Recording - Audacity vs. Total Recorder

[MrGongGong]

It's a multi-stage process: editing/extracting the aac file/converting to WAV, m4a, whatever, but "fiddly"? Not once you get the hang of it. A bit like riding a bike in that respect. Neither the software concerned in the capture nor that used in the editing is of the most intuitive, however. Anyone know of such software which runs on a Mac? PM me if you do. I am Apple averse myself, but other are not, and I sometimes get asked how it's done with Mac, and I simply do not know.

It might be useful to others
so

I now use a macbook after many years using windows
the main reasons I changed when my Sony laptop died were that I could use Audition (which is now cross platform) which is probably the best audio editor there is (I've tried them all !! Logic, Protools, Cubase, Digital Performer etc etc ) and I always used Cooledit which is what was sold to Adobe. I also use a thing called Audiomulch which does realtime processing etc for live electronics and that is also now cross platform. Oh and the macbook is robust and fast , so I don't really use apple's software iTunes and iMovie stink IMV and Garageband ???? nonsense

Audition supports ........

.raw .dbl
.sam
.wav
.iff .svx
.aif .snd
.txt (you can save audio as a text file ! bonkers bit interesting )
.cel
.cda
.voc
.vox
.dwd
.mp3
.au .snd
.ogg
.pcm .raw
.smp
.wma
.wmp

(+ a few movie formats etc )

So I can more or less open and save everything

[Bryn]

Actually, MrGG, I was thinking more of the interception of the FLV files, such as those used for some YouTube items, (and other sources relevant to these boards), using a Mac. Is there any Mac software that does that job?

[MrGongGong]

Actually, MrGG, I was thinking more of the interception of the FLV files, such as those used for some YouTube items, (and other sources relevant to these boards), using a Mac. Is there any Mac software that does that job?

There are plenty of online Youtube > Mp3 converters etc
I would tend to use Jack or Soundflower to route to an editor such as Audition which will do the whole thing in the digital domain (and will work with Audacity on the mac)............

[scottycelt]

As one who long ago dumped Windoze and regularly works with Fedora 16 OS (Linux), I use the Gnome Desktop Recorder to record directly to mp3 ... one has to have the Pulseaudio feature 'pavucontrol' installed and select 'Monitor of Internal Analog Stereo' in the Recording section once you press the record button in the GDR (the Monitor box doesn't show otherwise!).

As for conversion from wav to mp3 format, Audacity proudly states that it doesn't recognise mp3, without bothering to suggest the easy solution, which one ultimately discovers is to download and install the 'Audacity-Freeworld' version instead.

I have searched the internet to discover whether analogue stereo is considered inferior to digital and can't find a definitive answer. It (the analogue) certainly sounds impressive enough to my ears.

[MrGongGong]

I have searched the internet to discover whether analogue stereo is considered inferior to digital and can't find a definitive answer. It (the analogue) certainly sounds impressive enough to my ears.

aaah but do you have analogue ears ?

[scottycelt]

aaah but do you have analogue ears ?

We'll have no earism on this forum, thank you very much, Mr GG ....

[MrGongGong]

I really don't know what your statement meant anyway ?

ALL recorded music is electronic
ALL sound played through loudspeakers or headphones is analogue

and this IS digital
http://www.ryojiikeda.com/
until the speakers move

[scottycelt]

I really don't know what your statement meant anyway ?

ALL recorded music is electronic
ALL sound played through loudspeakers or headphones is analogue

and this IS digital
http://www.ryojiikeda.com/
until the speakers move

Blind us with meaningless 'science' if you must, Mr GG, but I (and others) are simply trying to find out from knowledgeable forum members like yourself whether we should record in digital or analogue format, and invariably there has been a deafening silence or an irrelevant/diversionary response from those who claim to have experience in the industry.

Contributors to Wiki seem to understand well enough and have come to much the same conclusion as myself ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_analog_and_digital_recording

[Stunsworth]

I (and others) are simply trying to find out from knowledgeable forum members like yourself whether we should record in digital or analogue format

My instinct is to say that you should record the digital feed not the analogue one. If you record the analogue feed the signal has gone from lossy digital to analogue and back to (potentially) lossy digital. This seems to have the possibility of introducing coding errors in the output. Whether they can be heard or not is another matter, but my instinctive feeling once again is that it's possible if you have a revealing system.

When I've recorded a digital stream in the past I've always saved it in a lossless format to avoid recoding errors.

[amateur51]

I have searched the internet to discover whether analogue stereo is considered inferior to digital and can't find a definitive answer. It (the analogue) certainly sounds impressive enough to my ears.

Forgive me scotty, but isn't that your answer?