What do you think about Audacity?

M

Mikey likes it!

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Anyone here ever used the freeware recording software Audacity?

What do you think about it? I've been fiddling around with it for the past couple of months, and I've been able to get some pretty high quality recordings out of it. (that means sound quality, not music quality :D )

The only problem I have with it is that it won't let me export as a .wma file. I had to download a separate program to convert the files before burning to cd.

Their website is: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
 
Mikey likes it! said:
The only problem I have with it is that it won't let me export as a .wma file.
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Which would sort of make sense seeing how wma is a Microsoft Proprietary format. :rolleyes: Why do you need to go there anyways?
 
Why would you want to use WMAs for burning to CD?????? :confused: :confused: :confused:

Just use 16-bit/44.1khz WAV files and you'll be fine.

Mikey likes it! said:
Anyone here ever used the freeware recording software Audacity?
<snip>
The only problem I have with it is that it won't let me export as a .wma file. I had to download a separate program to convert the files before burning to cd.

Their website is: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Click to expand...
 
I use it to edit files occasionaly and more often to convert MP3's to wav when I'm doing internet collabs.For freeware it seems pretty cool!
 
Like it quite a lot. Only thing that is a bit of a setback is the way it records into a huge lot of separate files. So you always have to export to wav to go to another application.

I'm also one of those that cannot see a single reason to go to wma if your destination is CD. That is a waste of time and quality.
 
i used to use it all the time! its a great little freeby and i learned to do a lot of tracking on there the effects are not great but for tracking or for just running a live feed of a show its not bad at all... i have tracked with it and then moved into cool edit but... i now use a FIREPOD(which does not work with audacity) and Mackie Tracktion2 as well as Garage band from time to time its all pretty nice and easy to run so i use it and not something insain like cubase :eek:
 
I never really figured out how to edit stuff with it. Like select and delete and so on. I haven't really used it much but I remember having a problem getting it to do simple things.

I've heard great things from others though.
 
Maybe I was doing something wrong, but the size of a track I recorded that is 2:21 long is 27,074,604 bytes :eek: in WAV and 2,279,573 bytes in WMA.

The WAV is: PCM, 44,100 hz, 16 bits per sample.
The WMA is: 48,000 hz, 16 bps.

What am I doing wrong? I'm new to digicording. :confused:
 
WAV files ARE pretty big! But that's what you want to use for music CDs. To make smaller files (such as mp3 or WMA) you have to toss alot of information away. This is fine for web delivery or casual listening on your iPod or whatever, but anything serious should be a 16-bit/44.1khz wave file. What the #s mean, is that you have 44,100 16-bit samples every second for both the right and left channels. This equates to roughly 10MB/minute of CD-quality audio. Hope this helps! :)
 
I want my 4-track cassette recorder back. :(



;)


1. But how do I get 70 or so minutes on a CD?

2. What format is the music in when you buy a CD from a store?
 
1) Fill it up with 700MB of wav data!
2)A standard audio CD is in what's called "Red Book Format" and contains WAV data at 16-bit/44.1khz, just like what you should be mixing your projects down to. Now when you take a wave "file" and burn it to a CD, there is some formatting going on regarding headers/TOC (Table of Contents), but the actual audio data is exactly the same. When you pop a CD into your PC and look at it in Explorer, you'll notice that it appears to contain .cda files. These are just pointers to the actual wave data on the disc (that is why they are really small). When you "rip" a audio CD to files on your PC, you end up with 16-bit/44.1khz wave files (one file per track).
3) Good point on not eating pop rocks and drinking coke!

Hope that helps, I best be going to bed now as I've been up working on a CD project for awhile tonight (just finished the CD label, yay me!) so I got CDs on my mind. Good luck!
 
Thanks, Gordone :) I'll Work on it. BTW, gave you a rep point on the last one. Give you some more when it lets me.

Question for tomorrow: How do I get Red Book Format on my CD if, say, I was going to release it on my own indie label?

Question rephrased: How do I make a commercial CD?
 
Mikey likes it! said:
Thanks, Gordone :) I'll Work on it. BTW, gave you a rep point on the last one. Give you some more when it lets me.

Question for tomorrow: How do I get Red Book Format on my CD if, say, I was going to release it on my own indie label?

Question rephrased: How do I make a commercial CD?
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Depends what you mean by commercial.
There are a number of programs that'll do the job for you. Windows Media Player 10 will also do a somewhat decent job, and it'll even normalize your tracks for you.
 
Question for tomorrow: How do I get Red Book Format on my CD if, say, I was going to release it on my own indie label?

Question rephrased: How do I make a commercial CD?
Click to expand...

First, record in at least 16/44.1, better in 24/44.1 .wav. It will take up lots of space, but the quality will be all the better. With formats like mp3 or wma, you trow away a lot if information (music in this case) to save space. Now, if you want to make a cd, then you will probably be recording takes, mix down to a single song etc. Now with wav, you don't loose any information. But with the others, you start with less, do a mixdown and trow away again some information. So it gets worse and worse.

If you want to make a cd, then you will need some kind of software that will let you take several takes, mix down, apply effects or even do some multitracking. There is a lot of it around, from freeware to mega expensive.

Once you have all the tracks, you will need to bring them to 16bit/44.1kHz. Then you will need some cd burning application like nero or feurio to make a cd with it. Just load the finished songs and burn.

Very much simplified, take it one step at a time and ask questions. It isn't easy, it will take time (and harddisk space :) ).
 
remember that when you were encoding to wma to burn your CD's, once the purn process starts, those wma's are reencoded back into wav files. Most CD players only play wav files at 44.1/16bit (but some now play mp3 files too).

I have heard that CD architect (by sony maybe?) does a good job at making quality red book CD's.
 
Havoc said:
First, record in at least 16/44.1, better in 24/44.1 .wav. It will take up lots of space, but the quality will be all the better. With formats like mp3 or wma, you trow away a lot if information (music in this case) to save space. Now, if you want to make a cd, then you will probably be recording takes, mix down to a single song etc. Now with wav, you don't loose any information. But with the others, you start with less, do a mixdown and trow away again some information. So it gets worse and worse.

If you want to make a cd, then you will need some kind of software that will let you take several takes, mix down, apply effects or even do some multitracking. There is a lot of it around, from freeware to mega expensive.

Once you have all the tracks, you will need to bring them to 16bit/44.1kHz. Then you will need some cd burning application like nero or feurio to make a cd with it. Just load the finished songs and burn.

Very much simplified, take it one step at a time and ask questions. It isn't easy, it will take time (and harddisk space :) ).
Click to expand...

Um, unless I misunderstood the queston, I think he wants to know how to use audacity to burn CDs (hence the title of the thread).

So, I would hope he knows how to get as far as mixing down to a wav file.

So, we need to get him from the wav file to the burnt cd.
 
Slightly off topic, but I have a somewhat related question.

If I took 8 tracks recorded in 24/44.1 and mixed them down to 16/44.1, would the sound quality be much different if the original 8 tracks were recorded in 16/44.1?
 
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