The Internet is like no other venue you've ever played.
Here, the audience expects to have you play for them individually and play only
what they want to hear. They expect a high-quality performance and will
walk away if there's even a hint of a lineup at the door. On the other
hand, name one other place that comfortably seats millions of people.
And even if only a tiny proportion of these people do turn on to your
music you could end up generating a lot of popular interest and,
ultimately, earning a surprising amount of money.
Unfortunately, putting your favourite tracks onto the 'Net isn't as easy
as hooking up your amp to your computer keyboard and letting 'er rip.
It takes a small amount of technical smarts and a little patience. But
anyone can do it. KickInTheHead.com is happy to present this short guide to
creating your own mp3 and RealAudio files.
THE TOOLS:
To make a decent Internet-ready sound file, you're going to have to
get a number of programs. KickInTheHead.com does not necessarily recommend
any of these programs. With the exception of the RealVideo encoder, you
can use any one of several dozen programs and receive the same excellent
results. But for the sake of simplicity, we will be working with the
following software:
The programs listed above produce high quality results and can be downloaded
and used for free. If you run into any problems with these programs, many,
many other ones can be unearthed at
TUCOWS or
Download.com
RealNetworks is trying to corner the market on Internet sound files, and
their RealJukebox
promises to make both RealAudio and MP3 files. Right now, it is available as
a beta. That means it might end up being extremely buggy or unreliable on
your computer system. If you are extremely unlucky, it could even end up
screwing your computer. On the other hand, it is free (for the time being,
at least) and does just about all of the things you need for getting your
tunes on the Internet.
As time goes on, there will be many, many more products to choose from. If
you find one program confusing to use, move on to another one. And don't be
fooled into thinking that a newer program will necessarily produce
better sounding audio files. In the case of MP3, all of the programs are
based on the same basic number crunching algorithms that have been around
for years. One of the only reasons that it's received as much attention as
it has recently is that home computers are now fast enough to decode them
in real time and Internet connections are fast enough that most people
aren't afraid of downloading files that are 3MB or bigger.
next >>
Page 1 introduction
Page 2 overview
Page 3 working from tape: digitizing your audio
Page 4 working from tape: making an MP3
Page 5 working from tape: making a RealAudio file
Page 6 working from CD: making an MP3
Page 7 working from CD: making a RealAudio file
Author: Andrew Adamson, Technologist
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