Mac Computer Settings for Recording

• Plug in a microphone using a USB cable or 1/8th " cable (see hardware)
• Go to System Preferences and click on Sound
• Choose your sound input (it may show as internal mic if you are using no mic, line in if your coming from a mixer or amp etc), or the name of your interface such as Fast Track
• Set your Volume
• Close window

Watch This Video for a Screenshot Tutorial

Windows Computer Setttings for Recording

• attach your microphone to the Sound In port on the back of your computer. (It might have a picture of a microphone next to it.)
• open the Sound Recorder. (Open the Start menu and choose Programs, then Accessories, Entertainment and, finally, Sound Recorder.) or your personal choice of Audio Recording/Editing Software
• check the Preferences in the menu bar for audio input (select your mic), and output (select WAV if you have the hard drive space. If not use MP3 but read about encoding techniques before making this decision)
• click New
• click Record, Stop, Play, Rewind and Seek to End buttons to record and listen back to your audio
• save using the Save As command in the File menu  (spaces and special characters are not recommended for file name) 

Basic Recording and Editing Suggestions

The Recording Process

• see Settings for Windows and Mac computers sections to prepare your computer for recording
• check your recording level - on the average, -6 is where your audio should be on your LEDs for a good strong signal.. if it goes above that too much you will get distortion. A red light indicates that you are hitting the ceiling and will definately have too strong a signal. That level is just below 0
  
  
• use volume and trim or gain to increase the input signal if you are too low. Trim is the intensity of your signal and may give a cleaner sound if used moderately, Just increasing the volume will also add system noise. If your software does not offer trim or gain so just use the basic volume input control.
• use a pop screen if you have too many pops or sssss's. (see Hardware)
  
  
• do not eat the mic or stay too far away. Gauge for ideal distance from the mic by recording and listening to your playback to check your settings. Adjust as necessary.
• record somewhere with as little background noise as possible
• when recording music, ALWAYS do a count in for easy overdubs
• when done, stay quiet until you hit Stop. If playing an instrument, let it ring until it is inaudible before hitting Stop.
  
  

Editing

I will briefly explain how to use the following editing tools. Also read Basic Editing in Audacity for good general editing tips. 

• Compression - reduces the dynamic range of a signal and improves the quality of the sound.  It isn't a really necessary to compress sound files for the Web. Using encoders to reduce file size is necessary but it is a different kind of compression. You will see more on that type of compression in the Publishing section of this course.
  
  
• Cutting - an easy way to reduce file size is to delete unwanted sections or any extra noise from the audio clip. Almost all the editing applications let you select parts of your sound wave, and then cut, copy or paste them similar to a word processing document. Open your audio file in your audio editor, zoom in and listen to the file, and cut any pops, pauses or silence, or background noise. 

  To cut, highlight sections of the audio clip you'd like to remove with your mouse. Underneath the "File" menu or "Edit" menu on your program, you will see delete or cut. Be sure to listen to the audio before cutting silence. It may not be silence or it may cut a word off. Listen carefully to the file after you cut to be sure it sounds natural.

• Equalize - eliminates heavy bass or treble in your audio sound. Intense bass isn't a good idea with an audio file for the Web. Most computer speakers can't handle bass very well. The same is true for treble or high end. Too much makes it sound too brittle. You can use an equalizer to match the level and strength of the bass and treble match each other in the level and strength of sound, is to equalize your files with an equalizer. An equalizer is a flexible, precise tone control located in an audio editing application that contains faders. An equalizer divides audio into specific frequencies that you can boost or decrease. Each of these divisions is called a band. Some equalizers have 512 or more bands of control but the free apps and iTunes go from 10 to 50 bands. You use your sound application software to adjust these levels. You can, if you wanted to, increase the bass on your sound files, but for the Web, your files will sound better if you tone down the bass. Equalizing your files can also help bring out a certain part of your sound file, such as a voice, or one particular instrument.

• Normalize - Only use this for your final master! It is the last thing you do before sending it off to the Net and can not be undone..  Normalize increases the level of the whole audio file so that the loudest part of the sound is as high as it can be without distorting. The remainder of the audio increases proportionately. Most sound editors offer normalize and the program automatically normalizes your audio files for you.

  You have to choose the level you'd like to raise your sound to. Maximum level is 0db but it's a good idea to normalize a file to only 96% of it's maximum level. This compensates for computers that may not have good quality playback and may cause distortion.

  One thing to remember. When you normalize sound, you increase background noise. If you choose to normalize, first equalize your audio files to eliminate as much background noise as possible.

• Effects - 
• You can create echo effects with an echo or reverb function within your audio editing application. There is always a control for wet/dry. Wet means you are adding more effect and less original signal so the end product is more reverb or echo. A tiny bit will enhance a vocal and some instruments but what sounds like enough in pre-mix often sounds like too much in the final mixed down and published file. Oddly enough that final process seems to increase the effect! When there is no reverb or echo (they are the similar in effect but you can get it with various types of reverb/echo) and no ambience in the recording process, the audio may sound too "dry".
  
  
• Panning (for stereo recording) - you can choose where in the sound stage you want left channel or right channel to be by using pan. For multi tracks, vocals are often put in the center or slightly left and right for two voices, and instruments placed from far left and right towards center but not on top of each other. For example, bass should be center and back, guitar could be center and more forward (forward and back are gotten through the use of trim or gain). Lead instruments can be placed on either side so when they do fills or backup, they are in different places in the space preferably one on each side about 8:00 and 4:00 (envisioning a clock for audio space location)
  
  

• Notes
  
• A 44 hz and a 16 bit resolution file (44/16) is a good setting for a CD-stereo quality sound file. 
  
• An MP3 file encoded at no more than a 64kbs bitrate is a good rule of thumb for voice recordings at the point of export. Always record and mix or edit at a higher rate.

 

Basic Editing in Audacity

Audacity is compatable with Windows 98, ME, 2000, & XP, Mac OS9 and X, Linux, and Unix. To download the program go to the Audacity website. This information is from my entry in the WebcastAcademy's Book of Webcasting.

1. Before you start, go to your computer's sound control panel and make sure your input device (or your microphone) is selected as the audio input source. Then boot Audacity and go to preferences. Set the device(s) you are recording from and playing to in the audio I/O tab. If you are editing a pre-recorded file from your webcast for example, open Audacity then use the Import tool to open the pre-recorded file.The Quality tab sets the sample rate and bit depth. Jeff Towne from the Transcom Tools Content site says "Audacity can handle different sample rates and bit depths within a project, but these will be converted in real-time to the default session settings when needed. Although normally 16-bit is a sufficient bit-depth for webcasts, and you will save a good deal of disc space and processing power if you use that depth, Audacity sometimes creates grungy-sounding sound files when recording at 16 bit. I'd start with 16 bit, but if you have that problem, setting up your session to record at 32-bit float might solve it. Set that in the file format tab as the default export format." You can change the sample rate from the lower left corner also.
2. Hit the red record circle in the transport panel to record. You can adjust the record level with the slider next to the microphone icon in the top right corner. You should leave it all the way up and change levels from your sound card or control panel. Make sure your input level does not go into the "red" (or hit the ceiling) on your meter as that will cause clipping. You can import audio into your Audacity project if you wish to combine more than one recording or add music etc. They will show up as new tracks.
3. Editing tools -
   

   the control toolbar is like any audio player transport buttons. Pressing the spacebar will start and stop play, and shift-spacebar will loop-play a selected section (called a region). To select a section, click on the selector tool and drag over the part of the audio you want to change. Move the cursor over the edges of the highlighted section to grap and extend the length. Press Z to move the selection edges to zero-crossings eliminating clicks from edits. For gain changes (also known as trim..it refers to the intensity of an audio signal), highlight a region (section) and use the "amplify" or "normalize" commands from the effect menu, or move the volume slider at the left of the track display. That slider sets the level for the track. Use the draw tool like a pencil to re-draw waveforms to eliminate eliminate clicks or other distortions. Click and drag over part of a track to zoom in. The magnifying-glass icons on the right hand side of the top of the track window can be used to zoom in or out in steps, to zoom to the selection, or to zoom out to see the entire project at once. A scroll wheel works as well. Cut, Copy and Paste work as expected. Highlight audio you don't want and press delete. Audacity will close the gap. Use the silence selection tool (mute) if you'd like to remove audio without making changes to the timeline.Select audio you want to keep and click trim to selection to delete everything except the selected region. The silence selection icon mutes selected audio, but without moving any other audio regions, leaving a silent space, like hitting "mute" for that time range. Any other edits will close up that gap. You can grab the vertical edges of a track and drag up or down to make it wider and easier to see for editing. The track can be reduced in size to see more tracks after you are finished editing You can always undo edits, but not after you save. Audacity saves small ".aud" files that has all the editing data, so you can do multiple save-as steps to store different versions of the project, to retain flexibility without duplicating all the large sound files. Selecting view>history will show you a list of your actions, and by clicking on the various entries, the edits will revert to that stage of the edit, you can then discard all moves after that point by clicking the discard button. The history list is cleared whenever you save and you cannot undo after a save. Audacity has been known to crash, so save often. You can use the Audacity plug-ins like the compressor, EQ, filters and normalizing. The Audacity "Noise Removal" effect is not the best and I don't recommend it. Audacity's effects need to be applied one at a time. To remove an effect, you have to step backward with "undo."

4. Export selected parts of a project by highlighting them and choosing export selected from the file menu.
5. Final MP3 - (for uploading into your blog) When you are done with the mixing and editing, (make sure your audio levels are high but not clipping) export your project by clicking File>Export As>an MP3. You may also Export as a WAV file or an Ogg Vorbis, another kind of compressed file. Just saving it will not make it a final mix. Be sure to us this Export tool so your final product can be uploaded to Webcast Academy, burned to CD or FTP'd.
6. Learn Keyboard shortcuts for Audacity to speed up your editing time.

References

Information for this article is from The Transom Tools Content article by Jeff Towne

Level Headed ~ Jeff Towne

Processing Basics ~ Jeff Towne

Digital Editing Basics ~ Barrett Golding

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Compressors and Limiters.... Also "What's The Big Squeeze" Audio

Compressor and Limiters are often part of your audio recording and/or editing software package. 

A Compressor is a programmable amplifier designed to decrease the difference in level between quiet and loud signals. 

A Limiter is a gain (increase in signal strength or intensity) controller. The output goes so high and no further. Anything above that selectable point is cut off and you will not hear it in your final mix.

These two functions are related can often be used together. Think of it this way. If dynamic range were a room, a compressor adjusts both the floor (really loud sounds) and the ceiling (really soft sounds), and a limiter adjusts only the ceiling.

Please listen to my audio explanation for compression. One word of warning... this audio was produced as part of my "Ride To WorkCast" series. That means I have automobile noise as part of the audio since I create alot of material on my 50 minute ride to and from work everyday! 

Now for Compression Settings - Here is a good example of how to set your compression: Taken from tweakheadz article on "How to Record"

Compressor Settings

Setting Gates:  Compressors do add noise to a signal, and they do destroy dynamic range.  Noise is taken care of by gating the signal.  When it dips below a certain threshold, the audio signal is muted.  This is effective for getting rid of low level noise you do not want in the file, such as bleed from headphones, or the vocalist moving, turning pages on lyric sheets, etc.  Gates have two parameters: 1) The noise floor threshold, and the Rate.  The Noise floor threshold eliminates all of the signal when it dips below the threshold, which is set from -50db to -10db. I keep mine set to -30db. Yet one has to be careful.  If the gate is set too high, then the attack of the vocalists words may be cut off or come in too abruptly.  The Rate parameter  "fades out" the audio signal as the gate come on.  This is effective to prevent the gate from chopping off the tails of the words.  Usually a rate of 1-1.5 sec is enough.

Setting Threshold:  The Threshold is the all important level at which the compressor kicks in.  If you set the threshold to -10, it will leave all of the signal under -10 alone.  When the signal exceeds -10 then it starts compressing at the ratio. -10 is an excellent place to start.  Don't confuse this with the fact that your gear is outputting -10 or +4 impedance wise.  Though the threshold seems like it is a volume control, it is not. It is merely telling the compressor at what level compression takes over the signal.

Setting the Ratio   2:1 is probably the most common setting for a compressor recording or playing back nearly anything.  A great starting point. What this means, simply, is that it takes 2 decibels of sound energy to raise the output meter by 1db. You can read the 1st number as the db IN and the second as the db OUT.  Again, 2db IN equals 1 db OUT.  With 2:1 you simply divide by two. 

Answer this: If your vocalist was singing at -10db and suddenly got 20 db louder, without compression, where would the meters post?

  -10+20=+10.  The meters would post at +10

Correct!   Which, as you should know is way to loud and would ruin the track. Now, if you had 2:1 compression applied, where the output is half of the input, where would the output meters post?

 -10+(20/2)= zero db!

The vocalists 20db burst was compressed to an actual 10 db difference in gain. (the ratio 2:1 is the same as 20:10, or half).    (Note, you don't have to record all the way up to 0db, leave a cushion for the best sonics)

 If you had the compressor set at a 10:1 ratio what would that mean?  It would mean for every 10 decibels of gain the meters would only go up one db.  So in our example, then, the 20 db burst would only let the meters go up by 2db  (10:1 is the same as 20:2, or 1/10th of the original sound),  Since they started at -10, the overall level would be only at -8 during the sudden 20db boost.  Hardly any change in the output level at all.  Would that sound "squashed"?  You bet.

Setting Attack and Release:  These settings can be tricky as they can "delay" the effect of compression on the attack and make is hold on a bit too long on release if set improperly.  I suggest till you get these tricky settings figured out (which takes quite a bit of experimentation) you simple use the fastest attack and enough of a release so the vocal is not boosted as the word trails off.  Otherwise a word may pump on you unnaturally.

Setting the output:  This is the final adjustment as the signal leaves the compressor.  It's sometimes called the "make-up gain". They call it that because compression often lowers the overall signal and you may need to boost it back up.   Basically you want to optimize this so it does not ever go over 0db in the recorder.  With luck you should see a consistent healthy level on the recorder's input meters regardless of how loud the vocalist is singing. 

Just a final note, you can compress again after the vocal is recorded as you prepare your tracks for the mix.  So, don't get too wild with settings at the input (recording) stage.  You want the recorded vocal to sound natural, where the compressor just makes it an overall more useful signal to tweak later with exciters, harmonizers, pitch intonation correctors, and effects like reverb, delay. etc. 

Reference: Tweakheadz Lab  "How to Record Vocals" article  

Using Effects in Audacity

This link explaining Effects in Audacity is well done.