Tag Archives: utility

Aural Probe ~ Sample Library Tool

Posted by tom2tec on

Aural Probe is a sample librarian tool for computer musicians / audio engineers. Automatically and non-destructively index your disorganised sample collection from a list of folders into categories (kick, snare, hihats etc.) based on folder/filename wildcard matches. Easily audition samples, load/save favourites, and drag-and-drop straight into your sequencer.

Features:

  • Categorize your huge sample collections (20GB+) without moving a single file
    Create categories based on file/folder keyword matches (eg. Kick category = “bd”, “kick”, “bassdrum”) or regular expressions
  • Quickly audition through samples with arrow keys or mouse
  • Filter samples by file type (WAV, AIFF, FLAC, MP3, WMA, OGG)
  • Full drag-and-drop support (simply drag a sample from Aural Probe into your sequencer/sampler, just like Windows Explorer)
  • Mark favorites, filter by favorites, load/save favorite lists
  • Automatic rescan and categorization of samples on changed categories or sample folder layout
  • See details about highlighted sample in status bar
  • ‘Always on top’ mode to make frequent dragging of samples into other windows easier
  • Right-click a sample for frequently used shortcuts (Explore, Copy, Copy Shortcut, Favorite, Delete)
  • 100% read-only – does not move/modify your samples, just indexes them
    Minimize to system tray

Aural Probe

sourceforge.net/projects/auralprobe

Automatic Volume Mixer ~ Windows Utility

Posted by tom2tec on

Automatic Volume Mixer is a tool that allows automatization of Windows Volume Mixer based on user rules. You can open the Volume Mixer by right-clicking on the speaker icon in the system tray and selecting Open Volume Mixer. This application is an automatic version of that applet.

Common usage examples:

  • Pausing your audio player (e.g. foobar2000) whenever any other application makes a noise, and resuming playback once the noise is gone. This enables you to keep your audio player running in the background at all times.
  • Briefly muting all applications while a notification is playing.
  • Forcing application’s volume to a set level.
  • Automatically lowering volume during night.
  • Launching processes / popups when some application makes noise.

Features:

  • Detect volume levels of applications and act on that information.
  • Fully configurable rules for detection, filtering, and executing actions.
  • Ability to automatically adjust audio levels of applications.

 

 

Automatic Volume Mixer

github.com/Klocman/Automatic-Volume-Mixer
sourceforge.net/projects/automatic-volume-mixer

File Order Randomizer ~ For Cheap Music Players

Posted by tom2tec on

If, like me, you have a car radio or a clock radio which cannot play tracks in random order from your usb stick itself, this application might be useful for you.

It generates random numbers and puts them in front of every file in a specified folder. So all you’ve got to do when you want a new play order for your music tracks is run this application.

FOR

sourceforge.net/projects/filerandomizer
github.com/depuits/RandomFileOrder – Updated Fork

Simple TTS Reader ~ Windows Text To Speech

Posted by tom2tec on

Simple TTS Reader is a small clipboard reader. Simply copy any text, and it will be read aloud. You can choose any installed speech engine, e.g. Microsoft Anna. This text-to-speech utility can also be minimized to tray.

Requires .NET Framework 2.0

Features:

  • Supports WinXP’s Sam and Vista’s Anna engines
  • Ability to minimize to tray
  • Small and simple
  • Reads copied to clipboard text
  • Includes an installer

simpletts

simplettsreader.sourceforge.net/
sourceforge.net/projects/simplettsreader/

SoundSwitch ~ Multilanguage Windows Utility

Posted by tom2tec on

SoundSwitch offers you the opportunity to switch your playback devices and/or recording devices using simple hotkeys.

No more navigating through several menus and screens. Just configure SoundSwitch once – and you are able to switch between your devices as fast as never before!

soundswitch

soundswitch.aaflalo.me
github.com/Belphemur/SoundSwitch

Audio Utility ~ VST Utility Plugin

Posted by tom2tec on

Audio Utility is a free, lightweight, universal general purpose all in one digital channel strip VST plugin offering precise controls over various aspects of an audio signal, from mid/side processing to soft clipping.

Features include:

  • input routing with separate pans for the left and right channels, or alternatively a pre mono balance control to decide how the left and right channels are blended for conversion into mono
  • gain, and individual left and right channel gains, mutes
  • pan and phase inversion of either channel
  • width control, along with separate mid and side gain sliders and mutes
  • maximally flat minimal phase high and low pass 12db/octave filtering
  • optional hard and soft clipping at 0db
  • everything is fully automatable with sensible parameter ranges/scaling

www.vennaudio.com/utility

Background Music ~ macOS Audio Utility

Posted by tom2tec on

  • Automatically pauses your music player when other audio starts playing and unpauses it afterwards
  • Per-application volume, boost quiet apps
  • Record system audio

github.com/kyleneideck/BackgroundMusic
awesomeopensource.com/project/kyleneideck/BackgroundMusic

mlYou ~ Music Library Utilities Suite

Posted by tom2tec on

This is a collection of tools to help you manage, maintain, and optimize your own music library for a better experience.

It makes growing and maintaining a music collection of any size easier by automating necessary (but tedious) processes.

The tools currently aim to assist with music organizing and tagging, and playlist management.

Cross-Platform Compatible – Works and tested under Linux (Ubuntu) and Windows. Mac untested but expected to work similar to linux.

github.com/nwrobel/mlYou#playlist-root-path-fixing

MediaInfo ~ Media Metadata Tool

Posted by tom2tec on

MediaInfo is a convenient unified display of the most relevant technical and tag data for video and audio files.

MediaInfo

mediaarea.net

BestPractice ~ Audio Time-Stretching Tool

Posted by tom2tec on

BestPractice is a musician’s practice tool, to slow down or speed up music, either from an MP3 file or directly from a CD. Ordinarily the sound is distorted when slowed down our sped up – you get the effect like when playing a 33 rpm record on 45 rpm speed (remember the Chipmunks?). BestPractice tries to correct this, so you can slow down and speed up music, while keeping the original pitch. It is also possible to change the pitch of the music without affecting its tempo. Play along with for instance Eb tuned guitars without retuning your own, or slow down that high-speed guitar solo on a CD that you like to learn.

BestPractice

bestpractice.sourceforge.net

vsound ~ Virtual Audio Loopback Cable

Posted by tom2tec on

Vsound is a Linux / Unix application which allows you to digitally record the output of another program such as RealPlayer. The recorded output can be saved to a WAV file or can be piped into another program such as an MP3 encoder…

www.vsound.org

mp3guessenc ~ Analyze Audio mpeg Files

Posted by tom2tec on

… a small utility for analysis of audio mpeg files and detection of the encoder used (when layer III).

Further, mp3guessenc can detect many details about the mpeg audio stream and print out lots of useful information.

Supported streams are mpeg 1, mpeg 2 and unofficial mpeg 2.5 – layer I, layer II and layer III of course. Xing tag, lame tag, VBRI tag, Id3 tags (both 1.x and 2.x), APE tags (both v1 and v2), Lyrics3 tags (both v1 and v2) and MusicMatch tag (any version) are detected as well.

Features:

  • scan mpeg 1/2/2.5 streams, layer I/II/III
  • guess encoder used (lame/gogo/xing/helix/fhg(new, old and ancient)/blade)
  • also detects mp3pro and mp3surround streams (even with OFL)
  • support for large files (up to 2^60 bytes!)
  • free format streams supported
  • full statistics for the stream (audio mode, frame histogram, block usage, ancillary data)
  • crc16 verification
  • vbr tags by xing/lame + VBRI tag by fhg
  • detection of ID3 v1/v2 + APE tags + Lyrics3 tags + MusicMatch tag
  • verify integrity of lame tag

mp3guessenc

mp3guessenc.sourceforge.net
sourceforge.net/projects/mp3guessenc