It would be very useful if the Audiologger program had settings for silence detection, so that silence was NOT recorded.
The reason is this: we would like to create podcasts of our shows, BUT it would be illegal/VERY expensive to include the music played. Manual editing would be very tedious and in many cases would not remove commercial music entirely.
BUT we could use the AUX bus on our mixer—fed only with mics., telco, and cartwall—to create a ‘music-free’ mix, which we could then record in a separate audiologger Slot. This would of course create long silent gaps where a track is being played, so it would be useful if the Audiologger could automatically ‘pause’ recording during those times and ‘resume’ when audio again appears at the end of the slot. Thus: an instant music-free podcast!
I know there are other audio recording programs we could use, like Kat MP3 Recorder for example EDIT: I’ve since discovered that Kat installs the Download Energy toolbar and the Conduit Engine in IE (you HAVE TO accept this to install the Kat program), so be careful if you decide to try Kat. Be sure to use Add/Remove programs to individually REMOVE these two annoyances BEFORE you open your browser again, if you decide to try Kat!
but we would prefer to have a single program to do ALL our logging, and we DO like the built-in Webserver interface in Audiologger.
Is this ‘silence detection’ something you would consider, Torben?
Thanks: that would be excellent! Obviously there would need to be settings for silence level and length, and when encountered, a silence would be ‘skipped.’
So a ‘one hour’ file might end up a lot shorter, BUT Audiologger would still create a new file each hour, regardless.
Good call Charlie… I was thinking of something similiar and simple. Say, perhaps, a closure on the parallel port to pause recording: “to ground” pauses the recording, “open” starts it. Could be wired to tally outputs, such as “on-air” or start/stop buttons on mixer.
By the way, the REST interface built into the Pro edition of Audio Logger is compatible with mAirList - so if you have wired your mixer to mAirList, you can just use the mAirList REST commands to start/stop the recording in Audio Logger.
$30?!?!! I don’t think so! Provided you bin the ‘naughty bits’ of Kat, it seems to do the job just fine for free.
If it ain’t freeware, and it ain’t Torben’s Audio Logger (which is excellent as always), I ain’t interested.
It’s a thought about the tallies, I guess: but I’m very lazy, so silence detection on the recorder end would be my ideal for this.
Torben: Not sure what you mean about the REST stuff, but my solution would work for talkovers, and yours (if I understand it correctly) would cut any talkovers off and not record them, yes?
Cad, the problem with the silence detection and an extra AUX bus is that you get nothing but the microphone signal. No music beds, no jingles, no music in the ramp talks. If this is what you need - fair enough. But I would prefer to have a recording that contains ALL material, not only the voice. So the tally method is preferable in my opinion.
My point about REST was that Audio Logger does not support any other remote control mechanism than REST (through its internal web server). Porting all of the hotkeys, joystick etc. methods from mAirList would be too much work. However, when you’re running a copy of mAirList anyway, you can e.g. use mAirList’s joystick remote interface, and let mAirList use REST in order to send the start/stop commands to Audio Logger (using the “RPC …” command, or the “Execute command via REST” action).
Hi Cad, not seen KAT but using the Aud bus of the mixer and using a windows shortcut to start/stop recordings could be an answer.
This way you can deselect the mixer channels not required, i.e. which you cannot use in the podcast such as copyrighted material.
Use the shortcut to start recording at suitable points and then stop again when finished. Ok a bind to remember but you will catch the parts for inclusion in a podcast. Also the recordings provide easy access for making promos (show highlights, competition winners etc).
Yes, we do (as a legal requirement) have to keep a full off-air recording of our output, and we already do that.
We also keep what we call a ‘quality log’ which is fed from the post-processor signal (rather than from an FM tuner, like the ‘legal log’ HAS to be), and which we use to provide guests with copies of programmes they’ve appeared in, etc.
BUT we would also like to offer downloadable MP3 copies of our shows on our Web site so that people can hear them again, or catch a show they missed. The problem is: we are NOT legally allowed to include any copyright music in those. Quite a bit of our live output is talk, or talking to guests either in the studio or on the phone, so that’s not as big a problem it might sound. In an hour, there might be as much as 20 minutes of talk.
So, what we need is a (third!) recording of our output, but in this case, ONLY the mics., telco, and Cartwall. Easy to do via the Soundcraft AUX bus and mono output, BUT you get music-track-sized silences in the recording every few minutes. If Audio Logger could detect silences and PAUSE until a signal appears again, this would minimise the manual effort needed to make those podcasts ready to post on the Web. Music beds played from the Cartwall would still appear in this mix, as would jingles. Yes, talk up to a ramp would not include the music under the talk, but that would make it easier to fade or cut just before that point, if necessary.
Nice thought, but our lot have enough trouble without expecting them to remember that. Therefore, we’d need a completely automated solution. Audio Logger would be fine, but we’d have to manually remove the big gaps, unless the logger itself could do silence detection after (say) 3 seconds and PAUSE until more signal comes along later.
[quote=“Cad, post:1, topic:7255”]I know there are other audio recording programs we could use, like Kat MP3 Recorder for example EDIT: I’ve since discovered that Kat installs the Download Energy toolbar and the Conduit Engine in IE (you HAVE TO accept this to install the Kat program), so be careful if you decide to try Kat. Be sure to use Add/Remove programs to individually REMOVE these two annoyances BEFORE you open your browser again, if you decide to try Kat![/quote]
There is a workaround to prevent this issue of installing that ugly toolbar. Simply watch your %temp% folder. Open the “run” option of windows and type %temp%. Than launch the installer of KAT MP3 (DON’T HIT ANY BUTTON!!), a new directory will appear in the %temp% folder. Enter this new directory and delete the “Download_Energy.exe” Than go back to the installer, and install KAT MP3 as usual.
There is a free app (it’s a few years old) called VoxRecorder - designed for scanner radio enthusiasts. It is designed to monitor a squelched radio channel and activate each time there is activity. I believe that it can either append or create a new file each time it triggers.
@Charlie: nice one, but VoxRecorder seems to do WAV only. Plus, I think we’d still have to manually glue the bits together later. My plan is to have one file per hour of real time, as mAirList Audio Logger does right now, but with less-than-one-hour of audio in it. ‘Just the talkie bits,’ if you like. Then for (say) a three-hour show, we simply butt the three files together, and voila! Instant MP3 file for podcast/download.
And @shorty.xs: VERY good work on how to Not Install Energy toolbar, and thanks! Kat seems a reasonable product for what it does, although its level meter is hilariously bad, under-reading by about half the scale length (!!!).
Plus, I think we’d still have to manually glue the bits together later. My plan is to have one file per hour of real time, as mAirList Audio Logger does right now, but with less-than-one-hour of audio in it. ‘Just the talkie bits,’ if you like. Then for (say) a three-hour show, we simply butt the three files together, and voila! Instant MP3 file for podcast/download.