Show HN: We made a fast audio editor for podcasting • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: We made a fast audio editor for podcasting

#41

Post by AlbertCory » Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 7:09 PM UTC

mojuba wrote: post #35

AlbertCory wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a podcast [1] and edited it myself, at first with Garage Band and then with Audacity. I used Audacity's package of audio processing. After learning the hot keys, I got reasonably proficient with it. I'm not doing it anymore, but I'd be curious what suggestions you'd have. (I have no idea what "ducking / side chain" means.) [1] https://operationcode.org/podcast

Listened for a few minutes: I'd tweak the EQ so that voices sound more pleasant. In fact the remote voice (is it Zoom or something similar?) sounds awful to be honest, but that's the shortcoming of this type of recordings. So you need to apply a different EQ to the remote voice: reduce the highs and slightly boost the mids/lows, but it may end up being tricker than that. Ducking in general is an effect used a lot on…

Thanks. It was Skype, actually.

Re: Show HN: We made a fast audio editor for podcasting

#42

Post by marttt » Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 7:15 PM UTC

Are the sessions by any chance stored as plain text files? What's the session format like?

I used Non DAW [1] quite a bit to edit radio shows, and I loved its session format: each and every editing step is written in the file as a single-line entry. As a result, the sessions were really fun to parse and modify with awk scripts. The "unlimited undo" feature was also just consecutive lines in the session file. Most importantly, I could write a stupid converter in awk to turn the .non files into Vegas EDL files (a plain text format). From there, I could use the fascinating AATranslator [2] to convert my sessions into Avid Pro Tools files, which my editing studio was using and insisted. Saved me a ton of trouble: no need to edit my show in WinXP, Pro Tools 7 (!) and its hopeless fan noise even during simple, almost idle-like editing tasks. I wonder if later Pro Tools versions are any better in terms of resource overconsumption; I always found that almost ridiculous.

As a frugal systems geek and a dreamer, I've been conceptualizing a text-based non-destructive audio editing suite written in awk. No GUI, just operating with text files and terminal, along the lines of Mixer4 (really cool conception, unfortunately closed source) [3], Ecasound [4] and SPED (I think this was just an academic conception, though) [5].

This is still just a dream, though. Non-destructive audio editing with basic Unix tools in an as-simple-as-possible ed-like interface.

1: https://non.tuxfamily.org

2: https://www.aatranslator.com.au/

3: http://www.acousticrefuge.com/mixer4.htm

4: https://ecasound.seul.org/ecasound/

5: https://tinyurl.com/y9s8mgme

Re: Show HN: We made a fast audio editor for podcasting

#43

Post by cianmm » Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 7:49 PM UTC

CharlesW wrote: post #34

cianmm wrote: post #33

Back when I was hosting and editing several weekly podcast I was in love with a now-defunct app [Ubercaster]( https://www.provideocoalition.com/uebercaster_the_most_compl... ). That thing was incredible, and I wish they were able to keep developing it. The only recording and editing suite that felt like it was designed and built by people who actually made reasonably complex podcasts regularly. I'm really interested…

What are you using now? Have you tried other podcast-focused editors like Descript, Hindenburg, or Reaper with Ultraschall?

I haven't done regular podcasting in a long time - I recently made a ~40 minute audio program for internal distribution at work and edited it in GarageBand. While it did a pretty decent job and resulted in something that sounded pretty professional, it definitely felt clunky editing and mixing four channels of microphone audio. Descript looks VERY cool!

Re: Show HN: We made a fast audio editor for podcasting

#44

Post by recursive » Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 8:39 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #32

AlbertCory wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a podcast [1] and edited it myself, at first with Garage Band and then with Audacity. I used Audacity's package of audio processing. After learning the hot keys, I got reasonably proficient with it. I'm not doing it anymore, but I'd be curious what suggestions you'd have. (I have no idea what "ducking / side chain" means.) [1] https://operationcode.org/podcast

Ducking is just reducing the channel volume dynamically. For example when someone isn't speaking. A Side Chain controls some effect on one channel based on the signal from a separate channel. Such as "ducking" background music when someone is talking.

Ducking specifically refers to lowering the volume of one track based on peak levels in another track. One track "ducks" under the other. It's related to a side chain input on a compressor.

Dynamically lowering a quiet signal is done by an "expander", or a "gate" if it's lowered to zero.

Re: Show HN: We made a fast audio editor for podcasting

#45

Post by ZoomZoomZoom » Tue, Jun 28, 2022, 9:17 PM UTC

DizzyDoo wrote: post #6

One feature that audio editing software really needs, if you're working with voice over or podcast audio, is a decent range of basic compression filters to apply. Whether it's just one person's voice or multiple people's, you need to shift the dynamic range of all the inputs into a sensible range, and with a sensible average loudness - just your basic management of levels. This is the first thing I look for, does tea…

To weigh in with an opposite opinion: if you make audio software, please, don't spend your time on reimplementing audio filters. It takes time and focus from things your program just has no way of doing with 3d party plugins. There's an over-abundance of audio processing plugins of various kinds and it's much easier just to support LV2 or VST (or, maybe, Clap, if you're optimistic about its future).

If you must bundle something, just add a JSFX interpreter and bundle a bunch of JSFX scripts. Your power users will thank you for it.

Re: Show HN: We made a fast audio editor for podcasting

#46

Post by xiaoxing » Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 3:57 AM UTC

mojuba wrote: post #12

Really appreciate the minimalism and simplicity (it's so rare in this industry!) and though obviously this app misses a lot of important sound editing features, I think it's a great start and the basis for something really cool. If I knew Rust I'd have offered myself as a contributor! Features that I think are critical for striking the minimalism/utility balance for podcast editing: - Enveloping per clip, i.e. fade i…

Thank you very much for the awesome feedback. The whole team is overjoyed. It gave us direction. The good news is that it pretty much matches our roadmap, and a lot of the features are already on the way. Again, we greatly appreciate your contribution.

Re: Show HN: We made a fast audio editor for podcasting

#47

Post by xiaoxing » Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 5:04 AM UTC

DizzyDoo wrote: post #6

One feature that audio editing software really needs, if you're working with voice over or podcast audio, is a decent range of basic compression filters to apply. Whether it's just one person's voice or multiple people's, you need to shift the dynamic range of all the inputs into a sensible range, and with a sensible average loudness - just your basic management of levels. This is the first thing I look for, does tea…

VST/AU plugin support is in our roadmap. So yeah, you bet that we will take advantage of the plugins ;-). In the meanwhile, you can use do further editing on top of Teapodo's output with other power tools.

Re: Show HN: We made a fast audio editor for podcasting

#48

Post by xiaoxing » Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 5:05 AM UTC

michelb wrote: post #10

DizzyDoo wrote: post #6

One feature that audio editing software really needs, if you're working with voice over or podcast audio, is a decent range of basic compression filters to apply. Whether it's just one person's voice or multiple people's, you need to shift the dynamic range of all the inputs into a sensible range, and with a sensible average loudness - just your basic management of levels. This is the first thing I look for, does tea…

To answer your question; no this app does not have any filters (yet?)

Correct. But it's in the roadmap.

Re: Show HN: We made a fast audio editor for podcasting

#49

Post by xiaoxing » Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 5:16 AM UTC

marttt wrote: post #42

Are the sessions by any chance stored as plain text files? What's the session format like? I used Non DAW [1] quite a bit to edit radio shows, and I loved its session format: each and every editing step is written in the file as a single-line entry. As a result, the sessions were really fun to parse and modify with awk scripts. The "unlimited undo" feature was also just consecutive lines in the session file. Most imp…

I resonate with you as an Emacs user myself. The team think about audio editing a lot. Comparing it with text editing (vim, emacs, etc.). It gets philosophical at times. It is pretty hard to get it right. But we are still figuring it out. Thanks for your invaluable input.

Teapodo's project file is in JSON format and it is non-destructive editing (meaning to the source audio file). We also support undo/redo within a session.

Re: Show HN: We made a fast audio editor for podcasting

#50

Post by xiaoxing » Wed, Jun 29, 2022, 5:20 AM UTC

wintermutestwin wrote: post #18

"Perfect for podcasting" to me means that it has a built in compressor (or at least VST support). So many podcasts are two people talking where one is louder than the other.

Loud and clear, thanks for your feedback! It's on our roadmap.