Recording to PC

Connecting to a PC (or Mac) to record a mix

Originally written as one of three guides by Justin Hornsby. The core method still holds even though the specific software mentioned (Nero SoundStation, older Sound Forge versions) has moved on — substitute your platform's current recording software using the same principles.

What you need

• A computer (Mac or PC)
• A sound card — internal or external, usually already decided by your computer
• A cable from the mixer to the computer — either RCA to RCA (see Connecting it up), or RCA to a 3.5mm stereo jack if your sound card only has a headphone-style input
• Recording software — often bundled with the sound card; Audacity is a solid free option for Mac and PC
• Speakers or headphones, to check the recording back

Setting up to record

Turn your monitoring volume down before connecting anything. Run the cable from your mixer's line output into your sound card's line input (usually black; the line output is usually lime green). Bring the volume back up to a sensible level and start playback from the source.

In your operating system's sound settings, select the line input as the recording source and set its level so playback sounds clean, with no distortion — if it's distorting, turn down the line input level first, and if that's not enough, turn down the mixer's output. Make sure no other inputs (like a built-in microphone) are also selected, or you risk recording system sounds and hiss alongside the music.

In your recording software, arm the track for recording so you can check the input level on its meter before committing — any decent recording program will show one. If the meter's constantly clipping into the red, reduce the line input level first, then the source volume if needed. Once the level looks right, rewind the source to the start, press record, and play the material through.

Save the finished recording with a clear, memorable filename, then play it back before doing anything else with it — you don't need to listen to the whole thing, but spot-check a few points to make sure it recorded cleanly.

Making a professionally arranged CD

Once you have one long recorded mix, splitting it into individual gapless, trackmarked pieces for burning is straightforward in any waveform editor with a marker/region feature (Sound Forge, Audacity, and most modern DAWs all support this):

1. Trim any silence from the very start and end of the recording
2. Mark the very start of the file as a region boundary
3. Step through the recording, marking the start of each new track — ideally right where the incoming tune's first "clean" beat lands, with none of the outgoing tune still mixed in
4. Convert your markers into regions, then extract each region as its own audio file (your original long file stays untouched)

Keep a spare eye on your available disk space — extracting a long mix into individual tracks needs roughly double the space of the original file while both versions exist.

Burning the mix to CD

Import the split track files into your CD burning software of choice, check the running order, and preview each one. For a gapless mix, set the pause between all tracks (except the very first) to zero — this is a per-track option in Nero and most other burners.

A couple of things worth knowing: repeatedly compressing and re-compressing MP3s (opening, editing, saving, re-opening) degrades quality noticeably over time, so keep an uncompressed WAV master of any recording you plan to revisit. And if you convert your split tracks to MP3 before burning, some encoders insert a tiny gap at the start or end of each file, which will quietly break your "gapless" mix — worth testing before you commit a blank disc.