General Music Chat

I was checking out Audacity's free downloadable software for recording and editing, and was wondering if anyone has used it. I'm considering using the Windows 1.2.6 version on Windows XP Home Edition with 512MB/2.80GHz. They recommend 512MB/1GHz, but prefer that you have more then the recommedation.

Does anyone know anything at all about Audacity or have knowledge of it or experience whatsoever with it?

I would greatly appreciate anything that you could tell me about it, as I have almost no recording/editing experience with pc music software of any type. It sounds pretty user friendly and I think I can figure it out, but, was curious if someone might be able to give me a few tips and/or advice concerning it. Hope to hear something/anything soon. Thanks!

Hi bundydude.

Yes I have. It works really well for audio recording. At the moment it does not support Midi recording but does have the capability to export it if you already have midi recordings. You'll need Lame too if you wish to export to Mp3.

Like everything else the software is only as good as the sound card you have installed. Soundblaster for instance seems to work ok with some minor latency issues but nothing major.

The best advice I personally can offer is take a very good long read up on the Audacity homepage. There were some links missing but I know the project is no where near complete and is still being worked on.

In short it works really well in Windows,

Hope this helps?

Best.

Chippy.

Chippy, thank you very much. If you don't mind me asking, what type of music have you recorded using Audacity. I play progressive/power metal, and was wondering if you think the genre of music will affect the recording. The reason I ask is, and I don't know this for certain, but, I would imagine that something along the lines of; folk, light - jazz or anything without a great deal of distortion would come out sounding better in the final result, due to lack of noise. As I said, I don't know this to be fact, but, am guessing this to be true. Also, I don't know, because of my lack of pc recording experience. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks again for your response...

One last question; Are either of the songs on your MySpace recorded using Audacity?

Many of us use Audacity.
If for nothing more than to transfer music from recording device to computer to web site.
Try it you'll like it.

Eeek.
I'll try but I suspect there are a lot of folks who have used more than I for REAL recording/mastering.

A lot of what you are asking is obviously controlled by your VU's and ultimately the sound card. If you have all your necessary effects ready to go outside Audacity. Meaning you have everything you need to record off the cuff right now you should not have a problem. That said Audacity is limited in the production area. You do have a mixer but its limited. If you have a Mixer you intend to use pre/post production outside Audacity this could work for you too.

It really depends on how and what you want Audacity to do for you? There is an excellent option in Reaper which is a full blown utility.
http://www.reaper.fm/
For 60 Bucks you can own/licence this software but so I'm told they do not enforce the 30 trial period.

I would wholeheartedly suggest 'Reaper' but keep Audacity and still use it as others do. I've tried Reaper and was really impressed by tool options being where you would think to looking for them.

Audacity is an excellent piece of software, but if you don't want to spend billions Reaper is a great option although the learning curve might slow you at first.

Hope this helps and hope others chime in on this too.
Best wishes.

Chippy.

Chippy, thank you very much. If you don't mind me asking, what type of music have you recorded using Audacity. I play progressive/power metal, and was wondering if you think the genre of music will affect the recording. The reason I ask is, and I don't know this for certain, but, I would imagine that something along the lines of; folk, light - jazz or anything without a great deal of distortion would come out sounding better in the final result, due to lack of noise. As I said, I don't know this to be fact, but, am guessing this to be true. Also, I don't know, because of my lack of pc recording experience. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks again for your response...

One last question; Are either of the songs on your MySpace recorded using Audacity?

I've been using Audacity and find it sufficient for what I do. Not difficult to use, but some of the effects take time to set to your liking.

Check my profile and listen to Silhouette of A Daydream and Last Train. Both were recorded using Audacity. Desperately Electric Tea was recorded using Windows sound recorder and a cheap condenser mic, posted just to show someone what can be done with minimum equipment. While We Cry was recorded in 2001 I think by the old "ping pong" method, from a reel to reel to a CD burner and back. I did everything on it and the others, all instruments and vocals. Drums on While We Cry was a keyboard drum machine.

2.6GHz P 4 and 256MB RAM, Windows 2000. The only problem I've had is due to low memory it shuts down sometimes when I record something, soon as I click "Stop" it's gone. Otherwise, it works fine and that's not the software, it's lack of memory.

Audacity is really cool I see more and more bands doing really cool things with it. It takes a bit to get used to but the price can't be beat.

Bundydude,
I bumped Lalong's excellent Audacity topic over on the" musicians gear & and Tech" discussion section.
Check it out.
Howlin'

BundyDude I play prog/metal and it doesn't funk up my bass work (that's all I do) at all, if anything makes it better cuz I can make it louder

Since you're a professional, it's not just "hit record and save."
Audacity is great, but you have to learn how to use it to its full potential. It's just as good as ProTools, except you have to put a lot more effort.

LINK: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

The above link has all the info you'll need to get started. Read up on these useful topics. After that, it's simply trial and error.
If you got more questions, my email is on my profile.

Happy recording!

Here's the link folks were talking about Bundy.

http://forum.bandmix.com/viewtopic.php?t=4951