Soundcloud Update For Android Brings Recording and Editing Features

[Note: This is a republished article from my weekly app review column over at YourTechReport.com. If you enjoy gadget reviews, you may like some of my editorials and reviews over there. Check it out.]

I'm a sad technology fan.

No really. There's been a severe lack of high quality audio software on Android.

Thankfully, Soundcloud has updated their social audio app, giving us droids a compelling option for not only recording and editing, but for sharing our audio as well.

The app is nicely laid, simple tabs direct you to either listen to audio your subscribed to, or to record your own audio. During the recording process, you have the ability to pause and resume, a nice feature if you need to burp or otherwise interrupted.

 Editing is very simple, and resembles my current fave audio app TapeMachine. I wish there were more options like noise reduction, but it's still a very functional workflow.

 So how does it sound uploading something from your phone?

 Well, here's me talking into a Motorola Photon Q:

It's a great update providing a LOT more functionality, and fans of the service will definitely want to check it out.

Soundcloud on Google Play

Some of my Sound Design in an Android Game?

It's the perpetual struggle to maintain balance.
I want to put stuff out for free, but that means I lose control over it.

I just received a message from someone on Freesound that they had used some of my sound effects in an Android game now in the Android App Market. At first I was flattered, but it always ruffles my feathers a bit to see work pulled from Creative Commons communities so blatantly used in commercial ventures.

It's similar to the problem I had with my narration work being pulled off of Librivox and sold on Amazon, and the blasé attitude towards the members of those groups in regards to the work they put into something getting hijacked for someone else to make a buck.

As it stands now, I rarely upload to these types of services anymore, so since this was an OLD effect I did for a failed animation pilot, I guess I'll just suck it up and be flattered again, that my SFX get to live on in some other capacity...

But couldn't I at least get a credit?

How do you guys find that balance between "social free" and guarding your IP?

Would You Pay for a Software Update That Has NO New Features?

Before I jump in, I've just been turned on to a new blog for those of you interested in production work.

Scott Church is the software strategist (cool title) for Digidesign, and has started the protools|blog, chock FULL of helpful hints, tips, and video tutorials for getting the most out of Pro Tools.
If you do any production work, I would HIGHLY recommend checking it out.

That said Scott wont publish a comment I left for him, so I thought I'd pick a (little) blog fight, LOL.

In a recent post of his, Scott put up a poll asking for user's opinion on software updates:

If Digidesign offered a paid update which only included small usability enhancements, bug fixes and performance improvements, would you buy it?

The poll currently sits at 61.54% against (which I think is good), but since Scott wouldn't post my snarky response to the question I thought I would elaborate here.

Coming from a family of hardware and software engineers, I feel pretty strongly about this. Lately I've noticed a trend where it's perfectly acceptable to release products that aren't finished. There seems to be no marketplace consequence to delivering a product that is incomplete. Thanks to a lobster pot effect, it now seems most consumers expect that kinks will have to be worked out of the gadget they've already spent money on, and that there is no guarantee that the widget will ever completely function as promised (iPhone 3G and Vista I'm looking in your general direction).

What's sad is, we all seem to be fine with this.

Now, I will certainly pay for new functionality. Hell, I'll probably be first in line, but to start paying for optimizations and bug fixes, well that just doesn't sit well with me. Not only are we acknowledging that product QA isn't as high as it could be, but this almost feels like extortion to me: "Keep paying us, or your software wont work as well as it could".

A purchase is a contract (no really just try and read an EULA sometime). I give them money for a product. They give me a product that does what they say it does. Everybody is happy. I'm not giving them money for an idea of a product that isn't quite finished. If I'm spending money, I want a solid solution.

If any company were to seriously engage in this kind of "support" I would probably stop doing business with that company, or at least seriously start considering a competitor's product.

Whew, nice little rant there.
So again, if you use Pro Tools, then Scott's protools|blog is a little slice of incredible, and you really should check it out.


Just don't expect him to publish your comments (OOOOHHHHH DIS!!!!).

Noise Reduction shoot out - Sound Forge, iZotope, Audacity, Audition, Waves, and doin it by hand!

So, this is going to be a longer post...

We're going to compare 6 different methods of noise reduction.

I get a lot of questions about cleaning up audio after recording, hums, clicks, pops, line noise, neighbors, fridge, etc. A lot of people are still trying to gate or EQ this stuff out, and those methods don't work particularly well for voice over, especially dry auditions.

Gating will turn off the audio signal when you're not speaking, which gives you perfect silence, but when you start speaking again the noise is back too. This can be VERY unnatural depending on the noise.EQ can work, but usually to the detriment of the entire piece of audio, as you are carving out chunks of the frequency spectrum. Those chunks start carving into your voice as well. Sort of like destroying the town to save the town...

Ideally you'd just want to record clean in the first place, but sometimes you just can't help but knock something out and hope you can clean it up after the fact.Noise Reduction plugins to the rescue!To test, I set up my Solaris to records in "Figure 8" mode (so the front and back of the mic are recording equally), set one side up for me, and put the other side of the mic right up against my bathroom door with the fan running.

This is a worse case scenario for voice over, as fans tend to generate noise that slices right through the middle of the human voice's spectrum. That means that as you remove fan noise, you're likely carving out a chunk of the voice as well. A less extreme version of this would be a fridge kicking on or the AC running.

All of these plugins (and doing it by hand) work on the same general principal, point out what undesirable noise looks like, and try to get rid of only that noise. [Check out the Audacity Tutorial for Noise Reduction in practice - Ed.]

I attacked the samples pretty aggressively with each method. For the test, the main idea was to all but eliminate the background noise, even if it damaged the voice. Real world, you would probably want to leave a little more noise to prevent damaging the recording.


So first up, here's the unaltered file:



Sony Sound Forge NR plugin:



iZotope RX De-Noiser:



Audacity NR plugin:



Adobe Audition NR Plugin:



Doin it by hand with Phase Inverse:



Waves Restoration X-Noise:



Again, this is most certainly a worst case scenario when it comes to noise reduction, and hopefully you don't encounter this much noise on a regular basis. I find the results interesting listening back. There are two methods up here which are essentially free, and the most expensive plugin comes in a pack which runs about $1000.



So what do YOU think? Are there other plugins that I'm missing?

Source Connect updated to Version 3, Incompatible with 2.5, Upgrade is Free

For those of you looking for ISDN like recording over the internet, look no further than Source Connect. It allows you to send your audio anywhere in the world (with broadband access), in real time (usually with very little lag), and allows you to be recorded on the receiver's end (provided they have SC).
The nice thing about SC is it doesn't require you to purchase any other equipment to add to the recording chain. You don't need to route back and forth from a Telos Zephyr. Everything is handled internally by your computer and soundcard.
It's these kinds of technologies that are a god send to voice actors across the country. It means you're just as competitive in Poughkeepsie as you would be in NY/LA/Chicago. As ISDN slowly starts to die off (wont happen for a while yet but still), these audio connection technologies are going to have to step up to fill the gap. Especially as it seems that ISDN support is getting harder to find, and ISDN lines are becoming more expensive in some areas.

Source Connect has just been updated to version 3.0. The Source elements site has a warning about this update:

Source-Connect 3.0 is not compatible with 2.5. Current 2.5 users must upgrade to 3.0. Due to a number of internal improvements Source-Connect 2.5 and Source-Connect 3.0 are not compatible. All current 2.5 license owners are eligible for a free license upgrade.

I think this is actually kind of cool. So often with software, compatibility issues seem to only be discussed in the darkest of forum threads. Kudos for putting this right out in the open and saving us all the search.
Also making the update free is a really classy thing to do. I get really tired of paying for '.1' upgrades (Apple and Pro Tools I'm looking in your general directions). Considering they are acknowedging that their upgrade breaks compatibility with their own previous version, making the update free is really appreciated.

So come on SC users. Lets get to updating, so we're all on the same page!

And you closet junkies, needing a remote recording solution or phone patch, check it out!

Audacity Updated to 1.3.4

Your favorite free audio editor is now a tenth of a tenth of a point better!

Just recently updated to 1.3.4, I'm seeing some nice improvements. Switches like solo and mute seem to work smarter (and you can no longer jam the program up by muting and solo-ing a track at the same time). You can now add meta-data to files other than MP3, and a few of the plugins have gotten decent updates (I can't remember if 1.3.3 had a "gverb" but it's a really decent reverb/room shaping plugin).

My only complaints are:
**You still can't record to the same track over multiple takes. Every time you stop recording and start again it opens a new audio track, so you can't ever go back to review and re-record without having to cut and paste a file back together.

**Also, I still hate the "Preview" feature. You only get 2 seconds to hear if you like a change, and that's SO not enough if you're doing a lot of editing. You end up just rendering the edit, listening, and rolling back the edit if you don't like it. The preview feature has always been a waste of time in Audacity.

**Lastly, there's still no decent marker. I know you can hit CRTL-M (or remap it to something else), but the way it forces you to name the marker, and the fact that the marker isn't a part of the audio file itself (it becomes a new "track" just for markers) makes for an awkward and cluttered work environment.


<----Click pic to see what I mean.







All in all, it's an awesome package that totally rivals (and in some ways surpasses) programs like Sound Forge XP (about $80), but it's totally free! CLICK HERE to download and see the full list of updates from 1.3.3!

Enjoy!

I'm not sold on the MBox2 Micro...

Future Music (my favorite "DVD-stuck-to-the-outside-of-the-magazine-with-sticky-goop" magazine) has the scoop on the new MBox2 Micro, just announced by Digidesign.


It's small.
It's sexy.
I just don't get what it's for.


Near as I can tell it's a thumb drive with Protools software and a headphone jack. There are no inputs, so you can't record into it, and at $279 it's just $20 less then the MBox2 Mini or the M-Audio Firewire 410 (what I use).



I mean even the MicPortPro, at HALF the price, has an XLR port with phantom power and a dedicated headphone jack, and it's not much bigger than the micro.


It just doesn't come with ProTools...


Here's FutureMusic's write up, and here's Digidesign's announcement.

How to Record Streaming Audio on The Internet

So if you need to record something that streams on line, you can patch in a mixer, making sure to route a few Aux channels, or you could check out FreeCorder.



It's a plugin for Firefox that gives you the ability to suck the audio down from any web item and save it as an MP3 or WAV. It also does a pretty good job of ignoring system sounds as it's tied to the browser not to the internal "what you hear" soundcard drivers.

Pretty sweet!

More write up @ DownloadSquad

OH! Did I mention that FreeCorder is ... FREE!

Some Audio Guy Mail: "Speech to Text?"

So for the couple months that this blog has been up, I've been getting mail. Most of it has been in an effort to make my woe-fully undersized genitalia bigger (god bless spam filters), but every now and then a decent question does actually pop up.
I used to just answer the question directly, but I realized (while hunting for things to write about), that I could use those questions for posts.
I know, right? I'm pretty much the smartest person I know... sigh ...

So anywho, the first email to succumb to this treatment is from N.A.:

"Morning ! I was looking on the various web pages for a decent "Speech toText" program.. And came across your blog from a Dig story on BitTorrents.. I was wondering if you knew of any programs out there(obviously free is preferable) any info would be appreciated.. Thanks..N"

Well N, first off, thanks for the question. I would narrow your search down a bit, maybe try something more specific like "Speech Recognition" or "Dictation Software" or "Free Voice Recognition".

There are two main (and for now still separate) "paths" to interacting with computer with your voice. Talking to your computer and having your computer talk to you. The more recent advances have been in "Text to Speech" or "TTS" technologies, and there has been some really exciting work in getting samples of voices and slicing up those samples to form any number of other words, even at the consumer level. Some day I'll be able to make James Earl Jones say ANYTHING I WANT!!! MOOO-HA-HA!!!

*Ahem*

What seems to be moving slower is voice/speech recognition. There is of course some great work going on with the Dragon folks, and some of the Microsoft One-Note voice recognition (built into XP tablet edition and several versions of Vista) is compelling, but neither are anywhere near Star Trek level utility (I know I still rate everything by ST:TNG ... NERD).

As for free, well that gets even trickier. Most of what I can find (especially under say a BSD license) has more of an academic or engineering slant. It's usually raw code designed to be inserted into an already established product to add function as opposed to a ready to go stand alone piece of software. Carnegie Mellon's Sphinx is a perfect example of this.

So I know that doesn't really "answer" your question, but hopefully I've delivered enough information to at least help you get a little farther.

And, if any of my 30 or so readers have any additional info, PLEASE drop us a comment. Always appreciated!

An Introduction to Linux Audio

I have to say, I've been personally happy using Windows the last couple years to record and edit, but I can't say I haven't been curious. Being OS Agnostic, I totally wouldn't mind getting into a little hawt Linux action from time to time.

"Linux has come a long way in the last 10 years. At that time, if you were looking through the main audio and music applications on other operating systems, you would have struggled to find comparable, fully developed, apps on Linux. Nowadays, while no one would say the job was done, they could point to an assortment of high-quality applications..."

Now if someone could also develop a distro that would run off of a pen drive like these portable apps, I would be in hawg-heaven. Imagine being able to go to any computer with an open USB port, punching in a drive, and BAM(!) instant audio workstation!

read more | digg story

NPR Podcast Player For Facebook

I at some point might just have to join Facebook.
It seems to be blowing up right now, and I was WAY late to MySpace. I just find so little use for social networking outside of the occasional "catching up with a friend moment" that I can usually just accomplish through an email or something else.
I will always appreciate MySpace for the simple fact that it did get me blogging, so that's ... uh ... neat ... ?

Anywho, what I think is the coolest part of Facebook, is all the development going on for Facebook apps/widgets/gadgets/geegaws/etc.

Splashcast has just released an NPR Podcast player for your Facebook page. If I used Facebook, I would use this app.

IF I used Facebook...

Check out the app here.

Check out DownloadSquads write up here.

Facebook Audio Nuked

"Like Napster, you knew it couldn’t last. Facebook has killed off the Audio application for copyright violations, making it one of the first 3rd party apps to get the chop. We’d previously heard that audio was no longer showing up in the App directory, but now it has gone entirely from the site."

read more | digg story

Really REALLY Tiny Audio Workstation

Gizmodo has the scoop on an ultra tiny audio "workstation" from the Trinity Audio Group.

It uses a custom touch screen version of Linux called Transmission, and the stats are a little weak (500MHz proc, 256MB RAM, 40GB hard drive), but when you're focused on ONLY audio, something like this could come in handy.
Anywho, it also comes with wifi, USB, XLR, and 1/4" inputs, nicely done there.

These were the kinds of devices I was hoping to see when UMPC's started coming out. Rather than try and compete against laptops as jack-of-all trades devices, why not go niche? If the pricing isn't insane, I might have found a decent reason to leave the Thinkpad at home...



Here's the Gizmodo story.

someaudioguy some audio guy recording voice over vo voiceover animation acting anime digital microphones daw

10 Alternatives to iTunes for managing your iPod

This overview details the features (with screenshots) of 10 different programs other than iTunes to manage your iPod. Tutorials are included for every program, and they’re all either free or Open Source.

I've been using WinAmp for the last year, and really see no reason to use iTunes, other than iTunes is prettier ... I guess...


read more | digg story


***EDIT***

No sooner do I post this then the server goes down for the site.
So here's a Wiki with even MORE info!

Funny and Scary at the same time: Vocaloid edition

First the scary.
Vocaloid is one of the best sounding singing replacement software packages I've ever heard. It's the closest I've heard yet to replacing the human voice. It's light years ahead of Stephen Hawking, and gives AT&T synthesis engine a run for it's money, all at consumer prices.
Coupling the engine with plugins for different voice types will also make it infinitely flexible, and ting this to sampling, auto-tuning, and synthesis, we're getting closer and closer to the point where we might not need people anymore to perform.
This was our last great hold out for video games and animation. They could replace the actor physically, but not his performance or voice.



OK, now the funny.
With all the advancement, with all the tech, with all the computing horse power out there, right now the only singing voice that Vocaloid is actually qualified to replace would be Marlee Matlin's.
(Ironically, the picture to the right is of Marlee "singing" the National Anthem at the 2007 SuperBowl.)

The Vocaloid folks have setup a MySpace page where you can hear their software ruin Roberta Flack's Killing Me Softly.

I wonder if the software sang it with it's eyes closed...

Here's the writeup @ Wired's Listening Post

Here's the Awful MySpace Page




Marlee's kinda just a little bit REALLY hot...

Top 5 mp3 Converters ???

Just caught this on Digg.
With so much voiceover being done over mp3, it's getting more and more complicated to explain to actors what they need to do to send us auditions. With so many people on Mac, fewer and fewer seem to understand that an .aac/.aiff/.m4a is NOT the same thing as an .mp3. Love it or hate it, .mp3 pretty much plays well with everyone (except GarageBand apparently).

SO, I'm constantly on the lookout for software that will make this easier. Coming across this article from CoolUtils.com, there are some excellent recommendations for mp3 converters here, but I'm a little non-plussed by this major FUD paragraph here:

"But first a little word of warning. MP3 files, and MP3 converting, is extremely popular right now. While that does tend to open up the market to an array of different products for you to choose from, it also attracts the less desirable people as well. The kind of people that would just as soon give your computer a virus than a good MP3 converter. That being said I am going to suggest that you do not deal with what is advertised as free MP3 converters. Most of these products offer a free trial and that should be more than enough for you to convert some files and find the software you like. But a free MP3 converter is an invitation for a devious person to get a dangerous, and destructive virus, on to your computer. That isn’t to say that an MP3 converter you pay for couldn’t also cause you problems, but a company that is taking your money from their own website is a little less likely to destroy your computer than an anonymous company offering you something for free."

Whoa there! I have to say this would exclude people from a huge wealth of software out there, like say open source software. I'm a really big fan of programs like Audacity and CDex, because they're easy to use, and the price is right. Audacity especially since it'll play well with both Mac and PC (Sound Forge and Audition I'm looking in your general direction).

So check out the list, but don't write off a program just because it's free. If you're really worried about giving it a spin, maybe google for a review or something...
someaudioguy some audio guy voice over recording voice acting directing production demo software help how to adr dubbing mp3

read more | digg story

Sound Forge vs Audition .... Ready FIGHT!

Following up on my call for help from yesterday, here is a WAY over detailed shoot out between the two programs.

Just to spoil the results, Adobe just edges out Sony, but I'm not sure I completely agree. They slam Sound Forge for not being multitrack, but that was the whole point of SF9, was to add multi.
Is it AS good as Adobe's, most certainly not, but you CAN do it.

I call rigged...

Sound Forge 9.0

Adobe Audition 3

Calling all Engineers! FAVORITE NOISE REMOVAL???

Get it? All Caps, since I'm yelling over the noise.

So, I use two PC's. I've almost always used Sound Forge (currently on v9) to do my sound design work. Recently I've been hearing all about how Audition is awesome, and I should totally switch.
I downloaded the demo and started tearing into it, and it's nice, but I can't see what the advantage is.

Sadly, AudioGuy is developing a reputation as the "GoToGuy" for cleaning up other peoples mistakes. While I'll never speak ill of working, it bothers me that I can't seem to get hired to just prevent the mistakes in the first place. Lately a lot of my work has been in cleaning up audio for low budget shorts and podcasts, and a lot of that cleaning has been noise removal. Bad mics, improper Lav placement, uncontrollable environment, bad ADR, theres a lot of noise out there.
So, throwing some files I'm working on into Audition and cranking up the NR plugin, I have to say I was a little disappointed.

Spectrum view is cool. I haven't seen yet where it really is better than waveform, just brings different information to focus first. Selection of noise to remove is great, but the actual settings to remove the noise just dont do it for me. Compared to the SF/Sony NR plugin, it's just too easy to hollow out the piece I'm working on.

So I put this out there to anyone who might catch it. What NR plugin SHOULD I be looking at? Since a lot of my freelance work involves cleaning, if something can really outperform SF/Sony, I'd love to give it a shot!

Sound Like Hendrix?

With a piece of software? Really?
Kinda reminds me of that old joke "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"

With all of the mic and amp modeling packages out there, I guess I don't understand why anyone would pay almost $400 on a 1/4" to USB adapter and some amp modeling software.


"The combination of AmpliTube Jimi Hendrix(TM) and StealthPlug represents a huge step forward in guitar technology allowing, for the first time, every guitarist to easily plug into their computer and hear the classic sounds that inspired one of the most influential guitarists of all time, Jimi Hendrix."

Oh...
I guess that ... explains(?) it ...

Read the rest here if you're interested.
someaudioguy some audio guy music recording production audio engineering demo auditions USB

Quick Follow up to My Last Post...

Sound Forge 9 is good. VERY good.
But if you've already got SF8, and say a good sequencer like Acid, then I'm not really sure it's worth the upgrade price.
Here's what's frustrating. I've already spent money on 8, and the noise removal plugin. Upgrading to 9 only gives me multi track.
I can't really justify that cost, though I really want to have that latest and greatest.

If you don't have SF8, GO GET THIS NOW!