Record and upload Ventrilo files

Created by NoSkill aka houndish

This tutorial will guide you through how to record a conversation on Ventrilo, convert it into a usable format and then upload or embed the file so it may be shared on forums, emails or whatever you like.

How to record, convert and upload ventrilo files

Hi guys and welcome to my first tutorial. This tutorial will guide you through how to record a conversation on Ventrilo, convert it into a usable format and then upload or embed the file so it may be shared on forums, emails or whatever you like.

Stuff you will need: Ventrilo - -[link]-

Audacity - -[link]- You might want to get both the 1.2.x version and the 1.3.x beta version. I use both, the 1.2.x version is much more stable for recording, exporting and working with sound files. But 1.3.x has 1 very important feature that I’ll explain later.

Windows Movie Maker – comes with Windows, or any program that allows you to add audio tracks and export as a movie file.

A good headset – This will be very important, you can do this without one, but I won’t be covering how in this tutorial, other tutorials exist online on how to change your Outbound to your Inbound which allows you to record what you hear. This never worked for me but feel free to give it a shot… I think my way is easier personally.

Step 1 Get Ventrilo fired up, I assume you know how to do that, and find yourself a conversation worth recording. Good choices would be drunken ramblings, server harassment, e-fights and anything else that typically inspires lulz.

Ok now while in the chat, simply right click the Ventrilo screen and click View -> Playback/Record (pic 1). Click Record. You are now recording! Anything said in Vent will be recorded to this .vrf file (useless in this form). When you’re done just click stop. You can record as much as you want as far as I can tell, but remember the longer you go, the larger the file size will get (a 30 min convo ended up around 28mb after conversion so 1mb per minute is a reasonable file size estimate)

Step 2 Ok so you have yourself some funny shit, maybe you caught a teammate fighting with his mom on vent and want the rest of the forums to hear it. Well that’s all well and good but you got this stupid .vrf file which is apparently useless (seriously, Google it, it’s pretty useless)

“How mah goin to get mah convrasation onto the Internetz!?!?” Relax you mongoloid and I’ll tell you.

Ok go back to View -> Playback/Record. This time click Open and navigate to the file you created, it’ll be called “assininenumber.vrf”. Now click Play. “OMGZ I CAN HEARS MAHSELF!!”

Step 3 Fire up Audacity. Remember I would use the non-beta version until I tell you otherwise. Ok so now Audacity is up, start a new project, File -> New. Ok so now you should have your Vent open with your .vrf file queued and Audacity open with a new blank project running.

This is where your good headset comes into play. Take your headset off and finagle it so your microphone is in between the two ear pieces. This was easy for me as my mic was flexible, make it work. I then placed a rubber band around the ear pieces so it wouldn’t move around and to completely surround the mic. Then I placed this whole contraption in a baseball cap to help buffer any outside interference. (TV, Radio, gay buttsex)

This is where if you can get your Outbound to be your Inbound this can be a lot easier. But I couldn’t do it and I’m smarter than you are. Also I have to gear this to the lowest common denominator, which is you.

Ok now hit the record button on Audacity (it’s the big circle you retard) and hit play on Vent. “Amidoinitrite?” If urdoinitrite you’ll see the sound indicator fluctuating as sound is recorded.

Let the vent file run til completion. Stop the vent file and stop recording. Save the audacity project.

Step 4 Ok now with your project opened in Audacity run through the file and make sure it sounds ok. Cut any dead air at the beginning and end off and make any other edits you feel necessary. Audacity is a crazy program that has a TON of features, however if you just want to simply decrease or increase the entire file volume I have an easy way for that. (Goldwave)

So at this point you should have a file that you’re happy with, quality wise. But there’s a problem… the file is 31 minutes long and there’s a lot of DEAD AIR or irrelevant unfunny chatter. BORING!

Ok this is where Audacity Beta 1.3.x comes into play. 1.3.x has a feature that 1.2.x doesn’t have called “Truncate Silence” and can be found under the Effects menu. Here you will need to select what dB level constitutes as silence and how long this dB level must run before it’s considered a silent moment. The lower you set these, the more silences it’ll fine, the higher, the less. Play with it til you get a result you like.

This will then condense your audio file into a string of non-stop chatter. If you wish, you can then manually go in between sections and “Generate Silence”. I didn’t find this necessary but sometimes the Silence lead up to a particularly funny LoL. Use it if you feel the need to.

Step 5 Now you’re going to need to export this .aup (Audacity Project) file into something usable, like a WAV or more likely an MP3. I had to download a MP3 encoder for this called LAME_ENC.dll (http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dll-files.shtml?lame_enc) . Just download this and place it wherever, the first time you use the File -> Export to MP3 feature it will ask you to locate this file, browse to it and you’re good to go.

Step 6 So now you have a nice mp3 of you and your buddies role playing a gay furry orgy. But hey, I want to embed the file into a post or an email because my friends are retards and don’t understand how to download an attachment… they need a big play button in front of them when they load the page.

Ok well I can’t help you get non-retarded friends but I can help you turn this mp3 into a video file so you can upload it to say… YouTube and embed it wherever you want.

Open up Windows Movie Maker (or any movie maker-like program) and follow the steps, it’s pretty straight forward. Add an audio track (your gay furry porn.mp3) and then add a video or photo or whatever you want. Make sure you move them from the “staging” area and into the actual timeline. You can make a series of photos like a slide show or whatever. I’m lazy so I just added one photo and then stretched it’s duration to the end of the audio file.

Ok we’re almost done, now make sure you’re out of Edit mode and save the file to your PC. An Mpg or Wmv would be your best option.

IMPORTANT – YouTube has two restrictions for videos. They must not exceed 10min play time (strictly enforced and you won’t know it until it’s done uploading) or 1056mb file size. The run time is a far more likely scenario. Since the audio file is the entire run time, you may need to go back into Audacity and either trim some sections of the .mp3 out or split the .mp3 into multiple .mp3’s by Cut and Paste.

Step 7 Make a free account on YouTube and hit Upload. Browse to your movie file (keeping in mind the IMPORTANT restrictions) and fill in the form with some tags, title, etc. Now hit Upload. Upload time takes approx. 1-5 mins per mb. My 10 min audio file with a photo ended up at 67mb and took about 2.5-3 hours.

Once it’s done uploading you’ll have a place to link your gay lovers friends to and YouTube will even give you an EMBED code so you can spam your bullshit throughout the INTERNETZ!!

That’s it! You’re done! Seriously this is so easy Sla could do it. (http://www.fishtankclan.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum.php for more info on who/what Sla is)

Or if you have questions visit our Tech Support and someone will be sure to flame you promptly.