Recording+and+Preparing+Audio

**Recording**
The following steps are used if recording audio in garage band for use in a flash animation.

**On a Mac:**
__To record using Garage Band:__ Open Garage Band. Choose “Create New Podcast Episode” Depending on who is speaking, select the appropriate tracks. (i.e. Female or Male voices) Record your sound clip. Choose File >Save As and enter the file name. Choose Share>Send Podcast to iTunes iTunes should open and you can locate the file in the playlist that GarageBand is configured to use Right-click and Open in Finder Right-click on the file and choose Open With > QuickTime

__To convert file to .wav format (using QuickTime Pro):__ Select File>Export. Make sure it is exporting as Sound to Wave with the following settings Close Quicktime
 * Linear PCM
 * Mono
 * 44.100 KHz
 * Quality:Best
 * Sample size 32

Note: It looks like you can get iTunes to do the conversion to mp3 or wav by going to your iTunes preferences, and the Import section and change "AIFF Encoder" to "MP3 Encoder" or WAV. Ultimately you want a small file using settings like the above. Crystal is going to experiment.

 On a PC:
__To record using Audacity:__ Check Preferences. Under Quality select a sample rate of 44100Hz and Sample Format of 32-bit float. Save your recording in .wav or Audacity format before exporting to MP3 (see below)

Sound Editing and Conversion to MP3:
Open Audacity under Windows or MAC. (Free download at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ - you will also need the LAME encoder using the instructions at [|http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&item=lame-mp3]) Select File>Open Open the .wav file. Edit the sound clip. Select Edit | Preferences | File Formats and set the MP3 Export Setup Bit Rate to 32 for narration and 128 if it includes music (in older versions of Audacity). In newer versions, select File | Export and then Options - and select 32 kbps quality. Use 128 kbps for music. File > Export as MP3. Use the ID3v2 setting (older versions), add no metadata (newer versions).
 * Make sure that the track is Mono. Tracks | Stereo Track to Mono will flatten it
 * Select All | Effect | Amplify and accept the default setting (If it is zero, then your recordings might be overdriven - that is recorded at too high a volume. If the setting is more than 10 then your recording level may be too low)
 * Select and Cut dead space at beginning and end so that it doesn't exceed about 0.25 seconds
 * If the dead space seems to contain a lot of background noise, you can try using the Noise Removal Effect


 * On a Windows machine (I still do this to be safe, but no longer get the file size change with the newer version of Audacity)**

__Add MP3 header information (Windows Media Player)__ Open folder containing MP3 Select the files, right click >Play with Windows Media Player Allow the files to play through This should add approximately 4 KB of information to the file size, as well as update the date. If this does not happen right away, replay them. This should eventually occur.

Using the Audio in Flash