1. Skills: microphone position and adjustment Concepts: clipping, dynamic range, sample frequency and size, amount of data and information captured, fidelity This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Audio recording

2. Where does this topic fit? Internet concepts – Applications – Technology – Implications Internet skills – Application development – Content creation – User skills

3. Recording controls Shift to append

4. Waveform display Microscopic zoom

5. Which of these recordings is higher fidelity? Explain your answer using the word “information.”

6. Which recording requires more memory? Explain your answer using the word “bit.”

7. Higher fidelity → larger data files

8. CD audio Sampling rate: 44.1 kHz Sample size: 16-bit Number of tracks: 2 (stereo)

9. Microphone position

10. Experiment with microphone settings and placement The signal is clipped The signal does not use the full dynamic range Like Goldilocks said, just right

11. Adjusting recording volume in Windows Control panel > Sound > Record > Properties > Levels mute

12. You need a microphone

13. Your first recording – Audacity help Tutorial - your first recording

14. Summary

15. Self-study questions 1.Record something with the microphone volume set too high so clipping occurs. What does it sound like? 2.Record something in which you speak very quietly, then amplify it. How is the sound quality? 3.Record something at 8,000 Hz – how does the sound quality compare to a 44,100 Hz recording? 4.If you make a ten second recording at 8,000 Hz with 16 bit samples, how large will the file be? 5.If you make a 60 minute recording at 44,100 Hz with 32- bit samples, how large will the file be? 6.We said high fidelity recordings produce large files. What do we do to reduce the size of a file before we distribute it?

16. Resources Audacity audio recorder and editor: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/ Audacity audio recorder and editor, portable version: http://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/audacity_portable Audacity "how to" videos: http://www.wonderhowto.com/search/audacity LAME, an mp3 encoder for Audacity: http://lame.buanzo.com.ar FFMpeg, a WMA encoder for Audacity: http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=FAQ:Installation_and_Plug-Ins#installffmpeg Audacity keyboard shortcuts: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/keyboard_shortcuts.html Audacity: how-to presentation: http://pa.gigavox.com/shows/detail1595.html Audacity Wiki: http://audacityteam.org/wiki Audacity threaded discussion forum: http://audacityteam.org/forum Audacity tutorial (on Mac, but good for Windows too): http://homepage.mac.com/s_sloan/apsc_2007/audacity_jmc.pdf Audacity del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us/search/?fr=del_icio_us&p=audacity&type=all Neil Young on the need for higher quality music audio: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/02/why-neil-young-hates-mp3-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

17. Download lame.dll, an mp3 encoder for Audacity: http://lame1.buanzo.com.ar/Lame_v3.99.3_fo r_Windows.exe LAME download manual page: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/FAQ:Inst allation_and_Plug- Ins#How_do_I_download_and_install_the_LA ME_MP3_encoder.3F Home of the LAME project: http://lame.sourceforge.net/index.php Why Mike Cheng started the LAME project: http://lame.sourceforge.net/rationale.php FFMpeg, a WMA encoder for Audacity (to export.wav files): http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.php?tit le=FAQ:Installation_and_Plug-Ins#installffmpeg