Sound Advice

 

 

Audacious new Audacity

New versions of favourite programs seem to be coming out of the woodwork at the moment and one of the latest updates concerns our old friend Audacity, just about the best audio recorder and editing program money can’t buy. The beta version of Audacity 1.3.6 has just been released and in amongst the many new features we have the long awaited FFmpeg support (available as a separate download) which allows it to import and export a much broader range of file formats, like WMA, M4A and AC3 audio from video files. There’s something called on-demand loading, which basically means files can be played and edited whilst they are still loading and Linked Audio and Label Tracks ensures that label data will be carried across when cutting and pasting segments of audio, or changing track speed and tempo. There’s much more, including some bug fixes, so if you’re already a fan you’ll need no further bidding, and if you haven’t yet used Audacity to record and edit audio, you are in for a treat!

03/11/08

 

Switch Formats

I came across this little freeware utility when trying to figure out a way of converting an obscure audio recording format into an MP3 track. It’s called Switch Audio Converter and it seems that it can convert just about anything, though you might need to install a codec if it’s a file it doesn’t recognise. But even that’s easy and usually there’s a link to the site where the codec can be downloaded.  

 

The list of formats is a long one, so deep breath, and here goes: wav (PCM, ADPCM+, aLaw+, uLaw+, and others), mp2+ (MPEG Layer 2), mpga+ (MPEG Audio), au, aif/aiff, gsm, dct, vox, raw, ogg, flac, amr, wma, wmv, aac, (but not aacPlus), m4a, mid+, act/rcd/rec+ (newer version of format not supported), rm / ra / ram+, dvf+ (Not all dvf recorders are supported), msv+ (Not all msv recorders are supported), dss+ (SP Mode only), sri+, shn+, cda+, mov, avi+, mpg/mpeg+, m3u+, .pls+. And there’s more but I can see your eye’s glazing over, just take it as read that if it its out there, Switch can probably convert it.

15/05/08  

 

Kwik Kool Kantaris

It’s been a while since we featured a media player but it’s been worth the wait. Hot out of the box is Kataris a free Open Source player based on a past favourite, VLC, but all you really need to know is that it can play just about any type of multimedia file, Here’s the highlights: AAC, AC3, AVI, FLAC, MID, MIDI, MP2, MP3, MPEG, MGEG-AVC, WMV, MOV, MKV, OGG, QuickTime, Matroska, DIVX, XVID, H264, MP3, WAV WMA and many, many more. There’s also integration with Apple Movie Trailers and Last FM, plus some really freaky visualisations.

08/05/08

 

 

The Right Mixxx

I have to say straight away that the last time I did any DJ-ing, record players still had a 78rpm speed setting. I freely admit to being a bit out of touch with current trends, but I’m reliably informed that this free Open Source program, called Mixxx is just the job for all of you hep cats out there who enjoy mixing your tunes and generally fiddling around with musical tracks. Key features, so I’m told, include the ability to read new fangled music formats, like MP3, Ogg Vorbis and Wave (something to do with turntable speed, I suppose…), it can import M3U and PLS playlists, whatever they are, and it has Beat Estimation and Pitch Independent Time Stretch features, which is probably a good thing. It’s compatible with MIDI devices and the Hercules DJ Console Mk2, there’s a waveform display so you can see the dynamics of the tacks you’re working with oh yes, and it’s available in Windows, Mac and Linux versions.

01/05/08

 

Wild Sounds

Here’s a brilliant freeware audio recording and mixing program, called WildVoice Studio. Ostensibly it’s designed for making podcasts, but it’s far too good for such a narrow application. Of course you can use it to record your voice, through a microphone, but it will also record anything you can hear on your PC’s speakers, but here’s the really good bit. It comes with a library of almost 30 sound effects, everything from a fart to sawing wood, and you can mix in your own background sounds or music. Even if you’re not into podcasts this is still a great way to produce audio recordings, alert sounds for your computer, answering machine tapes, or just a easy way to make some silly noises…

06/03/08

 

Quick Free Audio Snipper

Editing audio files is usually a fairly complicated business but here’s a really simple little utility that will snip out chunks of sounds with just a couple of clicks and if you like, convert from one audio format to another just as easily.

 

As the name suggests Free Audio Dub won’t cost you a bean and it won’t tax the old grey cells either, as it is so simple to use. Just open the track -- it supports most popular formats including MP3, WAV, AAC, AC3, M4A, MP2, OGG, WMA -- click the Play button until you reach the start of where you want to make the cut, click the first scissors icon, resume play until you reach the end of the section then click the second scissors icon. Click the Delete icon and it’s done and you can save the modified file with a new name, so the original remains intact. There, I said it was easy….

20/12/07

 

Free DVD to MP3 Ripper

Over the past few months I’ve had a lot of people asking me how they can extract the soundtrack form a DVD so they can listen to it on a MP3 player or iPod and my usual response has been to play the disc back on a PC and use the most excellent Audacity freeware editor/recorder to capture the audio, then export it as an MP3 file. It works well, bout now there’s an even easier way a freeware utility called Free DVD MP3 Ripper. It couldn’t be simpler, just pop in a DVD, select the part of the recording you want to extract, click the RIP button and away it goes. It’s quick, simple and free and ripping movie soundtracks probably breaks all sorts of copyright laws, but if it’s your DVD and it’s for your personal use only, we won’t tell anyone…

19/11/07

 

iPod Tune Grabber

If you own an iPod you’ll know that you are tied to iTunes to get tunes in and out of your player. There are alternatives, but generally speaking it’s a bit of a restriction. Here’s a program that will allow you to download music from your iPod to any PC, and no need to get involved with any new software, the program is stored on the iPod itself. It’s called Babya iGrab and all you have to do is download the program (it’s freeware) and copy two small files to the root directory of the iPod. To get at the tunes just plug the iPod into any XP or Vista PC, open the iPod, click on the iGrab icon  and it will display all of the tracks stored on the player. Select the ones you want, click the Grab button and send them to a nominated folder on your PC. It makes no changes to the iPod so it’s safe to use. 

01/11/07

 

Free Audio Editor

Regulars will need no reminding that Audacity has long been my audio recording and editing program of choice but I have to admit to being quite smitten with EXPStudio, which is also free, and has a similar line up of facilities. These include being able to edit audio files using like a chunk of text, using cut and paste techniques. It will record anything passing through your PC’s speakers, save audio files in a wide range of formats (Compressed WAV GSM, ADPCM, DSP, U-Law, A-Law and others, MP2, MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, AIFF, AU, MPC, VOX, RAW, PCM, U-Law, A-Law,G.726, G.723, G.721, to name just a few). There’s a good assortment of effects, like Voice Changers (male-female/female/male, chipmunk, Zeus…) plus the old stalwarts, fade, flange, phase, reverse, reverb, expand, compress, tempo and many, many more. Audacity still has a slight edge with its multi-channel facilities, but for quick and simple edits it’s just the job.

18/10/07

 

Morph Your MP3s

There are a zillion MP3 player programs and most of them do a pretty good job, but here’s something a bit different. AV MP3 Player Morpher lets you fiddle around with your tunes, you can adjust the tempo, change voice frequency – a must for Chipmunks fans – there’s even a ‘Cher’ mode, for the classic vocoder effect. There’s also a Robot sound, you can change instrument sounds remix voices and on the paid-for version you can rip and burn CDs, cut and paste chunks of music, play up to 12 songs at the same time and extract vocals. Even so the free version has more than enough features to keep you amused and although you have to send off for a registration key, there are no catches. 

12/09/07

 

Windows Media Player Mini Mode

If you use Windows Media Player (WMP) to listen to your MP3 tracks then here’s a neat little feature that you might have overlooked. Right-click on the Windows taskbar select Toolbars then Windows Media Player. That’s all there is to it and the next time you open WMP just click the Minimize button and a small control panel, also known as ‘Mini Mode’ appears docked onto the taskbar.

 

Here’s a bonus tip for WMP 11 users, available for download now and included with Windows Vista. This sets WMP to always open in Mini Player mode when you click on an mp3 file. Go to Now Playing > More Options and select the Player tab. Check the item ‘Start the mini player for file names…’  and in the box below replace the default text (voiceatt.wav – for automatically opening voicemail attachments) with ‘.mp3 (without the quotes). You can also set it to open when you click on files in a particular folder. For example, if all of your MP3s are stored in a folder called Music on the C: drive, just put ‘C:\music’ in the box. 

09/07/07

 

Join the Jet Set

I know, there are more free multimedia players on the market than you can shake a stick at and some of them excellent, and here’s another one to add to the list, though JetAudio Basic is a bit special. To begin with it has built-in CD burning and audio recording utilities, and it’s also a dab hand at converting audio files from one format to another. It’s compatible with a wide range of audio and video file formats (AVI, Audio CD, MP3, MP3Pro, OGG, MPEG, MIDI, RM, WMA, WMV, and WAV, to name just a few). There’s a whole bunch of special effects (reverb, wide, speed, x-bass, cross-fade etc.) to play with, synchronised lyric display, it’s Vista compatible and there’s an MP3 tag edit, but don’t just take my word for it, give it a test drive!

25/06/07

 

Lightweight MP3 Recorder

As regular visitors will know I’m a big fan of Audacity, just about the best audio editor and recorder there is, and I’m not about to change my view, but there is a new kid on the block that’s worth keeping an eye on. It’s rather clumsily called MP3 My MP3 Recorder, and like Audacity it’s free and will record just about anything that you can hear through your PC’s speakers, be it the noises Windows makes, to DVDs, CDs and streamed Internet Radio. Once the recording has finished you can export the file to MP3 or wav format. You can also change the colour and appearance with downloadable skins. It doesn’t have the advanced editing capabilities of Audacity, so it’s not really fair to compare the two, but if you just want a quick and simple MP3 recorder it’s definitely worth a look.

06/06/07

 

IPod to PC Transfer

As iPod owners know only too well getting your tunes off the player and on to your PC can be a bit of a pain. Of course you can sync your library using iTunes but physically copying tracks is another matter. There are a number of laborious manual methods, but here’s a little freeware program that does it all for you. It’s called iPod to Computer Transfer, and it does exactly what it says. It supports playlists, there’s an auto update feature, you can search for tunes and it is compatible with all recent iPod, Shuffle and Nano models. The only limitation is that the free version will only let you copy a single track at the time, if you upgrade to the Pro Version (it costs £8.00) you can copy as many tracks as you like.  

16/05/07

 

Take Care of Your MP3s with the Godfather

It’s okay, the mob isn’t about to make you any offers you can’t refuse for your bootleg MP3s, but you might want to let The GodFather look after your collections. It’s a freeware program, designed to manage all types of music files, and if you are anything like the rest of us, your hard drive is probably stuffed full of them, but why do they need managing, I hear you ask? Simple, your collection is probably in a bit of a mess, with mis-named or mis-spelled albums and tracks, some of the info files or ‘Tags’ are probably wrong. Of course you can do all this manually, one at a time, but The Godfather makes it much easier, and lets you do it in batches. It can also help you catalogue your library and there’s a powerful search facility and a built-in player. Overall, not a bad deal for free!

27/04/07

 

Song Lyrics, The Evil Way

How many times have you tried to lamely sing along with a tune playing on your PC without really knowing the words? Yes, I know it’s easy enough to look them up on the web, and some music files have the lyrics embedded, but for all those other occasions when you just want to know the words try Evil Lyrics. It can be set to open automatically with all popular media players. As soon as the track starts playing Evil checks the name of the song then in a flash, downloads and display the lyrics on your screen.

27/09/06

 

PC Playback on your Radio

How would you like to playback tunesstored on your PC on your home hi-fi? If the PC and hi-fi are in the same room, or you have a laptop, then it’s not too difficult to hook up the PC’s audio out to the hi-fi’s audio input using a stereo connecting cable, but there’s an easier way.

 

Last week at my local computer fair I picked up a wireless ‘sender’ designed for portable MP3 players, iPods and the like, for the princely sum of £7.50. Judging by the number of different models on sale I’m guessing we’re about to be flooded with the things.

 

It’s basically a low power FM stereo transmitter, for sending sounds from an MP3 player to a nearby radio -- they’re a handy way to play your digital tunes through a car radio, for example. Well, they work just as well with the tuners in hi-fi systems, and the audio outputs on PCs, and the quality is not half bad.

 

Technically they’re still illegal but plans are afoot to amend the law (or at least turn a blind eye to them). The range on my cheapie sender is around 10 metres, enough to hear the PC in an upstairs bedroom on the living room sound system. The widget is battery powered, and they last for ages, but you can cut running costs to next to nothing with an adaptor or by using rechargeables. Now how about a USB FM sender for PCs Mr cheap n' cheerful gadget maker?

15/09/06