FLASH: RE: FLASH & Audio Editing

[Matt Wobensmith]

Hi Kristi -


You wrote:


>I have a Roland XP50 Music Station 

>and a Mac G3 system. I am looking into setting up an audio station to 

>create custom sound for my Flash sites and can't decide what editing 

>software to buy. I have noticed a couple people mentioning ReBirth but I 

>have a friend that suggests Bias Deck.


Hmm... there are many different ways to do this. It can be anything from

low-tech sound sampling/cut and paste stuff, to MIDI, to full 24-track

digital recording.


>can anyone suggest a good sound card? I keep reading "...if you have 

>a decent sound card..."


Depending on many factors (money, ease of use, production values), you have

a wide variety of choices. Many of them don't require anything more than

what you have. Most Macs have sufficient hardware out of the box to do audio

production of most kinds, without the need for an additional sound card.


If you decide to go with an intense program like ProTools, or Cubase, you

will do better with a sound card and/or fast hard drive and processor. You

can probably get away w/o them, but if you *really* get into sound

production, that's the route to go.  


I found a great article on Mac audio cards here:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/audio/audiofaq.html


ReBirth is just a software synth emulator that allows you to program a

virtual drum machine. You can export as AIFF (WAV on a PC). It's not really

a "sound editing" program - just creation and playback.


Deck is in the league of professional digital editors/recorders, unique for

being the first sound app to let you record and playback at the same time.

See the Bias site at bias-inc.com.


Also consider things like SoundEdit16 - Macromedia's longtime sound editor.

Very popular program, easy to use, cut and paste multi-track editor.


I might add that there are a LOT of freeware and shareware audio apps out

there, for *basic* editing, as well as sound generation. I really like

SndSampler for editing ($20 shareware - try shareware.com ) and Koblo's

suite of synth emulators and digital samplers (Vibra, Stella, Gamma -

koblo.com )


You mentioned an external synth, which sounds like you may be considering

MIDI. That's great, but just remember that at some point, the MIDI info has

to be written into a raw audio file (AIFF) to be imported into Flash. 


This all depends on how much money and labor you're putting into a "studio"

setup. For a Flash movie, it may not require all that. Sounds like you have

some great tools already, though.  :>)


Matt


---------------

Matt Wobensmith

Macromedia Tech Support

Flash Team Lead




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