Square Dance MP3 Recording

MP3 Recording for Square Dance Tape Groups

or why cassette tapes are going the way of the 8 track

A Little History

I have been involved in leading square dance tape groups since about 1997 or 1998. For a while I used cassette tapes, like everyone else except for a few old timers using reel-to-reel tape machines. I recorded at dances using a Radio Shack cassette tape recorder that turned out fine tapes. But when playing the tapes at the workshops I soon found out that all tape players rewind at one of two speeds: too fast or too slow. If it rewinds too fast, you always overshoot the zero count at the start of the sequence, or go back too far if you just need to repeat the last few calls. If it rewinds too slow, it takes too long. In either case, the sound while rewinding (assuming you are using the "cue and review" feature) really grates on my nerves. Plus, my collection of tapes was starting to pile up. I had a whole carrying case full of them! Plus, tapes cost money. Not a lot, but it all adds up. I decided there had to be a better way.

So I started to investigate recording on a computer. I didn't know much about it, but I knew computers had pretty good sound systems, and I knew there was some pretty good audio compression software out there somewhere, to keep the files from getting too big. After a lot of searching, I had a copy of CoolEdit96 on my desktop computer, an old 486 computer at the time. Then I started to experiment with recording some of my cassette tapes into the computer. It worked! I found I could record and play back very good quality sound without using up TOO much hard disk space. My hard disk was a lot smaller back then. I decided that this could work, but I would need a laptop to use at the tape group and also for recording at the dances. You can't lug a desktop computer around. So I found a used IBM Thinkpad 755 CD laptop computer at a good price, and had it in my hands in early 1999.

I loaded my software on it, and tried recording at a live dance. At first I used the old "belts and suspenders" approach, recording using the laptop and cassette tape recorder at the same time. It took a while to get the recording level set properly. Cassette tape recorders use an "AGC", or automatic gain control to automatically adjust to the level of the signal being recorded. Computers have no such thing. The recording level must be adjusted manually to avoid the clipping that results when recording at too high a level, or the noise and poor quality that result when recording at too low a level.

So then I tried using the laptop at my workshop using Microsoft Media Player to play the files. In 1999 my tape group became (probably) the first in the country to convert over to computer. It worked OK, but Media Player had no "tape counter" to zero. It did have a marker that could be set and returned to, but I had to use a mouse to control it. That meant that my eyes had to be on the computer (instead of on the square) more than I liked. There was also no playlist, so I had to open each new tip individually. File drag-and-drop made that pretty easy. Still, it was better than using tapes. One CD could hold the equivalent of over 30 full cassette tapes, so I could carry an enormous library of material with me. So if someone said "Do you have anything by Mike Jacobs?", I probably did. And I could just use Find Files to find it.

Eventually I wrote Wplayer to let me use Winamp to play my files. Wplayer gives me a real "tape counter", skip forward, skip backwards and instant rewind back to zero. I also threw in a tip timer to let me know when to rotate new dancers into the square. Winamp supports very nice playlists, so I can turn a whole dance into a single playlist. And Wplayer keeps track of exactly where I left off in the playlist, so the next week it starts up again right where I left off. Gee, things keep getting better and better.

Oh, and I found a new program for recording. It is sound activated, so it automatically makes a new file for each tip. And it compresses to MP3 on the fly, so it doesn't use up too much hard drive space. And I have a neat little editor that lets me clean up the files (edit off the squaring up music at the start, and any extra junk at the end) without even having to decompress and recompress the files. Details on the software are in the next section, with links on my download page.

Required Equipment and Software

Note: For detailed step-by-step instructions on installing, configuring, and operating all the software I describe below, please read my Getting Started guide.

To use a laptop computer for your tape group you need the following hardware and software:

A laptop computer. Almost anything will do. I presently use an IBM Thinkpad 600. It is a modest 300 MHz Pentium II with 64 MBytes RAM, a 5 GByte hard drive and a CD ROM. Most computers have excellent sound systems. I prefer one that can use line input as well as microphone input for the audio in.
dBpowerAMP Music Converter. This is free software for converting audio files to/from many different formats. It supports MP3 encoding.
dMC Auxiliary Input. This is a free add on for use with dBpowerAMP Music Converter to allow it to record live audio input from your audio input jack. It can be sound activated to start and stop the recording automatically.
MP3 Direct Cut. This is a free MP3 editor that lets you edit MP3 files without even having to decompress them. It is small, simple to use, and FAST.
Winamp. This is one of the most popular totally free media players around. I use it because it is easy to control from another Windows application, which made writing Wplayer a snap.
Wplayer. This is a user interface for Winamp that adds a tape counter, tip timer, easy to use shortcut keys, and the ability to remember exactly where you left off in each playlist.
External speakers or amplifier. Laptop computers have very small speakers. You will need a good set of external amplified speakers, or an amplifier with speakers. But you probably need the same thing f you are using a small cassette tape player.
RF Remote Control System (optional). Use this to control Wplayer (or any other media player) by remote control from the dance floor. Great if you have exactly eight people and no one to run the computer.
IR Assistant (optional). Free software to use with the RF Remote Control System to let you control Wplayer (or any other media player) from the dance floor. Or use my new RfRemote software that I wrote to replace Ir Assistant.

Of course, a patch box is needed for recording at live dances. If you are recording on cassettes you (or someone else) must already have a patch box. If you need one, see my "Products" page.

Recording

Use dMC Auxiliary Input to record. I always set the number of tracks (one track equals one recording, or one tip) way higher than the number of dance tips I expect. Announcements, sound checks, extra music, etc. always seem to result in a few extra short recordings. You can select up to 20 tracks from the drop-down list, but can type in a number as high as you want.. 20 is plenty for one dance session. For multiple sessions, I just type in 99. I like to enter the callers name as the Artist, and the name of the dance as the Album. I set the options as follows:

File Creation set to Artist, Track Number (%a%r). This names the files as callername01, callername02 etc.
Check the box for Auto Start Record After VU is Over 5% For 750 ms
Check the box for Auto End When VU Drops Below 5% For 20000 ms
Record Using default (may vary depending on your computers sound system)
Source Line/CD (may vary depending on your computers sound system)
Quality 22.05 KHz
Convert to MP3 (Lame) There is a story behind the name of this MP3 codec. Ask me about it and I'll tell you.
Encoding Constant Bit Rate
Channels Mono
Frequency 22050 Hz
Bit Rate 32 Kbps
Output to Folder (select your desired output folder)
Volume Normalize OFF (unchecked)
Preserve ID Tags ON (check)

The trickiest thing is to set the recording level. If your laptop supports it, use line level input and connect your recording cable to the high level output of the patch box. Sometimes this is selected under the advanced options of the microphone in your recording volume control. If there is a checkbox for 20 dB gain, uncheck it to get high level input. Otherwise look for a "Line" input on your recording controls. Check it, and make sure the microphone is unchecked. The line input may or may not use the same input jack as the microphone. Also, on some computers is is necessary to feed the signal into both the left and right channels when recording mono. All computer sound systems are stereo. If you can only get 50% recording level maximum, then you need a special cable that feeds the signal into both left and right channels by shorting the channels together. My patch boxes come with a cable like this.

The recording will start as soon as the music starts, and stop after 20 seconds of silence. I never have to touch my computer until the end of the dance.

Editing

Sometime after the dance I edit each file using MP3 Direct Cut to remove any extra "junk" from the start and end of each recording. Just highlight what you want to remove, and click "Cut". Then select "Save to New File" to save the edited version to a file of your choice. One important thing about MP3 Direct Cut: It never modifies the original file. Changes must be saved to a new file. That way, if you mess up, you can go back to the original and try again. Once the files are edited to your satisfaction you can delete the original recordings.

Playing

Use Winamp to create a playlist for each dance. Then use Wplayer to open the playlist. Wplayer can start and stop the player, skip forward and backward to repeat calls, zero the counter, rewind to repeat the sequence, and remind you when to rotate people in with the tip timer. Use "Save As" to save the session as a ".grp" (tape group) file. Opening the tape group file later with Wplayer opens the same playlist, and restores the play position to exactly where it was the last time you zeroed the counter.

Remote Control

As if using MP3 files wasn't good enough by itself, you can use my RF Remote Control System to control the computer from the dance floor. It consists of a small transmitter about the size of a pager that you can wear on your belt. It has six pushbuttons which can be programmed for any functions, such as play/pause, zero, rewind, skip back, skip forward and reset tip timer. A small receiver plugged into the COM port on the laptop (or USB port for my new system) sends the commands to IR Assistant (or my new RfRemote software), which can be set up to cause any action you want when any one of the buttons is pressed. Now having only eight people is not a problem. Just run your tape group from the floor.