Producing Real Audio clips - a tutorial by Murali Shankar. --------------------------------------------------------- (all rights reserved. ) Encoding from Cassette to ".rm" file (playable by G2 player only) --------------------------------------------------------------- This tutorial will guide you though the simplest of the steps reqd for encoding a song from the cassette. For further deatils, like noise reduction, other tutorials need be used. Necessary downloads: -------------------------- (1) free Goldwave (from http://www.goldwave.com) (2) free Real G2 producer (http://www.real.com) After downloading install the softwares. If you have a walkman it is well and good. It is the right compact instrument for uploading songs. Necessary busbars: ----------------------- (1) a Mini shielded mini cable (ACW 343 - company - Recoton). do not get confused. It is just an output cord from the walkman. read carefully - The pin that goes into the socket from where walkman's output comes, is the same as the one, which goes into your computer soundblaster. Get it from Best buy. Follow the steps given below: Preliminaries: ---------------- (1) First verify that you have atleast 100 MB free on your hard drive. (2) Open goldwave. You will see that a window with the information about the software also pops up. close it. (3) You will see a "window within window" (4) Now minimize the big window. the small window gets minimized automatically. if not, minimize that too. (5) goto "Start" at the left bottom corner. (6) Press it (7) you will see "run". Press it (8) a window opens. type "SNDVOL32". It opens the "Volume control" window. you can see various volume controls each specific for a device. (9) You can see on the windo's left hand top corner "Options" and "Help". (10) Press 'options". you can see "Properties". Press it. you will find another window popping up. you will find a description about the audio device installed in your computer something like "SB Audio PCI 64D mixer". In that window you will see "Playback" and "Recording". Check "Recording" (11) Below you will find a list of devices. CD, microphone,Wave, Synthesizer,Line etc... Check "Line". Click OK. the window closes by itself (12) You will also see a "Recording Control' window popping out. (13) Adjust the volume of "Line" in that window to 50% of the maximum. (14) Once you are done, close the window. If you goof up in running "SNDVOL32", just goto step 5 and follow step once again. (15) Now connect the output from the walkman to your computer in a socket marked "LINE in". (16) Close all the windows except Goldwave and Volume control (17) Now you are ready for recording. Recording: ------------- (1) Maximize the goldwave window. (2) In the bigger window, at the upper-left corner, you will find "File". Press it. You see "new" on the top. Press it and a new window 'New sound" pops. (3) Press CD -->OK. you find "intializing sound" with percentage displayed. Let it complete 100. (4) Once it is done, the sound window is displayed. (5) The smaller window has a "red button"(record). (6) The walkman has to set in such a way that the volume of the walkman is 50% its maximum. (6) Be ready to press the "play" button of the walkman as soon as you follow the step (7). Also ensure that you are recording some "blank" portion of the cassette either preceding or succeeding the songs. This is the noise of cassette. (7) Hold "ctrl" and press "red button"(record). Once you do this you fin that the red buton changes to a "rose button" (stop). (8) Play the walkman immly. (9) Once the song has been played, press "rose button"(stop) . Now the recording is done. (10) Now go to the bigger window and File -->Save as (11) The Save as window opens. (12) type a filename (eg..mysong) and in "Save as type" ,choose "Wave (*.wav)". (13) File attributes choose "16-bit, stereo, signed" (14) Save. It takes some time. (15) Close all the windows Encoding: ------------ (1) till now we have seen how to record the song as a .wav file. This takes up roughly 10 MB per minute of the song played. so if a song is roughly 5 min long, it takes 50 MB. (2) The song as such is not suited for "uploading/downloading/streaming". So we go for encoding in Real G2 producer. (3) Once you have closed all the windows, open real G2 producer installed in your computer. (4) You will find a "window on window" popping out. (5) the top window has three options :(1) Record from file (2) Record from media device (3) Live broadcast. check "Record from file". (6) Press ok. (7)the top window asks you for the source file. this source file is the .wav(eg..C:/temp/mysong.wav) file you have created through "recording". type the location of the .wav file (8) Press next. (9)Fill in the title you want to place, your name in the author fields. these are optional. You may skip them. (10) Press next. You get two options(1) Sure stream (2) Single rate. check "single rate". Press next (11) check "28K modem". Press next. (12) you find audio format window. check "Music" if you wnat "mono" output or "Stereo music" if you wnat stereo output.Press next (13) Enter the destination file name and location.Press next (14) Press finish. Now the top window closes by itself and the bottmwindow alone is left (15) Press "start". the encoding starts and ends. (16) Play. It plays in real G2 player. (17) for the encoding of the next song, close all the windows and start all over by opening the "goldwave" and preoceed from the step "one" of the recording. Some common problems: ------------------------------ (1) There must be enough memory for te temporary storage of the file. this loaction can be set by clicking "Preferences" in the bottom window and choosing the "general" tab. In that you find temporary storage directory. There you may set the location for the temp storage of the file. (2) The other users may claim that they ae not able to play the files which you have encoded. this is rectified by ensuring that the two boxes namely "Allow recording" and "allow download" in the "general" tab remain unchecked. (3) You may not find the top window at all sometimes. Check the "Use Recording Wizards" in the "general" tab.