How to record voice messages

Message

Lobster · #1 Post by **Lobster** » Mon 30 Jul 2007, 10:58

Use this method now (link to posting later in this thread)
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 684#141684

Old info
Use from Multimedia menu
Soxgui audio tool

select directory

wav

8000

mono

enter filename

click on record
speak
and stop when finished

(the file can get large so . . .

open a terminal where the file is saved (right click with rox)
and type

lame -a -h -b 24 --nspsytune --resample 22 --lowpass 7 tmx2.wav

just swap tmx2.wav for your wav file
this will create an mp3 file that is a fifth of the size of the wav file

the file created will be called (for example)
tmx2.wav.mp3
if sending to a Windows user
change name to tmx2.mp3

example rant from Lobster created using this system
http://www.tmxxine.com/sound/tmx2.wav.mp3

Firefox · #2 Post by **Firefox** » Mon 30 Jul 2007, 14:07

Hi Lobster

Tried your latest broadcast in 2.17 pup. Download didnt make it in gxine - after 2 buffer fills it closed down. Tried right click save as and got a terribly slow download 2-3 kb/s managed 214 k before it said finished, instead 0f the 2014kb it should be. The sound is still low even after turning the speakers way up. I know its not your fault but there has to be a bug somewhere in all this.

Lobster · #3 Post by **Lobster** » Mon 30 Jul 2007, 14:42

Oh dear

Normally I am using the latest Puppy
so can give some feedback.
Could it be the compression or new kernel of 2.17

thing is I have gone back to 2.16.1 (in fact Linux Tmxxine)
http://tmxxine.com/Wikka/wikka.php?wakka=LinuxTmxxine10

I downloaded and it was OK for me

If it is a problem with my host then it can be hosted elsewhere? Someone who can download?

2.17.1 will be out in a few days at the most and 2.18 will be a more robust version of 2.17

. . . other than that do not know what to suggest

Greystar · #4 Post by **Greystar** » Mon 30 Jul 2007, 21:35

Lobster i'm running 2.16.1 and no problems streaming but like your last pawcast for me.(all others a little low but were audible) I have to turn up puppy sound mixer all the way up my volume on the speakers all the way up then put my ear to the speakers to just hear it faintly.

other mp3's play fine with mixer to 80 and speaker volume to 30.

hope that helps some?

by the way i do like listening to your pawcasts.

Lobster · #5 Post by **Lobster** » Thu 02 Aug 2007, 16:51

Thanks

m m m . . .

that means I would have to also run the audio boost in Soxgui

OK let me have a go and get back to you

Lobster · #6 Post by **Lobster** » Thu 02 Aug 2007, 20:40

example rant from Lobster created using this system
http://www.tmxxine.com/sound/prism.mp3

OK I used the sound adjust in Sox gui - sounds a bit crackly . . .
Did it get cut short?
any better?

Firefox · #7 Post by **Firefox** » Thu 02 Aug 2007, 21:33

Hi Lobster

The sound level is allright- using headphones from side speakers.
The sound is a bit crackly and gxine cut short your voice after 3 buffer refils. Maybe its my machine and ram related? have 128Mb or else need to configure gxine somehow maybe with special codecs or drivers. I have them but not installed yet, This test was of a pristine 2.17.1 frugal install on hda3 using gxine straight out of the box.

Greystar · #8 Post by **Greystar** » Fri 03 Aug 2007, 02:18

Volumes very good could hear it on my normal settings listed above.It is a little crackly (almost sounds like an electrical hum like whe you get to close to an old monitor.) But very audible. As for the cut off message did seem to cut off a little over a minute and a half or so(didn't know if intentional due to test or just cut off) but streamed perfect to that point.

edited by me to add about streaming and cut off.

Lobster · #9 Post by **Lobster** » Fri 03 Aug 2007, 03:54

Yes I got the cut off when just clicking the file
somehow the gxine mem buffer is too small

what I found is right clicking and downloading (and then running locally) and it was OK

the crackle - m m m - it really is a compromise (to get a small file) one thing you can do is use the equaliser in gxine

Ideal would be a mod to the Sox_gui code that set for voice (and used lame as described above to convert to Mp3) and added a crackle filter

ah well getting there . . .

mcewanw · #10 Post by **mcewanw** » Mon 17 Sep 2007, 02:45

Good information thanks. My only problem is that I don't have much disk space for the wav files. Is there any way, that you know, to pipe through some utility such as LAME and get mp3 output without having to first save wav to harddisk? My young daughter has been set the task of recording a teach-"me" german book to audio...

Lobster · #11 Post by **Lobster** » Tue 18 Sep 2007, 07:52

I don't know.
The reason I saved to wav initially was because it was a reliable format. I had difficulty saving at low bit rates or converting to other formats. I did not have the hard disk constraints you mention.

It might be worthwhile using audacity if you have a lot of editing to do
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 3429#13429

mcewanw · #12 Post by **mcewanw** » Tue 18 Sep 2007, 10:01

Yes, audacity is great. I once undertook a documentary film making course and I used audacity to edit some of the soundtracks.

Since receiving your message, I've found an interesting howto on the net: "Recording audio from the commandline"

Here is the link:
http://jordilin.wordpress.com/2006/07/2 ... mand-line/

I haven't tried it yet, but it seems to be exactly what I'm looking for in terms of having low disk space requirements. It does indeed involve piping the audio through lame. Here is an extract from the howto blurb:

"In this howto I’m going to give you powerful tools to record sound directly to an mp3 file or ogg file from the command line. So, you will be able to record for hours and hours your favourite music without having to worry about your hard disk space".

These are the main commands discussed:

arecord -f cd -t raw | lame -x - out.mp3
[I've since tried the above and it seems to work! Enter the command in, for example, an rxvt console window; press Ctrl-C to stop recording]

or, for time-limited mp3 record:

arecord -f cd -d numberofseconds -t raw | lame -x - out.mp3

or, for ogg vorbis output:

arecord -f cd -t raw | oggenc - -r -o out.ogg

As you know Puppy already comes with lame installed. arecord is already in Puppy too!

If you want the ogg vorbis format instead of mp3 you need to find and install vorbis-tools.

mcewanw · #13 Post by **mcewanw** » Tue 18 Sep 2007, 12:31

I haven't studied the lame command line options at all as yet, but I tried mixing what you already said, Lobster, with the arecord pipe to lame method. Seemed to work too. Gives nice tiny mp3 output files without having to save any big wav files first!:

arecord -f cd -t raw | lame -a -h -b 24 --nspsytune --resample 22 --lowpass 7 -x - out.mp3

[Once again, enter the above command in, for example, an rxvt console window; press Ctrl-C to stop recording]

Lobster · #14 Post by **Lobster** » Tue 18 Sep 2007, 13:31

I do not have the oggenc

Code: Select all

bash: oggenc: command not found

not sure why . . .

this worked OK and is very convenient - many thanks

Code: Select all

arecord -f cd -t raw | lame -a -h -b 24 --nspsytune --resample 22 --lowpass 7 -x - out.mp3

mcewanw · #15 Post by **mcewanw** » Tue 18 Sep 2007, 15:38

Lobster wrote:I do not have the oggenc
Code: Select all
bash: oggenc: command not found
not sure why . . .

Both arecord and lame are in the standard Puppy distribution, so the mp3 commandline works fine, but oggenc is not in Puppy; you'd have to download and install vorbis-tools (from somewhere...) if you wanted ogg files instead of mp3.

mcewanw · #16 Post by **mcewanw** » Tue 18 Sep 2007, 18:23

NOTE:
1. New program based on this work is now available called "[W]reckedLeg" Voice Memo Recorder. You can download it from the announcement thread for new apps at:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 435#144435

2. Since the original work on arecord2lamegui, I've achieved much better sound quality, when recording from a microphone, using rec (from sox) rather than arecord itself. Hence, I've changed the following blurb to concern rec2lamegui rather than arecord2lamegui. I've also now attached a dotpet for rec2lamegui-0.4 here. It is no different to arecord2lamegui-0.4.pet except for the use of rec instead of arecord. I've also left arecord2lamegui-0.4.pet for download too, in case you want to compare the difference. I'm now working on a more complete GUI frontend for rec2lamegui, which should be availabe in the not too distant future...

# rec2lamegui-0.4.pet
# Dotpet of Program: rec2lamegui Revision 0.4 23Sept2007
# Record audio from your soundcard straight to mp3 without any need for an intermediate wav file.
# Programmer: William McEwan (mcewanw)

This dotpet automatically adds the following files to your system:

/usr/local/bin/rec2lamegui
/usr/local/share/doc/rec2lamegui/
/usr/local/share/doc/rec2lamegui/rec2lamegui-0.4readme.txt

It also creates an icon (mini-sound.xpm) and JWM menu item in JWM > Multimedia > rec2lamegui sound recorder, storing this desktop info in /usr/share/applications

The utility registers with PETget so that you can easily uninstall it if you wish.

----------------------

I've never before programmed with Xdialog/gtkdialog stuff, and don't even know the name of the language(!). However, I managed to create this utiliy by first examining the scripts /usr/local/apps/Soxgui/soxexec and /usr/local/apps/Soxgui/main and by then doing a bit of reverse engineering... (i.e. I stole bits of code and modified it...).

The result is a simple, albeit rough, gui frontend for the commandline mechanism for recording direct to mp3:

rec -c 1 -t raw -f sw -r 44100 - | lame -r -x -s 44.1 -m m -h --abr 8 --nspsytune --lowpass 7 - out.mp3 &
[Thanks Lobster for help with the lame parameter settings]

This script is unpolished, and should be considered as no more than a fully-working starting point for a more robust gui frontend. I also think it is a nice simple illustration of how easy it is to script gui apps in Puppy Linux. Remember, I don't know this particular programming language (though this wee script is quite easy to understand), so I don't guarantee it at all; however, it works for me!

You should, of course, check that your sound source (e.g. a microphone) is working correctly beforehand. Personally, I usually run JWM > Multimedia > Puppy sound mixer, in order to check that the settings are correct, before running any audio programs.

Should you want to improve the sound, you might like to try manually altering the installed script. That is, open the script /usr/local/bin/rec2lamegui in any text editor and play with the parameters for lame and rec on the line:

rec -c 1 -t raw -f sw -r 44100 - | lame -r -x -s 44.1 -m m -h --abr 8 --nspsytune --lowpass 7 - $DIR$myfile &

Remember, if you "break" it, no problem, you can uninstall it and reinstall it again via PETget. However, usage of this utility is entirely at your own risk!

You can also change the default directory for storing your recordings by editing /usr/local/bin/rec2lamegui and changing the line: defaultdirectory=~/my-documents

Feel free to improve the program, but let me know of what changes you make so that I can upload the improved version as a dotpet on this thread.

Here is the code for your perusal, followed for your convenience by the uploaded script itself:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
# Program rec2lamegui  Revision 0.4 23Sept2007
# Programmer: William McEwan (mcewanw)

version=0.4

# Where the save to directory selection window begins
defaultdirectory=~/my-documents

#The following few lines are the Xdialog stuff
myfile=`Xdialog --title "rec2lamegui"-$version --inputbox "Enter a filename for your recording" 0 0 2>&1`'.mp3'
[ $myfile = "".mp3 ] && exit 0

DIR=`Xdialog --title "Select your output directory" --dselect $defaultdirectory 0 0 2>&1`
case $? in
  1)
    echo "Cancel pressed." && exit 0;;
esac

# The following is the line that does the actual recording to mp3
rec -c 1 -t raw -f sw -r 44100 - | lame -r -x -s 44.1 -m m -h --abr 8 --nspsytune --lowpass 7 - $DIR$myfile & 

# The following is the gtkdialog stuff
export MAIN_DIALOG="
	<window title=\"rec2lamegui \"icon-name=\"gtk-cdrom\">
		<vbox>
       		<hbox>
      			<button>
        			<label>Click Here to Stop Recording</label>
        			<action type=\"exit\">EXIT-NOW</action>
      			</button>
       		</hbox>
  		</vbox>
  	</window>
	"
	MAIN_DIALOG="`gtkdialog3 --program=MAIN_DIALOG --center`"

	if [ "`echo "$MAIN_DIALOG" | grep EXIT-NOW`" != "" ]; then
		echo Quit button pushed
		# make sure you put exactly one space after lame below
		PROCESS=`ps aux | grep 'lame ' | sed -n 1p | sed 's/^[ \t]*//' | cut -f 1 -d ' '`
		kill -TERM "$PROCESS"
		exit 0
	fi

md5sums for the files below:

c7192c9255263ee94f209776fe099110 rec2lamegui-0.4.pet [the best one!]

5826e3d8fda33fbf41bb47cfac6babd9 arecord2lamegui-0.4.pet

Lobster · #17 Post by **Lobster** » Tue 18 Sep 2007, 19:09

it works for me!

worked for me too.
Do you get crackles in the recording?
. . . might be my mic

Is there a way to cut the sample rate further (to about a third of the present)?

Very simple very usable - hope you keep working on it.

Great stuff

can this

Code: Select all

myfile=`Xdialog --inputbox "Enter record filename (e.g. voice.mp3)" 0 0 2>&1`

be changed to something like

Code: Select all

myfile=`Xdialog --inputbox "Enter record filename" 0 0 2>&1` + '.mp3'

mcewanw · #18 Post by **mcewanw** » Tue 18 Sep 2007, 21:02

Lobster wrote:worked for me too.
Do you get crackles in the recording?
. . . might be my mic

I have a hopeless mic, so I can't tell. But, yes, probably need to adjust the lame parameters.

Lobster wrote: Is there a way to cut the sample rate further (to about a third of the present)?

I don't know anything about adjusting sample rate with arecord or lame. Remember, I just threw this together! For the moment, I suggest you just open the script /usr/local/bin/arecord2lamegui in a text editor and adjust the following line manually until it suits you:

arecord -f cd -t raw | lame -a -h -b 24 --nspsytune --resample 22 --lowpass 7 -x - $DIR$myfile &

Lobster wrote: can this
Code: Select all
myfile=`Xdialog --inputbox "Enter record filename (e.g. voice.mp3)" 0 0 2>&1` 
be changed to something like
Code: Select all
myfile=`Xdialog --inputbox "Enter record filename" 0 0 2>&1` + '.mp3'

I'll give that a quick try. I'm about to post a dotpet up for convenience; easier to remove and puts a menu item under JWM > Multimedia

Won't be doing any more changes for a while apart from the above file dialog change try though (need to sleep and behind with things I'm supposed to be doing at home!...).[/quote]

mcewanw · #19 Post by **mcewanw** » Tue 18 Sep 2007, 21:58

Lobster wrote:Very simple very usable - hope you keep working on it.

Okay, I made the one alteration (auto .mp3 extension) as you suggested.

I've now edited my original text about it and uploaded it there as a dotpet (i.e. find it in my earlier post above along with an md5sum). Hope you manage to manually adjust the sound quality to your satisfaction. Let me know what you do please and I'll reload any improved dotpet later.

Actually, even if the program is now improved, I'll leave the above simple version pretty much as it is (apart from any discovered audio quality/sample rate improvements) because I think it's an easy to understand illustration of how to write this kind of code. It's always good to encourage others to have a go at coding!

mcewanw · #20 Post by **mcewanw** » Tue 18 Sep 2007, 22:52

Okay, I've now looked it up on the net and found out what Xdialog is; talk about putting the cart before the horse...

http://xdialog.dyns.net/

Like with most commands, one can also find (very) brief usage instructions by opening an rxvt console and entering:

Xdialog --help

or, for a bit more detail usually:

man Xdialog

Very detailed online documentation can be found at:

http://thgodef.nerim.net/xdialog/doc/index.html
---------
gtkdialog is another piece in the puzzle. Homepage:

http://linux.pte.hu/~pipas/gtkdialog/
[Some good gtkdialog coding examples at the above site]

gtkdialog3 --help

for simple usage.

man gtkdialog3

provides a popup readme file for Puppy users.

It is quite easy really. Just need to start using it!
------------------------

There seems to be some duplicate functionality between the Xdialog coding methodology and the gtkdialog one. I suspect you don't really need to mix them (but I might be wrong about that); I'm sure they both have their individual advantages and disadvantages though. Presumably, gtkdialog provides a gtk look and feel? Anyway, the Soxgui scripts use both, thus so have I, for the moment, in my arecord2lamegui script.

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

How to record voice messages

How to record voice messages

Broadcast

mp3 or ogg on the fly?

commandline recording to mp3

arecord also works with Lobster's lame command options

you'd need to download and install vorbis-tools

Simple arecord2lamegui record direct to mp3 dotpet:

minor alterations plus PetGET registered dotpet coming

it is now a dotpet...

Now I know what "Xdialog" is...