more on sound recording

rand valentine jrvalent at wisc.edu
Mon Sep 11 08:58:55 EDT 2006


 I've been experimenting with playing mp3 files in a stack I distribute to
my students using StackRunner. I've been trying to be able to record within
the stack, but have run into many problems recording on different platforms,
some of which I cannot seem to solve. But a couple of things have happened
that I wanted to share, just in case they're of value to others wiser than I
am.

1. Initially, I was able to record with the recordinput set to "imic" on my
Powerbook g4 running Tiger 10.4.7. Then I started getting only garbage -- I
wasn't aware of changing any settings, other than futzing with the internal
mic vs a plug-in mic, and changing corresponding settings in the Mac System
Prefs. I also downloaded a program called dlrecorder, from dartmouth, at the
suggestion of one of the contributors to this list (Sivakatirswami).
Initially that worked, but then, _at the same time that I couldn't record
inside of my stack_, dlrecorder began to quit on start-up, telling me that
my audio card wasn't compatible. Something is screwing up the way the
audiocard interfaces with applications, undoubtedly some kind of settings
file is getting messed up. Sivakatirswami suggested that I fix my prefs,
which I did. Nothing changed. I fixed my prefs many times, but lost track of
that relationship to sound recording. Then suddenly everything started
working again on my PB, as originally. Too many variables, and I can't
figure out what is making things work and what isn't.

2. We need a good table of what transfers between platforms and what
doesn't. For example, I have been creating mp3 files, on my mac, which I
transfer to windows for use by the overwhelming majority of my students who
are windows users. But I discovered much to my chagrin that filenames that
have a "?" in them don't transfer to windows -- they were simply _ignored_
when I copied files to windows. Well, where does one find out about these
sorts of "gotchas" in advance? I guess if one is a professional developer
this is common knowledge, but for ordinary mortals, it isn't. Since RunRev
is so clearly a cross-platform system, we need docs that specify what
restrictions there are cross-platformwise -- maybe they exist and I just
haven't found them.

 I hope this doesn't sound like a complaint about runrev -- I absolutely
adore it.

rand valentine





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