Practical thoughts on using Golden Records:
Like many who subscribe to this forum, I am a new user. In the course of four days, I have encountered most
of the problems talked about here and solved most of them, and offer pointers and practical concepts that
were omitted from the documentation.
One of the big considerations is whether to record in mp3 or wav. Mp3 allows the tag information (album,
artist, etc.) to be output as part of the file. Editing file names, changing them from untitled # to a
meaningful name, works both in wave and mp3; but only mp3 keeps you from the drudgery of rewriting this
information in media player's database or creating disk labels. Wav format and its output to disk as a .cda
file excels in quality of sound over mp3 (a highly compressed file). The casual listener will probably be
happy with mp3, but audiophyles,musicians and critics will demand better quality. About 24 (more or less)
cda files will fit on a CD. This is plenty to keep track of and enter label data for at one sitting. About
200 or more mp3 songs will fit on a CD which is more than practical to manage. I strive only to convert part
of an extensive instrumental library to digital format for inclusion as background music for slide shows. If
the same music albums have been re-mastered to disk and you count your time as minimum wage, it is probably
cheaper to re-purchase the tunes than convert them. In playing an album listed in an internet database, data
is automatically downloaded and you are saved from manually entering song titles, album and artist data into
media player.
One important item omitted from GR documentation is how to transfer converted files from GR to a computer
folder without the need for first writing to disk. The second omission is how to clear files out and start
anew. Here's the solution. The command bar in the interface window has "View" First click on this then
click on "View Recordings Folder". You may treat the window that appears as any other file folder. Cut and
paste to another computer location, copy to another location and delete unwanted files from a previous disk
write. I sweated blood writing to disk and back to the hard drive until I found this simple solution.
By far the greatest problem I had, and from reading this forum, other people have is recording six or seven
tunes and ending up with twenty files. This occurs when very soft passages at or very near the background
noise level cause the program to drop out of recording, begin, and drop out again. An occasional short drop
out can be repaired by highligting two or three files and joining them with "Control-J" This creates a new
file. Source files are left highlighted and can be safely deleted with "Control-Delete", leaving only the
joined file in the list of files. Repeated drop outs will effect the overall content length of a passage.
When encountering this type of music it is easiest to start over. In the recording menu, click on the
toolbox icon, the click on the "current noise floor" On the screen that appears check the "manual setting"
box and adjust noise floor to -50db. Restart the recording while carefully monitoring the sound, and click
on the "split" button during the silence between songs. It ain't automation, but it's the quickest route to
a good transfer. Simularly, when record makers were faced with too much music for a side, they sometimes
shorten the silent spaces between cuts resulting in a dropout too short to be detected by GR and causes two
songs to be recorded in the same file. If the record side had six songs and you end up with five files, you
will know this happened. The solution is to play the file. In the play window, click the pause button when
you recognize the space between the end of one song and the start of the next. Click the "add a cursor
point" button and then click "split a file at cursor point". By and large, GR does a competent job of
automatically separating songs when amplitudes are well above noise threshold levels as found in the bulk of
popular music, but for pesky symphonic passages with great dynamic range the solutions above will save much
teeth gnashing.
Occasionaly, individual selections on a platter, will exceed the amplitude first set by so much as to
endanger clipping, or conversely diminished input amplitude. Here's how to set input sound levels on the
fly: In the lower right corner of the computer screen (not program screen) there's a speaker icon. Right
click on this, then left click on "recording devices". There will be a green checkmark on the input device
you are using. Left click on this choice, then click on "properties". Choose the "levels" tab and adjust
the device volume up or down as needed. (small changes, please) Click OK and continue recording without
interruption.