Contents

• Introduction
• Recording
• File formats
• Publishing your file

Introduction

The occasion might occur when it would be fun to have a recording. Whether you're a composer and want to share your song, or you'd like to share your reading of your favorite poem, here are some resources to help. Especially with the case of poetry and folksong, a recording will be valuable for non-native speakers. Even if they do not understand the language, they'll be able to get some idea of how the medium of sound is being used in that poem or song.

Recording

Audacity is an excellent free and open source recording program that I have used on both Windows and Linux. It is also available for Mac. The instructions are available in many languages, including Russian!

I have done a recording using the built-in speaker in my laptop, and using an Audacity feature to remove some of the background noise. A better, quieter recording set-up will make your life easier.

File formats

I recommend Ogg Vorbis. See also Vorbis.com. It is a fully open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free, general-purpose compressed audio format that is at least as good if not better than MP3. Many players that play MP3 format now also support OGG. Zinf is a player for windows and linux. For mac and other players, go here.

However, use whatever file format works best for you!

Publishing your file

I have yet to test this. For now, add your sound recording as an image. It is best to include the approprate extension in the ID of the "image", for example, mySong.ogg. However, on this site current file size is limited to 1.907MB (2000000 bytes). If you wish to share recordings of up to 5MB in size, one option is to join the Carfreeuniverse discussion email list (you can set your preferences to no email), and to upload your file to the files section there. Then link to that file from a document or link on this site.

Of course, the larger the file, the less likely people are to download it, so trying to stay within the 1.9MB limit by using compression is not a bad idea.