Newbie needs advice -Sound Forge - PC - MAGIX Community Forums Archive

Subject:Newbie needs advice Posted by: blueroadbill Date:9/16/2004 8:32:29 PM I am a newbie to this forum. I have been told that Sound Forge is a software program that may be useful for what I want to do. I record live music at festivals, usually from an FM radio station(Low Power). I also have access to direct feed from the stage. I have been using VHS tape to record, then burning CD's from that. I want to go to a full computer based operation. Can anyone advise me as to what equiptment and software would be suited for this? What size hard drive would be required to record approximately 60-70 hours of audio, and what format is best used for recording for later transfer to CDs? Thanks in advance for any help , blueroadbill p.s. I'm using an AMD Athlon 2000 with WIN XP Home Ed.
Subject:RE: Newbie needs advice Reply by: Rednroll Date:9/17/2004 2:09:40 PM "Can anyone advise me as to what equiptment and software would be suited for this?" Since you are doing onsight recording, I would think that maybe a laptop PC would be more ideal for this. Just due to the fact of size and portability and convenience, but that is up to you. Just my 2 cent recommendation as far as that goes. The rest of the advice is the same for either though. For the best quality, you should invest in a good sound card. For a laptop I would recommend an external soundcard which has either a USB or a Firewire connection. Firewire is best, but in the most cases more expensive. For your application (ie 2 track recording) USB would be suffice. I have a USBpre by Sound Devices(www.sounddevices.com), which I highly recommend for it's versatility,quality and compact size.$500. Other considerations are maybe something by M-audio which is a good choice and a little less expensive. (www.midiman.com) As far as software, Sound Forge is a good choice for what you are doing. A better choice for your application is Sony Vegas. I say this for 2 reasons. Your final delivery format is CD. In Vegas you can place CD track ID's on the audio file and then burn a CD with those track ID's. You can burn a CD in Sound Forge but you can't do Disc-at-Once CD recording. That is for every CD track there must be a 2 second silent gap in the audio. For a live recording you probably would like to have a continuous audio track with no gap interuptions, yet be able to put CD track ID's, so you can easily jump to different locations within the recording. This is not possible in Sound Forge, but is possible in Vegas. Another thing that Vegas has that Sound Forge doesn't is "input monitoring". Therefore, you can route the input signal that you are recording to an output on your sound card and be able to listen to it while you're recording. This is not possible in Sound Forge, except if your Sound Card has an input monitoring feature. The other piece of equipment you'll need is an internal CDR drive. Probably better to get a combo DVDR and CDR drive. "What size hard drive would be required to record approximately 60-70 hours of audio." You get 80 minutes of stereo recording per 700 meg. This comes out to 8.75 Meg per minute. So for 70 hours of record time you would need 31.5 Gig of hard drive space. To allow space for your programs and OS, you'll probably need something around 40 to 50gig. If you are only recording mono (ie 1 track) then you can double the record time. " and what format is best used for recording for later transfer to CDs?" Record in the microsoft WAVE format at 44.1Khz sampling rate and 16bit. This is virtually the same format as CDs and no additonal conversions that might cause quality loss will be needed. With the recommendations I made, you can record in Vegas and place marker points while you are recording, where you would like CD track ID's to go. Then when finished recording place the CD track ID's where the markers are located. Then burn a CD and hand it out before the stage is even torn down.
Subject:RE: Newbie needs advice Reply by: blueroadbill Date:9/17/2004 11:10:03 PM Rednroll, Thanks for your advice. I'll use that information to do a little more research. I do intend to use a laptop, and probably a 200gb external HD. Also an external DVD-RW&CD-RW. blueroadbill
Subject:RE: Newbie needs advice Reply by: musicvid10 Date:9/17/2004 11:26:32 PM "...maybe something by M-audio which is a good choice and a little less expensive." The M-Audio Omnistudio USB is $199 this month at Guitar Center (musiciansfriend.com) and is a good choice for what you do, with four inputs, mic preamps, and mixing capabilties. A clean fit with Vegas also.
Subject:RE: Newbie needs advice Reply by: blueroadbill Date:9/22/2004 5:21:10 PM Thanks musicvid. I'll check it out. Although, being in the educational field, I can get a copy of SoundForge for about $150.00 and Vegas is about $165.00. blueroadbill

"Can anyone advise me as to what equiptment and software would be suited for this?"

Since you are doing onsight recording, I would think that maybe a laptop PC would be more ideal for this. Just due to the fact of size and portability and convenience, but that is up to you. Just my 2 cent recommendation as far as that goes. The rest of the advice is the same for either though.

For the best quality, you should invest in a good sound card. For a laptop I would recommend an external soundcard which has either a USB or a Firewire connection. Firewire is best, but in the most cases more expensive. For your application (ie 2 track recording) USB would be suffice. I have a USBpre by Sound Devices(www.sounddevices.com), which I highly recommend for it's versatility,quality and compact size.$500. Other considerations are maybe something by M-audio which is a good choice and a little less expensive. (www.midiman.com)

As far as software, Sound Forge is a good choice for what you are doing. A better choice for your application is Sony Vegas. I say this for 2 reasons. Your final delivery format is CD. In Vegas you can place CD track ID's on the audio file and then burn a CD with those track ID's. You can burn a CD in Sound Forge but you can't do Disc-at-Once CD recording. That is for every CD track there must be a 2 second silent gap in the audio. For a live recording you probably would like to have a continuous audio track with no gap interuptions, yet be able to put CD track ID's, so you can easily jump to different locations within the recording. This is not possible in Sound Forge, but is possible in Vegas. Another thing that Vegas has that Sound Forge doesn't is "input monitoring". Therefore, you can route the input signal that you are recording to an output on your sound card and be able to listen to it while you're recording. This is not possible in Sound Forge, except if your Sound Card has an input monitoring feature. The other piece of equipment you'll need is an internal CDR drive. Probably better to get a combo DVDR and CDR drive.

"What size hard drive would be required to record approximately 60-70 hours of audio."

You get 80 minutes of stereo recording per 700 meg. This comes out to 8.75 Meg per minute. So for 70 hours of record time you would need 31.5 Gig of hard drive space. To allow space for your programs and OS, you'll probably need something around 40 to 50gig. If you are only recording mono (ie 1 track) then you can double the record time.

" and what format is best used for recording for later transfer to CDs?"

Record in the microsoft WAVE format at 44.1Khz sampling rate and 16bit. This is virtually the same format as CDs and no additonal conversions that might cause quality loss will be needed.

With the recommendations I made, you can record in Vegas and place marker points while you are recording, where you would like CD track ID's to go. Then when finished recording place the CD track ID's where the markers are located. Then burn a CD and hand it out before the stage is even torn down.