#Audiofinder vs snapper software
#Audiofinder vs snapper free
#Audiofinder vs snapper mac

In iTunes preferences > Files > Import settings, choose wav filesĬreate a new playlist and drop all files needing conversion in this playlist. Or any other program that can batch convert audio files. These simple filenames are essential for a later step of the process. I used NameMangler to change the filenames into a simple and consistent format, of BBC41 06.wav. Relink the SoundMiner database to the mp3 files on my laptop wav format (I’d ripped some as aif’s)īuild the SoundMiner database with the wav files So with this in mind I had the following to achieve: It allows you to create a library using the wav files with their BWAV or SoundMiner metadata, then you can relink to mp3 files on another drive retaining the metadata. Soundminer HD has a handy feature to help with this though. Both Soundminer and Basehead (mp3converter at $199, and Injector at $99 respectively) make programs that deal with making mp3 versions but they’re expensive.

Soundminer handily can use both forms. There’s two nice articles about metadata here and here that go into more detail.Ĭreating an mp3 version of your files is tricky as most programs that can convert a batch of wav files to mp3 either don’t read the metadata to start with (such as iTunes), or they don’t translate the BWav or SoundMiner data to the mp3 data. The SoundMiner metadata has more ways of categorising the sounds and has been adopted by the big library producers as a standard, but it isn’t an “open” system, so fewer other programs can access it. Some modern sound effects come with just BWAV, or with BWAV and Soundminer. The BWAV metadata is fairly simple, and it’s read and written by lots of different programs, and in different ways.

#Audiofinder vs snapper mac

MP3 ID3 tags is where iTunes (now retitled on the Mac as Music), etc, store information about the artist, album, genre, year of publication, album art, etc.

The first two types are associated with wav files and the latter with mp3 files. There are essentially 3 common forms in use: BWAV (aka BWF), which is essentially a wav file with an extra section containing info about the audio, Soundminer and MP3 ID3 tags. Time now for a simplified explanation of metadata.

#Audiofinder vs snapper software

(2021 note: Basehead Creator Edition software no lets you start building a database for free). Then Soundminer HD was released which seemed to be perfect for me- enough functionality and not too expensive. And frankly some of the websites for these very expensive products contain virtually no info about what the product does, how it does it or how you might set it up – hardly conducive to spending many hundreds of dollars on them. But they all seemed very expensive or didn’t quite have the functions I was after. I’ve spent years looking at solutions like SoundMiner v4, Net Mix Pro, Basehead, Library Monkey, Audio Finder. This process worked reasonably well but wasn’t particularly fast or reliable. The AppleScript I wrote would look at what I’d clicked on in Filemaker then it would locate the corresponding folder, eg BBC41, then try to click on the right file within that so that Snapper would open and display the waveform and let me listen to it, convert it, etc. I’d click on a sound effect I was interested in hearing in the Filemaker database then press F12, which would launch an AppleScript from Butler. From there I used a combination of Butler, AppleScript and Snapper to audition the sounds.

#Audiofinder vs snapper free

I got this by downloading the free filmmaker database from Sound Ideas. I have a Filemaker database of most of my sound effects. However I like to travel light so I have an mp3 version of my sound library (encoded at 320bps) on my laptop hard drive for getting things fast when I’m in rehearsals and in the theatre. Most of my files are simply named, for example BBC41 01.wav. I ripped all my CD’s many years ago, long before metadata and the like. January 12th, 2011 (with updates in 2021) WHERE I STARTED FROM: Metadata basically means that the file was called something more meaningful, and had additional long form descriptions of the recordings, so that I could load these files into a search database and find and listen to sounds very quickly. The article below was writing in 2011 and describes how I converted my library of files that were imported from CD into. When you imported those CD’s to your computer they would just appear as Track 1.wav, Track 2.wav, etc, which wasn’t very useful. Prior to that most sound effects were purchased on CD’s, with a paper booklet listing all the sound effects and what disc and track they were on. But this has only been the case for the last five to ten years. Increasingly these days we purchase sound effects online by downloading them. Creating a sound effects library with metadata