Tech Question - Note Taking On Audio
Hi!
I want to record myself practicing and then take notes that get time stamped to the exact moment in the audio recording. I envision myself tagging mistakes and areas that need improvement with comments to myself. Later in a practice session I could go through and work on each of the moments I commented on in the recording.
Does anyone do anything like this and if so how do you go about it?
There is an app called Noted for iOS but the audio files were degraded because it was tailored
to voice memos.
There is a website called Note Tracks but it is expensive, doesn’t work on a phone and more tailored to collaboration.
Let me know if you have a great app or strategy for this!
thanks,
Brian
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Hi Brian,
Usually, I listen to a single recording and jot down areas for improvement using abstract notes that only I understand (pen and paper—I like to go analog with piano).
But your idea is fantastic, and I think it has great potential. Imagine an app that takes your recording and displays it visually, similar to SoundCloud, but in a private way. It could allow you to annotate sections with timestamps, adding notes on what needs improvement. Better yet, it could generate an automatic to-do list based on those comments. And if you decide to share it with a group of music friends or colleagues, they could also comment and give you feedback.
I’d love to explore this further! Let's connect and code a prototype :-)
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Jacopo Castellano Exactly! Ha I was debating trying SoundCloud and just keeping everything private. Let’s do it!
[email protected]
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Hi Brian, there is an app called Instrumentive. Have a look at it and see whether it is the kind of program you’re searching for. It is downloadable from the App Store (if you using the IOS platform.
good luck.-
Alherne cupido Thank you! Looks cool but doesn’t quite do what I’m looking for. Thanks again though for the recommendation!
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GarageBand shouldn't do the normalization thing typical on voice apps. The Mac version may allow for bookmarks within the same track...I couldn't find a way to make bookmarks on the iphone version, but you can go to the multitrack view and make splits in the file that could serve that purpose.
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If this were my objective, I would approach it either through hardware or video (and BOTH is also an option). As for hardware, there are now 6-track multitrack recorders of astonishingly good quality with built-in microphones available for under $300. You could record your performance on tracks 1 and 2 (for stereo) and go back in and add your notes/comments on track 3. You could then play back all 3 tracks and simply turn the output on track 3 up or down depending on whether you wanted to hear the only the music or the music +commentary. Or you could mix down the 3 tracks to a stereo file to play back the performance + comments on your mp3 device or computer.
As for video, you could accomplish this on an iPad (maybe a phone too?) with a free video app. I got LumaFusion, a free app for my ipad (and then paid $30 for the 'multicam' option, which you wouldn't necessarily need for this project). I use it for my Tonebase videos, because it allows me to import a high quality audio file from my hardware recorder, rather than rely on the microphone in the iPad/iPhone/Computer. I'm still learning it, but it seems like it could easily handle this. You could import your audio file of your performance into the app as an audio 'clip', and add visual text notes to the comment spots using the titling feature. And/Or you could create a second audio file with your comments, import it into the video app, adding it to another track, and then sync it to the recording of your performance. The software allows for bookmarks, so you could jump right to your trouble spots rather than having to use fast forward or play it through to get to them.
Good luck. Let us know how it works out. you could post a sample of your performance + commentary to your Tonebase practice log so we could hear /(see) it in acton!
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That’s a really interesting idea and a cool work around! Apple’s Voice Memo app recently added a simple multi-track (technically just one additional track overdub) which maybe could work for this idea! Thank you for your ideas!
