Recording Sermons to HardDrive

I am the sound engineer at my church.  You need these things:

1. External USB (or Firewire) sound card from M-Audio or Edirol.

2. Cables connecting either a free mixer aux out or main out to the sound card (1/4" balanced is preferred).

3. Software, in order of good to best:
   Audacity (free) w/ LAME mp3 encoder
   Syntrillium CoolEdit <-- I use this.
   Sony SoundForge
   Adobe Audition

4. Sound Formats
   After extensive testing, I prefer the mp3PRO format with a VBR-100 setting.  Compared to a standard MP3 at CBR-128Kbps setting, the mp3PRO will be 30%  smaller and have the same fidelity.  AND it is compatible with MP3 players.

   For all the above software, record as a raw WAV file (Audacity uses a different raw  sound format.  Then convert to the format of your choice.  CoolEdit and Audition natively support mp3PRO.  For other software, I suggest using an old MusicMatch Jukebox 10 to do the conversion.

5. Computer
   Any old Pentium 3 laptop w/ Win2K or WinXP will do.

We use our bog-standard built in sound card and Audacity, and this has worked a treat for many a year at our Church. Yes we may get a bit of hiss and crackle but since we just upload to the web in 24-bit mp3 format, we're not looking for audiophile sound quality!

The thing I've found though is regardless of age, the hardware has got to be 100% working. We've recorded onto a couple of computers that work fine for day to day use, and worked fine for recording for a few weeks, but then the computer inexplicitly started to freeze part way through recording, requiring a hard reboot. Definitely hardware, cos got the same problem on one machine both under Windows and Linux!

Re: external sound card vs internal sound card.

There are 4 things to consider:

1. Quality.  In my testing, I've found that in general, built-in soundcards on desktop PCs work fine.  However, the built-in soundcards in laptop PCs are noticeably lacking in fidelity.  External soundcards start with much higher fidelity (A/D converters) to begin with.

I've tested many on-board soundcards and decided fidelity was the way to go.  I personally own 2 M-Audio external USB soundcards.  Recordings are crystal-clear.

2. Ground loop hum.  In some instances, I've seen a built-in computer's soundcard introduce a 60Hz ground loop hum.  This cannot happen with an external USB soundcard powered via USB.

3. ASIO and WDM drivers.  Standard WDM drivers usually introduce 100ms+ of delay when monitoring.  ASIO drivers  have <20ms of delay.  This doesn't matter if you're using Audacity or some doing some run-of-the-mill 2-channel recording w/ WDM drivers, but in case you're composing some music, ASIO drivers w/ the appropriate multi-track recording software is the way to go.  External pro-grade soundcards offer WDM and ASIO drivers.  Only some mid-high-grade SoundBlaster cards offer ASIO.

4. Usability.  External soundcards usually have a nice gain knob so you can adjust the recording level.  Most also have an 1/4" insert jack so you can analog compress a recording.  When you're strictly using an on-board soundcoard, you don't get that nice gain knob.  And if you do try do compress the sound digitally after the recording is done, you'll fine that the quality just isn't as nice as a $250 dbx 166XL unit.  Don't dismiss that nice gain knob -- it's essential.