audio-recording on S Anand

Recording online songs

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 12:00:00 +0000

In the 1980s, we rarely used to buy audio cassettes. It was a lot cheaper to record songs from the radio. It’s amazing that in the 2000s, this technique seems to be less used than before.

If you wanted to record a song that was streamed online, you could go through the complex procedures I’d mentioned earlier to download online songs, or you could use the 1980s technologies. Get a tape recorder, connect the headphones of your PC to the tape recorder’s microphone using a stereo cable, and record to your heart’s content.

Except, of course, that tape recorders are rather outdated. And with the right software, your PC can act like a tape recorder. Here’s how you can go about it.

Download Audacity and install it
Download Lame and save it
Open Audacity and select “Wave Out” as the source
Play a song online and click on the Record button. Press the Stop button when done
File - Export as MP3. (The first time, you need to tell Audacity where you’ve saved Lame)

That’s it. You can convert anything your computer plays into an MP3 file. (The general rule in digital media is: if you can see / hear it, you can copy it.)

OK, lets’ do this more slowly.

1. Download Audacity and install it.

Audacity is a program lets you record and edit music. Just visit the link above (or search on Google for “Download Audacity”) and install the program. This is what it looks like.

2. Download Lame and save it

When you record something with Audacity, you’ll usually want to save it as an MP3 file. Lame is another software that lets you do that. Go to the link above, download the ZIP file, and unzip it in some folder. (Remember where you unzipped it.)

3. Open Audacity and select “Wave Out” as the source

You can choose which source to record from in Audacity. Do you see the “Line In” in the screenshot below? That’s the source from which Audacity will record sound from. Usually, your PC will have a “Microphone” socket, and may have a “Line in” socket. It may also have a built-in microphone. Depending on what sockets and capabilities your PC has, you may see different things.

One of these sources will probably be “Wave Out”. That lets you record any sound played by your computer. So if you want to record a song your computer’s playing, what’s what you should choose.

Not all sound cards have the “Wave Out” option, though. Many laptops that I have used don’t seem to have this option. If that’s the case with you, there’s a fairly simple solution. Just buy a stereo-to-stereo cable (shown below) and connect your headphone socket to your microphone socket.

This transfers everything your computer plays back into the microphone, and you can select “External Mic” as your source.

Buying this stereo cable has another advantage. Rather than connect one end to your computer’s headphones, you can connect it to anything: your old cassette player, your radio, a microphone, whatever. So that means you can now:

Convert your old tapes to MP3
Record songs on the radio as MP3
Record songs from the TV / DVD player as MP3
Record live conversations as MP3
Record phone conversations as MP3
etc.

4. Play a song online and click on the Record button. Press the Stop button when done

That’s easy. The Record button is the red circular button that’s third from the left. The Stop button is the yellow square button that’s second from the right.

5. File - Export as MP3

When you’ve stopped recording, you can actually do a bunch of useful things with Audacity.

The first is to adjust the volume level. Go to the Effect menu and select Amplify. Then you can try different amplification levels to see how it sounds.

The next is to trim the audio. Unless you’re really fast with the keyboard, you probably have some unwanted sound recorded at the beginning or the end. You can select these pieces by dragging the mouse over the wiggly blue lines, and go to the Edit menu and pick Delete.

Lastly, you’ll want to set the sound quality. Go to Edit - Preferences and under the File Formats tab, set the bit rate under the MP3 Export Setup section. (If you don’t know what rate to put in there, 128 is a safe number. If you want better quality, increase it. If you’re short of disk space or want to mail it to someone, decrease it. Based on my experiments, even a good ear can’t tell the difference at 128. I use 64 or 96. My ear is pretty bad.)

All of the above was optional. If you just wanted to save the file, go to the File menu and select “Export as MP3”. The first time you do that, you’ll be asked to mention the folder where you saved lame_enc.dll (which is where you unzipped Lame.) Show Audacity the folder, and that’s it.

Comments

Vivetha 26 Sep 2008 4:03 am: Hai Anand,

Thanks lot for your technical supports and guidlines. Still I couldn’t able to understand what have to do for recording my skype conversation. Can you help on this?

I use Acer 2413 laptop which has one headphone port and another microphone port. I have Stereo to Stereo to cable. Can you tell me what the next step to proceed for recording Skype conversation, and next for recording online songs?

Thanks & Regards
Vivetha
Madurai
S Anand 26 Sep 2008 12:51 pm: @Vivetha: This link explains how to record Skype conversations:
http://www.voip-sol.com/15-apps-for-recording-skype-conversations/
Preet 27 Sep 2008 10:12 pm: Hello Anand,

Thank you for the updates.
Can it download all Online songs from all sites?
The Lame site says as follows: “Once you have unzipped the archive, you will have a file called LameLib or libmp3lame.dylib”
However after downloading I am not getting the above files in the zip folder. There are 2 notepad files and one dll files in the zip folder.
Could you please advise me what to do next.
Thanks and Rgds,
Preet
Chennai
Preet 28 Sep 2008 3:39 am: Also Anand one more help…

The wave out option is not appearing in the Audacity version 1.2.6 which I downloaded.
Thanks and Rgds,

Preet
Chennai
S Anand 28 Sep 2008 4:48 am: @Preet: You need to copy the DLL file (lame_enc.dll) to your C:\Windows\system32 folder. (Or any other folder would be fine, as long as you remember to tell Audacity where the file is.

If “Wave Out” does not appear as an option, your sound card doesn’t support that option. Your only option is to use the stereo cable.
Ashwani 18 Nov 2008 4:54 am: hi anand
thanx for ur support
i have a proble, no any option highlighted in ‘‘SELECT COURCE’’ area

plz told me solution
here i see recordind & save that but without sound

Thanx & rtegards,

Ashwani Shukla
ssr 3 Dec 2008 2:14 am: how to download songs from www.devotionalsongs.com
It is a challenging job?
>kk; 9 Dec 2008 9:58 am: hi anand,
great site and very helpful.
My sound card does not support “Wave Out” so i bought a stereo-to-stereo cable, exactly as the pic you’ve put.
After connecting the ends to my headphone and mic slots, i tried to record, but no positive results.
The options shown by audacity both before and after plugging in the cable are “Front mic, Mic Colume, CD Volume, Line Volume”.
I’ve got a Logitech webcam,which is the “Front mic” i think, and it does record my voice when i record after chosing that as the option.
How do i go about recording playback of whatever songs i play on my PC using audacity using the cable ?
Any help is greatly appreciated. (….u’re on vacation..)
keep up the good work !!
-kk
S Anand 9 Dec 2008 8:35 pm: KK, try plugging the cable into each slot (line out / mic) and try all
options: “Front mic”, “Mic Volume”, etc. I usually do this hit-and-miss, and
something eventually works.
tk 29 Jan 2009 10:59 am: Hey

My audacity doesn’t even have that drop down menu. Its just a gray box…any ideas?

Thanks
S Anand 31 Jan 2009 5:57 am: In that case, the sound card probably doesn’t support it. I’m afraid
you may have to do it the old-fashioned way: play it on one computer,
connect the headphone socket to another computer’s mic socket, and
record it on the second computer.
swapna 6 Mar 2009 12:32 pm: Hi, Am Indian classical Music singer . I would like to sing and record my songs which people must be able to listen it on internet. Can you please tell me how it is possible . Thanks
S Anand 6 Mar 2009 2:25 pm: Swapna, just record your songs on to a tape recorder. Then connect its headphone socket to a PC’s mic socket. Install Audacity and select “Microphone” or “Line in” as the source. Play the tape and press the red record button. When done, press the stop button and save the file from Audacity. You can upload the file to sites like odeo.com
Purushothaman 8 Mar 2009 1:38 pm: Hi, How can I record the conversations and online-music class in skype?
S Anand 8 Mar 2009 4:06 pm: Here are some ways of recording Skype conversations: http://www.voip-sol.com/15-apps-for-recording-skype-conversations/ I haven’t tried any of them myself. If they fail, you could always download Audacity, select “Wave Out” as your input and press the Record button during the class.
S Anand 23 Mar 2009 7:44 am: This might be because MusicIndiaOnline is down. That’s where I’m getting this songs from, ultimately. It’s a pity that MusicIndiaOnline is down quite frequently these days. Could you please try again when their site is up?
Valavan 23 Mar 2009 12:16 am: Hi Anand, I’m unable to download the songs of “Dance of Shiva” by Sudha Raghunathan from your website s-anand.net/carnatic. I’m using latest ver of firefox. I’m getting the error “Couldn’t match M in” after saving the file name in local disk. I tried in i.e. 8 also and got the same error. Please help me in downloading the songs…….
Kapil India 13 May 2010 5:17 am: Ahaan…why record that way … simply using windows Sound Recorder and double clicking Volume Icon in taskbar with Recording Device selected as Stereo Mix will do the job and by default it can support mp3 at 56Kbps or else download Lame or other Mp3 encoders and use it in sound record…also some WinAmp Plugin will do that for you too. Simple Kapil

Telemarketer in a murder investigation

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Tom Mabe likes playing pranks on telemarketers while recording the call. This is a recording of a hilarious telemarketing call.

Tom: Hello?
Mike: Yes, can I speak with Tom Mabe?
Tom: Who’s calling?
Mike: This is Mike (beep). You’ve been selected to receive a complete digital satellite system for free. With this, you’re going to…
Tom: Um, let me ask you something. Did you know Tom Mabe? Are you a friend of his?
Mike: No, I’m not. I’m just calling to…
Tom: Hold that thought… hold on one second, alright? (off phone) Hey guys, get really good pictures of the body. Yeah, dust everything down for prints. (on phone) Are you there?
Mike: Yeah.
Tom: Let me bring you up to speed. You have actually called a murder scene and Mr Mabe is no longer with us. I’m Officer Clarke. I’m conducting a homicide investigation. I want to ask you a series of questions. Firstly, what was the nature of business you had with Tom Mabe?
Mike: I, uh, had no business with him. I’m… I’m sorry to have bothered you…
Tom: No, no, no hey hold on look, I want to ask you to stay on the phone. This call has already been traced and we may need to you to come here for further questioning. This …
Mike: You see, you don’t understand. I’m just calling …
Tom: No, no, look, you don’t understand. Unless you want to be charged with obstruction of justice it’s imperative to keep your ass on the phone, Mike.
Mike: Or, how about you just talk to my supervisor then?
Tom: No no no no we’ll get to your supervisor in a second. Now, give me your whereabouts.
Mike: I’m at work.
Tom: You’re at work?
Mike: Yes.
Tom: You being a smartass?
Mike: No, sir.
Tom: Let me put it to you this way, Mike. Say I want to mail your ass a letter. What would I have to write on the outside of that envelope to ensure that the mailman will deliver it right to your ass? Geographically speaking, Mike, where is work?
Mike: 40 West (beep), Middleton, Colorado.
Tom: Hold on, that’s 40 …
Mike: Yes sir.
Tom: Michael, hold on one sec, alright?
Mike: Yes sir.
Tom: (off phone) Get the Middleton homicide department on the phone. Yeah, give them this information. Tell them there been a talk in connection with a fatal shooting and aggravated robbery. (on phone) Mike, how did you know Mr. Mabe again?
Mike: Wait, you’re calling the Middleton police department? I’m hundreds of miles away! I don’t even know the guy… I’m in Colorado!
Tom: No, no, it’s not that scary… that’s just a formality. Tell me, have you been to any place other than work, then?
Mike: No!
Tom: OK, and tell me again what, where were you last night for twenty hours after eight and ten?
Mike: I’m not feeling really comfortable with any of this.
Tom: Have you even ever spoken to Mr. Mabe, Mike?
Mike: No I haven’t. I don’t even know the guy. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!
Tom: OK, very good, calm down, calm down, look, I’ve got one more question for you, Mike. As you well know, I’m sure, Mr. Mabe was a flaming homosexual. There’s no easy way of asking this, I don’t want to embarrass you or nothin’, but, were you his gay lover?
Mike: What!? No… what kind of a question is that?
Tom: (you just have to hear what he says!)

Comments

Bob Zuley 21 Dec 2006 10:21 pm: What exactly is the ending reference to homosexuality supposed to mean? Is it an insult, or a joke?
S Anand 21 Dec 2006 11:37 pm: Oh, the whole thing is a joke by Tom Mabe anyway. Guess he just wanted to see how far he could go in pulling this telemarketer’s leg.
Dhar 23 Dec 2006 7:37 am: Well, I think I will try and pull something similar the next time I receive of those infinite calls for free credit cards / free holidays… :))

Totally enjoyable reading!! D.
Ric 19 Jan 2009 6:13 am: I dont care what anyone says that is funny
zwtk : how do you deal with telemarketers? - Perth Street Bikes 19 May 2009 3:59 am (pingback): […] calls most evenings. I think this is the best way to deal with the ones that do get through: Telemarketer in a murder investigation | s-anand.net __________________ Adventure before […]
Janet 14 Jun 2012 10:39 pm: Lol very funny, end if the day he will probably get a call from someone at some point, and know how the public feel about it. Great prank!
Harry Scrotter 26 Aug 2011 2:07 pm: Bullying, and psychological harassment of some poor fellow just trying to make a living by working for a telemarketing company. Probably on minimum wage and just trying to provide for his family. Throw in a little homophobia for good measure and watch the dweeby frat boy scum bust a zit laughing. Why not throw in a little racism for good measure hey: draw in a load more douchbag wallies for your inane, tedious and puerile waste of pixels.
Rick 18 Jan 2017 8:44 pm: I have made me a script to read from when a spammer calls me that is very similar to this post and dam its funny hearing their reactions to my questions. I look forward to getting spammers calls so I can have a little fun with them, It always is the highlight of my day

Playing sounds backwards

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 12:00:00 +0000

You can play a video backwards and still recognise the scenes quite well. Can you do that with sound?

I tried it on this Bryan Adams clip of Summer of ‘69 (mp3). When played backwards (mp3), it almost sounds like Arabic!

Instruments sound weird backwards too, like the guitar played backwards and drums played backwards.

It’s seems obvious once you see the wave file. The picture below shows the guitar. The sounds are clearly not symmetric left to right.

Whereas this guitar is a lot more symmetric, and doesn’t sound too different backwards.

So how come we can’t recognise sounds played backwards, but can recognise video played backwards? (Initially, I thought it was a trivial question. But I couldn’t find a trivial answer. The question may be subtler than it looks.)

Comments

B anand Prasad 25 Sep 2006 12:35 pm: its nothing to do with the technology Mr. Anand let me give an example dnana ….you just spell it… it sounds something like (d-na-na) now if we know that reversing it could(possibly) result in Anand — dnanA, then we could recognize all backward sounds its just that we r not acustomed to hear sounds backward. now practice daily some words which are often used like “good morning” “thanks” now say them to someone in a correct situation…90% of them will recognize it.. thats it my friend….sorry for reversing “Anand” name….its my name too
S Anand 25 Sep 2006 1:48 pm: Anand, if I’ve understood you right, we don’t recognise sounds backwards because we’re not used to hearing them. Agreed. My reasoning was: we’re not used to seeing things backwards either. How come we’re so much better at recognising those? A part of the answer is, we recognise sounds mainly by their movement in time, but images by their spread across space. But I wonder if there’s more to it…
ND 26 Sep 2006 3:07 am: I think this may have to do with the fact that seeing consists of detecting multiple facets like motion, pattern etc. The brain may have more data points decompose and “meaningfully” analyze backward. While hearing consists of analyzing the frequencies and amplitude implying lesser data points to “meaningfully” analyze backward with the same speed as visual stimuli. Caveat - Just my guess!
S Anand 26 Sep 2006 6:23 am: Hmm… ND, that’s a possibility! Certainly, in terms of information content, there’s more coming in visually than aurally.
ND 27 Sep 2006 12:42 pm: I asked three intelligent folks (an american, a german and an indian) to read “eye”, “racecar”, “malayalam” and “never odd or even” and waited for their reaction. Got blank stares! But it was sitter when explained. Guess some humans find it difficult to recognize a palindrome while reading and speaking. Taking a few million huge steps to infer humans normally normally don’t even try to process sound or reading alphabets backward. Is it easier to recognize a popular word like one’s name or a tune like Happy B’day when spoken or sung backward? A related front and back concept - I have always wondered why the bar showing s/w installing moves from left to right. And the same when uninstalling also. Is it convention? Why not show something more perceptive like a container getting filled or getting drained?
Sudeep Nair 20 Nov 2006 5:40 am: Anand, I feel that the fundamental difference between a reversed text and reversed sound is that the text is still completely visible to the eye at once, and so there is a subconscious process where the brain is able to decipher the text by trying out some permutations, whereas in case of sound, the individual notes reach the ears and disappear. They do not remain “static” or “stationary” for the brain to be able to try some reverse permuations of individual notes and identify the original sound. This reminds me of another observation that in case of English text, the reader is able to decipher the words if the first and last letter of every word is kept fixed and all other letters in between are jumbled. Msot raeedrs wlil be albe to udnreatsnd tihs snetncee atlohugh the lteerts are jbulmed.
Anonymous 20 Nov 2006 6:15 am: If we extend this logic from text to video, I think there is some degree of “persistence of vision” which allows the brain to “refer back”, unjumble and make sense of video images, but there is no persistence of sound. So in addition to anand prasad’s point about “familiarity of words”, and ND’s point about “more meaningful data points”, I would think that “persistence of images” is a major factor helping us understand visual images better than sound.

Sound effects

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:00:00 +0000

It’s interesting how Steven Spielberg created his sound effects in movies. For example, in Raiders of the Lost Ark,

Indy’s whip is the treated sound of a jet taking off; the punches in fist fights are the result of bashing leather jackets with baseball bats; and the rolling boulder rumble is a Honda station wagon coasting down a gravel road mixed with a rocket blast-off.

… or in E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

… the bulk of E.T.’s utterances were delivered by Pat Welsh, a 65-year-old Marin County housewife. The sound designer, Ben Burtt, overheard her distinctive vocals in a camera store and cheekily asked the retured elocution teacher to remove her dentures and talk without her teeth. Convinved that her screechy voice was ideal for the role, Burtt paid her $350 to spend a day recording E.T.’s minimal dialogue. Subsequently her voice was enriched by watery textures.

… or in Jurassic Park

… many raptor screams were taken from dolphins recorded at Marine World. The call of the brachiosaurus came from both whale songs and donkey brays slowed down with added echo. The dilophosaurus had its sound broken into two types: for the early, playful spitter, Rudstrom employed a variety of swan calls; yet as it turns nasty, and egret sound is mixed with Rydstrom’s own voice (to add a sense of weight) to suggest venom. The rattling noice produced by an exotic insect doubled for the sound of the spitter’s vibrating cowl.

Yet the most complex-sounding character was the mighty tyrannosaurus. The vocal effects came from a diversity of sources – elephant, alligator, penguin, tiger and dog sounds – all mixed together to create a rich, naturalistic dinosaur vocabulary. Whale blowholes repeated into a regular rythm created tyrannosaurus breathing patterns. For his world-shattering road, a blast from a baby elephant created the high end of the frequency, while the low end was provided by alligator growls and tigher shrieks.

Comments

Dhar 29 Jun 2005 2:33 am: Anand, can you put up the link from where you got this info?
S Anand 29 Jun 2005 8:01 am: Typed it in from The Complete Spielberg
jayant 30 Jun 2005 4:14 am: Will not mobile theft be very high in London given this door security system? Guess they must have some other system too, like some door code other than pressing just 0…may be ppl dont do such things there…
jayant 30 Jun 2005 4:29 am: huh..had put something on mobile phone and door security…where did it disappear?
S Anand 30 Jun 2005 6:40 am: Mobile theft is pretty high, but not because of the door security system, I think. That’s only for new constructions, and they are not too common.

Hacking using keyboard whispers

Wed, 12 May 2004 12:00:00 +0000

It’s possible to make sense out of keyboard whispers.

Audio blogging tools

Sat, 31 Aug 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Garth is working on audio-blogging tools. Given the amount of poetry I see among bloggers, this might unleash a host of blog-singers.

Sanskrit texts and bhajans

Wed, 25 Jul 2001 12:00:00 +0000

Sanskrit texts and bhajans are available as audio.

Bhagavad Gita online

Mon, 08 Jan 2001 12:00:00 +0000

Bhagavad Gita online. Has audio, translations in several languages, etc. Very well organised. The final quote was very fitting for Mr. Krishnan’s IIMPressions, incidentally.