------- Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine ------- Vol 2, Issue 14 I'm sitting here in the living room with my laptop watching my baby daughter roll around the room and explore her world. Her physical development continues to amaze me. I give her another week or so before she figures out the crawling thing. Just as impressive is her vocal development. She can range from the sweetest little coo that would melt your heart to a full-fledged banshee scream which would melt glass. In listening to her this morning I realized how important sound is in our lives. Sounds convey sorrow, warning, and joy. The voice of a loved one coming through the telephone brings us closer whether we are a county or a continent away. Now the cool thing is, the computer has given us a lot of power to create and edit sound content. In fact, there's a pretty powerful audio tool out there right now called Audacity. We're going to take a quick look at it this issue. ---------------------------------------------------------------- In This Issue... ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Article: The Sound of Audacity 2. Blog Posts 3. Shameless Self-Promotion 4. The Fine Print ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Article: The Sound of Audacity ---------------------------------------------------------------- I've been working on a new project recently. I'm not ready to reveal the details yet, but let's just say that there may be audio content involved. That being said, I had to download the most recent version of my favorite audio editing program, Audacity (the most recent stable version is 1.2.6). Let me tell you, if you have any desire to record or edit sound, get this program (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/). A friend of mine, Master Ian Hafner of Keith Hafner's Karate has been a musician for years (http://www.iankeithhafner.com/). Recently we were discussing the Audacity program. He told me that when he started making and producing his own music, he shelled out thousands of dollars for analog editing equipment. Shaking his head he told me that now, with his computer and Audacity, he can do everything for which he needed that old expensive equipment. Most of us probably don't have needs which rival an actual musicians, so for what we need, Audacity should more than make the mark. I use it primarily to record and edit spoken clips. It works quite well with my cheap microphone. The interface at first might seem overwhelming, but if you only focus on the big "tape recorder" buttons, you should be just fine. After you've recorded or imported an audio clip (it can read most common audio formats), editing is almost as easy as using a word processor. The audio information is presented as a histogram. You can highlight sections of the graph, play only that section, delete it, copy it, paste it, etc. As I said, very similar to a word processor. For those who are more adventuresome, Audacity has a whole boatload of audio effects you can play with. It has everything from amplification to noise reduction. Fade-ins, fade-outs, you can do it all with this tool. After you are done with your editing, you can save your masterpiece in a variety of audio formats, including MP3 (the format used by most audio players). Personally, I tend to keep my audio projects in the Audacity format. When I need a particular format, I do a "Save as..." just like I would do for a document under MS Word. Really, I haven't found anything to complain about in the Audacity software. It's powerful, relatively easy to use, and it's free. What more could you ask for? Give Audacity a try and tell me how things work for you. What kinds of projects could you use it for? Drop me a line and let me hear your ideas. Copyright 2008, Greg Peters ---------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Blog Posts ---------------------------------------------------------------- Links to posts on the "Clearing Up the Confusion" Blog from the last year: Thursday, March 09, 2006 -- Free Software, Part 2 http://clearing-confusion.blogspot.com/2006/03/free-software-part-2.html "In part 1 of the story, I briefly talked about the wonders of OpenOffice.org -- a great office productivity suite which, while not perfect, is more than sufficient for 90% of us. So, what other treasures are out there?" Wednesday, January 30, 2008 -- Silly Phone Fun http://clearing-confusion.blogspot.com/2008/01/silly-phone-fun.html "Have you ever had a phone message that you really wanted to keep? Maybe it was your family singing happy birthday to you, maybe some friends telling you that they were officially engaged, or maybe it was a bizarre message for your cats from your delightful sister-in-law -- letting them know that she would bring the tequila and catnip. Whatever the message, it sure would be nice to be able to save those moments for posterity, wouldn't it?" ---------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Shameless Self-Promotion ---------------------------------------------------------------- The "Clearing Up the Confusion" E-Zine is a production of Greg Peters, owner, chief cook, and bottlewasher of Cyber Data Solutions. CDS has been helping website designers develop better web presence for their clients for more than a decade. Visit us on the Web at www.cyberdatasolns.com to see how we can help your webmaster. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 4. 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