jacksmind
asked on
Audio Flashcard software
I was wondering if they have software that allows you to record a bunch of questions and answer and combine these into an audio file you can listen to--something like an excel for audio.
I know I could take something like audacity and just pause and record over and over but there are a few problems with this:
1) What if I want to edit (rerecord) one of the questions in the middle of the file (or select a portion of my questions)
So you might say, "Just record separate files" Well that the other thing:
2) I don't want to do as little saving and editing as possible and saving 100 files is not really what I'm looking for.
I'm sure I have other requirements I can't think of at the moment. But like I said--excel for audio--that will allow me to have complete and easy control of many very small audio clips.
I know I could take something like audacity and just pause and record over and over but there are a few problems with this:
1) What if I want to edit (rerecord) one of the questions in the middle of the file (or select a portion of my questions)
So you might say, "Just record separate files" Well that the other thing:
2) I don't want to do as little saving and editing as possible and saving 100 files is not really what I'm looking for.
I'm sure I have other requirements I can't think of at the moment. But like I said--excel for audio--that will allow me to have complete and easy control of many very small audio clips.
ASKER
Thanks for your quick reply Bill.
Yes this is more than I want to do (though I may have to). I may have hundreds of questions, so it is a bit of a pain to find out where I want to edit or if I want to only select a subset of questions. I was thinking of using something like dragon naturally speaking to extract the text from my voice and paste it into excel but I need a way to paste audio into excel and even better not have to constantly save and name files when I do so.
Thanks though
Yes this is more than I want to do (though I may have to). I may have hundreds of questions, so it is a bit of a pain to find out where I want to edit or if I want to only select a subset of questions. I was thinking of using something like dragon naturally speaking to extract the text from my voice and paste it into excel but I need a way to paste audio into excel and even better not have to constantly save and name files when I do so.
Thanks though
You can actualy put sounds in an excel spreadsheet (eg insert a hyperlink to a wav file for instance), but it doesn't help you because they would all have to come from small files, which you dont want. Also you cant easily 'play' more than one in sequence in excell, though you can 'sort' based on a key in another column say or cut and paste etc. It would astually be easier in audacity as has been precviously mentioned.
Ditto if you used one of the many samplers (some free) out there. You could play the sounds live with a real or on-screen keyboard, or I suppose could use a sequencer to generate a midi file to play them.
Again getting them in in the first place tends to require each sound to be a file....
- So- the only way you will be able to do it without lots of small files that you need to manage yourself - is to record everything into an audio sequencer, and keep all the clips seperate. You need to use a sequencer which can NAME each clip, not each track, so you know which is which. This means not audacity (but adobe audition saycan do this, and probably cubase sonar etc. [Reaper might be worth a look but mine just crashed so cant see if it allows clip-naming[.) Your clips dont *have* to be on different tracks, but can be so you can sort of emulate the way a spreadsheet works....
You can move them around up down left and right & mute the tracks with ones you dont want on. You shouldnt have to deal with the seperate files per-se though they will probably exist on your computer somewhere, the single project file holds the location and tracks and timing of each clip....
let me know if this is anything like what you want...
Ditto if you used one of the many samplers (some free) out there. You could play the sounds live with a real or on-screen keyboard, or I suppose could use a sequencer to generate a midi file to play them.
Again getting them in in the first place tends to require each sound to be a file....
- So- the only way you will be able to do it without lots of small files that you need to manage yourself - is to record everything into an audio sequencer, and keep all the clips seperate. You need to use a sequencer which can NAME each clip, not each track, so you know which is which. This means not audacity (but adobe audition saycan do this, and probably cubase sonar etc. [Reaper might be worth a look but mine just crashed so cant see if it allows clip-naming[.) Your clips dont *have* to be on different tracks, but can be so you can sort of emulate the way a spreadsheet works....
You can move them around up down left and right & mute the tracks with ones you dont want on. You shouldnt have to deal with the seperate files per-se though they will probably exist on your computer somewhere, the single project file holds the location and tracks and timing of each clip....
let me know if this is anything like what you want...
ASKER
how about this: Is there a program like audacity that will let me easily create tracks. So I could record over and over but when I want to review I can just click through the ones I know really fast?
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By the way, the 15th voice clip down on the page of the website I created for a friend (http://www.c2cr2c.com/audio/voiceClipsStd.html), entitled "Live Phone Interview with Bill from the road by "Radio C2CR2C". A compelling listen!!" was created in Audacity for a laugh to amuse my friend. I copied out selected sections of the previously received MP3 voice clips and added them as separate mono "tracks" in Audacity to make a bogus interview. I pasted some together in one track, and aligned others horizontally on separate tracks below so that they only played when that point was reached during playback. When you export the lot to a single MP3 file it renders it all down and merges the separate tracks into one. I knocked it up quickly, it's not professional, and it doesn't really have voices layered on top of each other, but will give you an idea how separate audio files can be inserted and blended into one.
Just a note about Audacity. When you save your "Project" it saves as an "Audacity Project File" with an *.AUP file extension. It creates a bunch of temporary *.au files until you finally render the project down and export it to a single audio file. If Audacity crashes half way through, the next time you open it you will have the option to restore the project and resave it.
Just a note about Audacity. When you save your "Project" it saves as an "Audacity Project File" with an *.AUP file extension. It creates a bunch of temporary *.au files until you finally render the project down and export it to a single audio file. If Audacity crashes half way through, the next time you open it you will have the option to restore the project and resave it.
ASKER
I've decided to use a digital audio recorder with usb hookup, the computer solutions seemed too involved.
Thank you jacksmind
I full realise that you have specifically asked for something that takes all the work out of what you are trying to achieve, and that you want to avoid actually editing audio files, and have to say that I do not know off the top of my head of any software that does what you need ...
... however, may I clarify something about Audacity that may make the concept seem a more realistic and comfortable solution.
You said:
"I know I could take something like audacity and just pause and record over and over but there are a few problems with this:
What if I want to edit (rerecord) one of the questions in the middle of the file (or select a portion of my questions)"
The Audacity interface is a pretty well featured recording and editing workshop in that you can click on a position within the wave form showing for an existing audio file and begin recording from whatever source you choose, eg. microphone. That will create a new track below the existing one that lines up with your insertion point in the existing wave form. You could also have inserted whatever length of silence you wanted in the existing track at that point.
You can scroll across a section of an audio track's wave form, delete it, copy and paste it back into another position in the same track or as a new track, or modify it. You can very quickly and easily click on one of the toolbar buttons that allows you to slide a track or portion of a track horizontally to whatever point you choose so as to line it up with other snippets. You can zoom in to the wave form to make your selections and positioning more accurate, can slow down or speed up playback, and can mute or individually play back any tracks you have in your project.
When you export the project to your choice of audio file type you choose the quality and it renders it down to a mono or stereo audio file dependent on your choices, which are easy enough to set.
Repeatedly opening an audio file, adding to or editing it, and exporting back to the same or a new audio file doesn't incrementally degrade the audio file in the same way as you would get with a JPG image that you kept editing and resaving, so there would be no real reason to have hundreds of separate audio clips at any time.
That all sounds pretty complicated, but in reality the process is no more difficult than inserting data in a spreadsheet or typing out and formatting a new word processor document and positioning some images in it. Like anything else, after a few uses you are able to perform the task quickly and effortlessly.
I hope you do find some software that makes it as simple as what you are hoping for, but if not I would urge to to take another look at Audacity and experiment with a few microphone voice recordings or audio clips. It's easy, I promise :-)
Bill