1. Mic goes here. Recording an interview

4. Make sure this switch is on “XLR.”

Recording an interview 4. Also, make sure the “Input Selector” is on “Mic/Tel.”

Recording an interview 5. Make sure this knob is all the way down!!! Otherwise you’ll get nasty, ear-splitting feedback. The other knobs should be pointing straight up.

Dumping to tape 2. Push this button down, so it’s on “Source.”

2. Put the switch behind the volume knob on “Manual”. (Notice it’s in the WRONG SPOT here, pointing to “Limiter.”) 3. Adjust your input level. Recording an interview

3. Adjust your input level. The VU meter needle should be near the red zone, but not stay in it. Too low and it’ll sound muddy. Too high and it’ll distort. You might be able to salvage levels that are too low (but try not to need to), but if it’s distorted there’s nothing you can do with it. Recording an interview

Dumping to CoolEdit 1. Plug in here.

Dumping to CoolEdit 2. Put this button up, so it’s on “Tape.”

This is the mixing board. Pretty scary, huh? Don’t worry, you don’t need to deal with most of it.

In fact, you can ignore just about all of it, except these parts.

This is the power light. Very underappreciated. If this isn’t on, you’re definitely not going to hear anything.

The switch is in the back. It’s the one on the right.

You’ll probably find the mixer like this. The cables need to be plugged into “Tape Input,” NOT “Tape Output,” as they are here.

(There should also be cables plugged into the “Line In 5-6” jacks, and in the “Main Outs” jacks.)

These three buttons have to be down: “Main Mix,” “Tape,” and “Assign to Main Mix.”

Turn this knob all the way down. This is the room speaker volume. If it’s too high, when you start the tape you’ll blow out your ears.

Turn this one down, too. We’ll come back to that one.

Turn this knob halfway up.

Play your tape. Tweak this knob to turn the volume up in the studio.

CoolEdit CoolEdit should come up with just one track showing. If it shows 4 tracks, click the button in the upper left. (Which one? Hold the mouse over a button until a text box comes up. You want the one that says “Switch to Single Waveform view.” 1. New , mono, 16 bit 2. Get your tape cued. 3. On CoolEdit, hit the “Record” button (red circle). 4. Check levels. Adjust with the “Main Mix” knob on the mixer. Should be between -18 and Delete your test wave.

CoolEdit 7. Record bite. 8. Save bite. File--“Save As…” Save as type: Windows PCM (*.wav) 9. Start a new wave file for each bite. 10. Editing! Remarkably intuitive. It’s what you get when you cross MS Word with a tape deck. But first, set up the board to listen to CoolEdit.

Remember this knob? Turn it up a bit under halfway. Play back a bite from CoolEdit. Tweak the knob until you can hear the bite OK.

CoolEdit You can edit in single waveform mode or in multitrack mode. There’s lots of ways to do it. This is mine. **Make sure “Enable Undo” is checked!! Edit menu-- check “Enable undo” Zoom in & out using the magnifying glass buttons. Hold the mouse over them to find out what they do. Click where you want to zoom in or out, then click the appropriate button. Hit spacebar to listen to the track. Click where you want to start.

CoolEdit Single Waveform mode Highlighting selections: two ways to do it click & drag right click, left click Highlight to magnify, highlight to delete, highlight to amplify… Delete: hit delete button

CoolEdit Single Waveform mode Too quiet? Turn it up! Amplify: Transform menu--Amplitude--Amplify move the slider, or guess (150%? 175%?) Also useful if your subject mumbles the last few words. But don’t overdo it. You’ll hear it.

CoolEdit Multitrack mode Insert waveforms in multitrack. Edit menu--Insert in Multitrack *Note: nothing happens. But click on the button in the upper left to get to the multitrack mode, and it’ll be there. *VERY IMPORTANT: Save session. You could save all your waveforms and still lose a lot of good work if you forget to do this.

CoolEdit Multitrack mode Right-click on a waveform and drag to move it. Left and right, or up and down between tracks. Hit spacebar to start. Horrible cacophony, huh? All your tracks playing at the same time. To avoid this, make sure your bites don’t overlap. Or, create a muted track to use as a notepad. Press the “m” button to the left of each track you want to mute.

CoolEdit Multitrack mode Scissors button on the top toolbar puts a splice point into your bite. This is the real strength of multitrack mode. This is very, very handy. Two splice points isolates a useful (or useless) part of the bite. Click on the part you want. From there you can move it, amplify it, delete it, whatever. (You’ll find some things are easier to edit in multitrack mode, some are easier in single waveform mode. Play around.) To adjust volume of a segment (amplify), right-click on it. In the dialog box, select “Volume.” Don’t raise or lower more than 3-4 dB or you’ll hear it.

CoolEdit Multitrack mode Fadeouts: good for polishing your bites. Especially when there’s a lot of background noise. Highlight the last part of your bite. Edit menu--Crossfade--Sinusoidal (you could do linear, too. Might sound better. Try it.) Can also pull down the green line at the top of the track to lower the volume. Pull it down all the way to undo.

CoolEdit Multitrack mode Let’s say you had to dice somebody’s bite to make it useable. You need to move it around, but you don’t want to have to move every last little segment. You can group segments together. Hold down the ctrl key and left-click all the waveforms you want to group together. Then click the “Group/Ungroup waveforms” button--on the top middle toolbar, fifth from the right.

CoolEdit Multitrack mode When you’re all done, mix it down to a single waveform. Edit menu--Mix down--All waves (Mono). Save this waveform, too. Now, to dump it back to tape.

Switch your cables back into “Tape Output.”

Dumping to tape Unplug from “Line Out” and plug in to “Line In.”

Dumping to tape 4. Make sure the input selector switch is on “LINE.” (When you did your interview, it was on “MIC/TEL,” remember?)

Dumping to tape 2. Push this button down, so it’s on “Source.”

Dumping to tape Press “Pause,” then “Play” and “Record” at the same time.

Adjust these knobs to get the levels on the tape recorder up near the red.

You can adjust your input level here again, too. Dumping to tape

Again, the VU meter needle should be near the red zone, but not stay in it. Dumping to tape

Release pause on the tape recorder, hit the spacebar, and you’re done!