Audacity

Magnatude · #1 December 10th, 2006

Just a notice. i don't know if anyone else is using this program, but it's actually pretty good, and so far as I can tell it's not a demo version. Just google Audacity and you should come up with it. It's a real decent recording program, and you can lay down multiple tracks... I'm still trying to figure out how to hear it while laying down another track though. Just a little notice for people looking for free recording gear!! Good luck!!

allthumbs · #2 December 10th, 2006

it is quite popular with our members as well as Chrystel

Tekker · #3 December 10th, 2006

As far as freebies go, I much prefer Kristal over Audacity.
http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

Still very easy to use, but it has some features that make working with it much easier, such as realtime effects and the editing is a little better.

-tkr

fly135 · #4 December 10th, 2006

Menu,

Edit -> Preferences -> (Tab)Audio I/O -> Checkbox "Software Playthough"

johnbullard · #5 December 10th, 2006

Hi TKR, I just recommened this to my friend in fl. Will a midiman fasttrack mic/guitar interface work with it to get his guitar and vocal to the software?

Lcjones · #6 December 11th, 2006

I've removed all the boxed packages I've had and replaced them with Audacity. I've been using it well over a year now. It's got a few quirks. But nothing that can't be lived with.

Just remember to save your files after every track or two. Just in case the power goes out.

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Hiram · #7 December 12th, 2006

My wife and I use Audacity to shorten songs for her and the dog's dancing routines (long explanation trust me) I was wondering if you can use it to take the vocals out of an MP3, if not anybody know of a good one, thanks.

Lcjones · #8 December 12th, 2006

Audacity, as far as I know, doesn't strip vocals.

http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/win95/VOCAL_REMOVERS/

although it says WIn95 it also should have some XP flavored items

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Tekker · #9 December 13th, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnbullard

Hi TKR, I just recommened this to my friend in fl. Will a midiman fasttrack mic/guitar interface work with it to get his guitar and vocal to the software?

Yes, a fast track will work just fine for getting guitar and vocals in. M-Audio makes great stuff.

There's two versions of the fast track, an older one with RCA connecotrs and a newer one with 1/4" and XLR connectors. So if he's looking at getting the newer version, that looks like really a nice unit.

-tkr

Tekker · #10 December 13th, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hiram

My wife and I use Audacity to shorten songs for her and the dog's dancing routines (long explanation trust me) I was wondering if you can use it to take the vocals out of an MP3, if not anybody know of a good one, thanks.

Unless you have access to the original tracks and can simply mute the vocal track, there really isn't a way to remove them entirely.

Depending on how the song was mixed you may be able to pull a trick to somewhat "remove" them, but for the most part it doesn't typically work very well. The way the vocal removal programs (or karaoke machines) work is they flip the polarity on either the right or left channel to cancel out anything panned in the middle. This includes the vocals, but it will also take out the kick and snare drum, the bass guitar, and anything else panned in the center also (which typically doesn't sound very good).

So if you have a mix where most of the instruments are panned in the middle, then you will remove most of those instruments from the song. If you had a mix where only the vocals were panned center, then you could probably do a fairly good job of removing them without effecting the rest of the instruments.

Another problem, is most recordings have some kind of stereo reverb on the vocals and other instruments panned center (like the snare drum), so when you remove the initial tracks panned center, you will still be able to hear the reverb from the vocal track and the other instruments. This usually gives the effect that the whole mix was "washed" in way to much reverb...

The vocal removal programs may also use some kind of filtering or EQ in addition to flipping the polarity... But the vocal range is way to wide to zero in on just the vocals, and there are many instruments in the same frequency range as the vocals (such as guitar, keyboard, drums, etc...) so it'd be impossible to remove the vocals with EQ or filtering.

So the results of vocal removal programs will vary for each song depending on how the song was mixed.

-tkr

Matty22 · #11 December 13th, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tekker

The vocal removal programs may also use some kind of filtering or EQ in addition to flipping the polarity... But the vocal range is way to wide to zero in on just the vocals, and there are many instruments in the same frequency range as the vocals (such as guitar, keyboard, drums, etc...) so it'd be impossible to remove the vocals with EQ or filtering.

So the results of vocal removal programs will vary for each song depending on how the song was mixed.

-tkr

Tekker is right, but i have had fairly decent results with EQing using both Auditions 30band EQ and a 31band Rack mount EQ, we also use it for feedback elimination...

ive used the same trick for making a guitar solo easier to hear in a mix to try and learn it.. by boosting the freqs where the notes are sitting, if that makes sense.

This being said, its still not as simple as "click here to remove vocals" you still get them ,just at lower volume, but if you were to record the vox track and mix it at a higher volume, the original vox would be lost underneath it.

Another option may be to try and find a backing track. If your better than me with other instruments and things, make one using guitar pro. Then you can just lay your vox over the top of the BT... Just a though

eddiez152 · #12 January 13th, 2007

Tekker,

When you record a track on Kristal, how do you convert the file from *.kristal to a playable file for windows media player, or ipod, or something that recognizes the extension ? I recorded a file and can't seem to do anything with as making it mp3.

eddiez152

toryst · #13 January 13th, 2007

I do a mixdown in Kristal, save it to a special folder and then open that track up in Audacity and use the export to mp3 option. Very cumbersome but the best I can come up with. I would have thought that Kristal, as advanced as it is, would have an mp3 conversion option. Wave files are definitely outdated!!

Tekker · #14 January 13th, 2007

The .kristal file is the project file used inside of Kristal. This contains all "stuff" you do in Kristal, such as edits, mixer settings, effects, etc... It doesn't actually contain any audio (notice how small the .kristal file is, it's in the kilo-bite range) but it knows where the wave files for that project are located on your hard drive and loads them when you open the file in Kristal.

To get a file that you can play outside of Kristal, you need to do a mixdown within Kristal to a wave file. Go to the File menu --> Export Mixdown and give the file a name and choose the folder where you want to save it.

Kristal cannot mixdown straight to a mp3, but you can download a wave to mp3 converter to convert the wave file (that you create with Kristal) into an mp3. After quite a bit of searching, I finally found one that is actually "free" and not a trial version.
http://www.dirfile.com/mp3_encoder.htm

Hope that helps.

-tkr

Tekker · #15 January 13th, 2007

Toryst beat me to it.... I took to long trying to find that mp3 converter.

Quote:

I would have thought that Kristal, as advanced as it is, would have an mp3 conversion option. Wave files are definitely outdated!!

Kristal hasn't been updated in like 2 1/2 years, so it's a little behind the times.

Wave files aren't outdated though, wave files are used in every recording program. Every track that gets recorded in any program is a wave file. Mixing down to wave files is also how you transfer files from one program to another.

But for posting online, mp3's are definitely the way to go as they are much smaller files.

-tkr