how to get started with mp3s

[vincentvaughan]

Yeah Im back again

Forgive me for making a new thread on this subject....I know its already on here.....

Been doing some searchin regarding mp3s
How do I go about making mp3s from my trax when they are done...........

My set up is as follows.... cakewalk on the laptop, usb converter cable to sound canvas for piano and strings etc and midi thru to my dr 880 for drums and bass, listening to the play back through my pa system, bose L2 tone match to be sure what its all going to sound like........so far Im delighted

Now what to use for taking the tracks to the gig......well Ive been looking at the mp3 biznes but what I need to know is how do I do it?

Am I right in saying I need some form of wav file maker/player such as audacity........take the audio outputs from my mixer and feed them back to the inputs on the laptop to record the trax as a wav?
Can I store them on the mp3 player as a wav and play them or do they have to be converted?
Which is better sound quality....wav or mp3 ?

Now more questions.....mp3 players, has anyone looked at the idea of having foot pedals to start /stop forward and reverse

I managed this a few years ago with a walkman type MD player works great........ a few resistors and sort out the cable combinations for each fuction and waaahayyy

Came across a few mp3 players on the net which have some form of remote control in the package which look like they could be butchered to do the same thing

Anyone know of particular mp3 players with 'autopause' or track once features........basically where the song finishes and stops with the next one in the list lined up ready to go

I know there are expensive options out there.....just looking to see if a bit of ingenuity can save a few quid

All help comments and ideas greatly appreciated
Especially as to exactly how I should make mp3/wav from my tracks

Regards

Vince

[JohnG]

If you're using Cakewalk Pro Audio, you can feed the output of your mixer back into the PC, arm a track to record audio and record the audio back into the PC. Save the file as wav.

A reasonably good converter, that was recommended to me on the forum some years back, is RazorLame. It uses one of the best conversion utilities from wav to mp3, LAME.

There's no doubt that wav files are better than mp3 but at the high quality settings and at 256kbps conversion rate many people would be hard put to tell the difference.

With players I'm no expert, I'm afraid.

HTH?
JohnG.

[freeway]

Hi Vince

What I use is Cakewalk Pro Audio 9 as John says the older versions dont have the audio recording/conversion functions. So as a starting point you got to have the right tools preferably an all in one sequencer that will record/convert and export as mp2/wav (not always guaranteed to get the best results mind you) but cakewalk pro works just right for me .

The way I do it is load your sequence/midi into cakewalk find yourself and empty track double click on where it says midi and you will need to choose your sound card line in (realtek,s blaster etc.) eg. I choose Realtex Stereo Line In as mine but you can also choose to record in mono which means you'll have to use 2 tracks then just choose your input driver left on the first channell and input driver right on the 2nd channell click the record button on the track(s). To see if your getting sound click on the Console Icon and hit the record button you should see some activity on the level meters ...make sure the meters are not clipping or you'll end up with a load of distroted drivel . Do a test recording and when your happy with the result bobs your uncle thats the first part done .

Now only if your happy with your recording levels and everything else procceed to convert to wave/mp3 and as John says the diff isnt really noticeable .....so no matter what player your gonna end up using be it ipod/mini disk/cd etc mp3's are gonna save you lots of space some players do play waves and mp3's but others strictly only play mp3's so thats worth keeping in mind before you go down the road of converting.

Anyway I use only mp3's myself and as we speak Im also in the proccess of converting .......so getting back to cakewalk . So your midi sequence has been recorded and your happy to proceed .......firstly make sure you rewind to the start or it wont convert properly.......now you got to mute all your midi channells and check your finished audio track to make sure it plays .....now go to Tools/Mixdown Audio/Export to Files.choose a name and a location to save to now choose file type to save in this case mp3 hit save and away you go that will encode and save to your location and your done.

This works fine for me for years but in case I missed anything or if you need anymore help just shout ok... btw before you transfer your finished mp3's to usb/card/cd etc. there's a prog called MP3 Gain that will check that all your levels are the same dont want to be having some files louder than others but thats for another day ok ...

Regarding the mp3 players and suggestions I'd advise you maybe to start a seperate thread you might have more success that way also check out the thread Ipods For Gigging might help also .

midihangout.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=chitchat&action=display&thread=2882

Regards

Barry