Church sound

[Bill Davidsen]

Tim wrote:
> On Thu, 2009-03-12 at 21:27 -0500, David Miller wrote:
>> I see several packages that will record but I don't want to have a
>> 700M file.  Is there a package that will break the recording into,
>> lets say, 10min files and then be able to burn those to CD as audio
>> tracks with zero time between tracks.
> 
> I've used software that can automatically break a large audio file up
> into several smaller ones.  Though I suspect that's not going to work
> well with speech, as it may think momentary pauses in speech are good
> break points, whereas a human might break at more sensible moments
> (change in topics, activities, etc.).
> 
> I've used Audacity for live recordings of sound, hitting stop and then
> record between things.  That's one way of doing what you want.
> 
> But if you want to pay attention to what you're recording, and not get
> distracted by recording it, then recording it as one slab then editing
> afterwards is the better approach.  Again, Audacity is quite good for
> that task.
> 
>> At some point later I would like to get a camera and start doing video
>> recording of the service and place of DVD.
> 
> I'd suggest getting a HDD+DVD recorder, record to hard drive, break the
> recording into chapters after filming, then burn off a DVD.  It's then
> an easy job to replicate that DVD, either burning off another copy from
> the hard drive on the same unit, or copying the DVD on computer.
> 
You can record directly to the computer and avoid one layer of copying, with 
possible interface issues. Then break up the big file to as many parts as 
needed, and edit out the bits you don't want to make public.

> I've got a Sony RDR-HXD590 HDD+DVD recorder which makes that sort of
> thing relatively painless.  We've used it for recording concerts, and
> chaptering the different acts.  And it seems to be one of the few that
> creates fairly error-free discs.  I don't just mean discs that play
> well, I mean ones that aren't full of masses DVD technical errors that
> make duplication, or even playing, discs difficult on other decks.
> 
> I find stand-alone recording equipment to be generally a lot less
> annoying that computerised video equipment.  Professional video
> production is my career, and this is the easiest way to go, for low/no
> budget productions, in my experience.  If you go the whole hog, you can
> easily spend hours and hours in post production, for no tangible
> improvement for the type of job you outline.
> 
Most people don't find any match between "low/no budget" and "stand-alone 
recording equipment" since Fedora users have a computer but may not have all 
that other stuff. In particular the benefit of a separate CD or DVD burner 
escapes me, since there are easy to use tools for creating anything from VCD, 
thru SVCD to DVD, and audio CD formats are easily created.

>> In both cases the church is also talking about putting streaming audio
>> or streaming video on their web site.
> 
If you do that, feel free to write a tutorial which doesn't assume that you 
either are a media expert or wish to be when you're done. Creating media is 
relatively easy, streaming not so much. And of course when you go live you can't 
edit out the things you didn't mean to share.

> Might be worth looking at some of the youtube tutorials.  The same
> things will apply for preparing video for your own website as theirs.
> 
Good thought, covers the essentials.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot