budafulmusic

Over the past winter break, I went home to WI and spent time with family. But with both of my parents working much of the time and Finale choking on the 700 MHz CTR eMac I had more time on my hands than I anticipated. Then I got this bright idea while browsing old LP records at a thrift store: Why not convert several favorite records that I already have at home. So with the help of my dad to set up a computer at the media station in our living room, a USB record player, and a freeware audio app called Audacity, I got started on “importing” the “big CD’s” onto the computer hard disk.

It was tedious work but I am happy with the result. 27 records, nearly 1 gigabyte of mp3s, were created, most of which are records that will never be brought to the digital age and all of which cost nothing to create, save the investment of time. It took the length of the LP to record plus about 25-35 minutes to edit each record.

Here’s how I did it: First I selected the records to import. Figuring out which LP’s are worthy of digitizing is not always easy, is it worth your time or can you buy a CD online of the same exact recording? Do you see you self actually listening to what you want to import after you are done? Second, after setting up the computer with the audio interface (a converter is needed for this to work) I did a sample recording with Audacity (This program is all you need apart from iTunes) by playing the record and hitting record in Audacity. After seeing the audio waves of the recoding I new that I got it and then proceeded to continue with the rest of the record. I recommend recording the whole thing all at once and then separating them and exporting them as mp3s later. It takes less time and you can enjoy the music as it plays. Third, After recording the whole record, I used some polishing tools found within Audacity. Tools like pop and noise reducer, and fade in and out. I divided the song tracks (or bands ) and named them. Be sure to put the track number first, like what iTunes does in the directories of music files, this helps you keep them organized. Fifth, after naming each track of the newly imported LP and exporting them as MP3s, I imported them into iTunes where I edited the ID tags and put all the desired info such as album, artist, genre, and track numbers, etc.

I am really exited with some of the recordings that I now have: Sacred music of Ovid Young, Sour Kraut Band (OK, not to trilled about that one, my dad made me do it ), Hale & Wilder recordings, Baroque trumpet music, some older “poppy” Christian music, and some old BJ records as well. I also reminisced with my old Patch the Pirate records, I have all 4 of the first original LP’s (including the classic and really cute “Goes West” front cover!!” Though, I already have them on CD and so didn’t bother to re-import them.

It takes time to accomplish but the result is well worth the effort especially when you have such good music to listen to during the process and especially afterwards.

Here is a picture of me sitting at the piano at the Help at Home Live show. I’m being interviewed by Gary Moore, the shows host.

Well, the show went well. It was very thrilling to be a part of a live satellite broadcast. I’ll detail what went on tonight:

First, the Help at Home Live (H@HL) started with Gary Moore, the H@HL show host, interviewing Craig Hartman of Shalom Ministries. Dr. Hartman, a frequent Bible Conference speaker here in Greenville, brought many interesting religious Jewish pieces of clothing and had fun dressing Gary up with them as he explained the various purposes of the clothing. He also brought a large rams horn and Gary blew it, pretty well, I might add.

After a brief commercial break, it was my turn and I played on the piano two Rumanian Folk Dances by Béla Bartók. They were:

After I played, a short collection of intro’s and videos that I worked on were shown, and I got an opportunity to talk with Gary for a few minutes about them and about my work here at BJ Distance Learning. I had a good time but I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t nervous. I’ve posted several of the audio clips in a previous post, feel free to listen to them.

Last on of all, but definitely not least, Randy Miller, or the Critter Keeper, came on for the duration of the show and talked about and showed some very interesting insects and reptiles. My favorite was the foot long, 1 inch thick centipede. I still find it hard to believe that they grow to be that big. I’m glad they don’t grow that size here in the US.

I could kick myself for not knowing this before but those of you who don’t have BJLINC satellite could have watched it live as well on sermonaudio.com. It was a live video feed broadcast online. The show will be rebroadcast several more times over satellite according the the H@HL website but unfortunately, not online.

or Google Reader, as it is officially known as, is a wonderful and useful tool. It is part of the growing amount of free online applications made available from Google. I’ve been using it for the past month and a half now and it has proven to be very useful in helping me stay on top of all the sites I frequent; especially my friend’s blogs and news sites which are regularly updated. It functions very much like an RSS feed reader. I even have the ability to share content that I mark with other people that have a Google account and use Greader. However, a Google account is not necessary to simply view my shared items. A link to my shared items is in the blogroll to the right. In it are things that I found interesting and, well, sometimes disturbing.

If your interested in finding more about Greader, check out Google’s site and find out more for yourself. At best, it can be a great asset to your use of your time while online. My advice would be not to get carried away by adding every site you think of, thus frustrating yourself and effectively creating a dislike for the tool.