The first step for any recording is of course to set your hardware up in such a way that the sound gets into your computer. Most Macintosh models have a line-in audio input built in, so you can plug the output of your Hi-Fi system directly into it (you will just need a standard mini-jack cable). If this is not the case for your computer (check with your local Apple store if you are unsure about which one is the line-in plug) or if you wish to obtain better control and / or better sound quality, you can use one of many third-party audio devices. Any audio device compatible with Mac OS X should be recognized correctly by Amadeus Pro.
Popular brands include Griffin’s iMic, Motu, Roland / Edirol, Digidesign, etc. I am not affiliated with any of these manufacturers and I can therefore not provide any advice on comparing their products or using them.
Once your hardware is set up, the easiest way of recording a sound with Amadeus Pro is to click on the red [Record] button depicted here. By default, this is exactly the same as choosing Record in the Sound menu. This will bring up a standard recording dialog and start the recording immediately. It is possible to change this behaviour, see Section 10. Once your recording is complete, just hit [Return] or click the [Stop] button and the recorded sound will be inserted at the insertion point in the current track. During the recording, you can pause and restart it at any time by hitting the Pause button (see picture below the record button).
You can also have Amadeus Pro create a new track containing the recorded sound by choosing the Record to New Track function instead. The function of the [Record] button can be customized by clicking on it and leaving the mouse button pressed for half a second. This will show a pop-up menu that allows to choose between the Record, Record to New Track and Record to New File function. This choice will be remembered next time the [Record] button is clicked.
The standard recording dialog only provides control over the volume of the recording. The volumes of both channels (for a stereo recording) can be adjusted individually. Setting the [Lock] checkbox forces Amadeus Pro to use the same volume for both channels. Note however that Amadeus Pro is able to provide volume control only if your hardware allows it. Some sound recording devices do not provide any control over the recording volume and in this case, the corresponding sliders will be grayed out. Please do not report this behaviour, as it does not constitute a bug. Amadeus Pro does intentionally not provide software volume control at the time of recording since this can only diminish the resulting sound quality. If you are not able to adjust the volume correctly in the recording window, you should make sure that your hardware is set up properly.
One very common mistake is to plug a microphone directly into a line-in audio input. Without a preamplifier, this will result in extremely low sound volume and poor sound quality. The iMic for example provides a built-in preamplifier that can be controlled with a little black switch. A similarly common mistake is to plug the line-out output of a home Hi-Fi system into a microphone input. This will result in a very saturated sound. Both of these problems can only be solved by setting up the hardware properly and not by any software solution. If you are unsure about how to connect your sound source to your computer, please seek advice from your nearest Apple store or from the manufacturer of your audio input device.
Complete control over sound recording can be achieved by choosing Record to New File in the Sound menu. This brings up the following dialog:
The Record tab provides the same functionality as described above.
The Quality tab allows you to specify the sampling rate and sampling depth of the resulting sound. Clicking on the Adjust button allows you to attempt to adjust the hardware quality to match the selected quality as closely as possible. If it is not possible to match the selected quality exactly, Amadeus Pro will automatically convert the recorded sound to the selected quality. This tab also allows you to choose which channels to record from. From the point of view of Amadeus Pro’s recording function, every sound input device has 5 channels: front left, front right, back left, back right and center. Of course, your particular sound input device may have more or (more likely) less input channels than that. It is therefore possible to assign the physical channels of your input device to the 5 channels of Amadeus Pro’s recording engine by clicking on Advanced settings in the Input Source tab.
The File tab allows you to save a copy of the recorded sound while it is being recorded. This allows you, for example, to record a radio show directly as an Mp3 file, therefore not having to spend a long time encoding the recording once it is completed. Warning: If you select a configuration with more than two channels in the Quality tab, only the first two channels will be saved to the file.
It is not necessary to use this function as a safeguard against the unlikely event of Amadeus Pro crashing during a recording: the recorded sound is always saved into a temporary file. This file will be placed in the trash bin by Amadeus Pro next time you launch the program and it can be recovered with the Import raw data function.
The Timer tab allows you to schedule a recording for a predetermined time of the day. If you choose the recording to start after a certain amount of time, you need to press the [Record] button in the Record tab to launch the timer.
The recording window obeys to a number of handy key shortcuts that are summarised in the following table:
| key | action |
| [space] | Pauses / restarts the recording |
| [M] | Creates a marker at the current location of the recording |
| [m] | Same as [M], but a dialog comes up, allowing to edit the marker |
| [tab] | Same as [M] |
