Recording

Recording your songs in a few simple steps.

  • Step one: Connect

Connect your instrument with a computer by plugging in a cable in the AUX-OUT from your instrument and the LINE-IN from your pc.

Two (mono) jacks for your instrument and at the other side of the cable two RCA plugs, also named Tulp plug, Phono plug, or Cinch plug.

  • Step two: Record

Start the program on your pc. I use Cool Edit Pro for recording. The master volume on your instrument must be in the middle.
Select new wave (File > new) and choose your settings (I use: samplerate 44100 channels stereo resolution 16 bit).
Press the (red) record button and start the midi-file on your instrument.

After the song on your instrument ends, you press the stop button and you get a result like below.
When the inputsignal is too loud, you get a nasty distortion, so start over with a new recording and put the mastervolume a little less.
  • Step three: Edit

Now you can edit your recording. First thing to do is normalize the signal. Select the entire wave (Edit > Select entire wave) and after that normalize it (Effects > Amplitude > Normalize), Then you get the picture below.

The wavesignal is now a little louder, just what you needed. Now it’s about time to delete the empty spaces at the beginning and the end of the song. Start at the beginning and use the zoom-in tool to get a closer look. Select with your mouse the empty space and you get this picture.
Delete the white space and do the same at the end of the song. To avoid any click at the end, I select a small part at the end and create a fade-out. Time to save your recording (File > Save As).
Save your song as a MP3 at the desired location. Well, you have your own mp3 which you can share, but there’s another step you can make.
  • Step four: Modify your mp3

Inside your MP3-file there is more than only music. Data like tracknumber, playingtime, artist and many more, called tags.
It’s still empty, only your filename exists. We are going to change that. It’s possible with my favorite player: Winamp, but Mp3 tagscanner is more extensively.

In WinAmp:

You can edit tags like: Artist, titel, album, year and even adjust a picture (be sure it’s a little one).

In WinAmp follow this. Play your mp3 in WinAmp, rigt click the song and choosse: File information. Just fille the empty fields with the desired information, wich you naturraly can find with Google.

In MP3 tagsanner:

TagScanner is a multifunction program for organizing and managing your music collection. It can edit tags of mostly state-of-the-art audio formats, rename files based on the tag information, generate tag information from filenames, and perform any transformations of the text from tags and filenames. Also you may get album info via online databases like freedb or Amazon. Supports ID3v1, ID3v2, Vorbis comments, APEv2, WindowsMedia and MP4(iTunes) tags. Powerful TAG editor with batch functions and special features. Playlist maker with ability to export playlists to HTML or Excel. Easy-to-use interface. Built-in player.Download >>

So I use Cool Edit Pro, but there are many other free programs you can use for recording your music.
Here’s a small list:

Other programs to edit your tags:

More information about tags >>