recording/editing music from a CD

[mauricemaurice]

I would like to attach to an email the second movement of a concerto which I have on a CD in AIFF format. I inserted the CD in my Intel Mac Mini and clicked on that second movement. The music played normally.
I then launched Audacity 1.2.5 and clicked on the red Record button. but only a straight horizontal line was produced instead of the expected jagged trace.
I then tried to drag the icon of the said second movement to the icon of Audacity, but an alert said "Couldn't open file"

I have in the past recorded from old tapes without any problem, with the same Audacity app. but I can't remember how I did it!
Can anyone please advise what I should do to record/edit any music while I hear it playing on my Mac?

[kozikowski]

Recording or capturing on a Mac is pretty straightforward. Plug the tape machine into the Line-In (circle with two black arrows), arrange pathways and press record.

Capturing the computer playback is forbidden. Recursive sound pathways get the Windows people into trouble all the time, so the Mac (and certain Vista machines) don't have them.

If you can put up with the quality hit by going analog, you can plug a short stereo 1/8" (3.5mm) cable between Line-In and Headphone-Out. Make sure the playback volume is turned up and record the Built-In Line-In.

You can't hear what you're doing when you do that, so you can add a "Y" cable and plug your iPod ear buds into one branch of the "Y". The downside to this process is you can't change anything during the capture. The sound effects and disturbances will all be recorded.

You can do this in the digital world by downloading and installing SoundFlower from the Apple web site. SoundFlower builds the recursive pathways that the Mac is missing. It also makes the Mac less stable.

I have multiple licenses of WireTap. WireTap is much easier to deal with than SoundFlower, but it's a paid license.

And finally, if you got the sound from iTunes, it's not a WAV file. It's probably Apple AAC format which might open up in Audacity 1.3. You can install 1.3 and 1.2 as long as you only use one at a time. Music CDs do not have AIFF or WAV files on them. It says so in the Mac browser, but the real format is CDA which has the same music, but is more efficient and smaller and is missing some of the formatting information.

If you actually tried to copy the file from the Music CD, you may need to pull it over to the desktop first. Don't let iTunes try to play it.

Most email systems will not transmit large WAV files -- usually anything over 10M. Use posting and download (I do this from my own web site) or FTP services -- some available free. Or, if you can stand the quality hit, convert the music to MP3 and mail that.

Is that enough variations for you?

Koz

[mauricemaurice]

Thank you, Koz, for the detailed answer. Some of your statements are above my head but I gathered that iTunes should be kept out of my efforts to edit a piece of music from a CD.
Unnfortunately I am not given the choice: Double clicking on the CD's icon always opens iTunes and the music appears in the iTunes window. It's a monopoly!

I tried to quit iTunes first, but it reopens. I tried dragging the item from the iTunes list onto the desktop but it sprang right back.

Then I tried putting the CD in an external DVD player which is connected to the Mini via a USB cable. Same result.
A CD player with a line out would probably work after converting the analog signal to digital. (I used to do it with a EyeTV hybrid), but I do not have such a player.

I finally tried, as you suggested, to connect the line out to the earphone jack, using a Y adapter to let me hear what is happening. This screams until the Mac's volume is reduced. A bit tricky between no sound and too much of it! Anyway it was a workable solution to my problem, and I am grateful to you for showing me how to do it.

I recorded 2 1/2 minutes only, and saved it as mp3. It "weighed" 2.4 Mb already. I hope that it is not too much for e-mail