Showing posts with label sound editing software. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sound editing software. Show all posts

Monday

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:

WavePad Audio Editor 5.0 New Look, Tools and Features

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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Thursday

Record Your Own Audio Book

Record an audio book with sound recording softwareBooks 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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Monday

Give Your Music a Boost: The WavePad Equalizer

I have noticed a lot of questions on our YouTube channel about enhancing the bass in a song using WavePad audio editor. How is it done? Since the graphical interface of WavePad's equalizer was recently updated, now is the perfect time to review how to use it.

The first thing you want to do is load your music into WavePad. Do this by clicking the Open File icon on the toolbar, browse to your music file, and click Open.

Next, click the Effects menu and select Equalizer. This will open the Equalizer dialog, which might not be what you expect if you were looking for knobs and dials. This equalizer still weakens and strengthens frequencies like knobs on a mixing board, but represents the frequencies in graph form. The graph works logically enough; the low frequencies are represented on the left of the graph, the high frequencies on the right. If there is a point on the graph line that is higher, that frequency will be stonger. If the graph point is lower, the frequency will be weaker.

The easiest way familiarize yourself with this equalizer is to make use of the presets. Don't be afraid to play around with them and to adjust their settings to see how they affect your music--you don't have to commit to any changes until you click Apply.

Let's boost the bass as an example. Click the Play button and then select the Low Pass filter from the list of presets. You'll hear the higher frequencies drop down, giving a boosted effect to the bass. The result probably isn't exactly the sound you imagined, so you can make adjustments based on this starting place to even out the sound how you want. You can do this using the Low Pass Options dialog that opened when you selected this preset, but you'll have more control if you close the dialog and move around the graph points yourself. You can also add graph points by clicking on the graph's line.

For more information about how to use the different equalizer presets, view the Effects topic in the help manual. For more information about frequencies, view the General Audio Concepts topic, also in the help manual. The help manual is accessed by pressing F1 from the program.

To try WavePad and boost your bass, download the program from our website. You'll also want to see the other audio software we have for maximizing your audio production.
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The Sound of Learning: Using WavePad in the Classroom

WavePad Audio Editor in the classroomWe recently cited some tutorials made by a WavePad audio editor user who uses music in language lessons. Now here is another example of WavePad helping in the classroom. This time, in her post The Two Faces of Technology, Kathy talks about using the iPad version of WavePad to record and playback a student's reading to help the student see and hear where they are making mistakes to help them improve their reading skills.

Reading her post actually reminded me of being forced to make audio recordings of oral exams in high school for my Spanish classes. I always found these assignments rather stressful, but I have to admit that it did force me to listen to what I was saying much more closely, and I would go back myself and listen to what I had said and rerecord multiple times before I was happy enough with the final result to turn it in. Kathy mentions that she thinks this would also "be great for teaching storytelling." Can you think of any other places where audio recording or audio editing might be beneficial in the classroom?

WavePad has several applications in the classroom, aside from its recording capability. We have found that instructors and professionals alike use it to create sound clips and soundtracks for their presentations. See how WavePad enhances your teaching, interviewing, and presentations, and download it today.
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Thursday

Music Editing for Language Lessons

music editing softwareWe recently found a series of videos made by a WavePad user as a guide for people just getting started with audio editing, and for using sound editing software to support use of music in language lessons. While many of the basics are covered in our WavePad video tutorials as well, if there is one thing I have learned, it is that sometimes hearing the same thing in a slightly different way can really help you pick it up. If you are looking for another source to help you ease into audio editing, you should check out this series of 7 videos covering some WavePad audio editing basics:
  1. Select and cut
  2. Splitting and trimming
  3. Saving files in different sound formats
  4. Changing audio track speed
  5. Changing audio track pitch
  6. Using slower speeds and looping to teach sections of a song
  7. Copying edited clips to a new file
So whether you are teaching or learning songs in another language, or you have any other audio projects, be sure that you have WavePad Audio Editor on hand. You never know when it might come in handy.
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Friday

New: iPad Pocket WavePad HD Audio Editing App

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

Pocket WavePad iPhone app and iPad appWe 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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Wednesday

Boost Audio Quality for Radio and Podcast Production

From radio to podcasting, having high quality audio matters. So if you are recording and producing audio content, NCH Software's top audio software duo Wavepad audio editor and Mixpad multitrack recorder and mixer will provide you with the audio tools you need to produce high quality audio to your listeners. Just ask the people behind The Yes Hour Radio Show, a growing radio program that will be increasing their broadcasts in January. As they grow they have been committed to providing the highest quality audio to their listeners, so one of the recent changes they've made was changing their audio editing software and coming to NCH:

"The first thing we've done, which you might have noticed, is to change our editing software. We initially started by using magic studio, which served its purpose for a small production, but as things grew, that is, as we began to develop our content for The Yes Hour and invited guests on the show we decided to try another program called Mixpad and it's editing component Wavepad... These two NCH Software applications have enabled us to do so much, including recording on a multi-track bed, editing telephone interviews, importing new music from local and existing artists."

Serious Voice of New York, The Yes Hour Radio Show

If you are producing your own radio show, or any other audio project, we hope you too will check out the full range of audio software and software for radio stations we provide to help make you sound your best.
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The WavePad Audio Editing iPhone App

Pocket WavePad Audio Editing Software iPhone AppEvery 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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Thursday

WavePad the Movie

Here is a quick look at the always popular WavePad audio editor



WavePad is an established leader in professional audio editing software. Its diverse editing, effects, and toolset make it well suited for a wide scope of audio projects. And for those of you new to the wonderful world of audio editing you can find three WavePad video tutorials to help you learn the ropes and get started using this NCH classic.
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Wednesday

Another Impressive Review for WavePad

WavePad Silver Audio Editing Software AwardTopTenReviews recently updated its top ten list for best audio editing software. We were pleased to see WavePad Master's Edition move up in the rankings from last year, winning a Silver award for 2010's best audio editing software. Here are some of our favorite quotes from the review:

"Whether you are a musician looking to refine and improve tracks, a journalist looking to trim or extract vocal clips or looking to add voice narration to a multimedia presentation, [WavePad] offers a unique range, making it accessible to users with audio editing software needs not related to music production."

"The great thing about this software is it has it all. You can download, edit and burn through one program. Not many other software packages that we tested had these capabilities, not to mention the quality that NCH Software has implemented."

"WavePad strikes an incredible balance between high-end and low-end, advanced and beginner level audio and sound editing software programs, giving users of various professions, skill-sets and program needs an incredible range with which to work. Best of all, it does so without over-simplifying its interface or limiting users to only a handful of tools."

The review correctly points out that whether you are an experienced audiophile, use audio editing in non-music related professions, or are just getting started in audio production, WavePad has something for everyone. You can read the entire review, and make sure you take advantage of WavePad's free trial to see how well it can work for you.
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Friday

Top Mac Audio Editing Software

WavePad Gold TopTenReviews AwardWe are thrilled to add another plaque to WavePad's list of achievements with the recent Gold Award from TopTenReviews, putting Wavepad Audio Editing Software in the number one spot for audio editing on a Mac. The verdict from the reviewers was that "with an easy learning curve and ample tools, NCH’s WavePad makes for a great beginner’s Mac audio editing program." But that is not to say that WavePad is just for the beginner. WavePad also packs a punch with powerful editing tools for the more experienced audio engineer:

"[WavePad] has a lot to offer to the amateur audio editor, while still providing enough tools to make it a useful program for more seasoned audio editors. Therefore, considering the wide range of editing and recording tools, which are a snap to use, it is easy to declare this the best program available in the Mac audio editing software lineup."

TopTenReviews


You can read the complete review of WavePad Mac Audio Editing Software on the TopTenReviews website. Or even better yet, download WavePad and try it out for yourself and see firsthand how both powerful and intuitive WavePad is and how it can help you improve all your audio editing projects.
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Tuesday

Make your own Glee Music Mash-up

Make your own Glee Music Mash-up with MixPad Multitrack Audio Mixing SoftwareIt isn't very often that I get caught up in popular mainstream televisions shows, but I have to admit that I have been completely hooked by Glee. I have really enjoyed watching this weekly musical. Waiting for the next season is going to leave a gap in my weekly entertainment that I can only hope the reruns will satisfy, but with no new episodes, maybe I will take a little time and attempt to put together my own music mash-up and mix two songs together with MixPad audio mixing software. I'm under no delusions that it will be as easy to make one seamless song out of two as they make it appear on the TV show--but with a whole summer of waiting for season two ahead, I think it might be a fun project for when the storm clouds come out. Even if the rainy days are few and far between, there should be plenty of time to get the hang of mixing two songs together.

Here are a few tips to get you started after you have chosen the songs that you want to use in your mash-up:
  • It can be helpful to have the vocals separated from the instrumental music. Try searching for a cappella versions of your songs. If you can't find a cappella versions, try using WavePad to help you extract the voice, but note this can be a time consuming step to get it right.
  • Load all of your clips in MixPad. MixPad can import audio from a wide range of formats and even extract audio from video files, so you don't need to worry about converting your audio files first.
  • You may need to adjust the pitch of one of your two songs to get them into the same key.
  • Adjust the tempo of one of your songs to match the other for a common beat throughout your arrangement.
  • Use a drum sample of one of the songs to make a tempo grid marking the beat for your mix and help you place samples of your two songs.

If any of you have put together your own musical mash-ups I'd love to hear the tracks you have put together. And if you have any tips on mixing tracks together, please share what you have learned.
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Thursday

Comparing Audio Software: Recording, Editing and Mixing

Yesterday on BrightHub, Kristina Daguia posted an article comparing two of the cornerstone products of the NCH Audio Suite, WavePad and MixPad. It’s a great comparison to Audio Software make--both products are powerful audio tools that anyone serious about audio would be glad to have in their software library. Depending on the audio project, you might only need the audio editing capabilities of WavePad, the multi-channel recording and mixing control provided in MixPad, or the combined power of the two.

"Two of the best selling digital media recording and professional editing programs from NCH Software - WavePad and MixPad - established a name for themselves with their chart topping reviews and being best sellers from online marketing sites."

In addition to the flattering remarks about NCH Software and our audio software this article does a good job at looking at some of the differences between these two audio programs. Read all of Daguia's comments in the complete article, MixPad vs. WavePad: Comparing Audio Recording Software. And don't forget that all of our software including MixPad and the Master's version of WavePad all are available for a free 14-day trial to help you further explore the difference and find the solution that is best for your needs.
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Tuesday

A Movie Maker Solution for Windows 7

In a recent article on Shared Reviews, Alexsandralyn covers the lack of movie making software and video codecs that come with the Windows 7 OS. We were pleased to stumble across this article that not only has a lot of valuable information on codecs in her article Free Movie Maker Software for Windows 7 but also a very nice little review and summary of VideoPad video editor and WavePad audio editor for helping you to make movies and clean up the audio for your video soundtracks as an alternative.
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Saturday

Acclaim for WavePad Sound Editing Software

WavePad Audio Editing Software Bronze Award from Top Ten ReviewsWe are very grateful that the reviewers over at TopTenReviews recently took the time to review NCH's WavePad Sound Editor. Not only did they write a very good review of one of our favorite programs, but they awarded WavePad their Bronze Award in the Audio Editing Software category. When talking about WavePad the review states that, "WavePad’s greatest strength lies in its intuitive, user-friendly interface and overall simplicity." The reviews goes on to say:

"WavePad strikes an incredible balance between high-end and low-end, advanced and beginner level audio and sound editing software programs, giving users of various professions, skill-sets and program needs an incredible range with which to work. Best of all, it does so without over-simplifying its interface or limiting users to only a handful of tools."

TopTenReviews


You can read the complete review of WavePad Audio Editor on the TopTenReviews website, but the best way to really get a feel for the user-friendly intuitive interface is download WavePad and try it out for yourself. Besides, as much as we love getting positive reviews like these from places like TopTenReviews, the most important review is yours.
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Friday

New Sound Effect Library Added to WavePad

WavePad audio editing software is an NCH Software favorite, making us all the more excited to announce the addition of a sound effect library, and giving WavePad fans another reason to love this audio editor. Starting with the release of version 4.40, WavePad now includes access to an extensive sound effect library.

The new Sound Effect Library contains one thousand high quality wav fx files comprised of 800 SFX files and 200 music files. Audio enthusiasts can browse and preview all of the audio clips by opening the Sound Library window found under Tools from the WavePad main window.

The Sound Effect Library includes:
  • Alerts
  • Cartoon sound effects
  • Gunshots and Explosions
  • Human sound effects like screaming
  • Animals and Nature
  • Whoosh effects
  • and Many Many More
I encourage you to Download WavePad today and checkout this wonderful new sound effect library. During the free 14-day trial period you will be limited to downloading three of the sound effect files, but you can preview them all, and you will have unlimited access to the entire sound library after purchasing this popular and powerful sound editor.

We hope that you find having these sound effects on hand is useful while you are working on your audio editing projects, and we'd love to know what you think about this great new addition to WavePad and how you are using the new sound effects.
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Thursday

WavePad helps one ringtone artist turn his songs into greatest hits

Christopher Sherron is a member of the Phonezoo community who has taken some of his favorite songs and turned them into popular ringtones. He uses WavePad Audio Editing and Ringtone Software, which can take any piece of music and turn it into a ringtone.

Phonezoo is a leading site for personalized online and mobile entertainment. On Phonezoo, it’s all about ringtones and mobile entertainment, bringing user-created content and community to a mobile social media platform. So finding and sharing personalized online and mobile entertainment is easy.

With thousands of ringtones and other content uploaded to Phonezoo every day, it can be hard to compete. Christopher has found that using the audio editing tools in WavePad has helped him improve his ringtone creations and get an edge in this competitive community.

WavePad makes creating professional sounding ringtones easy. It comes with its own ultrafast CD ripper, supports a comprehensive list of file types, includes all the editing and effects tools needed, and can convert and save the finished product to the file type suitable for your phone (e.g. amr, mp3).

"I love the software and would recommend it to anyone," Sherron said. "Since I applied it to my ringtones over 300,000 visitors to the Phonezoo site have downloaded my material." It really does sound like he could start a business. Just read some of the comments from Sherron’s fans:

Justin Jacobs:   Hey Chris your amazing man you have the most awesome ringtones you rock man. i was hoping that if you can can you make a ringtone for my friend Toni Jo please i would greatly appreciate it and thank you in advance.

Kevin Lanning:   Hey Chris! You're ringtones are excellent! I was wondering if you could make a ringtone for me now. Saying something like, "Kevin loves Leah" or "Kevin hearts Leah." I would really really appreciate it if you could! Thanks a ton. Keep up the great work with the ringtones!

Ashleigh Waddell:   I ♥ you sooo much! and it would be so totally awsome if you could make a ringtone about ashley and justin bieber or somethin about justin bieber...pretty please!

Cyndi Beasley Hobbs:   came across your work on phonezoo. loved it! you have a wonderful sense of humor and loads of creativity. keep up the great work.

Sherron is busy expanding to the Myxer site and has started a fan page on Facebook. He says thanks to WavePad, he could make his ringtones popular all over the web.

You can check out some of Chris Sherron’s ringtones on his Phonezoo profile TheChrisTopProgram. Or, if you have a little more time on your hands and a creative idea, download your own copy of WavePad and try making your own custom ringtone.
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Tuesday

I'm Grateful For

Just came across a nice blog entry about NCH Software from a customer. A linguist who has set up a blog all about things that she is grateful for, and we were honored enough to make the cut recently. You can check out her entry at http://imgratefulforww.blogspot.com/2009/07/nch-software.html.

We do offer several products that are either completely free, or have free basic editions. We do this largely in the hopes that people will be encouraged to try our other products, or will like them so much that they will upgrade to the paid versions as well as recommend our software to others. We are grateful to see that there people out there that appreciate these products, and we hope you all continue to enjoy them.

Some of our free software includes:
WavePad Sound Editor
Switch Audio Converter Software
Prism Video Converter Software
VideoPad Video Editor
Express Talk Softphone
Axon Virtual PBX
Express Scribe Transcription Playback Software
And many more.

Check out our complete line of over 80 software applications at www.nchsoftware.com
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Wednesday

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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