THANK GOD for free software

Okay, so I need to thank the Lord for blessing humanity with free software. This past Wednesday (during Christmas Break), He moved Mark and I to set up a digital recording system for our church and it cost a whole $8.50.

We found the old PC that had been in Pastor's office, bought a 3.5mm-to-L/R-RCA cable (the $8.50) to connect the PC sound card to our sound system's mixer board, and downloaded the very excellent Audacity software. A couple notes:

1. We learned that the "Gain" control was set way too high on our mixer. This wasn't noticeable via the amps and speakers, but showed up as static and clipped sound in the recordings. I remembered this effect from my Ham Radio days. The Ham term is "overmodulation"
   
2. You'll need to download the LAME encoder software to be able to export in MP3 format
   

I mentioned Audacity, but there are a lot more free software packages for audio out there. Here are some. Our next goal is to find something that will convert our composed music into sheet music (a score). I've seen some when surfing previously and am sure the Lord will help us find something to fill the need. He always does.