Digital technologies in the form of CDs and mobile devices such as iPods, MP3 players, etc. have made it easy to take the music that you like with you wherever you go. Home computers are also part of digital convergence where the computer acts as a media center – a repository for music and video that may feed various devices around the house.

But, what do you do if you have a collection of music that is in analog format such as LPs, 45s, tape cassette, reel-to-reel, or even 8-track? You’d be hard-pressed to call any of these formats as lending themselves to a mobile life style. Further, the quality of magnetic recordings (tape) is known to deteriorate over time, and both tape and disk are subject to physical damage or deterioration with age.

Take heart – there is free software available that, when used with the addition of an inexpensive cable or two, will let you transfer your analog music collection to digital format, CD or MP3, and thus into today’s devices.

At the July 10th meeting (note that due to the July 4th holiday it is one week later in the month than usual) DACS member Bruce Preston will present the multi-platform program Audacity. Yes, it is available for Windows, Mac, as well as Linux.

Bruce will:

• Briefly describe the difference between analog and digital recordings, and how being in digital format permits sophisticated editing and restoration.
  
• Very briefly discuss the legal ramifications – hint: it’s legal for personal use.
  
• Demonstrate how to identify the appropriate connections on your audio source device such as turntable, compact stereo, receiver, pre-amplifier/amplifier, tape recorder, tape player, boom box, etc.
  
• Show how to select the appropriate cable for connecting the audio source device to your computer (typically available at RadioShack for under $10).
  
• Download and install Audacity and plug-ins.
  
• Rip recordings from the source to the hard disk. This is the analog-to-digital conversion. You will see how to set the record level, and see and hear the effects of having the setting too high or too low.
  
• Edit the digital sound cuts – using such tasks as breaking an album side into individual cuts, trimming lead-in and lead-out, applying fade-in and/or fade-out, and most importantly, audio restoration - the sophisticated clean up of such common problems as surface noise, pops, snaps, tape hiss, etc, using various plug-ins or wizards which make the task simple. The demonstration will include ripping a cut from a 1938 Carnegie Hall jazz concert recording that has extensive surface noise. You will see the restoration process and hear the final result.
• Continue with the conversion of the restored sound clip to CD audio which can then be burned to a CD for use in any CD player, such as in a car, or converted and loaded into MP3 format for use in an MP3 device such as an iPod.

There will be a brief demonstration of Apple’s iTunes – a free, downloadable music cataloging program that you may use to organize your digital music collection. Note: You do not need to have an iPod to use iTunes, nor do you have to purchase music from the Apple music store to use iTunes.

This meeting is a must for all of those who have been holding on to those precious recordings in the hope of converting them easily to digital audio

DACS meetings are held at the Danbury Hospital auditorium. Activities begin at 6:30 p.m. with registration and casual networking. The meeting starts at 7:00 p.m. with a general question and answer period (Ask DACS) and a discussion of what’s new in technology followed by a short break.

The featured evening presentation begins at 8:00. As a reminder, our General Meetings are free and open to the public so invite anyone you know who would be interested in this topic.