Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with audio and music

How can I loop audio in realtime?

supyo — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:09:14 -0800

What software should I use to replicate the delay/looping effect that this video employs? I would need a metronome monitor separate from the input mix. It would be amazing to tweak the length of the decay too. http://vimeo.com/7722804 I looked at the Vimeo comments and found some helpful information. But I would like to hear of any other software suggestions people have. I do not have access to Ableton Live. I'm a classical musician wanting to experiment with realtime looping.

Quoted from the Vimeo comments:
"I had a laptop in a bag over my shoulder with Ableton Live running, but it's just a long delay with feedback set to 90% so it dies out and allows for development rather than looping into a noisy blur!"
"this is pingpong delay right?"

Best audio/communication solution for snowsports helmet?

Señor Pantalones — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:45:09 -0800

Best ski/snowboard helmet w/audio (mic preferred) integration? Current system of wearing iphone mic'ed buds (attached to a pocketed iphone) under a Bern helmet is nonoptimal. Too many moving parts, fumbling around to find things, etc.

Options:
1. bluetooth audio helmet (giro omen, burton red)
2. wired audio helmet (boeri vortex, poc receptor bug, burton red etc.)
3. DIY (find a good helmet, attach dedicated iphone mic'ed buds to it)

Any reviews/recommendations/experiences? Price is not as significant as ease of use and functionality of the setup. I'd like to be listening to music all day and have the ability to answer calls.

I don't always want to listen to music in the snow, but sometimes I do, and I need an ideal system for it.

Does Cubase Mac FLAC?

motty — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:36:44 -0800

How can I make Cubase play nicely with FLAC files on OS X? I'm working on some tunes with a guy living miles away, and want to be able to send him FLAC files instead of WAVs to save bandwidth.

He's using Cubase on OS X and I'm using Ardour on Linux. While I'm happy with doing all the WAV -> FLAC -> WAV conversion myself from the commandline, he's not. Searching Cubase forums hasn't turned up anything useful on FLAC integration, and I don't have OS X or Cubase myself, so I thought I'd ask here.

Does Cubase Just Work with FLAC if it finds the libraries? Is there a Cubase plugin for FLAC that I have failed to find? Will my friend have to get hold of one of the point and click FLAC -> AIF/WAV convertors and mess around with file conversion himself?

Or is there another solution I have not thought of, such as a lossless FLAC alternative that already works with Cubase?

Cheers in advance, hivemind.

My wife doesn't like the cord on her earbuds...

judomadonna — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:24:09 -0800

...so can anyone recommend a pair of earbuds with a cord that looks like a capital y (Y), not a lowercase y (y)?

What's the best wireless audio bridge / networked digital audio receiver that works on the Mac?

nitsuj — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 08:27:10 -0800

What's the best wireless audio bridge / networked digital audio receiver that works on the Mac? I'm looking for a simple hardware solution that will allow me to bridge my Macbook Pro's audio-out source to my home theater amplifier. Many products like the WMB54G and Sirocco either have no Mac support at all, or have very poor reviews and cost way too much.

The Airport Express seems decent if I only wanted to stream iTunes, but I'd also like to stream from other sources, like Spotify, which it won't support.

Is there a simple, under-$100 (or close to it) solution out there?

How do they fix performance glitches when doing post-production on "live" recordings?

Joe Beese — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:18:09 -0800

How do they fix performance glitches when doing post-production on "live" recordings? Assuming that they don't have multiple performances to splice together, how do they correct a singer's pitch or fix an instrumentalist's late entrance?

If they simply record a new part in the studio, how do they approximate the venue's acoustics?

What are some notable digital remasters of music over the last few years?

jeremias — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:50:19 -0800

With the recent attention given to the high quality of the recent audio re-masters of the Beatles catalog, I'm wondering if there have been other notable re-masters in the last few years. I realize this is potentially a broad topic, but virtually all the reviews of the Beatles re-masters focused on how they represented a significant update in the listening experience. So I'm interested in any equivalent digital re-issues that are acknowledged as a significant leap in audio quality for the listener.

r/e/m/i/x/t/h/i/s/v/i/d/e/o

nitsuj — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:41:27 -0800

Okay, so how are people making those video remixes that are ever so popular right now? I can see it happening a few different ways:

1) They rip the original video from YouTube and pull it into Final Cut or whatever, and edit the sound bites and video with the music (made in some other program, presumably).
2) They rip the video from YouTube and bring the audio only into an audio/music program, and then re-edit the video to match the audio.
3) Some other way I'm not thinking?

What software are people using?

How to fix an mp3 file that doesn't burn to CD in its entirety?

darwesh — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:57:31 -0800

One of my mp3 files does not get burned to CD in its entirety (using Windows Media Player). The actual duration is roughly 53 minutes, and the mp3 plays flawlessly all the way through in WMP, but only around 48 minutes gets burned to the CD. I don't get any errors from WMP when it's burning, but when I play the track on the CD it stops after about 48 minutes and goes on to the next track. I have tried the CD burning three times, so it's unlikely to be a problem with the CDs I used.

Any ideas what could be wrong or how I might go about figuring it out or correcting it? Here's a link to the file. Thanks!

I love Jay-Z, but autotune is still alive and well. For now.

anildash — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:30:32 -0800

What's a good (and not terribly expensive) portable setup for adding AutoTune to live vocals? This would be in NYC, and the world needs to experience AutoTune karaoke. I don't have ProTools on my laptop, but I'd be open to renting some gear or buying some software if it weren't prohibitively expensive. My ideal setup would be that we could run vox through a laptop rig, and have the karaoke venue just plug in to the laptop's output. Bonus points if it can be done with the basic autotune feature built in to Garage Band, and a Mac-based solution is preferred.

Where can I get an mbox driver for Windows Vista?

KevinSkomsvold — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:40:58 -0800

Is it possible to get an mbox (not mbox 2) to work in Vista without ProTools LE? Is it possible to find a USB driver for this mbox and Vista? I've used ProTools and hate it with a white-hot hate. I'd like to use this mbox (made in 2001) with Vista 64. Am I SOL?

Hello RIAA, I'd like to give you some money

IanMorr — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 08:11:06 -0800

Is it horribly expensive to license snippets of music for videos that I share on my blog? I have a blog that I use to share pics and videos with my friends and family. I post, at most, 2 videos a month. They're usually about 30 - 40 seconds. Because the audio on these is usually my wife and I encouraging our kid to walk in the stupid tones you use when talking to kids, I want to replace the audio track with music.

I have a large, legal, personal library and can usually think of the right song to use pretty quickly. I'd much rather pay a reasonable fee to be allowed to add a bit of a commercial tune to my video than to spend time searching for an appropriate license free piece of music.

Is this an option? I don't want to do a bunch of paperwork every time I use a different song, I'm looking for some kind of central licensing body that can take, say $20 a year and license me to use bits of songs in my library on videos that are going on the internet where, in theory, anyone in the world could see them, but in practice would only be viewed by my mum and her cat.

Hoping to listen to the Singalong Sound of Music with audience participating.

Sully — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 09:12:39 -0800

Can anyone help me find an audio version of the Singalong Sound of Music with the audience participation included in the recording? I am not looking for a short clip (the only things I've managed to find so far) but rather, the entire show. Thanks.

Open Back Headphones On A Budget.

nam3d — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:54:35 -0800

Could someone please reccomend me some comfortable open back headphones with decent enough sound for under £40? Prefebly they should have a short cable (as I keep triping over my Sennheiser's). I'll be using them in conjunction with my mac, mostly listening to a lot of spoken word audio (tv shows, etc) and for light music listening.

Here's hoping you can help.

Help me rock harder than I already do.

crapples — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:32:20 -0800

Recording software/hardware filter: I wanna rock even harder than I already do... Give me some technical advise. My friend and I write and record music. We sell it online, and we have actually earned ourselves a fan or two. However, we have one major problem: The sound quality of our audio is just not up to snuff. We are a low-fi outfit, recording with a MacBook Pro, using Garageband as our mixer. We record into a microphones that cost about $50, and sometimes even into the MacBook Pro internal mic. We play mostly acoustic guitar, bass, sometimes keyboard, and of course there are vocals.

What would be the top one or two things that we should do to get a more professional sound? Is it the recording environment that makes the difference? The microphone? The Macbook? The software? All of the above? If we only have a little bit of money to spend and we want to improve the sound quality, what will get us the biggest bang for the buck?

Thanks!

Hit me with your best blues artist and album recommendations.

DrDreidel — Tue, 19 May 2009 12:03:58 -0800

Almost every type of music I love is inspired by blues. What are the quintessential blues artists and albums I should explore to really get a basic understanding of the genre?

Exrtracting automation data

leibniz — Thu, 14 May 2009 06:42:54 -0800

Is there any way to extract/copy the automation data (e.g. volume, panning in real audio or midi) from a music sequencer so that it can be displayed and analyzed as numerical data in another programme? Is there an indirect way to do the same thing by tracing the line in a graphics programme? I am planning a musical rating experiment where participants rate various features of an audio clip in real time. It is really convenient to use the automation data (e.g. panning) of a sequencer programme, where they have a draw tool (in particular I have Ableton live 7). It will look something like this in the end.

So is there a way to capture this data so that we can analyze it with another programme (e.g. to present as a list of numbers in excel)? Perhaps there's even an indirect way to do a screen capture and then draw a line matching it in a graphics programme, and then extract that data?? The ultimate goal is to make detailed quantitative comparisons of ratings by different people that can be lined up with features of the music at a particular moment.

How do I get my files from Point A to Point B?

reenum — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:10:14 -0800

I need to move several gigs of music files from one external hard drive to another. But, there are a few problems... I have a 250GB WD HD in an enclosure and recently bought a WD Elements 640GB drive. I now want to back up all my music files from the 250GB to the 640GB drive. They total about 33GB.

Problem is, my computers do not have USB 2.0 drives. Every time I begin the backup process, it goes for a while, and then terminates due to an error in writing from the 250GB drive.

Is there an easy way to do this backup?

Where should I put all these musical pirates?

Faint of Butt — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:33:52 -0800

Tell me how to arrange eight to twelve singers, a guitarist (acoustic), a fiddler and a bodhrán player, all unamplified, for best overall audibility and musicality. Assume an outdoor setting with effectively unlimited performance space. There is no electricity or amplification of any artificial nature available. The singers can be grouped into sopranos, altos, baritones and basses. Some songs are led by a soloist with backing vocals, and others are more choral and involve the whole ensemble equally. All of the performers need to be able to hear all of the other performers so that everyone can stay in time and on key, and the audience needs to hear the whole group.

What's the best way to do this? Should we just arrange ourselves in an old-fashioned semicircle? Where do we put the soloists and instruments? Help me, AskMe musicians, and let me find a good solution before the next gig! Thank you!

Make my Nokia sing like my Apple...

trinarian — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:31:08 -0800

Migrating from an iPod to a cellphone... was the awesome surgically removed though? I recently purchased a new Nokia 3600. There's nothing terribly different between it and other non-Symbian not-quite N-series Nokia phones. As my iPod died at the same time as me buying this phone, I've decided to buy a 16gb micro-SD card and use it as my new music player.

The only problem I've found is the headphone-jack sound quality is terrible with some music. It sounds like somebody has neutered all the bass. It sounds the opposite of what I understand the good effects of audio compression to sound like, with all the awesome and power removed. It's not just when I play it off it's tiny speakers, it's when I use the OEM headphones, or a 2.5-to-3.5mm adapter and run it to a pair of good speakers or headphones. If I play something like Neutral Milk Hotel, it sounds fine. If I play something like Tool, it sounds like a 32kbs RealAudio file played over an analog phone line. Changing the EQ doesn't help. The sound starts to bleed at the "high" volume range.

My speculation is that it's the Nokia media software being set to make things sound good on the built-in speakers, but then not adjusting for what they assume will be low-quality OEM earbuds. I haven't successfully been able to use non-OEM software and I'm very open to recommendations.

So, my question for the hive mind, is this a software problem that can be overcome or a hardware issue? Could it be related to fidelity issues of it being a 2.5mm jack instead of 3.5mm? How do I make it sing like my iPod?

Adobe Audacity vs Logic Express

treepour — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:04:40 -0800

Switched to Mac, looking for Adobe Audacity replacement. Should I go for Logic Express? I used Audacity primarily for two things (in order priority):

1) Splicing existing recordings together as seamlessly as possible. Here I used the "Echo Chamber" effects quite extensively. These helped create the sense that the musicians stopped playing and then started playing something else -- the ambient echo of the previous section carried on into the next.

2) Severely warping recorded sounds via a variety of filters/effects, combining them together via the multitrack interface, mixing the multiple tracks down to single tracks then continuing the process.

Can I do these kinds of things with Logic Express? Or would I be better off using Audacity via Windows vmware? Learning a new piece of software isn't a problem, I just want to make sure that the software will enable the kinds of things I want to do. Also, any other similarly-priced Mac recommendations for this sort of thing besides Logic Express would be appreciated.

Electronic Acoustic Enhancement In Opera Houses

Opera Chic — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:58:34 -0800

How do electronic acoustic enhancement systems work in opera houses? Do you need to mike every singer, or do you place mikes around the stage? Where are the loudspeakers concealed, usually? Is there any risk for the audience of ever hearing even faint audio feedback?
Thanks!

Help Identify a Song

codybaldwin — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 03:30:22 -0800

Help identifying a (probably free/bumper music) song (is this even possible). The song can be found in two places:
http://homepage.mac.com/littlelovers/index.html?_startPage=37

and in Season 2 Episode 6 of 12 oz mouse:
http://www.tv.com/12-oz.-mouse/auraphull/episode/874838/summary.html

it plays during the credits, and is a slightly different version of the first link.

Can anyone help me identify the producer of this song?

Please help me identify these songs!

monkeyagent — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:02:45 -0800

So I recently came to the end of correcting all the ID3 tags on my massive music collection. The last 14 or so took me more time than I'm willing to admit to track down information on. But I knew at the end which two would remain. I've had these two songs in my collection for at least a decade now, and every time I've tried to find any information on the song titles, artist, or even lyrics, I've turned up nothing. I've tried all kinds of tricks I know for finding even the most obscure information on the internet, but still nothing. As a firm believer that anything which exists can be found on the internet, I find myself troubled that these songs, which clearly exist, apparently do not. Help me out, and try to cure my madness? What info I've gathered thus far:

2 songs, both by a band called "Zoediac" (intended misspelling?) with a sort of 90s pop sound (?). Female vocals:
"Birdie" 4:04
"Am I Getting There?" 3:31

The information I'd like:
Year recorded/published
confirmation/correction of the band/song names
albums?
any additional band history

No additional info in the ID3 tags, and MusicBrainz fingerprinting software just turned up false positives.

Download and listen to them here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=A9RR7BSP

Audio files for non-audiophiles

fusinski — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:27:21 -0800

What is the simplest way (free or otherwise) to convert M4P and M4A audio files to MP3 en masse?