Everyone has been talking a lot about the new music format called MP3 that sweeping the web. Everyday millions of web users download, email and exchange MP3(Short for Motion Picture Expert Group 1 Audio layer-3)Sound files which often consist of\u00a0 music illegally distributed without the permission of the copyright holder. I too have taken part to downloading and listening MP3 files. This week I\u2019ll let you do lot a more than just listen to someone else\u2019s music-it can make it easy for us to record and distribute our own. Yes, I did say OUR VERY OWN! One of my friends, a fellow resident of Chennai, who works for a web programmer In India\u2019s top software company during the day and a web musician after hour, is into producing music albums. He needed a female singer to add background vocals to a track he was completing and since I knew a girl who lives near my place I agreed to fix her for the gig. Next thing I knew, she was singing into a microphone. My friend\u00a0 had connected the microphone to a few small items of specialised recording equipment that allows him to record music onto a computer, then save it onto a CD-ROM. Within 24 hours, my friend had converted the recording into a MP3 files and posted it on his web page musician, with the song down-loadable and available to everyone in the world with an internet account. That is the power of the web. With just a few pieces of software and hardware, a little talent and a bit of courage, anyone can be a publisher writer, artist, photographer and musician. Making your own records and distributing them online is easier than you might think.<\/p>\n
This is the part of I can help you with least. Turn on a tape recorder as your cousin sings the Christmas carol he wrote. Or as your three-piece garage band practices your latest rock opera. Record what you have to offer in whatever format you can, either analog(such as audio cassette )or digital \u00a0(such as a digital tape recorder, which a few of us own).It doesn\u2019t matter what kind of recording can be turned into computer file.<\/p>\n
This is where it gets tricky. Let\u2019s say that you have an audiotape. You now need a way to feed that tape into your computer so that you have an audiotape. You now need a way to feed that tape into your computer so that you can convert music into a format that you can share with others. Connect your cassette player\u2019s line out ports (or even headphone jack)\u00a0 to the AV line in ports (microphone line in)of your computer then launch a simple and inexpensive piece of music recording software such as Audio Catalyst made by Xing Technologies (www.xingtech.com<\/a>) or Cake walk Metro (www.cakwalk.com),a<\/a> mid-level\u00a0 music software program such as Macromedia\u00a0 Sound Edit (www.macromedia.com<\/a>), or an advanced level music software application such as Apple Final CutPro(www.apple.com<\/a>) or Adobe Premiere(ww.adobe.com),and press \u201drecord\u201d as you play your tape recording into your computer.<\/p>\n If you use a PC, you need to make sure that you have a sound card that allows you to feed music into your\u00a0 computer (and not just play it out of your computer).once you have the right kind of equipment (this may require buying and installing ),you can use windows version of the same software referred to above. You may also decide to skip step I, and record directly into your computer. This can be done with the use of a standard microphone that may already have come with the machine that you own.<\/p>\n What my friend did is the best way possible. He recorded his music digitally, \u201dburned \u201d the digital recording onto a\u00a0 CD-ROM with a CD-ROM recorder and then placed that CD-ROM into the CD-ROM player in his computer. If you are like me, however, you don\u2019t have a digital recording device or a CD-ROM burner. Fortunately, we don\u2019t need them if we have tape recorders and the correct cables to connect them to our computer.<\/p>\n What you will now have is a sound file, most likely in a format called \u201caiff.\u201d It sounds great, but takes up far too much disk space to be shared easily with others. You need to condense it into a format that takes up only a couple megabytes of space yet sounds just as good. That format, you will find, is MP3.<\/p>\n This is part is easy. There are countless shareware and freeware software applications available that allow you to convert the sound files from formats such as aiff to MP3.The one that I used was Xing Technologies Audio Catalyst (Which I Purchased for 30$ from www.xingtech.com<\/a>).You can take your pick from the numerous software applications listed at MP3 Web sites such as Listen.com (www.listen.com<\/a>) and MP3.com(www.mp3.com).To\u00a0 do this, just boot your application choice, select \u201dconvert file \u201d in the software menu, open the sound file you have recorded into your computer and save as a condensed MP3 file.<\/p>\n If you have a Web site, post your recording on your web pages. if You don\u2019t have a web page but want one, you\u00a0 can sign up for a free web page through Tripod.com(www.tripod.com),\u00a0\u00a0 geocities.com (www.geocities.com) \u00a0The Globe (www.theglobe.com<\/a>) or Xoom (www.xoom.com<\/a>).<\/p>\nStep: III\u00a0 Convert your soundfiles to the MP3 Format<\/h3>\n
Step: IV Distribute Online<\/h3>\n
Step: V\u00a0 Play and Enjoy<\/h3>\n