Topic: Newbie Question(s)

[michaelmoonbeammaker]

First of all, sorry for the newbie questions - I'm just getting in to this and have tried reading up as much as I can on the board but still find myself confused.

Have a few concerts under my belt from a recording perspective - have an Edirol R1 which I have gotten some trial-and-error practice with and have the concerts saved as WAV files on CompactFlash cards.  I'd like to be able to share these recordings through both being able to burn them on to CD's and convert them into a format (FLAC?) to be able to upload with such trading sites such as dimeadozen.

Right now I've got an old laptop on its last legs / no spare memory so am about to buy a new laptop as well as a desktop plus any required software to accomplish this.

My first question is on computer hardware - was just on Dell's site and to customize an order you have to make a dozen or more decisions - is there anything critical that I should make sure I get (or avoid) when it comes to things like processor / memory / CD/DVD burners / sound cards - or anything else?  I've already got a multi-card reader which I can plug into a USB port to access the files on the CompactFlash cards.

My second question is software related - what are the standard most highly recommended software packages that will be required for everything, I guess, from sound editing, breaking up tracks, burning CDs etc?  Am I missing anything?

Lastly, if someone can walk me step-by-step on what I will need to do to get from having a file on a CompactFlash card to having either a CD of the recording or FLAC file or equivalent, I would be grateful.

Thanks very much.

[bagtagsell]

IMO, any new computer will do what you want it to.  1 gb or ram can't hurt anything.  www.tigerdirect.com is where i buy my computer stuff.  If I were you I would buy all my upgrades from someone besides dell.  You can find some good tech deals on the web.  So just get a monitor, and barebones pc from dell, and do your other shopping on the web.

There are a lot of free programs.  FLAC, SHN, CDWave, whats that audio editing one...

I would recomend getting a DVD burner and Nero.  I use soundforge to cut all my tracks up, but cdwave will do that for free.

1. Transfer wav files to your hard drive.
2. Open up your editor.  ala cdwave.  Listen to the track for the break.  Split it right before the beginning of the next song.  I then take the splited wav, save it (ala MMW2004-10-11s1t2), and then close the small wav.  Basically you chop off the first song and save just it, then chop off the second song and save it. etc.
3. You will have a wav file for each track.  You can burn an audio cd from there, making sure that it is seemless.  Or then flac it.
4. Open up flac.  Add files.  Encode.

[michaelmoonbeammaker]

Thanks very much for taking the time.
I got most of it - guess it's only through trial and error whenl it will all come together.
Thanks

[bagtagsell]

audacity is a free program that can do a lot.