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BOOT CAMP 477 (22/0/07)
Freeware Top Tens. Part 3, Audio
Multimedia
Twenty years ago the only sounds most computers
made were an occasional warning bleep. Now listen to them! The PC is fast
replacing the hi-fi as the main source of music in many homes and with the
right software they can become jukeboxes, home recording studios, digital radio
receivers, even musical instruments.
This week’s selection of free software doesn’t
go quite that far and with relatively few exceptions your PC’s more advanced
musical and multimedia capabilities are best served by commercial software.
Nevertheless, freeware and Open Source software can improve its capabilities
and functionality, and occasionally do something better than a paid-for
application.
As is customary we have to warn you that these
programs are believed to be free of any malware content but you install them
entirely at you own risk. We cannot answer any technical queries and it’s
polite to pay the licence fee or make a donation to the author if you find them
useful.
Audacity
No
roundup of multimedia freeware would be complete without Audacity. It’s a
sophisticated audio recording and editing program – as good and in some cases
better than some commercial programs – but the key feature is its ability to
record anything that you can hear through your PC’s speakers. That includes
Internet radio (BBC Listen Again etc.), CDs and DVDs, tapes and LPs played back
on your PC via though a hi-fi, or just you singing into a microphone.
Recordings can then be saved to popular audio formats, including Wav and MP3
for copying to disc or transfer to your digital music player.
EvilLyrics
Have you been driven mad by a song whose words
you just can’t work out? Install EvilLyrics and every time you play a tune on
your PC up pops a window with the words. The program automatically searches
through more than 15,000,000 lyric files on the web, so your tune is bound to
be in there somewhere. As an added bonus you can save and view the words
offline and even translate them into another language.
Godfather
If you own an iPod or MP3 player, download
music from the web or ‘rip’ audio CDs you probably have tracks and albums all
over your PC’s hard drive and it’s all a bit of a mess. The Godfather brings
order to chaos. It takes charge of your collection, no matter where the tracks
came from and irrespective of file format, even letting you rename and correct
misspelled track and album names and organise and edit file ‘tags’.
IPod to PC Transfer
This little program is specifically for Apple
iPod owners, and in particular those who find it difficult or impossible to
copy tracks from the player to a PC. The only limitation of the free version is
that you copy one track at a time; if you want to copy in bulk then you will
have to upgrade to the Pro version, which costs £8.00.
Media Player Classic
Don’t be misled by the basic appearance – it’s
based on the old Windows Media Player – this little program can play just about
anything, including DVDs, AVIs and Quick Time and Real Player media (though
extra codecs need to be installed for the latter). It’s small, fast, packed
with useful features and often plays discs and files that heavyweight media
applications have problems with.
Metronome Plus
Even if you are not musical you will enjoy
tinkering with this sophisticated PC powered metronome. Yes, it does make the
traditional tick-tock sound, but there’s plenty of other things to play with,
including tempo adjustment up to 300bpm, it has 15 configurable sounds, 8
program sequences and much, much more.
MP3 Repair Tool
You are bound to have one or two unplayable MP3
music files in your collection, if so there’s a very fair chance that MP3
Repair Tool can fix the problem. Faults usually occur in the ‘header’ section
of the file; MP3 Repair Tool deletes this information and in many cases the
track can then be played as normal.
MP3Gain
Another MP3 tool, this time a cure for the very
annoying problems of changes of volume between tracks. MP3Gain analyses each
track, checks the volume, works out how it would sound then adjusts the volume
and re-saves the file, and it does this without making any changes to the music
or affecting quality in any way.
Real Alternative
If you
listen to BBC Radio programs on your PC then you will know that you have to
download the big and intrusive RealPlayer program to use the Listen Again
service. There is an alternative, called appropriately enough, Real
Alternative, and you get two for one with this program because it comes bundled
with the excellent Media Player Classic (see above).
WinAmp
The granddaddy of free
media players, and still arguably the best, able to play virtually all audio
and video file formats. The program is highly customisable with hundreds of
downloadable ‘skins’, to change the programs layout and appearance, and
numerous ‘plug-ins’ to extend its capabilities.
Next Week – More Freeware and Shareware Top Tens
JARGON FILTER
CODEC
Compression/decompression
(or coder - decoder) software utility or add-on used to process digital data
MP3 TAG
Hidden
data contained in an MP3 music file, including track name, album, artist etc.
for display on a player’s screen, plus technical info
RIP
Extract
tracks from an audio CD, so they can be re-recorded or converted to other audio
formats, like MP3
TIP OF THE WEEK
Frequency
Analyzer
Here’s
a bonus program for those who like to see, as well as hear the music and speech
coming from their PC speakers. Frequency Analyzer is a tiny little program,
(just 148kb) which uses a Fast Fourier Transform algorithm to split sounds into
component frequencies. These are displayed on your monitor as a colourful
spectrum display. Use it to study the harmonics and sibilants in speech and
music, or just for your own amusement, it’s hypnotic!
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© R. Maybury 2007, 1605
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