Audio refers broadly to the information, be it acoustic or electronic, entering, traversing, or exiting some medium.
16
votes
9answers
1k views
An open source sound editor, but not Audacity?
I am looking for open source/free software for casual sound editing.
I've tried audacity, I know it's capable tool but really I dont like the interface.
Tried snd, can't get it to work.
I am looking ...
9
votes
7answers
2k views
What are some disadvantages of audacity?
I've been using Audacity for a while and it seems like the perfect recording studio: free, open source, great features, easy to use, its easy to fall in love with. However, I want to have a more ...
8
votes
1answer
148 views
Can opening closed speaker cabinets for service affect the sound?
I have two pairs of speakers that could do with opening them up to investigate problems--one decades-old set of Celestion hi-fi speakers that has developed a rattle, the other a set of M-Audio ...
7
votes
4answers
244 views
Is it a good idea to use headphones for audio production?
Is it generally a good idea to use headphones in the production/mixing of audio?
And what can I do if my speakers are terrible (e.g. laptop speakers), and I'm on a shoestring budget?
6
votes
2answers
186 views
How is it possible to hear something at 44.1Khz?
Since our hearing range is said to be 20Hz to 20,000Hz. So, how can we possibly hear something at 44.1Khz? Or do we hear only half of the sound produced at 44.1Khz by any audio CDs? What is going on?
6
votes
2answers
910 views
How to eliminate guitar amp hum (software and hardware amps)
There's nothing quite like the sound of a guitar playing into a warm tube amp with the pre turned up high and the post turned down. There's also nothing quite like the hum you get out of one of these ...
6
votes
4answers
111 views
In what units is a sample's amplitude value represented, and how it relates to the real world?
I'm new to digital audio signals and read about sampling rate on hydrogenaudio.
What this doesn't mention is how a single sample's value, ranging from -32768 to 32767 in a 16 bit, relates to any ...
6
votes
3answers
141 views
How far apart temporally can two sounds be heard while still sounding like they are playing at the same time?
I am trying to synchronize music played on different computers. I've been collecting quantitative information to try to identify sources of asynchrony.
I would like to know how far apart in time two ...
5
votes
2answers
244 views
Why does higher quality audio have lower volume?
Anecdotally I've noticed that higher quality videos, whether be a 1080p HD video on the TV or a BluRay rip on a computer, the volume seems to be lower than a standard quality video. I've noticed this ...
5
votes
3answers
122 views
Converting voice into modem sounds
I'd like to record my voice and apply some effects on it. The final result should remind the listener of phone lines or some modem sounds, but only the melody and rhythm of the language should be kept ...
5
votes
3answers
646 views
“Subtracting” specific audio using an Isolated track from the same mix.
I have an audio file (Music + Vocals) and I have an instrumental (Music Only). Is there a program or some way I can take the music file and subtract the instrumental leaving only the vocals? (Full ...
5
votes
3answers
3k views
Stream Windows audio over the network
How would I take all sound on a windows machine and broadcast it over the network for other machines to hear?
I can find instructions for individual apps, but I don't want to do this on a per app ...
5
votes
0answers
152 views
How can I set PulseAudio to use convolution
I'm using Ubuntu 11.04 and PulseAudio.
I made impulse to correct bass response on my speakers and would like to use it globally.
I can set Jack through jack-convolve plugin to use my impulse, but as ...
4
votes
3answers
347 views
Does this sound wave of a voice-over track look normal?
I got some voice over files today from a new studio, and my co-worker was confused as to why the sound wave looks like this.
His concern is that the wave should be pretty even above and below the -∞ ...
4
votes
5answers
8k views
How can I get rid of the annoying background hum on a new Yeti Microphone
I recently purchased a Blue Yeti USB microphone for use in recording screencasts.
I am using Screenflow to record with and while the sound is excellent in quality there is a nasty hum in the ...
4
votes
2answers
418 views
How can I create dubstep-style wobble bass lines in Audacity?
What is the most effective way to produce wobbling bass lines, such as that you might hear in the "dubstep" (a.k.a. techno-bass) genre?
My current idea is to generate a linear sine wave that goes ...
4
votes
2answers
137 views
What type of information can I get from the waveform and the spectrum of audio?
If I have the spectrogram and waveform of a clip of audio what sort of information can I gather by looking at those two things?
4
votes
3answers
91 views
Which music sw should I consider for aligning audio waveforms to MIDI piano roll, looping MIDI, managing program change, SysEx?
Which music software should I consider for aligning audio waveforms to MIDI piano roll, looping MIDI, managing program change, SysEx?
In my projects, I'd like to be able to:
see audio and MIDI ...
4
votes
3answers
171 views
How to make a video from a still image and an audio file?
I have an image file (png) and an audio file (aiff). How do I combine them to make a video file that shows the still image and plays the audio file?
Target operating system: either OS X Lion or ...
4
votes
3answers
169 views
How do audio engineers (physically) treat rooms for studios?
Here's my problem: I live in a small apartment downtown São Paulo - it's noisy as it can be.
Loud traffic, people screaming and buses circulating day and night. This was never a problem - I usually ...
4
votes
1answer
303 views
extract specific frequencies from audio
As you can see from the spectrograph, there are two melodic lines in this excerpt. These two voices are played by different instruments. Is there a tool (preferably free) that will allow me to extract ...
4
votes
1answer
60 views
How should I compare headphones?
I'm finding difficulty in selecting one of these products and I thought you guys could help me better finding the best out of these four headphones .
...
4
votes
1answer
64 views
Not enough patches in my stage piano
I'm playing Synths for a production of Beauty and the Beast.
The Yamaha P155 Stage piano I have is great to play, but is missing many of the required patches.
I have a midi cable, mac running ...
4
votes
1answer
35 views
How to display video via audio from a computer
Is there a sound which will create a stable image on a normal television? I ask this because I want to fool a television into playing audio. The problem is that it will not play audio at all without a ...
4
votes
1answer
234 views
how can I make sounds of different frequencies appear subjectively equally loud?
I'm making an experiment where I play pure tones of three different frequencies (220 Hz, 440 Hz, 880 Hz) at 75 dB SPL. I've noticed that they don't sound equally loud, and I would like them to. I ...
4
votes
1answer
91 views
What to fix first, audio or video?
I have made a short timelapse of some nature phenomena. I would like to add ambient-like background music to it with Ableton Live. Both the timelapse and the music are (going to be) made by me, the ...
4
votes
6answers
576 views
Normalising volume across thousands of files
For a project I'm working on, I need to produce approx 5000 voice-only recordings of approx 15 seconds each (typically each file is a couple of short sentences spoken aloud). I've approached this as ...
4
votes
2answers
728 views
Why does does my audio go out of sync every time I reencode either the audio or video stream?
I have a video in an AVI container. The video is H264 AVC and the audio is VBR MP3. (I don't know if this is relevant— I recorded it in from an analog video capture card, from a VHS. The ...
4
votes
2answers
49 views
Bulk/Mass Edit Video Audio?
I have 100 videos that need editing so that I can level the and amplify the audio track. However I do not want to have to extract the mp3 track from each one and edit it then merge it again with the ...
4
votes
2answers
119 views
Vectorized audio? Does it exist? Its pros and cons? Which formats?
In grahpics-design, vectorized content are much easier to work with version-control rather than raster images: much smaller space so more fit to Git -style version-controlling. Can I do it somehow ...
4
votes
1answer
44 views
fast routing (switching) of a single output to n distinct monitors
I need to route sound from a personal computer to one of a horde of monitors. Only one monitor will be active at any one time, but I need to be able to switch between monitors rapidly (<50ms) ...
4
votes
1answer
39 views
Is there a 'diff tool' for audio?
Ideally in Premiere Pro, I'd like to have a way of seeing the changes I make to an audio file that I edit in Audition to be reflected in a workable format for the video editing in Premiere Pro.
I've ...
4
votes
1answer
127 views
Determining streaming container format
I'm completely new to video/audio formats, containers, and protocols. However, I have to figure out how to decode a bitstream that contains audio and video. I do not know the transport protocol, ...
4
votes
1answer
205 views
General (studio) headphones question; impedance, tonality, mixing
I picked up a pair of beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO (250 ohm) headphones a couple of days ago. My reasoning being I don't have a decent pair (I borrow a cheaper pair occasionally, AKG K77s), and my room has ...
4
votes
1answer
111 views
Playing a channel whilst recording another in Sound Forge
Basically, I'm doing some recording in sound forge pro 10. I have 4 channels, 2 of which have the backing track on and the other 2 are to be recorded on. Is there any way that I can play the backing ...
3
votes
2answers
1k views
Can someone please explain to me what each bar of the equalizer means?
I mean I'm pretty new to sound engineering. Can somebody at least introduce me to what each bar on the equalizer of a music player stands for and how would they effect the quality and perception of ...
3
votes
2answers
258 views
FLAC vs MP3 (Lossless vs Lossy)
I tried to compare one file which was flac with mp3 file that was converted from FLAC.
I kept comparing these two files and I really had hard time differencing between these two codecs.
It was ...
3
votes
2answers
133 views
I want to connect my iPod using the headset jack to a portable PA system and am worried about phantom power
I have a Liberty 4500 portable PA system and a headset plug to male XLR adapter.
I am afraid the phantom power from the Liberty PA system will fry my iPod.
How can I prevent it from happening?
3
votes
3answers
111 views
Should I use a standalone compressor/gate or do it in post?
I'm recording screencasts and also dabbling in podcasting. I do video editing in Final Cut Pro X. My question is this:
Is it better to use a standalone insert compressor/limiter/gate or have FCPX do ...
3
votes
2answers
328 views
How do I remove audio from all files in a directory with ffmpeg?
I have a directory full of short video clips in .AVI format, and I want to remove the audio from all of them. I'm using Ubuntu 12.04.
I tried this command:
find -name '*.avi' -exec ffmpeg -i {} -an ...
3
votes
2answers
153 views
Transcription Methods/Times
I figured I'd leave a question here while I did the manual labor, but what do you find is the best way to transcribe footage?
I'm an editor and the first thing I like to do is create a script of ...
3
votes
3answers
2k views
Why does one side of my headphones always break?
So basically, I've brought several headphones. Within a few days, one of them almost always fails for some reason. It happens for different brands of headphones (both ones that cover the entire ear ...
3
votes
3answers
134 views
Capturing Wedding Vows
So I am starting into wedding videography for a company, and we are having a lot of discussions as to the best way to capture wedding vows. The way they are currently doing it is a zoom h1 set to auto ...
3
votes
2answers
740 views
Does having a long 3.5mm cable degrade audio quality?
I've been looking into mics and I've heard that 3.5mm cables have problems with audio degradation over long distances. How long does the cable have to be before I start experiencing issues?
3
votes
1answer
42 views
Does combining the left&right speaker signals cause me to lose part of the sound?
Ancient speaker system in the pool hall I'm in charge of. It's got that kind of jack with a red and white opening that feed together into one wire that plugs into my laptop.
You can tell I know what ...
3
votes
1answer
1k views
How to do live monitoring of audio input on Mac? (i.e. hear the input sound on audio out)
How to do live monitoring of audio input on Mac? (i.e. hear the input sound on audio out)
Is there a generic way to do this or is is application specific?
3
votes
2answers
145 views
Balance Main Mix Between Multiple Speakers
I'm designing a small PA system. I currently have the following setup (stereo main mix into 2-channel amp with 4 speakers [front and rear in parallel]):
+------+ +---+ +------+
...
3
votes
1answer
54 views
create subtitles track by automatic timing of existing text
1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,000
I am using Adobe Premiere to produce videos in English by gluing together multiple clips put together from lots of different footage or sources. I do have a text ...
3
votes
2answers
48 views
How wide are critical bands?
I hope this is the most appropriate SE site to ask a question about psychoacoustics.
I don't quite understand critical bands. As far as I know, if two pure tones which frequencies are inside the ...
3
votes
1answer
856 views
Fix for terrible “Hard Drive Noise” Audio Interference?
When recording direct input instrument audio using Ableton, my recording is plagued with a terrible noise interference that sounds like the clicks and movements of my PCs internal Hard Disk drive. ...
