Want to transfer those old vinyl LPs to MP3s? Want to use voice dictation software? Want to record video, and need to send the audio track through your sound card? Want to use your PC as a makeshift karaoke machine? Getting Vista to record that sound may not be so easy.
Vista allows more than one audio device, a “feature” that usually makes troubleshooting audio problems needlessly complicated (as evidenced by the previous section). This is particularly true when recording sound, given that Windows can only record from one source at a time.
A single audio device may have two or three audio inputs: an analog (mono) microphone input, an analog stereo “Line-In” or auxiliary input, and sometimes a digital S/PDIF input. And special devices, like voice dictation headsets and TV tuner cards, have their own inputs. All the inputs for all your audio devices are listed in Control Panel ➝ Sound ➝ Recording tab, shown in Figure 4-11. (Most desktop sound cards also have internal inputs for CD audio, discussed in the previous section, but these almost never show up in Control Panel.)
To choose the default audio source, highlight the device you want to use and click Set Default. Most applications will automatically use the default device to record sound, but some (particularly voice-dictation software) require that you choose a source separately in the application itself.
If you have a USB audio device, such as a voice-dictation headset, Windows may set it as the default recording and playback device each time you plug it in. This will make it look like your sound stops working each time you use the headset; of course, all you have to do is change the default playback device, as described in the previous section.
Next, you’ll need to set the recording level (volume) of the device; most of the time, the default level is0(off), which won’t produce any sound at all. With the device highlighted, click Properties, choose the Levels tab and move the slider to the right until the level is at least50. While you’re here, choose the Custom tab, and make sure the Do Not Monitor option is turned off. Click OK when you’re done.
If you’re setting up a voice-dictation microphone, you may have to complete a separate wizard in the software itself to set the input source and its recording level. For instance, if you’re using Vista’s built-in speech recognition feature, go to Control Panel ➝ Ease of Access ➝ Speech Recognition Options ➝ Set up microphone.
Figure 4-11. Most recording problems are caused by incorrect settings on this Control Panel page
For best results when using voice-dictation software, use a USB microphone/headset instead of the conventional type that plugs directly into your sound card. Not only will the quality and clarity improve, but you’ll effectively bypass the often troublesome sound card drivers in favor of a more direct link.
Your music not sounding its best? The most likely candidate is an “enhancement” in your music player; sometimes these just don’t play nice with Vista’s audio drivers.
In Windows Media Player, press the Alt key to open the menu, and select View ➝ Enhancements ➝ Graphic Equalizer. In the Enhancements pane that appears, click the Turn off link that appears (if the link says Turn On, the equalizer is already turned off). Next, return to the Enhancements menu, select SRS WOW Effects, and click the Turn off link there as well.
If you’re having this problem in iTunes, select View ➝ Show Equalizer, and clear the checkbox next to the On option. Next, select Edit ➝ Preferences, choose the Playback tab, and turn off the Sound Enhancer option. Click OK when you’re done.
Or, in WinAmp, select Options ➝ Equalizer, and if there’s a checkbox next to EQ enabled, turn it off.
Whether or not this adjustment fixes the problem, this is not a problem a fully functional sound card should have. Make sure you have the latest drivers, and consider replacing the card if nothing else seems to work.
Crossfade Your Music
Crossfading is a feature present in Windows Media Player and other music players that eliminates the gaps between songs by gradually overlapping adjacent tracks. (Radio DJs do this, but they undoubtedly have better equipment than you do.) To enable crossfading, open Windows Media Player, go to View ➝Enhancements ➝Crossfading and Auto Volume Leveling. On the Enhancements pane that appears, click the Turn on Crossfading link (Figure 4-12), and then adjust the amount of overlap to your liking.
Figure 4-12. Crossfading, which overlaps songs to reduce dead air, works only in certain circumstances
Crossfading only works on data files (such as MP3 or WMA), and then only when the two songs are encoded with the same sampling rate (e.g., 192 Kbps or 256 Kbps). Crossfades won’t work if you are playing an ordinary audio CD, or, for some reason, a data CD that was originally burned with Windows Media Player.
Now, it’s possible that crossfading is actually working, but you can’t tell because your music files have more than a few seconds of silence at the beginning or end. To test the feature, try playing a few songs that don’t begin or end in a fade. And try increasing the amount of overlap by moving the crossfade slider to the right.
To enable crossfading in iTunes (which, ironically, is not something you can do with an iPod), select Edit ➝ Preferences, choose the Playback tab, and turn on the Crossfade playback option.
Crossfading is really annoying when you’re listening to spoken-word tracks or dialog from movie soundtracks. Try it; you’ll see what I mean.
You’d think that sound and video are easily separable, especially given the fact that they’re shown as separate entities in the timeline view in Windows Movie Maker. No such luck, but it is possible with the right software.
The Windows Media Stream Editor, a component of the free Windows Media Encoder (available from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/ forpros/encoder/default.mspx), can extract the audio from a .wmv video file and save it into a standalone Windows Media Audio (.wma) file:
First, open the Windows Media Stream Editor and click Add Source. Locate a .wmv or .asf file, and click Open.
Expand the branches by highlighting the file in the list and pressing the asterisk (*) key, place a checkmark next to the Audio entry, and then click Add.
Then, click Create File, specify an output filename, and click Save.
When you’re ready, click Start to begin the extraction.
When the process is complete, you’ll have a standard .wma file; see the next section for ways to convert it to MP3 or any other format.
To yank out the audio track from non-Microsoft video formats, you’ll need a different program. A full-blown video editing application like Adobe Premiere (http://www.adobe.com) can do this handily, as can Blaze Media Pro (http://www.blazemp.com), but if you want to do it for free, try the AoA Audio Extractor (http://www.aoamedia.com/audioextractor.htm).
You’d think after all these years, the tech industry would learn its lesson. They put us through the Beta versus VHS battle in the 80s, the Netscape versus Internet Explorer battle in the 90s, and the HD DVD versus Blu-Ray battle in the naughts. On the computer front, the battle of the formats is everywhere, including digital music.
It wasn’t always this way. At the beginning of the digital music revolution, it was the compact file size and reasonably good quality of the MP3 file format that popularized portable digital players like the iPod (not to mention P2P file sharing and the like, but that’s a different story). But now we have Apple’s M4A, M4P, and lossless AAC formats; Microsoft’s various versions of the WMA format; OGG Vorbis; Sony’s bygone ATRAC; and so on. Granted, most of these formats have risen from the need to copy-protect downloadable music, as well as offer audiophiles better fidelity, but the lack of a single standard is nothing more than a pain in the neck to music lovers everywhere.
Music purchased from Apple’s iTunes music store can only be played by Apple iPods (and some Motorola phones). Very few players are compatible with audio files from Microsoft’s URGE music store; even some of Microsoft’s own Zune players can’t play URGE files! And there’s no music player that’ll play all the commercially available formats.
So, in order to play all the music you have on any particular player, you may have to convert some of it to the proper format, and that’s easier said than done.
For one, converting anything other than lossless audio to your desired format will reduce the quality of the music. (Examples of lossless audio include WAV files, Apple’s lossless AAC, and, of course, audio CD tracks.) Also, most music purchased online is distributed in protected formats (like iTunes’ M4P and Microsoft’s protected WMA), and neither Apple nor Microsoft want you converting their content to an unprotected format. But the good news is that where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Apple’s iTunes software, (http://www.apple.com/itunes/) is free even if you don’t have an iPod or any intention of buying music from the iTunes Music Store, and it can convert songs easily and quickly. It supports MP3 (all bitrates), AAC (.m4p, .m4a, and .m4b), AIFF, lossless AAC, and .wav files. Here’s how to do it:
Start iTunes, and select Music from the Library section on the left.
If all your music isn’t already in the iTunes library, drag-drop your music files onto the iTunes window.
If you move the files into your iTunes music folder before dragging them into the iTunes application, iTunes will, by default, organize them into folders based on their embedded tag information. If the files are located elsewhere, they’ll be left in their current locations.
Next, select Edit ➝ Preferences, choose the Advanced tab, and then choose the Importing subtab. Select the file format you want to use from the Format Using listbox (i.e., choose MP3 Encoder to convert to the MP3 format), and then select a compression level from the Setting listbox. (If you don’t know which settings to use, MP3 at 192kbps is a good compromise among quality, flexibility, and resulting file size, and the files you create can be played anywhere.) Click OK when you’re done.
Finally, highlight one or more songs in your music library, right-click, and select Convert Selection to MP3 (or AAC, or whatever). Shortly thereafter, iTunes will place the newly converted file alongside the original—both in the library and in same folder on your hard disk—while leaving the original file intact.
Of course, neither iTunes nor Windows Media Player will let you convert protected files, but they’ll both let you burn protected music to an audio CD. Then, all you have to do is rip the CD back into an unprotected format. In fact, NoteBurner (http://www.noteburner.com) creates a virtual CDRW drive on your system specifically for this purpose, allowing you to burn and rip your protected songs without wasting any discs. Unfortunately, the burn-rip process will completely obliterate the embedded tags (meaning that you’ll have to retype the track names and other information by hand).
By default, Windows Media Player adds DRM copy protection to all music files you rip from CDs. To turn this off, open Windows Media Player, select Tools ➝ Options, choose the Rip Music tab, and turn off the Copy protect music option.
To convert protected files and preserve your tags, you’ll need one of the dozens of different DRM removal tools available, such as Tunebite (http://www.tunebite.de/) or MyFairTunes (http://www.hymn-project.org/).
Of course, no matter how you do it, there will always be a loss in quality when you’re converting from one compressed format to another. The exception is when you convert a protected file to an unprotected file of the same format, such as .m4p to .m4a or protected .wma to unprotected .wma, provided the software you use supports lossless conversion.
Please check back next week for the continuation of this article.
Working with Media in Vista
