[NA] Need Suggestions for Basic Sound Editing software

AggieMike88

AggieMike88

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The original "I don't know it all" of aviation.
I need to get some Auto Attendant calls recorded. The basic "Thanks for calling our business. Press 1 to speak to the sales department, 2 to our shipping department, 3 to pull Bryan's red handle"

Recording them on some of the various apps or hand held voice dictaphone voice recorder is easy enough. But I need a suggestion on something that can help me piece together the best bits and bobs, and then output into a specific format. For it to work in the phone system, it needs to
  1. be a .wav file,
  2. mono,
  3. 8000 hertz, and
  4. 8 or 16 bit rate.

If the software allows multi-tracks where I can create a voice over music track, even better.
 
Call CNN and ask them what they use. They edit audio clips every day to make people sound like they said whatever they want them to say


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Audacity will do a nice job. Just make sure you download it from the right place. http://www.audacityteam.org

Some of the download sites for "freeware" are loaded with malware.
 
I've also used Audacity for years. Never had any issues with it, though I seem to recall it taking a few minutes to understand the interface (it's not hard, it just wasn't immediately intuitive to someone who'd never used audio editing software before). Now I mostly use it to remove long stretches of silence from LiveATC recordings.
 
AggieMike88 said:
Malware free? There's lots of these apps/wares out there... but some of the sources and download mirrors I don't trust
Click to expand...

Yes, it's clean if you download it from http://www.audacityteam.org/download/ . I wouldn't download it from any third-party download site. Even most of the formerly reputable ones have gone downhill. :(

Rich
 
Audacity... Or an old torrented copy of cool edit pro... Just change your name to "Peter Quistgard"

/former radio DJ
//Google Peter Quistgard


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
AggieMike88 said:
Malware free? There's lots of these apps/wares out there... but some of the sources and download mirrors I don't trust
Click to expand...

It's FOSS, so you could always get the source code and compile it yourself :)
 
I will be the one lone voice of dissent and say Adobe Audition.

I think Audition is a better product than Audacity, and worth the trouble if you already have a Creative Cloud license.

Overall, Audition:

* Has better multi-track editing than Audacity.
* crashes less frequently.
* has a more accurate and "crisp" Spectral Frequency display. In Audition I can sufficiently visualize which segments of the music are where, and use spectral for navigating. In Audacity, I can really only use spectral to determine boundaries for cuts.
* can open every conceivable audio or video file format that I throw at it. With Audacity you have to convert a lot of things first.
* is a bit more intuitive to use - especially scrolling / panning / navigation. Mouse navigation in Audacity is especially bad and asymmetrical. In Audition if you mouse-wheel pan or zoom 5 notches up and then 5 notches down, you're back where you started. In Audacity you're more often than not somewhere completely different and you have to find your place again.

On the other hand, Audacity supports VAMP plugins - Audition doesn't. So I end up still using Audacity to get to some esoteric 3rd party vamp plugins like the Queen Mary "Bar and Beat Tracker".
 
Deonb is spot on...

But the thing is...Audacity will edit answering machine voie prompt files just fine.
 
Mike, I also recommend audacity. I used it to edit many of the announcements and interviews I did at Sun N Fun for Sun N Fun radio, as well as a couple of interviews that we later played on the Stuck Mic Av Cast. It works just fine for what you want. Admittedly, there's going to be a learning curve for anyone without at least a little audio editing experience, but that's true for any product.

If you need any help, let me know.

(If you need someone to provide the voice as well, that's also something I have some experience in.)
 
RussR said:
(If you need someone to provide the voice as well, that's also something I have some experience in.)
Click to expand...

Might take you up on that.... I've been making notes on various scripts I want to do and having different voices do the different scripts helps break up the monotony of navigating the Auto Attendant and waiting in the call queue.

One of the ideas for the call queue wait was to have a funny "Call Queue Traffic Report" where it sounds like someone is in a helicopter reporting on the agent extensions, the wait time, an accident on extension 906, and "WHOA! the lady caller in the technical support queue just lifted up her shirt and flashed us!! Of all the days to take off and not have our Mardi Gras beads."

Another was, "[wolf whistle sound effect] Denton Truck and Auto Parts would like to complement all the blonde ladies holding in the queue for how nice they look today. If you were wondering how we knew how good you're looking, well, we can see ya through the camera on your smartphone. Blow us a kiss and we'll be right with you in just a moment."
 
@AggieMike88 since this is for your phone system, I'll mention that I was going to make all the files for ours the "hard way" with a studio quality mic and edited with Audacity (100th vote for that? - oh and you're not doing anything even remotely in need of Adobe's product...) and then realized the phone system itself could record the files via the IVR directly, and all of the phones internally to the server or each other are using an HD CODEC and sound great.

Told the phone system "dial my extension" with the GUI and recorded all the files that way.

You should see if similar functionally is available on your new toy.

Unfortunately I made all the files just to get the system up and running and as soon as the girl who usually made the audio files found out I made "test files" she refused to record new ones.

So since last October I've been the "official voice" of our six or so companies in the building.

I'm amazed they don't want someone else's voice on there.
 
PC, audacity isn't bad. Mac, just use Garage Band. You probably already have it.

I use a virtual system (RIngCentral) and I just record the thing over the phone. It sounds better on play back than trying to use the computer microphone for whatever reason. I may take one or two takes to get the outgoing message right on longer things (like the announcement of this Friday's fly in, the airport manager's published number rings my system) but I've never had to "edit" anything.
 
I appreciate the idea of using the handset as the microphone. And for the initial voice mail box setups I had to do today, clarity was really good.

But I have ideas of visiting a few friends in the area and get them help with some of the scripts. This way it's not just me all the time. I'm shopping some of the Olympus digital voice recorders so I can be a bit mobile as I find willing victims volunteers to help.

--------------------------------------

I'll also solicit for script ideas. Primarily for the on hold message items that promote my products and services. If it's a humorous one, please keep it PG-13 and funny.
 
AggieMike88 said:
I appreciate the idea of using the handset as the microphone. And for the initial voice mail box setups I had to do today, clarity was really good.

But I have ideas of visiting a few friends in the area and get them help with some of the scripts. This way it's not just me all the time. I'm shopping some of the Olympus digital voice recorders so I can be a bit mobile as I find willing victims volunteers to help.

--------------------------------------

I'll also solicit for script ideas. Primarily for the on hold message items that promote my products and services. If it's a humorous one, please keep it PG-13 and funny.
Click to expand...

The iPhone 6 is a remarkably good digital audio recorder if you just need portable recording. The voice memo app works well if you place the phone a couple of feet in front of you and use good projection (like your addressing a medium size room of people). I've used it sitting on a music stand in front of me to get a pretty good recording of songs I'm singing.

John
 
Honestly, if you have a Mac, Garageband would probably work just fine...and it's free! Easy to use and it allows you to fine tune sound clips and record over music.
 
Sadly, no mac.... Though I prefer them, early versions of my recycling yard software required DOS then Windows.
 
The best part about tools like Audacity, when you can find a quality open source, cross-platform tool that isn't a total piece of garbage, but actually rivals most of its competitors... You know the user interface and that you can get a copy of it at any time, stick it on any machine nearby (no matter the OS) and GET STUFF DONE. (Can even stick copies on a USB stick and run them there...)

That's just absolutely priceless in the sea of options that are too dumb to offer cross-platform versions of their tools or require you to go hunting in your gigs of stored emails for the stupid license key so you can slap your perfectly legal and paid for copy of something on someone else's machine, or whatever is handy, to get some real work done.

If there's a solid (even if not perfect) cross-platform tool out there that is in the top-tier of whatever market space it covers, and especially if it either a) is open source and freely licensed, or b) doesn't annoy the hell out of me with some inane licensing scheme and hoops to jump through to either install it, or fix it so it turns on its full feature-set...

... I'll use that tool over all of the others.

I only put up with non-cross-platform and license key silliness from products that are so much better at over 80% of what they do, that they're worth those annoyances.

Audacity is one of those that fits the bill as "does it better than most, not as good as some, and doesn't waste my time looking for the right OS or messing with a licensing scheme".

Life's too short to waste on proprietary software stupidity.
 
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