Is Audicity good for teaching singing via email?

[alamus]

I am a singing teacher starting an online one-on-one coaching program using skype. I work from a Mac, but I need to be able to have clients with both Macs and Pcs record themselves doing exercises and songs. They will then send them to me as mp3 files via email.

Should I recommend the Audicity recording program to the pc users for this, or is there a better free or inexpensive program to fit my needs? Thanks much.

Al

[steve]

Audacity is a good recording application for Windows, Mac and Linux. Exported MP3 files may be sent from one platform to another and will work on all three platforms.

Note that Audacity is not compatible with Skype - Skype needs to configure the computer sound system a certain way and this often interferes with Audacity. It is usually recommended that you completely exit Skype before starting Audacity.

If you need to record Skype conversations there are a number of commercial applications that work (such as "Pamela"). We are yet to discover a good freeware method of doing this.

[kozikowski]

The people on Mac laptops have a built-in microphone, but that's harder on a Windows machine. What were you planning on doing for a microphone for them, or just use the Skype services?

Audacity and Skype don't always play well together, but it can be convinced to work.

Most email services have a limit on the size of digital attachments. Yes, you can up the compression, but then the compression distortion goes up. Why aren't you doing this live on the Skype channel?

Koz

[alamus]

I don't need to use Skype and Audicity at the same time. I plan to teach sessions via Skype, then send them a recording of each session on mp3. They need to work with the session material after we do the Skype session. Audio will work fine. Where I need Audicity is to be able to send them (say) a set of exercises, have them record themselves singing them, and my critiquing their recording when they return the recording to me via email. (Thanks much for your responses)

As you stated, Mac people will have no problems with this. But I do need to tell the Pc people how to hook a mic into Audicity. Will an inexpensive usb mic work?

Al

[kozikowski]

<<<Will an inexpensive usb mic work?>>>

Sure. This is the one I have.

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/webcam_co ... evices/221

You can get it much cheaper. What are the students using for Skype conversation?

The reason all our eyebrows went up when you said "Skype" is Skype's success depends in large part on viciously taking over the sound services of a computer and to heck with you. So by the time you get around to starting up Audacity, it opens, rubs its eyes, and gazes at the digital devastation left by Skype's exit. It's not pretty, but half the fun is knowing this is going to happen and take steps to manage it. Obviously it's a terrible idea to run both programs at once.

Koz