AIFF Audio File and CDs

[Chupacabra]

I am just finishing up the editing of 5 days' worth of audio I recorded from the Mamady Keita workshops I took a couple of weeks ago here and will be ready to put it onto a CD. This is the first time I've taken a recording and edited it in Garage Band for transfer to CD and I see that when I export it to iTunes it's in the AIFF format. My question is this: If I burn a CD in the AIFF format, will this be playable on any type of audio device that plays CDs?

[Light Seeker]

Depends. If you're making an audio cd, the burning software will convert whatever file type you start out with into cd audio format, and yes, you will be able to play it in any cd player that can play burned cds. If you're making a data cd, well... I'm not sure if there are any cd players that play aiff files, I only know of ones that play mp3s.

[Chupacabra]

In this case, I've transferred MP3 format files from my "Zoom H4" recorder onto my Mac and taken the MP3s to Garage Band, edit, then to iTunes. The Cds will then be given to the other 4 or 5 people that I practise with for them to use on their portable CD players.
Unfortunately, they are not an iPod crowd so using a file share website isn't really viable at this point! 1 person asked me if I could make her a cassette!!!

[Tonio]

Hey Chupa,
thing is MP3>GB>iTunes, you will be importing, decoding, encoding just to burn. MP3 is data, not real audio files. You'd be doing extraneous conversions... it may or may not sound like ka ka after the fact.
Why not try importing to iTunes to begin with, or get a editor:

http://www.rogueamoeba.com/fission/

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/wiretap/

Above have usable demos, and purchasing is small dinero .

This should work too:
http://www.deepniner.net/mp3trimmer/

Cassette?? ai yai yai.

T

[Chupacabra]

Hi Tonio,
Thanks for the links. After a quick look I think I'll investigate AmbrosiaSW a bit closer when I get a bit of time. One thing I need to remember to do next time I use the Zoom recorder is not to record in MP3 in the first place. I have the option of recording in WAV, which I should have used. It takes more memory, but I have extra chips. For a West African ensemble it probably isn't too big of a deal, however, when the djembe and all 3 dununs were recorded there is an awful lot of distortion. This was probably from having the gain setting set too high for the volume of sound generated by all the drums and bells. Could that also be from recording in MP3?
I should mention that the Zoom also comes with Cubase LE which I haven't gotten around to figuring out. I've been told the Garage Band has a few advantages over this so I don't see much point in getting into it. All I really need to do is cut out the non-essential info from each file and join some together into one track and play with the levels on some of the tracks.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with how the project turned out. For each of the lessons I managed to record the basic rhythm patterns of the individual instruments, the pairing of sangban/kenkeni, then the dunounba, then the dununs ensemble and then the djembe accompaniments with dununs. I don't want to sound like a sales guy or anything, but the Zoom H4 is a pretty nice piece of kit to have for recordings like this. Ideal, actually!
And I tried a CD on several different devices and they all played it!

[Tonio]

Hola Chupacabra,

well I am not familiar with the Boss unit you have. But I would most definately say that recording in wave form should be better. Is it 16 or 24 bits? Assuming its 16bit/44.1khz, it would b better than mp3.mp3 can have different resolution too, as you can tell by the algoritms availabel in iTunes. But its really more about waht the boss unit is capable of.
But, hey its done with now, not much you can change.
I suppose in the future try using wave format.

When you say distorted, it could be as you claim yourself the gain may have been too high. However with 16 bit you do need to get as close to 0 as possible, but you will not have any headroom. with 24bit, you have more headroom within the convertors response. How many mics are you using?

T

[Chupacabra]

Ah-haaa! Here I am over my head all of a sudden! There are a few concepts you mentioned that I'm not very familiar with, but that's good because now I will have to go and look it up and learn about it so I'll be able to at least be conversant.
As far as the bit rate goes, the "boss unit" (Is that a generic term?) has multiple bit rate options, depending on which format. WAV will give me 16 or 24 bit, while MP3 will give me increments from 48 to 320 kbps or a "variable" setting which will self adjust according to the amount of information being encoded. Garage Band, if I remember correctly, will only provide 16 or 24 kbps.

As far as the gain setting goes, the convenient settings that are accessed by the little toggle switch are "high, medium, and low". Finer adjustments can be made by flipping through the menus, which can be inconvenient. I was wondering what do you mean by "headroom"

For this application I was using the on board mic which is a set of X-Y pattern mics with the SM57 mic input setting. I do have an actual SM57 mic which I can connect to the boss unit, but I don't think I would have been able to set it up at the class. I have a feeling he would have objected to me walking up to him with a mic stand and setting it down right there so I could record each lesson . Nice guy and all but that would have been a bit too much!

It would be useful to record and even monitor my own playing now that I think about it though. Damn, its noisy when there are about 95 to 100 djembes and a dunun ensemble are blasting away at the same time!

[Tonio]

crapola, I had a big ol post and timed out

Sorry I was refering the boss unit for your Zoom H4. I would say at this point, you should keep it at 24 bit files for better resolution. PLay around with the mic modeling. the U87 and 414 models you would need to have some distance from the source(instruments, etc). Possibly +1 meter or more. The Sm57 and 421 modeling is a modeling of dynamic mics, so you can get closer, but still keep it around 1 meter. You will need to play around with distance and the gain settings to get
a good balance.
Sound like an interesting little gadget.

T

[Chupacabra]

It is indeed. Maybe a little too sophisticated for my needs but it makes me learn more and that's what I like. There was a lot learned from this experience and I'll take it with me for the next workshop I go to!