My garage band : a software development of a multi-channel audio recorder and mixer

• Main Author: Tan, Marcus Wei Hong.
• Other Authors: Chng Eng Siong
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Computer applications::Computer-aided engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/52274
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In this project, the aim is to develop a digital multi-­‐track recording and playback ‘studio’ application software (MyGarageBand) in Linux platform specifically Ubuntu, which aim to be intuitive and user friendly and yet powerful enough for serious recoding enthusiasts. The outcome of this project can offer the user more tracks and perhaps the only limit is the computer storage space. One can record everything on a computer and able to view and edit waveforms at the same time at ease. Fixing mistake is also much easier, where one can just skip to the particular part of the audio and edit. Unlike most editing audio waveform applications, this application allows user to edit the audio files nondestructively as the application keep track of the different audio file you had imported. Another difference is that the user can mix a multi-­‐track project using track control like volume, mute, solo to control, which gives the user full control of all tracks. These controls are available in both timeline and mixer of the application. Research was done on such similar audio applications available in the market such as Adobe audition (formerly known as Cool Edit Pro) [1], Apple garageBand’11 [2], and Audacity [3] to derive the application layout. These three applications were chosen to be researched and referenced on, as they were popular among musicians and sound engineers. This is to bring out the best in each of the application has to offer and combine them together. I have developed a prototype, which has the following functions, reading WAV files, viewing of waveforms, editing of audio clips, able to record or capture audio and playback audio files. Since this project is started from scratch and as of now it can only take in Wav files considerations for future developments such as MIDI and integration of hardware have also been added into the application. The successful development of this application is believed to be highly beneficial to music enthusiasts as well as sound engineer in the audio field. The experience and knowledge gained in this whole development process is no doubt valuable. It is definitely once in a lifetime experience to be able to work with research associate. This project can be further improved by integrating Speaker Diarization algorithm that the researchers had derived. And may be an All-­‐In-­‐one application for them to work on. As during the development process opinion on researchers in the Speaker Diarization field was also taken into consideration.