Recording stuff

[OzzyMandez]

Okay, I haven't really had time to look through the various topics for an answer to this so I'll just ask here and now. Basically I'm thinking of starting a podcast and I kind of know how I'm gonna do it. Basically I'm gonna se Skype and (surprise) Audacity 1.2. I know how to record what's on screen (the stereo mix thing) and I know how to record things through a mic. Seeing as the people participating will al be in different places AND I'm using Skype, it's gonna be a problem. You see I can use both recording methods separately BUT I wanna do both at the same time in Audacity.

My question is- is there anyway in which I can do this? If not, what other ways could you suggest to achieve what I basically want. I'm nnot looking to buy any sofware though so if you suggest other software it needs to be free.

[kozikowski]

Step One. Stop using Audacity 1.2. 1.2 is no longer supported, updated or patched. On some machines it's unstable.

Get Audacity 1.3.12 from here...

http://audacityteam.org/download/

That same site should also give you "lame" and "FFMpeg" which are plugins that let you manage mp4 and mp3 sound.

Then you need software that will record and manage both sides of Skype. I believe Total Recorder will do that.

http://www.highcriteria.com/

You pretty much have everything else. Music, local narration, sound effects, etc.

Then you sit in the corner for several hours and edit everything together into a show which you then post.

Most newbies try to build the whole show live in real time. If you get that to work, post back how you did it.

Koz

[kozikowski]

Missed one "rule." Editing is ten to one. It almost always takes around ten hours to crank out an hour show. If you do a good job. Maybe an hour more or less, but almost always right around there.

Koz

[steve]

Mostly agreeing with Koz, except....

Basically I'm gonna se Skype and (surprise) Audacity 1.2. I know how to record what's on screen (the stereo mix thing) and I know how to record things through a mic

Big problem - Skype needs to capture exclusive access to the sound system to work. When you Skype, the recording input of your sound card is configured by Skype to either the internal microphone (if there is one) or the (external) mic. input of the sound card. Skype does not work if the recording input is set to "Stereo Mix". But in order to record both sides of the conversation, Audacity must use "Stereo Mix" as the recording input...

Either Audacity works, or Skype works, but no-one has yet managed to get both to work at the same time on the same machine.

Options - set up a second computer to do the recording, or use a specialist program such as "Pamela" to record the Skype conversation. (the free version of Pamela is limited to 15 minutes recording time).