A Hip Hop Central Special Edition - Creating Real Audio files.
Every once in a while I get people who e-mail me asking how to create a real audio file. While it is a somewhat time consuming process, it is relatively easy if you have the right equipment.
Things You Will Need:
 |
CD-ROM |
|
Real Audio Encoder: Click link to Download. |
|
Sound Recorder such as Cool Edit, or Sound Forge. You can download shareware and demo versions by visiting their sites linked above. There are other good ones as well, and Microsoft's Sound Recorder that comes with windows will work, but it is not recommended. (There are also other faster ways to convert a song into a wave file by using a cd ripper. You will have to figure out how to use them yourself though. To find a CD ripper, go to www.mp3.com and look under windows software/cd rippers.) |
| Compact Disc containing the song(s) you want to make into Real Audio |
After you have the requirements you are ready to begin. Make sure you have at least 70mb of free disc space before you start. The initial file you create will be large. One 4 minute song recorded with a sound recorder is about 50mb.
1. Open the Sound Recording program you plan to use. I am going to refer to Cool Edit in this tutorial since that is what I use. Make sure the CD is in the drive, and that no other CD player program is open. Click record, and select 44100, Stereo, 16bit if you want it to sound reasonably good. See Below (cooledit)
After you click OK, the recorder will start so now quickly choose the song you want. When the song is done recording click the stop button on both the recorder and CD player. If the song is how you want it then go to the file menu and select SAVE AS.. name the file whatever you want, and make sure you save it as a Windows PCM (*.wav) file. Remember where you save the file.
2.
Now for the Real Audio part. Open the Real Audio Encoder and type in the
information i.e Title>Artist>Copyright. Make sure you give proper copyright
information and not just your name. This is important. I.E. Deathrow Records
1996 is probably sufficient. Then at the top (if you are using RealEncoder 5.0
different with 5.1, or 3.1 but still similiar) choose FILE>OPEN SESSION. From
there choose add, and find your wav file. Then on the right hand side of the window
enter the filename you want to save your new Real Audio file as. When this is done
click OK. You are now back at the main screen. Now, on the right you will see
a list of setting for quality of the Real Audio file. The most common type is 28.8
Music-Mono and the setting you should use if you want everyone to be able to
utilize it. Now click start and your file is now being encoded in Real Audio.
When it is done, a message will appear on the screen with information about your new
file. Click OK, and the file is now ready to be uploaded.
3.
Some of you may wonder how you make the file play as you download it instead of
having to wait for the whole thing to download and then hear it. Well this is called
Streaming, and to make that possible is very easy. It requires no extra items except
for a text editor, most preferably the plain ole' notepad that comes with Windows.
To make a streaming file first open a text editor. Now all you have to do is type
the full location of the file on your web server. Such as:
http://rkincorporated.simplenet.com/hiphop/sounds/wsmith/candy.ra (your files will end with the extension rm instead of ra, so make sure you put rm and not ra)
Then save the file as the same name as the real audio file, but with the extension .ram, in this example it would be saved as candy.ram. Now put the .ra file and .ram files on your server (the place where all your internet files are stored).
If you notice, all of the sounds on my site have two options [Stream | Download] so all you do now is link Stream to the .ram file, and the .rm file to the Download text.
Here is what a completed link would look
like.
Will Smith - Candy Streaming | Download
Notice the difference in the links. One is linked to Candy.ram and the other to candy.ra
That is about it. If you have questions, which I'm sure you will, don't be afraid to ask, I know my instructions may not be very clear.
Ryan
Hip Hop Central