I’m pretty unskilled with software & I’m looking for something to record my Hypnotherapy sessions with clients
What I need to do is:
Have 2 sets of usb headphones - one for me & one for the client
We both need to be able to hear each other speak & a music track behind us playing while we are speaking
We both need to be able to speak through our own microphone & hear through our own headphones
I need to be able to record it real time & then burn a cd
Saving the file & burning it to cd should only take a couple of minutes
My laptop has windows XP
Will audacity do this for me & if not can anyone suggest anything else that might
I’m going with no for a lot of reasons starting with Audacity which will only manage one USB “device” at once. So one microphone, maybe with the headphone working, too. Sometimes not depending on the computer.
You’re describing a multi-channel, tiny but comprehensive mixing console with selectable foldback. Digital or USB services will drive you crazy because of the delays coming and going, so it’s analog. The output of the mixer which may or may not be digital goes to the computer for recording, editing, authoring, and burning the CD.
If you don’t need the editing and authoring, there are stand-alone real time CD burners out there. Plug one of those directly into the mixer. Stop talking and press “OK” and a bit later the finished CD pops out.
Technically, you don’t need Audacity or the computer there at all, except to do the the billing.
This is still a little overkill, but this is the idea. This was designed to record four voices and four stereo Something Elses and mix them all down to feed a recorder and headphones.
As above, your computer is probably not the best tool for this job - you need an audio set-up first and foremost. Two microphones, and a stereo tape/CD input with an output that can be recorded straight to CD.
Now I don’t know how far CD recorders have come, but we bought one to record sermons at our church and it proved unsuitable for recording analogue signals. It was a high-end Philips recorder which would get ‘confused’ after about half an hour and more often that not, completely ‘lose’ the recording. We now record straight to DVD recorder hard-disk which appears much more stable for analogue recording.
What you gain in stability, you will lose in having an instant recording to give to your client - this is the trade-off as far as I can see. If you can lose the need for instant results, I would be tempted to go for ‘old school’ tape recording and transfer via Audacity at the end of the day - this might give you the chance to ‘edit’ the recordings where needed. You might get even better results if you used a DAT recorder so you could re-use the media??
As the previous answer said - Audacity really should only come at the end of this process, or think about using software and a USB interface that will cope with multiple inputs and sufficient outputs for all your requirements.
<<<a high-end Philips recorder which would get ‘confused’ after about half an hour and more often that not, completely ‘lose’ the recording.>>>
Did you try changing CDs? We found an enormous difference in blank CD stock. We settled on Sony CD-R disks and many if not all of those problems went away. People also like Verbatum and other name brands. Machines like that can get lost when the data on the disk doesn’t “stick” due to bad or incomplete dye layer.
<<<I would be tempted to go for ‘old school’ tape recording and transfer via Audacity at the end of the day >>>
So would I. Where are you buying your tape recorder? Can you still buy those?
<<<You might get even better results if you used a DAT recorder so you could re-use the media??>>>
DAT machines have a terrible reputation in pro applications. Many’s the field shoot where the audio operator brought a DAT machine and Something Else as a backup and ended up using the Something Else because the DAT machine “did something funny” and lost the show. So there I part company with you.
I’m perfectly delighted mixing and producing the show outside the computer and using my Mac Line-In and Audacity as the tape machine. Many shows got done that way.
All that said, the application is painfully close to producing a multi-mic podcast, and there are ways to do that. Of course, I can’t find the tutorial when I want it…
About the CD’s for recording on a CD recorder - we had to use the specific (and expensive) audio CDR’s which was another reason NOT to use these pain in the butt machines…maybe later version used PC CDR’s, but ours didn’t so there was not a lot of choice in makes available - we just went with what we could get. (thinking about it, we were probably using CDRW’s because of the expense…)
I knew a few people who used DAT, but I could never afford one, surprised to hear that they were not as good as first perceived, but quite happy to concede the point.
As regards buying tape recorders - strictly eBay I’m afraid… have got a stock of three nice quality tape decks now (just in case…) I got a nice one last year that takes two 1/4" mic inputs which is handy… I suppose stereo recording MP3/WAV recorders may be affordable in the not-too distant future?? I have a cheap one that records via a mic, but does not have a stereo input.
Here’s a up to the minute solution then:
Set up a stereo to play soothing music in the room, have an MP3 recorder on hand with a decent mic range which will pick up the voices and a bit of the background. When the session is finished - Zap it straight onto the client’s iPod or MP3 player!!
Audacity can only access one input and one output device at a time - so using 2 pairs of USB headphones immediately rules out Audacity.
Also, recording multiple tracks, playing other tracks, and listening to the whole thing at the same time is not a simple set-up - in fact, it is quite complicated to do on a computer.
We both need to be able to hear each other speak & a music track behind us playing while we are speaking
We both need to be able to speak through our own microphone & hear through our own headphones
I need to be able to record it real time & then burn a cd
A multi-track recorder sounds like your best option, though you would still not be able to use your USB headphones.
Multi-track recorders that record to Flash memory have come a long way over recent years and are a lot less expensive than hard disk recorders. There are several models available from the likes of Boss, Tascam, Zoom, Yamaha…
You will probably need to use a “headphone splitter cable” (very cheap, probably about $1.50) as most of these machines have only one headphone out. This will mean that both of you will hear exactly the same.
Saving the file & burning it to cd should only take a couple of minutes
Some multi-track recorders include a CD writer, though this will usually add a bit to the cost of the machine.
If you decide to go down this route, look for “ease of use” when you select your machine. Some machines are much easier to use than others - versatility and additional features will often come at the cost of more complicated operation, and I’m guessing that you will need to concentrating on the “session” rather than on working the equipment. Try before you buy.