Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with audio and osx

TOSLINK USB surround sound adapter + Mac OS X?

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:57:24 -0800

What is a good, working surround sound USB adapter for a Mac mini in a home theatre setup, which uses a TOSLINK connector? (I would be using this with DVD Player, iTunes, VLC, QuickTime Player, etc. if that matters for software support.)

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.

Adding ADDITIONAL audio to an avi file

Charlie Lesoine — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:23:01 -0800

How do I add an additional audio track to a .avi movie file in OSX? I downloaded a full length movie, it had stereo channel audio, but one of the audio tracks was still missing, possibly the center channel that was lost from a surround sound mix when it was bounced to standard 2 channel audio. I now have the missing audio file and need to add it to the other two. I could just remove one of the existing tracks, or turn the existing two tracks into a mono track and then add the 3rd missing track. It doesn't need to sound amazing...but I don't know what software to use to do this. Any ideas?

Get words to mah team!

razzamatazm — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 23:21:56 -0800

Is it possible to connect a Jawbone headset via bluetooth to an intel mac bootcamp'd into XP? I have tried multiple bluetooth stacks, and it seems like I've gotten close, but so far no cigar (or Team Fortress 2 chat). Does the hive have any experience with this conundrum? For what it's worth, I do have a seperate bluetooth dongle that I can plug in. It's very generic so I can't give many specifics.

I need to transcribe some stuff, get some audio from A to B

booknerd — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:00:25 -0800

My library is doing oral histories with a Canon HD video camera, then migrating them into iMovie to eventually edit and burn to DVDs to store. I've been tasked with the tech-side of this, a job I'm woefully unqualified for. I need help converting iMovie files into some sort of audio format to transcribe them! Right now, the priority is to transcribe the audio from the iMovie files to print out and bind into books. I found this free software that looks perfect, and bought a USB transcribing foot pedal. Since I'm doing this on a new MacBook, I downloaded the OSX version of the software, although I suppose if I have to I can run the Windows version in Parallels. The audio formats I can use are wav, mp3, aiff and dct files. What's the best way to do this? I can export from iMovie to a 3gp Quicktime video, but as far as I can tell, there's no way to export the audio to any of those formats from either iMovie or Quicktime. Please help, so I can spend the next several months of my job listening to kooky zoo stories!

How to control airfoil remotely, possibly on iphone?

joshgray — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:49:10 -0800

I know of only one app (remote buddy) that claims a plugin that would let you control airfoil on a mac remotely via an iphone but it does not work very well. Is anyone else doing this? Plan is to have a few airport express units in different rooms, and i would like a way to tell airfoil to switch between audio inputs (itunes, pandora, radioshark, etc) without going to the machine itself.

Video killed my audio stars

larsks — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:43:45 -0800

Plugging in an external monitor to my Macbook Pro kills the audio. What's up with that? And is there a solution that does not involve an expensive USB audio product? My Macbook Pro is attached to a stereo system, which has worked just fine and dandy...until I plugged in a DVI cable and suddenly the audio was almost overwhelmed by static and "machine noise" (e.g., there are changes in the sound when I press keys or scroll windows). I usually associate this with poor shielding on cheap sound cards...what's up with my Macbook?

More importantly, is there anything I can do to fix this? I'd really like to be able to use an external monitor. One solution is some sort of external USB-connected audio device, but I'm not entirely sure what my options are...the only things I've found are (a) headphones, when what I really want is 1/8" stereo out, or (b) audio input devices like the M-Audio FastTrack (which also support audio out). I don't want just headphones, and I don't need anything as fancy as the USB connected devices I've found.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Not Getting Famous on YouTube

tmcw — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:24:55 -0800

I have a song I composed / recorded / etc. I'd like to make simple video by cutting together fragments of public-domain films with this song. I have a MacBook. How to get to point B? iMovie is crashing on every import. iMovie seems to crash every time I open the "Import Movie" dialog. Not a sign of quality software.

I don't want to spend much/any money on this. I've tried writing a quick app in Processing.org to do this, but the movies I'm working with are 100-200MB mpg files, and that fills up Java's heap very, very quickly - I can't imagine throwing FFT analysis on top of that.

Are there are any open-source or cheap applications that allow fairly basic video editing capabilities like this? Anything possibly designed for VJs or very nonlinear editing like this will be? I'm a little miffed that there hasn't been an obvious, slick answer to this like there has been for 99% of my mac artsy-software needs.

Thanks for any help!

How to shorten an MP3 without clipping the ends?

howling fantods — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 07:30:48 -0800

I have an mp3 I'd like to use as a ring tone, but it's 2 seconds too long. I don't want to cut off the beginning or end, but is there some other way to shorten it to 30 seconds? What software (OS X please) can do this? I realize some options might make it sound slightly off, but it's a ring tone so I shouldn't be too bothered by it.

Can anyone recommend a software oscilloscope solution for OSX?

Magnakai — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 12:00:14 -0800

Is there a reasonable software-based oscilloscope for the Mac? I need to record a video of approximately 20 seconds. I have a 20 second or so AIFF. I need to stick on a software oscilloscope, and record a video of the output. The oscilloscope needs to be perfectly synced to the audio, and it would be preferable if you could adjust how "zoomed in" it is.

I'm thinking something similar to the Windows Media Player visualization Scope option.

I've tried PixelToy but it's too pixellated for my liking.

Can anyone also suggest a way of recording it to video? Obviously anything that can directly output a video would be good, but if not, can anyone recommend the very best screen recorder?

Many thanks in advance!

My ears! My ears!

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:20:59 -0800

Some sound design questions to follow up on this golden moldy oldie... Red Book standard CDs seem to offer an output range of 20 to 20000 Hz.

• Can I publish a CD which can output mono frequencies between 20 kHz to 48 kHz through common CD players?
• Would I have to use SACD? In general, what would I use (hw/sw) to author an SACD?
• Are standard consumer speakers incapable of playing back > 20 kHz, or is it just that speakers aren't tested any higher for obvious reasons? (If I distributed a CD/SACD with said high frequencies, would consistent playback be impossible?)
• If no, would audiophiles have speakers capable of said playback range?
• If I used Max/MSP to generate pure tones, is my only frequency output limitation the audio adapter?
• If I recorded those (inaudible) pure tones to a sound file, what file formats could I use for storage?
• Are there caveats about the cycle~ MSP object with respect to generating tones > 20 kHz?
• If I wrote a Max/MSP Runtime program to generate tones, what sound adapter/speaker combination could I use for testing which would work with both Windows XP and Mac OS X, which would reliably output 20 - 48000 Hz?

Sorry if some or all of these are dumb questions. Thanks for your help!

Help Me Stop Watching My iPod With My Glasses Off, Please

interrobang — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:04:04 -0800

Audio and video are out of sync on mp4s downloaded from Google Video about 80% of the time. Is there anything simple that I can do about this? OSX, by the way, and it's mostly for watching on my iPod.

How can I make iTunes play louder?

odinsdream — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 19:05:58 -0800

How can I increase iTunes volume beyond the current maximum on my Powerbook G4? I don't understand volume on my Mac. I've visited websites where flash videos are annoyingly, surprisingly loud. So, I know the system is capable of playing loud noises.

However, if I set iTunes to maximum volume, and set the system volume to the maximum, the actual loudness of the speakers isn't near what I've heard from flash videos.

How can I get iTunes to play louder?

Airtunes-like function on the cheap?

nowonmai — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 08:53:57 -0800

How can I make my music play on two Macs simultaneously? I work in a lab where sometimes I'm close to the iMac, and sometimes I'm at my desk near my MacBook Pro. I'd like the same music to be coming from each one so I can have an uninterrupted listening experience. All the music is on the MacBook Pro, and the computers are on the same LAN.
My current method is to use iTunes sharing on the iMac to select the same album as is playing on the MacBook Pro, and attempt to synchronise by pressing 'play' at the right time. This obviously has to be repeated every time I put on a new album or skip a song, and shuffle play is out of the question.
Is there a better way to do this, so that whatever is on iTunes on the Macbook will play on the iMac? Is there software that would make the iMac emulate an Airport Express?
Adding new hardware to the setup is not an option; I would prefer not to spend money on software; a couple of seconds of "buffering lag" might be acceptable.

How do I burn copies of an audio CD with a .cue file on OS 10.4.8 using either Burn or Firestarter?

jack_mo — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 14:26:46 -0800

How do I burn copies of an audio CD with a .cue file on OS 10.4.8 using either Burn or Firestarter? I've downloaded a losslessly compressed copy of a music CD, and decoded the .flac files to .wav.

Now I want to burn an audio CD using the supplied .cue file. I've got Burn and FireStarter, the only two free applications I could find that seem to support doing this, but neither have any documentation that I could find.

I've tried everything I can think of - my best guess seemed to be using Firestarter to turn my folder of .wav files into a .bin image, then trying to burn a CD using that .bin and the .cue supplied, but it doesn't work, it just says 'error: illegal'. Burn is more cryptic still - it just fails silently if I give it the .cue file.

Does anyone have any idea how to do this? Am I misunderstanding what a .cue file is for?

Spoken-Word-Audio-Filter: What is the best way to get audio from tapes to my Powerbook?

plemeljr — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 11:23:40 -0800

Spoken-Word-Audio-Filter: What is the best way to get audio from tapes to my Powerbook? Here's the deal: I'm using a Marantx PMD222 cassette analog recorder to field record interviews (and sometimes sounds) of New Yorker's for a project of mine. I want to use the original tapes as masters, but then convert them to a .wav file in order to create a digital master. I can then downsample it to whatever I need. The intended output is primarily through the web, but with a view toward compiling a CD for distribution.

The PMD222 has a RCA jack out (mono) so I figured I could use the Edirol UA-1EX connected to my PowerBook as the input. I'm not looking for 100% studio sound, nor could I afford it - I would be willing to spend about $200.

Are there any other ways I could convert the analog to digital using my powerbook? Is the Edirol UA-1EX a good product? Are there any other proiducts out there which would be better?

Thanks!

Normalize audio within imovie

Tlogmer — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 01:08:39 -0800

Is there any way to normalize audio within iMovie? A plugin or something? As it is, I have to export to garageband, and then manually double up the sound track and adjust the volume 'til the levels scrape the top.

Are there any OSX burning programs that let you edit the tracks on the fly?

Envoy — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 15:50:21 -0800

Are there any programs out there for OSX that allow you to burn a standard audio disk from MP3 Files that also allow you to, within the program itself, do simple editing of the CD tracks? In other words, I don't want to edit the mp3 files, but I'd like to be able to do things like clip the start and end of the tracks a bit to cut out extra noise and/or adjust the timing of the transitions. Nero for the PC let me do this, but I haven't been able to find a single program for the Mac that lets me do the same thing.

Flash Audio on OSX

interrobang — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 07:10:29 -0800

I installed OS 10.4.7 the other day, and now Flash files are soundless—on all of my browsers. I tried installing the latest version of Flash, but that didn't seem to do anything. Flash videos (such as things posted to YouTube) will play just fine, but they don't have sound. This is on Camino, Opera, and Safari. What gives?

I don't have any Flashblock extensions for any of these three browsers. I looked through the system preferences, and searched through AskMe, but I can't find anything. Please help!

Why is optical digital audio locked at full on a Mac?

bruceyeah — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 04:37:42 -0800

What prevents the volume control working on a Mac when the optical digital audio output is being used? I've just bought an Intel Mac Mini... ostensibly for use as a media centre, but am annoyed to discover that when I have a optical digital audio cable plugged in, the system volume control doesn't work at all (it's locked at full volume all the time).

Is there a technological limitation with optical digital audio that prevents volume adjustment? (I have a cheapish digital TV tuner box that suffers from a similar problem)

If so, is there any possibility that this problem might be fixed in the future... either by Apple or a third party hack? it's an annoying down-side to an otherwise great media centre machine.

Broken Audio in Flash Movies

nathancaswell — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 14:33:51 -0800

Help me un-break Flash movie browser audio under OSX. OSX 10.4.5. Latest Safari and Firefox. MOVs play audio, WMVs play audio, AVIs play audio. Every other program I have plays audio. Open a flash movie in either Safari or Firefox - no audio. This really sucks because 99% of internet videos nowadays seem to be on youtube or google video.

Already tried uninstalling/reinstalling Flash Player, to no effect.

It's a fairly new system so I'm not sure if it ever has worked. I think it did. I don't know what I did to mess it up that uninstalling and reinstalling wouldn't fix.

Switching Audio Outputs in OSX

rossination — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 01:01:26 -0800

Is there a way to quickly switch between audio outputs in OS X? I have speakers set up through a Griffin iMic, and I also have headphones that I plug into my iBook's headphone jack. Sometimes I like to be able to quickly switch from one to another. Currently I have to go to the sound preference pane choose from my options there. Obviously this isn't an enormous pain in the ass, but it would be nice if I could map it to a keystroke or something. I have Quicksilver and have fiddled with it a little, but if there is a way to make it do what I want, I can't figure it out.

Looking for good, software only, audio editing program for OSX.

nathancaswell — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 08:50:57 -0800

Looking for good, software only, audio editing program for OSX. I'm a video editor sick of faking stuff in Final Cut. Looking for something similar to Cool Edit Pro / Audition on the PC, but for OSX. I need to be able to manipulate sound as well as mix. No hardware solutions please, but I don't want something really dumbed down either. I'm technically inclined, so I'm pretty sure I can learn whatever the best program out there is. Any suggestions?

Better sound device management on OSX?

pzarquon — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 11:02:03 -0800

Is there a widget or other worthwhile utility out there that can give me slightly easier, and better, control of the "Sound" settings on my Mac? Right now I have "System Settings" in my dashboard, and I click that and then to the "Sound" window. Which isn't bad, but... getting to the same point on my PC at work requires only double-clicking the cheesy speaker icon in the taskbar (well, okay, I also have to to go "Properties...").

On my iMac G5, I use Skype with a USB headset with a microphone (input and output device), GarageBand with an iMic USB adapter from Griffin (input device, sometimes output as well if I plug in a headset to the iMic), iSight for chatting (built-in mic audio in), iTunes for music (built-in audio out)... and may even periodically plug something into the 1/8" line-in jack on the back.

Suffice it to say, switching between these applications is complicated a bit more by having to also go to the "Sound" page of "System Settings" to change input and output device settings. Basically, I'd be happy with some way to get straight there from my desktop.

Of course, never satisifed with a simple solution, I'm also curious if there's a utility that can "remember" or automatically adjust my sound device settings depending on what application is launched and/or what hardware I just plugged in. For example, GarageBand will always cause the system to cutover to "iMic USB Audio In," or plugging in my cheap Logitech USB headset with mic would prompt the system to switch to it for both input and output.

I imagine this is not a particularly vexing problem, but if there's anything Mac folks do well, it's coming up with elegant ways to solve problems, even some you didn't know you have!

External audio for Powerbook?

suitcase — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 13:37:25 -0800

I currently use the standard 3.5mm jacks on my Powerbook and would like to upgrade to a nicer set of inputs and outputs. I figure the only way to do this would be a USB or Firewire breakout box that provides a set of higher quality RCA or Coaxial inputs and outputs. Creative brand external soundcards might fit the bill, but these are not compatible with OSX. Is what I am looking for necessarily an external soundcard or are there breakout boxes that appear to the system as just another set of input/outputs? Thanks!