Hot answers tagged software
16
If you're happy using the Terminal, then you could try the following command loop:
for f in *.flac; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -vf "crop=((in_w/2)*2):((in_h/2)*2)" -c:a alac "${f%.flac}.m4a"; done
This will simply cycle through all the .flac files sitting in the current directory and convert them all to .alac until they're all done. I can confirm that this works ...
9
Here is a PDF on a research paper, published by Shazam founder Avery Wang, on how he solved the problem of creating hash keys for songs without making the key space enormous and impossible to search. That is an ultra-detailed account of how Shazam works. Focusing on the "intense moments" in songs was a rather brilliant bit of data reduction on his part.
...
9
How are they separate from other sounds? How is a 'beat' found in the audio?
It basically amounts to emphasizing the sudden impulses of sound in the song and then finding the fundamental period at which these impulses appear. This is done by breaking the signal into frequency bands, extracting the envelope of these frequency-banded signals, ...
8
There's also Jokosher
Jokosher is a simple yet powerful multi-track studio. With it you can create and record music, podcasts and more, all from an integrated simple environment.
It's rather easy to use and not nearly as powerful as Ardour. Apparently, besides Ubuntu it works quite well on other Linux operating system, Windows and, of course, ...
7
X Lossless Decoder (XLD) is a great prefect lossless ripping and batch conversion tool for the Mac.
I've heard great things about getting perfect lossless rips using Exact Audio Copy (EAC) on Windows, though I'm not sure if it supports conversion.
7
Just add a compressor on your voice-over. Set the ratio to 2:1. Set a middle long release and a bit faster attack. (Or auto if you have it.) Then you lower the threshold until it gets better. Just play with the ratio and threshold until you get it right.
What the compressor does is that if the audio gets over the threshold in volume it will wait the number ...
7
A lot's been said about compression but nothing's been said about intelligibility. If you're producing VOs, trails, bumpers, idents or jingles with vocals over a bed, EQ is also your friend here. If you critically listen to professional productions, they often lowpass AND highpass music under speech in addition to heavily compressing and EQing the vocals. ...
6
Ardour has editing functionalities that really can be considered serious tools, although it has a more multitrack-approach on things in general, and editing is no exception. It is really worth a try though.
The real downside of Ardour is that it is not available for Windows. (Probably due to Jack, the low-latency audio hardware driver abstraction layer that ...
6
This is a very broad topic. Your original assertion is correct. Software instruments present both a breadth and depth of sounds that are not readily available in hardware.
I'm trying to stay objective, so I will say that if you are looking for "real" instrument sounds, you are going to want to check out the three you mentioned above, along with offerings ...
6
Reaper is a DAW for PC or Mac which will allow you to record as many tracks as your interface will allow. It comes with many standard effects and supports VST plugins as well. It supports just about any routing configuration you can think up. It also has an excellent "how to" manual to get you started with recording in Reaper.
Reaper's project and track ...
5
Audio Units is an API which is compatible with Open Source Software licenses. There can, in theory, be open source plugins released in AU format. In practice, there are not a lot of high quality ones available (that I know of), but here are some that I found:
http://destroyfx.smartelectronix.com/source.php
http://sourceforge.net/projects/rhamsynth/
...
5
THE open source DAW is ardour. It is built on jack, a low latency audio driver daemon, and it has all stuff that you expect in a DAW, multi-track recording/editing/mixing. No windows support though, which shouldn't be a pain for open source enthousiasts, as jack offers support for most well-known audio interfaces.
5
Yes, you are missing Audition's automation functionality. Audition allows you to automate almost many parameters of the incoming audio. This functionality is not unique to Audition, but is common across all modern, commercial multi-track DAWs.
To use automation in go to multi-track screen, choose the channel you want to automate. At the bottom of the ...
5
If you're on a Mac you can use Skype + Rogue Amoeba's Audio HiJack Pro + GarageBand to pull together some great sounding podcasts without breaking the bank.
You can use Audio HiJack Pro to record your Skype conversations in GarageBand. It'll let you route the Skype audio to a track in GarageBand. Once your conversation is in GarageBand you can splice it up, ...
5
Before you buy any microphones, you will have to consider how you will connect them into your laptop. It sounds like you don't have a separate sound card, and the microphone input on your laptop is likely to be poor quality.
There are several options. First you could get a microphone that has a built-in USB interface (eg the Samson C01U). This will be the ...
5
I don't know how "Macish" it is, but Reaper is inexpensive, easy to use, and has an excellent guide called "Up and Running" (PDF) that will quickly get you started using it. It also has a free 30 day trial period so you can check it out properly.
I have used Audacity for recording, and found adding effects to be tedious. With reaper you simply add the ...
5
In REAPER you need to ensure that it knows where the Superior Drummer VST effect is installed. Go to Options | Preferences and in the Plug-Ins | VST section check to see if the install path for the Superior Drummer VST DLL is included in the list:
If it isn't, click Add and select the install folder for the VST DLL. Now click Re-scan.
If you still can't ...
5
There are a whole bunch of ways to make chiptune music in modern environments.
The "classic" approach to this is to use tracker software to sequence chip samples. Most trackers use samples, and there's a lot of history to using chip samples in tracker music. There are a few traditional trackers available for modern OS's, such as MilkyTracker or Modplug ...
5
It is definitely possible that the quality is degraded. All parts of the recording chain have some upper limit on the frequency range they can handle properly. On high-end turntables, this may well exceed the audible range by quite a lot and therefore not matter, but if it was digitalised at 44.1 kHz (which it almost certainly was, if it came back as a ...
4
Score Editors
Free: Muse Score and Denemo are fantastic score editors. windows/mac/linux. They both are good lilypond front-ends. They produce beautiful sheetmusic.
Budget: Harmony Assistant / Melody Assistant (windows/mac)
Audio
Reaper is an amazing DAW. You can record & mix audio and midi. Piano Roll view for midi. no score editor.
free: ...
4
This is a very tricky question because much of it is subjective. What may sound acceptable or even good to you may not be bearable for someone else and vice versa.
That said, there are several tiers of techniques and equipment that need rising levels of money and expertise. So I will try to answer the question as simply as possible.
The simplest way to try ...
4
From your description of the audio, it is going to be hard to fix, as white noise tends to cover a very broad frequency spectrum and so is hard to get rid of without losing what you want to keep.
A decent starting point for you would be to use a freeware audio editing program like Audacity. Here is a noise removal tutorial using Audacity.
You can also use ...
4
I may have found a program that does direct to CD audio recording, but feel like I need to ask you to not try this approach, and consider a normal recording workflow.
If you're sending audio to the CD burner, then you're in HUGE danger of losing your recording if anything goes wrong with the computer, or with the disk. It seems like you're choosing between ...
4
Subliminal CDs are pretty much a rip-off. The science is weak, but even if you did want to uncover the "subliminal" message, it'd take a ton of work (think of isolating vocals from a mixed down song). Since some of the methods for encoding the message involve reversing it or placing it outside the human hearing threshold (plausible deniability :D), this ...
4
In my experience both Premiere and FCP will do pretty much the same thing.
They have similar lay outs and, I would say, are as easy to use as each other. I first used Premiere when I had a PC but moved to FCP when I went to university and got a mac. I find it a lot easier to edit with FCP and the transition to other programs are very simple and effective ...
4
The two products are pretty different. Cubase is a DAW whose primary purpose is to sequence MIDI and manage digital audio. Max/MSP, meanwhile, is a modular programming environment for audio. DAWs like Cubase tend to arrange things on tracks with a timeline, and offer the ability to effect, modify, and edit those tracks. Max has everything in little modules ...
3
While Wordpress itself does a lot of RSS side of things. We use the podpress plugin to wordpress to make the updating of iTunes and tracking of downloads easy. It just makes management that much easier..
Also if you're on a Mac, I have a automator workflow to compress, add the tags and upload the files to the remote server. I will try to clean it up and ...
3
There are a few things to consider...
The main question is whether or not you will be live streaming, or simply recording--the answer will determine which path you will go down.
The podcast recording scenario is the simplest when considering how to capture the Skype feed. There is a Skype add-on app called Pamela Call Recorder that can capture and record ...
3
Posting information about the current status of Triggering, Midi, Positional Sensing, and Drum Modules in 2013.
A commercial drum "brain" module does a few things:
Plays the drum sample so you can hear it
Converts the input trigger voltage to a MIDI note
Detects how hard the drum/cymbal was hit (velocity)
Detects where the drum/cymbal was hit. The common ...
3
If you don't care about the sound the acoustic drums are making while you trigger samples on the PC, then consider using the drum kit from the Rock Band video game instead: How to use Rock Band Drum Set as MIDI Drums.
Buying a used Rock Band drum kit might end up being more cost effective than getting the triggers and a MIDI controller for your acoustic ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
