best sound format and app. for recording voice.

best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[Bryan Bolden]

I am in school and I tape my classes.  what I would like to do is to begin
to keep digital copies of the taped classes on my computer without taking
up so much disk space.  what I will do is have the output jack of the tape
recorder connected to the input jack of my sound card.  I need to know the
best sound format and a good (maybe free but I am open to buying a good
app) application that will allow me to make digital samples  with mono
recording and at least radio quality that will not take up a lot of space
for a taped class of about an hour.

I would prefer the application run on linux but I am open to a good M$
windows based sound application (please forgive me but I am desperate :) 

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[John Starkey]

Unless technology has skyrocketed since I last worked in recording (1995)
you'll spend 10x more buying hard drives than you will tapes. I forget the
formula but I think 1 sec on 1 track @ 44.1 samples per second equals a meg
or so.

I'm pretty sure that the memory usage (not the formula) is still the case.
Compression may help.

Good luck,

John

Bryan Bolden wrote:

> I am in school and I tape my classes.  what I would like to do is to begin
> to keep digital copies of the taped classes on my computer without taking
> up so much disk space.  what I will do is have the output jack of the tape
> recorder connected to the input jack of my sound card.  I need to know the
> best sound format and a good (maybe free but I am open to buying a good
> app) application that will allow me to make digital samples  with mono
> recording and at least radio quality that will not take up a lot of space
> for a taped class of about an hour.
>
> I would prefer the application run on linux but I am open to a good M$
> windows based sound application (please forgive me but I am desperate :)

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[Jeremy Hall]

You should be able to get pretty good compression by selecting mp3's and
encoding mono at 56k.  That should help.

See http://www.sulaco.org/mp3 (I think /mp3) for lame

_J

In the new year, Bryan Bolden wrote:
> I am in school and I tape my classes.  what I would like to do is to begin
> to keep digital copies of the taped classes on my computer without taking
> up so much disk space.  what I will do is have the output jack of the tape
> recorder connected to the input jack of my sound card.  I need to know the
> best sound format and a good (maybe free but I am open to buying a good
> app) application that will allow me to make digital samples  with mono
> recording and at least radio quality that will not take up a lot of space
> for a taped class of about an hour.
> 
> I would prefer the application run on linux but I am open to a good M$
> windows based sound application (please forgive me but I am desperate :) 
> 

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[Josh Steiner]

Using mp3 compression, and keeping CD quality sound, you can get 10-14
times compression.  You can sacrifice quality to get much higher, which
may well be appropriate since i can't imagine that the recordings are
going to be overly hi-fi.  Use any simple wav recorder to import it into
the computer, then run the .wav's through any number of linux mp3
compression programs.  I'm not sure off the top of my head which ones are
easiest/best.  good luck.

- Josh

> Unless technology has skyrocketed since I last worked in recording (1995)
> you'll spend 10x more buying hard drives than you will tapes. I forget the
> formula but I think 1 sec on 1 track @ 44.1 samples per second equals a meg
> or so.
> 
> I'm pretty sure that the memory usage (not the formula) is still the case.
> Compression may help.
> 
> Good luck,
> 
> John
> 
> Bryan Bolden wrote:
> 
> > I am in school and I tape my classes.  what I would like to do is to begin
> > to keep digital copies of the taped classes on my computer without taking
> > up so much disk space.  what I will do is have the output jack of the tape
> > recorder connected to the input jack of my sound card.  I need to know the
> > best sound format and a good (maybe free but I am open to buying a good
> > app) application that will allow me to make digital samples  with mono
> > recording and at least radio quality that will not take up a lot of space
> > for a taped class of about an hour.
> >
> > I would prefer the application run on linux but I am open to a good M$
> > windows based sound application (please forgive me but I am desperate :)
> 
> 

---
Josh "Yoshi" Steiner - josh@xiphoidprocess.com - http://eds.org/~joschi 

Xiphoid Process Records - http://xiphoidprocess.com
San Francisco based Electronic Music.

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[Benno Senoner]

On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Bryan Bolden wrote:
> I am in school and I tape my classes.  what I would like to do is to begin
> to keep digital copies of the taped classes on my computer without taking
> up so much disk space.  what I will do is have the output jack of the tape
> recorder connected to the input jack of my sound card.  I need to know the
> best sound format and a good (maybe free but I am open to buying a good
> app) application that will allow me to make digital samples  with mono
> recording and at least radio quality that will not take up a lot of space
> for a taped class of about an hour.
> 
> I would prefer the application run on linux but I am open to a good M$
> windows based sound application (please forgive me but I am desperate :)

vor pure voice it's enough to use bitrates lower that 32kbit/sec

I think Realaudio isn't that bad for this purpose (windows and linux encoder
exists).

for example the 16kbit codec uses 2kbytes/sec the 24kbit coded 3kbytes/sec

that means 1hour of realaudio at 24kbit = 3kbyte/sec*3600secs = 11MBytes

A 10GB disk can hold 1000 hours or speech , that is 500-1000 tapes.

John as you see compressed audio on disk isn't more expensive than tapes.

a 10GB disk costs almost nothing these days 
:-)

PS: IBM just rolling out 75GB (!) 3 1/2 inch SCSI disks , EIDE versions will
follow soon. (I think in the 50GB area but dirty cheap :-) )

Benno.


 

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[John Starkey]

Ok... never mind. I was wrong. Sorry :}

Josh Steiner wrote:

> Using mp3 compression, and keeping CD quality sound, you can get 10-14
> times compression.  You can sacrifice quality to get much higher, which
> may well be appropriate since i can't imagine that the recordings are
> going to be overly hi-fi.  Use any simple wav recorder to import it into
> the computer, then run the .wav's through any number of linux mp3
> compression programs.  I'm not sure off the top of my head which ones are
> easiest/best.  good luck.
>
> - Josh
>
> > Unless technology has skyrocketed since I last worked in recording (1995)
> > you'll spend 10x more buying hard drives than you will tapes. I forget the
> > formula but I think 1 sec on 1 track @ 44.1 samples per second equals a meg
> > or so.
> >
> > I'm pretty sure that the memory usage (not the formula) is still the case.
> > Compression may help.
> >
> > Good luck,
> >
> > John
> >
> > Bryan Bolden wrote:
> >
> > > I am in school and I tape my classes.  what I would like to do is to begin
> > > to keep digital copies of the taped classes on my computer without taking
> > > up so much disk space.  what I will do is have the output jack of the tape
> > > recorder connected to the input jack of my sound card.  I need to know the
> > > best sound format and a good (maybe free but I am open to buying a good
> > > app) application that will allow me to make digital samples  with mono
> > > recording and at least radio quality that will not take up a lot of space
> > > for a taped class of about an hour.
> > >
> > > I would prefer the application run on linux but I am open to a good M$
> > > windows based sound application (please forgive me but I am desperate :)
> >
> >
>
> ---
> Josh "Yoshi" Steiner - josh@xiphoidprocess.com - http://eds.org/~joschi
>
> Xiphoid Process Records - http://xiphoidprocess.com
> San Francisco based Electronic Music.

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[John Starkey]

Yea, I was thinking D to D. Digidesign (studio quality) which was all i knew at
the time and I've been out of it for 5 years.

Shoulda waited before I opened my mouth, I keep forgetting that one of the
reasons I got outta the business was that recording equipment was becoming
dirt-cheap.

John

Benno Senoner wrote:

> On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Bryan Bolden wrote:
> > I am in school and I tape my classes.  what I would like to do is to begin
> > to keep digital copies of the taped classes on my computer without taking
> > up so much disk space.  what I will do is have the output jack of the tape
> > recorder connected to the input jack of my sound card.  I need to know the
> > best sound format and a good (maybe free but I am open to buying a good
> > app) application that will allow me to make digital samples  with mono
> > recording and at least radio quality that will not take up a lot of space
> > for a taped class of about an hour.
> >
> > I would prefer the application run on linux but I am open to a good M$
> > windows based sound application (please forgive me but I am desperate :)
>
> vor pure voice it's enough to use bitrates lower that 32kbit/sec
>
> I think Realaudio isn't that bad for this purpose (windows and linux encoder
> exists).
>
> for example the 16kbit codec uses 2kbytes/sec the 24kbit coded 3kbytes/sec
>
> that means 1hour of realaudio at 24kbit = 3kbyte/sec*3600secs = 11MBytes
>
> A 10GB disk can hold 1000 hours or speech , that is 500-1000 tapes.
>
> John as you see compressed audio on disk isn't more expensive than tapes.
>
> a 10GB disk costs almost nothing these days
> :-)
>
> PS: IBM just rolling out 75GB (!) 3 1/2 inch SCSI disks , EIDE versions will
> follow soon. (I think in the 50GB area but dirty cheap :-) )
>
> Benno.
>
>

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[Michael Black]

On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Josh Steiner wrote:

> Using mp3 compression, and keeping CD quality sound, you can get 10-14
> times compression.  You can sacrifice quality to get much higher, which
> may well be appropriate since i can't imagine that the recordings are
> going to be overly hi-fi.  Use any simple wav recorder to import it into
> the computer, then run the .wav's through any number of linux mp3
> compression programs.  I'm not sure off the top of my head which ones are
> easiest/best.  good luck.

  try http://bladeenc.mp3.no. Tord has a excellent compressor (doze,
linux, NeXT, HP-UX and even DOS..among others OSes).

/dx

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[Kai Vehmanen]

On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Benno Senoner wrote:

> I think Realaudio isn't that bad for this purpose (windows and linux encoder
> exists).

Where!?! Linux RA-player has been around for quite some time now, but I've
never heard about a RA-encoder for Linux! :o

-- 
Kai Vehmanen <kaiv@wakkanet.fi> -------- CS, University of Turku, Finland
 . http://www.wakkanet.fi/ecasound/ - linux multitrack audio processing
 . http://www.wakkanet.fi/sculpscape/ - ambient-idm-rock-... mp3/ra/wav

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[Artur Skawina]

Bryan Bolden wrote:
> 
> I am in school and I tape my classes.  what I would like to do is to begin
> to keep digital copies of the taped classes on my computer without taking
> up so much disk space.  what I will do is have the output jack of the tape
> recorder connected to the input jack of my sound card.  I need to know the
> best sound format and a good (maybe free but I am open to buying a good
> app) application that will allow me to make digital samples  with mono
> recording and at least radio quality that will not take up a lot of space
> for a taped class of about an hour.

if you only need to store voice -- GSM is a decent format; you get ~ 12kbit/s
for 8kHz sample rates (that's 5 megabytes/h).

[the tool i wrote to do this is available at
 http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/6494/sw/
 it doesn't have a lot of docs, but does include source and  executable
 (so it doesn't need the gsm lib, which iirc, needed some tweaks) and even
 does silence compression.
"gsmplay -h" gives basic usage, the rest should be obvious]

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[Benno Senoner]

On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Kai Vehmanen wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Benno Senoner wrote:
> 
> > I think Realaudio isn't that bad for this purpose (windows and linux encoder
> > exists).
> 
> Where!?! Linux RA-player has been around for quite some time now, but I've
> never heard about a RA-encoder for Linux! :o
> 

Arg, I think I am wrong,
I heard about Realserver for Linux, but I am not sure if it includes an
encoder. Anyway I try to avoid proprietary codecs.
( Realnetworks still not able to deliver a decent realplayer for linux,
my guess is that if they do not open their protocols , Microsoft will kill
them just like they did with Nescape
.. hopefully there will be a Mozilla-of-the-streaming-protocols :-) )


But as Artur pointed out, GSM isn't that bad at 12kbit/sec,
plu when searching around the net I found a voice coder which runs
at about 4.8kbit/sec .

or if you want extreme low bit rates use the LPC-10 code , down to 2.4kbit/sec,
= 1.1MB/hour  :-)

But I don't know if the quality high enough for you
http://www.arl.wustl.edu/~jaf/lpc/

Benno.

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[John Littler]

quoting Benno Senoner:
 > On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Kai Vehmanen wrote:
 > > On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Benno Senoner wrote:
 > > 
 > > > I think Realaudio isn't that bad for this purpose (windows and linux encoder
 > > > exists).
 > > 
 > > Where!?! Linux RA-player has been around for quite some time now, but I've
 > > never heard about a RA-encoder for Linux! :o
 > > 
 > 
 > Arg, I think I am wrong,
 > I heard about Realserver for Linux, but I am not sure if it includes an
 > encoder. Anyway I try to avoid proprietary codecs.
 > ( Realnetworks still not able to deliver a decent realplayer for linux,
 > my guess is that if they do not open their protocols , Microsoft will kill
 > them just like they did with Nescape
 > .. hopefully there will be a Mozilla-of-the-streaming-protocols :-) )
 > 
 >
no, you're not wrong. I had realproducer on my box a while back
before a recent cleanup. Not sure where it is on their site now.
 
 John
-- 

http://linuxmusic.cjb.net
pgp public key @ http://www.crosswinds.net/~linuxmusic/pubring.html

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[Tony Nugent]

On Sat Feb 12 2000 at 19:42, Benno Senoner wrote:

> On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Kai Vehmanen wrote:
> > On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Benno Senoner wrote:
> >
> > > I think Realaudio isn't that bad for this purpose (windows and linux encoder
> > > exists).
> >
> > Where!?! Linux RA-player has been around for quite some time now, but I've
> > never heard about a RA-encoder for Linux! :o
> 
> Arg, I think I am wrong,
> I heard about Realserver for Linux, but I am not sure if it includes an
> encoder. Anyway I try to avoid proprietary codecs.

I know I'm starting to get a bit off-topic with this question, but...

I'm able to get the codecs for xanim to show me .avi files, but .mpg's
play dreadfully.  Can anyone point me in the right direction as to how
to get these to work as they should?

Thanks.  (Private email reply preferred... unless of course if it
would interest others here).

Cheers
Tony

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[Jeremy Hall]

oh good grief.

well that might work over a 2400 modem.

I remember a Linux encoder from long ago, I still have the files if
there's interest.  Microsoft has not seemed interested in providing a
product for Linux, their mediaplayer doesn't work for Linux, forcing us to
use mp3 to encode our audio.

_J

In the new year, Benno Senoner wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Kai Vehmanen wrote:
> > On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Benno Senoner wrote:
> > 
> > > I think Realaudio isn't that bad for this purpose (windows and linux encoder
> > > exists).
> > 
> > Where!?! Linux RA-player has been around for quite some time now, but I've
> > never heard about a RA-encoder for Linux! :o
> > 
> 
> Arg, I think I am wrong,
> I heard about Realserver for Linux, but I am not sure if it includes an
> encoder. Anyway I try to avoid proprietary codecs.
> ( Realnetworks still not able to deliver a decent realplayer for linux,
> my guess is that if they do not open their protocols , Microsoft will kill
> them just like they did with Nescape
> .. hopefully there will be a Mozilla-of-the-streaming-protocols :-) )
> 
> 
> But as Artur pointed out, GSM isn't that bad at 12kbit/sec,
> plu when searching around the net I found a voice coder which runs
> at about 4.8kbit/sec .
> 
> or if you want extreme low bit rates use the LPC-10 code , down to 2.4kbit/sec,
> = 1.1MB/hour  :-)
> 
> But I don't know if the quality high enough for you
> http://www.arl.wustl.edu/~jaf/lpc/
> 
> Benno.
> 

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[Kai Vehmanen]

On Sat, 12 Feb 2000, Benno Senoner wrote:

> encoder. Anyway I try to avoid proprietary codecs.
> ( Realnetworks still not able to deliver a decent realplayer for linux,
> my guess is that if they do not open their protocols , Microsoft will kill
> them just like they did with Nescape

It's interesting to see, what RealNetworks is going to do in the 
near future. IMHO RN should open-source all their players and
encoders, and for all platforms. And they should do it now. This would 
have quite an impact. As mp3 suffers from licensing problems, many
people would prefer a GPL'ed RA-de/encoder. Let's hope this happens.

> But as Artur pointed out, GSM isn't that bad at 12kbit/sec,
[...]
> or if you want extreme low bit rates use the LPC-10 code , down to 2.4kbit/sec,
> = 1.1MB/hour  :-)
[...]
> But I don't know if the quality high enough for you
> http://www.arl.wustl.edu/~jaf/lpc/

Yep, there are plenty of encoders out there, but when distributing
your music (or some other "popular" activity), ease of use and
availability are crucial. And RealAudio is easy to use and it is 
widely spread.

-- 
Kai Vehmanen <kaiv@wakkanet.fi> -------- CS, University of Turku, Finland
 . http://www.wakkanet.fi/ecasound/ - linux multitrack audio processing
 . http://www.wakkanet.fi/sculpscape/ - ambient-idm-rock-... mp3/ra/wav

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[Kai Vehmanen]

On Sun, 13 Feb 2000, John Littler wrote:

> no, you're not wrong. I had realproducer on my box a while back
> before a recent cleanup. Not sure where it is on their site now.

If someone has a related URL, I'm very, *very*, interested.

-- 
Kai Vehmanen <kaiv@wakkanet.fi> -------- CS, University of Turku, Finland
 . http://www.wakkanet.fi/ecasound/ - linux multitrack audio processing
 . http://www.wakkanet.fi/sculpscape/ - ambient-idm-rock-... mp3/ra/wav

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[Benno Senoner]

On Sun, 13 Feb 2000, Kai Vehmanen wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Feb 2000, Benno Senoner wrote:
> 
> > encoder. Anyway I try to avoid proprietary codecs.
> > ( Realnetworks still not able to deliver a decent realplayer for linux,
> > my guess is that if they do not open their protocols , Microsoft will kill
> > them just like they did with Nescape
> 
> It's interesting to see, what RealNetworks is going to do in the 
> near future. IMHO RN should open-source all their players and
> encoders, and for all platforms. And they should do it now. This would 
> have quite an impact. As mp3 suffers from licensing problems, many
> people would prefer a GPL'ed RA-de/encoder. Let's hope this happens.

I wouldn't be a Realnetworks shareholder right now ... :-)
they still think that they can fight M$ but with proprietary models this
will just not work.
Did you notice that they pulled Realaduio support from the latest mediaplayer ?
Why ? , simple: to force users to use MS-Audio.
Because Joe Average is too lazy (or too dumb :-) ) to download the RA Player.
:-)

If Realnetworks doesn't react right now, (opensourcing codecs would give them
a big boost in terms of acceptance).

It could easy happen that Linux will save their a** because the level playing
field of Linux.
But if we wait too much, all streaming sites will only run MS-Audio , and
M$ will be able to control the entire streming arena.
( with the advent of broadband , streaming will be a big $$$ business,
and M$ wants all of the pie) 

> 
> > But as Artur pointed out, GSM isn't that bad at 12kbit/sec,
> [...]
> > or if you want extreme low bit rates use the LPC-10 code , down to 2.4kbit/sec,
> > = 1.1MB/hour  :-)
> [...]
> > But I don't know if the quality high enough for you
> > http://www.arl.wustl.edu/~jaf/lpc/
> 
> Yep, there are plenty of encoders out there, but when distributing
> your music (or some other "popular" activity), ease of use and
> availability are crucial. And RealAudio is easy to use and it is 
> widely spread.

Agreed, but in this case the user wanted only to store his voice recordings 
on his own disk, therefore a special codec would be appropriate.

Benno.

Re: best sound format and app. for recording voice.

[Kai Vehmanen]

Responding to my own message :) ...

On Sun, 13 Feb 2000, Kai Vehmanen wrote:

> It's interesting to see, what RealNetworks is going to do in the 
> near future. IMHO RN should open-source all their players and
> encoders, and for all platforms. And they should do it now. This would 
> have quite an impact. As mp3 suffers from licensing problems, many

Now I read from Slashdot:

--cut--
Red Hat Teams with Real Networks

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday February 22, @12:02PM from the
video-on-demand dept.

GregGardner writes, "According to this press release, RedHat and
Real Networks are teaming together to bring Real products to Linux. RealServer 7.0
and RealPlayer 7.0 will be physically bundled with RedHat an
and that RealPlayer 7 will be released for Linux within 30 days on Real's
Web site. " 
--cut--

Well, hopefully these will GPL'ed .. or at least some of the products.

-- 
Kai Vehmanen <kaiv@wakkanet.fi> -------- CS, University of Turku, Finland
 . http://www.wakkanet.fi/ecasound/ - linux multitrack audio processing
 . http://www.wakkanet.fi/sculpscape/ - ambient-idm-rock-... mp3/ra/wav