James Gralian

Blog

  • The Audacity To End It

    If there is been one piece of audio software that is nearly ubiquitous in the audio editing world, it’s Audacity, the free, open-source multi-track editor used by so many people, I have no idea where you would start counting. It has plenty of features, a few of which I find helpful (splitting stereo audio tracks into two mono tracks) and creative (Paul Stretch).

    I have never been a big fan of the software, opting instead to invest my time, money and learning in Logic Pro from Apple. I’ve been a user for well over a decade, learning the shortcuts, getting a handle on the features I need, and figuring out how to use it in more and more efficient ways. Audacity has lingered around on my computer, but I rarely use it.

    Well, it shall linger no more.

    Today, I came across this article on Synthtopia (which I’ve been reading for years, and if you like synthesizers and weird sound stuff, you should too) talking about how Audacity has been acquired by a company and changed it’s privacy policy to include data harvesting.

    The post points to another article on Foss Post that goes into a little more detail. They even go so far as to call it possible spyware. From the article:

    Muse Group, after acquiring Audacity, introduced a CLA where it requires anyone wishing to send a pull request to the original source code to agree on giving them unlimited and unrestricted rights to own the modified lines of code.

    One would not expect an offline desktop application to be collecting such data, phoning-home and then handing that data to governments around the world whenever they see fit. If you want to stay away from such things, then stay away from Audacity.

    The software has also been essentially rated PG-13:

    Moreover, the same page contains a shallow attempt to prevent kids under age of 13 from using the application, which is a violation of the GPL license (The license under which Audacity is released) because GPL prevents any restrictions on the usage of software

    So basically, your free, open-source audio editor may be spying on you.

    (I’ve posted an update below)

    I’m removing it from my computers and I think you should to.

    There are alternatives out there to Audacity, but few have had the same level of support that the community of users and open-source coders have given it. It will be a major compromise to get rid of Audacity for so many of it’s users. It will hurt me very little, but for those who rely on it, it’s a hard choice to make.

    So what alternatives are there? There aren’t many free alternatives out there, but often times, when dealing with audio software (and hardware for that matter), you get what you pay for. Here are a few:

    Pro Tools First

    A lite version of Pro Tools, the same software found it major recording studios. It’s limited to 16 audio tracks and 16 instrument tracks, and it’s main limitation for podcasters may be that it only allows four inputs to be recorded at the same time. That may not matter if you are using other software to record with (like Zoom or the always excellent Audio Hijack).

    Pro Tools First is a great introduction to what professional recording engineers use. You can do a lot with it for a long time, and may never need anything else.

    Adobe Audition

    If you have the full Adobe suite already, you have one of the best audio editors at your disposal. Audition is used by tons of podcasters and audio editors. Hard to go wrong here. It may not be worth it if you don’t need the other Adobe apps to subscribe just for this, but if you already have it, start using it.

    Hindenburg Journalist

    Hindenburg Journalist is popular among radio editors and podcasters. It isn’t free, but people who use it love it. If you want to get more into sound design or sound rich editing, other software may serve you better.

    GarageBand

    For Mac users, MacOS already comes with GarageBand.

    Logic Pro X

    Also exclusive to Mac users, Logic is a great DAW and the only one I need. I have several other ones on my computer, but they almost never get opened. It has everything you need and more, and the pricing isn’t subscription-based.

    There are others out there. I don’t know enough about the Windows world to give you suggestions that aren’t on Apple computers as well. I’m sure they exist.

    What you do with Audacity is up to you. For myself, it has never been a big enough influence on my workflow to need. I’ll miss the few features that came in handy. But looking at new privacy policy, the price of this free software has become too high.

    UPDATE: CDM, another blog I read religiously, posted about this as well, with a more tempered approach to the subject. They asked the parent company, Muse Group, for some clarification. According to CDM:

    Let me put this bluntly: they’re not tracking anything you need to worry about, they’re not selling any data, there are strict controls over how the data is used, and the version hasn’t even shipped yet. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t worry about the future of Audacity at Muse, only that this was a communications snafu that unfolded today, not a crisis that means you should delete an audio tool you use.

    Supposedly, the next version of Audacity, 3.0.3, will introduce the tracking changes. But again, all of this is according to a response from the company.

    The big question is, do you trust the company? And maybe just as importantly, what is your tolerance for the trade-offs involved when those policies do come to fruition? Is it worth it to you to wait around until there is a problem?

    Is there cause to delete your current install of Audacity? Probably not. But I would keep from updating to 3.0.3 until the dust settles. And besides, also to quote from that CDM post:

    And I can’t emphasize this enough – from a user standpoint, the reason I might hesitate to recommend Audacity is that it’s buggy, not that it’s some kind of privacy hole. Developers I spoke to had a similar analysis.

    And that, I 100% agree with.

    In the end (and I doubt this is the end, not by a long shot), what you do if you are an Audacity user is up to your comfort with their privacy policy, and how they may or may not use it. It is one more thing to think about now with this tool, and it wasn’t something that had to be thought about before.

    The upside is, there are plenty – and in my opinion, better – tools out there.

  • What You Already Know Can Trip You Up.

    I’ve always thought of myself as being a fast learner on the job. When you join a tour, or start a new job with new systems, you need to get up to speed fast. The show must go on, and it isn’t going to wait for you.

    But learning when it’s a long road ahead can be hard. What is my goal? What benchmarks do I have? Here’s something that’s hard about it that surprised me:

    Already knowing something.

    Right now, I’m going though an online course that calls itself a bootcamp. It’s not a bootcamp, it’s a long video-based MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). You know the style, prerecorded lessons that try to cover everything. They promise to get you coding like a developer in 468 easy lessons.

    I’ve been taking classes from freeCodeCamp, LinkedIn Learning, and some from udemy. I’ve dug into Harvard’s free CS50 course. I’ve done this before, and learned some things.

    It turns out, that’s a problem.

    This latest course started with a basic HTML module, and I understand basic HTML.

    <p>, <i>, headings, no problem. Like I said, basic. So I kicked up the speed on the lesson to 1.5x. Let’s do this.

    And then they mentioned a tag I had never seen: the <center> tag. The reason I’d never heard of <center> is that it isn’t the way things happen now. Centering content happens in the stylesheet. <center> was done away with in HTML 5.

    What it showed to is how much and how little I know, and how much that impacts learning new skills.

    It’s hard to stay engaged when you already know the things you are being taught. Sure, you could tune in and brush up, but engaged? That’s something else.

    In this case, <center> is not a big deal. Knowing it or not won’t have any bearing on writing code.

    Instead, it was a sign post. It told me I had gaps in my knowledge, and I don’t know where more are. When you are doing this on your own, it’s hard to find those gaps until they pop up without warning.

    It’s the old “you don’t know what you don’t know” problem. So you have to pay attention to things you aren’t engaging with. It makes it feel like a slog.

    It would be nice to tell a video lesson what you already know. Yes, I understand what a paragraph tag is. We can move on, thanks. The convenience of online learning is that it scales and is on demand. The downside is that nothing is tailored to your needs, and you don’t get credit for already knowing something.

    There are other options, of course. A real coding bootcamp, if you can afford it. freeCodeCamp does a good job of breaking down lessons into small components, so you can move quickly though things you already understand. But in FCC, if you don’t get something, there isn’t much help there. You better go searching. That’s also a part of coding, so I guess you should get used to it.

    For now, it’s just digging in, working at it, hacking away, and hoping I’m on the right track. More about that another time.

    These months have so many frustrating moments. I am finding new ones all the time.

  • Toward Career 2.0

    Merlin Mann had a great point about blogs, and I paraphrase here: The first several posts are always the same. Welcome, I chose some fonts, who I am, etc. His idea was to start at the fifth post. Dive in with what you have to say.
    So here we go.

    Who –>

    I am one of the many people who found themselves out of a job when COVID-19 hit, and maybe out of a career. It’s been a good one, but my industry, it ain’t coming back any time soon. I work in theater. Perhaps worked in theater is more accurate.
    Theater will be one of the last things to come back, and we don’t know what it is going to look like, and who will have survived. Arts organizations have been on shoestrings for a long time. Many are not going to survive being shutdown for long, and opening at reduced capacity doesn’t pay the bills.
    My end of the business is in the technical side of things. I was an Audio Engineer. I toured with Broadway shows, did small and large productions, and was head of audio at an opera house in my last job. I was in a very secure position in an industry not known for it, and it ended in the blink of an eye.

    Now what?

    The question is simple: what do I do now? I can sit and wait – wait for my industry to heal itself enough to go back to work in it, wait for my old job to come back.
    I don’t think that is going to happen any time soon. If the theater industry mounts a comeback before the beginning of 2021 (over 5 months away as I write this), I will be surprised. If it’s healthy enough to go back to work at the levels it was at, I will be flabbergasted.
    Or I can work with the assumption that my old career is never coming back, that I will have to move on, and that I have mixed my final live show in theater.

    Going with Option B.

    The odds are not in my favor with the first choice. Waiting will get me nowhere. I don’t know what the next thing is going to look like, but I know what I would prefer: more control over my future, working from home, and working on things that are interesting and fun.
    So it’s time to work on Career 2.0. Career 1.0 was great. I loved what I did for a living, and I miss parts of it in this laid-off life. I probably always will.

    But things end. So it’s on to the next thing. As they say on Too Beautiful Too Live:

    Ad Proximum Conviviumhttps://toobeautifultolive.fandom.com/wiki/Glossary

    Next –>

    I don’t know what is next. I am working on learning to code, focusing on WordPress, as it’s something I have experience in.
    I need to understand more of what I am getting in to, what the landscape and industry looks like, what is out there and what I have to offer.
    And I want to know how other people are doing with all this. Has there ever been a bigger upheaval of workers than now? What are other people doing? What are they going through?

    This –>

    This site will serve as an ongoing log of what I’m learning, what I’m struggling with, what I’m trying to do, and a portfolio as I build it up.
    And hopefully someone else will see the struggle, the learning and the path, and decide to do their own journey as well.
    This isn’t going to be pretty. I don’t know if this is a good idea. I don’t know if doing this is a good idea or not. I could be shooting myself in the foot, showing more of what I don’t know and can’t do than what I can.
    But it’s worth the shot. And if posting here does anything, it keeps me going, keeps me working, keeps me moving forward. I’ve tried the online classes, bought the courses, been down this path before. It was always hard, and it was always short lived. Now is my chance to push though.
    Let’s see what happens next.