Audio Engineering

Other Digital Audio Devices 629

the level of the signal on its way to the WAV fi le, but this will not help if the input stage
of the sound card is overloading.

You can then play this back, either through the loudspeakers of the computer or by way
of a connection to a hi-fi system, using the output jack of the sound card. The same
software, incidentally, allows you to edit a WAV fi le to remove gaps and, after some
practice, unwanted sounds, such as scratches and thumps.

You may need to make some setting-up steps, and although some software will do this
almost automatically you should check the following:

● Record options must be set to stereo, 8 or 16 bits, 44.1 kHz sampling rate. Use

16-bit data for CD or other high-quality sources.

● Type in the name that you want to use for the WAV fi le and a folder (directory) on

the computer’s hard disc where you want to store the fi le. The usual pattern is to

select a name that will describe the music, such as Beethoven 5 Symphony, and

store it where you can accommodate a large fi le of up to 700 Mbytes.

● Check that you have set the recording levels correctly.

● Click the Record icon on the screen and start the source playing. The screen

display will probably show the progress of the recording.

You can make your recording one track at a time, making a separate WAV fi le from
each track, or you can make a single fi le of the whole input. A single fi le uses less space
(because it eliminates the “ overhead ” involved in making a separate fi le for each track),
but it makes fi nding individual tracks (if you need to) more diffi cult. Software products
such asLP Ripper or Adaptek Spin Doctor will work on the WAV fi le and separate out
the tracks for you, whereas others will edit the WAV fi les manually.

The topic of editing a WAV fi le is too specialized for this book, but the principles are
not diffi cult, and some practice with a short fi le is more useful than any amount of text
instruction.

21.7 WAV Onward ........................................................................................................

The WAV fi le is, however, an intermediary. It takes up a large amount of space on your
hard disc because it is totally uncompressed, and its main purposes are to allow you to