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MP3 Recording for Square Dance Tape Groupsor why cassette tapes are going the way of the 8 trackA Little HistoryI have been involved in leading square dance tape groups since about 1997 or 1998. For a while I used cassette tapes, like everyone else except for a few old timers using reel-to-reel tape machines. I recorded at dances using a Radio Shack cassette tape recorder that turned out fine tapes. But when playing the tapes at the workshops I soon found out that all tape players rewind at one of two speeds: too fast or too slow. If it rewinds too fast, you always overshoot the zero count at the start of the sequence, or go back too far if you just need to repeat the last few calls. If it rewinds too slow, it takes too long. In either case, the sound while rewinding (assuming you are using the "cue and review" feature) really grates on my nerves. Plus, my collection of tapes was starting to pile up. I had a whole carrying case full of them! Plus, tapes cost money. Not a lot, but it all adds up. I decided there had to be a better way. So I started to investigate recording on a computer. I didn't know much about it, but I knew computers had pretty good sound systems, and I knew there was some pretty good audio compression software out there somewhere, to keep the files from getting too big. After a lot of searching, I had a copy of CoolEdit96 on my desktop computer, an old 486 computer at the time. Then I started to experiment with recording some of my cassette tapes into the computer. It worked! I found I could record and play back very good quality sound without using up TOO much hard disk space. My hard disk was a lot smaller back then. I decided that this could work, but I would need a laptop to use at the tape group and also for recording at the dances. You can't lug a desktop computer around. So I found a used IBM Thinkpad 755 CD laptop computer at a good price, and had it in my hands in early 1999. I loaded my software on it, and tried recording at a live dance. At first I used the old "belts and suspenders" approach, recording using the laptop and cassette tape recorder at the same time. It took a while to get the recording level set properly. Cassette tape recorders use an "AGC", or automatic gain control to automatically adjust to the level of the signal being recorded. Computers have no such thing. The recording level must be adjusted manually to avoid the clipping that results when recording at too high a level, or the noise and poor quality that result when recording at too low a level. So then I tried using the laptop at my workshop using Microsoft Media Player to play the files. In 1999 my tape group became (probably) the first in the country to convert over to computer. It worked OK, but Media Player had no "tape counter" to zero. It did have a marker that could be set and returned to, but I had to use a mouse to control it. That meant that my eyes had to be on the computer (instead of on the square) more than I liked. There was also no playlist, so I had to open each new tip individually. File drag-and-drop made that pretty easy. Still, it was better than using tapes. One CD could hold the equivalent of over 30 full cassette tapes, so I could carry an enormous library of material with me. So if someone said "Do you have anything by Mike Jacobs?", I probably did. And I could just use Find Files to find it. Eventually I wrote Wplayer to let me use Winamp to play my files. Wplayer gives me a real "tape counter", skip forward, skip backwards and instant rewind back to zero. I also threw in a tip timer to let me know when to rotate new dancers into the square. Winamp supports very nice playlists, so I can turn a whole dance into a single playlist. And Wplayer keeps track of exactly where I left off in the playlist, so the next week it starts up again right where I left off. Gee, things keep getting better and better. Oh, and I found a new program for recording. It is sound activated, so it automatically makes a new file for each tip. And it compresses to MP3 on the fly, so it doesn't use up too much hard drive space. And I have a neat little editor that lets me clean up the files (edit off the squaring up music at the start, and any extra junk at the end) without even having to decompress and recompress the files. Details on the software are in the next section, with links on my download page. Required Equipment and SoftwareNote: For detailed step-by-step instructions on installing, configuring, and operating all the software I describe below, please read my Getting Started guide. To use a laptop computer for your tape group you need the following hardware and software:
Of course, a patch box is needed for recording at live dances. If you are recording on cassettes you (or someone else) must already have a patch box. If you need one, see my Products page. RecordingUsing SdRecorder I typically set the sample rate to 22050 Hz, channels to 1 (mono), enable sound activated recording with start level 1, start time 0.75, stop level 1 and stop time 20.00. I set the MP3 encoder to mono, 32 Kbps, quality medium, encoding CBR and frequency 22050. This gives audio quality comparable to a good quality cassette tape. Note that SdRecorder will support recording at higher quality, encoding at higher bitrates, and stereo recording (assuming your sound card has stereo input). The recording level should be set so that the peak-reading level meter is SdRecorder doesn't often go above 50% of full scale. This prevents clipping and distorting of the input signal. Recorded tracks will have a three digit track number appended to the file name to sequentially number the files for each tip. Using dMC Auxiliary Input to record I always set the number of tracks (one track equals one recording, or one tip) way higher than the number of dance tips I expect. Announcements, sound checks, extra music, etc. always seem to result in a few extra short recordings. You can select up to 20 tracks from the drop-down list, but can type in a number as high as you want.. 20 is plenty for one dance session. For multiple sessions, I just type in 99. I like to enter the callers name as the Artist, and the name of the dance as the Album. I set the options as follows:
The trickiest thing is to set the recording level. If your laptop supports it, use line level input and connect your recording cable to the high level output of the patch box. Sometimes this is selected under the advanced options of the microphone in your recording volume control. If there is a checkbox for 20 dB gain, uncheck it to get high level input. Otherwise look for a "Line" input on your recording controls. Check it, and make sure the microphone is unchecked. The line input may or may not use the same input jack as the microphone. Also, on some computers is is necessary to feed the signal into both the left and right channels when recording mono. All computer sound systems are stereo. If you can only get 50% recording level maximum, then you need a special cable that feeds the signal into both left and right channels by shorting the channels together. My patch boxes come with a cable like this. The recording will start as soon as the music starts, and stop after 20 seconds of silence. I never have to touch my computer until the end of the dance. EditingSometime after the dance I edit each file using MP3 Direct Cut to remove any extra "junk" from the start and end of each recording. Just highlight what you want to remove, and click "Cut". Then select "Save complete audio" to save the edited version to a file of your choice. I recommend you always save the edited file to a new file That way, if you mess up, you can go back to the original and try again. Once the files are edited to your satisfaction you can delete the original recordings. PlayingUse SdPlayer to play your MP3 files. Drag-and-drop files (or folders) onto the playlist area to add files to your playlist. Save the playlist with File->Save (or File->Save As) to save the playlist file, which is a list of all the files in you added to your list list. SdPlayer also remembers where you left off playing in the playlist, so next time you open the playlist with SdPlayer it will pick up right where you left off (assuming you save the playlist when you exit SdPlayer). SdPlayer will always ask you if you want to save changes to the playlist. Remote ControlAs if using MP3 files wasn't good enough by itself, you can use my RF Remote Control System to control the computer from the dance floor. It consists of a small transmitter about the size of a pager that you can wear on your belt. It has six pushbuttons which can be programmed for any functions, such as play/pause, zero, rewind, skip back, skip forward and reset tip timer. A small receiver plugged into the USB port on the laptop sends the commands to the RfRemote software, which can be set up to cause any action you want when any one of the buttons is pressed. Now having only eight people is not a problem. Just run your tape group from the floor. Recording with an Android PhoneI have recently started recording dances to MP3 files using an Android phone. I did a lot of work and experimenting to figure out how to do this. You can read my article about it here. To summarize my findings, you need an Android phone with a headphone/microphone jack. You also need a special cable to connect the phone to the patchbox (don't even think about recording using the microphone on the phone, the results will be awful). A standard cable used to connect a laptop computer to the the patchbox will NOT work, because phones use a special four conductor jack with both headphone and microphone signals on the same jack. Then you need the right audio recording software. I have done all the hard work for you, and have found a great recording app. It is called Audio Recorder. This app is NOT available in the Google Play store. You have to get it from a different app store called F-Droid. The F-Droid app store has only free open source apps. You must install the F-Droid app store application on your phone. Simply do a Google search for F-Droid or visit f-droid.org to download and install the F-Droid app. Then you can use the F-Droid app to browse the apps available on the F-Droid app store. Search for Audio Recorder, and install it. Trust me, Audio Recorder is GREAT. I like the following features:
Here is how to record with an Android phone. Install the F-Droid app from f-droid.org. Install Audio Recorder from the F-Droid app store. Open Audio Recorder and select Settings from the menu. Set the following:
Audio Recorder does not have sound activated recording (it has something called "Skip Silence", but I keep that off), so it will make one long recording for the entire dance session (typically 2 1/2 hours). When the session is over, press the power button and tap the Audio Recorder notification (not the pause button on the right side of the notification, just the notification itself). The Audio Recorder app will open. Press the red checkmark in the lower right corner to stop the recording and save the file. It will start to encode the file if Encoding on Fly is set to off. When the file is saved the phone will go back into standby. To transfer the MP3 file to your computer simply connect the phone to your computer with a USB cable. The phone appears as a device in your file manager or file explorer. Look for the Audio Recorder folder (the folder may be in different places depending on your Android version). Somewhere in that folder will be the MP3 files you recorded. Drag or copy-paste them to the desired folder on your computer. Audio Recorder encodes the MP3 files using VBR (variable bit rate) and 64 kbps (using the settings I recommend). I prefer using CBR (constant bit rate) and 32 kbps, so I use dBpowerAMP Music Converter (or other software) to convert the file to my desired format, but this is not necessary. Then I use MP3 Direct Cut to volume-normalize the file (remember, always record on the low side!), and then slice the file up into individual tips by cutting out the dead time between tips, marking the cuts as cue points, and doing a File->Save split. I have found the audio quality to be excellent, even using a cheap older Android phone. Transferring files to a computer is super fast, and editing is easy. I find I can record at a surprisingly low level, which makes setting the recording level quite non-critical. It is much more convenient that lugging around a laptop, though I still need a laptop to do the editing. Important update- It has come to my attention that Android 9 (Pie) and Android 10 no longer allow user apps running in the background to access the microphone (or the camera). Apparently this was done to enhance security, but it also means that Audio Recorder (or other recording apps) can no longer record while the phone is in standby. Thank you Google for breaking my recording app. The only workarounds are 1) record with the app running in the foreground (which uses a lot more battery power), or 2) use an older phone running Android 4.4 (KitKat) through 8 (Oreo). |