BEST RECORDING SOFTWARE?

Michael Casey · **Voice Talent** Joined: 02 Mar 2007 Posts: 8

Pardon the intervention of this beginner, guys.

But I'm struggling along with the woefully limited Windows Sound Recorder right now and urgently need to download some more versatile software for MP3 recordings.

I would be most grateful for any advice.

Mike

Cameron Thomas · **Voice Talent** Joined: 06 Dec 2006 Posts: 479

Michael,

Hey, I forgot to mention in my previous note that Audacity is free editing software. I tried it out a while back and it seemed to work just fine. I'm pretty sure it saves as MP3 although I didn't confirm. Maybe someone else who uses it here can help out more.

Cheers,
Cameron

Brian Hart · **Voice Talent** Joined: 07 Jan 2006 Posts: 326

Michael Casey · **Voice Talent** Joined: 02 Mar 2007 Posts: 8

Thanks again, Cameron - you're a gentleman, sir!

I've just found something called MP3 Audio Sound Recorder 1.52, whatever the heck that means!

Forgive me, I'm just a boxing journalist!!

Michael Casey · **Voice Talent** Joined: 02 Mar 2007 Posts: 8

Brian, that's magnificent. Thanks for your trouble and I will indeed take your advice.

Best wishes,

Mike

Keith D. Milby · **Voice Talent** Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 570

Sony Sound Forge

Free for 30 days

$69 if you want to buy.

Michael Casey · **Voice Talent** Joined: 02 Mar 2007 Posts: 8

Noted, Keith - many thanks!

Mike

Freddie Molina · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007, 16:39 (GMT) Post subject:

A little expensive, but (for me) it´s the best.

http://www.adobe.com/products/audition/

Colin Campbell · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007, 18:27 (GMT) Post subject:

The free Audacity can "export" to .mp3 if you diownload the LAME encoder. The link to that is at the same site...

http://audacity.sourceforge.net

It is a zip file so when you extract it, put it somewhere where you know where it is... something like c:\program files\audacity\lame

The first time you export to mp3 it will ask you where you put it.

Michael Casey · **Voice Talent** Joined: 02 Mar 2007 Posts: 8

Me again, guys. I've downloaded the Sony Sound Forge for a trial period, and it's pretty much all I need. But it is saving files in SFK format, which I can't appear to open.

I'm sure there's a blindingly obvious answer and would be grateful for enlightenment!

Mike

Tom Greenlee · **Voice Talent** Joined: 07 Mar 2006 Posts: 945

I'm not sure, but I believe the SFK files are paired with the wav or mp3 file that you saved. Adobe Audition saves a file too...I forget what it is, but it contains all the information of what you've done to the file so that when you open the original file up it loads faster. I believe that may be the same with the SFK file. Audition has the choice under options to not save those files. Maybe Sound Forge does as well.

Brian Hart · **Voice Talent** Joined: 07 Jan 2006 Posts: 326

Colin Campbell · Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007, 00:36 (GMT) Post subject:

Yes... adobe saves a .pk file when you save a .wav file which is essentially a "picture" of the wave form so that it opens faster later. You can freely delete these .pk files, Audition will just recreate them. You can also turn off that feature and it really doesn't have much effect on performance. Also, when you do multi-track in Audition it will save all it's "pionters" to individual audio files as .ses (session) files. These don't contain any audio but simply where everything is. What I usually do is "mixdown" in multi-track, then call up edit view and save the mixdown. Unless I am going to revisit the multi-track... then I try to save the "session" but it's maddening keeping track of where everything is and not overwriting a file that you have further edited back to the original.

Audacity simillarly can/will save a "session" file but I forget the extension.

Alan Simmons · **Voice Talent** Joined: 25 Mar 2006 Posts: 220

Micheal,

In Sound Forge you can "Save As" several formats, MP3 being one of those. It will create the SFK file, but I just trash them. Best of luck!

~Alan

Colin Campbell · Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007, 04:06 (GMT) Post subject:

Alan, you avatar looks suspiciously a lot like mine. LOL.