dacs.doc electric

 

At the January 2003 general meeting, Frank Powers, a DACS board member explained to the group gathered at the Hospital Auditorium how to take advantage of music editing and recording programs. Frank started by giving us an introduction of the several of the programs and then explained in details how to record onto a computer vinyl record and tapes.

The three software packages that Frank showed us were Music Match, Jukebox 7.5 and Voyetra. The last is a familiar name to DACS members who attended previous presentations by Frank on Voyetra Turtle Beach, Inc. and Cakewalk Pyro.

While Frank was as thorough and informative as possible within his allocated time there is, the presentation left me with even more questions than when he started. Of course, that's a sign of success, and I'm sure that Frank could come back and tell us a lot more on the subject.

In his introduction Frank recommended to adopt a system and stick to it when organizing music files. Computers facilitate this task. Frank reminded us of the time when we were trying to manually stack albums in some kind of order. On computers, music can be sorted by genre, albums, artists, etc.

Frank demonstrated a few features of Music Match, a program that I also have on my computer at home but which is basically used to pipe in music from the Internet. The program has a lot of capabilities that I have never even had the opportunity to explore. One function Frank mentioned is Auto DJ, which randomly selects music from up to three categories—So for instance you can tell it: "Give me one hour of songs from Eric Clapton and George Harrison, but limit the selection to songs from All Things Must Pass and Unplugged. The user would get a mix of songs from these two albums that equaled one hour's worth of listening.

Frank explained the term ripping a CD which is the extraction of data onto a CD and the ability to copy those data onto a computer. From Frank's web page http://franksamericana.com/ 'Ripping is a term for "digitally copying" the audio from an audio CD. It is similar to copying a file from a floppy or CD to your hard drive. Programs like AudioStation , MusicMatch Jukebox, Cakewalks© Pyro, Windows Media Player, and Real One all offer free versions and are available on the Internet for download. All of the ones mentioned will allow digital copying and cataloging on your hard drive of CDs you "ripp". ' Frank drew a parallel between the ease of ripping a CD—which is a fast process—and the time consuming task of copying a tape onto another tape, where the last segment was never totally copied onto the tape. Frank pointed out that the music industry was not alarmed when people went through the trouble of copying tape, now that we can "ripp" CDs in no time, the industry is more concerned, to the extend of having some music CDs unabled in order not to be played on a computer. The analog recording features of Voyetra 's AudioSurgeon and Cakewalk Pyro were also briefly demonstrated.

In order to record vinyl albums and tapes onto a hard disk, Frank suggested the following equipment:

• A computer - an old one is just fine
• A soundcard
• Recording software
• A turntable or tape recorder - depending on your source of music
• A phono preamp and the necessary cables

All the details for the required equipment are found on Frank's web page noted above.
Frank emphasized that it is wise to choose what you want to record onto your computer. It is not a small feat to go through the process. He gave the following examples of what he feels is worth to record to a hard disk: Family audio - band tapes if you ever played and got recorded - your kids' concerts and vinyl records that are close to your heart and not available on CDs. Frank showed us how the three programs noted previously can be used to record external soundtracks to a hard disk. In addition, he demonstrated how all his computer music is archived. As we know from previous DACS presentations, disaster can strike and our hard disk wiped from its content. So as with every file that is important to you, save it and keep it in a safe place.

Frank's presentation was low key and very informative and I think he only scratched the surface on the topic of music and computers and how they complement each other. His web page and the articles recently written for DACS are chock full of additional information on the subject.