Equip Your First Studio

OK, you recorded your concert on DAT tape and now you want a CD of your music. Or you have a collection of old cassette tapes that you want to archive on CD. Or you have a vinyl LP that you want to share with a friend on CD. Or you might even have a CD that was recorded in one long take, and you want to make a CD that can cue to the individual selections. This tutorial addresses those challenges.

For this project, you need access to four things: 1) a computer, 2) an audio editing application, 3) an audio interface, 4) a device to play your original media, and 5) software that will let you burn an audio cD.

There are many applications of this type at a wide range of costs. There are a couple of free applications. Information on various audio editing applications can be found here.

This tutorial uses Digital Performer 4.12 on a Macintosh computer, but hopefully is general enough to help you with whatever similar set up you have available.

Many computers have a small 1/8" jack that you could plug in a stereo mini-plug. If you are inputting audio this way, you will probably need a cable with a stereo mini-plug at one end and a pair of connectors at the other to plug into the output of your original media player. Those connectors will probably be RCA phono plugs, but they might be 1/4" phone plugs, make sure to check before you go to Radio Shack.

However, bringing audio into a computer that way is usually not the best way to go. The audio quality may be compromised, or it's possible your computer doesn't have one.

A better way to bring in audio is to use an audio interface. There are many on the market. There are high quality (expensive) interfaces made by Digidesign, Mark of the Unicorn, Metric Halo, and so forth, and inexpensive ones available from M-Audio.

For this tutorial, we will be using the M-Audio M-Audio Mobile Pre (info here). This interface accesses the computer via the USB port.

If your media is DAT, you need a DAT player. If your media is cassette, you need a cassette player.

If your media is vinyl, you need a turntable (record player), but you also need a tuner with a turntable (oftien called "phono" input). This is because the output of a turntable has to be "decoded" by a device like a tuner. There are also some standalone decoders, you may need to check at your pro audio shop. Plug your turntable into the phono inputs on your tuner, connect the ground wire to the ground connector on your tuner, then locate the "tape out" jacks on your tuner.

If your media is a CD, you could use a standalone CD player to record audio into your computer, but there is an easier way described below.

In all four cases described above, you need to connect the output of your media player to the input of your audio interface. Most consumer media players use RCA phono jacks for their outputs; the inputs on the Mobile Pre are 1/4" phone jacks, so you would need a cable to accomodate this connection, or some adaptors. Either would be available at any Radio Shack or pro audio store.

In the case of the some DAT and CD players, you may have a digital output that would allow you to connect to a digital input of a high-quality audio interface using a protocol called SPDIF. This is a good way to dub from digital media because your audio stays digital all the way through the process, and you don't have to worry about levels. That connection is outside the scope of this tutorial, but you can find some info on SPDIF here.

FYI, it's fairly easy to use iTunes to burn audio CD's, an application that comes free on new Macintosh computers.

These instructions are specific to Digital Performer 4.12 on a Macintosh computer using an M-Audio Mobile Pre USB interface.

Start your Mac, then start Digital Performer 4.12, and create a new project. Save the project to your desktop using the name of your project. Notice that Digital Performer creates a folder with a project file inside. There is also a folder called Audio Files inside your project folder.

DP will usually open with the Track window open, down below the transport area. If the Tracks window is not open, go Project>Tracks to open it.

New files will usually open with several tracks, including MIDI tracks, mono audio tracks, and stereo audio tracks. (If there is no stereo audio track, go Project>Add Track>Stereo Audio Track to add one.) Find one of the stereo audio tracks, and option-click its name. The name will "pop" out, and let you rename the track. Name the track My Audio and hit Return.

We are going to record all our audio on one stereo audio track. If you want to clean up your window, select the names of the other tracks, and go Project>Delete Tracks to remove them.

Now, in the Tracks window, find the Output column. It should say Built-In Audio 1-2. If it doesn't, click in it to access the output menu and select Built-In Audio 1-2.

This is the trickiest part of this project and the place many people may just throw up their hands. If you can make it through this part, the rest is fairly easy.

The audio interface you are using has to have a way to communicate with the computer. This is usually done with a small application called a "driver."

If you are on a machine that has an interface already hooked up, it's likely that this driver has already been installed. If so, you can move to the next step.

If you are on your own machine, and are just now hooking up the interface, you need to install the driver on your computer. Check the interface documentation for instructions.

You can usually download drivers from the websites of the equipment manufacturer. In fact, this is a better way to get a current driver than from the installation CD that came with your interface, because the online driver may be newer. After downloading, follow installation instructions to get your driver installed.

After installation, it's a good idea to restart your computer. If you are on a Mac running system 10, it's a good idea to repair permissions, too.

Inb the instructions below, if you don't see the audio interface when you configure your hardware set up, it's likely that your driver is not installed properly. In that case, you may need to contact the manufacturer of the interface.

In Digital Performer, go Setup>Configure Audio System>Configure Hardware Driver to open the Configure Hardware Driver window.

In the window below that menu, you should see at least two options: Built-In Audio, and Mobile-Pre (or whatever interface you are using).

Make the Master Device your Mobile Pre, and the sample rate 44100. For Clock Mode select Mobile Pre/Internal. Buffer size should be 1024, Host Buffer Multiplier should be set to 1, and Work Priority should be High.

So now DP can recognize your interface, but now you need to tell DP which inputs and outputs to use.

In the Audio Bundles window, click on the Inputs tab. You should see some "bundles" on the left, and some information about the Mobile-Pre in the grid on the right.

At the bottom, click the Add button to add a bundle to the left part of the window. Don't worry about its name, but change its configuration to Stereo if necessary. You will see two boxes in the grid on the right labeled L and R.

Now go to grid on the right, and drag the L box so it is under the Mobile Pre input 1. Then drag the R box to Mobile Pre input 2. Your bundle name will change to Mobile Pre Analog 1-2.

If you wanted to listen to your music using the audio interface rather than the output of the computer, you could add an output bundle for your interface by hitting the Output tab.

Back in the Tracks window, find the Input column. Click in it to access the input menu and select Mobile Pre Analog 1-2.

Now you want to "arm" your track to record. In the Tracks window, click in the REC column on your record track. The record button should turn red.

Note that you are not yet actually "recording"--you have merely told DP which track you want to record on when you are ready to record.

Now go Studio>Audio Monitor to open the Audio Monitor window. This window will give us a meter to show when audio is being received by Digital Performer. You should see a pair of meters with an orange border to show they are armed.

Now set up your media player to output audio. Put in your tape or CD, or put your LP on your turntable. Make sure your unit is powered up and connected properly to your audio interface. Start playback of your media.

If you are properly hooked up, you should see some audio input in the Audio Monitor window in DP.

If you don't see an input in the meter, carefully retrace your steps. Also make sure you really are playing some audio from your media player, not in a silent spot of your original audio.

Find the loudest place in your original audio track. Using the input knobs on the Mobile Pre, set a level on your incoming audio. You should see a good signal level, above -12, but never above 0.

If you want to hear your music at this point, plug headphones into your media player. Later we can monitor the audio through the Macintosh.

It may be possible to control the audio output level of your media player, and you may be able to see that output level with the meters on your player. If so, set a good output level before adjusting the Mobile Pre.

Once you see your audio in the Audio Monitor window and the levels look good, we can go ahead and make a recording.

When you are ready to make your audio recording, locate your original media to its start point.

You don't need to locate to the exact starting point of your audio, we will trim this off at a later point.

In DP, if necessary, locate to the beginning of your sequence using the far left button in the Transport window.

If you want to monitor the audio as it records, connect your headphones to your computer (or to your interface it you are using it to monitor your recording). Now go Studio>Audio Patch Through and make sure it is checked--if it's not, select it to turn it on. You will hear audio only when you are actually recording.

Now find the Record button in the transport window--it's the circle at the right of your Transport controls. When you are ready, hit the Record button. It should turn red and your transport should begin moving left to right.

You should see a signal coming in on the meters, and you should see a red waveform being created as your transport moves.

Record all your audio in one pass if you can. If you need to stop, or change media, hit the Stop button in the DP Transport window, change your media, check its level, then repeat the steps above until all your audio has been recorded into your stereo audio track.

If you have an audio CD and want to edit the content, you may not need to record it into the computer as described above. You may be able to import the audio directly into your audio editing application. Instructions here apply to Digital Performer.

To import audio directly from an audio CD directly into your DP file, put your CD into the CD drive of your computer.

Double click the CD desktop icon to open it. You will see the tracks on the CD, labeled Audio-1, Audio-2, and so forth.

Back in the CD window, go Edit>Select All to highlight all the tracks on the CD.

Carefully drag this group of icons into the Soundbites window in Digital Performer. Digital Performer will start "processing" the audio, basically extracting the audio from the CD in a form it can use.

When the processing is done, your audio tracks will be listed in the Soundbites window. If you want to rename them, option-click their names and type in new names, then hit Return.

So now you have a group of tracks in the Soundbites window--how do you get them into your stereo audio track?

In the Tracks window, click on the name of your stereo audio track to select it. Go Project>Event List to open the Event List window.

In the Soundbites window, find the audio track that you want to appear first your stereo audio track. Find the little wavy "drag" marks in the MVE column. Drag these wavy lines directly into the Event list for your stereo audio track. Now do the same with your second audio track from the Soundbites window, being careful to drag it in below the previous entry in the Event List. Continue until all tracks have been placed in the Event List. This process will place your audio "end-to-end" in the window, ready for editing.

The advantage of a CD is that each selection on the CD can be indexed. This allows one to access the beginning of individual cuts on the CD just by locating to them with the CD player.

What we want to do with the recording(s) we just made is to edit out individual selections, with each starting just before the music starts, and ending a short time after it ends, often employing a pleasing fade-out.

To do that, we need to understand how audio editing works in Digital Performer...

In Digital Peformer Tracks window, select (highlight the name of) your record track. Go Project>Sequence Editor to open the Sequence Editor window.

Clicking this button "toggles" (opens and closes) the Track Select column at the left of the window. Open it.

In the Track Select column, option-click the name of your record track. You should now see a waveform on the right hand side of the window that corresponds to your recording.

Notice at the left of the wave form is an area dedicated to information about your record track.

The pair on the left controls the horizontal zoom--how much of the waveform you will see in the current window. Use the pair on the right to create a track wide enough to see all of the info area. You should see the waveform for your audio on the right.

Use the left and right zoom buttons to zoom to the point where the measure numbers show sequentially in the ruler on the top of the window.

Now find the place where the audio content for your first cut starts. In some cases, this will be obvious--it's the place where your first see the waveform start.

In other cases, you may need to find the correct point by listening to your track. For example, there may have been an announcer who introduced the piece--you may want to omit that from your CD. In any case, find the spot where the CD cut should begin.

In DP, we edit audio by "pop-editing" the waveform. To do this, double-click the waveform--it should "pop" out to show it's ready for editing. You cursor will turn into an I-beam.

Click with the I-beam in the track at the point where you want to start your CD cut. Ideally, it would be a moment or two just before your start point.

Some older CD players don't react quickly enough to catch the very beginning of CD cuts. It's a good idea to leave a small buffer of silence just before your audio starts.

You should see a verticle line at the point where you clicked in the waveform. Go Edit>Split to split the waveform at that point. You should now see that your waveform (we call it a "soundbite" in Digital Performer) has been divided in two.

Now click once on the soundbite on the left. It will highlight. Hit the Delete key on your keyboard. The soundbite will be discarded. You should now see only the soundbite you created, which starts just before your audio.

Because audio editing programs work with "aliases" of recordings, you haven't really discarded anything from your hard drive.--you've just told DP you don't want to look at this part of the soundbite any more.

Click and hold on the new soundbite, and drag it to the left until it starts at the very beginning of your sequence.

Now, navigate to the end of your first cut. Again, this may be clear from the visible waveform, or you may have to play the audio to find it. In some cases, like where there is applause, you may want to end the cut while there is still audio playing, and create a fade-out of the still-playing audio.

Pop-edit (double-click) the soundbite near where you want to end. Find a spot that represents the end of your cut (or the place where your fade-out would end) click there to place the verticle line. Go Edit>Split to split the soundbite. You have now created a soundbite that corresponds to the first cut on your CD.

In your new soundbite, locate a spot slightly before the ending you made where a fade-out might begin. Pop-edit your soundbite. Now, with the I-beam, drag from that spot to the end of your soundbite. The area you dragged over will highlight.

Now go Audio>Fade. In the resulting window, make sure the menu says "Fade consecutive time ranges," then hit OK. After a moment of processing, a horizontal line will form over your soundbite to show that the volume at that point has faded out to nothing.

At this point, play your track and make sure the fade sounds the way you want it to.

It's a good idea to put a fade out on a soundbite even if there is no audio there. There may be a small amount of noise that was created during the recording, which will end abruptly if the soundbite is simply cut off.

Now locate to the beginning of your soundbite and find its name. Option click the name, and enter the title of your first cut. You might also put a number in front of the name for easy ordering at a later point. Hit Return to rename your soundbite.

Now continue through your recording creating new cuts in a similar manner. Discard all parts of the recording that are not included in cuts. Make sure to rename each new cut after it has been made.

It doesn't matter where the cuts occur in the recording track. We are going to make a separate file out of each cut, and use the CD burning software to evenly space them on the CD.

Now we want to take each cut and make a new audio file out of it. To do this, we use a feature called "audio bouncing." Most audio editing applications will allow you to do something like this.

When we bounce, a new file is created that takes into account the starting and ending point, and also the fade-out.

1) The track(s) in question must be play-enabled (i.e. you must be able to hear them when you hit play). Make sure the small blue "play" triangle is lit on your record track in the Tracks window.

2) The track(s) in question must all be assigned to the same output. For this tutorial, we are assigning output to Built-In Audio 1-2--if you are monitoring in a different way, make sure to take this into account in the following steps.

The following steps may be easier if you zoom out until you can see all or most of the cuts in one window.

We assume your track is play-enabled and its output assigned to Built-In Audio 1-2.

Now, go Audio>Bounce to Disk to open the Bounce to Disk window. Select data as follows:

Channels: Split Stereo (two mono files)
Resolution: 16 bits
Import: Add to Sequence
Source: Built-In Audio 1 & 2 (or to whatever output your audio tracks share)
File Name: <the name of your first cut>

Hit OK. After a minute or two of processing, your selection will be "bounced" to your hard drive, and should appear in your Tracks window on a new track.

Look at your new track and make sure you see a waveform. If you want to play the new track, disable the play button on your record track first, then play your new track.

When you have checked your new track, make sure to turn the play button for your record track back on!

DP can only play a certain number of tracks at a time, prioritized from top to bottom. For this reason, as you create new tracks, drag each one down below your record track to keep your record track at the top of your window.

Now repeat these steps for each succeeding cut on your CD.

Export Your Bounced Audio in AIFF Format

Does it seem like we should be done at this point? We still have one more step to go before we can burn our CD. Digital Performer creates audio in its own proprietary format, a format that is not recognized by our CD burning software. We need to take our bounced cuts and create new files that use this more common format.

This format is called AIFF--it's a file format originally created for Apple computers. Another common format, one more specific to PC computers, is WAVE. Either format can be used to create CD's.

To create files of this format in DP, we need to "export" them.

•Go Project>Soundbites to open the Soundbites window. Find and click on the name of your first CD cut--it should start with 01.

If the speaker button is hightlighted in the Soundbites window menu bar, you will hear the soundbite.

With your first CD cut selected in the Soundbites window, find the "mini-menu" in the Soundbites window mini-menu bar. From this menu, choose Export Selected bites.

In the resulting window, navigate to your project folder.

When you have arrived at your project folder, find and click on the New Folder button in the lower left hand corner of your Save window. Rename the new folder AIFF Audio, and hit Create.

Check the name in the Save as... box at the top of the window. It will probably have the same name as your bounced soundbite.

Now we want to select the new format. Find the File format: menu at the bottom of the window. From this menu, select Core Audio Export: AIFF.

Your menu may have slightly different options depending on the Mac Operating System you are using. In any case, select the AIFF option.

Hit Save. After a moment of processing, a new AIFF file of your first CD cut will be created on your hard drive in the AIFF Audio folder inside your project folder.

Now return to the Soundbites window and repeat these steps for each bounced CD cut.

When you are done, find and open the AIFF Audio folder. The contents should look just how you want your CD to look. If necessary, you can make any changes to the order or names of the CD.

Burn

Now find the Toast icon in your Dock and open Toast.

You may need to find it in your Applications folder. It may be listed as Toast, or it may be in a folder called Roxio.

When Toast has opened, find the four tabs at the top that say Data, Audio, Video, Copy. Select Audio.

Now navigate your your AIFF Audio folder. Go Edit>Select All to highlight all of your CD cuts. Carefully drag this group of files straight into the main Toast window. The cuts should appear in the Toast window in numeric order.

Once your cuts are in the Toast window, you could reorder or rename them. You can use the play controls to listen to them. You can even control the amount of space between cuts--so you could, for example, have two cuts run continously without a break on your final CD. Bear in mind that audio CD's do not name their cuts, so any changes you make in the Toast window are for your reference only.

Insert a blank recordable CD into your computer.

In Toast, find the large red Record button in the lower right corner and click it. In the resulting window, specify how many copies you want to make, then hit Record.

At this point, your CD will start burning. When it's done, the computer will alert you and ask you to eject the CD.

When you have your finished CD, play it in a CD player and make sure it sounds the way you want. If it does, you are done!

You can save your Toast file if you want, for future re-burning.