although it’s a bit of a pain, you can always record your soundfiles into another program, such as Performer, and import them into ProToolsFree for editing and mixing. Just be sure to record at 44.1K, and choose SD2 as the file format if your program gives you the choice.
I feel for you… i got bit by this the other day too, on my G4/400. There is a ceiling for the number of tracks and plug-ins that will run on the host computer, based around: RAM, processor speed, disc accsess speed, and the phase of the moon, I think.
The biggest things to remember are to increase the CPU usage limit, as you did, set latency higher, give digidesign and DAE as much RAM as you can manage (but leave some for the system…) and watch the individual plug-ins, all are not equal.
Many sophisticated plug-ins create a large processor draw, make sure to use a 2-band EQ if that’s all you need, rather than a 4-band. Consider creating buss groupings and applying processing to the buss rather than duplicating plug-ins on several tracks.
If you have several voice tracks that all use similar compression, for instance, instead of instatiating a compressor on each track, set the output of all those tracks to a buss, rather than the main out. Then create a new aux track, with the input set to that buss, and apply the plug-in(s) to the aux track only.
The other work-around is to solo tracks and bounce them with the plug-ins applied, so you can remove the plug-ins for the final mix.
Or get a really freaking fast computer with gobs or RAM….
Hi Jeff,
I was recently gifted a SONY MZ-B100 minidisc recorder – with the option to return it for a different recording device. Would a DAT recorder be a better option? I’ve done some recording with a DAT in the past and am just starting out on my own. Reading the Whole Earth article made me question whether or not a minidisc is the way to go – I would really appreciate your advice…
Thanks so much!
WHAT IS THE ADDITONNAL SYNCRO PARRAMETER THAT WORD CLOCK ALOWS OVER HOUSE SYNC? AND IN WITCH SITUATION IS THIS IMPORTANT?
Thanks for the MBox feature. I notice when I’m loading sound into my laptop via the MBox that occasionally when the levels peak the whole thing just freezes and I have to quit the session and start over. I called Digidesign and they told me to intall their new firmware which I’ve done. It still happens and I wonder if I have a bad box or if there’s something I can do to fix this.
Hi Mary,
Sorry, i have one of those useless responses: "gee, I’ve never seen that…" and I’ve hit the M-Box pretty hard with signal, so i think it would have happened to me if it was a regular bug.
I’d get back with digidesign about this, that’s definitely weird. Sorry to hear it!
Whoa, somehow skipped over that post entirely. sorry, you may have already made a decision about whether you prefer a minidisc or DAT.
It depends a bit on the application and a bit on convenience. If you are doing critical music recording, I’d lean toward the DAT because it’s not using the compression scheme that minidisc does. But the compression sounds pretty good, so for collecting ambience and interviews, you’ll rarely hear any difference.
We occasionally hear nightmare stories about minidiscs losing tables of contents, and it’s true, it does happen from time to time, and is sometimes rescue-able. But there are similar instances of DAT machines munching tapes, which can be every bit as catastrophic.
Minidiscs are really nice in their abilities to skip around quickly, avoiding all that tedious tape-winding. And the compact size is very nice. The little portables of either type rarely give you a digital output, although Sony DAT recorders usually can use an (expensive) optional cable to output digitally, or you can use a studio deck to go digital into a computer.
The HHB is the only portable minidisc with a digital out that we’ve found so far…
But again, it’s application: if you are doing interviews, you are really not going to hear much of a difference doing out analog. A delicate chamber music recording? Well, maybe you want to stay digital… and does your computer interface have a digital in?
Really, once you get used to using them, either machine can be really good, so if you are comfortable with the minidisc, keep it!
That was probably no help….
There may be differences in specific usages of the terms, but usually "house sync" simply refers to a distributed word-clock system, sending synchronous clock to all digital devices in a studio, perhaps even to multiple studios in a facility. So there’s usually no difference betweent he two, house sync IS word clock.
Forgive me for trodding over old ground. I was with a studio pro today who grimaced at my desktop. It didn’t even have that much stuff on it thanks to our new fire wire drive, but he told me first, that it’s important to save audio files to your hard drive and not to your desktop and second, the importance of fragmenting one’s hard drive. He told me to get a program called Norton Utilities which he insisted can be used by people like me (you know what I mean). I remember frag talk from transom but skipped right over it. Is it important? Do you need a progarm to do it? Is it easy to figure out?
Also when’s the best guess for when Pro Tools for OSX is coming out? Do the Mbox/PT LE users of America get it for free by any chance?
I can’t speak for Macs, but Windows users have a basic defrag utility built-in.
Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools->Disk Defragmenter.
Mary, first thing…DON’T get a program to fragment your drive…. get one to DE-fragment your drive! OK, I’m sorry, I’m just giving you a hard time, but the real answer to whether it’s a problem is: probably….
ProTools in particular tends to write lots of little files, especially if you use crossfades heavily, and this makes the system work harder to find the chunk of audio you need.
That being said, drives are so fast now that you can get away with a lot. I’m embarrassed to say that it’s been quite a while since i defragged any of my 4 hard drives, and things seem to be working OK.
You can find some Mac folks who recommend not defragging, because although file fragmentation is bad (having parts of one file spread around the disc) disc fragmentation (having files spread-out rather than clumped together) is not a problem, even advantageous at times.
So if you’re not having trouble recording or playing back audio, you don’t need to do anything immediately, but it could come and bite you suddenly. It is generakky good form to keep your drives defragmented.
This is something that is easier on a windows machine, they do indeed have a built-in utility to defrag (or "optimize") the drive. You need a third-party program on the Mac, and unlike on a windows PC, you cannot defrag the start-up disc, so you need to boot from the utility CD (or an external drive of some sort) before you can defrag.
Keep in mind that what’s happening is that you are erasing and rewriting every single byte of data on the drive so that each file is written in more coherent, physically contiguous blocks, which makes it quicker for the system to access them. But if something goes wrong in the midst of the process, you can lose data, so, to be safe, back-up everything before you start, and if possible, be plugged into an Uninterruptable Power Supply while you do it. If by some fluke you lose power in the middle of a defrag and you haven’t backed up your data, you could be really screwed.
Norton Utilities is the most common set of disc tools, but there are others, such as Tech Tool, Silverlining, etc.
Some would say don’t mess with it unless you have trouble.
As for saving files to your desktop, I can’t imagine that’s actually a problem, they are saved on your hard drive. They might be a directory level up from where programs really want to find them, but again, if it;s working, don’t worry about it. And I don’t care if you don’t make your bed every day either. It’s good housekeeping to save them in a more organized fashion, but i doubt it’s a tech problem.
And, two bits of bad news about PTLE for OSX: nope, it won’t be free, and the M-Box is not supported in the first wave of upgrades. Hopefuly it won’t be long, but the big HD systems, the 001, and the 002 will be covered first. M-Box a little later, and who knows about PTFree?
Hi,
Well, I’ve dabbled in a bit of radio, and I’d like to do more serious work. I’ve browsed through your website quite a bit, and I’m wondering what you think might be the most prudent recorder to get for foreign correspondence: a minidisc recorder (because of it’s light and compact) or the Sony TC-D5M (because of its durability)? Sadly, money *is* an issue. Also, would you generally recommend using a backup recorder, just a precaution when conducting interviews? If so, what would you suggest?
Thank you.
Take care.
Best,
Josh
Oh, font of all PT Wisdom!
I have been happily running the M-Box on my Powerbook since last summer. Generally, I use the stereo track option to record into PT. Today, I wanted to record two separate tracks left and right and couldn’t get it to run cleanly. Much noise and distortion.
Any thoughts? Burnt offerings will be left in the usual place.
Checking the inputs on the mix window,I discovered that both tracks were getting the same stuff. And having goosed levels 6db, it was bound to get ugly.
Though I answered my own question, your wisdom inspired my insight, so the burnt offerings are still where I left them.
I have a minidisc that has recordings on it, but the TOC has been fouled so that the machine thinks the disc is blank. Is there a way to recover data from a disc like this? No further recording has been done so the data shouldn’t be over written.
I found references to software that can do this if you have a minidisc drive for your computer, but no specific leads. I also found a program that seems exactly what I want, but it is listed at 2800 British pounds! That one is here:
Their website seems to have some problems as well, which doesn’t make me confident either.
I have found recovery services that say they handle minidiscs as well as cds and hard drives, but only in bulk. Any suggestions or leads would be appreciated.
I have been looking into some portable recorders that use flash cards, and I was just wondering if anyone has used one, and knows how they sound like. I am looking at picking up this marantz: http://www.marantzpro.com/Products/PMD690.html which can record up to 48k and in uncompressed .wav files. I’m just curious if anyone has heard anything recorded on one and knows some pro and cons. It seems like it could be a more reliable alternative to DAT and not have the awful data compression that minidiscs have.
Thanks!
While waiting impatiently for PT 6.0, I see the possibility of spending another $40 for a thing I plug into a USB to handle authorizations. Is my outrage just another example of my knee-jerk liberalism? As for the potable Hard Disk Recording, doesn’t Nagra have the ultimate — only without all the moving parts?
Well, apparently Jay has lost the key to Jeff’s steamer trunk. Let’s see if I can dish out some poor advice in the meantime.
>I’ve browsed through your website quite a bit, and I’m wondering what you think might be the most prudent recorder to get for foreign correspondence: a minidisc recorder (because of it’s light and compact) or the Sony TC-D5M (because of its durability)?
Sony TC-D5M. They’re rugged and additional tapes are pretty easy and cheap to find world wide. Also, tape recorders don’t confuse security personel.
>Sadly, money *is* an issue.
Oh… maybe you can just steal one from some BBC reporter. They’re British, you can take ‘em.
>Also, would you generally recommend using a backup recorder, just a precaution when conducting interviews? If so, what would you suggest?
Prayer. Ideally, another TC-D5M because when you bring two different types of recorders you have to do some extra planning. Extra media, power sources, adapters, cables.
But, since money’s an issue, you’re going to have to decide based on what you can afford. You’re going to want at least one great shotgun mic, and a durable omni for backup and ambiance. If you can only afford 2 minidisc recorders after that, that will be sufficient. If you can only afford 1, that’s ok too… just keep your eye out for the BBC.
>I have a minidisc that has recordings on it, but the TOC has been fouled so that the machine thinks the disc is blank. Is there a way to recover data from a disc like this? No further recording has been done so the data shouldn’t be over written.
Yes, there are ways to recover it. You can try THIS but be warned, it could be dangerous. Don’t blame me when it makes your water heater give out. If I was in your situation, I would send the disc with a SASE to Jeff with a note begging him to do it for you. He might not like it, but I’d bet he’d do it anyway.
>Potable Hard Disk Recording
People, please don’t drink your recordings. They just don’t come out the way you’d expect. But as far as the hard disk and memory card recorders, I am far too poor to have played with them. And ProTools gear: ditto. So, this concludes my poor advice.
I need to conduct interviews over the phone. Does anyone know of a way to get a clear enough sound for radio? My only solution right now is to (don’t laugh) have them record their side of the conversation at their end, and I’ll record mine, and then mix the two together? Is there any relativly cheap way around this?
thanks!
that method of recording both ends and then bringing them together in a mix is the venerable "two-way" and is how you’ll get your best sound.
As for devices that record conversations, we have had discussions on these boards before on this. You could search the discussion boards for words like Gentner or Telos which are companies that make the devices. Maybe Jeff can be persuaded to write a column on this subject. hmmm.
As of now, the iLok seems to be used to copy protect some pricey plug-ins, rather than by the ProTools program itself. Whether digidesign is moving that way, I don’t know.
In some aspects, something like this, just a newer version of the old "dongles" that some programs required back in the day, can be an advantage in that you can take your plug-ins with you if you work in different studios. Right now, most plug-ins authorize your hard drive, and if you move to another studio without that drive, you might not have access to the same plug-ins.
The iLok is just a little USB flash drive, I doubt there’s anything special about it, and that being said, $40 isn’t too bad for such a device. I have a 128 meg drive like that that I use all the time to move files between computers quickly, like a mega-floppy. I think it cost me $99.
As wireless networking becomes more common, it’ll be moot, we’ll all just jump on the local network and move files, but in the meantime, it’s handy.
I haven’t tried it, but I’m tempted to re-authorize my plugins onto that drive, or an iPod, so i can indeed move around with them. I’ve become rather addicted to certain Waves plugins, and Altiverb, and it’s painful to work somewhere without them….
Oh well. one day it’ll just be biometric authorizations and we won’t worry about it!
Yeah, what Jay said,
really, the best results are indeed from taping each end of the conversation, rather than trying to get good sound over the phone. Of course, this presumes some vague level of recording competence on both ends, but think about it, you’d have to screw it up pretty bad to make it sound worse than the sound quality of a phone call.
Of course, folks are quite capable of mucking things up, we had a famous, multiple grammy-winning engineer/producer tape his end of a phone call once and it was so over-modulated, P-Popped and bassy that it was barely useable. Another musician/producer that makes absolutely gorgeous sounding records recently sent us something with levels so low that we just couldn’t use the tape.
Now, these guys could just have been so overconfident that they got sloppy, and if you carefully instruct someone to test everything out, and go back and listen and make sure things are cool, you can probably get good results even with a non-professional. In a perfect situation, you would hire someone with a good portable rig and some experience to tape the other end, but i know that’s not always practical.
But for actually taping a call, it’s very hard to get good sound without spending a LOT of money. There are simple, inexpensive taps at Radio Shack, and they will do in a pinch, but they tend to be noisy and there’s no way to balance the level between your voice and the remote voice, so your levels tend to step all over the other end, even quiet breathing can be obtrusive.
If your phone has a mute button, this can help a lot: try asking your question, then hitting the mute so your end is not sent down the line. You’re still likely to get some hum or buzz from a cheapy device, but it might work. Some expanding or gating in post-production can often make it tolerable.
If you have a bit more money to spend, a "Hybrid" from a company like Gentner can give better results, but I have to admit ours still leaves a bit to be desired in the realms of balance between the voices and noise.
I’ll try to do an overview as Jay suggested, but to be honest, I haven’t found any great, cheap alternatives. I’ll keep looking! In the meantime, as I think has been mentioned here previously, there’s a very good survey of options written by Henry Howard over at Radio College that will give you some ideas.
I’ll try to double up on the "what recorder to take" and "how about those newfangled hard disc recorders" queries. (sorry I’m a bit behind, I just got back from San Francisco, where I had the worst luck getting on the internet…how ironic eh? the heart of the techie dot-com world and i can’t get a decent pipe onto the net, not by dial-up or wireless or nothing….) any way…
Even though I have previously counselled against cassette recorders, they certainly are durable, more likely to work under adverse conditions and will be easier to resupply with batteries and tapes than other media.
But i still get hung-up on the warble and noise inherent in the tapes, so unless you really are going to be out in terrible weather, especially cold or humidity, you might want to get a DAT or minidisc.
There are the usual pros and cons to consumer and Pro gear: the pro stuff sounds a bit better and will be less likely to break down, but the consumer stuff is pretty close in quality and you can buy a couple to have as back-up.
If I’m doing something serious, I take the Tascam DAP1 DAT recorder, because it’s been really reliable. With it, I bring a Sony M-1 DAT recorder as a back-up. if space is an issue, I’ll bring the M-1 with a consumer minidisc as a back-up. If I’m doing something really funky that involves the possibility of falling in water, etc, I’ll just bring the cheapy minidisc. I should get another one to be a back-up, but I just can’t bring myself to… When ergonomically possible, my plan now is to record straight to the laptop with one of the little machines as a back up. (So far it has not been practical to open up a laptop and not be able to move around.)
But notice that I do mention back-up in all circumstances. Unless it’s easy to go back and get the sound again, bring some back-up. When things are really critical, i run two machines simultaneously taking either multiple outputs from the preamps or as a last-resort, a line out of the primary recorder into the back-up.
I have no doubt that direct to disc recording, as the Marantz and a couple other machines do, will be the way to do any time now. For right now, they’re still pretty expensive, comparitively speaking, and the removeable memory, the alegory for a tape or minidisc, is also kind of expensive per-minute, and doesn’t provide all that much time at full-bandwidth. But I think we’ll get there very soon. Sorry i haven’t heard any reports good or bad about the Marantz.
There are a bunch of little devices that provide MP3 recording, but I do not trust their quality at all. Please tell me if someone knows otherwise. I would not want my primary recording to be an MP3, and the preamps A/D converters and other hardware is unlikely to be very good, they are not meant to be pro devices.
I know someone who is working on hot-rodding a Nomad portable to have good quality inputs and controls, but it’s going slowly and will still be pricey, given that it involves buying a Nomad, disassembling it and adding stuff to it.
But again, be patient if you can. Of course it’ll be the way to go: just plug up a firewire cable and transfer files into your editing machine… but we’re not quite there yet.
Yeah, this is the biggest scary thing of minidiscs, if you lose power before the TOC is written, or several other quirlky reasons, you can end up with a disc with data, but no map to find it.
there are some pro minidissc machines that have "restore TOC" functions on them. But as Andy helpfully suggested, head on over to minidisc.org and follow their directions VERY CAREFULLY aand you should be able to do it yourself.
I hate to keep saying these things because I know I’m inviting the wrath of the gods, even with accumulated burnt offerings from Jackson, but I’ve never had it happen to me, so i haven’t had to try it. So i can only be so encouraging about how easy or hard or futile or nervewracking it might be, because all i’ve done is read about it and hoped that would be as close as i’d get. So far, so good.
Andy, what do you think, could he just threaten a BBC guy and make him do it?
I’m about to buy an ibook, and even though one can back up files onto CD-RW’s, it seems to me that backing things up on an external hard drive might not be bad idea. Given that I’m just starting to do radio work (and am not sure how much memory the files/data can consume), I’m wondering if you folks might be able to recommend a particular hard drive and suggested amount of space. Also, should I consider getting particular headphones? Finally, during my last posting on Transom, I was told to consider getting a Sony TC-D5M (since I’m hoping to do some foriegn correspondence) because, "They’re rugged and additional tapes are pretty easy and cheap to find world wide." (I’m still a bit ambivalent about this, by the way, given what some radio producer friends have said, but…) Anyway, I’ve combed ebay for a while now and haven’t been able to locate one. Should I stick it out for one, do you guys know where I might be able to find an *affordable* Sony TC-D5M (that is, aside from stealing one from a BBC reporter)? Thank you very much for all the help — appreciate it.
My thoughts on the D5 are here: http://www.transom.org/tools/basics/200212.production.basics.html
Another option would be to take TWO mini-disc recorders.
Understood — have read it, actually. Great article. Know where I can shop around for the D5? Zip on ebay…
Also, do you have any thought re: hard drives (size & make) that would compliment density of space for radio work?
Headphones?
Thanks — you’re a mench!
Here is one on eBay.
Headphones: we still love the Sony MDR V6 headphones, but they’re a little hard to find. THe MDR 7506 are pretty much the same for a couple bucks more. But there are a bunch of models very similar to these that are all pretty good. But be careful, those phones that only cost $15? They sound like they cost $15. You will probably need to drop closer to $100.
Hard Drive: it’s a tough call and has lots to do with how you work, what in particular you want to do with it, and what kind of machine you have. Audio does eat up lots of space, but we’ve finally reached a time when it’s rarely a crisis anymore. If you get an 80 gig hard drive you will have some trouble filling that puppy up for a while.
If you have a tower computer, you could install an internal EIDE drive for really cheap. If oyu have an iMac or a laptop, or just want portability, you can get a firewire drive.
if you really do just want to back-up data, you could get a USB drive, although it would be a slower process to copy files than with firwire.
The big question is whether you want to simply back-up files or if you want to be able to record to and play from the drive. If you want to just copy session files and soundfiles to the drive as back-up, speed and performance is not as crucial.
But if you want to record to it or play back sessions directly, you will need to get drives that meet certain specs. Check with your editing software for specific requirements, but for instance, ProTools is very picky about specs on Firewire drives. (Check the digidesign site for specifics)
I have an 80 gig Maxtor 3000DV firewire drive which has been really great as a back-up, and even as a recording drive with MOTU’s Audiodesk, but won’t work directly with ProTools. I still like it.
But in the end, i still like backing-up to CDR, and having lots of small back-ups. Nobody’s clear on the longevity of CDRs, but there’s no guarantee that a hard drive will keep working forever either…
As to size, uncompressed 16-bit audio takes 10 megs per stereo minute, so that’s 600 megs per stereo hour. How much room you’ll use depends on how you work: do you dump-in every minute that you recorded and edit from there, or do you only put sections you need into the computer? Do you do lots of bouncing or other processes that write new files? Are you using a destructive editor and want to save many different versions of the soundfiles? Non-destructive editing generally writes small session files that refer to one version of the soundfiles, so many versions don’t take up too much more room. Do you use 24 bit files? Do your projects have many tracks?
In any case, 80 gigs is a lot of space: over 12 hours of 16-bit stereo. So that’s a decent size to start, prices range from about $150 for an IDE drive, to $300 for firewire, to even more for high-performance firewire that meets digidesign specs.
That’s the one you want. The "M" not the "Pro" which, as I recall, is missing either line inputs or line outputs.
Do a GOOGLE on the D5. There used to be a guy who refurbished them in Colorado or somewhere. Someone will find a link.
I haven’t bought a hard drive lately. The Lydon/McGrath team brought down a nice quiet firewire drive that I coveted. LaCie, I think. How about an iPod, is anyone using one of the new ones for ProTools?
For big headphones, the Sony MDR-7506 are pretty standard. Or just pick up some walkman types.
Jeff ‘s post slipped in while I was typing. Listen to Jeff.
having just heard the Possum piece, I can see why everyone’s interested in phone recording
Tanya Ott said somewhere that she used a Gentner for her Marketplace stories. that sounded good enough for me.
Back in October, at the Bradley web site I thought I could only find more complicated equipment for stations. I think someone at Bradley Broadcast told me they didn’t have the same old Gentner products. Maybe they were bought by another company?? I should check this out before starting a rumor. I sure hope I just dreamed it. [though I guess that would mean some high-cost therapy might be in order.] But if you’re putting together a fresh summary I thought I should pass this along.
In the few years I’ve been listening in, it seems I’ve heard this story of decent, low-cost items going off the market over and over. It seems that whenever there’s any simple, low-cost equipment of any kind one should buy it before companies figure out they’re not making enough money on it.
Hi Guys,
I want to thank each of you for all of your help, which has really been tremendous. And now it’s time for me to return the favor…
I asked about the firewire hard drive because I’m planning on purchasing an ibook (it’s durable, and a good value…hell, it’s all that I can really afford, and I’m not ready to make the jump to PC!). But Mac says that I should consider getting a hard drive since there’s only 30 gigs, and it’ll fill up quickly (or possibly interfere w/ other applications) even if I should be parsimonious w/ audio selects for radio pieces. Don’t know if you guys agree with this (do you?)…but I won’t be able to buy an extra hard drive for a while, I’m just assessing costs and options (esp. for the purposes of foreign correspondence). Anyway, per Jeff’s recommendation, I called Digidesign to see what hard drives would work with ProTools — work, that is, to record to it or play back sessions directly. Digidesign has three recommendations: the Glyph companion drive; EZ Quest Cobra Plus; and, of course, Digidesign’s own drives. I did some digging, and I have to say, the Glyph look like a really handsome unit. Check out this article that specifically addresses its compatibility w/ Digidesign and the MBOX: http://www.creativesynth.com/reviews/060_GlyphCompanion/rev_glyphcompanion.html
Apparently they even make a case that goes w/ the MBOX.
Now if I could just afford to buy all of this great stuff!
Anyway, I’ve got just one quick follow-up question for you guys. I’ve found both a Sony TC-D5M deck & a pair of Sony MDR V6 headphones. Both stipulate they need "some work" (makes me a little nervous, but they are cheaper). I’m wondering if you guys know of some place that can *inexpensively* repair these items (should I be bold enough to purchase equipment that needs "some work"!).
Please let me know whenever you get a chance. Thanks so much.
Take care.
Best,
Josh
We’ve found that lots of drives tend to work fine with ProTools that Digidesign doesn’t approve. Cheap ones. rated at 7200. We get them from APS. Like I said, La Cie makes a nice one. Hell, some people seem to be using 20gig iPods with firewire. Jeff will know more about this. You definitely should get one though. Keep ProTools on the ibook and your audio files and sessions on the external drive.
My local TC-D5 repair guy has stopped doing it. Try Resistance Repair in Berkeley 510-841-1459. Let us know if you find another good place. I’d be hesitant about buying gear that needs "some work". You sure you don’t want to go with minidisc?
Interesting…thanks. Looks like I should do further research. What does one need to do to ensure a hard drive is compatible w/ and MBOX/ProTools? Jeff said I should look ask Digidesign about it to ensure "specific requirements…for instance, ProTools is very picky about specs on Firewire drives." Hence my salvo…
No, I’m NOT sure I want to go w/ the minidisc, but you did seem to suggest that’s the way to go, esp. since I’m gearing up to do another stint in foreign correspondence again (South Asia, actually), but w/ radio, hopefully. In your article you said the Sony TC-D5M "is even repairable. It runs on D-Cells and is not subject to digital gremlins. It sounds quite sweet, if somewhat noisy compared to the silent sheen of digital, and I can almost ALWAYS RELY ON IT." And Mr. Axel of Elvis says, "they’re rugged and additional tapes are pretty easy and cheap to find world wide. Also, tape recorders don’t confuse security personnel."
But man, I like the size and weight of minidiscs! Is there one in particular you’d recommend? (Yes: I’ve been to minidisc.org) But I really don’t want something to break down in the field (been there done that w/ print interviews — can’t imagine it w/ radio — hence I asked earlier about a back up device earlier).
So…now I don’t know what to think!
Oy…do impart oh wise one…
Thanks very much.
Take care.
Best,
Josh
Others can give better recommendations on the small minidiscs than I can. The HHB Portadisc is very nice, but expensive. A known-to-be-working TC-D5 is a good choice for rugged travel, but if you’re buying a used one that’s untested, I don’t think that’s a great bet.
Hey. System requirements state Windows98 SE or WinME. I’m running Win2k, can I use the editing tools? Scanned the FAQ and tools talk but didn’t find anything on 2k.
Thanks much!
Paul
Are we talking about ProTools? M-Box or Free? Well, in either case, no. The M-Box only works with Windows XP, and the Free version only works with 98 ar ME. I hav eno idea why those in particular.
Go here: http://www.digidesign.com/
Click on "Products", then on "Mbox" on the "menu" that drops down.
In the frame on the left, click on "Mbox Compatibility Mac" (which is under the header "Product Information." (An info page will load in the frame on the right.)
In the frame on the right, click on "Storage: Hard Drive Minimum Requirements", and another info page will load which contains the specs you need to look for various types of hard drives.
If you are looking at Firewire drives, click on "Digidrive Firewire 80 Requirements". At the very bottom of the new page that loads is a section entitled "Other Firewire Drives". (You can also get more info via the "Technical Document Library" and "Digidrive Firewire 80 Specs" links if you want.)
*My* read is that if you are looking for a firewire drive, you need a 7200 rpm drive that has the "Oxford 911 Firewire bridge chipset". You can get them much cheaper than the Digidrive, but it will not be supported by Digidesign, presumably for the reasons explained in the "Hard Drive Minimum Requirements" page (basically, they can’t test every manufacturer’s hard drives). Don’t rely on me, though – do your own research at the above links.
For example, the OWC Firewire Elite Pro drives seem to fit the bill:
http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Page.cfm?Parent=680&Title=FW&Template=1
An 80 gig Elite Pro drive is currently about $200 + shipping – a far cry from the Glyph or Digidesign supported drives. (Don’t know about the EZQuest).
HI..My Pro Tools dilemma is that whenever I import a track from a CD (using the Import Audio From Other Movie) the track comes in with static, like there is a constant ticking of a clock running through the entire track. I have an OSX operinating system but am making sure to re-boot inOS9 when using Pro Tools. The Pro Tools Free software boots no problem and I can import otehr audio files already on my hard drive and they come in clear. It’s only when I import from a CD that I get this glitch. Any advice greatly appreciated…. Cheers, Jim
Is a Sony WM-D6C cassette recorder less acceptable than than the D5 for a traveling audio kit?
Kurt
It’s smaller which is good and bad. It’s more delicate, with a mini-plug input. That’s a big disadvantage. It’s light, which is nice. Depending on where you’re going, I’d vote for the sturdiness of the D5. Better meters too.
Hi there,
I have some WaveLab 3.0 software, which I hear is a great tool. The only problem is that I don’t have the direction book, hence no idea how to use the software. And I don’t have the patience to go the Help menu over and over.
So I’m wondering… if anyone has an instruction manual they would be willing to copy for me. I’ve searched on-line and there doens’t seem to be anythign I can buy in print.
I’d appreciate any help…
S
Toss this one in with Jim’s static question.
I have a PowerWave USB interface from Griffin (the people who make the iMic). When I plug it into my iBook, I get a constant staticy hum whenever it’s plugged in. It shows up in my headphones; it shows up on ProTools; and it shows up both when I input from minidisc or from a mic.
I had the same problem with my iMic, so I know it’s not a fluke with the PowerWave. Does anyone have any ideas of some simple thing I may be doing wrong?
Thanks so much. So many of my questions have been answered by cruising around this site.
Tim
Im not sure why you’re getting static-y clicks whe importing from CDs. I never get that, but i also gave up on that procedure a while ago just because it’s so…weird. I usually just extract CD audio via iTunes or Toast audio extractor or almost anything else, because all of these seem more efficient than importing to a quicktime movie, then extracting the audio from that movie.
So, although i’d rather fix your problem, I vote for just avoiding it. Extract CD audio into iTunes (make sure your preferences, under importing, are set to aiff) Toast audio extractor will import as SD2 files which is even better.
Then in PTFree, just import those audio files as you would any other. The iTunes files are hidden in documents>>iTunes and a million sub-folders from there, unless you’ve changed your default paths.
There’s nothing special about iTunes, it’s just easy, and free.
Give that a try, and let us know!
I haven’t tried the Powerwave, but I have an iMic, and although i prefer other interfaces, it’s pretty good for $35. I haven’t gotten the crackling thing, but it can be a bit hummy. The iMic and the Powerwave are not really pro input devices, they will get the job done, but there are some comprimises at that pricepoint.
Some things to try:
make sure it’s plugged straight in, not via a USB hub.
Make sure it’s not too close to your monitor (I know, it’s a computer device, it ought to be able to sit near your monitor, but try moving it as far way as possible.) It might not even have anything to do with the monitor, but I do notice that the noise level will change based on the device’s location, even position: try turning it over, or on its side….
Make sure your gains are set optimally, there’s a hardware switch on the device that switches between mic level and line level. Perversely, to get the mic input, you move the switch toward the speaker icon, for line level, you slide the switch toward the mic icon. Go figure. Also, there is a gain setting in the audio control panel, which can affect noise levels. Sadly there’s no hard and fast rule about where that should be, it will vary depending on what you are inputting.
But make sure you are not inputting line-level signals via the mic input, or actually, the switch setting that sets the gain for mic level, or with the gain up too high in the control panel.
I’d encourage you to find some other way to preamp a mic than via the iMic, you are bound to get noise when adding this much gain, so see if you can send a line-level signal from a mixer, or from your recorder, or some other device.
Anyone else found any good tricks?
ive just gotten a sharp minidisc MD-MT190W to use with a microphone . the instructions do not explain how to get to ‘record mode’ . .can you help??? . . thanks .. .
Check out minidisc.org –
You’ll see they have a web page for the MD-MT190 and related models (linked here) as well as the MD-MT190 owner’s manual (pdf file).
The recording procedure is a little bit complicated!
I’m curious if the current crop of mini DV camcorders could be used for radio work (with an external mic, of course).
That’s a good question…. I always feel like audio gets short shrift in video land, but I haven’t been able to experiment with any of the newer MiniDV camcorders. Anybody have any experience with this?
In your column, you note that Deck can’t handle stereo sound files in an easily manipulable way. Do you know if Peak (LE) can? I’m wondering if Peak and Deck (LE) together might be a solid, under-$200 editing package for OSX. (I realize there are better deals in shareware and freeware, but they don’t accept Bias SoundSoap, which seems like a very useful tool.) Thanks.
Questions from a new visitor to the forum:
With all that’s been discussed about the lack of digital outputs on all but the highest-end MD units, I’m wondering… Can a "home" (vs. portable) MD unit with digital/optical outputs be successfully connected to one’s computer, rather than to a stereo amplifier? Would the data be recognizable by the computer?
If a radio station’s reporter captures audio on a portable MD unit, how does that station typically work with the MD?
I am incredibly impressed with the quality of the material available from Transom. All of you who help make this possible should be very proud of your contributions. Thank you for sharing a wealth of knowledge.
>Can a "home" (vs. portable) MD unit with digital/optical outputs be successfully connected to one’s computer, rather than to a stereo amplifier? Would the data be recognizable by the computer?
Yes and yes.
>If a radio station’s reporter captures audio on a portable MD unit, how does that station typically work with the MD?
Magic, spellcraft, the occult, blood rituals… Oh, but maybe it’s different for non-Clear Channel stations.
I tried to transfer audio from the USB output of a Minidisc HHB MDP500 to ProToolsFree (in a iBook 500). To no avail so far.
Vumeters are showing sound, but the record process stops after a few seconds.
I record correctly from the HHB (thru USB) in Peak or Coaster. And I record in PTF regularly thru a USB Opcode interface with no problem.
I wonder if any of you, used to these beasts, had seen a succesfull relationship beetween the MDP500 and ProToolsFree ? Am I missing something ?
Thanks to you all.
JPB
‘Sup?
Cool website… Been reading your stuff about portable minidisc recorders and computers. I read one fella saying that the HHB Portadisc is one bad MD — tough for travel stuff (gonna be doing it soon). Looks sweet, but a bit heavy and $$$, yo… But if that’s the way to go for travel, you think it’s smart just to get that bad boy and ditch the MBOX? Or you think it might be better (cheaper/smarter) to just get a little ol’ Sony MD recorder, and lug around the MBOX?
And you guyz know anything about those Mac computers? You think I can just swing it with an ibook? Or you think those bad new Powebooks are the way to go? Man, I can’t shell out a lotta dollars, but those G4 look tip top…dunno if it’s worth it though…
Fellas?
Later,
j-dog
Is there an internal metronome to be found in PT Free? Thanks.
As Andy correctly replied, yes, a full-size "home stereo" type minidisc player could indeed be a good front end if it has a digital output. BUT! be careful, I’ve been looking, and most of the consumer machines, even those full-size ones, do not have digital outputs. I’m still keeping an eye out, but just as with the portables, I suspect that Sony just never imagined anyone would want that function.
And, you’ll still need some sort of interface, a digital audio signal is good, but still needs to be translated to data we can use. That’s still the strong suit of the HHB portable MD, it has, in effect its own built-in interface, allowing you to plug directly into a USB port.
And yes, the HHB should interface directly with PTFree, I know some folks are doing it successfully. I can’t imagine why it would act any differently than any other interface….try allocating space to record into, telling the program how much you want to record. You can do that by just dragging the selector tool in the track you are recording into, or entering start and end times in the transport window. Sometimes ProTools is happier when you tell it how much you want to record, even if you tell it something large.
I haven’t looked at Deck in a while, I just downloaded a demo, so I’ll try to give it a whirl shortly. Deck was always pretty cool, but just got overshadowed by the value of free ProTools, and the general ubiquity of ProTools. But it’s worth thinking about as an OSX app.
I checked out the SoundSoap demo too, and while it’s pretty amazing, I was a little freaked out by the artifacts on the examples. The noise elements were greatly reduced, but everything seemed to have a weird swishy watery sound. That being said, I think it could be a really good tool, but just used with care, gently….
Thanks for the kind words, as for the relative merits of little minidisc-MBox vs HHB PTFree….. hmmm that’s a tough one,.
The HHB is a much more robust machine, with better mic inputs, better metering, and WAY better in-out options. Then again, for the same money you can get about 10 little consumer portables to carry as back-ups. But in the end, you’ll have a better chance at getting good audio with a pro machine like the HHB.
In a way, you could use the HHB as a front-end for the computer, recording everything via that deck, using it as an interface.
I like the M-Box, and using PTLE rather than free gives a few advantages, such as more tracks, stereo tracks, some additional processing power… so it’s a trade off in either case.
As for the new powerbooks, they are really cool looking, and having a G4 chip will be a geat help in running OSX and increasingly processor-hungry applications. The version 4 Waves plug-ins claim to require a G4, I’m not sure if that’s a trend. The advantages of a G3 iBook are the really good price, but also that they have no fan, so they are very quiet. The G4 machines all have fans.
I used to think the G3 was totally sufficient, and that’s what i still use on all my remotes, but I am starting to drool over the G4 powerbooks, and if i were getting something new right now, i might vote for the greater capability of a G4.
So, the answer is: spend lots of cash!!! Well, there are always trade-offs, you can get by just fine with a little portable minidisc an M-Box (or even a less expensive interface) and a G3 iBook. From there, it’s all gravy.
I’m trying to get my university to buy an Mbox because we don’t have any good audio processing equipment, and I’ve almost sold them on it because cheap, comparatively. But they keep telling me to try to find some place that will give us an educational discount. So far it seems like every online retailer who sells the Mbox doesn’t offer a discount and those who offer discounts don’t offer the Mbox. Does anybody have any ideas, or should I just tell my proff. to quit being a scrounge and pay the full price. I mean, 450 is nothing compared to the 20k in tuition I’m already paying.
Also. I do all of my recording on DAT and its really hard to find tapes around here, especially the long ones. Anybody know a place to get DAT tapes enbulk for a good price? This stuff is expensive!
i’m donig an audio web page audible frequency where i upload new sounds that i’ve recorded, kind of like an audio diary and i write a little about each sound. someone mentioned to me that my recordings might benefit from a noise reduction vst (or something like that). i’ve looked around online and can’t seem to find any explanation of how this works. does sound forge have a built in way to do noise reduction, or is there something i can download?
i also am not so sure that the sounds i’ve uploaded would really benefit from sound reduction.
any advice?
Yo…
Thanks Jeff… Getting’ cooler, yo…
Yeah, that HHB unit is one badass… But I dunno…seems a bit pricey. Dunno maybe too $$$! I wish there was a playback control on it. For all that bank, that’s the least they could throw in! Know what I mean?? I just like being able to jog my stuff before I upload it. Saves time. You know if HHB makes some stripped down version? or another, whatdoya call it? a good pro machine that doesn’t cost like a million dollas? Those tiny little MDs they make look like theyd fall apart in your hand (or break down when you need em most), and that stupid minidisk.org site is NO HELP!
Yeah man, that’s almost the only reason why I was thinking of gettin the HHB. Using it to record everything though the deck – using it as an interface.
Let me ask you this, then. I’m thinkin of going to Africa. My bros there got crazy wheels, and I don’t want to get my stuff snatched. What do you think is the best deal or set up now, Jeff? I’m talking durable and for light traveling? You can throw in cheap there too… heh
Yo, man, you got me even more confused about the G3 versus G4s! I’m travelin bro, travelin… So lets think about this, Jeff. I dunno if I can stand any 12” screen doing ProTools. I dunno if I can lug around a 15” (why can’t they make a 13” or 14” screen??) but man they are sweet. You think Mac might let us swap G4 processor into an ibook body? Man, I dunno… Yeah, they’re sweet an all, but I don’t know if I can afford all that hardware (and man, I haven’t even asked you about HD’s!), but then again I don’t want to short myself for recording. Know what I mean? So what do I do, homes? Remember, I’m travelin bro, travelin…
Later, Jeff and thanks, man
If I were travelling in an unpredictable environment, I would probably take 2 or 3 of the little consumer Minidiscs. They are NOT as durable as the HHB, but as one does hard travel in extreme environments, things break, so it’s good to have back-up. And the little guys are small and light enough that you can just carry one or more of them with you all the time, in a pocket, which means not only will you have it with you when you unexpectedly encounter good sound, but you always know where it is.
Sadly, no, there’s no cheaper pro unit. Some might suggest a pro portable cassette deck, it would be the same size and weight as the HHB, but cheaper and more reliable in diverse tempertures and humidity , and easy to resupply with tapes and batteries. Personally, I just can’t bear the cassette hiss and warble anymore, but at the same time, I’m amazed how decent they can sound.
check out Tom Lopez’s column about traveling with gear here for some good tips on what to bring and what to do.
You can do plenty of good work with ProTools Free (as long as you are using Mac OS9) although you’ll most likely need an interface. Check out the M-Audio Mobile Pre (about $150).
You can run that on an iBook, which does come in a 14" screen if you want it, but i really like the compact-ness of my 12" version. Especially if you are traveling, you’ll appreciate the small, light 12 model.
The G4s are hip, and if i were buying something now, i’d get a 12" G4 powerbook, but I’m very happy with my G3 iBook, it’s working great, is light and durable, and has no fan.
Even though it’s not ideal, you can record and edit a decent amount of audio using only the built-in drive. But if you get an external, think iPod. It’s expensive per gig, but they’re small and built for travel.
It’s not *so* much cash: an iBook, a couple Minidiscs, an interfaceeven an iPod, still under $2,500USD.
Go for it! And tell us how it works.
I’ve outfitted my Macintosh G4s with iMics to bring sound into ProTools Free. While the G4 recognizes the iMic and brings sound into other programs like Sound Edit 16 ProTools Free refuses to record from the external mic or even to import the sound files stored on the computer even after trashing my preferences.
When trying to import, the "files of type" pull down menu does not allow for any type.
I am working at a University where ProTools is installed on the server. Any suggestions for instructing my IT department on how to reinstall so it works next time?
Thanks,
I have an older console style minidisc recorder (Sony MDS 101) it does have optical transfer, but like many of the portable Minidisc recorders I use with my students it uses a wierd optical/digital mini cable (POC 15SP). It probably came with your recorder and doesn’t appear to fit into anything until you remove the translucent plastic covering then, voila, it is what looks like a regular mini cable but is somehow configured for digital optical/transfer. I’m not a real geek, this is just something I stumbled on along the way. perhaps someone else knows more.
MacDaddy Jeff!
You da man, yo! AwSOME! Check it out, I scoped out the new Powerbooks, and I just gotta get one. I’m thinkin the 15”, man. All that POWER – mad Powa, yo. Sold.
And brotha, let me tell you, I was all set to buy that small, SWEET M-Audio Mobile Pre unit, but man…you can’t run that thing with ProTools LE! Whassup w/ that??? First the dudes at M-Audio tell me it’s cool, then those dogs at Digidesign said NEXT! – can’t use it. Just out stuff. That shoebox-sized Mbox. Those dogs. Dunno what I believe.
Jeff-homes, an ipod?? Man, they might be small (and they be bad, all right), but those are mad bank, yo! And only 20MB max! Plus, when I spoke to Digidesign those dogs said I need a drive w/ 7200 rpm drive and Oxford 911 Firewire bridge chipset. You know one? Man, I shoppin’ to find one w/ like all that plus somethin’ like 60MBs…maybe something powered by firewire or batts or somethin’. Definitely gotta be built for portable travel – small, light, durable. Know anything, homes? Or where ta scope one out?
Ok, last one, baby. Know any good, solid MDs? They gotta be sturdy, and able to jog – play back speed. I checked out that site – minidisk.org – but it just, plain SUCKS.
Ok, all for now.
j-dog signin out.
peace, y’all thanks again, jeff
Hi Jennie, i don’t know this for sure, but i suspect that ProTools doesn’t like to be accessing sound inputs on a different machine than the program runs on. But I’ll have to admit that I’m just guessing, here I’ve never tried to set-up a system like that. Try loading PTFree on one of the machines directly (heck, it’s free..) and see if that works.
It’s true that the Sony end of those optical cables is kind-of weird looking, but in most cases, if there’s an optical OUT, it usually employs a standard optical connector, that little square-ish plug that’s shared by SPDIF optical and ADAT lightpipe (just to make things confusing..) But then, maybe some of them have that little plug as an output. When trying to identify plugs, keep in mind that the digital connection is never bi-directional: it’s either an input or an output, never both (unless we’re talking about that multi-pin connector on the DAT-man machines such as the D7 or M1. )
you want a cheap, small, durable minidisc that shuttles?! And an inexpensive, small, solid, portable firewire drive that will work with ProTools?! Well, me too, but neither of us is getting either any time soon!
There’s no minidisc that fits that description, but check out the
Michael Johnson minidisc column on stories1st.org, he’s got some good recommendations.
And yes, the iPods are expensive, but it’s like the old cliche about almost anything: fast ,cheap, good – pick 2. They may be pricey, but 20 gigs is a lot of space (and rumor has it they’ll have bigger ones any day now…) and they are tiny, and built to travel and, while i don’t know if they meet all of digi’s specs, they work with ProTools. I’ve used one.
There are Glyph "NetDrives" that look like they should work, they are 7200rpm, and have the Oxford911 chipset, and are good values, but I’ve not found direct examples of them working with ProTools. Theoretically, they’ll work!
And no the M-Audio interface will not work with ProToolsLE, but hey, we’re economizing here! PTFree is pretty capable as long as you can boot into OS9. And that M-Audio box would work with Peak, or Deck or Spark, or other editors.
The MBox wouldn’t be all that big, if they’d just made the feet removeable!!! Oh well.
Tell us what you do!
I want to expand the number of mic’s on my dat without having to spend the money on portable mixer, and I thought that maybe I could plug a splitter into the mic jack and then plug individual mic’s into the left and right channels. This would work right? I know that I would have to mix by proximity, but I’m not trying to get a finished stereo sound. I just want to get everything on a single tape. Also, if I had a stereo mic on one of the channels and a mono in the other would that sound really weird? or would the stereo just lose its effect? And is this going to cause more editing headaches than its worth?
Okay, I’m a complete amateur just getting into all of this stuff so excuse me if this sounds totally stupid. So I wanted to download ProTools free (poor college student here), but ‘lo it can’t run on Windows XP (those digidesign bastards). Can anybody suggest another free application for download? Why pay if I can find something for free, right?
Using splitter cables for mic inputs can be really tricky, often creating noise, impedence problems, weird balance issues….
But if you are careful you can do some of what you propose. I would recommend springing for a well-made cable, such as the dual-XLR to stereo mini cable from Sonic Studios. That should give you a good clean connection, and what’s more, one mic in each channel, so you can indeed balance the levels at the mix stage.
I would not recommend trying to combine a stereo mic and a mono mic without a mixer, I think that would lead only to heartache and a great gnashing of teeth later in the project!
Hey y’all…
Just wanted to thank Jeff, and everyone else, for all the Tools help. I’m scopin’ out the best place to buy the mac stuff and other hardware. If anyone knows where to get this stuff on the cheap, or ideas on best MD recorders to get, cool…
Thanks, y’all!
Later,
j-dog
Hi, I’m just starting to put together a digital workstation and this site has been a huge help! I have a few questions…
I’m working from a 12" G3 ibook and am debating whether to get the $170 MobilePre USB interface and use PTFree or spend the money for an MBox and PTLE. I want to do some music stuff as well as narrative stuff, and I’m wondering if you think PTLE is significantly better for music, enough to warrant spending the money? Does it have more filters or effects to run sounds through? (I could record straight into the computer with both PTFree and PTLE, right?) Would the choice I make effect the kind of firewire drive I should get?
Also, I installed PTFree off the CD ROM, but I can’t get it to open. Someone told me it was because I needed to install OMS first and PT second, so I uninstalled and re-installed in that order, but it still won’t work. It just gives me a prompt to get a SCSI or IDE drive then freezes up, and I have to force quit or restart the computer. Is this just because I need an external drive w/ more space?
Thanks a lot, and again, this site has been a great help!
So, like some other people who have asked some questions, I am trying to digitally edit some recordings made on analog tapes. I am not using Pro-Tools because like Bryan a few posts back, I have a PC laptop running XP which doesn’t work so well with Pro Tools Free. I do possess a copy of Cakewalk MusicCreator which seems like a relatively powerful editor, at least compared to what I’ve heard about Pro-Tools Free.
The problem comes in when I try running a line from my tapedeck through the sound card input in order to record digital audio. The tapes I am using are not great to begin with but lose quite a bit of sound quality and "warmth" for lack of a better word once they are recorded digitally. This is compared to listening to a playback on the same tapedeck. I played around with my configuration and got a small amount of improvement when I found a good recording trim and turned off my stereo receiver which was causing a hum in the tape deck. However, the sound quality is still dissapointing. The sound is more prominent in the mid-range and the highs and lows are more distorted in a kind of icy, digital fashion. It’s true, I am running out of the tape decks headphone jack (1/4") and I could cheaply switch to running from the RCA outs. Somehow, I don’t feel like that will help too much although I certainly plan to give it a try.
However, I am guessing that my problem lies in one of two areas for which I’m hoping for some feedback and insight:
1) Cakewalk Music Creator v. Pro Tools: Is it possible that Music Creator is just poor at recording from an analog source? Is it worth buying more recording software when money is really an issue and cakewalk seems good enough, if not ideal, for my needs?
2) More likely, it’s my laptop’s El Cheapo soundcard, a Sigma Tel Audio with a mono 1/6" jack only. I’m guessing the best solution is to buy a mixer with USB capabilities like the Mbox or maybe a new soundcard. I’m just wondering if this is really likely to help that much since I’d like to avoid the expenditure for now if I can get away with it.
I guess the main questions are: Would a better soundcard, a mixer, or different software be likely to fix the problem or is significant generational loss just part of the game for home digital recording? And if I could only buy one of these upgrades, what sould it be?
I appreciate all insight. Also, to Bryan, I’ll let you know if I find a solution to the Pro Tools Free XP dilemna. XP does have compatability software which might be able to help.
JPD
I’m guessing that your loss of quality when transferring your tapes comes from two areas:
1) heaphone outputs are often poor quality, although the symptom would probably be hiss or distortion.
2) more likely it’s your soundcard. The 1/8" input is probably set-up for mic level signals, so the headphone output you are sending to it is way too hot, until you bring the volume down very low. So you are then asking a cheap soundcard to amplify a problematic signal, then convert it to digital inside the computer…. not ideal.
So i would try to get some sort of external interface, which would be even better than a new soundcard, but if not an external interface, a better soundcard would help. Look for something with line-level inputs, and take the RCAs out of the line out of the tape deck, rather than the headphone out.
The software is unlikely to be causing the problems you describe, it’s most likely the hardware.
This is always a tough question, where to spend the money, on the interface, or software, or hard drives…
I do think that PTLE is a little better for music recording and mixing, you don’t get much more in the way of filters or effects, most of them will run on either system (but not all will run on PTFree, a few won’t, such as Antares Mic Modeler or Auto-Tune). But what you do get is more tracks, which, even with fairly simple music projects, can be handy. I’ve often run past the 8 track limit of PTFree even recording an acoustic trio.
The M-Box has good-sounding mic preamps, a very useful monitoring set-up that allows a variable mix between playback tracks and the inputs for easy overdubs without latency (delay) from looping through the computer, and hardware inserts if you want to use hardware compressors, etc on input.
I haven’t used the MobilePre, but I have other M-Audio stuff and their gear generally sounds very good, so the quality would be OK there too.
But perhaps the answer lies in the fact that you’re having trouble runnign PTFree. That’s an odd message, I’m not sure what that is…. You might have better luck with LE.
You do need OMS installed to get any flavor of ProTools to run, but I don’t think it matters which order they get installed.
Digidesign is notoriously vague about what firewire drives will work with ProTools Free or LE, but the specs would be the same, 7200 rpm, Oxford 911 bridge.
But although it’s not ideal, you should be able to record simple, shorter things to your internal drive, or at the very least get the program to launch…
You may be having an extension conflict, so try going to extensions manager and turning off everything that isn’t needed for ProTools, OMS, Quicktime, etc.
Oh yeah, just in case you’re trying this, you can NOT run ProTools Free under OSX, not even in "classic" mode. You need OS9 for PTFree, at least 9.1, preferably 9.2 for the M-Box.
And you do need some free space to run the program, especially if you are trying to record to the internal drive, but I get away with sqeezing data into the corners of a pretty jammed-drive, so it can work even under less-than-ideal circumsatnces.
Good Luck, I hope that helped a little!
Jeff,
On one of the computers in the APM office the function keys work in protools as follows:
F1-F4=shuffle-grid
F5-10 apply to the zoom, arrows, hand etc…
It’s a great way to move around quickly without lots of finger action. For those of us trying to avoid carpal tunnel, this is really appealing. BUT not all of our computers work this way. Do you know how to set those keys up on a Mac?
thank you…Sydney
Easily solved by just unclicking two little boxes in Function window. Duh.
Hi Jeff,
as far as I can tell, even were I to purchase the MBox and the Pro Tools v6.0 that comes with it, the only PC-Based OS I can use is Windows XP.
is this true? I see that the Pro Tools free version allows one to use Windows XP/ME/98, but even that seems rather outdated and limiting. I have visited the Digidesign website and it looks like for PC’s, Windows XP/ME/98 is about all that is supported.
Do you know if this is true (no Windows 2000)? and, if so, if that is going to change anytime soon? Windows XP/ME/98 is rather a retrograde requirement and I can’t imagine reinstalling less capable OS’s to run Pro Tools!
thanks!
tV
After hours of editing last night (saving as I went along) I opened up my work once more before going to sleep. As I feared my most recent work was not saved. This has happened to me before, but not so far along in the project. Is this a common problem, am I doing something terribly wrong, could it be the disk is overwhelmed?
I appreciate any and all feedback, for this is very disheartening.
Thank You,
Therese Madden
Yes, on the Windows side, the M-Box runs on Windows XP only, and if history is instructive, I don’t expect that digidesign will develop the software for earlier operating systems, so, for better or worse, you have to be running XP for that.
On the flip side, PTFree will NOT run on XP (will it ever? who knows…) it will only run on WIn 98 or Me.
The M-Box is a good interface, and I think the whole package is a good value, but it’s worth keeping in mind that PTFree and LE that runs on the M-Box are VERY similar, the major difference being that Free is limited to 8 tracks.
I might be misunderstanding something you’re saying, but the XP support is pretty current, and I doubt there will be loads of development for Windows 2000, etc from here on out.
Of course it is frustrating that the free version won’t run on XP, but we can’t blame a company for being slow to update software they give away.
If your machine will run it, PTFree is not too out of date, there have been some improvements in the new versions, but they’re not radical.
We fixate on ProTools here because it is so commonly used, and the free sofware is so capable, that it’s a great starting point and common ground. But there are many other programs, some of which have more compatibility with different OS versions, so depending on what you need to do, it’s worth looking at CoolEdit, or Soundforge or Vegas, or Nuendo, or others if those are better on the OS you are using.
Good Luck!
Therese,
this is NOT a syndrome I’ve expereinced, or heard of before, so something is wrong. If your hard drive was overloaded, I think you’d have other problems, and would get warnings about saves not occurring. I suspect (and hope!) that you might indeed be saving your edits, but that they are getting saved in an unexpected place. It might be good to always do a "save-as" early in the project, and be very careful to note where the session is being saved. It’s entirely possible to save the session file somewhere different from your audio files, so make sure that’s not happening by mistake.
Using "save-as" and giving a distinct name, or the date, to the session file can make it easier to find later, and to be sure you’re working on the right one. Those session files are prfetty small, so as long as you don’t confuse yourself with too many versions, there’s no problem with saving alternates or updates as different names. It might make you more confident that your edits have been saved if the file is called "Roadtrip042503" or something that indicates that you worked on this on 04-25-03.
So, sadly, computers being what they are, there’s always a chance that you’ve got some weird bug, but I think it’s more likely that your edits have been saved, but that the session files are filed somewhere you didn’t expect.
Look around, search your drive(s) for files with the session name, and check the modified dates, you might have a happy surprise! Hope so…
I’ve been looking through the site for stuff on recording over the phone, and it seems like it’s pretty much impossible to get good sound quality without spending a decent amount of money. I have to go through a cell phone, so I got Radio Shack’s Wireless Phone Recording Controller and ran it into a portable tape recorder, but there’s a loud buzz. Is that just because the Recording Controller is cheap ( $20)? Or is there something I can do about it? Is there a way to get rid of the buzz later in ProTools? Anything anyone knows about recording over a cell phone would be a great help. Thanks!
I had the same problem running a regular phone into minidisc and computer using a $15 RadioShack tap. In fact, all I got was a nasty buzz. I solved the problem by switching to JK Audio’s Quicktap. They also make a a product called Celltap that costs about $75.
Thanks — I’ll give it a shot.
Based on your incredibly helpful "Tools" pages, I (and I should admit from the start that I’m a complete neophyte) have been researching MD recorders. I had finally decided on Sharp’s MD-DR7 when I came across a category called "Portable Digital Recorders" at BSW.
Please forgive my very great ignorance, but why are these devices, which would seem to solve the significant problem of MDs not enabling swift digital transfer of recordings to one’s hard drive, less desirable as recording equipment? What am I missing?
Thanks for any clarification you can offer — and for this wonderful website.
Hi Natalie,
thhe direct -to-disc, or complact flash recorders are absolutely the way of the future, and the only thing you are missing is that they aren’t the wave of right now. They are either very expensive, (a thousand dollars and up) or not really well suited to portable recording the way a reporter would think if it. The "portable" mutitracks are easy to move around, but not really good for recording while moving around, are larger and more compicated than needed for recording and editing interviews, and don’t always have great mic inputs or metering.
As we have discussed a few places in Tools Talk, there will surely be some good, affordable disc or RAM-based digital recorders soon-ish, but when exactly? Nobody knows….
For now the minidiscs are pretty good, and pretty cheap, so, they’re not a bad stop-gap.
Prices are coming down. The new Marantz PMD670 has started to appear on retail sites as a preorder for delivery in July. The cheapest I’ve seen so far is $650. That included shipping and a 64MB CF card.
this might not be the best place to post this, but i’m giving it a shot anyway…
i’m trying to use the dell pentium4 at my work for editing/mixing, but i cant use pro-tools free because i’m on windows 2000.
right now i’m checking out goldwave, but it wont do mult. tracks without another program made by the same company. the two are shareware with license totaling about $80.
any other suggestions for cheap/free audio editors? any experience with goldwave? anything dependable for $80-$100?
if you have a suggestion, please email me at jeffchorney@hotmail.com.
thanks.
There’s Audacity, which is available for various platforms, Mac & PC. I’ve played around with it and it’s NOT 100% stable, BUT you can’t expect everything for free…
If you use it and like it, donate a few dollars. If you don’t, be sure to save up some money to buy the commercial software, which is generally more polished and stable. (Remember, programmers AND producers have to eat….)
For many people the preferred editor on PC is CoolEdit Pro. It’ll handle pretty much anything you want with ease. It’s going for $249. we run it on a Win2K machine just fine.
Or if that’s too much check out CoolEdit 2000, the baby version. It is I believe only stereo for $69, but a plugin to expand to four track is available for another $49.
Barry
I thought it’d be a dream having a mac at my disposal for sound editing, but so far there’ve been these little sticklers–like nmo ProTools for OS X…
but today, in response to your great column on minidiscs, I’m asking if the audio from ALan Weissman’s new pet, the SOny MZ-N707, or anything similar, can handle downloading into a Mac. I’m seeing "PC/Windows compatible" on descriptions….is there a way around this?
SO far, I don’t have any firewire on this box, so there’s adapt-to-fit-ability, potentially…
Bonie
Sadly, the "downloading" of minidisc audio to a computer doesn’t work on either platform. The Windows compatibility thing is for using software to transfer audio TO the minidisc via USB.
So, in the end, Macs are just the same as Windows machines for getting audio from a minidisc, both just need to record the analog output of the minidisc via their built-in sound inputs or an interface.
The HHB minidisc recorder can load audio directly to Windows machines or Macs via USB, but it’s a real-time connection, not a file transfer.
Also, there is ProTools for OSX, just not ProToolsFree, and the LE versions are useable, if a little flakey at v6.0.1, it’ll hopefully be smoother after the next update.
Hello
I will be leading an elective course to produce a radio show with middle school students this fall in Los Angeles. Since I have no idea where to begin I wanted to know if you had some resources for me to look at so I can get started. I will be contacting an organization that has an existing radio show and space for the kids. But I wanted to get started this summer while I am in NYC with recording and mixing interviews. The only experience I have in radio production is listening and creating sappy mix tapes for ex-boy friends. Could you direct me to the right direction?
Thanks
Maria Chan
PS I am the biggest technology-phob, so the simpler the better.
This site is filled with nuts and bolts stuff, plus links to other sites with the same. You might check the Radio Rookies and Youth Portraits shows and discussions here and then go to their sites. Radio Diaries, Youth Radio., Blunt Radio, Radio Arte…. there are a lot good outfits out there to contact before you start.
any suggestions on external hard drives for huge audio files? If using an Mbox, Glyph makes a "companion" drive, but it’s super pricey. Anyone have any good solutions?
We’re having good luck with cheap firewire drives, like the La Cie, available at apple.com and other places. It’s very quiet.
Hi,
A very basic question: will a Sony MD recorder MZ-N1 (which has plug-in-power from the mic input) work with a Beyer M58 mic (which is dynamic and which ideally does NOT want any kind of power input)??? In other words, will the quality of the recorded sound be affected? Will the mic itself be damaged?
I called Beyer and they said it all depends on how the Sony mic input is wired. But Sony tech support says they cannot provide any information on how the mic input is wired (only that it puts out 0.25mV and that it’s–surprise–made to work with Sony mics).
Thanks for any advice/tips/prior experience,
>In other words, will the quality of the recorded sound be affected? Will the mic itself be damaged?
I bought an ElectroVoice RE50/B hoping to use it with a Sharp and/or an AIWA Minidisc recorder, but I was very disappointed in the results. The signal level was low and there was too much "hiss" for my taste.
I have heard (though I do not know for sure) that the low voltage from the plug-in power is NOT harmful, at least to the ElectroVoice dyanamic mic, but it seems the DC couldn’t help the signal any!
Here are some things I tried that did NOT help:
o Re-wired my female XLR to male stereo-mini adapter cord so that electrically it looks like a "mono" male plug.
o Added a capacitor inside the XLR housing to block the plug-in-power. (A capacitor lets the AC signal through while blocking the DC plug-in power.)
o Added a LO-Z Balanced to Hi-Z Unbalanced transformer between the Mic and the recorder. Mine had the wrong kind of plug on it so for testing purposes I had a 1/4" Phone to 1/8" adapter, too. Not very reliable or portable!
As I mentioned before, the things above did NOT help.
Here’s how I got my ElectroVoice mic to work: I bought a pre-amp. I found a place selling a "PASS MD-Report Junior" on sale, and it does exactly what I wanted — XLR inputs, stereo mini plug outputs, even comes with a vinyl bag so everything is all in one package. Unfortunately it was expensive (more than I paid for the refurb MiniDisc recorders) and now the manufacturer (in England) is out of business….
I just looked a couple of places and I don’t know of any other pre-amp available that would do exactly the same thing. Some companies are selling existing stock of the PASS products, so you may find one — the full "MD-Report" (not "Junior") would be excellent, but even more expensive. You can find some for sale with a Google search.
But whether it’s worth the trouble is another question!
Has Tommy Trussell gotten a Transom t-shirt yet for his helpfulness? If so, he should get the long-sleeved version too.
Yes, Tommy, thank you very much for your helpful input. I was leaning heavily towards a Beyer M58 because several friends (and Transom) recommended it, but now I’m not so sure. Has anyone out there had specific experience with that mic and plug-in-power?
One last question: if you want to use a dynamic mic, can anyone recommend an MD recorder that doesn’t have plug-in-power? The Sony ones back through the R900 series all seem to have it.
We’ve used the Beyer with various mini-dats and mini discs. Check with Leonard at Sonic Studios on this question. He makes very nice cables and knows about the whole plug-in power thing. http://www.sonicstudios.com
I really don’t think the plug-in power is creating any problem, dynamic mics generally don’t care about that stuff. The hissyness is most likely just from the relatively weak preamps that were designed to work with high-impedance electret mics that do make use of the plug-in power.
So, as we’ve discussed afew times on this site, the Shure a96f will raise the impedance a bit, which will give some more gain, and it’s a nice simple XLR-to-mini cable with the transformer built-into the XLR jack, so it’s not a kludgey pile of connectors.
Much better. but more expensive and WAY less ergonomic, is to get an external preamp. The PASS MD Report and MD Jr, are excellent solutions, if only the company were still around….
There’s a Dutch company called Onyx that makes a similar device to the MD report, which they call the "Portadisc" (don’t tell HHB). It looks great, but it’s expensive.
http://www.iiixe.nl/onyx/portadisc.htm
(This same company also makes a little MP3 flash recorder that can plug right on the end of a mic, which looks really cool, other than the reservations i have about MP3 being a master format, and the price of probably over $700. I’m going to try to check this out later this summer, I’ll keep you apprised.)
There are several options for external preamps from Core Sound.
External preamps are going to give you way better sound quality and better controls and metering than on any of the little minidiscs, and some of the larger units as well, it’s just that they can get cumbersome, and create more power draw issues, etc…
But the bottom line is don’t worry about plug-in power.
i’m doing an internship in india and have been given the assignment of helping the sex workers (and their children) in the red light area create an audio documentary to record their stories. i’m deeply unqualified but eager to learn. i also have very little money and almost no resources (in terms of computers and software). advice?
This site, one the ones we link to, are filled with advice you will find useful. If you have a specific unanswered question, someone can probably help. One thought: perhaps you should consider teaming up with someone who has more experience. If you have Internet access, that person could be anywhere.
I am trying to find out what kind of PC I need to run protools. How much total RAM I need, ect.. I have a Dell computer with windows 98. It is a Genuineintel Pentium(r)Processor with 64 MB RAM.
Can you come up with a little more detail on your processor? It isn’t a Pentium (I) [AKA 586] is it? If you aren’t sure, just right click on "My Computer" and choose "Properties". You’ll see a window with some basic information. From this you’ll find a section that will read something like:
>Computer:
GenuineIntel
x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 4
64.0MB RAM
Just post those lines in here for us. If your processor is fast enough, you’ll just need more RAM and possibly a bigger, faster hard drive. If the processor is too old, you’ll want a new computer.
I saw a blurb in the NY Times about a Sony personal digital recorder (ICD-ST10) with a 16-megabyte flash memory that can hold 41 minutes of stereo sound and 125 minutes of "high-quality" mono sound. It’s very small, has an external mic jack and offers drag-and-drop file transfer via a USB connection.
So even though this is meant for dictation, could it be used for radio interviews, especially news-gathering/ It records in a special Sony format (.dvf files) that the literature says is about 1/10th the size of a .wav file. Is that too much crunching of the data to result in something usable for radio?
Thanks!
Every year these type of devices seem to get a little better. I have no idea how well they work.
Olympus has a new device with much better specs than the Sony.
128MB of memory (4+ hrs of recording at highest quality)
Microphone jack
Stereo recording
Records in Windows Media Audio (WMA) format (at 64kbps?).
44.1KHz sampling
Frequency response: 300 to 8,000 Hz
USB docking station
Cost?
See http://www.olympus.co.jp/LineUp/VTREK/DM20/nr030317a1E.html
It is being advertised in Europe but does not appear to available in the US.
Has anyone seen a review of the new Marantz PMD-670 (or better yet, seen it in action)?
Manual is now online:
http://www.marantz.com/pdfs/e_pmd670_man.pdf
I haven’t seen any reviews, but Chris at SoundPros has been "putting one through its paces":
http://www.soundprofessionals.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=13
This is rather basic, but I am shopping for a laptop that will allow me to work in audio doc production. What are most folks using in the field these days? I understand the free editing software from digidesigns works on both mac and windows systems, but is one better than the other for getting sound to and from the minidisc recorders? Generally speaking? Is memory the biggest thing to think about? Budget, per usual, is an issue. Thanks,
Scott
I am considering the Marantz PMD650 solid-state recorder for interview / field use, but have strong reservations about the price of the associated storage media.
In the Digital Recording column Jeff recommends recording without compression in 44.1kHz. Currently, this will give you only 24 minutes on a 128mgb flash card which runs about 50$. At these prices how can anyone afford solid state recorders? Am I missing something?
With mp3 128kbps mono compression you get 1 hour of recording which is a *bit* more palatable. Is mp3 compression simply unacceptable for submission to radio stations?
Thank you,
Noli
Scott,
I have the exact same question and I was hoping you would let me know if you come across any helpful information. I have also heard that mac systems work better for sound editing but I’m hestitant to go with a mac because I have worked only on windows systems.
I would greatly appreciate any insight you may gain!
Regards,
Erynn
P.S. Do you have any recommendations on minidisk recorders? I was thinking about getting a Sony MD Walkman MZ-N707.
This is a bit of a quandry, in that new laptops loaded with Mac OSX or Windows XP will NOT run ProTools Free, right now, in the summer of 2003. Surely there will be compatible version sometime int he future, but not right now.
the good news is that either will run ProTools LE with an M-Box, whihc gives some better in/Out options, although it forces one to drag the interface around with you.
The other good news is that there are other audio programs that might be just fine, depending on what you are doing. On the free side, for both mac and Windows, audacity is a pretty slick little piece of freeware that’s worth checking out. i’ve been having some problems on a Win XP system with sound quality when recording into the program at 16 bit, but set to 32-bit float, it sounds great. It’s pretty flexible, can do basic multitracking, and has a pretty easily-understood interface. it has some speed issues when working with big files, but hey, it’s free, it’s worth dealing with a few glitches.
For not loads of money, for the PC there’s Audition (formerly Cooledit) and Soundforge (now owned by Sony….)
On the Mac side, there’s Spark or Sound Studio , Peak and Deck, etc….
And there’s more… but I’m getting off the track! The bottom line is that yes, there are plenty of programs that will run on laptops. And on either platform, max out the RAM, speedier processors are better.
Check the editing program’s minimum requirements, but most any new laptop will run basic audio editing. You may have a problem running lots and lots of simultaneous tracks with lots of real-time plug-ins, but basic stereo editing will be fine, and you should be able to get 6-8 tracks with a few plug-in effects even on a basic machine.
I use a 600 mhz iBook under OS9.2 with the M-Box and do fairly complicated mixes with no trouble (8 tracks with 8-10 effects).
Laptops don’t tend to have really fast drives, or the fastest processors, so they won’t be quite as capable as some desktop systems, but all computers have sped up so much in the last few years that laptops still usually have ENOUGH power to do the job.
The built-in audio inputs and outputs are OK for basic work, but an external interface will give you more control and better sound quality. USB(1) is fine for stereo, you’ll need USB2 or Firewire for multitrack. Remember, we’re just talking about simultaneous inputs or outputs, one can internally mix many tracks to a stereo output using USB.
it’s helpful to add a fast external drive for audio, so a firewire connection is a big help.
So bottom line, getting a laptop for audio: processor as fast as you can afford, load it with RAM, USB and Firewire ports.
the capacity of flash-memory field recorders is still a problem. I’m still convinced it’s a good idea to record at as high a bandwidth as possible, and not do any compression until as late in the game as possible, and as few compressions as possible.
But right now, it’s safe to assume that you audio could be compressed at one or more stages: on its way to an editor, on its way to an uplink, on its way into a station’s hard-disc storage system, on its way to a web server….
The tricky thing is that a few compressions can occur without any noticeable problems, but one too many, and your audio can "break", resulting in nasty metallic artifacts or drop outs.
So i hate to START with a compressed file, and prefer to record to a "full-bandwidth" format (OK, it’s all a finitely limited sample of the real thing, but still, full-er bandwidth…) to reduce problems down the line.
Soon, even the marantz should be able to record to large-capacity ‘microdrives’ not just flash media, just not today…
So it’s a problem. I’m sure we’ll soon have large storage devices of some sort, and the problem will go away, we’ll just record huge files, there’ll be plenty of room.
So what to do now? Beats me…
just saw a 1Gig flash card listed for $200, so this card-media storage solution may pan out if Moore’s Law* continues to produce higher-capacity lower-cost cards. 1G is an 1.5+hours stereo. 2 or 3 of these cards would be a ample gear for most day’s recording expeditions.
-* Intel’s Gordon Moore http://www.intel.com/research/silicon/mooreslaw.htm
I got the Marantz PMD670 a couple of weeks ago and used it to record two interviews and a meeting last week. This is a great recorder and a real bargain for $600. This is what I’ve been waiting for. Goodbye minidisc! I’m recording for transcription rather than broadcast so quite happy using MP3 at fairly low bitrates. The recorder comes with A 64mb CF card in the US. I upgraded that to a Ritek Ridata 256MB CF card (33X Read 20X Write) that cost about $56.
I think 1GB cards cost about $200 to $250. Sometimes you don’t want to go for the cheapest as they have slower write/read specs. If you are writing uncompressed audio, I’m guessing that you probably want a card with a fairly fast write time. Meritline sells Ritek Ridata Super Fast 1GB (52X Read 40X Write) CF cards for $235.
The prices of CF cards are falling fairly rapidly. While the speed rating and capacities are increasing. If not already available, in the next few months 2GB, 3GB, and 4GB CF cards will be available. Contrary to Jeff’s comment above, the Marantz PMD670 can use microdrives (IBM, Hitachi). The 1GB IBM Microdrives can be had for under $200 if you look around. I’ve seen them as cheap as $170. In the next few months microdrives in capacities up to 4GB will be available. Yes, storage is still a little expensive but you only need one card assuming you offload the audio to PC fairly quickly. And my guess is that a 1GB CF card will be $100 in another 12 months…
Approx media times are listed here: http://www.marantzpro.com/Products/docs/PMD670_media_times.pdf
A 1GB card or microdrive will give you the following PCM record times:
mono 16 bit 44.1kHz: 3 hours 13 minutes
stereo 16 bit 44.1kHz: 1 hours 36 minutes
mono 16 bit 48kHz: 2 hours 57 minutes
stereo 16 bit 48kHz: 1 hours 28 minutes
Thanks, Alan for the excellent field report, and the update on the microdrive thing. I was quoting a Marantz page that said that microdrives would be options for the future, but that was likely just outdated info. Glad to know they are working now. And I’m thriiled to know that you are enjoying the machine. I think it’s got most everything you could want. Would it be nice if it were smaller? I don’t know… I like XLRs and meters you can see and knobs you can grab. Please keep us updated with you experiences pro and con…
Jeff,
It is very easy to use. There are lots of options but assuming all the critical stuff (input source, type of level control, format, sample rate, bitrate, mic attenuation, frequency filtering, etc.) are setup in advance, you just flip the power switch (it takes a couple of seconds to boot), if that hasn’t already been done, then flip a large red record switch (there’s a 2 second pre-record option). There’s a large level control knob on the front and a large level meter with a backlight button. The level control adjusts both channels together or independently. There are also options for ALC or manual with limiter. I’m using my own Sanyo 2100 mAh NiMHs (rather than their NiMH battery pack and recharger). I don’t know how long they last. Marantz estimates that the record time is about 7 hours for NiMHs and that’s probably with older NiMHs with a lower mAh rating. I also suspect the microdrives use more juice than the solid state CF cards.
I do wish it used fewer batteries. It takes 8 AAs. That’s a lot of the weight and most rechargers only take 4 AAs at a time. I thought weight and size would be issues for me but it’s not bad and much better than my expectations. I’m mostly recording with the unit placed on tables so that makes these less significant issues for me anyway but I think it would be fine if you had it slung over your shoulder. The big plus with regards to size is that the display and controls are so much bigger than MD. The buttons and controls, particularly the really important ones, are actually made for real fingers and laid out in a fairly sensible fashion.
You don’t need to take the CF card out to upload. There is a USB port. The recorder comes with a cable. Attach the recorder to a PC and the CF card or microdrive appears as an external hard drive. The recordings are easily moved using drag and drop.
I’ve been told that Marantz is considering building additional models of solid state recorder that will be smaller and simpler (i.e. fewer features) and cost even less.
Alan.
Thanks again, Alan.
I’m convinced!
Jeff, in Unlocking the M-Box you wrote, "ASIO drivers are now available, so the interface can be used with different editing programs, if one doesn’t happen to want to use ProToolsLE".. is it possible to use M Box with COOL EDIT PRO??? Using a PC running Windows 98….
thanks
Alan
hey someone anyone:
so i finished my piece, and pardon me for being protools incompetent, but i wanted to know about exporting it into a workable format. i have been able to "bounce to disk" which creates an unidentifiable, yet surprisingly, playable file of about 198MB (the piece is only about ten minutes)….is there some shareware audio converter that can change this monster into something reasonable? or is there a way i can export it into something more workable? please help!
I recently purchased a Sony TC-D5M off ebay in an attempt to start making my own stuff and it works fine when plugged into an adapter. However, it does not run at all on batteries. It seems like the batteries don’t fit in quite as tight as the ought to and I wonder if this is the problem. Anyone with any advice? Also, it doesn’t fast forward but this is secondary in my opinion to the battery issue.
Also, pardon my ignorance, but why are there L and R microphone inputs? Do you just use one of the two? Which one? Or am I missing something?
Thanks for whatever help you can provide,
Ross
The question: Does Pro Tools Audio Editing SW draw from the trash file on a Mac when opening a session?
Problem: I had two versions of the same project (by using save as) in Pro Tools. I moved the older version to the trash. As a fail safe, I then opened the newer version to check to see if everything was OK (all audio files and latest version, etc.). It was, so I closed the newer version and then emptied the trash. The next morning when I opened the newer version only a very small part of my audio files (some of the last I had done) were there. I lost a significant part of my project. If the program needed the files that I had placed in the trash when it opened the newer version when I was performing my fail safe shouldn’t I have received some notice that files from the trash were being used to open the session? Or the program should have only loaded the last audio files when I performed my fail safe. This would also have alerted me to a problem and I would not have emptied the trash before finding out what was wrong.
Alan, good question, with a few complications… one is that it seems that these ASIO drivers are only working under Windows XP, Here’s a statement from the digidesign website:
****
The ASIO Driver can also be used as a stand-alone driver (without Pro Tools software installed), with Pro Tools|HD, Pro Tools|24 MIX, Pro Tools|24, Digi 001, and AudioMedia III systems. Digi 002 and Mbox can only use the ASIO Driver if Pro Tools software is installed. For more information, see "Installing the ASIO Driver" below and in the included ASIO Driver Beta2 Read Me.
Full-duplex recording and playback of 24- and 16-bit audio are supported at sample rates supported by the hardware and ASIO program used.
Compatibility
The following programs have been tested with the ASIO Driver:
Ableton LIVE v2.0
Arturia Storm v2.0
Emagic Logic Audio v5.5
Image-Line Fruityloops v3.5
Native Instruments Absynth v1.3.2*
Native Instruments B4 v1.1*
Native Instruments Battery v1.1*
Native Instruments FM7 v1.1*
Native Instruments Kontakt v1.1*
Native Instruments Pro-52 v2.5*
Native Instruments Reaktor v3.0.5*
Propellerhead Reason v2.0
Propellerhead ReCycle v2.0
Sonic Foundry Acid v4.0
Steinberg Cubase SX v1.05
Steinberg Nuendo v1.5.2
Steinberg Wavelab v4.0
STL Vaz2010 v1.0.3
Virsyn Tera v1.1R1
*Plug-in or AudioMedia III stand-alone only.
*********
http://www.digidesign.com/download/asio/
This doesn’t mean that other programs or other versions of the above programs won’t work, theoretically if a program supports the ASIO standard it should be able to see the M-Box as an input and output device, but digi isn’t guaranteeing it.
The issue is complicated by the fact that Adobe bought Cooledit, so further development is likely to go at a bit of an angle, I kind-of doubt it will just get incremental updates, it will most likely turn into a different program.
So the short answer is no… not on your current system. Cooledit in Windows XP? Dunno… anybody tried it? I’ll try to find out.
Your file is a bit too big… for 16-bit 44.1Khz, you should expect about 10 megs/minute, so I suspect you might have bounced as a 24-bit file? I would go back to your original session, and when you bounce to disc, be vary careful to select 16-bit, and "stereo interleaved" which should get you something more like 100 megs.
That’s still a monster, but there’s not much to be done beyond compressing it. There are a few "Lossless" compression schemes out there, such as "shorten"
http://www.softsound.com/Shorten.html
http://www.hornig.net/shorten/
but these require software endoding and decoding on playback, and not everyone has shorten players….
Then there’s MP2 and MP3, which are more widely useable, but they introduce varying levels of audio degradation, depending on the amount of squashing.
But you should be able to get down to half of your reported file size if you make sure to bounce at 16 bit, and make sure that you have selected only the audio you want, and don’t have a bunch of silence at the head or tail selected to bounce. If you do, you’ll get silence, but even silence still takes up 10 megs per stereo minute of you’re making an aiff, or wav or sd2 file.
I have never tried to use files that were in the trash, and i suspect that they might not have played, even though they showed-up in your session (or did they?) But that was a logical process to try… it just doesn’t work!
The thing is that "save as" will write a new session, but it refers to the same soundfiles as before, so you can’t dump those original files.
There are a couple things you can do.
If you’ve done a "save-as" of your final version, and you’re done with the session, and pretty sure you won’t need to make any big changes or go back to your earlier version, you can double-click on the bar above your audio "bin" at the right side of the edit window (the long list of files and regions). You can chose to "select unused" and then "remove selected" . You’ll be given an option to just clear the unused regions from the list, which will neaten up your bin, but won’t gain any space, or delete the unused soundfiles from the hard drive permanently. This will get rid of any soundfiles you are no longer using. But they’re really gone, so don’t do this if you’re not sure…
If your session uses a little piece of all those big soundfiles you recorded, this process won’t gain you anything. But once you’ve deleted the unused audio, you can then select all audio in your bin and then "compact selected". this will write new files, and delete the old ones, saving only the parts of the files that you are actually using. This is really handy for archiving, getting rid of the extra stuff you loaded-in but didn’t use. But it’s no good at all if you think you’ll come back to the session later and make large adjustments, because that earlier take you didn’t use is gone now… There is an option for saving some audio on either side of the regions you used, the default is a second (1,000 milliseconds) and it’s good to have some "pad" just in case you want to nudge something a bit, or adjust a fade by a little.
Another version of deleting unused soundfiles is to "save a copy" of the session, and in that save dialog there’s an option to duplicate the soundfiles along with other session data. This procedure will duplicate the entire original soundfiles, but only the ones that are used in the final version of the session you are saving a copy of. So if you save the copy into another folder, then delete the original session and audio files, you’ll end up with only the files you need.
That’s what I usually do, at the end of a project, i "save a copy" of the final session, choosing to duplicate the files, make sure the copy plays properly, then archive it to CDR(s). Then i’ll get rid of the original session with all its chaff.
I usually don’t compact files unless i really need to save the space or send it to someone, i like to leave my options open and be able to use a different section of a soundfile if i choose to re-open the session later on. But compacting can be a big help if you loaded things in in long chunks. I try to record in small chunks, just loading in the parts i think I’ll need, it reduces these space problems later on.
Hope that helps!
there was an ambiguous line that I copied over fropm the digi website about what programs were supported using the ASIO driver under windows XP. The "Native Instruments" entries had asterisks, and at the endd of the list, the asterisks referred to these instruments only working as plug-ins or on audio media 3 stand alone. When I pasted the text over i hadn’t noticed that an initial asterisk in a line displays as a bullet, so the line about plugins or AM3 stand alone is kind of hanging there nonsensically. So the line about plugins and AM3 standalone only refers to the virtual synths from "Native Instruments".
Jay & Jeff,
I’d asked about using plug-in power with a dynamic mic weeks ago…and you both were very helpful. Leonard at Sonic Studios agreed that the plug-in power was nothing to worry about. Thank you!
Does anyone know if when tricking the computer to run PTFree and PTLE (w/MBox) on the same machine, it’s necessary to install them both on the same OS? I have an iBook w/ OSX, but had to restart in OS9 to install PTFree (it won’t run in ‘classic’). I’m wondering if it would be possible to install LE in OSX (the MBox came w/ discs for both OSX and OS9), leave PTFree in OS9 and still share files between the two. Or if I have to install LE in OS9.
(Sorry if this question is answered elsewhere — I looked, but I could have missed it). Thanks alot, this site is always a huge help!
Anthony, just do exactly what you were thinking; install PTfree 5.0 on OS9, install PTLE6.1 in OSX, and the two shouldn’t even know about each other! This is in many ways easier than the contortions required when running both in the same OS. Just change the start-up disc and restart into whichever OS you want, depending on which version of PT you want to run.
Thanks a lot — I know you hear it all the time, but this site is great!
we appreciate hearing that. thanks.
Dear Jeff,
Transom’s review/rating of Mini Disc machines is wonderful. Do you know of any resource that rates portable Dat machines?
I have searched your site and the web, but no luck.
Are all DATs created equal in sound and their ease of digital output into the computer, or are the tinys, like the Sony tcd d-8 less capable than the bigger ones? The most complete review of that Sony I found left me confused about its digital output capabilities.
Any info would be appreciated.
djf
There aren’t a whole lot of portable DATs for sale anymore, but a couple are still pretty reliable. The Tascam DAP1 is very user-friendly, with XLR mic inputs, decent mic preamps, good meters, a 1/4" heaphone jack with good gain, and digital I/O on RCA jacks. The downside is it’s pretty big, the (rechargeable) battery life is only so-so, the mic preamps can get a littel crunchy with some mics (usually fixed by switching on the mic pad), and it’s expensive, about $1,500.
You can still find Sony D8s, but i think the M1 is a bit nicer: it’s a little smaller, but sturdier, and it has better mic preamps and digital converters than the D8. On the downside – The meters are a bit coarse, the buttons are tiny, the headphone amp is not too strong, jiggling the headphone cable can put a recording in pause, all analog inputs are stereo mini, you need to keep levels down around -12ish or risk overloading the mic preamps, they’re REALLY slow to go from stop into record or play, and the digital I/O can only be done with an optional extra cable.
On the upside, it’s nice and small, pretty durable, the battery life is pretty good, using just a couple of AAs, and the sound quality is really rather good.
So as you were suspecting, no, they’re not all the same as far as digital I/O. The little Sonys require an additional cable to convert the 7-pin plug to typical S/PDIF, and that cable isn’t cheap, over $100. make sure to get one that will do both digital in and out, some cable kits just do output.
I use both an M1 and a DAP1, and I like them both. If I had to choose one, i’d pick the DAP1 just for better metering and better interfacing.
I have a mono/stereo question:
A teenage audio diarist I work with recorded hours of terrific sound this summer on minidisc, diaries and field stuff and interviews and ambience, with a Tram TR-50 lavalier, which, because of its tiny-ness and portability, was ideal for this particular recording situation. Okay, so this mic isn’t stereo, right? But my diarist set the minidisc recorder — an old Sony MZ-R700 — to record in stereo, because I told him this would sound best. Now I’ve loaded the audio into ProTools via pure digital transfer. (Pro Sony rack deck into Audiomedia III card.) So it’s a stereo signal, but my question is, Is it really? Like, what would I lose if I worked with only the left channel? Sound quality? Some kind of pleasure for the human ear? Killing one channel would make my session half as small and my graying G4 twice as fast. But I don’t want to dull nice sound.
Many thanks in advance for help. I find this stereo/mono stuff really confusing.
Stereo can not be created with one microphone. You need two, at least. Left and Right, like ears. Mono = One. So, yes, just use the output of one channel, because the single microphone has put the exact same sound on both channels.
A Jay said, it’s not REALLY stereo just because it’s on both channels. The scenario you recounted indeed just put the exact same info on both channels, so yes, you can just delete one of those tracks and pan one channel to the center.
S/PDIF digital transfers send a stereo signal down one RCA cable, but on the ProTools end, you’re not compelled to record both of those channeels when you load your sound in. You can just make a mono track, select one of the S/PDIF inputs as the source, and record half as much data with the same results.
Some minidisc recorders allow recording in mono, doubling the record time, but this mode will not play back on all machines, so it’s safest to record in stereo mode (even if it’s not really stereo sound…) if you might need to play back with a different deck, or send the disc to someone else.
Am removing extra track this instant.
Thanks again.
What does it mean when I select another track and a message comes up saying "There are more active audio tracks then available voices. As a result one or more audio tracks will not play."
what will I have to do to engage the record on a new track, because it won’t let me.
Also, what does it mean or what do I have to do when a message comes up saying that "quick punch cannot be used. A free voice is required for each channel of a record enable track. to free voices you can set unused tracks to voice off or make them inactive. Adjusting settings in the playback engine dialogs may also create free voices."
I have no Idea what is going on with these two problems can you please help me out
Hi Maurice,
I think I know what’s happenning, but before I get running down the wrong path, can you tell me what version of the software and what hardware interface you are using?
–jeff
Hi,
My new freelance life is imminent, and I’m a bit overwhelmed with all the tools info. I’m particularly concerned about field equipment and computer compatibility.
I have been looking at buying a pc laptop. Pentium Centrino is the type of brain it has. Then buying cool edit. Magically, the laptop has two ports, right in front. One has a picture of a mic, one has a picture of headphones.
Can I simply plug my Sharp minidisc into these ports? It seems too easy, but I’d like to avoid buying an MBox (whatever that is) if possible.
I don’t understand all that stuff about USB, firewire, etc. I know the computer just has a standard sound card. Do I need something more? Or are those things not even related?
Thanks.
Julie
Syntrillium sold CoolEdit to Adobe earlier this year. Adobe how sells Cooledit Pro under the name Adobe Audition.
Users of CoolEdit 2000 or Cool Edit Pro 1.x can upgrade for $99. CoolEdit Pro 2.x users can download and install for free. Otherwise it will set you back $299.
Cooledit 2000 which used to sell for $69 appears to have been discontinued — a great loss. An alternative is SoundForge Studio (the cheap version of SoundForge) it still sells for $69. Personally, I preferred Cooledit 2000.
Sound Forge was made by Sonic Foundry, which became part of Sony Digital Pictures a few months ago. This seems to be the year that large corporations decided to buy up small companies making quality audio editing tools.
im trying to install PTfree on my imac, and everything seems to have gone just dandy. but when i try to open the program, it loads about halfway, then says:
"DAE Error -6008 encountered"
i cant figure out for the life of me what to do! please help!
My computer is as follow:
P4 2.6ghz. 800meg front side buss
512 meg ram
120 gig HD
Intergrated sound card
Windows XP home
I did get the program to load by changing the load config to "Win98" in my software, but when I open the program, I get some type of wave table error. (I think DAE-0013)Can I make this work on my setup?
Thanks,
Bruce Schafer
I’m doing a bit more field recording this fall. Up to now ny Beyer M58 mic has served all my purposes (mostly just one on one interviews) but I’m working on a project which requires recording a couple of events and I’m not sure I’m well equipped. First is a meeting in a classroom where the person I’m profiling will be sitting at the head of a long table and typing on a laptop that’s projected on the wall. I’m wondering if a short shotgun mic on the table might be best and I could get questions from others sitting at the table with the Beyer mic attached to separate minidisc player. Second is a Howard Dean speech outside at Fanueil Hall in Boston. Is a shotgun best for that too and use the Beyer for interviewing people in the crowd? Third is one of these Dean Meetups which is likely to be in a bar. What’s best for that?
Sorry for the delay(s) in replying to these last few posts, it’s been nuts around here!
But, here goes:
Julie: if you have a mic input on your laptop, you can probably just hook your minidisc up to that and get sound into a recording program. As Alan said (thanks Alan!) Cooledit has been sold, so it doesn’t really exist to purchase new. You could get the Adobe version "Audition" or Soundforge, or the freeware Audacity, or any of several audio recording or editing programs, any of which will take sound from your mic input.
You only would need an M-Box if you want to use ProTools LE, which is a pretty capab le program, and the M-Box gives you more input and output options, but it’s not the only way to go.
You might want to get an external USB interface to improve the quality and control of your audio input. You can often get away with taking the headphone output of the minidiscc and plugging it into the mic input of a computer, but the signals are not actually electronically matched, and might result in noisy or distorted sound. Even if you can avoid those problems, the quality of preamplification and analog-to-digital conversion on the typical computer is never great, and easily improved with an extrnal device designed to do that specific thing.
But, you might as well start out simple, and add an interface or a new program if you are dissatisfied with your results.
OK, onto the PTFree problems:
Cameron, you don’t say what operating system you are running on your iMac. Right now, the program will NOT run on any flavor of OSX, not even in "Classic Mode". You need to have started up in OS9. But that might not be it, DAE Error 6008 is usually not enough memory. Under OS9, try assigning more memory to ProTools and to DAE (but not everything you’ve got, the system still needs some….) How much actualy memory do you have?
Also, ProTools asks you to set your memory control panel to some odd settings, it’s in the start-up guide, make sure you’ve done that.
Bruce, I don’t think you can run PTFree under XP, no matter how you spoof the system, or are actually booting into 98? Mac or PC, ProTools needs direct access to the hardware and memory, etc, not via any emulation.
We’re hoping for an OSX/Windows XP version of PTFree sometime, but I wouldn’t hold your breath…. In the short term, try Audacity, it’s free and runs on almost anything.
This is a tricky one:
First, any kind of shotgun mic is extremely sensitive to positioning, so I would not recommend putting one on a stand and hoping that the subject stays right in the "sweet spot". Shotgun mics need to be aimed carefully, monitored closely, and adjusted as the speaker moves. A better bet wouldd be to get another omni mic up as close as possible to the speaker. Although I generally don’t love lavaliers, this could be a case where it could work, if you have the option of clippinga mic on the subject. Another strong contender would be to put a PZM "boundary" mic on the table near the subject. Picking up questions could be done with a seperate mic, maybe that would be the better use for a shotgun mic, with you aiming the mic at the questioner, while listening carefully on headphones.
As for the speech, yes that’s exactly where shotgun mics excell, zeroing-in on sound when you can’t get close. The Beyer omni would be fine for interviews in the crowd, or again, if you’re carefull in positioning, handling and monitoring, a short shotgun can isolate an interviewee in a noisy crowd, you just need to be careful to keep them "on-mic."
Then in a bar, again, a shotgun will reject more off-axis sound, so that’s a good choice in a noisy environment, although the Beyer will sound more natural if you can get it right in the subject’s face.
If you’re not used to a shotgun mic, long or short, practice a bit, listening closely on headphones, directional mics are sensitive to handling noise, P-Pops and wind. And as the sound gets off-axis, it gets much quieter and picks up an odd coloration. This is more pronounced as the directionality increases, so for instance, a typical on-stage singer’s mic, like a Shure SM-58 has a bit of these effects, a short shotgun has more, and a long shotgun has even more.
It’s a cliche, but the analogy with camera lenses is apt. Depending on the circumstance, sometimes a wide-angle or telephoto will really help do a better job. An omni such as the Beyer M-58 or an EV RE-50, is really like a wide angle lens, great if you’re in close. And a shotgun mic is like a telephoto, perfect if you have to be far away or want to focus on a specific thing, but more sensitive to handling issues.
Please let us know what you did, and what worked and didn’t!
Good Luck!
sorry for the lack of info=)
i am running 0S 9.1
i have 96MB of built in memory if thats what you need (im computer iliterate in many ways)
so heres a new wrinkle….i saved an old story i had edited in PTFRee onto a cd and i put it on my hardrive. it opened, and for about a week after protools was working fine….even earlier today it was working. i left and came back a mere two hours later, and now all the sudden, it is saying the same thing "DAE Error -6008"
any hints? i followed the startup guide and fixed all the memory settings
cameron
Hi Cameron,
It’s a bit of a shot in the dark, but I suspect that 96 megs of ram is just not enough. The OS and programs are getting pretty RAM-hungry, (it just gets worse with OSX and PT6) but the good news is that RAM is pretty cheap now. I would highly recommend bumping up your RAM, another 128 megs at least, adding 256megs would be better. Again, that’s not too expensive these days, and on most newish Macs it’s not hard to install.
Your computer will generally be happier with more RAM, so it’s worth doing regardless. Then, after adding the physical RAM, click on the ProTools program icon, open the "get info" window and increase the memory allocation. Then do the same for DAE.
I really think this will solve your problem. Good Luck!
I’m a photojournalist thinking of recording some audio to use in slideshows. I’ll probably buy a cheap MD-recorder, but I wanted to ask if the Mp3-format would at all be worth a thought in audio recording. There are some small mp3-players with line-in, which I suppose could be used with external mics. Is aynone using those? Or is the quality too poor?
This is a tricky one: in theory, this should work pretty well, a good-quality MP3 is good enough quality for many purposes. But there are a couple of potential problems.
The first is that the recording aspects of the small consumer MP3 players that offer this option are not ideal, they rarely have good analog-to digital converters, or good level control, or good metering.
Also, almost none of them have microphone inputs, so you’ll need some sort of preamp to get a microphone signal up to line-level. At least one of the models has a special mic that can work with the unit, but I suspect that mic is not quite up to the specs of most news-gathering mics (although I’ll admit that is only a guess, to be fair, i haven’t tried the mic or the recorders, it could be fine….)
The other potential problem is the potential for "transcoding" degeneration, a rather nasty audio distortion that can occur if a file is coded multiple times via "lossy" methods such as MP3. It’s usually not a big deal if a file is converted to MP3, or MP2 once or twice, but there is a line at which the file can break-up, drop-out, or exhibit weird metallic-sounding artifacts if it’s coded too many times. So it’s a little scary to have the original field recording as an MP3, which you might want to convert to different file for editing or integration into a larger production, which might get compressed again for delivery or output, and could get squeezed more times down the line over the course of uplinking or storage, if that applies….
That being said, more and more folks are using field recorders that record in MP2, (which usually applies less compesssion than MP3, but still is a lossy scheme,) and not reporting problems. And even minidiscs use a form of audio compression, and could be subject to the same issues in some circumstances.
So, enough equivocation? In your particular situation, collecting sound for a slideshow, you might be just fine using an MP3 player to record, if you can find one with adequate input controls and quality. I don’t know of one that fits the bill…
A minidisc with a mic input will be easier!
Hi Jeff,
I am editing an audio book with many different voices and interviews that have been recorded at different levels. Besides listening closely if there some way to evenly match the levels of sound on protools?
Thanks for your help.
Lisa
There’s no automatic way to match voice levels perfectly, but it’s often very helpful to "normalize" each soundfile.
Almost all digital audio editors have this function, (in ProTools it’s an "audiosuite" process) and usually writes a new file, which will take up more disc space, and depending on how you perform the operation, can affect the tweakability of your edits, so you’ll have to decide at what stage of production to do this. More on that later, but first: "normalizing" is a process by which the volume of a soundfile or region is adjusted so that the loudest peak reaches a level you determine, usually maximum level, 0dB.
So this process won’t make your clips all have the exact same volume, but it can help get them closer in level, easier to match in a mix. If a voice is very even and well-modulated, normalizing will bring it up to a useful, healthy "loud" level with no problems.
But speech is often less even, more "spikey," and normalizing a sound like this might not help much. What often helps in this circumstance is to break the soundfile into distinct regions of similar levels, and normalize each of those seperately. I’ll often normalize the whole soundfile, then if it still seems that it could use more of a boost, (you can often make this determination just by looking at the waveform, if it’s mostly low-amplitude with a few tall spikes, you have more work to do) I’ll make new regions in the low-level sections and normalize those again. Don’t go crazy normalizing the same clip over and over, you’ll lose sound quality, but you can get away with one or two processes with no problem.
This takes a bit of practice to do well, voices are supposed to rise and fall a bit, so too much evening-out can sound unnatural. Other times, even if boosting the lower sections sounds better, the transitions can be problematic. Make your region boundaries carefully, and anticipate moving the boundaries between the louder and softer regions after the process runs, and applying a crossfade to smooth the volume change.
Try to resist the urge to normalize every word seperately, that’s bound to sound odd, and if the levels are that variable, you might want to use a compressor or limiter instead.
In fact, that’s the next trick for evening out different voices, running them all into a compressor or limiter can work wonders, but this will sound much better if they are already at similar overall levels to start. So you might want to normalize AND compress or limit.
The trick is deciding when to do the normalizing. This process writes a new file, so if you normalize before you edit, you’ll double the disc space you’re using. If you wait to normalize until after you’ve edited everything, it’s trickier to retain your edits and fades in case you want to tweak them later.
In some cases this can be helpful, if you edit all your dialog, select all the regions in the clip, then normalize, you have the option of writing it as one contiguous soundfile, which can be easier to deal with than lots of little fragments, as long as you are confident you won’t want to adjust your dialog edits later.
So, what’s the best time to normalize? Probably some mixture of the two. Load in your voices, make rough cuts down to the sections you want to use, normalize those, then do your fine editing. Those edits might create some smaller regions that could benefit from boosts, so go ahead and normalize those. Or select all the adjoining regions that make up an edited actuality or narration and normalize them so they become a single soundfile, easier to slide around in a mix.
And then, of course, volume automation in a mix is your next tool, and the most important one, where you subjectively adjust how loud the sounds feel. But that’s a bit more trial-and-error, whereas normalizing will automatically put the peaks up as loud as posssible without clipping, getting you close without guesswork.
Finally, just to complicate things, I often set the normalize to a bit less than 0dB, leaving a little headroom before the sound would clip. Applying EQ or compression, even when it seems that those processes are cutting signals, can drive a sound to clip if it’s at full-scale to start.
Normalizing is no substitute for mixing, and LISTENING!!! but it can be a really fast and efficient way to get in the ballpark.
So I bought a nice little Sony MZ NF610 minidisc recorder to make recordings with. And way back in the manual, on page 120 or so, it says in less than normal type size, that I can’t go from MD recorder to computer, only vice versa. Is there some software that I can make this happen, or do I need to return the thing? I sort of feel like I got hosed, as it is promenantly described as an MD RECORDER, not md record it on a disk and your stuck with it there-er.
thanks
Can anyone tell me why my 2001 sony comp doesnt have microsoft word??? This is just janky.
I’m a freelance producer and for the last 3 years I’ve been using a Sony TC-D5 cassette recorder that I bought new. The machine is still working well and none of my editors have complained about my sound quality. (I send my finished work on CD as a Pro-Tools session.) But when my editors find out that I’ve been using cassette, they usually get upset and request that I buy a digital machine.
I’ve been considering purchasing an HHB minidisk recorder — but I only want to do this if it’s really necessary to be using digital media. Is there that much of a difference?
Thanks for your thoughts on this subject.
Hillary
Sorry, as recounted many times on this site, the little portable minidiscs don’t allow you to move audio from the minidisc to the computer as a file. You’ll need to either transfer your audio analog, or get an HHB Portadisc, which allows digital transfer via SPDIF or USB, both processes are real-time, not a file copy.
There’s great promise in flash-medai or hard-disc recorders that can transfer files quickly and easily, but we haven’t found one that’s cheap, easy and good quality for recording with a microphone yet, but we’re hopeful!
If you can spend about $700, the marantz flash media recorder has gotten some good reviews here:
Les Hall, "Review of Marantz PMD-670 Solid State Recorder" #6, 21 Nov 2003 10:10 pm
Hillary,
you put your finger on it when you said that nobody could tell you were using a cassette to record your interviews, if they sound good, than it’s fine! You’re not alone, there are still folks using them with good results.
But, it’s true that most producers/shows don’t like you to use them, and there are a few decent reasons for this. Most digital formats DO sound a bit better: cleaner, brighter, fewer artifacts. Even a little consumer minidisc can sound markedly better than a cassette when the recording is carefully engineered.
But cassettes are pretty bulletproof, even if the tape spills off the reels or gets jammed, you can usually save most of the recording. And the recorders are pretty straightforward.
You can improve your sound, and make yourself more attractive as a recordist and producer if you get a good digital machine. It’s hard to say what that is right now… plenty of folks are using little consumer minidiscs (make sure it has a mic input!) DATs are still viable, but the future looks like direct-to-disc is the thing. Sadly we haven’t found the perfect device yet, if you can hang on a little while, hopefully we can suggest something soon!
Hello Jeff
I stumbled to this site after asking jeeves how to tranlate russian music to English. Can you help? If you are able, a challenging group of young people would like to know what the russian group is singing. The group in quetion is t.a.Tu.
Some of the songs are in english, then in russian, not knowing what they are saying or singing could change the entire meaning of the songs. Hope you can help.
Thanks for your time.
Sherry
I have been producing programs the hard way for 10 years now. How do I get the Protools software to purchase or download? How much is it and how do I get it in Africa (Ghana)?
Tatu translations can be found HERE.
Patti, if you click on "Tools" on the top of this page, you’ll find links to and information about ProTools.
My work partner bought an iRock, which is an MP3 digital recorder. Advantage, it instantaneously downloads into a computer (not my mac). But is it kosher for radio work? I like my Sony mini-disc player but it takes forever to transfer recorded material to computer. The Archos Jukebox recorder has also been recommended as a higher quality MP3 recorder that downloads quickly.
Comments?
I’m looking to buy a mic to use with my Marantz PMD670 solid state recorder. i’m a phd student in lingustic anthropology, getting ready to do ethnographic fieldwork. i’ll need something for voice recording in the field (indoor and out) that is flexible, rugged, hand-held, relatively small and lightweight. i’ll be recording primarily in a classroom, but also other parts of the school (hallways, playground), on the school bus, in people’s homes. i’ll be recording hundreds of hours of “naturally occurring” conversation and interaction (as opposed to interviews), and unobtrusiveness is a priority, so i won’t be able to stick the mic in people’s faces. also, much of the time i’ll be busy doing other stuff, and won’t be able to even point the mic in particular directions, but will have to set it up and leave it. i realize that these are not ideal recording conditions, and that one mic will not be ideal for all these jobs. (i’m considering buying more specialized mics in the future, when i have a better sense of what i’ll need, but for now i’m looking for a mic that will do a good enough job in all these situations.) given these limitations, i’m looking for good quality recording of many voices coming from many different directions. by good quality i mean good enough for very detailed transcription and analysis and for playback of exerpts in a conference setting.
i’m thinking of going with an omnidirectional dynamic mic. (Does anyone think something else would be better?) the top candidates are:
Shure SM63
Beyer M-58
AKG D230
I’d be interested to hear from people who have used these mics for similar purposes in order to compare. Can anyone recommend one over the others? (or a similar product that I haven’t mentioned?)
Thanks a lot. I’ve learned a lot from your column, Jeff. I appreciate it.
Those mics you mention are good starting points, the Beyer M-58 is a favorite around here. An omnidirectional mic will be much better for your purposes than a directional one, although you will quickly discover that proximity is still an issue, get the mic in a close as you possibly can. Picking up sound from all directions is helpful for your conditions, but you’ll also find that there’s lots of noise coming from all directions too!
I’d start with a Beyer M-58, but for your particular project, you might want to look into a "PZM" or "boundary mic" which excells at picking up sounds such as these, if you can place it on a table, floor, wall, etc, so it can grab all sounds that reach that flat surface.
There are inexpensive versions, such as the Crown "Sound Grabber" for less than a hundred bucks (although that is a high-impedence version with a miniplug) to other models from Crown, Shure, etc, that can be a few hundred. Radio Shack actually used to carry a decent one, I don’t know if they still do…
But PZMs would be a good choice for getting the whole room if you can’t be careful about mic placement.
I am trying to locate a copy of "Sound Reporting: National Public Radio Guide to Radio Journalism & Production." It was written by various NPR staff members, edited by Marc Rosenbaum and John Dinges, published by Kendall Hunt, 1992. The book is out of print and I have been unable to track down a copy (after two hours on the internet). Do you know where I might be able to locate one?
Thanks,
Steve Schatzberg
Just wanted to mention for people on a really low budget (like me) Shure’s "Performance Gear" line of mics. I recently bought the Shure PG58, which is very similar to the SM58 (dynamic, cardioid, with on-off switch). I paid $55, including shipping, from an online music store. I’ve been recording voice and acoustic instruments with it (plugging directly into my laptop computer and using free Audacity digital recording software). The results IMHO, are excellent for the price.
Steve,
I heard that "Sound Reporting" is being edited and updated and will be reissued soon. Not sure just when, though…
Robin’s right, the original book is very hard to find right now, but is supposedly undergoing updates now and there are plans to re-issue it. I wouldn’t hold my breath though, so keep looking for the old one, who knows when the new one will actually be published…
After much reading on Transom, I decided to buy a Sony minidisc and take my chances with the audio out (headphone jack) playing in real time to my audio in (mic jack) on my laptop.
Tried it, and, though I did get wave readings, I also got an awful hiss. Bad sound. I can’t correct it with the Cool Edit Pro software without making it sound digital.
So…I figured there was a frequency problem and I tried to re-route the sound from the minidisc through a Creative box and onto my computer via USB port. Now the problem is I can’t get my computer to read USB as a valid audio input.
My Toshiba geek/genius says that I can’t upgrade my sound card (I thought I’d try to get a firewire and go through that) because upgrades aren’t possible with the laptop. Damn.
And now I don’t know what to do. Is there an easy solution I’m missing? Why does it seem so simple in theory and yet so difficult in practice?
Thanks, I appreciate your help, and keep up the good work.
Yours,
Victoria Blake
That’s what Minidisc.org is reporting.
See the thread on What Tools to Use.
Alan, "Hi-MD. Sony’s new 1GB Minidisc" #1, 8 Jan 2004 9:40 am
Hi Victoria, (sorry for the delay, for some reason your question wasn’t showing up as a new post when I surveyed the talk secrtion)
But your situation is a little tricky, there are so many variables. In your first scenario, simply hooking the headphone-out in to the mic-in, should work, and although it might not be the greatest sound quality it shouldn’t be SO hissy that it’s a huge problem. You might want to try that again, but tweak the headphone output around a bit, and see if you can get a cleaner sound into the computer. (When you listen to the original audio on headphones does it sound clean?)
But you can often get a better sound quality by using an external interface, especially one that’s designed to take a line-level signal. I’m not sure what the Creative box is that you tried, but most external USB interfaces will show up in your sound control panel as an input source you can select rather than "built-in". If not, you might need to load drivers for that particular device, but after doing that you should be able to select the device as an input, you might want to check with your Toshiba guy to see if he can walk you through that. This is pretty automatic in Windows XP, but I don’t know if you’re using that OS.
It’s true enough that you probably can’t upgrade the built-in soundcard, but you certainly should be able to use an external USB device. USB is fast enough for stereo, so I wouldn’t worry about firewire for what you’re trying to do.
But try to see if you can get that external device selected as a sound input, it should be pretty simple from there! Worst case you might need to try another interface. Please let us know how you do.
We are in the process of selecting equipment (on a limited grant budget) to record one-on-one approximately 1.5 hr long interviews. We would like broadcast quality audio for use down the line. Also, the interviews need to be transcribed. Is there a source that could walk me through the process, from selection of a microphone (we are thinking SM93 micro-lavalier) to recording (Tascam DA-P1) to foot-pedal operated transcription equipment to editing the interviews. What is the difference between a DAT recorder and a minidisc? How would I replay DAT recordings for transcription? All suggestions appreciated.
Any direct-to-disc suggestions yet? I’m looking at a Tascam CD-RW4U. We would be recording one- on-one interviews for transcription and eventual broadcast after editing. It’s $389 is more attractive than $1699 for a Tascam DA-P1 portable DAT recorder – what would the drawbacks be? Thanks.
This is a really big question, there are a million ways to do this kind of thing, and the best gear varies depending on the user, workflow…there’s not one easy answer.
Before I go any further i feel obliged to do my anti-lavalier tirade again! Of course there are times when they really are the best choice: if you need a clear vision line for camera, if sticking a mic in the interviewee’s face would be distracting or intimidating, if the subject is moving around, etc. But if you are thinking of using this audio for radio down the line, even really good lavaliers often sound a bit odd, compared to a well-placed handheld mic, and often pick up clothes rustle or weird thumps from hand movements. Just think about it, in a perfect world you’d never place a mic where a lav ends up clipped or hung.
Check out Jay Allison’s Interviewing basics:
http://www.transom.org/tools/recording_interviewing/200101.basics.jallison.html
And also What mic to get:
http://www.transom.org/tools/recording_interviewing/200106.microphones.jtowne.html
For some more ideas.
As for the recorder, DATs were the standard for a long time, and the Tascam DAP1 is still a solid machine, if a bit expensive, and the Sony M1 does a pretty good job and is smaller and less expensive . But DAT is clearly on the decline, it’s going to be increasingly difficult to get parts, maybe even tapes as time goes on. And although I still use DAT, I can’t say I’ll be too upset about worrying about tape jams, long wind-times, real-time transfers, etc.
Minidisc has a few advantages, the consumer machines are pretty cheap and easy to use, and are (usually) a bit simpler to find the end of recordings, skip ahead, etc… but they have occasionally had some problems with losing data, and have less-than-perfect inputs and metering. The HHB Portadisc has overcomes most of those issues, but you’ll pay for it… Minidisc usually uses a compression algorithm that can theoretically degrade sound quality, but it usually is inaudible. The original minidiscs couldn’r upload directly to a computer, you’d need to play the audio out, in real time, often analog, unless you have a pro deck.
Sony has just announced a new format of Minidisc that will hold more data, and can record uncompressed wav files, and can transfer those files back to a computer over USB, but they won’t be out until the spring of 2004, so we haven’t gotten a chance to try them out yet. Despite those advantages, these are still consumer machines, so you are still stuck with minijack inputs, less-than-ideal mic preamps and metering, etc… but they still look ike promising tools.
There are starting to be some direct to disc recorders, the Marantz Compact Flash recorder has gotten some good reviews here on transom
http://talk.transom.org/WebX?128@@.eeb16c7
It has XLR mic inputs, has no moving parts, records directly to Compact Flash memory, has decent metering, and can transfer files directly the the computer. It’s about $600-$700 US.
There’s a Sounddevices unit coming out that records to a hard drive AND compact flash, atransfers via firwire, and looks really great, but will be about $2,000 US and up.
As for transcription, I don’t know of any DAT machines or minidiscs that have foot-pedal controls for a transcriber. Most folks that I know dub the recordings to cassette for the transcription. This rather inefficient of course, and I’m sure there’s a better way. I seem to recall something about some computer-based system that could play soundfiles with a pedal control, anyone remember what that is?
So after all that blather, I’d suggest you get a handheld mic, perhaps a Beyer M-58 omni mic and a Marantz PMD670 compact-flash recorder, transfer your recorded soundfiles to computer and transcribe them from there.
I know, I’ve only made it MORE confusing! But there are some big changes afoot right now in the winter of 2004, the new minidisc format might be great, the direct to disc stuff is just coming into its own…. we’ll know soon!
Sorry, forgot about the CDR question!
There are a couple of portable real-time CDR recorders, and some folks are using them to do what you are thinking of. Here are are down-sides: you really can’t move around, these units are portable, but they must be set on a horizontal surface and kept still while recording. That’s not a problem for most interviews, but you can’t follow someone as they move as you could with most field recorders. Also, you can only get 70-80 minutes max, and when you reach that point, you’ll need to "finalize" the disc, which might take a few minutes, so it’s not as simple as flipping a cassette or even slapping in a new tape or minidisc (although minidiscs need to write a Table of Contents too.) so if your interview goes over the length of one CDR, it will be a bit inconvenient.
And i’ve read a few complaints about the quality of the mic preamps, that they’re a bit noisy, but many portable recorders suffer from this until you spend big money.
The benefits are that the CD blanks are cheap and easy to find, and the recordings are easy to play back, copy, and transfer to a computer for editing.
So it’s a mixed bag, some good some bad….
If you go with the Marantz PMD-670 it is easy to upload recordings to computer. There are lots of transcription options for PC (and MAC), some of them are free.
We use Transcriber but there are other free options such as Express Scribe. These programs can be used with or without a foot pedal. We have worked without and none of our transcriptionists has complained. If you feel the need for one, buy a programmable pedal like the ones suggested on the Express Scribe site or the X-keys foot pedal.
check out these links:
http://www.ldc.upenn.edu/mirror/Transcriber/
http://www.nch.com.au/scribe/
http://www.xkeys.com/xkeys/xkfoot.php
I’ve been thinking about dabbling in audio for ages, but I’ve never done it before. The time has come, thanks in part to a late Christmas gift — my mother and my wife are getting me a Sharp MD-DR7 minidisc recorder.
I have to get the microphone, though, and I’m waffling. Since I’m really new at this, should I stick with a less expensive model, say the Sony ECM-MS907? Or should I bite the bullet and spend $225 on a Sony ECM-MS957 or similar mic?
Also: I have a Mac. I can download the free editing software. Other than minidisc recorder, minidiscs, software and microphone, am I missing something?
My plan is to do interview-type audio to start with — maybe take a crack at a Short List, then try talking to other people.
Hints, advice, etc? This site has a lot, but it’s almost intimidating in its breadth.
Dear Jeff,
First–thank you for the information and guidance you’ve provided to me already via this website. I’ve read almost the entire site–a great and generous service to all of us.
One question–I have a Sharp mini-disk MT290H. The manual advises me to only use a "plug-in power type mic", with this dire warning: "If a different type of microphone is plugged in, it may not operate properly or it may cause the unit to malfunction." Can you explain what the warning is about? Also, I am confused about which mics to use, because none of the information about mics says anything about "plug-in power." I wish to purchase a good mic but don’t know if this limits what I should purchase. For example, can I use a condenser mic with its own power supply, but keep the power off?
Thank you.
Jennifer
The I-pod now supports recording. What kind of quality and usability/editability is anyone getting out of it?
Jeff–
I’m still having problems getting my sound onto the computer. I’m close, I feel it, but still not there. So I was thinking: is it a good idea or a bad idea to take the head phone out from my mini disc and run it to a CDR to real time record? Or will that be worse than the hiss I get when I record to my computer?
Cheers
Victoria
Hi James, the Sony ECM-MS907 is a pretty decent mic, the 957 would get you a little more flexibility, (it can adjust the size of the stereo image) and it’s a little larger, which makes it easier to hold. The upside of those mics is that they were designed for use with portable DATs or consumer minidiscs, so we know it’s a good match,electronically. The 957 might get you better results if you are doing music recording, or other work that requires stereo, but for interviews, not much of an advantage.
The problem is that these mics are light and largely plastic, so it’s hard to avoid mic handling noise, etc. The bigger question is whether to go with a pro mic, a classic news-gathering mic, something like an RE-50. These mics are NOT actually built to interface with a little minidisc, but with a cable like the Shure a96f you can get good results. There’s more info in our minidisc column:
http://www.transom.org/tools/recording_interviewing/200306.minidisc.html
But I think you might want to just start out with the 907, get your sea legs, and maybe move up as you feel the need. Careful, the 907 is stereo, and that is sometimes distracting if all you’re doing is recording an interview. You can always change this to mono in the edit stage, but pay attention to whether the stereo image is wandering.
But I think you have a good plan, go for it and let us know what you do!
plug-in-power is a small charge delivered from the recorder to certain electret microphones, it’s similar to phantom power, burt the two are not interchangeable. You can’t power a standard condenser mic with plug-in-power, nor can you run a plug-in-power mic from the standard phantom power often delivered by pro recorders or mixers. There’s some debate about whether that plug-in-power will have an effect on non-plug-in-power mics, I’ve connected regular dynamic mics and self-powered condensers to my Sony minidisc with no ill effects on mic or recorder.
One more time, I’ll advocate for my favorite accessory, the Shure a96f, which will connect an XLR low impedence mic to a minidiscs’s high impedence mini plug input, while at the same time shunting the plug-in power, just in case.
So the deal is that if you buy a small consumer level mic, some of which are pretty good, like the Sony mics discussed above, or the discontinued little Radio Shack lavaliers, you can plug them straight into your minidisc and they’ll get the required power from the deck. Otherwise you’d need to use an adapter with a battery.
If you want to use a dynamic mic, such as the EV RE50, or the Beyer M-58, don’t worry about the plug-in power, you can ignore it, although the Shure a96f will give you better volume, convert the connector types and shunt the plug-in-power just in case it could cause buzzing or crackling (I’ve never foudn that, but sme have said it can happen).
If you use a pro condenser mic that needs phantom power, you’ll need to get one that can use an internal battery, or get an external phantom power supply, the plug-in-power will NOT power a pro condenser mic.
My theory is that you should use the mic you like, and make it happen. There are always ways. But keep those rules in mind if you want to make things easier, carrying an extra phantom power supply is kind-of a pain….
It’s still early days, but i don’t have hgreat hopes for the iPod as a recording device. The Belkin mic has been criticized for poor sound quality, think it records at a pretty low sample rate. The Griffin isn’t out yet, but it seems to have decent specs, and an external mic input, but it’s still a minijack, mono only, and there don’t seem to be controls for input volume, etc…. I rather doubt it will have a primo mic preamp or A/D converter.
BUt I’ll try it, check this space! I thik the Griffin comes out in March or April.
Victoria, I’m sorry to hear that you’re still having trouble inputting sound from your minidisc.
But the short answer is that it’s not a particularly bad idea to make a dub from minidisc to CDR. In fact some seasoned veteran producers were doing that for a while as a way to get sound into a Mac with no sound input before USB interfaces were common. The nice thing is that you make a back-up copy along the way!
It adds a step, so it’s not my first choice, but you might have better luck controlling your levels and getting good quality. Then you can import the sounds striaght from the CDR into your editing program rather than recording them via your soundcard, so you might be able to bypass a weak link of your system.
Experiment a little with the headphone output volume and the input volume of the CDR, use whatever balance sounds cleanest, and puts a nice loud signal on the CDR without distorting.
You might want to drop a few track marks while you are transferring to CDR, so you can more easily import chunks of sound rather than the entire interview. Log where you put the track marks while you transfer, and you’ll really speed things up as you start to load audio into your computer.
It’s a reasonable plan, if you have the time!
I’ve decided to do what you suggest at the end — start with the low end mic and figure stuff out as I go. I’m sure I’ll want to move up in time, but I don’t know that I wanted to start learning with a $250+ mic. Because really, that would just have delayed starting.
Transom is a great resource, and your time is much appreciated.
Is there agreement on the best way to archive our audio programs?
1. What format should they be? Standard CD, .wav,aiff,Quicktime, analog etc, etc.
2. What media? CD, DVD, DAT?
There seems to be a lively debate among archivists, some who have told me that they think that uncompressed analog is still the way to go.
Hope I’m not repeating this topic; my search of the archives did not find it…..but I can’t find my reading glasses, either.
Thanks.
Hi Ira,
i don’t think there are any agreed-upon standards, as you say there’s a healthy debate, and some serious doubts about CDR-DVDR, etc.
In a perfect world, archivists tend to recommend making copies to multiple media: make an analog 15 ips reel-to-reel tape, AND make an Audio CDR AND make a .wav (or .aiff) data CDR.
But to be realistic, analog copies are slow to make, expensive and cumbersome to store, and many of us have experienced the fragility of analog tapes.
There’s some doubt about how long CDRs or other dye-based optical media like DVDR will last. It’s certainly affected by exposure to light and other environmental conditions, but even in ideal storage there’s some reason to believe that the dyes might fade, and the data may become hard to recover.
A reasonable approach to this is to make multiple copies, then date and file them in such a way that one can systematically copy them to a new form every few years, 5 years seems to be the current paranoid consensus. If one copies the CDR to a new CDR, or whatever storage format will be the most practical in 5 years, one might be able to avoid the problem of the original copy having faded.
As for the format on the CDR: data CDs are generally thought to be more reliable than CD-Audio, that is to make a data back-up of your .wav files, or .aiff files, or .SD2 files or whatever format you are using, rather than making audio CDs.
The process of burning an audio CD is kind of weird, and often introduces errors that are not created when copying data. The over simplified explanation is that audio CDs just keep going and if they missed some data, there’s just an error and in most cases error-correction on the CD-players will cover it up. But copying data allows some pausing and a "wait, I didn’t get that, send that again" kind of handshaking, that tends to give more accurate copies.
CDRs are so inexpensive these days and take up so much less space than analog tape, that what I’ve been doing is making audio CDs that can be played in any CD player, then also burning a CD with that audio as a .wav file. A similar scenario is to burn several audio clips, or one large project, to a DVDR disc, as data.
What I’m considering is also just getting a few gigantic hard drives and saving the .wav files and .aiffs there also. Of course drives can die, CDs can be damaged, so redundancy is key. And one has to plan to make copies in a systematic way to preclude the possibility of media degradation.
I have some 15-year-old DATs that won’t play back properly (although others will.) I have CDRs that did play a few years ago and no longer do.
But one has to be careful about media, we still have a few stacks of 5-1/2 floppies that we keep wondering if there’s anything important on there… a missing transcript maybe? But none of our computers have those drives any more. None of my Macs have floppies at all, and this could happen with CDRs in a few years, we might scoff at the idea of putting data on such a fragile and puny medium.
The advantage of analog tape is that we’re still playing back tapes from over 40 years ago, it’s not always pretty, but wwe can usually get information off of them…. we don’t know if that will be true for CDR or even IDE or SCSI hard drives, they could end up as some weird format that nobody can read. I expect ADAT tapes will get like that pretty soon, and we’ll eventually be searching for someone with an operational ADAT in the attic somewhere.
We had an archivist in to look at our tapes and he recommended making an analog copy and backing up to .wav files on CDR. I don’t know if we’ll do the analog part, it’s a lot of many and time and space. But we will try to be redundant to insure against accidents and unreliability.
Here’s a good site with info about the care and feeding of CDR and DVDR:
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/carefordisc/index.html
With some vigilance I think copying data to discs and rotating to a new copy every few years might be reasonably safe. But the jury’s still out!
Anybody have any thoughts?
Just to clarify, when I was differentiating between audio CDRs and data CDRs, I don’t mean the physical medium, I mean the kind of file on the disc.
The discs labeled "audio" or "music" CDRs are effectively the same at the cheaper discs meant for data, although usually optimized for slower speed burning.
There are endless aruments about what dye formulation, what burn speed, etc gives the best result, and the answer is usually to find a good match of CD brand, dye color, burner, and burn speed.
CD-Audio is generally thought to be most reliably burned at 2X, (with some variations, there are pages and pages of websites about BLER rates with different discs and burners) but again, I wouldn’t use CD-Audio as my main archive medium anyway, this info is most interesting to mastering engineers trying to get the most accurate CD burn for a replication master.
Data can probably be reliably burned at higher speeds, it doesn’t have the same linear data stream issues as audio does.
There are pricey CDRs that claim to be "archival quality," tested to last 100 years or something, but will they REALLY be significantly better? Who knows? I would try to get at least good quality CDRs, not the cheapest store-brand bulk discs. I certainly wouldn’t get the "archival" discs and just trust that they’ll be OK, I’d keep to the same redundancy and periodic copying protocol.
I know there is some talk on here about using the iPod for recording and that Jeff says so far he has low expectations.
As a novice with recording technology, my question is: If the new Griffin mic has an external mic input and i get a good mic for it, should the iPod be capable of making recordings of interviews good enough for radio?
It says that the input will be 3.5mm mono and the iPod will record 16 bit mono WAV files.
these are the specs Griffin lists:
Mic:
Automatic Gain Control (AGC)
30 dB Ratio
Attack Time – 100 ms
Recovery Time – 3.5 sec
Dynamic Range 20Hz – 20kHz
Thanks for your help.
Noah
It’s true that some of the specs look decent, as in recording 16-bit wav files, and having a 20hz-20khz frequency response (frequency is not a valid measurement of dynamic range, and 30dB is not a ratio, as Griffin states them, it’s always a little worrisome when the stats they proudly post don’t make sense!)
But here’s the first problem, they also say:
Recorded File Specs (iPod Specified)
8kHz, 16 bit mono WAV files
A sampling frequency of 8 khz can’t possibly give a true 20hz-20khz frequency range. In fact it’s hard to imagine any useable audio sampled at 8khz: there’s a thing called the nyquist frequency, which is half the sampling frequency, and is the frequency at which one needs to apply a low-pass filter, to filter out "aliasing" effects inherent in digitizing audio. So an 8khz sample rate would imply a 4khz filter roll-off, which might create intelligible recordings, but not too great sounding….
The other variable is the Automatic Gain Control. Some recorders implement this well, and can give nice sounding results, the AGC acting just like a good compressor and limiter. But the stats given, if they are to be believed, indicate a fairly long attack time and a REALLY long release time, meaning that the AGC won’t catch quick transients, and will stay low for a long time after a loud sound. Ultimately what this will likely mean is that we’ll be able to hear the volume pumping. But it’s unfair to guess at this, we should wait and see.
I think it’s a really cool concept, I’d love it if I could slap an accessory on my iPod and get a nice recording, but sadly the mass-market is mostly interested in just getting decent enough sound for voice memos, or dictation, or recording a lecture. In those circumstances, high audio fidelity is not a priority, as long as you can hear what’s going on.
In the end, I’ll be dropping $35 to experiment, and who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and despite the specs, it could sound just fine for some circumstances. We ran a really good piece here on transom that was done on a microcassette recorder. So you never know… But I don’t have high hopes for "broadcast quality."
Jeff, (and others who have been following the tribulations of getting sound onto my computer.)
Triumph. I figured it out.
CompUSA floor sales didn’t know what they were talking about, so I decided not to get a CDR to record.
However, I did manage to find an external sound card. Paid 70 clams, hooked it up, installed software and bang, great minidisc sound coming pure into my computer.
The problem, as I’ve discovered, was that since I had a laptop all the electrical interference was making that awful hiss. I couldn’t upgrade my sound card internally, as per Toshiba instructions. But I could USB it out, which is what ended up working.
Future note, I will not buy another laptop, but go with the desk tower all the way.
The downside: The external sound card I bought has proprietary software that lists my device as the prefered output for both MIDI and Wave files, which means it overrides my built in software. Annoying, because I have to shift the headphones back and forth. Doubly annoying, the software has decided to mess with my Cool Edit Pro, something that was created perfect and need not be changed. So, while I do have sounds, I also have downsides.
Thanks Jeff, for all your help. I was lost for a moment there. You mentioned I should post my solution to the Tools Talk so others could profit from my tribulation. I hope you guys have it easier.
Cheers,
Victoria
Victoria, congrats! I’m glad to hear that you’re finally getting good sound. I suspected that a USB interface might do the trick.
BTW can you tell us what the brand and model is that you bought? Some of them do indeed require their own software, which can interfere with other programs, but many of them can just plug straight in and show up in the sound control panel as an available sound in or out. I have a very basic Edirol UA1A that I simply plug into my Dell running Windows XP, and it just shows up and works, no drivers, no tweaks.
I’m not clear about why this arrangement usually doesn’t alow play-through, that is, letting you to listen via the computer’s speakers (or whatever device is indicated as the sound output in the sound control panel) while recording. Sometimes attaching computer speakers directly to the USB interface will solve this, but other times you just need to listen to the source while loadng-in and watch your audio program’s meters on the computer screen to make sure you’re getting proper levels.
As for laptops vs towers, there are certainly advantages to either, but many of the problems you encountered can raise their ugly heads on either platform. The built-in sound, or standard soundcards on most off-the-shelf computers leave something to be desired, and while you can always put a butter soundcard in a tower, doing so sometimes raises the same driver conflicts, etc as using an external USB interface. In most cases, using a USB interface is much the same as installing an internal card.
Thanks for the info, Victoria, and I hope it’s all smoother now!
Hi Jeff, the 9-minute audio piece I’m editing on my Win 98 computer using ProTools LE (free) is making me want to slit my wrists. There are numerous glitches — lots of odd reverberation, crashing and burning during bouce to disk, and just plain crashing the computer. I’d like to find something to use with my laptop running Win XP — any ideas?
Many thanks!
If you have some money to spend (about $300) people have said nice things about Adobe’s update to Cooledit, now called "audition".
http://www.adobe.com/products/audition/main.html
But for a cheaper route, try Audacity, it’s freeware, and not quite as slick as ProTools, but it can do the job, and hey it’s free!
We’ll have some tutorialss/tips here on transom soon, but in the meantime, they have some decent intructions on the site.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Give those a whirl, see what you think.
Great, I’ll definitely check it out. I should have asked, for "NPR quality" work, how important is it to have two stereo music tracks? The way I’ve edited, and I’m really a beginner, is one track for my vocal narration and 2 others for music tracks (L/R). Will an editing program that only gives me 2 tracks total to work with still give me that kind of sound quality?
If you’re restricted to ONLY two tracks, it will be very hard to get a good result with stereo music under a mono voice. Part of that NPR sound is indeed the music coming up smoothly under the voice, then fading back down as the narration starts again, rather than hard cuts in and out. And while it’s possible to do that with a two-track editor, it’s clumsy and not nearly as tweakable as you’d want ideally.
That’s the nice thing about ProTools, you can have 8 tracks even with the free version, more with the LE or TDM versions. CoolEditPro, and now Audition will let you have multiple tracks, and Audacity does too.
For what you describe, I think you’ll need three tracks (or one mono and one stereo) or maybe 5 (one mono and two stereo)
It comes down to how you’re confortable working. The way I like to do features, I dedicate a track to the narration, one to actualities (the interviewee) and I ALWAYS have something going on under the voices. , Depending on your audio program, you can often just use crossfades between different sources in a single stereo track, or use a pair of stereo tracks, with sound source overlapping.
I would really appreciate some suggestions for purchasing equipment to record broadcast phone interviews. I will be on a broadcast quality mic and want to have the person on the phone and then output to a minidisk. Preferably I would like to use the handset rather than plug the device into the wall Any suggestions?
Thanks.
Jerry
This is a tough one, it’s very hard to get good audio quality from phone lines, and even harder to keep the two ends of a conversation isolated. As with most things, the more money you spend, the more quality you get, at least up to a point. A "digital hybrid" will give you the best separation between the local and remote ends of the conversation, but they start at about $500 and get more expensive. there are cheaper alternatives that might get you close enough for what you need. There’s a wide range of well-built devices, from inexpensive "taps" to pricey "hybrids" at JK Audio:
http://www.jkaudio.com/radio-applications.htm
We’ve not found a good cheap solution, yet…
I have a sony netmd mini-disc recorder onto which I’ve recorded several interviews. I also have a Pro Tools mbox. I am trying to transfer my sounds to the computer in order to edit them. I have set it up so that the sounds go from the mini disc headphone out to the analog inputs on the mbox (i was told that it was not possible to go straight digital to digital). This works fine for about one minute, then there starts to be buzz and blips that are not on the original recording. This gets worse as time goes by, so I can’t get the lengthy interviews onto the computer. Does this have to do with different sample rates? Electric interference? Why is this happening and how can I eliminate the problem?
Thanks.
I am new to this and have a clean slate – no equipment whatsoever.
I am planning on purchasing a Marantz PMD-670 but am uncertain as to what platform to choose computer wise, Mac vs. PC. You have mentioned ProTools works better with Mac. Is there any clear advantage of using one over the other when it comes to importing the data into the computer from Marantz’s compact flash cards?
And any additional thoughts on specific items the Marantz seems to require, ie special cables, batteries, etc.?
Thanks in advance for any advice you may have.
Best,
Jonathan
Christine, it seems that you are doing everything properly. Taking the headphone out into the analog-ins shouldn’t introduce any buzzing or "blips". If the sound plays back fine when you listen to it from the minidisc, the most likely suspect is the cabling. Try to use a good quality cable with no adapters, or at least as few as possible. That’s almost certainly it.
There was a weird quirk of recording with the M-Box into ProTools5.2 under Mac OS9, where it would start introducing clicks during VERY long load ins, I got it once at about 70 minutes elapsed. There’s a USB driver update if that’s the system you’re using, that’s worth a try just in case id that’s your system, but I don’t think this problem ever came up in as short a time as you describe.
Try another cable from the mindisc to the M-Box.
Be sure to check out the topic here in Tools Talk about this unit:
Jordan Anderson, "Review of Marantz PMD-670 Solid State Recorder" #1, 10 Nov 2003 12:40 pm
I haven’t tried it myself yet, but I don’t see any reason why the CF cards would work better with one platform or another, you can get external CD card readers for either kind of computer, and there’s a regular USB connector, which will interface with either type.
You do want to get a large memory card, and it does take lots of batteries! Let us know how it works for you.
HOW TO ? PLEASE EXPLAIN
Depends what you mean by "dumping"…
Do you mean that you have your project edited and mixed as you like it and now want to burn it to CD, or make an MP3 file, or something like that?
basically you just want to select all the audio you want in your final file. you can do this various ways: by just triple-clicking with the selector tool on a track to include everything, or by clicking just on the segements you want, or even just dragging with the selector tool across the time range you want. You don’t need to select all the segments on all tracks, you just need to be sure to have the selection extending from the beginning to the end of the desired time-range.
(Just to complicate things, after making your selection, it’s a good idea to grab the little triangles in the time line at the top of the edit window and extend the selection just a little, giving yourself about a half of a second or so before the first audio starts, and maybe the same at the end. Or conversely, drag the ends in to highlight only the audio you want if you’ve selected too much.)
Then, under the "file" menu, choose "bounce to disc" choose the file format you want (probably "wav or "aiff") choose "stereo interleaved" to make a single stereo file to burn to CD or convert to MP3, and "convert after bounce".
Once you click on the bounce button, it will ask where you want to save it, and allow you to name it something distinctive.
That’s it.
If you meant something else by "dumping" please elaborate!
First time question asker! With a really basic question. After perusing this site, it seems clear lots of you are using Macs, and using them effectively with Sony MD recorders. Is this right? Reason I ask is that Sony’s products always seem to specify Windows as the supported operating systems. I just need to get this basic issue clear–then I’ll start worrying about whether I should hold out for the Hi-MD recorders, etc. Thanks for any help you can offer.
The confusing thing is that Sony talks about their software being Windows-only, but we generally haven’t been using any Sony software for our transfers, we just play out the audio into an interface or directly into the computer, it’s just generic audio info, not proprietary data.
The software Sony referrs to is for using the "Net-MD" functions, transferring audio TO the minidisc FROM the computer via USB. That is very useful for folks using the mindisc as a portable music player, but not of any use to those of us recording with them.
The bigger question is whether the software for the new Hi-MD minidiscs will be Windows-only, because the new machines WILL allow moving audio from the minidisc to the computer via USB, which will be very nice for those of us recording with them. But it’s not clear from the literature whether that file transfer function will be a Sony software Windows-only program, or if there will be a Mac version, or if it will be a simple drag-and-drop via USB on any platform.
We’ll have to wait and see, I’m afraid… we’ll let you know!
In any case the new Hi-MD machines look pretty slick even if we still have to play audio out in real time into Macs. They have longer record times, can record uncompressed wav files, etc, which is better already.
If Mac users can quickly transfer files via USB too, that will be great, but it’s stlll not clear if that must be done via Sony software, which might be Windows only.
Watch this space!
I am just starting my try at radio documentaries. I have a sony minidisc recorder and I was wondering if this mic would do the job for field/portable recording situations. Thanks.
That’s a good solid interview mic, and should work fine with your little sony minidisc, with a couple of caveats: it’s a dynamic omni mic, and doesn’t put out lots of volume. Also, it has a low-impedence XLR output, which you’ll need to convert to a mini, and it will help to rise the impedence a little. Both things can be done with a Shure A96f transformer cable.
More info and a link to that cable here:
http://www.transom.org/tools/recording_interviewing/200306.minidisc.html
Hey Jeff,
I work as the production manager at a small community radio station, and occasionally freelance as well. I’ve been putting off the personal purchase of an MD recorder, waiting and waiting for an mp3 player/recorder that would allow me to drag and drop files instead of having to annoyingly transfer audio to my laptop in real time. What’s the latest buzz on this? A friend recently purchased the iRiver iHP-120, which will record in wav and mp3 format, but I haven’t yet heard if it’s just a gimmick or suitable for serious radio work.
Thanks.
Peter Graff
Seattle
I haven’t had a chance to try the iRiver iHP-120, but I have heard a few reports that it’s just a little too clunky for "serious radio work," that the controls are buried in hard to read menus, that it can only use automatic gain control, has no input level meters, etc.
It does have a digital in, so adding-on a box like the Deneke AD -20
http://www.core-sound.com/inbox.html
that has good mic connectors, preamps and A/D would be a nice combo, but it still wouldn’t have level meters, doesn’t have phantom power for condenser mics that need it, and the Deneke box is another $300. By the time you get an iRiver box and a Deneke, you might as well just get the Marantz CF recorder!
http://www.d-mpro.com/users/folder.asp?FolderID=1582
The other thing to consider is that the new Hi-MD minidisc recorders, out soon, supposedly April 2004, reportedly WILL support direct importing of soundfiles from the minidisc to the computer via USB. That, and their ability to record wav files make them a strong contender for serious radio work… although I always prefer to actually try stuff before passing judgement.
So I’d hang tight and wait for some revoews of the HiMD machines, or save up for the Marantz CF recorder (about $700).
Most places seem to sell the Marantz recorder for around $700 but try Saul Mineroff Electronics (http://www.mineroff.com). They are an official Marantz dealer and service provider in NY. They don’t publish the price online but when I bought mine last summer the cost was $589. Shipping was an additional $16.
I also happen to know that last year there were people at Marantz who were interested in the idea of producing a simpler and even cheaper solid state recorder, one that would sell in the $400 range. Who knows whether this will come about and when. Unlike Sony or iRiver, the target user Marantz caters to is a professional doing interview and/or meeting recording, so if they do I would expect that the features and design will be much better than anything you’ll see from a consumer gadget oriented to playing and recording music.
I suspect they may be selling a truck load of PMD670s as it is and they probably need to as my guess is that there probably isn’t a lot of margin on it. For what you get it is a great value.
I can’t run protools free with my windowsXP… and can’t find a place that has an affordable protools… where do I look?
The cheapest ProTools system that will run on windows XP is the M-Box, for about $450. You buy the interface, and the software (ProToolsLE) comes with it.
If you are economizing, take a look at Audacity, it’s not ProTools but it will do many of the same things, and it’s free, and it runs on almost any platform and operating system:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
In the interests of science and Transom, I purchased one of these just to make sure it sucks and it does. The incoming gain is fixed and set very high so any close-miced interview distorts terribly. You’d need to place the unit about 3 feet away to get non-distorted sound and then everything is just too far off-mic, and the ticking sounds of the hard drive are quite legible.
It might be okay for dictation or evidence, but that’s it.
It actually records drag and drop .wav files though, which seems promising for the future.
If any of you get the Griffin unit, let us know…
So, Jay, how long will it be before you pop that Belkin open and start to tinker with it? Hook a dial to the Mic wires and maybe pad the HD a bit? Some duct tape and you’re in business, yes?
Will Pro Tools Free work on Windows XP?
However, I was wondering what you would suggest the best cable is for connecting my Electrovoice 635a to my Sony MZ-900. I know that sony, Bradley, core-sound, and sonicsound all have them, but will the cheaper bradley do the job as well?
The Bradley cables are heavy and bad; I like Bradley otherwise, but curse their cables. I favor the right-angle mini to XLR cables from SonicStudios. They’re expensive and worth it.
http://www.sonicstudios.com/access.htm#adapters
What make cassette recorder do you recommend for transferring data from minidiscs to cassettes? Is the expense of a Marantz necessary?
Two things:
First, I am new to radio and minidiscs and having some issues with my equipment. After recording through my mic to my sony mzn-707 MD it only plays out of one speaker even when recorded from stereo. I have tried recorded using the SP, LP2, LP4 settings and its all the same. Previously, I recorded using SP and LP2 with no problem. So I must have inadvertantly changed something. What did I change without realizing it? Or has something broken on my used MD I bought on ebay?
When I record in MONO I hear the sound out of both left and right speakers. Is MONO ok to record on for radio? I get more tape time anyway.
Second,
In case you are interested I think I figured out a complicated way to get ProTools Free working on XP. Its cheating by running Win98 through a virtual machine using the program VMWare (also available for free trial download).
http://www.vmware.com
You need to have the Win98 CD and it requires much figiting that I can get into if it interests anyone, but it works. For instance I had to download drivers for a sound card I dont have because thats what the fake win98 thinks it is using.
Whether or not the quality of the sound is good enough, I dont know. I gave up and will just use cool edit pro, but I thought I give a plug for VMware for more patient and frugal folks out there and see if what you thought. PT Free was up and running, but I dont know it it was running properly.
thanks for the help, this site is fantastic.
alex
the latest articles in the tools section have been incredible. but sometimes i end up feeling like i barely understand what’s happening. like i can recognize now when something needs EQ or compression, but i’m having to refer back to the articles as reference. which isn’t bad, but i want to be better equipped. it kinda feels like reading a newspaper article about a country or issue you know nothing about. you can read it and get information out of it, but you’re going to understand so much more if you can place it in context.
this is just a ridiculously long way of asking if you can recommend any books, things i can actually hold and study, that could explain and give a beginner’s intro to some of the concepts you’ve been discussing in recent columns.
Belkin just released a Universal Microphone Adapter for the iPod. This includes a low-med-high gain switch (iPod has a color level meter) and records 16-bit audio at 8KHz.
How would this sound quality rate for broadcast interviews?
Belkin Universal Microphone Adapter
< http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Merchant_Id=&Product_Id=169368>
User manual
< http://web.belkin.com/support/download/downloaddetails.asp?download=1349&lang=1>
iPod features high-speed file sync
< http://www.apple.com/ca/ipod/autosync.html>
It would be interesting if Transom could evaluate this for radio production.
Al, thanks for the alert on this one, I was about to launch into my tirade on how the Belkin unit was no good at all until i realized that this new version has a few significant improvements. A three-position input gain is a little crude, but it’s better than nothing, andd might be better than the Griffin’s automatic gain control (although we have not reviewed the Griffin yet). And it says it has LED metering, I don’t see where that is, or how helpful the meters are, but again, better than nothing!
What would be realy slick is to use the iPod’s display for metering…
I’m still concerned about the 8khz sample rate, that results in a pretty low frequency range, but we’ll have to try it and see!
Watch this space…
Hello Jeff 27 march 2004
I am using cool edit 2000… it works a treat… is there some way I can reduce the echo-ie sound you get when recording an interview in an empty room… perhaps some manipulation of the equaliser…
Thanks
Don Macgillivray
There’s not a really simple solution to this, and what techniques we have might not be too satisfying. This underscores the importance of controlling the environment where you record. Whenever possible, try to do your interview in a quiet, good-sounding room, unless there’s some reason to include the surrounding atmosphere. many times the subjects just aren’t aware ofthe issue, and will be happy to move to another room if asked.
But other times you just have to roll with it, I’ve been places where the best choice was still pretty noisy or echoey. Again, the best way to improve your sound is to optimise the recording itself, not try to fix it later. When in these less-than-ideal sonic sourroundings, use a directional microphone if you have one, an omni will pick up more of the undesireable ambience. And whatever mic you use, get right in close, keep the mic off axis from the interviewee’s mouth to avoid P-Pops, but get right in there, 6-12 inches from their mouth.
But you still occasionally end up with echoey sound you want to improve at the mix stage. EQ can help if the room is resonant at a specific frequency, but there’s no predicting what that would be, it depends on the size of the room and the sounds in it. Try applying a parametric EQ with about a 10dB cut and sweep it around to see if it helps. 10dB is probably way more than you’ll ultimately cut, but it’s a good way to hear where you are. (sometimes it’s easier to hear a problem frequency by actually using a boost , then sweeping around until it sounds especially bad, then cutting at that frequency – BUT be careful, this can hurt your ears or speakers if you’ve boosted too much. ) Ultimately you probably only want to cut a few dB,
If the room is very bright and "chattery" it might help to pull the high-end back a bit, try using a low-pass filter, or high shelving EQ, but again, be gentle, removing too much treble this way can make voices dull and unintelligible. If the room is "booming" at a low frequency you can do the opposite: apply a high-pass or a low-shelving EQ and sweep around until it’s clearer but not too thin.
It’s VERY tricky to get this right, but using an expander can help in these circumstances. It’s like a reverse compressor, in this case making quiet sounds quieter. This can sound unnatural to push down the echoey spaces between words, but if done gently, it can help clear the sound up. tweak the ratio as well as the attack and release rates, and see if you can get something that sounds better.
You’re never going to be able to make it sound like the interview was done in a sound booth, but maybe you can help it a little,
Again, the best way to fix this is on-site, getting the best possible sound with the mic in the first place.
Good luck! Let us know if any of this worked.
Jeff 27 March 2004
Thanks for the terrific insight… appreciate your taking the time…
Cheers…
Don Macgillivray
Hello, could you explain if is possible to record with protools in mac. Than mix in protools in pc?
do you know if the extension files are the same for bout plataforms?
In certain circumstances indeed one can move sessions froma Mac to a PC. This is never true of ProTools Free, but LE versions 5 and up will translate provided you do a few things. When you create the session, choose .wav files as the format, and click the box for "enforce Mac-PC compatibility". And if you do a "save session as" to move the files, observe the same cautions.
I’m not 100% sure about TDM-based systems, post again here if that’s what you wanted to know.
Anyone interested in using microphones may find the data provided on http://www.microphone-data.com very useful. There are also many articles about microphones. The site is free and entirely non-commercial – no adverts allowed.
The registration scheme is merely to track users and is not a spam source.
so i hadnt done any editing in a while (a few months), and i booted up protools free (i run mac os 9.1.1 on an old "tray iMac)….it seems to wrok fine but whenever i attempt to record anything it gives me an error message statig "could not allocate disk space. your disk may be fragmented." I have penty of space to record, or so i think. I ran some utilities on my harddrive as well, in case there were index problems….and i got nothin’. any ideas?
In some cases your disc might really be fragmented, but it looks like you have checked for that. In other cases, ProTools just seems intimidated by the prospect of unlimited recording time. Try defining a record time: the easiest way to do that is to select a range of time in the track you are recording into by dragging with the selector tool. You can tweak the length by dragging the red arrows at the top of the edit window.
Go ahead and define a range of time larger than you’ll actually need, it’s no fun at all if your recording stops before you get your audio fully loaded.
Very often, even if it’s a very long recording, the very act of telling ProTools how much you intend to record seems to reassure it, as if the program breathes a sigh of relief and says "oh, sure, I can do THAT!"
This problem usually arises when recording to the same drive as the system and the ProTools program reside, less often when recording to a second drive. And very often if you have only a little space left on a drive, or if it is indeed badly fragmented.
But give a try to defining the record length, let us know how it goes!
We pastor a church, and have been given the use of a Sony digital voice recorder. It works really well, but if someone wants a copy of the sermon, we have to play it on the computer using the Sony program that came with the recorder, then plug it into our stereo and tape it onto a cassette tape. This takes a long time and is very inconvenient. I have searched the help, tried to find help on the internet, but can’t find any information about if/how we can export the file into a format that we could burn onto a cd, which would be much easier than the method we are currently using. We would rather be able to burn a cd than to have to use the cassette tape (how quaint!). Do you have any suggestions for us? Thanks!
I had just been having the very same problem on the very same day as Cameron (post #518). Imagine my amazement when the answer to my troubles appeared in my mail box before I’d even asked the question! I tried what you suggested about selecting a range of time and that works perfectly but I was wondering if you could recommend any particular software for de fragmenting a mac should the need arise in the future.
Thanks!
-Sue
There are a couple of possibilities for getting audio from a Sony IC recorder to a CD. One is to use Sony software to transslate that .dvf file to .wav, then burn a CD.
http://products.sel.sony.com/SEL/service/conselec/softupdates/dvp203e_instr.shtml
If that doesn’t work, or if you have a Mac (the Sony software is Windows-only) you can always do what so many of us do with minidiscs, just play the audio out of the headphone out, into to the computer, either directly into the soundcard or through an audio interface, into any sound recording program that can record .wav or aiff or SD2 or even MP3 files. You could then burn those soundfiles to CD.
There’s a little controversy about defragging on the Mac, especially when running the newest operating systems. in general the HFS+ file system and Mac OSX are pretty good at reducing fragmentation, and Panther even has some functionality that clusters files intelligently, and there is some thought that defragging can sometimes do more harm than good.
Even under OS9, I wouldn’t bother with defragging unless you are having a problem. But one CAN indeed run into trouble if your drives are seriously fragmented, it can happen when working with large files, or with lots of little ones, like ProTools fade files.
If you do need to defrag, the top candidates are:
TechToolPro:
http://www.micromat.com/tt_pro_4/tt_pro_4.html
The ubiquitous Norton Utilities:
http://www.symantec.com/nu/nu_mac/
Each of those is about $100, and have other disk utilities, but is all you need is defragging, the bargain is Plus Optimizer for about $30.
http://www.alsoft.com/PlusOptimizer/index.html
I’m a writer and speaker who’s been impressed with what people are doing on This American Life and wants to get into the act. In other words I know nothing about tech, but I’m a do it yourselfer and want to learn.
I’ve seen the promos for the mini disc, but my dream is to find a way that I can capture decent digital audio using my existing systems. For instance, could I plug a good mike into a PDA or laptop and get sound quality that would be good enough to distribute on audio tape or even for broadcast? If so what products and specifications do I need to look for? I’m shopping for a PDA now, but haven’t found anyone who’s addresed this. Thanks.
There’s only one serious PDA-based recording system that seems to get good results, but it’s not cheap. It’s based on the iPaq PDA, and requires their interface card ($200) and a mic preamp/digital converter ($500) and some extra memory, on compact flash media. check it out:
http://www.core-sound.com/HighResRecorderNews.html
I don’t know of any other PDA-based recorders that give decent sound quality.
You CAN indeed record directly into a laptop, there are many USB or fire-wire based interfaces that have good mic inputs, and with a good mic, the interface and some recording software, you can get very good quality. The thing is that laptops are not all that ergonaomic for field recording, so it’s fine if you;re in a semi-permanent set-up, but it’s clunky to carry around and set up and deal with the ocasional quirks of computers during an interview in the field.
I recently tried this and one interview went great, but then i had ProTools freeze on me duing a second interview, and let me tell you, that’s embarrassing, to have to stop and re-boot and admit that I’d just lost everything we had talked about….
So there’s something to be said for a dedicated recorder. Minidiscs are pretty good. the marantz CF recorder is even better for a little under $700. DAT is still viable, although it’s geetting more rare, and is still expensive to buy a recorder, to buy tapes, to maintain the machines.
If you’re just starting out, a minidisc is a decent choice, not too much money, not too hard to use. But if you’re mostly recording yourself, a USB interface from M-Audio or Edirol, run directly into a laptop or desktop computer is pretty simple too.
give us some more details about what you hope to do, maybe we can help narrow it down.
Thanks, Jeff, for the generous advice.
Maybe it would help to explain what I’m after. It’s not that I’m such a PDA fan, my goals are simplicity (I like the idea of having a device in my pocket to catch impromptu audio) and efficiency (I’m working with a small non-profits budget about to buy a new laptop and PDA and hoped to fit this into it).
That said, it sounds like it might be cheaper and simpler to start by using my laptop to capture talks that I’m giving or essays I want to record at the office. (I would prefer not to have to hold a mike during talks.) If so, what equipment with a budget of $1-500 do you recommend for my shopping list to get started? Also are there specifications I should get on the new Windows XP laptop (I’ve read the February exchange about ProTools on XP)?
I suspect the next step would be to get a dedicated recording device for capturing interviews. But I could wait up to a year to do that while I learn the ropes on the laptop. Sounds like I should watch this space for the next innovations in mini-discs and the Marantz recorder?
I’d go with Windows XP pro, and then get the M-Box with ProToolsLE, or use a different program (Sound Forge, Audition, Audacity) and buy a good USB interface, like an M-Audio Duo (about $350, cheaper if you look around..)
You’ll get better sound quality it you do hold the microphone, adjusting to the person’s movements to keep the ideal position, but you can put the mic on a stand. You might need to use a pop-filter, either a foam sleeve that slides over the mic, or a nylon or metal screen that goes between the mic and the person. With a mic on a stand, people tend to get right up on the mic and pop it, unless you keep the mic up and out of their plosive range, but then it will sound distant…. I wouldn’t use a table stand, that’s just too far away from their mouth, the voice will sound weak, Try a boom stand, and get the mic in 6-9 inches from the speaker’s mouth.
But yes, as I said, in the end it’s simpler to record to a recorder. So keep an eye out here, and we’ll discuss the developments in the new minidiscs and the marantz and other CF recorders like it. Often real-world use stories are very different than the press releases!
Hi,
I’m using a Pro-Tools MBox to do my audio editing and am having trouble when it comes to bouncing it to disk so I can burn it onto a cd. Any advice on what settings to use to create a file small enough to do that with? How much quality will be lost?
Thanks a lot.
In a really weird and annoying development, bouncing while using the M-Box is occasionally problematic, especially with ProTools 6.1 under mac OSX. It really doesn’t make any sense, sometimes the simplest sessions, such as one stereo channel with no plug-ins, will refuse to bounce out, while more complicated sessions might work fine.
under PT5.x and OS9 I rarely ran into the problem, only with many (10+) tracks with plug-ins, and early tests seem to indicate the PT 6.2.3 under OS 10.3.2 (Panther) is behaving better, we’ll be keeping track of it. I haven’t heard one way or the other about the bounce behavior of the M-Box under Windows XP.
It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the settings, but running your session at 16-bit, 44.1khz, and bouncing to 16-bit 44.1 khz joint stereo, with "convert after bounce" checked should make things smoother.
Also, under "set-ups" increasing the hardware buffer size can sometimes help. And setting CPU usage to 85% seems to be a magic number. Try a few DAE buffer settings…
For work-arounds, there are a couple of possibilities. "Consolidating" tracks, making each edited track into one continuous file can reduce the processor overhead and allow the session to bounce. Bouncing smaller sections of time can solve the problem, if it’s OK to end up with several shorter tracks.
One solution that digidesign suggests is to switch the outputs of all the tracks to a bus, then make two new tracks with that bus as the input. Arm those tracks to record, and play the session. You’ll end up with the mix recorded to those two tracks as a continuous file.
There’s info on using busses here:
http://www.transom.org/tools/editing_mixing/200305.pt_mix4.towne.html
that’s ALMOST the same as bouncing, unfortunately you still end up with split-stereo files (track1.L, track1.R), which don’t always burn to CD properly. Roxio Jam can do it, just add the .L half of the tracks you just recorded and Jam will burn a stereo CD. But if you need to use Toast, or iTunes or Easy CD Creator or whatever, you still need to bounce to a joint-stereo file.
There’s might be another work-around to the split-stereo problem, I’ll post again after I try it.
If you delete all tracks other than the two you just made, and bounce those to disc, it might work when other sessions wouldn’t, because there won’t be any plug-ins or automation.
This does waste time and disc space, it’s really irritating that something simple like bouncing doesn’t always work right.
digidesign suggests some other weird fixes, like removing a wireless internet card, downgrading Quicktime, etc…none of which worked for me or anyone I ‘ve communicated with.
There is another trick to dealing with Pro-Tools split-stereo files if you need to export or burn them to CD as joint-stereo.
If your session includes no plug-ins or automation, just edits and fades, you can "consolidate" all your regions into continuous files. Or if you do have plug-ins or automation, you can record to two new tracks by using a buss, as described in the previous post. Both of these maneuvers will create a pair of files trackX.L and trackX.R (assuming you’re working in stereo).
To burn those to CD, or FTP them to PRX, or email them to a friend, you need them to be joint-stereo. You can do that faster than bouncing by selecting the pair of tracks in the audio "bin" (the file list on the right side of the edit window) then clicking the "audio" bar at the top of that file list, and selecting "export selected as files" you’ll get a dialog box asking for format choices. Pick the file type you want (aiff, wav, etc) then pick "stereo" in format, use a bit depth of 16 and rate of 44.1 if you’re burning to CDR. That will make a new stereo file that you can FTP, or burn to CD with any burning program, Toast, iTunes, Easy CD Creator, anything.
This is a cumbersome work-around, but it does get around the bounce problem, while still keeeping everything digital inside the computer.
Started using my portable Sony DAT to record live performances and am now using S/PDIF cable to input to MBOX. When I bounce to disk, the end result (wav, wma, mpeg, doesn’t matter) is that the speed is slow, meaning it’s like someone is slowing down the spinning turntable. If I play back track during the session, it is perfect. Help!
You need to go to "setups>>hardware" and turn off the digital input and switch to "internal sync" after you have finished input from the DAT. Sounds playing from your computer at the wrong speed are almost always due to improper sync from a digital input. If the digital inputs are turned on and the DAT is powered-off, or disconnected, or in record, ProTools will not be getting a valid sync signal and will do weird speed things…
Try that, and let us know!
I’m looking for a good mixing board, and am currently gathering suggestions as to what to buy.
The work I do is field interviews, which I produce at home using a Mac 1.8GHz dual processor G5. For recording I use a Sharp MDR 480H and an AudioTechnica (cheep cheep cheep!) mic (ATR20), but I’ll be upgrading that to a Beyer M58 real soon. For a cheap mic, though, it’s worked pretty well. I also have a set of good binaural stereo lapel mics I use for one-on-one interviews (Microhpone Madness Vipers).
I’m basically dealing with spoken word, ambient background noise, and music that I add during production. The final product is aired via radio, radio subcarrier, and internet.
I’m thinking it might make sense for me to buy something portable, since I do all my production work on my computer at home. I’ve found out the hard way that being able to monitor sound levels during an interview is very important, hence the idea of a portable board (preferably something with a VU meter) — that, and being able to split the input into differrent channels during the recording. I often interview people in places like restaurants and book stores, and need to separate the ambient noise from my voice and the subject’s voice.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Lisa,
I’m not entirely sure that a mixer will help you do what you want to… could you explain in more detail what you want the mixer to do for you?
It’s true enough that minidisc recorders’ meters aren’t all that great, and the heaphone amps aren’t all that loud, and so having better metering, better mic preamps and a louder heaphone output from a mixer might help, but I wonder if it might end up being too cumbersome.
If you can plug them into the wall for power, there are some very inexpensive (about $100) but good little mixers from Tapco and Yamaha that are fairly portable, but I don’t think either of these will work on batteries.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/6306/
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MG10-2/
Samson makes one that can run on 3-9volt batteries, I don’t know anything about the quality of it, but I’ve seen it, it’s nice and small.
http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=66&brandID=2
The thing is that if you’re recording to a stero minidisc, I don’t know if a mixer will help you seperate sounds. You can use the mixer to pan one mic to the left channel and another mic to the right, but you could actually do that with a cable also, something that had 2-XLRs for the mics and a stereo mini for the input to the minidisc.
http://www.sonicstudios.com/access.htm#adapters
(they call the cable a D-XLR-F)
You wouldn’t have independent control of each mic’s level you’d have to set a safe level for the loudest source, the mixer would be much better in that regard, allowing you to get more ideal levels for each mic, and mor accurate metering too, but it is another thing to carry….
It’s not cheap, but the best solution for you would be a really pro-level field preamp, like the mix-pre from SoundDevices
http://www.sounddevices.com/products/mx2master.htm
It’s small, easy to carry, runs on batteries, has two excellent preamps with individual volume controls,a good heaphone out, good meters, it’s buit for what you want to do. But it’s $800.
The first thing you might want to try is to get better headphones, if you don’t have something like the Sony MDR7506, it’s the best $100 or so you can spend. They are very loud, isolate very well, and that might let you hear what you’re doing enough to solve some of the problems.
As for balancing interview and ambience, you can think about recording the two seperately, that gives you WAY more control, and it requires no more gear. Just record the interview in as quiet a space as you can, then go get ambience later, mix it together in post production.
I hope that helps!
Jeff, this kind of posting from you is so useful, we need to figure out a way to flag them for future reference, you know? We’ve talked about this before, but haven’t found a simple system. Maybe bookmarks? I wonder if this web-crossing software has some tricky way to do it.
I’m totally new to audio documentary and would like to get a portable recorder. Ira Glass’ site recommendes the Marantz PMD222, but I’m reading a lot of posts about minidiscs. Money is a factor, but I want to be able to do more as I learn more.How do I decide to go anolog or minidisc?
That still is a tough decision even now… an analog cassette recorder like the PMD 222 is very reliable, easy to use, and decent in quality. If you are going to record in difficult environments, humid, hot, cold, dusty, the cassette is likely to perform better than a DAT or minidisc.
But many shows don’t want audio recorded on casette any more. And there are good reasons for this: cassettes do sound pretty good, but compared to most digital formats, minidisc or DAT, they do have some hiss, some wow and flutter, some dullness.
In the end, you can record perfectly usable audio with an analog cassette, but you will get generally better quality even with an inexpensive minidisc.
DATs are slowly fading from the scene, they’re still good recorders, but as time goes by they’ll be more difficult and expensive to repair or replace, and blank DATs will be harder to find…
The future is likely going to be hard-disc or compact flash recorders, there’s one decent one right now, the Marantz PMD 670 is a direct update of the cassette deck you mentioned, the PMD 222, but records to compact flash memory, like you’d put in a digital camera.
The 670 recorder is about $700, much more than you’d pay for a cassette recorder or a small consumer minidisc recorder, but it has many pro features like XLR mic inputs, decent metering, etc..
If price is a concern, a small consumer minidisc gets you many of the benefits of digital recording: nice clear sound, no hiss, no warbles. It takes a bit more work to assure good sound, the meters are not as good as on pro decks, the inputs are not as reliable, the mic preamps not as good, but it is remarkable how good a small, inexpensive recorder like this can sound.
Now, in the spring of 2004, Sony is announcing a new kind of minidisc with greater capacity, and more options for recoding formats and data transfer. I’d recommend waiting to get one of those, they should be out very soon. Watch transom for details.
There’s more info in our minidisc guide.
http://www.transom.org/tools/recording_interviewing/200306.minidisc.html
At this point in history I’d suggest getting a digital recorder, the best you can afford (but resist getting a recorder built around an MP3 player, at this time, they don’t have the options you need to get really good quality sound). An old-fashioned standard minidisc recorder can be had for under $200, one of the new HiMD minidisc recorders is a better bet, there should be a model with a microhone-input for under $400. A DAT recorder like the Sony M1 is a little better, the PMD 670 CF recorder is better still (each about $700 new), and a fully pro machine such as the Tascam DAP1 DAT recorder or the HHB Portadisc mindisc recorder (each about $1500) even better.
And then you need a good mic!
Minidisco is now listing Sony’s Hi-MD recorders as available for preorder, with expected arrival in May. The mid-range MZ-NH800 and MZ-NH900, which both appear to have mic inputs, are $240 and $280. See http://www.minidisco.com/portables.html. They don’t appear to list the new Hi-MD discs yet. I’d wait for some earlier user reports on how well these work…
Some places sell the Marantz PMD670 as cheap as $600. Try Mineroff (an authorized dealer).
the application opens, but the session itself doesn’t. Should I be worried about this?
And a really annoying crashing point: Through the AudioSuite, changing the gain in a portion of a track, and — of course, hours after my last save — ProTools crashes.
I’m running 6.2.2 on OS X 3.3.
Have I missed an upgrade or something? Should I go back to the MBox instead of my old AMIII card?
Nothing dire, but your advice and counsel would be deeply appreciated!
I’m guessing here, but from what I’ve read on the digi site, I was under the impression that the Audiomedia3 card isn’t supported under OSX, PT6.whatever.
Of course sometimes you can make stuff work that isn’t supposed to, but you shouldn’t be too surprised when it acts squirrelly!
I have often found odd behavior in many different programs when opening projects by double-clicking on the files. of course this is a common mode of working, but I find it sometimes opens the wrong version of the program, if there’s more than one installed, sometimes the wrong program all together… So just to be safer I always boot the program, then command-O to open the file I want. It SHOULDN’T make any difference, but it just seems more reliable that way.
As for audiosuite crashing your session, I’m willing to bet that is an Audiomedia card issue. Try it with the M-Box, see if you get the same behavior.
Did you have to do anything special to get ProTools to boot without the M-Box? Or did it just search your system and see the AMIII card and decide to use that?
I think your problem is that you are using a version of OS X that is not certified as compatible with your version of Protools Protools is VERY sensitive to the OS version you are using. Never upgrade your OS unless you first check on the Digidesign website to see if the new OS version is certified as compatible. When I checked last week, the latest version of Protools (6.2.3) is certified with OS X 10.3.2. OS X 10.3.3 which is available from Apple is not certified yet to work with Protools. Digidesign usually lags 2-3 months behind the latest updates of the OS. Upgrade your protools to 6.2.3 and go back to 10.3.2 on OS X.
I can’t seem to find an answer to this…. what firewire drives actually work with Protools? I know digidesign gives specifications and only supports their very expensive Avid drives. My local audio store offers Glyphs that they say work with Protools. But they are still double the price of other firewire drives. Will the LaCie drives work? They have the Oxford Chipset and work at 7200 rpm… Other drives?
I agree, it’s odd that the digi site only recommends their own very expensive drives. I think it’s mostly the case that it would be a big pain to test lots of drives, and then deal with complaints if one didn’t work under certain situations.
Here’s the good news: most radio productions, even complicated ones, don’t approach the system load of a typical music production, which might have 16-32 tracks of audio, with lots of automation, lots of plug-ins, etc.
So many of the dire warnings about access speeds and drive specs are geared toward those more demanding sessions, and a typical radio session with 6 or 8 tracks, some of which have only sporadic bites of audio in them, and probably don’t have many processor-munching plug-ins, can often be run in less-than-ideal scenarios.
For instance, I’ve been having good luck recording to and playing from my iPod, whihc has TERRIBLE specs for rotational speed, disc acccess, etc. But it’s fast enough. I’ve even played back a 10-track 24-bit music recording with a few plug-ins, although I wouldn’t count on that working all the time.
And although it’s bad policy, I record to and play from the unpartitioned internal drive of my iBook all the time. Shouldn’t work well, but it usually does.
Conversely, I have a Maxtor firewire drive that DOES meet the theoretical specs, 7200rpm, Oxford 911 bridge, but just won’t play ProTools sessions. That could be some weird quirk, i know others that are using those drives succesfully.
I know folks who are using LaCie firewire drives for ProTools. I know most Gyph drives work fine. Maxtor, maybe…
If you’re working on a Mac, the very first thing you should do is plug-up the drive and erase it in OS9, or in OSX, go to disc tools, select the forewire drive and erase it. In OSX, choose Mac OS Extended rather than "journaled" as the disc format, this speeds up disc performance. That will put Apple drivers on it, and format it properly. The disc formatting software that comes with many drives can cause problems with ProTools.
for more info:
http://www.digidesign.com/compato/firewire.cfm
Jeff, et al:
I’m on the judging panel for the NATAS Engineering Achievement Awards (better known as the "Technical Emmys"), and this year the technology of DAW plug-ins was nominated. It is now a finalist, and I’ve been asked to help research the history and players involved, so I’m asking around for suggestions of which companies and technologies should be included.
So far we have Digidesign for TDM and RTAS plug-ins (of course), Steinberg (now Pinnacle) for VST, and we may include MS DirectX. I’ve also seen references to "WL" and "MAS" plug-ins. Anyone know more about these last two? Are there any others worth noting? Any comments or opinions on any of the above? (i.e., should DirectX be included here?)
Reply to me directly, please. Thanks in advance,
Skip Pizzi
Manager, Technical Policy
Windows Client Strategic Relations
Microsoft Corp.
skippiz@windows.microsoft.com
I like the various Waves plug-in packages a lot, and am a total fan of the L1 Ultramaximizer.
Nice to see you here, Skip!
Hi Skip,
RTAS plugs save my life every day, so I agree that they need to be included. TDM plugs are vital to most studios today. It seems that VST is taking over the world, so them too…
I don’t see directX as much any more, I’m sure they’re out there and relevant but I feel like the serious apps are moving toward VST, or implementing a VST wrapper of some sort. But that doesn’t mean that the DirectX plugs are not important.
MAS is the format for Mark of the Unicorn, so folks using their sequencer/audio editor Performer, or the recording app Audiodesk , or their software sampler Mach Five, use MAS. It’s a little unsular, but I suppose no more than RTAS. Digidesign certainly has a bit more market penetration than MOTU, but there are a lot of Performer users out there, and their firewire multitrack recording interfaces, the 828 and 896 are pretty slick…
WL, I’m not familar with. Is it the plug-in format for Wavelab? That’s a Steinberg program so i assumed it would use VST… anyone?
In any case, I think you’re right on, plug-ins are positively revolutionary, as Jay said, it’s hard to picture working without Waves plug-ins.
I went back to the AM III card because when I’m doing a tape sync, I hate going through the real-time bounce on ProTools to get the sound file to FTP somewhere. So, I load the audio in Spark ME 2.whatever and have the file already (I know, I know: there are the raw audio files in the audio files folder of the PT session, but the minute you touch them, you’re toast). I have not, as a result, tried the MBox work-around.
PT and Firewire is a pill. When desperation strikes, I do the session on my main drive, then copy it to my Firewire drive. Pain in the butt, but at least the work is safe.
There is another work-around to a bounce, depending on what you are doing to your audio. If you have edits and fades, but no automation or plug-ins, you can select all the audio yu want to export and "consolidate" it. That will quickly make a coherent single soundfile, just one if it was a mono track, a .L and .R pair if it was stereo.
As always, that new file shows up in the audio file "bin" at the right of the edit window (the list of all files in a project. Highlight the track, or pair of tracks, then click on the "audio" box at the top of the list. There’s a selection in the drop-down mwnu to "export as" . Choose the file format you want, in most cases a stereo aiff is a good choice, it will ask you to name it and choose a destination. You can then FTP the file or burn it to CD.
Much faster…
Of course if you have plug-ins running or volume automation or multi-track productions you still must bounce, but if it’s just a mono or stereo track that you’ve cleaned-up, this is quicker.
Oh, and while it’s true that it you move or rename or delete, or otherwise mess with files in a ProTools Session’s Audio folder it will confuse your session, it’s perfectly safe to burn those files to CD, or FTP them or copy them to another location. If the next user of these tracks is using ProTools, it can be very quick and easy to import those files,
Dear Jeff,
How do I convert dvf files on my sony digital recorder to quicktime files?
Thanks,
Hansun
I don’t know if this will convert to quicktime, but there’s info on a program to convert Sony Digital Voice Files here:
http://products.sel.sony.com/SEL/service/conselec/softupdates/dvp203e_instr.shtml
This is windows-only software.
You might be better off playing those files out into whatever program you are using. It’s slow and analog, but it works, and those recorders don’t create pristene audio to start with, so you won’t ruin it by going analog.
Hi. I just bought a Shure a96f cable. It came in two pieces. I can’t seem to screw them together properly. The two silver parts won’t meet — a sliver of the gold ridged area is still visible. Is this how it’s supposed to be?
Thanks in advance.
If it’s screwed down snug it should be fine, I don’t have mine in front of me so i don’t recall if mine shows any gold, but I did notice that the picture on the Shure website seems to look like you describe:
http://www.shure.com/photos/bigones/a96f_large.jpg
So it’s probably fine. If it’s tight (don’t crank it with pliers or anything, just finger-tighten till it’s snug) all the connections should be firm.
Ultimately, does it work? Does it transmit audio cleanly? If so, don’t worry.
I was thinking about buying a sony mini disc for interviews (npr quality) and soundboard recordings, but i heard the ipod is good too –
Can i hook up a good mic and get great quality from my ipod. Also, how important is a mixer.
Thanks for your help
Jared
There are a couple of input devices for the iPod, from Griffin and Belkin. Belkin just updated its mic to accept external input, and has a 3-stage input level control. The original had only the built-in mic and a fixed gain, and Jay Allison found it to be useless. We’ll try to check out the new one and report back.
The Griffin can acccept an external mic too, but only has auotomatic gain control, we haven’t yet tested how that sounds.
the biggest problem is that the iPod seems to be limited to recording at an 8khz sample rate, which is pretty low, forcing a high-end roll-off at about 4khz. So i don’t know if any input device will sound very good….
So the short answer is that a mindisc will sound lots better. The iPod would be convenient,. and have really long record times. We’ll try these iPod input devices out and report here, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope for them being very high fidelity.
OK, I bought the new Belkin "Universal Microphone Adapter" for the iPod. It’s got a (mono) mini-in for a mic, a 3 position gain control and an LED that glows green when recording, and changes to red when the volume is too hot.
Despite this increased control and basic metering, it still sounds pretty bad. I tried it with an EV 635 dynamic mic and a Rode NT3 condenser mic, and nieher one was even close to broadcast quality.
You can get intelligible audio, so it might be of some utility for voice memos, or recording a lecture for personal use, but the audio is either a little crunchy or buried in a noise floor, and always rather muffled.
So this might be useful in some contexts, but not as a substitute for a DAT or Minidisc as a field recorder for radio.
i’ll post some audio examples soon.
So, here’s the proof:
There aren’t many variables in using the Belkin "Universal Microphone Adapter" there’s a mini jack in, an a 3-position switch for low, medium or high gain. There’s an LED light in the center of the small adapter that glows green while recording and turns yellow then red as peaks get too high. It’s a bit coarse, but better than nothing! Generally you don’t really want to see any red, or only very brief flickers.
I used a standard XLR-to-mini cable, with no impedence shift, and attached an Electrovoice 635 microphone (a dynamic omni, pretty much the same as the ubiquitous RE50.) Then I tried a Rode NT3 mic, a hand-held condenser mic with an internal battery to provide phantom power.
I had much better luck with the NT3, but still, the sound quality is overall pretty poor. This adapter and an iPod is perfectly useable as a dictation machine or for voice memos, but not as a broadcast-quality audio recorder.
The memos transferred automatically into iTunes as .wav files. I then opened them in Audacity, normalized them and exported as 160kbs MP3s. The MP3s are pretty true examples of the original files, the artifacts and distortion are in the original files, not from the MP3 process.
Here are the samples with the 635 dynamic omni mic:
And here are the Rode NT3 condenser mic samples:
The recordings at medium and low settings are ALMOST passable, but you’ll notice some distortion on sss sounds and some others, and a pretty serious noise floor. At the low gain setting the distortion is pretty minimal, but the signal level is very low, requiring almost 20dB of gain boost in the digital editor. This brings up the noise floor significantly.
So again, almost…. could be a good tool for some circumstances, but your average minidisc recorder or even analog cassette recorder sounds better.
Oh, here’s the big problem: you can’t monitor your recording while you’re making it. There is a headphone jack on the adapter, but it’s not active during recording, so you don’t know what you’ll get until you save the recording and listen back.
We’ll try the Griffin version of an iPod mic adapter, but I suspect it will be much the same.
OK, I’ve done some very brief preliminary tests, and the Griffin gives results about the same as the Belkin. The Automatic gain control sounds OK, but the overall sound quality is still nothing to write home about. The built-in mic gives pretty loud clear sound, but despite the AGC,it’s a little crunchy, on the edge of distortion. A quick test of external mics gave very low volume soundfiles with lots of background noise.
I’ll do some more tests and post sound clips here in a few days.
In the end it seems that either the Belkin or the Griffin are viable for their intended purpose as voice memo recorders. But not so good as broadcast-quality field recorders.
Please take pity on a technophobe journalist who was in the radio biz decades ago and has dreams of making radio stories again. I was going to buy a Sony MZ-B10 online when I got sidetracked by the cute Olympus digital recorders (DS330, DS660, DM-10 and DM-20) because it looks like they can actually download to my trusty ibook. Can you advise as to sound quality and anything else I should know? My eyes are permanently crossed trying to suss this out on the web.
There are dig differences in the specs of best quality modes of the Olympus recorders:
DM-20
Sampling Frequency: 44.1 kHz
Overall Frequency Response: 300 to 8,000 Hz
Stereo
WMA (Windows Media Audio)
DS-660
Sampling Frequency: 12 kHz.
Overall Frequency Response: 300 to 5,000 Hz.
Mono
DSS (Digital Speech Standard)
Hey Jeff.
I’m sure the answer to this lies somewhere in the archives but I can’t seem to stumble on more than your mention of keeping levels low when recording, say… a jackhammer.
I need the sound of the subway rolling into and out of a station–I’ve tried a few different things but wonder what your best suggestion would be to go about it so that you get the quality of the loudness without going off the deep end and without losing the softer beginnings of the sound. (or you could just steer me to where a similar question might lie in a previous thread)
thanks…sue
So, um, what do those numbers mean? Remember, you’re talking to a technophobe.
The short answer is that those numbers mean that the Olympus (and other voice memo recorders) won’t sound as good as a minidisc recorder will. Probably not even as good as a cassette deck.
As with the MP3 recorders, you can get intelligible voices recorded on a little digital recorder like you mention, so they are fine for memos or dictation, but not for the vivid, realistic sound one usually wants on the radio. Sure they’re convenient, but the sound will be muffled, hissy and gurgley.
Thanks, Jeff. Is Sony still the only manufacturer of a small minidisc recorder with both microphone input and speaker?
Hey Jeff.
Whenever I bounce something it messes with the levels–making the sound driven and increasing the peaks past the point of being clipped even if they were no where near that. (In other words the bounced version of the waveform looks nothing like the original)
I’ve been working around this by just consolidating a single part of a track and bringing audio into other files, or someone else’s Pro Tools LE that way, but would be stuck if I needed to bounce a final multi track (actualites, narration & music) piece on my own to post , for example, on PRX.
Is there something I’m doing wrong–some preference or some bounce setting that I don’t know about, or is this inherent to PTFree?
Thanks–Sue (BTW I tried your suggestion for the subway sounds which looked good while recording–I’ll let you know how it works out when I load them)
if tracks sound OK when they are played in the edit window, (or consolidated and exported) but sound distorted and clipped when bounced, there’s one likely suspect: bouncing to mono.
If you have stereo tracks with audio at or near full-scale and bounce them to mono, ProTools combines the left and right channels and will cause clipping. When you choose "bounce to disc" you get a dialog box asking for specifics of how you want the file. Choose to "bounce to stereo (interleaved)" for most uses.
If you really do need a mono file (to save time FTP-ing, etc) pull the faders back by 3dB in the mix window, If you have volume automation….it gets trickier…
But if you only have two tracks, reduce each track’s gain by 3dB before bouncing,. If you have several tracks, reduce the gain on the master fader by 3dB. If you have automation on the master fader, see below!
if you have a very complicated session with lots of tracks and automation, it could be worth bouncing to "split stereo" then opening those files in a new session, reducing their gain by 3dB on each channel and then bouncing again to mono.
give that a try and let us know!
And wow, you’re really going to try advice i gave you at the end of a long post-Peabody celebration involving lots of drinking?!?!
Seriously, I think you might have good luck trying the automatic gain for something like a subway or a jackhammer. Something more percussive, like hammering or drumming or gunshots won’t work, those kinds of very loud sounds will push the gain down so much that the softer sounds after will get squished and the audio will "pump".
The other trick is to record at a very low volume, then record another pass at higher levels and edit them together. If you just can’t get an undistorted recording of the loud source no matter what your recorder’s input settings, the sounds might just be too loud for your microphone. Try backing up from the source, try a dynamic mic, or try a mic that has a "pad" built in that will reduce its sensitivity.
I would have told you all that at Gatsby’s, but then, I’d had a few Boddington’s….
Here are examples of the Griffin iTalk microphone adapter for the iPod. As with the Belkin adapter with a mic input, the results were mixed, some sounding OK, but none up the the quality of a minidisc or cassette recorder.
The Griffin iTalk is has an OK built-in mic, as well as a small speaker for playback. And it also has an automatic gain control that does a decent job of setting levels, and doesn’t sound too pumpy. It however did not apply sufficient boost to the Electrovoice 635 dynamic omni, requiring 24 dB of gain to bring up to a normalized level. The recordings from the built-in mic and the Rode RT3 condenser mic had good levels, but were both a little crispy.
hi…im just looking for help everywhere…i have a g4 powerbook with osx and a virtual os9…i downloaded the free protools for os9… i cannt seem to record anything with the program…i have a sharp minidisc which i hook up analoggly…
i am able to record from my minidisc onto the computer using peak … when i try and transfer those files protools tells me that theyre too fragmented to work with….but i have a seperate hard drive and most of my things are there…ive run a norton doctor program and there is fragmentation on the drive…. so i try and record through protools….but the sound that comes out is da…cha….tu….cha…ta….only the highest levels seem to sound….
a freidn who works with sound looked at my levels trying to adjust what needed to be adjusted to no avail….
do you have any ideas to what im doing wrong? or what i might need to do….?
thank you very much…i m just looking for whatever advise i might find…
suerte y fuerza…
sarah parker
Hi Sarah, sorry to hear about your troubles with ProTools. One of the problems with computer editing is that there are so many variables.
But first, before we go any further, ProToolsFree will ONLY work under OS9, running as the start-up OS, not under "Classic" the virtual OS9 that gets booted whenever you try to run a non-OSX native program.
Depending on the age of your Powerbook, you may be able to boot directly into 9: under system preferences (from your OSX dock), there’s an icon at the top of that window for "start-up disc" which we hope will let you select an OS9 system folder. Select that and restart your computer, we hope it will start up into OS9.
The bad news is that most recent machines will NOT let you do that, meaning you can’t run natively in OS9, meaning you can NOT run ProToolsFree.
But try it, see if your machine will boot into OS9, if so, then you can start-up ProToolsFree, and I suspect your problems will go away.
If not, you have two choices: either upgrade to ProToolsLE and an M-Box for $450 or use another program. We did a recent article here on Audacity which is not exactly a replacement for ProTools, but will do many of the same things, and it’s free and native for OSX. There are many advantages to using ProTools, but you’d need to spend the $450 to run it under OSX.
If you CAN boot into OS9 and are still having the same problems, please post again and we’ll take it from there!
Good luck!
We got a new iBook G4 in the family (the first new Mac for this household since 1998). I was digging around it one day, learning OS X, and was surprised to notice it came with a full licensed copy of Sound Studio http://www.felttip.com/products/soundstudio/
I know it’s not as capable as ProTools Free (I believe it only does two channels, for instance), but in my limited experience it seemed more polished and less crash-prone than Audacity.
If you have an iBook new enough that it won’t boot OS 9, see if it includes a gratis copy of Sound Studio. It’s also not extremely expensive if you didn’t get it with the OS, and I believe you can try it for free. See if it doesn’t do enough to get you off the ground.
Indeed, Soundstudio is a pretty solid program for simple two-track editing. They have a very fair demo policy, it’s fully functional for 14 days, and interestingly it’s 14 days of actual use, not 14 days from first use. So check it out and see if you like it. Again, the URL is
http://www.felttip.com/products/soundstudio/
(thanks Tommy!)
It’s $50-60 bucks (depending on delivery method) if you want a permanent license.
There are some significant differences from Audacity, it is limited to 2 tracks, it doesn’t have volume envelope editing, and does not seem to be able to use external plug-ins like AUdacity can. Oh, and it’s not free like Audacity.
But in its defense, Soundstudio has been around for some time, it is a nice and small and efficient program, does not seem to crash as often as Audacity, and has decent input level meters.
I’m amazed to hear that Tommy’s laptop came with it loaded on, I don’t see any indications anywhere that it’s bundled software with new Macs. Anyway, it’s worth checking out for free.
So as you can see from the subject I’m having problems. Is there an alternative to dropping $450 on Mbox? For example could I run a dual boot 98/xp system and if so how?
Thanks,
Brett.
I’m not sure if an XP machine can be made dual-boot to run natively in Windows 98 natively. Anyone with more Windows tweaking experience know?
I DO know from reading postings on the web that ProToolsFree does NOT like running under a simulation of 98, it needs more direct access to the hardware, etc.
So, if you really like ProTools, it’s probably worth dropping the $450 and getting an M-Box, it really does have improvements over using PTFree. But if you can’t spend the money, you could try Audacity, it’s not as flexible, but it is free…
Audition (formerly CoolEdit) is $300, if that’s easier to swallow, and while not exactly like ProTools, it does enable intricate editing, multitrack production, plug-ins, etc.
maybe someone can posst here if they know of a way to get a computer with XP loaded to run natively in 98, maybe it’s easy, but I haven’t come across a technique yet.
I’d get the M-Box….
You’ve got to install Win98 before XP, and not the other way around. And you have to keep in mind that Win98 has a speed cap on processors (at around 1.6-1.8 Ghz). It won’t start with anything faster unless you download a replacement system file which MS doesn’t publicly host (so, it means that you have to call their tech support and convince them to email a secure link to you and pray that they decide not to charge you for this service. I had the file at one time, but I’ve since ditched it along with the rest of 98).
"Native" isn’t really a concern. When XP is installed, you will get a menu on every boot prompting you to select an OS. The most it does is auto-select the last OS used if you let it sit for ~20 seconds. Also, 98 can’t use NTSC drives, so whatever partition XP is on will be unavailible while you’re in 98.
Audacity is nice. And free. Try that instead.
Dear Jeff.
Thank you for your step by step Working with ProTools. I was on proTools four and then did not work for a few years while my mother was ill. Now I have begun again on 6.2.2 and there are so many holes in my knowledge. Your pieces are great and I am off to the peace and quiet of the British Library to read and digest them. Thank you again. Your column is a great reason for joining transom, which I am doing right now. Sincerely. Muriel Murch
estoy iniciandome en esto del la edicion musical y lo hago por que yo hago mis mesclas con una casetera,le llevo mi trabajo totalmente hecho al Dj y solo por vaciarlo me cobra un dineral, es posible encontrar el manual de protools fre
my apologies Miguel, my Spanish is really bad. Are you looking for a manual to ProTools Free?
if so, there are some downloadable documents here:
http://www.digidesign.com/support/docs/
Hope that’s what you’re looking for!
As my 1997 Fujitsu laptop just isn’t going to cut it in the world of sound editing, it’s time to bite the bullet and buy a new computer. I assume that a Mac is the best option, and I would prefer a laptop (although I know from experience that laptops make it difficult to upload sound from a minidisc player). Should I get an iBook, a PowerBook? Should I be looking into less expensive PC options?
Thanks.
My minidisc went to MD heaven and I’ve been searching for another. I’ve been struck by how the market is moving toward music download/mp3 formats. There’s no place where I live that I can walk into a store and actually handle and look at a MD recorder. They’re all players.
On line, the available MD recorders are REALLY pricey and seem to be migrating toward the tunephiles’ use. They’re cumbersome and complex to use.
Does anyone have the pulse of the minidisc industry? Will consumer-market MD recorders be gone in the next two years? If so, what’s coming for those of us who gasp at the price tag of a Marantz?
janice
I was thinking the MD devices you have seen MUST be recorders, surely. You can’t buy pre-recorded MD discs very easily, after all.
I was at one of the two Wal*Mart stores in my town a few days ago and was surprised to see a SONY Net MD (MDLP format) in a blister pack next to the cheapo CD players. I think it cost a bit less than $100. The package said nothing about recording LIVE sound — the Net MD part apparently relies upon an ATRAC encoder program running on a Windows PC.
I confirmed this at the SONY web site http://www.sony.com.hk/Electronics/netmd/ and by doing a few searches, finding that some people who have bought Net MD devices for audio RECORDING have been very disappointed in the limitations.
Sadly, SONY has further locked up the MD format in their consumer-grade devices with Digital Rights Management. (Their web site describes the downloading process as "checking out," which indicates they’re keeping track of how many times and to whom a recording has been transferred.)
Maybe someone will come up with a clever "hack" that lets you use the inexpensive Net MD devices as a high quality recorder and/or with a Mac. But until this happens I suppose the only options are the pro-grade units or buying old MD units on eBay.
I have a Sony VAIO computer, and a Sony minidisc. I’m using Sonic Foundry Sound Forge as my editing program. My minidisc has no line out, only the headphone line out. When I input that directly into my computer’s microphone jack using a cable with miniplugs on both ends, I get really crappy, small, levels on Sound Forge. I can’t get ProTools Free to work on my computer at all. Can iMic give me better levels, or am I stuck getting a more expensive interface? Or worse yet, is my minidisc just doomed to output crappy levels?
I’m sorry to say that I have not been particularly impressed with the Griffin iMic. It works, in the sense that it gets audio into your computer, and for a short time was one of the few reasonable choices. It’s still probably the least expensive option, about $35, but i’ve found that it often creates hummy or buzzy sound. That’s most likely from its position relative to the computer or monitor, but there’s only so much flexibility one has for placement. If you know anyone who has one, you might want to borrow it and give it a try, it might work for you.
Before you do that, you might want to try a new mini-to-mini cable, and make sure that both ends are firmly seated in the jacks, you SHOULD be able to get plenty of volume from the headphone-out of your minidisc. Soundforge has decent metering, so click the "monitor" box in the record window, play a little sound from your minidisc, and adjust the headphone volume on the minidisc to see if you can get good levels on that meter.
It could be that your built-in soundcard just isn’t very good, so an external USB unterface can be a step-up.
I’d suggest spending a bit more money for an interface from Edirol or M-Audio. They have models under $100, and for a bit more you can get better input control (knobs) and metering.
And of course, you should also make sure that you’ve recorded your audio at good levels to start. If you can hear it well through your headphones, andd the minidisc meters look like they are bouncing healthily, you’re probably OK.
The headphone jack puts out plenty of volume, maybe too much, so be careful, it’s easy to overdrive a mic input, even a line input, so don’t turn it up too far.
It’s a really good question whether mindiscs will be around for long. It’s true that more and more models are designed with no inputs, meant only to play back audio loaded from the computer. THAT’S the main use of these things in the world as a whole, as music players.
We radio people discovered that they work pretty well as field recorders, but even along with a small community of concert tapers, the live-recording people are a tiny percentage of minidisc users.
We’re hoping that the new HiMD recorders might give a boost to the format, but we’ll have to wait and see…
I have little doubt that eventually the format of choice wwill be hard-drive or flash-memory recorders, but right now, in the summer of 2004, those are still either pretty expensive, or are lacking in features.
So for the short-term, the minidisc still offers a good balance of price and performance. To some degree, it doesn’t matter if the format is popular if it works. There are plenty of folks still successfully using analog cassettes, even though it’s generally considered obsolete. The only problem will be if it’s difficult to find blank discs or replacement machines.
Minidisc recorders are still fairly inexpensive, so it might be worth getting one and using it for as long as you can, and eventually there’ll be some new coool, cheap format for us to exploit!
http://www.minidisco.com still sells portable recorders, and they are pretty clear about whether they have mic inputs or not.
Personally, even though I think hard-disc or flash emeory is they way to go, I’m planning to buy a HiMD recorder when they come out (supposedly in a few weeks) to have a good, affordable, small recorder to carry with me all the time.
It’s a very tough question, what computer to buy is such a personal decision, and affected by so many factors.
I’m a huge Macintosh fan, but they’re no magic bullet, it’s entirely possible to do good work on PCs, and occasionally Macs are incredibly frustrating.
What it comes down to is two things: what software do you want to use and what can you afford.
Of you really like Soundforge or CoolEdit (Audition) you shoudl get a PC. If you want to use ProTools, it still seems to be a little hapier on a Mac.
If you’ll use the computer for other things (who doesn’t?) you’ll have to think about the expense of changing all your software to a new platform…
In either case, you should get something pretty speedy with lots of RAM, so that’s probably not the entry-level computer of either flavor. You don’t need the top-of-the-line flamethrower, but you’ll want a fast processor, fast disc and lots of RAM.
I’m actually geetting work done on an old iBook, but it occasionally runs into a wall. I’d get a powerbook if i were buying new today, although the best G4 iBook would still probably work.
Anyone have a Windows laptop they especially like for audio?
it’s a tough call.
My 2 cents. I’m not sure that we will ever get all the features we want from a consumer-oriented device. Nearly all the consumer flash and disc-based recorders have horrible controls, menus. And microphone recording is clearly an after thought– something they throw in for people who might want to record an occasional lecture etc. We’ll see what happens with Hi-MD but it looks like Sony will continue to place all sorts of restrictions on the transfer of recordings.
I think the best hope in the long term is that D&M Pro, a company that caters to a wide range of different users that need to make high quality field recordings will keep driving down the price of their solid state recorders as they replace their line-up of portable tape and MD recorders. They are on their second generation now and the price is down to $600. I know they’ve been thinking about a cheaper, simpler portable model that would come in at around $400. E-mailing them about your needs and your interest in an affordable pro field recording device can only help (their e-mail address is info@d-mpro.com).
I’m not sure what other companies might cater to this space. Somehow I can’t see Sony’s Pro division coming out with a solid state replacement for any of their classic pro tape recorders (some of which were quite affordable). The other companies producing pro field recorders all seem to cater to the upper end of the market (e.g. Sound Devices 722, Fostex FR-2).
Minidisc.org just posted links to the manuals for all the new Hi-MD recorders. I took a quick look and the instructions for transferring microphone recordings to PC struck me as being about as clear as mud. Seems like everything is tied up in some convoluted copy protection scheme. It isn’t very clear to me what you’ll be able to do or not do with a microphone recording in terms of transfer and editing. It appears you have to use there software to do the transfer (and maybe you can only do the transfer once) but can the software export the file as a regular PCM? I don’t know.
I think the answer to the question "Minidiscs here to stay?" is "Not if Sony has its way".
Our small library in a rural town in CT would like to begin recording stories of life in this town told by those who have lived here for many years.
We need to find a Professional type recording machine (minidi