Yo, Terry...
Thanks for the question, man....here's an answer for you:

I think you may have misunderstood a little bit. When we chatted about recording directly to CD we meant by using a standalone CD burner, such as the Tascam CD-160 (which you can see here: http://www.sweetwater.com/stor... ) You must have mis-heard us mentioning a synthesizer...

Basically, these stand alone recorders work just like a tape recorder...plug in your inputs, hit record, and it records right to CD.

As far as editing, it's fairly simple...you'll need a piece of software that can rip your CD to an audio file (iTunes for example)...then simply import the file into your editing program, and you can go to town.

As far as copy protection, there will be none on a disc you record from these players, so it's not an issue...(also as an FYI, Macrovision is a video copy protection that you often find on VHS tapes...there's no Macrovision on audio recordings).

Hope that helps! We're going to try and address this question on the podcast as well...

Thanks for listening

-Rob Feature
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.bobchristenson.com

We are using a CD recorder player to record sermons in our church. We are having trouble recording and getting a good sound level. it is plugged into our sound board/mixer and we have the recording level cranked up as high as it will go. When playing it back I have to have the play level (in my car) at full volume to be able to hear it, and sometimes there are places that the words are un-distinguishable. Any ideas? I realize that it would be helpful to have the technical information about the equipment but I don't have it at the moment and thought I'd give it a shot at seeing if you could help us with coming up with a solution. Thanks.

It depends on which recorder you have. Some of them have menus built in and somewhere in there might be an input level adjustment. If you know the model number, you can probably find the manual somewhere on the net.

Also, you could rip the cd and use some software to amplify and clean up the audio. However, depending on the original recording level, there's only so much you can do.

In olden days, messages were recorded on reel-to-reel tape, and editing was done with a razor blade and a spool of splicing tape.

Then along came the PC and its ability to edit digitized sound files. However, a great problem remained, namely, how to digitize analogue audio and transfer it to the disk drive of the PC.

Analogue-to-digital converter plug-in cards were developed for the PC, but cards which provide low distortion and a high signal-to-noise ratio always have been quite expensive. Moreover, such cards almost always depend upon proprietary software (which almost always is written for the window$ environment), and thus can be made obsolete by an upgrade of the operating system, or by advances in computer hardware, such as the change from the ISA bus to the PCI bus.

Then, about ten years ago (at the turn of the century), the writable CD provided an alternative. A professional-grade stand-alone CD-RW machine such as those manufactured by Tascam has balanced XLR inputs, and thus can capture, digitize, and record audio with CD quality. Subsequently, any garden-variety computer can be used to transfer the audio from the CD to a WAV file on the disk drive; the verb "rip" commonly is used to describe the process. However, because of the manner in which audio is stored on a CD, ripping is time-consuming and is somewhat prone to error. The technique indeed is practical, but it far from ideal.

Within the past several years, the flash recorder has provided a almost perfect solution; this is because of the ability of the flash recorder to transfer files directly to the computer, via either USB or Ethernet. (While it also is possible to remove the flash memory card from the recorder and use a card reader to transfer the audio file to the computer disk, the procedure exposes the flash memory card to damage from handling and mis-insertion, and thus should be avoided.)

So today a good (if not the best) approach is to use a flash recorder to capture the message, then edit the message on the computer. Following editing, the message may be processed on the computer (functions such as equalization, compression, and leveling). Finally, the message may be converted (on the computer) into a standard audio CD (this involves creation of an "ISO" file). Or, the message may be converted (again, on the computer) into an MP3 file.

It sounds as if the system components have not been connected properly.

You need to find a competent audio consultant or sound contractor. Hire him to come out and look over your system and tell you how things ought to be connected. Expect to pay a few hundred dollars, for he likely shall spend at least a half-day. You don't need a rocket scientist, but you do need someone who understands professional audio apparatus, how to set it up properly, and how to adjust the system gain settings.

If the system was put together by someone who did not know what he was doing, then you need to hire the contractor to come in and re-connect the entire system and set the system gains. This may take one or two men a entire day (or even longer), so expect to pay at about a thousand dollars, plus the cost of whatever cables and additional apparatus are required.

The contractor should provide you with a connection diagram for the system, together with a brief procedure for setting the system gains. Make a few copies and file them so that you can find them the next time someone without understanding decides to monkey with the sound system.

Don't look to a musician for guidance. Musicians typically don't have the foggiest notion regarding such matters.

When things are connected properly, you should have a proper level on the meter of the CD recorder. Assuming that your CD recorder is working properly, a proper level on the meter of the recorder (read the manual to learn what is proper) should produce a CD which is comparable in loudness to commercial CDs.

@Beaniecopter,

You mentioned an audio CD ISO image. I've been under the impression that there is no ISO format that will create a true audio CD (as opposed to a data file containing audio, either WAV or MP3).

Can you tell me of a program, or procedure, preferably PC (Windows) based that will create a true audio CD image as an ISO file?

Thanks much,
Curt

Hi Curt,

In Linux this is trivial. Alas, you are running Window$. It has been nine years since I escaped the tyranny of Window$. (M$ word had one of the few geniune Y2K bugs; it corrupted document files, and was acknowledged publicly by M$. The consequent loss of hundreds of documents led me to seek out an alternative, and thus did I come to the marvelous realm of Linux.) Consequently, I am not the best one to advise you regarding Window$ malware. However, I just did a search with Google on the string "create iso image windows" and I see that there are over 1,500,000 hits.

In a past incarnation, I did use Window$ to create ISO images, and I seem to recall that most CD-RW drives for use in a computer included Window$ software for burning to CD either data or music. If I recall correctly, "Nero" was one of the leading software packages for this task.

As to a "true" audio CD image, if you burn music to a CD which plays in an ordinary CD deck, then that which you have burned is a "true" audio CD image. (I am not considering the matter of copy protection schemes, which I abhor.) A garden-variety CD deck for use in the home or a CD player/radio for the automobile simply does not know what to do with a CD which was not created from an ISO image. By the way, ISO is an acronym for "International Organization for Standards".

However, today a new generation of CD home decks and automobile players has the ability to play a CD which has data files in WAV and MP3 format, as well as a traditional music CD which has been burned from an ISO image.

In summary, an ISO image may be viewed as a specialized data file which is designed to occupy exclusively an entire CD, whereas WAV and MP3 files are simply data files which can reside on any media, including the hard drive of a computer and the various flash memory devices.

If you or a buddy can install a second hard drive into your computer (they cost only $50 or so nowadays), you really ought to do so, and then install Linux on the second drive, in a dual-boot arrangement. That way, you can use either Window$ or Linux, without compromise to either system. Once you experience the freedom of Linux, I think it likely that you soon would be booting Linux routinely, and that it would not be long before you consign Window$ to the dumpster.

RLH

my church recently purchased a stand alone cd recorder. I plugged it into the the tape out off my sound board and it wont record. I press record and the timer comes up but when i talk into the mic...nothing. Please help