(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Flash wrote: When I click to expand the "Config" menu, Precord 1.0.5 disappears. I restart it from the Multimedia menu, click "Config" again, and it works like it's supposed to

Just means the precord config file was corrupted somehow. Used to happen if you clicked the GUI window X rather than exit with the Quit button, but I thought I'd fixed that in 1.0.4
Anyway, it self-heals as you described and hopefully rarely occurs. I've hardly had time to test version 1.0.5 unfortunately, since things have come up here that prevent me doing more on it for a day or two at least. But do let me know if any other problems come up or if the vanishing problem occurs again or often.

Flash wrote: I tried vbr. It works fine. I didn't do a real comparison yet (recording the same audio track with both vbr and cbr) but vbr's file size for 30 seconds of me talking seemed about the same as with cbr. Is that what you found?

Depends on the bitrate you set it at. If both are at 32kbits/sec then the size will probably be much the same, but at hight bit rates vbr should provide much smaller files (compared to cbr at the same selected bit rate). vbr certainly seemed to be the best for me when recording streaming radio with 01micko's pupRadio.

In case anyone doesn't realise this, you can drag and drop files from Rox file manager into the entry boxes

If you want a nice VU meter for Precord, there is "gtkvumeter", however it is only a gtk widget and will require some wrapper application to drive it.

http://mumblelina.com/gtk/gtkVUMeter-gtk2.0-0.2.tar.gz

How does mhWaveEdit manage to include built-in VU meters that look like old-school galvanometers, with a dial and a needle that moves? If you're recording stereo there are two VU meters.

I think I found mhWaveEdit's executable file in usr/bin/ but I can't open it to see what's inside. Even if I could, I'm sure I wouldn't have a clue what I was looking at. I assume it's a compiled program, and the source code is somewhere else.

BarryK wrote:If you want a nice VU meter for Precord, there is "gtkvumeter", however it is only a gtk widget and will require some wrapper application to drive it.

Actually, I compiled and tried that one on the 12 Dec. It just comes with a test front end which shows its general look and feel. The executable is only about 15kB - but alas I have no idea how to make it work with alsa; maybe I'll eventually look at the source code for ameter or even aplay to see if I can figure out how they actually pick up the sound data but I've no idea how trivial or otherwise that is likely to be. If it is easy, I would have thought there was an app already out there using gtkvumeter rather that ameter (which needs SDL) but I couldn't find any. However, if anyone knows how such things work, please do let me know - a VU working on record would be just great!

Flash wrote:How does mhWaveEdit manage to include built-in VU meters that look like old-school galvanometers, with a dial and a needle that moves? If you're recording stereo there are two VU meters.

I think I found mhWaveEdit's executable file in usr/bin/ but I can't open it to see what's inside. Even if I could, I'm sure I wouldn't have a clue what I was looking at. I assume it's a compiled program, and the source code is somewhere else.

Yes it is written in C. I downloaded the source code and part of that is vu_meter.c (with vu_meter.h). Whether or not it is easy to use these parts separately I haven't as yet determined (assuming I can...); would be nice.

EDIT: alas vu_meter only provides the functions for drawing the meter, it seems to me, and would also need a wrapper program driving it, which is the stumbling box, I'd say. In more detail, vu_meter seems to be tightly wrapped in to the main mhWaveEdit program via the recorddialog.c part of the source code. I have given up on that avenue of investigation.

# Changes:

Precord Version 2.0.0

# Added ogg, and wav to the mp3 encoding modes.
# MUCH improved quality of MONO recordings (I think): less encoding artifacts.
# Expanded bitrate/quality options.

# Changes:

Precord Version 2.0.1

# Added ogg, and wav to the mp3 encoding modes.
# MUCH improved quality of MONO recordings (I think): less encoding artifacts.
# Expanded bitrate/quality options.

Note: Version 2.0.0 also had the above; 2.0.1 just swapped the order of the select encoder radio buttons to what I preferred!
And I added a 1 second sleep to the stop record function.

* Version 2.0.2 is much faster - A bugfix in which I shaved 2 seconds off the time it takes to switch between MIN and CONFIG gui

Precord 2.x.x has MUCH improved mono recording quality over earlier versions. Stereo recording quality same as previous.

Also records and plays back mp3, ogg or wav files.

Very neat....just tried 2.02.....

I wonder if something could be arranged with arecord and tail or xdialog..hmmm

regards

mike

Oo feature request time.....multiple sound card selection....then my effort is truly redundant

regards

mike

Well none of the direct soundcard access devices work on my computer

i.e. none of:

hw:0,0
hw:0,1
hw:1,0
or
hw:1,1

According to what I read pretty much everywhere, including here:

http://www.mail-archive.com/alsa-user@l ... 21125.html
and here:
http://www.mail-archive.com/alsa-user@l ... 21123.html

it is usually better to use plughw since that performs any needed conversions and supports more formats than native hw.

So I'm following that recommendation of using: plughw

However, I'm assuming the default soundcard and not specifying which card at the moment. I suppose I could add in selections for plughw:0 and plughw:1 if that is what you are looking for?
Or maybe, plughw:0,0 and so on...

Ah yes...I remember you had that problem..well if plughw is more reliable so be it.

Yes ...a card selector in the large gui sort of thing. I happen to have a usb sound box for spdif and usb/bluetooth headsets are quite common....these will usually come up as the second card

regards

mike

okay, shouldn't take too long to do

Not sure if it was a typo but
arecord -vv /dev/null 2>/dev/null

gives a much neater display...combined with resizing the console to show just one line an you have a very neat vu meter
try... mike

# Changes:

# Version 2.0.3:
# No longer loses file entry content moving from MIN to Config GUI.
# Added sound card hardware selection (plughw:card,device)


no, I wanted

arecord -vvv (I prefer a small dynamic graph to a one line display), but I had already cut down the rxvt console as is in this 2.0.3 version. Note that the current VU meter is for setting up only. You can't use it whilst actually recording.

[EDIT] NOTE: When the VU meter is running you can freeze it with ctrl-s and scroll up to see lots of sound card statistics. Then restart it with ctrl-q

Been trying rxvt -e arecord -vvv etc... with wav files (since easier to arrange) but the pause controls won't work when starting arecord with rxvt -e (problems with parent/child processes not being able to find each other and so on). No way out of all the issues that I've found with that as yet (easier in C...!).

Personel taste eh....mini version with mini player perhaps

I tried with my bash version and just killed the parent rxvt when going into record mode...

kill `ps | grep arecord | grep rxvt | cut -f 2 -d ' '`

I also launched alsamixer and the vu meter from the one button...sort of made sense since it also gives an instant indication that the correct input has been selected so no blank failed recordings.

Fast with the update..nice one
mike

mikeb wrote: I also launched alsamixer and the vu meter from the one button...sort of made sense since it also gives an instant indication that the correct input has been selected so no blank failed recordings.

That's a good point. It's true that more often than not I fire up both VU and alsamixer when setting up.

What I'd really like is to have the VU working when recording mp3 and/ogg, but I've not managed to split the audio from the VU noise when piping arecord into lame (for example). If you find out how, let me know.

Bonjour à tous,
Can i share with you my feelings on Precord.
I know nothing about audio, but i'm testing this Great little program.
But there are two things a little disturbing:
- I am obliged to adjust the microphone up and audio output too. It seems that the record level is fairly low. Or did it come from my microphone?
- I am forced to click the stop button at the end of listening to the recording. Could it be automatic?
Cordialement