Audio Recording

This blog receives a lot of inquiries. I am interested to share my insights on them to you.

Burning a Audio Mixing Session to a CD

I’m taking a class and I’ve received a session to mix. Every time I burn the wav files using windows media player turns it to regular audio. The problem with that; it loads as audio so it’s a stereo file, can’t get around that. A single kick would load on track 1 and 2. Explain to me when I burn wav files to disc it stays as a wav file. I’m using windows vista.

Potential Issues

a.) Your CD burning software (Windows media player) creates an audio CD. This would automatically mean that even if the audio is mono (as what most tracks for mixing are) it would automatically be converted to stereo.

b.) If you burn the recorded tracks to audio CD, it would lose its original recording resolution since audio CD always has a 16-bit/44.1KHz. Most recording are done at a higher resolution such as 24-bit/48KHz.

Potential Solution

a.) Some CD burning software (like Nero) does include a data disc feature. In this case, you can burn the recorded tracks in its original form and they are not converted to audio CD format (16-bit/44.1KHz).

b.) If you want an open source solution, you can use Infra-recorder:

http://infrarecorder.org/

Then create a data disc. Since most mixing session file are rather big in file sizes, I would recommend creating a DVD Data Disc using Infra Recorder; see screenshot below:

Simply click the DVD button in the data disc options.

c.) Bear in mind that since this is now a data disc, it cannot be played in CD players, etc. To get the data from the disc, put it in your computer DVD drive and simply copy the files to your DAW hard drive; that’s it. The sampling rate, bit depth, etc would be preserved and the same as the recorded files (they are not altered during the CD burning process.)

Windows Software Sound Recorder No Sound

Hi. I wanted to ask you about an issue with using Window’s software Sound Recorder. I can’t get the Sound Recorder to record using my microphone(s) on my Vista computer. I click Start Recording then, when I’m done, I click Stop Recording, save the recorded audio as a Windows Media Audio (WMA) file (it’s set by default), but when I play the saved recording there is no sound.

I followed the instructions in:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Record-sound

I can see, in the Sound window (in the Recording Tab), the microphones volume level fluctuate when I speak through it so the microphone is working okay. The volume icon for my computer is turned up, and it’s not muted.

The levels (Hardware and Sound > Manage audio devices > Recording tab > Properties > Levels tab to find volume slider) under microphone properties are turned up too. I have both a sound card and speakers installed on my computer.

My sound card is updated. I’ve read somewhere to Right-Click in the blank white area in Recording Tab and select “Show Disabled Devices” that, if supported, new selections will appear such as: Stereo Mix, What U Hear, etc. Right-Click on “Stereo Mix”, “What U Hear” or similar and you to select “Enable”, and Right-Click on the same item again and select “Set as Default Device”, then click OK.

But nothing comes up and “Show Disabled Devices” was already selected. The only existent selections apparently in Recording tab are my microphones. I’ve done pretty much what I’ve read to do and am stumped on this problem.

Other software, like the free software Audacity gives me the same issue. Toshiba (my computer brand) told me my warranty expired 2009 and will have to charge me over $40 to assistance me with something that may not need any fixing but is just not working due to something I’m overlooking. Doing a web search, I’m apparently not the only one with this issue.

Any help you could provide me with on this subject would be is appreciated.

Potential Issues and Solutions

Looking upon your problem, one could the issues:

1.) Your player does not support the playback of Windows Media Player (wma) files. Have you tried playing the recorded audio in Windows Media player as it natively supports wma files?

Of course this assumes there is no problem in the recording.

2.) Try saving the files as other file types such as WAV instead of WMA. Then play it in media player after recording.

3.) Since you are using a default sound card, set the bit depth and sample rate to 16-bit/44.1KHz. You should find in Sound Recording – Properties.

If you record beyond that, your players might be having some playback issue.

4.) Make sure you have enabled the microphone for recording. You can see this in your sound device. See screenshot below:

5.) It would also mean that your sound device drivers are corrupt; even though you find it working. Try reinstalling the drivers; do this at your own risk. Make sure you install the right drivers for your sound recording device.

6.) Windows has some guidelines on how to troubleshoot sound recorder related issue. You can read it here:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Recording-audio-in-Sound-Recorder-frequently-asked-questions

If the above suggestions still do not work. I recommend doing a hardware troubleshooting process as suggested by Microsoft. You can read the details on that page. Good luck.