11. Now close Cakewalk (or not, if your memory has 256 MB capacity or more you can run both without slowing the computer speed down). Launch Audacity audio editor software. Click File > Open. Double click the WAV file produced by Cakewalk. Audacity will import the file. Check the text in the left area. It should say: Stereo, 44,100 Hz, 32-bit float.

12. Now you have to do some of mastering engineer’s jobs (whut?). Relax. It’s easy. Although you have done trim input level correctly, you might see the waveform in Audacity didn’t reach 1.0 dB. Why? this is the rule: when you record, do not exceed 0 dB. after you record, you can turn up the volume to 1.0 dB, this is the standard audio consumer level. Here is the picture of waveform before amplified.

You will bring the level up to 1.0 dB (amplify). Why? Because the audience will perceive louder sounds are better (As long as it doesn’t clip). Click Ctrl+A (Select All) to select all the tracks. Click Effect > Amplify. Slide the bar from left to right so the value of New Peak Amplitude (dB) shows 1.0 dB. Never exceed this value.

Untick Don’t Allow Clipping. Some of audio material has nasty dynamic range (poorly compressed) so some of them has peak above 1.0 dB. Unless this not frequently happen, you’re safe to allow clipping on the material without causing unpleasant sound.

Look at the picture here after amplified, some of amplitude has reached 1.0 dB and above but since it’s occurred rarely, it is forgiving because human ear might not recognized that.

13. Click Zoom In, slide the scrollbar to the starting point. You’ll see the first 5 second is a noise floor, not the song, correct? Click and drag the mouse to capture the noise zone. Audacity will automatically select both channels. Click on menu Effect > Noise Removal. Hit Get Noise Profile button. Now you tell Miss Audacity to recognize the noise from your cassette. Miss Audacity will learn the noise pattern. Believe me she's very smart!

14. Scroll back to the starting point again, Zoom Out so that all the waveform will fit your screen. Click and drag all waveform. From start to finish. You can do the same with Edit > Select All or Ctrl+A.

15. Go to menu > Effect > Noise Removal > Choose how much you want to remove noise. Don’t overdo it because your high frequency will be diminished. Set at approximately one-eight part (Less option). Click Remove Noise.

16. Back to starting point again. You might want to Zoom In again to make this task easier. Click and Drag the noise zone and leave just about one second prior to the song kicks and after the song finished, click Cut. This will delete unnecessary section to make your audio file smaller.

17. Now go to starting point again, hit playback button. You will surprise that the sound quality is much better than you heard on Cakewalk because the noise has been eliminated by Miss Audacity.

18. OK now you can do whatever you like. Export the file as MP3, Ogg Vorbis, or leave it as WAV (huge file mind you)

19. Don’t forget your cigarette, salty peanuts and drink is waiting. Come and sip some while listening to your digital audio. Arrghh…. feels good!

Did you know that when you finished these steps, you have done some of mastering engineer jobs? Maximizing audio level, removing noise, EQing, compressing and burning audio waveform are part of mastering process. If you like, you can expand the steps by playing around Audacity built-in effects such as Equalizer and Compressor.

Once you through this, you will familiarize with these procedures. To speed up the process if you want to convert the whole song in the cassette, first record all the song in Cakewalk. To do that, when a song is finished, stop tape player. Stop recording. Mixdown to stereo WAV. Delete the audio print tracks in Edit screen. Push play in tape player. Begin repeat to record again as above. One song one WAV file. When you finished, launch Audacity. Import WAV, amplify, remove the noise, cut unnecessary portion, export to MP3. close file, open another WAV. Repeat the process. Simple isn't it!

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Comments

Thanx Written by Morbid on 2004-10-15 02:43:16 excellent tutorial! thanks.

lagi2x Written by Guest on 2004-10-15 07:53:59 lagi2x isinya bahasanya berbahasa inggris lagi kalo bisa tolong utk bahasa indonesia nya juga donk kasih tahu...................juga

menarik Written by eric on 2004-10-16 05:39:42 wowow..  iya bener. kalo bisa dalam bahasa indonesia. atau malah billingual. biar bisa sekalian belajar bahasa ingris

Not for idiot Written by Joel on 2004-10-18 03:29:09 Ternyata bukan untuk idiot tuh........  Cukup bikin pusing.

Sharp brain engineer (SBE) Written by Fix on 2004-10-18 03:38:08 Tutorial yang cukup menarik, tapi lebih pas untuk SBE ( bukan SBY lho...?)

bahasa Written by admin on 2004-10-20 01:55:40 benernya gampang kok kalo praktek langsung. tinggal klak klik. Malique kalo udah ilang penyakit malesbanget dot com-nya akan menerjemahkan ke bahasa. praktekin aja dulu kalo ada pertanyaan silahken posting disini

siip Written by hari on 2004-12-10 11:01:17 I think I understand the tutorial, but you must translate it to Bahasa Indonesia..  Sebenernya ini legal apa engga mudah-mudahan legal karena buat konsumsi pribadi..  Thanks gue baru nemu site ini

hari Written by admin on 2004-12-16 02:33:48 semua file rip off dari kaset/CD/DVD adalah LEGAL sepanjang digunakan untuk kepentingan pribadi dan tidak diperjualbelikan. itulah mengapa ada produsen iPOD, portable MP3 player, DVD writer, dll.

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