Do More with Audio - Blog Carnival February 7, 2011

Here are this edition's entries to Do More with Audio:

Florine Church presents 20 Incredible TED Talks for Both Music Students and Lovers posted at Bachelor's Degree.

Jennifer Lynch presents 20 Soulful Blogs for Vinyl Fans and Collectors posted at Top Online Colleges.

Bobby Owsinski presents Bobby Owsinski's Big Picture Production Blog: 5 Steps To Prep For Mixing posted at Bobby Owsinski's Big Picture Production Blog.

Jena Ellis presents 11 Greatest TV Theme Songs of All-Time posted at Online Certificate Programs.

Katie Tellefson presents 40 Blogs for the Cajun Enthusiast posted at Accredited MBA, saying, "With Cajun culture and history comes amazing music and even more amazing food. It isn’t every day that you get to nosh on gumbo or dance to the sounds of a fast-paced accordion, but with these Cajun enthusiast blogs, you’ll gain a better understanding of the culture and appreciate its quirks."

Steve Guttenberg presents Does lossless audio guarantee good sound? posted at The Audiophiliac.

Nathan Madsen presents Tips for Creating Audio for the iPhone posted at The Sonic Spread.

You might also be interested in:

• Put a DJ in the house
  
• Solving A Musicians Tuning Stress
  
• Streaming Audio Recorder Saves Time for Radio Producers
  
• MIDI Support Coming to NCH Software
  

That concludes this edition of "Do more with audio." Be sure to Submit your audio article, story or success to the next edition.

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Make your own Glee Music Mash-up

It 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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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 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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MixPad Multitrack audio recording and mixing software now available for Mac

MixPad multi-track audio mixing software is now available for Mac. MixPad has been the perfect complement to WavePad for Windows users for a long time, expanding audio editing capabilities to that of a full blown sound studio. We are really excited to offer this audio powerhouse pair to our Mac users as well.

MixPad has all the features professionals need for low latency multitrack recording and mixing for creating music mixes, radio advertisements, soundtracks, or remixes. You can load audio files, record clips directly, or drag and drop files from your desktop to the program where they will be added to the timeline for powerful audio mixing capabilities, including unlimited track mixing so you can handle over a hundred track simultaneously.

So whether you are on Mac or a PC, if you are serious about audio you should be sure to check out MixPad and WavePad for all you audio editing and mixing needs.

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