Tidbit: Recording The Soundcard Output

I have been looking for a couple of days for a way to record the output of my speakers directly to a file i.e. record what I hear. An easy good quality solution was one I found here. Since I modified it slightly to suit my own system, I thought I'd document it both for myself and others.

I am using an Ubuntu Itrepid based system which has been modified to use ALSA as the sound architecture. This is in fact the pre-release Beta of Linux Mint Fluxbox CE.

This is what I did:

1) Edit /etc/asound.conf and added the following at the end. This creates a device which copies another.

# copy device for output recording
pcm.copy {
type plug
slave {
pcm hw
}
route_policy copy
}

2) Restart ASLA with:

sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils restart

3) Get the 'numid' of the 'Capture Source' and the Item number of the 'Mix' device (you will have to go through the long output)

amixer contents

The part you are looking for looks something like this:

numid=22,iface=MIXER,name='Capture Source'
; type=ENUMERATED,access=rw------,values=2,items=8
; Item #0 'Mic'
; Item #1 'CD'
; Item #2 'Video'
; Item #3 'Aux'
; Item #4 'Line'
; Item #5 'Mix'
; Item #6 'Mix Mono'
; Item #7 'Phone'

4)Then set the copy device to copy the 'Mix' device (5) by running this:

amixer cset numid=22,iface=MIXER 5

That's it!

When you are ready to record run this in the terminal

arecord -c 2 -f S16_LE -r 44100 -t wav -D copy foobar.wav

The output file will be a large wav file.

To encode it to a good quality mp3, run:

lame -V - foobar.wav

Enjoy!

General Ozzy - Potential

This is a song that has really got into my system. It is by Zambian artist General Ozzy. It is great to see Zambian musicians putting out some top notch work! I suggest you get ready to dance because without further ado, I present Potential!

Make Way For Lancelot Link and the Evolution Revolution!

My Rendition of 'Stairway to Heaven'

Hi everybody!

I haven't posted since October last year. That's quite a decent amount of time. No excuses really, just laziness I suppose and nothing much to write about. Not like I have something important to write about now either. Just thought I'd do one of those obligatory, space filler posts. But its a bit of a fun one all the same.

Let me start by wishing everyone a Happy New Year filled with blessings, joy and success! 2007 for me hasn't come with too many changes. Romania has joined the E.U. as of the 1st of January but that really doesn't imply much for me. Being an Indian citizen I am still locked within the borders of Romania. I envy the Romanians though who can wander all the way till England without so much as a stamp in their passports. Come to think of it, where's the fun in that? No more bragging rights for passports filled with an assortment of border stamps and visas.

On another front one of my best friends just turned thirty on the 21st (or dirty thirty as he preferred to call it). Notice my careful choice of words to avoid petty squabbles between my other best friends, some of whom frequent my blog. No offense people. Anyway, a very Happy Birthday to him and another friend whose birthday is also on the 21st. You both know who you are. Wish you both all the best for 2007. But still, thirty! That serves as a poke-in-the-head reminder of how old I'm getting. Wonder when I'll realise it though.

Coming back to the title of my post. Playing the guitar has been a hobby of mine ever since our parents got a tiny guitar for us on one of our trips to India. I was eight years old back then. And I'd like to think I've progressed since then. Sometime last year my young brother kind of challenged me to learn 'Stairway to Heaven' by Led Zeppelin. I have learnt quite a bit of it. But Playing a song that has been referred by some to be one of the (if not the) greatest guitar tracks of all time is by no means an easy feat. The guitar work expertly rendered at the finger tips of Jimmy Page is nothing short of magical.

As I said, I have learnt quite a bit of the song and have recorded myself playing the bits I know. So, for lack of a better post, I present you with 'My Rendition of Stairway to Heaven'. A few points to mention before we get to that. First, my microphone is not the greatest in the world, so the bass is pretty distorted. Especially when I hit the open A it resonates like crazy. Do yourself and your speakers a favor and turn down the bass before you play this file. Secondly, don't wait for me to do Jimmy Page's solo at the end. It's not there. I'd need a better guitar and an extra set of fingers for that. Thirdly, I kind of got bored playing the middle bit of the song which is a little repetitive. So I skipped a bit in the middle. Fourthly, the file is in the Ogg Vorbis format (.ogg). This is a an open, patent-free format providing higher quality at lower file sizes than the popular MP3 format. It should play on Winamp (Windows) and most Linux audio players without fuss. Otherwise, I would say I did o.k. Oh well, enough of my rambling, here it is.

One more thing. Actually two. I'm hosting the file on a third party free file hosting service. If the link does not work please let me know and I will change it. And, please leave some comments of how bad you think I sound.

Till my next post... Take care y'all!