Sound Quality In Sound API

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Luc The Perverse - 30 Oct 2005 02:55 GMT

I used a program once called ExactAudioCopy (from ExactAudioCopy.de) and
used it to record my wedding march that a friend of mine who is a composer
wrote and played on the piano.

We initially tried using the windows sound recorder that comes prebundled
with windows and it sounded absolutely aweful. For some reason, when we
used EAC it sounded like a studio recording (it may have been the 60$
microphone we used, but this doesn't excuse the windows app's horrible
performance.)

I didn't know you could screw up sound after it had already passed through
the sound card, but appearantly not all recorders were created equal.

When I make my app use sound I want to make sure that the recordings are as
clear as possible. If I had to guess I would say that Microsoft Sound
Recorder is just utter sh.t, and anything else should be acceptable. I was
hoping someone with some experience in the issue could help me refute or
justify that claim.

--
LTP

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Roedy Green - 30 Oct 2005 08:03 GMT

On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 19:55:50 -0600, "Luc The Perverse"
<sll_noSpamlicious_z_XXX_m@cc.usu.edu> wrote, quoted or indirectly
quoted someone who said :

>We initially tried using the windows sound recorder that comes prebundled
>with windows and it sounded absolutely aweful.

When you record, the software needs to know the tradeoff you want
between sound quality and compactness. Sounds like you chose one of
the lower quality options, designed for telephone quality voice.

Look in the properties. I'd expect you will see a choice of recording
formats and/or frequencies 48KHz will sound better much better than
8KHz because it takes 6 times as many samples a second and can thus
capture higher frequencies better.

MS generally bundles only toy software with its OS. You might look at
a more serious tool like GoldWave.

http://mindprod.com/jgloss/microphone.html

Signature

Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
http://mindprod.com Java custom programming, consulting and coaching.

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Andrew Thompson - 31 Oct 2005 04:07 GMT

> On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 19:55:50 -0600, "Luc The Perverse"
> <sll_noSpamlicious_z_XXX_m@cc.usu.edu> wrote, quoted or indirectly
> quoted someone who said :
>
>>We initially tried using the windows sound recorder that comes prebundled
>>with windows and it sounded absolutely aweful.

(snip explanation)

> MS generally bundles only toy software with its OS.

The windows sound recorder works just fine.. My only
complaint of it is that it has a tendency to encourage
MS proprietary formats (selected as default for output,
AFAIR).

'Spend your money' on a better microphone, and spend a little
time getting to understand the formats you are using and the
effect of different 'bit rates'.

Some sound formats are very huge (.WAV, .AU?), others are
lossy (MP3, ..). For sounds that will be heavily remixed
and edited, use the huge but non-lossy formats, but dump
the final track to a more modest bit rate in one of the
compressing/lossy formats.

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Luc The Perverse - 31 Oct 2005 05:11 GMT

>> On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 19:55:50 -0600, "Luc The Perverse"
>> <sll_noSpamlicious_z_XXX_m@cc.usu.edu> wrote, quoted or indirectly
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> MS proprietary formats (selected as default for output,
> AFAIR).

I'm sorry I think you're wrong.

We were using identical equipment and got a complete crap recording (going
to uncompressed WAVE) from window's sound player - and got what sounded like
a studio recording from the other application.

It may be something as simple as controlling input levels, or something
similar, but up till now, it seems more like magick.

--
LTP

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Andrew Thompson - 31 Oct 2005 05:36 GMT

> I'm sorry I think you're wrong.

You think I can't tell good sound quality?

Your assertion that it was the 'same hardware' means little,
as the default settings used by the two pieces of *software*
might be quite different.

What sample rate was the wav? What was the setting of the mic
level in the mixer that controls the Windows media player?
How big were the two files when you compared them for the same
length of music recording?

Until you can answer those questions, you are waving your hands
about vaguely in the air, wasting our bandwidth.

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Sound Quality In Sound API

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