Educational CyberPlayGround ®

 

How to Collect PlayGround Songs, Chants, Poetry, and Folksongs with a Mac

Using laptops and phones as recorders

MAKE DIGITAL FILES USING USING A MICROPHONE AND COMPUTER

 

Using iPhones and iPads are not the problem. It is the microphones in these devices that are a concern, and phones seem to collect sound better than laptops. They would need an app that allows recording in an uncompressed format like wav files. As always, mic placement is also a key, get the mic close enough to the speaker to work well. A decent external mic for a
computer is always better than the computer mic (internal mics picks up computer operating noise).

Recommendations

 

1) Apple computers are sound-ready, but you will need to download sound recording software.

You may already have SoundRecorder which is a FREE on your computer right now It lets you record sounds directly onto your hard drive. This allows you to record sound of almost any length. You can control and adjust the sound level with two sliders for input level and volume. While recording, SoundRecorder writes the data in a temporary file on your hard disk; once you choose to save the sound, the temporary data is written to a final sound file. MAC

 

2. DO NOT use your Mac's internal microphone. Use an external microphone. If you have a PowerPc Mac, you must use a special plaintalk microphone that plugs into the 1/8" stereo input jack. Be certain to set your Mac's sound input choice to External Mic. NOT Built-in Microphone. You can do this either from within the software package, or from your Mac's Sound Control Panel.

3) Record and save as an AIFF on your hard disk.

 

Digital Audio Formats

Type Extensions
AIFF  .aif, .aiff
AU (Sun/Next) .au
CD audio N/A
MP3 .mp3
Window Media Audio .wma
Quicktime .qt
Real Audio/ Real Media .ra, .ram, .rm
WAV .wav

One Minute Audio File Sizes

Dynamic range Sampling rate # of channels File Size
16 bit 44 Khz Stereo 10.5 MB
16 bit 44 Khz Mono 5.3 MB
16 bit 22 Khz Stereo 5.3 MB
16 bit 22 Khz Mono 2.6 MB
16 bit 11 Khz Stereo 2.6 MB
16 bit 11 Khz Mono 1.3 MB
8 bit 44 Khz Stereo 5.3 MB
8 bit 44 Khz Mono 2.6 MB
8 bit 22 Khz Stereo 2.6 MB
8 bit 22 Khz Mono 1.3 MB
8 bit 11 Khz Stereo 1.3 MB
8 bit 11 Khz Mono .65 MB