This is a basic Compression Chart for student reference; this can be used as a basic guide when approaching the task of processing different types of audio material with Compression. This reference will be periodically updated. Remember this is guide and not definitive, nothing is set in stone, but it should prove useful.

John Harding

Audacity is a free program, no need to give your email to anyone. Better download directly from its home on sourceforge!

It’s a well known program with GPLicense for recording and editing sounds. There is plenty of links on the internet on how to use it. However, it always takes some time to find the answer to special questions so I will document here on my experiences.

basic recording

I run Audacity using jack. To hear my source (e.g. MiniDisc) although I’m not running anything else I connect system-in and system-out directly. I switch  to Audacity and use a new empty project. When the record button is pressed (or key “r”) Audacity automatically sets up two jack audio input channels and reads system-in. The level meter goes with the flow and blue lines on the meter mark the highest peak of  the recording. One easily sees if the signal level was too high.

Then most probably one wants to save the recording. New name and so on…

editing

… saved. From now on, when I change my project, I can save it under the given name with CTRL+S. Nothing unusual so far. Funnily one can provoke  a rather strange “error” here, which confused me for quite a while. Sometimes it says: “Disallowed for some reason.  Try selecting some Audio first?” You maybe think about it and press OK, then you think you’d better save it again and the same message comes up. What it actually wants to say is: “There were no changes made to save. So I cannot do what you asked me for”. One can see, that the save entry in the file menu is disabled!

Saving a project leaves a file called project.aup and a directory with the name project_data.

listening

SPACE starts playback always at the marker (fine black line, NOT where the cursor is) and SPACE stops it again. A new playback will start at the marker and not where you stopped it. The marker can be set by clicking with the selection tool (F1) into the sample. When you mark a region by dragging the mouse-click along the sample, playback stops at the left end. SHIFT+SPACE will start looping playback on the selected region. The marker can be moved a little with the LEFT and RIGHT keys, it jumps to the beginning with HOME and to the END.

Audacity: The selection tool is for marking ranges or moving the marker line. The blue lines in the audio level meter show the highest peaks during the last playback.

]]> http://advanceaudio.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/eq-reference-chart-2/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:38:38 +0000 j0hnharding http://advanceaudio.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/eq-reference-chart-2/

This is a basic EQ Chart for student reference; this can be used as a basic guide when approaching the task of processing different types of audio material with EQ. This reference will be periodically updated throughout the term. Remember this is guide and not definitive, nothing is set in stone, but it should prove useful.

John Harding

How to choose an audio software ? Which one would best fit my needs?  These questions are sometimes hard to answer even when you are familiar with audio tasks like recording or editing. You can be a musician wanting to arrange a song that’s born in your head or record it with the band you have rehersed with. You can be a sound engineer or music producer who records writes or arranges other people’s work. You can be a video or broadcast professional. Or maybe you are just a curious person who’s just intersted in music or audio editing. One thing is clear: you need a good tool that’s easy to use but has a wide range of possibilities and produces blameless quality of sound. Of course not the software alone determines the sound quality. It’s also affected by the hardware equipment that you are working with (computer, interface or soundcard, microphones, cables etc.). But still the software plays a huge part. If the harware is the body the software is the brain and the limbs to make it move. There are many brands on the market like Sony, Adobe, Steinberg, Avid just to mention a few.

Let’s put two under the loop: Adobe and Sony. Let’s assume we have a complex task: we want to record multiple channels of audio and then mix and finalize them to have a tune that is exactly like we have imagined.

First we need to record our audio tracks which can be done simultaniously by using an interface that supports multitrack recording. We can do it either with Adobe Audition 3.0 or Sony Acid Pro 7.0. If we just need to record 2 mono or 1 stereo track at once I would recommend using Sony Sound Forge Pro 10.0 instead of Acid Pro because we can operate with a more accurate view of the waveform. Adobe Audition has it’s own waveform display window included. See snapshots below.

When we have recorded the audio tracks we can add midi tracks to the mix using software synthesizers or other virtual instruments as VST plug-ins. We can edit the midi tracks in the built-in piano roll editor. If we have recorded all the tracks we can mix them by adjusting the main parameters like volume, panorama. After that we need to add the desired effects to each track individually. Both Sony and Adobe has it’s built-in effects and both are supporting VST and DirectX plug-ins. Sony has very good noise reduction and quantization tools and Adobe’s spectral analysis tools are really effective and high quality. And again it might feel easier to apply the effects in Sound Forge than in Acid so it’s useful to switch between them.

Once we have rendered the whole mix we can do the mastering and add the finishing touches to our tune with Adobe Audition or Sony Sound Forge.

http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/audition/

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/acidpro

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/products/soundforgefamily.asp

20 buttons and a USB cable – simple as that.

Buttons for rock stars to pound out sweet beats.

Everyone always asks me how I make my music, so this week each day I’m going to upload a photo of my favorite music instruments.

Today it’s my industrial-strength homemade midi controller.

How Colin and I made the world’s most basic midi controller

I’ve always liked to experiment, taking my instruments apart and making new ones. I came up with the idea for this midi controller a while back – I’ve always wanted to pound away on big big buttons. Big Big Buttons! Just like on a subway train – those big emergency buttons.

Got to talking with Colin about the idea, and we made it come to life. I gave him a few schematic concept sketches, and he put the wiring under the hood together. We made it specifically for use with Ableton. So instead of messing around with full-on midi programming, we actually did the circuitry by disassembling a normal keyboard and reassigning the keystrokes to the buttons. In a sense its not a full-on midi controller, but for all intensive purposes it works as one.

The casing body is now is now a 2.0 version. For our beta version we uses an attache case, with an acrylic plate that the buttons were attached to. After the wiring was all tested and completed, I wanted to give it a solid casing. So I went out and got the shiny black casing made down the street in Dongmen.

How it works – triggering beats, samples and effects

Use it basically for two things – triggering samples and beats, and controlling effects. Each button is a trigger for an event in Ableton, so playing live I can trigger effects and sounds. I like to set up the samples and effects I use in a show in advance, then I can drop in stuff on the fly without ever having to look at a computer screen. With a guitar, mic, or turntable hooked up thru the soundcard to Ableton, I can switch up between effects settings, using it as my effects pedal.

Recently moved online, the Help Library provides comprehensive documentation for all of Apple’s professional application. Search and download enabled.

Tested spyware free

Publisher’s description

From AIV software :

MP3 cutter can extract clips of any length from a MP3 song. These clips can be put as ring tone of the cell phones. If the size of a MP3 file is going out of space,then it can be cut and stored in two CDs by using it. It comes with advanced facilities like display of start point, end point, and length of selection. It can play the selected part of the (clip) song. Includes volume controller.

Version 1.3 is a bug fixing release.

Tested spyware free

With so many audio editors out there, finding the right tool for the job can be tricky. The multiplatform, open-source editor Audacity has leaped to the top of our list with its clean interface, excellent features, and support for 32-bit floating-point audio. Audacity succeeds at being both feature-rich and flexible, while keeping the toolbar and work space uncluttered. It does this by relegating most functions–such as effects, edits, and project management–to handy drop-down menus.

Audacity supports uncompressed audio standards such as WAV and AIFF in addition to OGG and MP3 files. A full complement of basic effects such as reverb, delay, and compression are included. Virtual Studio Technology (VST), Linux Audio Developers Simple Plugin Architecture (LAPSDA), and Nyquist plug-ins also are available if you’re looking to expand. Another eye-catching feature is the Beat Analyzer, which helps you peg the beats per minute of a phrase.

The performance of most functions is quick–even CPU-hogging tasks such as exporting to MP3 or adding complex effects. Though Audacity doesn’t offer advanced effects or features out of the box, its usability and price set this freeware wonder above the crowd.

Publisher’s description

From Audacity Developer Team :

This editor can record and play sounds and import and export WAV, AIFF, MP3, and OGG files. Edit your sounds using cut, copy, and paste features (with unlimited undo functionality), mix tracks, or apply effects to your recordings. The program also has a built-in amplitude-envelope editor, a customizable spectrogram mode, and a frequency-analysis window for audio-analysis applications. Built-in effects include bass boost, wah wah, and noise removal, and the program also supports VST plug-in effects.

Version 1.2.6 enables FLAC support and contains some bug fixes.

Tested spyware free

Publisher’s description

From GoldWave :

GoldWave is a professional digital audio editor. Use it to play, edit, mix, and analyze audio, or apply special effects, such as fade, equalizer, echo, reverse, time warp, noise reduction, silence reduction, pop/click filter, voice over, etc. Record new files from cassettes, albums, radio, or microphone and restore and enhance them using the wide range of filters and effects. Digitally copy tracks directly from audio CDs to edit or remix them. Convert all your iTunes M4A songs to MP3, match volume levels between songs, trim leading and trailing silences, adjust equalization to prepare your songs for a perfect MP3 CD or before copying them to your MP3 player.

Displays a variety of useful real-time visuals during playback and recording. Supports MP3, iTunes M4A, WAV, WMA, Ogg, and many more formats. Includes built-in tools, such as Batch Processing, CD Reader, File Merger, and Effect Chain Editor. GoldWave does it all, yet it’s fun and easy to use. Version 5.52 integrates 4 GWVoice effects, significant speed improvements in some effects, unicode interface, and cleaner resampling.

Tested spyware free

Competition in the world of all-in-one music-creation suites has grown considerably since Fruity Loops first started breaking beats. With a new name and a new interface, FL Studio is reestablishing its place as a full-featured and affordable audio-production program.

The photo-realistic mixing-board interface, littered with small, unlabeled icons and burdened with a confusing file browser, makes the learning curve steeper than it should be. Once you clear that hurdle, though, this enjoyable product will have you making music in no time. The Fruityslicer makes short work of chopping up breaks, and the simple step-based drum machine lets you create your own. You can bind FL Studio to other programs via VSTi and DXi plug-ins. A full selection of software instruments is included so you can start playing immediately. All the usual suspects are there, from vintage, buzzy, analog imitators to wacky sound effects and generic voice samples.

FL Studio offers a tremendous value for what you get. Comparable products cost nearly twice as much. FL Studio’s quirky sound generators and interoperability make it a great addition to any studio. Be warned, though: several versions of FL Studio are available, so more features are included as the price goes up.

Publisher’s description

From Image Line Software :

FL Studio, formerly known as FruityLoops, is a fully featured, open-architecture music creation and production environment for PC. No extra software is required to produce any style of music, as the complete set of instrument and studio tools is included in the cost of the package. With the included plugins, sounds and tools the user can create complete songs, as well as backing tracks, loops and sizzling beats. Completed songs can be saved to WAV, MP3 or MIDI or .ZIP or native project formats (.FLP).FL Studio utilizes MIDI and DirectSound (internal mixing), 16-bit 44KHz stereo output, and 32-bit floating-point internal mixing. You’ll also get support for VST plug-ins, as well as individual panning, volume, pitch, mix, resonance, and cutoff on each note.

Tested spyware free

Publisher’s description

From NowSmart Studio :

Audio Record Wizard is a real-time sound recorder software, which offers professional recording features with VAS(Voice Active System) and mp3/ogg support. The audio recorder program is designed to work directly with your sound card, so it can record almost all audio from your sound card at near-perfect quality. So, you can record sound from a microphone, line-in, and just about any other programs (like winamp, realplay, windows media player).

Wow, Depeche Mode is still rocking stages after all these years. Hear the kings of new wave rocked at Lollapalooza this time around.

Great video over at Ableton about how Depeche Mode’s drum sound is created on a stage in front of 30,000 screaming fans. Here’s the video link here

I’ve been using Ableton Live on stages for the last few years too. Its a really fun musical instrument for me.

Seeing this video I found it interesting to see how Depeche Mode to split up and apply effects to their drums. Is anyone else out there on Alive not dead using Ableton Live on stage or in the studio? How do you use it?

With Audio Creator’s virtual toolbox, you are just a click away from recording and editing audio; burning and ripping CDs; cleaning and converting albums to CD or MP3; encoding, tagging, and organizing your sound library; backing up your files to data CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray; and even publishing music to the Internet.

If you care about your audio, there is no better choice than Audio Creator. It’s from Cakewalk, makers of the world’s most popular music creation software, used daily by Grammy® winning musicians and producers. 


Key features:

* Get started quickly with video tutorials
* 1-click recording: capture musical performances, meetings, vinyl records, cassettes, podcasts, Internet broadcasts, and more
* Professional 2-track audio editing: cut, trim, paste, hiss & pop removal, adjust volumes, crossfades, apply FX, and more
* Encode, convert, and save audio to popular formats like MP3, WMA, WAV, and AIFF
* Convert audio to formats that can be used with iTunes®, iPod®, Zune™, and other digital audio players
* Digitize, clean, and organize your record and cassette collection
* Rip your entire CD collection to a digital format
* Instantly download the song, album, and artist names of your CDs
* NEW! Burn gapless audio CDs to share with family and friends
* NEW! Create backup data CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray for safekeeping
* Tag, rename, and organize multiple audio files all at once
* Upload custom streaming music players to share on Myspace, Blogger, and other web sites
* And much more

Download Here

Pass : The Phoenix-forums.com

cubase studio 4 adalah software khusus untuk studio track, studio rekaman komputer. lebih spesifik untuk software di bidang ini. bayak sekali fitur yang hampir sama dengan realnya.

Cubase studio 4 disini tanpa di instal. memperingan kerja ram

harga : Rp. 10.000

minimum sistem : pentium 4   2.0 Ghz

Bapak/Ibu/Sdr, Yth.
Ambillah langkah tepat untuk peluang yg langka, dgn mendaftar di bisnis tiket pesawat (BTP) yg baru dilaunching 9 May 2009. Lihat websitenya di http://www.bisnis-tiket-pesawat.com
Jika mendaftar dan kemudian mengaktivasi pendaftaran tsb, Bapak/Ibu/Sdr akan mendapatkan peluang besar untuk mendapatkan limpahan member krn :
System Randomizer. Sistem acak yg akan memilih salah satu member yg telah aktif sebagai sponsor. Dengan demikian walaupun anda tidak aktif berpromosi, masih ada kemungkinan untuk mendapatkan member dan mendapatkan komisi sponsor.
SystemAutomatic Spill-Over. Jumlah member dibatasi maksimal sebanyak 10 orang saja. Member ke 11 secara otomatis akan dilimpahkan ke anggota di bawahnya.

Keuntungan lainnya
Pertumbuhan Member Aktif sd 21 Agustus 2009 sudah mencapai 793 orang dari 280 member per 20 juli 2009 atau 183% selama 22 hari, perhari tingkat pertumbuhan member mencapai 8% atau 23. Sehingga sangat luas untuk mendapatkan member baru.
Di kolom menu member aktif, terdapat booking tiket Batavia (Merpati dan Mandala), cetak tiket Batavia (Merpati dan Mandala), dgn mengkliknya maka anda sdh masuk (akses online) ke perusahaan airline yg anda klik. Anda akan mendapat user id dan password, yg berarti ada sudah seperti punya agent airline tersebut. Anda bisa :
melihat tiket untuk sheet kosong yg tersedia dari perusahaan airline yg anda klik
melakukan pengecekan harga tiket
booking tiket
cetak tiket langsung dari komputer anda, kapan saja & dimana saja
membeli tiket untuk diri anda sendiri
menjual tiket tanpa harus memiliki travel agent.
Anda akan mendapat pasif income dari :
Komisi pembelian tiket walaupun anda tidak membeli tiket sendiri, krn member di bawah anda membeli tiket.
Member baru yg anda sponsori.
Keanggotaan BTP untuk selamanya.

Bayangkan, bisnis ini waktu akan datang akan memiliki ratusan, ribuan dan bahkan puluhan ribu member aktif, sementara kita berada pada posisi paling atas sebagai pionir. Jangan tunggu bisnis ini menjadi booming dahulu, tetapi biarlah kita yang menjadi orang pertama membuat bisnis ini booming.

Kunjungi website ini : http://www.bisnis-tiket-pesawat.com
Setelah daftar, aktivasilah keanggotaan anda, saat ini saya sudah memiliki 15 member, 4 di antaranya telah turun ke member No. 1 pd level 1, dan 1 orang di member saya yang lain. Member saya akan bertambah terus, dan pasti akan berada di bawah anda, karena batas maksimal member saya yang 10 orang sudah terpenuhi. Dan itu berarti anda tidak perlu cari member.

Pada akhirnya saya ucapkan “Selamat” dan “Sukses selalu”.

Keuntungan / Manfaat Bagi Anda

Siapapun ingin untung dan tidak ingin rugi, bukankah begitu….???? Berikut ini adalah daftar keuntungan / manfaat bagi anda jika bergabung dengan Bisnis Tiket Pesawat.

Potensi Penghasilan Yang Luar Biasa

Potensi penghasilan yang bisa anda dapatkan dengan bergabung di Bisnis Tiket Pesawat bernilai milyaran rupiah. Penghasilan tersebut anda dapatkan dari komisi network / jaringan, sponsorisasi dan komisi pembelian tiket pesawat. Untuk lebih jelasnya silahkan klik menu Potensi Penghasilan

Sign-In Ke Sistem Airline

Bagi para travel agent, untuk mendapatkan sign-in ke sistem airline membutuhkan biaya yang tidak sedikit. Minimal harus mengeluarkan biaya sebesar Rp. 5.000.000,- (lima juta rupiah) untuk mendapatkan 1 sign-in.

Dengan bergabung menjadi member Bisnis Tiket Pesawat, maka anda akan langsung mendapatkan 2 sign-in sekaligus, untuk masuk ke sistem Mandala Airline dan Batavia Airline.

Cek Seat, Cek Harga, Booking Tiket dan Cetak Tiket Sendiri

Dengan kedua sign-in di atas, maka anda bisa melakukan cek jadwal penerbangan, cek ketersediaan kursi, cek harga, booking tiket dan cetak tiket sendiri. Langsung dari komputer anda. Langsung ke sistem airline. Transparan. Tanpa markup harga. Kapanpun dan dimanapun.

Anda Bisa Mencarikan Tiket Pesawat Untuk Orang Lain

Jika anda membeli tiket pesawat dengan menggunakan kartu kredit, maka pemegang / pemilik kartu kredit harus juga ikut memesan. Atau anda hanya bisa membeli tiket bagi diri sendiri.

Dengan membeli tiket di sini, anda bisa membelikan untuk orang lain. Kolega anda, saudara anda atau siapapun. Anda tidak diharuskan untuk ikut terbang. Bahkan anda bisa tetap menikmati komisi saat ada orang lain dalam jaringan anda yang melakukan pembelian tiket.

Tidak Harus Punya Kartu Kredit Untuk Beli Tiket

Kebanyakan website yang menjual tiket pesawat menerima pembayaran dengan menggunakan kartu kredit. Bagaimana jika anda tidak punya kartu kredit?? Anda bisa membeli tiket pesawat di sini.

Dirikan Usaha Dengan Modal Minimal

Dengan bergabung di Bisnis Tiket Pesawat, maka anda bisa menjual tiket kepada orang lain. Dengan demikian berarti anda telah memiliki suatu usaha layaknya sebuah travel agent.

Sistem-sistem Yang Telah Teruji

Kami memberikan sistem-sistem yang telah teruji dan terbukti berhasil memberikan keuntungan bagi para member. Sistem-sistem itu antara lain adalah :

1. Randomizer, sebuah sistem sponsorisasi acak yang akan memilih salah satu member yang telah aktif secara acak sebagai sponsor jika ada pengunjung website www.bisnis-tiket-pesawat.com yang datang tanpa menyertakan kode sponsor. Dengan demikian walaupun anda tidak aktif berpromosi, masih ada kemungkinan untuk mendapatkan member dan mendapatkan komisi sponsor.
2. Automatic Spill-Over, jumlah member yang ada di level 1 dibatasi maksimal sebanyak 10 orang saja. Jika ada member ke 11, maka member tersebut secara otomatis akan dilimpahkan ke level kedua. Hal ini berarti bahwa orang-orang yang bergabung sebelum anda akan tetap membantu anda untuk mendapatkan member bagi anda.
3. Website Replika, begitu keanggotaan anda diaktifkan, maka anda juga mendapatkan website replika yang memiliki bentuk sama dengan website ini. Anda tidak perlu membuat website lagi. Alamat URL website replika anda adalah http://www.bisnis-tiket-pesawat.com?id=useridanda
4. Full Report, anda akan mendapatkan laporan secara lengkap. Laporan tersebut meliputi member yang ada dalam jaringan anda, baik yang sudah aktif maupun yang belum aktif, komisi yang anda dapatkan setiap bulan, baik komisi dari anda sendiri maupun komisi dari member-member di bawah anda.

Potensi Penghasilan

Pertanyaan paling mendasar dari para member yang ingin bergabung pada suatu bisnis adalah Berapa Potensi Penghasilannya Jika Bergabung??

Potensi penghasilan di bisnis tiket pesawat sangat luar biasa, hingga mencapai trilyunan rupiah. Penghasilan itu akan anda dapatkan dari :

Komisi Jaringan

Besarnya komisi jaringan yang bisa anda dapatkan ditunjukkan pada tabel di bawah ini.

Anda akan mendapatkan komisi hingga kedalaman 10 Level, bahkan dari orang yang tidak anda kenal sama sekali. Total komisi yang bisa anda dapatkan dari komisi jaringan ini adalah Rp. 55,561,122,300,000.00 suatu nilai yang sangat luar biasa.

Jika anda menyangkal bahwa itu hanyalah hitungan saja, ok…… mari kita berpikir agak pesimistis, jika seandainya usaha anda hanya berhasil 1% saja, maka anda masih memiliki peluang penghasilan sebesar Rp. 555,611,223,000.00 dan ini masih merupakan hasil yang sangat luar biasa.

Komisi Penjualan Tiket Pesawat

Disamping komisi tersebut di atas anda juga akan mendapatkan komisi dari penjualan tiket pesawat. Besarnya komisi ini ditunjukkan pada tabel di bawah ini.

Asumsi : Masing-masing member hanya membeli 1 tiket setiap bulan dan profit per tiket adalah Rp. 10.000,-. Pada kenyataannya seringkali orang membeli tiket pesawat tidak hanya 1 buah, akan tetapi beberapa tiket sekaligus. Dengan demikian maka komisi untuk anda akan lebih besar lagi. Profit yang dibagikan kepada member sebesar 60%, sedangkan admin hanya 40% saja.

Komisi Sponsorisasi

Besarnya komisi sponsorisasi dari setiap member yang berhasil anda sponsori adalah Rp. 30.000,-. Sedangkan jumlah yang boleh anda sponsori jumlah tak terbatas tergantung keinginan dan semangat anda. Dengan demikian jumlah komisi sponsorisasi adalah tidak terbatas.

Biaya Keanggotaan

Untuk mendapatkan seluruh komisi di atas, sign-in batavia air dan mandala air, website replika dan peluang bisnis ini memang anda diharuskan untuk membayar biaya keanggotaan. Biaya keanggotaan hanya anda bayar sekali saja untuk selamanya.

Besarnya biaya keanggotaan untuk bergabung di bisnis tiket pesawat adalah Rp. 200.000,- saja. Tanpa ada iuran tahunan atau biaya yang lain.

Dari total biaya keanggotaan sebesar Rp. 200.000,- yang 75% yakni sebesar Rp. 150.000,- akan dikembalikan lagi ke member sebagai komisi jaringan dan komisi sponsor. Dengan demikian yang diperuntukan kepada admin bisnis tiket pesawat hanya Rp. 50.000,- saja.

I recently purchased Adobe Soundbooth for audio editing and sweetening of soundtracks. It’s normally a part of a large, and expensive, “suite” of Adobe programs. But Adobe recently made Soundbooth available as a standalone app at a lower price.

I’ve used Adobe software for many more years than I should admit, usually for graphics production… Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Pro, etc. While their stuff has never been cheap, they have always produced pro-grade products that deliver real work.

Soundbooth is turning out to be a similar experience. Like the others I’ve used, it’s a good, capable program with lots of flexibility. I haven’t used it with video files yet, but just to get my feet wet, I decided to try some music remasters of old vinyl that I have, and see if I could transfer the result into iTunes. Vinyl records– especially the classics that I grew up with– were made with vinyl in mind as its final output. The format was part of the musical decisions the bands made, and it has a characteristic sound. And for those of us who are a certain age, we remember that “sound” of a vinyl record as part of the music. Old Beatles records sound better with some turntable rumble and a few crackles and pops at the head. It was all a part of the experience… the giant cardboard squares with all the groovy graphics, the bonus of a printed paper liner, or better yet, a separate sheet with lyrics, methodically cleaning the grooves and checking the needle for the evil dust, and then you “dropped the needle.” The resulting thud and the crackles that came just before the music only heightened the anticipation. The whole thing became a ritual. It made music more fun.

I used Soundbooth to import a record side– complete with the crackles and rumble– as an MP3 (though there are several other file formats that I can use), then cut each song out of the side and save it as an individual file. It was a simple matter to add fade ins and fade outs before program audio starts. Then, just for grins, I used the advanced graphic EQ to add a little “air” to the top end and a slight bump to the bass, while cutting out the freq beyond the range of the vinyl… at least the vinyl I have. Most of the records are somewhat worn, and my transfer process didn’t yield any audible program material much above 15kHz, so that was notched out, and the same with subsonic rumble  below 31 hz. Switching the EQ in and out showed a nice, though subtle, improvement.

The parametric EQ and mastering screens in Adobe Soundbooth

There are several otther “effects” that are available in this program, including parametric EQ, reverb, noise gates, compressors, expanders, etc. I haven’t had much of a chance to play with these yet, and most wouldn’t really apply to this particular job anyway. Being a former mastering engineer myself, I was careful not to change much of the EQ that the original engineers so meticulously set for each record.

After I applied a slight amount EQ and trimmed the heads and tails, I went through and fixed any particularly loud pops or scratches using a “reduce noise” command only at the offending sections. This leaves most of the program untouched.

After saving these doctored files, I moved them into the folders where iTunes stores its music. They appeared in iTunes as “unknown artist” and “unknown album,” but the song titles were there, and they played. I just had to “get info” about each song and manually add the album name and artist. Then iTunes moved the files into their correct folder, and the album appeared in the iTunes library. I even added the album artwork by dragging the image from Wikipedia articles.

All in all, I’m quite pleased and will probably look into buying the other Adobe production programs. That’s not to say I loved everything… there are a few odd bugs that need fixing, and this program could really, REALLY use a good printed manual. But I’m enjoying myself with it- BG

]]> http://linuxaudiolive.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/effect-tracks-in-ardour/ Sun, 09 Aug 2009 11:57:29 +0000 linuxaudiolive http://linuxaudiolive.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/effect-tracks-in-ardour/

To use LADSPA effects in ARDOUR projects one can just add one from the list by double-clicking in the field above the volume control in the mixer panel. But sometimes you want to use the same effect on different tracks or mix the original with the effect. If there is no Dry/Wet-mix control in the effect plug-in the latter can be done via SEND-effects. Adding the same effect to different tracks through a SEND plug-in, CPU usage is smaller than adding it to every single track. Although, once you know how it works it is quite straightforward, but I struggled a lot getting it to work.

To do so one adds a bus to the mixer panel. Then a SEND plugin is chosen by right-clicking in the effect field of the desired audio track. This plug-in can be attached to another track or bus  where one can add effects in the usual way. The important trick which finally does the job and which took  me a while to figure out is to activate the SEND connection by right-clicking on it. In the menu you find a activate command.

From now on all pre-fader signals from the chosen track go into the chosen bus where effects can be added. Pre fader means that you can change the volume of the original track (or even turn it down to mute) and he signal is still received by the effect bus. If the SEND is added into the field below the volume control it is a post fader send and the signal goes to the effect bus filtered.

The picture shows the mixer panel with an actived SEND plugin (pre-fader) in an audio track. The levels of Bus 3 show that the signal is received.

To download the audio for a talk, go to the individual page for the talk. Just below the license and summary information, there