Linux sound recording sucseded where windows failed ;)

[Ben Edwards]

Thought some of you may be interested in the following little stoy of
how we stoped the community center I work with being poluted with
windows software.

We are using Ubuntu on our Desktops.

Ben

How Linux sound recording succeeded when windows failed
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I have been helping out at a Community Centre in Bristol (3ca.org.uk),
I was in fact one of the original 'directors' who persuaded Bristol
City Council (England) to let us have the building and re-open it as a
Community & Arts Centre.  The building is best described as a small
cathedral.  From the beginning myself and another have been pushing
for free software to be exclusively used in the Centre. Its been a
hard struggle but currently we have around 4 modern spec computers and
3 'Terminals' (using Linux Terminal Server Project).  Anyway Saturday
night we were putting on a benefit gig for the Centre (Live Music and
Djs) and one of the people involved said they wanted to record the
proceedings.  They had with them a Windows XP laptop and a copy of
Wavelab (not saying where they got the later from).  We actually have
a balanced feed from the auditorium to the media room up stares which
was put in to stream events over the Internet. I have never recorded
music on a computer but I figured I would have a look round to see if
I could find some free software for this (this all started around 3
hours before the doors opened).  Asking around I was pointed at a
couple of bits of software.  Audacity and Rezound.  (we will come to
ardour later).  I started playing with them and eventually got them
working (after being pointed at gnome-alsamixer).  Was having real
problems with them initially.  Audacity did not seem to have levels
and I could not work out if the sound was clipping.  Rezound seemed to
be a bit unstable, had levels but could not work out how to alter the
input signal level.  I basically ended up doing some test recordings
in audacity and loading them into rezound to check the levels.  It was
a bit nerve racking cos I knew there would be some heavy techno later.
 Anyway while I was fiddling about I kept on thinking, bugger, they
are going to do this with windows ;).  I got the levels what I thought
were correct as the first Djs started playing.  Then One of the people
with the windows laptop came over and said "You should start recording
now".  Odd I thought and started recording.  Turns out they could not
get there set-up working – and there were free of them – one who had
previously used the windows software.  I recorded 3.5 hours without a
hitch and the next day normalized the file and converted it into a
.org.  This is a massive testament to the power of free  software and
a real "we told you so" moment :).  My only regret is that I did not
know about ardour at the time as it looks like the perfect tool for
the job.
-- 
Ben Edwards - Poole, UK, England
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