WavePad: New Look, New Tools, New Features

Change doesn't have to be scary; in this case it’s really exciting: WavePad has a new look. Now, instead of tiny icons and long and packed menus, WavePad uses a ribbon toolbar to organize functionality by category. It really is easier to use than ever before.

WavePad continually receives praise for its user-friendliness. The interface isn’t intimidating to the beginner, yet doesn’t bury the advanced features more experienced audiophiles use on a regular basis. Its feature set includes recording, editing, and effects such as amplify, normalize, reverb, echo, and reverse and is extended by DirectX effects and VST plugin support, and an included royalty-free sound effect library. The new ribbon toolbar organizes all these aspects of the program, improving an already easy-to-use workspace.

Here is the Effects toolbar. Look how the features pop out at you:



There’s more to this latest version of WavePad, including the following features and tools:

• Wah-wah effect, for emulating wah-wah guitar pedals
  
• Vibrato effect, for modulating the depth and frequency of an audio sample’s pitch
  
• Tremolo effect, for modulating the depth and frequency of an audio sample’s amplitude
  
• Doppler effect, for simulating the sound of a passing vehicle from a higher to a lower pitch
  
• Pitch speed profile tool, for changing the speed or pitch of select portions of an audio sample
  

WavePad version 5.0 is a major release, and we want you to experience it yourself. Download your copy of WavePad now.

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Hamish and Andy use WavePad to detect lies

As I was relaxing one evening last week I was surprised to see a familiar face on the TV - WavePad!

Australian comedy duo Hamish and Andy have taken their antics to New York where they are causing general mayhem. In an attempt to determine if Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, was inviting them to a BBQ or simply making polite exit conversation, the boys visit a body language expert to help uncover the truth. There on his Macbook was none other our very own WavePad Audio Editor (with the classic theme selected) being used to analyse Mrs Clinton's voice patterns.

The result? A fifty dollar bet that they will NOT be attending a BBQ any time soon.

Watch the full episode of Hamish and Andy's Gapyear (episode three), WavePad makes its appearance starting at approximately 21 minutes and 30 seconds.

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Record Your Own Audio Book

Books on tape have been around a long time, when I was younger we would sometimes get an audio book to listen to in the car on a long trip. Now that people carry mp3 players almost everywhere there is no reason to wait for a road trip to listen to a good book. And, like ebooks, there isn't the pressure to sell huge volumes that is inherent when publishing a printed book, so it is much easier to get into. In fact with just some audio recording software and a high quality microphone you can get started recording your first audio book.

Once you have decided to record an audio book you can start getting prepared. You want to be very familiar with the text. Read first and record second. You can do some editing of the audio after recording, but you want to keep that to a minimum and keep a flow to the prose. Being familiar with the text will help you keep a steady pace. Keep your pace in check, you don't want to zip through it fast so that the listener can really appreciate and hear everything you are reading. In addition to keeping that slow pace, be sure to add pauses after sentences and paragraphs, and beware being monotone. Try to breathe some life into your reading, no one will want to listen to you drone on in a flat voice. Another suggestion would be to consider printing out a hard copy of the book. Unbound, single-sided pages will make page turning easy.

Once you are prepared you just need to schedule yourself a chunk of quiet time to sit down and start recording. You can estimate the total amount of time you will need by timing how long it takes you to read through a single page and multiply by the number of pages. For a longer book you might want to break it out into more than one sitting. A good choice for audio recording is WavePad Sound Editor. By recording directly into an audio editor like WavePad you can easily go in to the recorded audio file when you are done recording to cut out any places you might have stumbled or make any other adjustment that might be needed like amplifying or equalizing the audio file or eliminating any background noise that might have crept in. And if you recorded in more than one session you can merge the files together before publishing your final mp3 file and sharing it with the world.

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New: iPad Pocket WavePad HD Audio Editing App

One more way to easily record and edit music, voice, and other audio on the go.

We are excited to announce the new iPad version of the NCH Software favorite, WavePad Audio Editor is now available for download from the Apple iTunes App Store. The iPhone Pocket WavePad App was released in October 2010, and since then we have had a lot of positive feedback on the free audio editing app. The release of the iPhone app prompted requests for an iPad version to make use of the larger screen, and to make precise audio selection and editing easier for iPad users—a request we are happy to now fulfill.

The iPad Pocket WavePad HD Audio Editor provides a remarkably easy way to record and edit audio, voice and other sound recordings while on the go. Normalize audio levels, apply audio effects, and reduce background noise. Recordings can be sent by email, ftp upload, or iTunes file sharing from Pocket WavePad for you to share, use, or even broadcast later.

Pocket WavePad the ideal solution for professionals such as journalists, scientists, and other audio enthusiasts on the go. It also makes significant strides in mobile audio editing, as WavePad user and audio aficionado Andrew Wardell said, "The very tactile method of manipulating audio in this app, combined with the amount and quality of features NCH has packed in has made iOS a serious competitor in the mobile audio editing space."

Users of Pocket WavePad should also try more of the NCH Software Audio Essentials Suite, as well the other NCH Software iPhone apps.

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The WavePad Audio Editing iPhone App

Every month our flagship product Wavepad Audio Editor has more than 400,000 downloads. That number continues to climb, adding to the millions of WavePad users worldwide already using our award-wining sound editing software on their PC, Mac or Pocket PC. And now our popular audio editing application is available for iPhone and iPod Touch as well.

Just like the desktop versions, the Pocket WavePad Audio Editing Software iPhone App provides an easy way to record and edit audio, voice and other sound recordings with all of the essential audio effects and sound editing tools you’ve come to expect. We think you’ll agree that Pocket WavePad is the ideal solution for professionals working away from a computer, from journalists and scientists to any other audio enthusiasts on the go.

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There’s an iPhone App for that – Coming soon...

It’s been over a year since the release of Apple’s App store for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and the success seems endless. To date, iPhone and iPod touch users have downloaded over 1.5 billion applications. But this wasn’t always the case. In fact, Apple originally said no to outside applications. Can you imagine?

Today there are over 100,000 apps in the store and we are literally getting to the point where there appears to be an app for everything.

Soon you can expect to see some NCH products available for the iPhone and iPod Touch as well. Express Dictate a digital voice recording application, is going to be the first one available and our developers are currently working on getting it ready and new testing plans as we enter the iPhone arena. So any day now iPhone users will be able to record and edit audio with nothing more than their phone using the NCH applications they've enjoyed in the past on their computers and pocket PC mobile devices.

NCH already offers a wide range of software for windows mobile and pocket pc and now with the growing iPhone market and the success of Apple’s App store, migrating some of these popular programs is a natural progression for NCH.

To try to get a sneak peak for what is on the way you might want to take a look at Pocket Dictate which was the springing board for the new iPhone Express Dictate that is on the way.

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By popular demand WavePad Sound Editor returns to classic colors

The newest release of the Professional Audio Editing Software, WavPad (v4.23) has returned to the classic green and black waveform color scheme for better contrast easier audio editing.

Many loyal users of the NCH Software Audio Suite voiced their opinions about the change in the color scheme in the NCH Forums when the change was made and the number of requests to return the waveforms to the display colors of earlier versions was overwhelming. So with this release we are happy to listen to our users and return to the classic green black combination.

In addition to many program improvements including an improved reverb effect with a pre-delay setting and slider-activated preview, middle click functionality to drag the waveform, copy and paste by dragging selections with the mouse, the ability to create new files by dragging selections to the WavePad background, As well as a new viewing window that shows the current viewing area from the main view.

Download the improved sound editing software from http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/index.html

And visit the NCH Support Forums to discuss WavePad and other NCH products with other users at: http://nch.invisionzone.com

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Beware WavePad Imitators

Recently we have seen several would-be WavePad applications enter the audio editing market. While copying is a form of flattery so we are grateful for the compliment, keep in mind that not all sound editing programs are created equal.

After taking a close look at one of these digital audio editors and testing it against WavePad, we found a whole list of WavePad features that are unmatched.

• Sample Editing
  
• Better Noise Reduction
  
• VST Support
  
• Can open an entire folder of files
  
• Can display waveform in +/-, left right, or dual
  
• Temporal frequency analysis
  
• DC Offset correction
  
• Effect Chain
  
• Simultaneous speed & pitch change
  
• Distortion effect
  
• Reduce Vocals effect
  
• Automatic Gain Control
  
• Scrub Feature
  
• Assemble Regions feature
  

In all of these areas WavePad beat the competition in addition to the WavePad download being 8 times smaller.So when you're looking for the best audio editing software, don't be fooled by lookalikes. Visit http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/index.html for more product information and the free download of WavePad, the powerhouse in audio editing software.

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