Recording in the sound booth, in ten easy steps

1. Recording is done with the G3 iMac on the right side of the recording bench.    
   
   To prepare the computer for recording, click on the "booth record" script in the dock.
   • This does two things: it wakes up the external hard drive if it has gone to sleep, and launches the "Amadeus" program that is used for recording. You may want to click it even if Amadeus is already running, just to make sure you will not experience any delays from the drive spinning up.
2. Once Amadeus has launched, select "Record to new file" from the "Sound" menu.
   
   
   
   This brings up the recording dialog:
   
   
   
• In the "Input" section, make sure "Playthrough" is selected (so you can listen on the headphones). The quality message at the bottom can be ignored: do not use the "Input" tab to adjust the quality of your sound. (see the next step)
  
  
  
• Under "File", select "Save a copy in real-time", and give your recording a name. Use the pull-down menu to change the location to your user folder, and to select the desired format (normally, AIFF or WAV). If you are recording a mono sound (just one microphone, not both simultaneously), the AIFF format is recommended, because Amadeus lets you save a mono AIFF (but not a mono WAV).
  
      
  
• The settings in the "Sound settings" dialog should ordinarily be: 44100 Hz (high quality) or 22050 Hz (decent quality), 16 bit sampling, mono
  
      
  
• IMPORTANT: you should IGNORE the "Quality" tab on the right (it doesn't affect the quality of your file). The recording quality in this tab should be set to stereo no matter what settings you use for the saved file. This is especially important if you want to record with the head-mounted mic (which is on the right, or second channel)
  
  
  
• Recording will be controlled via the buttons in the "Record" section of the "Record sound" dialog
  
  
  
3. If you want to present stimuli electronically (via the display inside the booth), this is done with the newer G4 iMac ("iLamp").  
   The presentation could be controlled by Psyscope, Powerpoint, or even simply as a PDF file (one sentence per page). Load your file of stimuli onto the G4, and launch the appropriate software. Inside the booth, turn on the display on the desk; it should show the same thing as the G4 iMac outside the booth. (If not, on the G4, you may need to select "Detect Displays" in the displays menu on the right side of the menu bar)
4. Will you use the tabletop mic, or the head-mounted mic? On the USBPre device (above the G4 iMac), select the appropriate inputs:
• Tabletop mic = channel 1 (left)
• Head-mounted mic = channel 2 (right)

  To set the input to the tabletop mic, press the little "1" button (bottom, center) repeatedly until the green light in the left column is on "Mic". (Do the same with the "2" button to select the head-mounted mic.)

  To ignore the other channel, you should turn its gain knob all the way down. You may also want to set the input to "Line" for the undesired channel (to be sure that it is not receiving any input)



5. Seat your speaker in the booth, and position the microphone. If you are using the tabletop mic, it should be slightly off to the side of the speaker, pointed towards them. If using a head mounted mic, it should be a little to one side or the other of their mouth.
6. Have your speaker say some sentences, speaking normally into the microphone. While they are speaking, check the levels on the USBPre, for the desired channel. The levels should be, on average, near the top of the green portion, approaching but not going into the red zone. Adjust the gain until this is true , using the appropriate knob on the USBPre. (Ask the speaker to keep talking at a normal volume while you do this.)
   
7. You are now ready to record. Tell your speaker that after you shut the door, they can start talking. On the G3 iMac, click the "Record" button, and shut the door. You can listen to your recording in progress on the headphones attached to the G3 iMac.
8. If you need to pause during recording, this can be done with the "pause" button. (Hit pause again to resume)
9. When the speaker is done, press "stop". The file should appear in the location specified in step 3. You can then dismiss the dialog with "OK". Amadeus will then open a window showing the sound that you just recorded.
• CONFUSINGLY, Amadeus is not showing you the sound file that it just saved, but rather, another copy of the sound in a new (untitled) sound window. That means that if you try to close the window (or, if you click cancel from the recording dialog), it will warn you that the file has not been saved. If you clicked "Save a copy in real time" in step 3, you did already save a copy of the file. (You can confirm this by locating the file in the Finder). You can ignore the warning, or save another copy temporarily, if you prefer to play it safe. The new file that Amadeus shows you is, by default, a stereo sound, and will have one blank channel. You should discard the empty channel before saving, if you want to open it in Praat. (Or, select "export dual mono" and discard the file from the empty channel)
  (I hope this might be fixed in future versions of the program, but for now this is how Amadeus works)
10. Transfer your sound file to another computer over the internet, or to a CD or DVD using the attached burner.
    • PLEASE REMEMBER TO KEEP ALL OF YOUR FILES IN YOUR USER FOLDER. In addition, please back up your files religiously (the LaCie drive is not backed up), and remove large files that you no longer need
    • For directions on burning a CD/DVD, open the Mac Help (under the help menu), and search for "Burn CD". The CD/DVD burner for the iMac G3 a silver box located below the USBPre (left side of the upper shelf).
    • It is also possible to burn to an audio CD using iTunes, or to record to a cassette using the attached tape deck. (See separate instructions for using the tape deck)

     

Troubleshooting:

Amadeus is telling me that my file has not been saved

• If you saved a copy in real-time, then a copy of your recording has in fact been saved. If you are worried that perhaps it was not, then you can click "save as" to save a new copy, just to be sure.

The "booth record" script gives an error that a file or volume is not found

• The external hard drive (the silver LaCie drive below the CD burner) that stores user files may have gotten dismounted. Turn it on manually by pressing the big blue button on the front.

The USBPre box doesn't register any levels when speaker is talking

• Is the appropriate mic input selected? (see step 4) Is the appropriate gain knob turned up enough?
• Has the mic become disconnected in the booth? (Make sure the mic you are using is attached to a wire that leads outside the booth)
• Has the mic become disconnected from the USBPre? (There should be two black cables plugged into the mic inputs on the left side of the USBPre box)

No sound in recorded file:

• Is the USBPre box registering the levels as the speaker is talking? (see previous points)
• In the "Record sound" dialog of Amadeus, check the "Quality" tab: is it set to stereo? (Setting this to mono results in ignoring the right channel, meaning that the head-mounted mic will not be recorded
• The way that Amadeus deals with files is a bit confusing; make sure you have followed the steps above exactly for setting the filename, and recording the file.