This is for Tony and anyone who can help; please excuse my lameness here. In my first real move to begin sending clips, I just purchased a microphone with stand, cable, extension, etc. and plugged the mic into the back of my PC. OK so now what? I don’t even know how to get sound from the mic through my speakers or to record in a format that will be save and then send. I don’t even know if the mic is alive. It’s a Shure with no on/off switch. I know I’m just missing some detail, right? Be patient; thanks. Philo
what operating system are you running? windows 98/me/xp mac?
I used Absolute MP3 recorder. It is a free program that you can download from cnet. It doesn’t have any frills, but there is only 1 button to push to record.
It can record anything that goes through your soundcard, but you don’t need to use anything other than the manual record feature. It automatically saves the file in a sub folder named recordings under the folder where you install it. The files are named using the date and time of the recording so you have to rename them to something you will remember. This is one of the bad points about the program, but for free what can you complain about.
There are plenty of other programs available depending on how fancy you want to get. If you want to do multiple tracks you will need something more powerful.
Angelo
Boy did I mess up; bought a regular Shure mic instead of a computer mic with software so computer can recognize it; my daughter figured that one out. So I’ll get a computer compatible mic. Thanks for feedback.
Wait Phil.
You don’t need software for a microphone. The sound card handles it. I plugged an old mike I’ve had since 1976 into my computer w/ no software for it. The plug just needs to fit into the sound card jack. (Or is the jack the plug? I don’t know) Anyway, when you get a blank stare from the Radio Shack guy when you ask about mike software, you’ll realize why. 
Having software that edits static out or lets you edit your files in other ways, like dubbing tracks, will be desirable if you get into this. Congratulations, you’re about to have fun. I look forward to hearing and posting your tunes. If you can’t save in the mp3 compression I specify on the Clips home page, just send me what you’ve got and I’ll convert it with Goldwave. (Which is a $40 very nice editing program)
Tony
While we’re on this topic…
I’ve started to record a tune or two for Snips-n-Clips many times, but I always found that unless I set my recording software for the highest quality (CD quality or higher), I would get lot’s of static and warbling overtones on the recording (sounded awful).
On the high quality setting it sounded just fine, but was a 3 Meg file for a single reel. Is this normal?
These were .WAV files, so I guess I’ll need to find something to convert to MP3, right? Does this really reduce the size of the file enough to matter (if you’re staring with a 3 Meg file)?
Thanks for any info.
-Brett
You should be able to get your file size down considerably from the large (3 meg or whatever) size.
The WAV file (or an AIF file) doesn’t use any sort of compression scheme.
The final mp3 file size ranges anywhere from about 1/4 the size of the original to much smaller, and quality level is anywhere from somewhere below AM radio all the way up to pretty darn close to a CD.
You want to record the original WAV file with the highest possible quality and then convert to the mp3 format or RealAudio format for the best results.
Try http://www.mp3-converter.com/ to see a huge list of converters out there for both Windows and Mac.
RealAudio also has a converter to convert files into RealAudio format. I personally prefer mp3, but you can also convert to a variety of compression levels with RealAudio, and lots of people have the RealAudio player software.
You can find out more about this software at
http://www.realnetworks.com/products/producer/index.html
Good luck
Robert
On 2002-01-27 18:03, AngeloMeola wrote:
I used Absolute MP3 recorder. It is a free program that you can download from cnet…It can record anything that goes through your soundcard
Weird. I tried to install the prog. to see if was any good, and it said my compy had no software/capability for recording sound. But I have a sound card, the Windows .wav recorder that comes with the system, and have recorded tunes in mp3 format using Real Jukebox before.
What’s going on?
Greetings People
Just thought i should share it with you but
I found a really good piece of software…you get it free for the first month and after that it costs you about $30 but so far it looks like its worth it.,Its a multi track audio recorder
called Acoustica MP3 Audio Mixer and makes either wav or mp3…great fun to mess about with and ridiculously easy to use!!!
Have Fun
C
Phil: Let’s see if I can be helpful at all… 
I’ve got a Creative mic on a stand (It also has no on/off feature), and in order to get it to work, I have to double click on my audio control icon at the bottom right of my screen (You know, it looks like a little gold speaker?), go to options and then preferances, and check the microphone square. After that, leave options and there should be a new control option for “microphone”, which allows you to adjust the volume, balance and has a little select box. Check that box and your mic should be live. Give it a tap, but make sure you don’t have your comp volume maxed! 
[ This Message was edited by: Banshee on 2002-01-28 21:57 ]
OK - the mic is hooked up and I’ve double-clicked the volume icon to select it and found the “sound player” under entertainment in accessories. I’m able to record, save and play back (either in sound player or media player), but the static is terrible and the sound low (no matter what the volume settings). Also the mic never sounds live when I tap it, although it’s obviously working. I’m probably still missing something here, but making progress.
Wahoo! We have sound! Gotta thank the little things.
Ok, let me think. I’m no expert, but if you’re using sound recorder, check out the edit> audio properties tab.
Make sure the preferred device is correct, that may have something to do with it. I have “Ess Audio drive playback” selected for mine. I don’t know if yours is the same or not. Also check out the advanced options and see if your aduio recording is at full and good. (Probably already is, but better safe than sorry)
Also under file check out properties and check to make sure that format conversion is “all formats”
That’s how mine is and the sound is pretty clear.
Let me know if this helped at all. (I hope so!)
Edit: whoops! Two more things. #1 make CERTAIN that there is no fan going in the room, even a little bit of air crossing the mic can make it “fuzzy” and #2 is your wav balance on your volume control pushed up? I don’t think that would make it fuzzy, but it would be much quieter.
[ This Message was edited by: Banshee on 2002-01-28 22:57 ]
On 2002-01-28 22:40, PhilO wrote:
I’m able to record, save and play back (either in sound player or media player), but the static is terrible and the sound low (no matter what the volume settings). Also the mic never sounds live when I tap it, although it’s obviously working. I’m probably still missing something here, but making progress.
Phil,
I’ve just gone through setting this stuff up on my PC. Sound quality will only be as good as the weakest link in the recording chain. In your case the weak link is the mic input on your sound card. These are really just for voice recording and of very low fidelity. The key is to use the line input on the soundcard. Basically, a mic puts out a very low signal. The mic input on the soundcard has an on board amp to boast the signal to a workable level. This amp is puny and crappy but fine for a voice recording. The line input expects to see a high level from whatever you plug in. In the case of a mic you will need a preamp to boost the power to a usable level. Of course, this complicates the setup but you’re looking for decent quality recordings, right? Most any mic preamp will be several orders of magnitude better than the tiny op amp on the card’s mic input. My solution was to purchase a compact 6 channel mixer (less than $70) to run the mic. The main out on the mixer is fed to the line in on the card. Now my weak link is the quality of my mic and the quality of my sound card. It’s always something, eh? Even so, the quality of my recordings are excellent with this setup. That’s it in general…specifics on request.
Kevin
Tuaz, try upgrading your soundcard drivers. Some audio programs seem to be a bit finicky when it comes to drivers - if the drivers aren’t quite up to par then the program might not even acknowledge that the sound card is installed.
Kevin is mostly quite correct about the “mic input” vs. “line level input” issue on a computer. I would just like to clarify. It is true that a microphones produce a lower voltage (~ 0.01 to 0.1 V) than line level (~ 1.0 V) input. As a consequence, sound cards do expect different voltages at the mic input and the line input. Most sound cards do have a pre-amp (for the mic input) built onto the card which, on a decent sound card at least, is actually quite adequate in bringing the mic level up to line level.
However, the problem is that the environment inside a computer case is absolutely full of high level radio frequency interference (RFI). In fact, the RFI inside a computer case is typically powerful enough to noticeably degrade a low level analog signal (like a non-preamped microphone signal). So regardless of how good your sound card preamp may be it is likely that the end result will be poor because the preamp is amplifying an already degraded signal. Of course some cound cards and computers systems are better than others. On the other hand, line level signals (~ 1.0 V) are too strong to be significantly affected by RFI.
Thus, the solution as Kevin noted is to pre-amp your microphone BEFORE the audio signal reaches your computer. This is most easily accomplished via a good-quality (but inexpensive) mixer. Once your signal is pre-amped via the mixer you feed the mixers (line-level) main output into your sound card’s line. Additionally, a line level signal can be sent quite a distance through wire so with the mixer/preamp route there is no reason why you can’t move your computer out of the room you are actually playing in (to avoid picking up computer fan/hard drive noise).
good microphone + good mixer + good soundcard + computer in next room = good quality recording
[ This Message was edited by: garycrosby on 2002-01-29 13:54 ]
Thanks to all of you. I’ve fiddled around enough with the settings in the rinky-dink microsoft “sound recorder” software in Windows to get enough loudness and clarity although not great quality. I can begin to send clips shortly (and then you’ll all be sorry you helped), at least as tests to see if Tony can use them. I’ll try some better software first and if not much better, I’ll go to the mixer. Thanks again guys. Philo
Thanks for some great info on recording. I’d like to invest modestly in a better setup than I currently have, which is a $20 mic plugged into the mic jack in the computer. Now, you have me lusting for more electronics. The computer is in the corner of our dining area. My wife already hates all the wires tangled behind and beside the desk. She’ll just love preamp/mixers added to the mess. Ah well, she’ll get used to it.
Phil, don’t worry about your sound quality as far as getting something posted soon. I’ve cleaned up some static on peoples’ files if I was able to without degrading the whistle tone, but some files are so borderline, I couldn’t do a thing with them without making them worse. Some arrive with a kind of metallic shortwave warbling soud behind the whistle. I’ve always guessed it was a cheap mic. I can get the same sound by over-filtering the background noise out with Goldwave from my own files. Sometimes, I keep the static to preserve the whistle tones. This is especially true recording a low d. Another real problem is getting a good recording of a bodhran. It sound like banging on a cardboard box at this point.
Tony
OK guys, I made it thanks to Kevin, Gary, et. al. I downloaded one of the suggested software programs (Acoustica MP3 Audio Mixer), hooked up a nice little tube mic preamp, and set the software for line input from the mic through the preamp. Really nice. Thanks again and I’ll get some clips to Tony shortly.
PhilO