Converting RealAudio Sermons Using Total Recorder

Total Recorder is a program that can record any sounds that come through your computer and convert them into a wide variety of formats. It costs $17.95 and can be purchased online.

In this tutorial, we'll show you how to use Total Recorder to take a RealAudio sermon that you've downloaded and convert it into .WAV format, which can then be put onto an audio CD.

The screenshots below are taken from RealPlayer 10.5 and TotalRecorder 6.0 Standard Edition.

  1. First, purchase, download, install, and register your copy of Total Recorder. (Instructions on how to register the program will be sent to you via e-mail after you purchase the program.)
  2. Next, make sure you have at least 700 megabytes of free space on your hard drive. WAV files take up a lot of space. You'll be able to delete the WAV file later, after you've created your CD, but you'll need at least 700M of free space in order to make the conversion.
  3. Newer versions of RealPlayer don't always work quite right with Total Recorder. These settings will help the two programs work together.
    1. Start RealPlayer. Under the "Tools" menu, click "Preferences".

    2. Click the "Hardware" category, then click the "Settings" button in the section labeled "Sound Card Compatibility".

    3. Put a check in the box labeled "Disable Direct Sound", then click "OK" twice to exit the RealPlayer Preferences tool.

  4. Start Total Recorder. Click the button labeled "Recording source and parameters".

  5. Make sure the radio button labeled "Software" is selected, then click the "Advanced" button.

  6. Put a check in the boxes labeled "Accelerate recording (silent mode)" and "Remove silence (prevent Internet transmission gaps)". Click the "OK" button, then click "OK" again to return to the main Total Recorder screen.

    This will allow Total Recorder and Real Player to work together to convert the sermon at high speed (around 6x-10x faster than "real time").

  7. Back on the main Total Recorder screen, click the red "Record" button to begin recording. (Total Recorder will wait to start recording until RealPlayer starts playing.)

  8. Find the sermon you downloaded and double-click it to start playing it in RealPlayer. You will not be able to hear the sermon playing. However, if you look at the counter in the RealPlayer status window, you should see that the file is playing back at an accelerated speed. You should also see the "Position" counter in Total Recorder counting up quickly. This indicates that RealPlayer is playing (and Total Recorder is recording) the sermon file at maximum speed.

  9. Once RealPlayer has finished playing the entire file, the counter(s) will stop advancing. Hit the "Stop" button on Total Recorder (the black square button in the bottom-right corner), then hit the "Save" button (the floppy disk icon in the toolbar).

  10. Save the file in a place you can find later. The bottom of the window should show the "Format" as PCM, which is what we want.

  11. You're all done! You now have a (very large) WAV file of the sermon, which you can now put onto a CD using your CD creator software.

    Once you've finished creating your CD in the next step, you can delete the WAV file that Total Recorder created.

Next: Putting a Sermon Onto a CD