Trimming Audio Files Using Audacity 1.2.6

I feel that trimming audio files using Audacity is much more easy than any other audio editor. Everything are done using mouse. Just select the section of the file intended to be cut. Selection portion also can be zoomed in and out to make selection more accurately (look at the picture).

Exporting selection into files have three options, as WAV, MP3, or OGG. The only problem here is Audacity 1.2.6 in default do not has any MP3 file encoder. We must download lame_enc.dll separately, an freely available LAME library to handle MP3 file encoding. Just go to search engines and search it, or just go here. After we obtain the encoder, when we export selection to MP3 file, we are asked to locate lame_enc.dll, just once. After we accomplished this task, we have no problem in exporting to MP3 files.

Michael Moore's Statement about File Sharing and Piracy

I got this statement from the famous filmmaker who specialize himself in directing documentary films, Michael Moore. He is one of my favorite filmmakers. In this video, he stated his opinion about file sharing and piracy. It is unusual for opinion from a filmmaker, but I just say his stance is great.

Here he quote, “I don’t agree with copyrights laws and I don’t have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people, …” Then he said, as long as people do not try to make a profit from his labor, it is OK for people to share it. Just like when you lend a DVD you bought to a friend. He also said that it is his belief that information, arts, and ideas should be shared.

Well I found some of his movies in YouTube, Sicko, not just a trailer but the complete movie. I haven’t checked yet but it is said that The anti-Moore site MooreWatch posted a link to a BitTorrent file containing a version of the movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, taped at a cinema. May be there are files in Rapidshare too.

One thing I see is the more popular a movie, book, etc., the more it will be pirated. Well I see there are thousands of complete series manga scanned and distributed via web, just days after published. There are non public domain books too. Almost all of MP3s in web is product of piracy. May be publishers should try to make advantages from this problem, how to make piracy as free advertisement. Is it possible? Just try it first.

Beethoven’s Eroica: The Once Named Bonaparte

It is Symphony No. 3 in E flat major (Op. 55), best known as Eroica, an Italian word for ‘heroic.’ This musical work is noted as a mark of the end of classical era and beginning of Romanticism.

Beethoven arranged this symphony in four movements: Allegro con brio, Marcia funebre: Adagio assai, Scherzo: Allegro vivace, and Finale: Allegro molto. Complete performance is about 45 minutes. The symphony is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in B flat, 2 bassoons, 3 horns in E flat and C, 2 trumpets in E flat and C, timpani and strings.

Originally, Beethoven dedicated this work to Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of French, and even name this symphony with The Consul’s name (Bonaparte). He is surely admire the ideals of French Revolution and The Consul. It is Napoleon Bonaparte The Consul whom he admired, so when Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor of The French, he become disgusted and even tore the name Bonaparte from his completed work with a knife violently. He then changed the title into Sinfonia eroica, composta per festeggiare il sovvenire d'un grand'uomo (“heroic symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man”).

Eroica now is public domain, widely available. Wikipedia even has fully played complete movement in OGG format. There are many sites that has downloadable files of Eroica in many formats such as MP3, OGG, WMA, etc. One of the ways to find it faster, type “Beethoven’s eroica” in music tab in search engines such as Altavista, Yahoo, etc.

Audacity: Free (open source) Audio Editor and Recorder

I just found a freeware stuff, Audacity, capable on multi Operating System, to edit and record audio software. This software is very useful to edit recorded audio files. Audacity® is a freewre, open source software for recording and editing sounds. So we can freely redistribute it and hopefully any of you are able to improve it. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. If you have other comparison, please contact me.

This Audacity is Free, Cross-Platform Sound Editor. Its latest release is 1.3.6 (Beta). It still a work in progress and have not yet come with complete documentation or translations into multiple languages. This Audacity is recommended for advanced users.

See New Features in 1.3 for more information about the 1.3.x Beta series. For all users, Audacity 1.2.6 is a stable release, complete and fully documented. You can have Audacity 1.2.6 and 1.3.6 installed on the same machine.

Please check and download this release here forAudacity 1.2.6 and Audacity 1.3.6 (Beta). Other download is found here

Editing Audio Files Using JetAudio

There are features of audio editing in JetAudio (espescially JetAudio 7.XX). they are not much complete like professional audio editor, but still these features make JetAudio unique, compared to other audio players. They are only audio cutting, ripping, converting, and recording, so far I explored.

Something I notice about these features are they need bigger RAM and faster processor speed. In CPU with Pentium III processor or equivalent, there is possibility that produced files are imperfect. During converting, ripping, or cutting using JetAudio, CPU is forced to work until 100%. If this work is still not sufficient, produced files will be defective.

Generally Windows XP operating system can breathe normally in PC with Pentium III processor and 256 MB RAM. For office program and other common application, there are no problems. Even for image processing, even if a little hard to breathe, it still able to run safely, just need longer time. But audio editing using JetAudio will make error on output files. These JetAudio features need at least Pentium IV processor with 512 MB RAM, or equivalent. Less than that, may be the outcomes are still OK, but there are not guarantees for other occasions.

Quran Recitation by Syaikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais an-Najdi

I just found mp3 files of complete recitation of Quran by Syaikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, the leading imam in Masjidil Haram, Makkah Saudi Arabia. He is praised for his precise, controlled, and particularly emotional recitation of the Qur'an in accordance with Tajweed, the rules of beautiful recitation.

These are recoding of his beautiful recitation of Quran from Al-Fatiha to Al-Nas:

001 002 003 004 005 006 007 008 009 010 011 012 013 014 015 016 017 018 019 020

021 022 023 024 025 026 027 028 029 030 031 032 033 034 035 036 037 038 039 040

041 042 043 044 045 046 047 048 049 050 051 052 053 054 055 056 057 058 059 060

061 062 063 064 065 066 067 068 069 070 071 072 073 074 075 076 077 078 079 080

081 082 083 084 085 086 087 088 089 090 091 092 093 094 095 096 097 098 099 100

101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114

His complete recorded recitation is found in this site, the site owner surely does have big space. Of course his complete recitation is so big in size. They are in mp3 format, almost up to one CD in size. It is no problem if you have high speed internet connection, you can download them in considerably short time. But if you can not download it, CDs of complete recitation of Quran in MP3 format in widely available in Muslim countries or Islamic Centers. Because of there is not copyright, (it is recorded during praying, especially in Ramadan Taraweeh), this recording is available in very inexpensive CDs, free to recopy and redistribute.
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MP3 Player

It is like just yesterday, here in my country, that MP3 player is so popular, yet it is vanishing. The first MP3 player I saw is like in this picture. Generally it has space of 128 MB. It has metal chasing so if it is connected to PC trough USB, there will be sensation of a little electric shock to anyone who dare to touch.

This is very complete in its generation. Able to play audio files, FM radio, record audio in WAV, and of course hold digital data like general data traveler. For simple use, this player is very useful. I usually use it as FM radio receiver, I mean I do not really like to hear music during busy time using earphone. Sometimes I record speech of a lecturer during seminar or studium generale. Too bad its batteries is unrechargeable, and only able to stand for several days. I see this type of player begin to vanish, after its price getting lower. There are new types almost every month.

Converting Cassettes to MP3

When I saw old cassettes, sure it bring many memories. The old songs and old tapes I hardly ever see again. Now everything are digital and digitally created. I can not remember when did I see a person carrying walkman or playing cassettes on tape player.

It is said that recoding in tape is analog and in computer is digital. I hardly understand the meaning, but sure I had successfully transferred recording in tapes into mp3 files. It is easy and unworthy to be bragged about.

This is the process to transfer or convert or rerecord audio in cassettes or tapes into digital files such us MP3, WMA, WAV, etc.:

First, we have to find a tape or cassette player, any type, which has earphone output. I hope you do not have difficulties finding it in this era. Make sure it can play well.
Second, we need an audio cable (most of audio cables are stereo, so are the slots in player and soundcard of PC) to connect earphone output in player and line-in input in PC soundcard. Make sure the slot and cable’s connector fit perfectly, there are many types of cable’s connectors and slots.

Third, with PC on, try play the player, don’t forget to adjust volume of line-in. If everything is OK, there will be any sound from cassettes in PC speaker. Adjust volume of line-in to the best position.

Forth, we must have audio recording application installed in PC. Try use JetAudio or other programs to record this. Don’t forget to select line-in as source of recording and set other parameters in recording such as bit rate, file output types, etc. If we play cassettes continuously, we will need audio trimmer programs to cut each song individually. There are plenty freewares to trim audios in internet we can download, such us in download.com and tucows.com.

What is MP3?

Do you ever try to compress MP3 using zip/rar when the data traveler can not hold them all? Please do not.

MP3 is compression format, designed to greatly reduce amount of data required by audio, yet still have quality like faithful production to the most of human ear. This MP3 was invented by European engineers who work on EUREKA 147 DAB digital radio research program. This format was standardized by ISO/IEC in 1991.

Today this is the most popular audio format of the world. The recording process will discard portions of data audio considered not important to human ear. So, generally, producing audios with quality almost like faithful production, but the size is greatly reduced. So we should not be foolish by compressing MP3 when we feel that data travelers can not carry them. This MP3 is a compressed one.

MP3 is enjoying popularity not only from end users and software, but also portable media player like mp3 player, dvd or cd player, etc. I barely remember when did I ever saw people bring walkman. Now there are only mp3 player which is also fading replaced by ipod.

Free CD to MP3 Converter 2.5

I just found a freeware program to convert CD Audio to MP3, WAV, WMA, etc (this is a cd ripper) This program supports ID3 tag editing and is able to save filenames based on track, also supporting normalization of audio files. There is also microphone input to record MP3, an later converting it to other formats like WAV, OGG, WMA, etc. This cd ripper worn on Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista. You can download it here at download.com.

Something we must now is that converting audio CDs for our own is not considered piracy. Unless we remake and distribute them of course. So feel free if you want to convert your CDs.

Speeding up PC Windows

If you have old PC or wishing for better performance, these tricks on registry will make our PC faster.

Accelerating shutdown process
Start > Run > type regedit > ENTER
Go to entry “HKEY_USERS \ .DEFAULT \ Control Panel \ Desktop”.
See entry “AutoEndTasks” (if there is not, right click on mouse and choose “New | DWORD Value”, give name “AutoEndTasks”), double click on it and type value “1” on “Value data”. Click OK.

Accelerating Start Menu
Start > Run > type regedit > ENTER
“HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop”.
Choose entry “MenuShowDelay” and type value “0” on Value data. Click OK.

Stopping automatic defragmentation
Go to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\cleanuppath”
Please delete entry default.

Ending program faster before shutdown
Go to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control”.
On entry “WaitToKillServiceTimeOut”, plase lower the value to 100 (in milisecond)
Go to entry “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop”. Make sure entry “AutoEndTask” have value “1”.

Clearing DLL from RAM
Go to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer”
Choose New > Dword Value. Type name “AlwaysUnloadDll” on that entry. Double click and type value “1” on “Value Data”.
If these steps is done, please go to start-up editor by typing “msconfig” on Run. Uncheck all of unnecessary start-up on Startup TAB. We do not need some of these startup if we do not run some specific applications.

Bugs in Winamp 5.XX

I recall that Winamp 5.XX has some bugs, may be they are not bugs, but I consider them bugs because they are not present in previous Winamp and causing discomfort.

First, after Winamp 5.03, Winamp can not play audio files in wav formats. So I have no other choice other than converting may wave files to mp3 or other formats. Converting audios using my old PC surely consume much times.

Second, when we double click file in playlist editor to play files, there often pop-up a window to open file. Previously this just result in playing file. Of course we must close it repeatedly.

In my old PC (Pentium III, RAM 256) this Winamp need more memory of RAM than Window Media Player and skin of Winamp Modern slow its performance. But I still use it anyway.

JetAudio 5

This JetAudio, I say, is one of my favorite audio software. I don’t say that this is the best audio player, but surely there are many features that only I found here. Like many other players, it is able to play almost all off audio and video formats. The exception is JetAudio offers more features other than just playing audios or videos.

Feature I explore most is recording. It’s so convenient to record speeches in many formats and bit rate. In main window, the features other than playing files are CD Ripping, Conversion, Recording, Burn, and Broadcasting.

I admit that playing with this JetAudio is less convenient than Winamp. But the point is this application has features that Winamp doesn’t.