a. Plug in a computer microphone into the mic in jack on the sound board in the computer. Use an application that allows capturing audio for the length of the longest song we might record. Most applications have their limit only set by the size of your disk. I don't have the exact figures on how much disk space per minute you need but if your were to plan on having about 10 megabytes of disk space for each minute of recording you would be pretty safe.

b. A better setup would be to have a better quality microphone run through a pre-amp to bring the audio signal up to what they call a line level and than the output of the preamp would plug into the mic or aux in of your sound card.

c. There could be a whole discussion about what sound card should be used but suffice to say for amateur's and a project like this one, most peoples' existing sound card will work.

d. A mic stand and lyrics stand would be useful but something can probably be jury rigged with a chair and tape for members working on a shoestring. budget.

e. I will list a few alternative for an audio capture program but for now, I'm recommending that you go to Goldwave.com and download their Goldwave editor. When you fill in the questionnaire for downloading it helps to say you are a student. Which you are. You are a student learning how to create music across the Internet. You will need to spend a little time with the program to get the hang of it. I found it to have many features that I have never even attempted to use. For a long time I was using it strictly to capture music from my record player and reel to reel tape player to transfer to a CD. Now I use it to also capture audio from my microphone I have plugged into my sound card. You can do all sorts of fancy things with it but the most useful will be for capturing your audio and maybe transcribing it into other formats besides wav.

f. Other ways of capturing audio would be to record to a cassette and than capture the audio from the cassette. I don' t see any advantage in doing it this way and only see a disadvantage. If you're going to record from a mic plugged into the cassette recorder you may as well capture directly to the computer. Going to the cassette and than to the computer will undoubtedly cause some loss in quality. The other method that would be good, would probably only be preferred by sound people who have invested in the equipment that could record to digital tape and than transfer the digital tape to a digital file on the computer.

Now that I have discussed the equipment a little and how to use the equipment I will go through the IEB recording steps as I see it right now.

Recording steps

1. First track to be recorded will be the foundation track. This can be from many different instruments but I feel that unless the foundation track contains the lead vocal, it would probably be useful to have a fiddle on the foundation track. The person recording the foundation track may or may not want to monitor a professional recording while recording. It's already been my experience that it is difficult to jam with a song and create a good track. It feels a little better to just memorize the song, practice it for awhile and than just wing it. This will also cause the recording to take on a more individual sound. I think this first foundation track and the use of a monitoring a professional, should be tested and decided individually.

2. Once the foundation track is recorded, it needs to be uploaded via an FTP client to the FTP server. It than is available to all IEB performers to download and listen to. I will always provide the foundation track and the meshed tracks on my website for all people to monitor the progress. If you want to use the online file, you won't have to bother to download the any files unless you wish to. All IEB performers should be made aware when this track has been uploaded so everyone can hear it and we can make a decision who will lay down the next track. I will notify everyone in the IEB group when I have posted any updates or new files on these IEB pages.

3. The next step will be for a second person to to record another instrument, add lead vocal or harmony vocal. They can either download the foundation track or use this website to monitor the track They will definitely need to be setup a way they can monitor the foundation track and record a new track at the same time. This requires a method to isolate the foundation track from being picked up and mixed in with the new track. I have come up with a couple methods to do this. The first would be for you to take the foundation track and burn it into a CD format that can be played on a portable or living room stereo system. The performer would than be able to wear the headset to monitor the foundation track while recording an isolated new track. The second way that I have come up with is to have a program that allows playing an audio source at the same time you record a new track that is completely isolated from the audio track being played for monitoring. I purchased Multiqence from Goldwave but their may be some freeware available. I just saw that Multiqence would perform multiple duties for me and it didn't break the bank, so I purchased it. I don't expect anyone to do this. This was just the way I wanted to go.

4. The next step will be for the second performer to upload the new track to the FTP server and notify the sound engineer that a new track is ready.

5. The sound engineer downloads the new track and adjusts the sound levels to best match the foundation track when they are meshed together. This person will than synchronize the new track to the foundation track and save off a meshed or flattened file for the next performer to use. This file should be uploaded and than notify everyone so they can hear it to help decide the next person to record. Again, this new file and subsequent new composite files will be posted on this website.

6. Steps 4 & 5 will be repeated as many times as we want or need, in order to create a song that satisfies all performers. There is no reason I can see that more than one track can't be added by the same performer at different points along the process. Someone may want to add a instrument break on a different instrument than exists at any point in time. Being that all tracks will be isolated, an instrument can be pushed up or down in amplitude as desired. What might be a banjo break could be replaced as a mandolin break just as an example. I think we should have discussions about how we want to create the song in advance. I don't think we should go willy nilly on recreating or changing things around just because we can. I just mention it here to show that we do have some flexibility. I still think the best approach is for a discussion ahead of time and develop the best sequence to record tracks. We may even want to jump on the forum to talk with each other or use something like Instant Messenger which I have never used by the way.

7. I have purchased albeit, a fairly low end program; costing only $50. I can mix and synchronize as many tracks as I want with Multiquence. This program will allow me to perform basic sound engineering functions needed for this project. I will be the first to admit that this is not an area I am an expert at but I feel that I can at least accomplish the basics needed here in the beginning. Perhaps near the end of the project we can get someone who has experience in this area and has better software and equipment to take the individual tracks and finalize a mix. As I see it though, it will be quite useful to mix and flatten as each instrument and or vocal as they are recorded. This not only aids each new person as they record a new track to hear all the tracks that have been recorded but it also gives all of us the opportunity to monitor the progress of the project as it moves along.

I think that pretty much covers enough information to get this project going. jkh