“how to”`s are guidances, how something is (can be) done. this “how to” here ought to help to gain insight to technical conditions of producing sonic features. There are many different possibilities to express something acoustically and communicate it to the world.

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||production of fm broadcasts

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||equipment

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||audio editing tools

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||audioformats

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||audioplayer

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||mixer

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||cables & adaptors

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||streaming

before you can do that, you have to make a broadcast agreement with an independent radio station or tinker yourself a microtransmitter, as you can see here or here. in austria it's illegal to do so. most of the independent radio stations in austria do trainings and workshops for studio technics and media law briefings. just get in touch with your local radio. at many independent radio stations there are open broadcast collectives that provide the opportunity to jump on existing programs or join the editorial staff.

of course it is possible to produce features without having access to a computer. simple cutting material to a cassette tape (by “stop and go” recording) is the almost cheapest and easiest one. basically all you need is some kind of recorder (with play-back function) and a microphone. which kind of microphone you use depends on the purpose. an interview situation deserves a different tool to capture it than e.g. a public happening, where panoramic sounds are required to be noticed. you'll find more about mikes at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microphone widely-used recording tools are md (minidisc) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minidisc dat (digital audio tape) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAT meanwhile mp3 players (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp3_player) also provide good possibilities to record/edit audio- just make sure to apply a preamplifier between microphone and mp3 recorder if there is just a line-in jack to avoid harddisc noise. The advantage of mp3 gear is that you can move the files directly to the harddisc of the computer for editing without messing around with realtime recording. By the way: There's still some durable analog tape recorders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Cassette) around.

The choice of an adequate microphone is very important for the quality of the recordings – in fact they are the gate to sound and at least as important as the recorder itself. Stereo microphones are appropriate to room recordings for capturing sounds and noises. Even cheap little trashmics can fulfill this purpose quite well concerning the atmosphere of situations like demonstrations and discussion panels if you don't mind the ambient noise. Another aspect of stereomics is their ability of aligning panoramic shifts (e.g. a car moving from left to right). Also the angle of the microphone affects the recording. A wide-angle microphone for example has a recording angle of about 120 degrees and correspondingly records the sounds within that particular area (which is good for demos, panels or press conferences/public announcements). These mics generally are the high priced ones, as they furthermore provide the choice between 120 and 90 of recording angle. For interviews an angle of 90 degrees is pretty convenient because it focusses mainly upon the speaking person and leaves sidenoises aside. Microphones constricted to that angle normally are afordable. More infos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microphones#Kinds_of_microphone Tip: By asking for it it sometimes is possible to lend them at an free radio station/projekt.

Once having access to a computer, the recording has to be imported. Therefore you'll have to connect the soundcard input (either microphone or line in) of the computer with the output of the recorder (either earphones or line out), which can be mostly done with small stereo jack (3,5 mm) cables or cinch-to-stereojack cables. A third common plug is usb. On the computer you'll need to install an audio editing program, that meets your purposes. Working on linux, audacity is a good way to edit the file concerning cutting, mixing layers, converting format, frequency or bitrate or improving the sound quality, as well as using simple sound effects like delay, reverse, pitch etc. Regarding format encoding/decoding lame is a useful shell-program that is fast, stable and reliable. Wavrec is a shell based recording program. To mention another gui (graphical user interface) program, sweep is a tool that offers a wide range of possibilities, although it tends to crash a lot (the new version is quite stable - but it's more a program for making music than for cutting! it doesn't offer for example to work with more than one track). Cinelerra (ex broadcast 2000) rather is a recommendation for video editing. More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JACK_Audio_Connection_Kit

Working on windoughs subscribes you on buying programs, using cracked versions (available via internet download on p2p networks)makes you a criminal (you're hurting the free market or something like that). To avoid spending time on the chain gang, breaking rocks in the hot sun, you can stick to free-or shareware programs like audacity (which is also implemented for windows or mac). Further (commercial) wincrap programs are wavelab (works realtime with the file itself instead of a copy, which makes it fast), soundforge (pre-listening function) or adobe audition (uses filecopies, what makes it hard to use on slow computers), which was formally called “cool edit”. Simple cutting can be done with each of these without using too much time on searching for this function. Same holds good for volume/peak manipulation, moving parts or copying. Advanced features make the “help” button your pal (life can be hard sometimes).

If you have to rotate between different computers, lacking a permanent access to one machine, “dyne:bolic” can provide a steady working environment. Dyne:bolic is a bootdisc that emulates a full system of editing programs (even video) and other useful stuff (internetbrowser, texteditors) on any computer (except mac) without touching the system on the harddisc, although it's possible to save files on it. The hardware detection is very developed and it gives an insight to linux workspaces without too much precognition. Streamin software is also included, but more on that later.

The most established audioformats are wav, ram, aiff, mp3 and ogg. Wav is an uncompressed format that satisfies the quality of the recording, which is why it needs a lot of memory (ten times more than a mp3). Cd'S are the advisable medium to archive them. For internet usage they are not much of use (with modem access, downloading can become a life-task). Short ones can be found at dailywav.com
Concerning internet usage, it makes sense to convert wavs to mp3s. Most audioprograms are capable of that. It applies that a bigger bitrate gives better quality. This means, how much information about the audio is given per period. Not to mix up with the bitwidth, where 16 is the approximate cd-quality or the sampling rate of 44100 hertz as standard. Cutting down the kbit rate (e.g. To 64 kbit) makes the file smaller and accordingly easier to download for people with slow internet connections (a 64 kbit file of 30 minutes is about 15 MB large). To provide radio quality, the file should at least have 128 kbit, otherwise it sounds too blurry. Mp3 is no free format, the copyright is held by the Fraunhofer Institute. Its open use counterpart is called ogg (more information at www.vorbis.com).

For ram files you need a realplayer plugin (available for free at real.com). While installin the player can drive you mad, the advantage of this format is that it is possible to set marks. If you have an 24h ram file you can set links to various time units and tell the file via a small text file to play just the part of the file that is marked.

aiff is a cd format. If the file should be playable by an cd player, you can either convert it to aiff before burning the cd or, as some burning programs are capable of that (kd3, xcdroast) leave it a wav file.

Basically there are two ways of listening to an audio file that is stored on a server. Either your system recognizes the file and plays it directly by opening up an appropriate player (embedded in your browser or extern) or you download the file and play it locally from your harddisc. Common players are:

• apple quicktime (Mac,Windows)
• apple iTunes (Mac)
• RealPlayer basic (Mac, Windows, UNIX)
• xmms (Linux)
• winamp (Windows)

a lot to say about that - a good summary can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixing_desk

Most audio cables have two poles (one for each way, similar to power cables); Their usability is defined by their endings (the connectors) here an overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_and_video_connector

Sending audio/video signals over the internet is called streaming. Assuming you sit in front of the computer at the trainstation in strasbourg, you can do a radioshow and broadcast it via internet. Therefore some requirements need to be fulfilled to make this thing work: A stable internet connection and a server with enough bandwidth that takes the stream. Free streaming software (e.g. dyne:bolic, where Muse is included).

-- BertaBeitrag - 12 Jun 2005
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