A year ago, Mac music and audio producers were abuzz about a preview of what was then called Soundabout. The idea was to have a powerful audio tool that was always within easy reach in the Mac Finder, for not only previewing audio files, but converting and even editing. Developer AudioEase has finished that tool. It’s now called Snapper instead of Soundabout, but all the features are there:

• Preview with space bar, just like Apple’s QuickLook, but with more control
• Immediately see a Snapper interface with waveform preview when you click a file in Finder
• Drag-and-drop conversions to other file formats or your Pro Tools session (50 file formats, including surround and album covers)
• Integrated with Finder, iTunes, and Pro Tools
• Requires 10.4 Tiger or later (no need for Leopard); Pro Tools 6 for PT integration

Sounds great to me, but if you’re not convinced, there’s a massive 100-day demo.

Snapper by AudioEase

Windows users, I have to say, not sure the PC has anything to match this, though feel free to let me know if you’ve got a favorite. In fact, the Mac has not only this app, but AudioFinder, too, which has been maturing since the original Snapper/Soundabout release. AudioFinder also has an integrated waveform editor and a few additional sample editing and management features Snapper lacks. With those two choices, you should find something for juggling samples and audio assets — could be huge for remixers, sample lovers, and game developers, I imagine.

Let us know how you’re using these — or other — tools.

Thanks to TheLoneRoger for the tip!

XO Wave is a basic multi-track audio tool with multi-channel recording and mixing, video support, plug-in support (in the Pro version) and built in DSP, double-precision math, and non-destructive editing. It looks like it could be a strong choice for basic multichannel tasks. And it has some less-common features, like automatic softening to remove clicks/pops at edit points, and versioning so you can go back to earlier versions of files. A very capable version is available free, and a “Pro” version is just US$95 (though that admittedly puts it in slightly more competitive waters).

Interestingly, this is also one of the rare cases of a Java-based audio app. (The app is Java-based, at least; the developer notes that audio processing is not done in Java.) The 1.0 final release is compatible with Mac OS X Leopard, with two caveats: one, 10.5’s new security privileges cause it to gripe the first time you run it about security (as it would with any app), and two, dock/switcher icons appear twice. (Java support on 10.5 has a couple of hiccups; at least they’re non-critical annoyances; the icon issue is apparently a Leopard problem, not Java per se.)

1.0 has also arrived on Linux; in that version the software is free (though closed-source, despite the name, with full JACK support). (Hey, how about a JACK-aware Mac version, too?)

XO Wave downloads; comparison of Linux, free, and Pro versions

Speaking of gaming, here’s more news that the fledgling game audio and music area is getting more attention — something that we at CDM see as very good news. (See our sometimes-obsessive gaming stories.) CDM’s resident game composer and sound designer checks in …

In an e-mail he sent to me yesterday, Peter pointed out that Mix was soon to offer a bi-monthly newsletter on game audio. We were both summarily unimpressed - until we discovered that the newsletter was in addition to a monthly digital magazine, a sample of which is now available on the Mix website.

The sample issue covers topics such as audio for mobile games, World of Warcraft sound design, and an interview with Tim Larkin - composer for various Myst games, and sound designer for Half-Life 2 episodic content.(…see our previous interview with Tim Larkin.)

While a tad short on content, any level of coverage from the mainstream audio media is more than welcome, and we’re sure to see some great interviews and stories in future issues.

Your ears and mind are incredibly sensitive to tiny details of sound. Result: if your operating system can’t keep up with sound output for any reason, you’ll get a noticeable “glitch” in the sound — and that’s a big deal. Windows Vista promised to be “glitch-free” in development, later reworded to “glitch-resistant” or “glitch-resilient.” Then it shipped, and a lot of us noticed it was, well, just plain glitchy, at least at the beginning of this year when Vista met up with half-finished, buggy drivers.

All operating systems will glitch under certain circumstances, though, and the causes are many. Microsoft has a great post on their Vista Team Blog today from Steve Ball, who seems to be a really sharp guy and has a great handle on how Vista can continue to improve in terms of audio performance.

An Overview of Windows Sound and Music “Glitching” Issues

Well worth reading, whether you’re a Windows user or not. (Linux and Mac can absolutely encounter the same issues, and as you look through the full list of possible causes you’ll see why.) There’s quite a lot missing from this discussion, but the blog promises this is part 1 of 2, and you’ll find some more meat in the discussion in comments.

I did enjoy this description of why we’re so bothered by glitches:

My colleague on the Windows Sound team, Larry Osterman, also pointed out to me recently that humans are actually “hard-wired” to be disturbed by audio glitches. In an exchange about this topic, Larry observed that audio glitches are more obvious than video glitches because the ear’s tuned to notice high frequency transients — his visceral example of this idea is an image of a stick snapping in the woods behind you as an audio event that wakes you up before a bear wanders into your path.

I think I have the same visceral reaction to software bugs. (Help! A bear!)

I’m writing this from Vista right now, and I have to say, I found all kinds of reproducible glitching problems early on. But now, various hotfixes and driver updates better, Vista’s audio performance is running really smoothly for me. I think the major culprit on Vista in the early months of the release was video drivers, an issue which for me, and many others, has finally been fixed.

If you’ve been on the search for a simple, straightforward audio editor for Mac and Windows, Adobe has officially thrown its hat into the ring with Soundbooth CS3.

Soundbooth Now Shipping [Hart's Audition, from the Adobe audio product chief]
New Soundbooth User-to-User Forum

Of course, to the rest of the world, the big news is that Adobe’s full Production Premium and Master Collection suites are shipping. But Soundbooth is one program that could make sense to buy alone, as a basic audio editor. It sets itself apart both by being cross-platform and by being geared for beginners and people wanting a simple, streamlined tool. And the killer feature: there’s a lasso tool you can use directly on the audio spectrum. I’ve been using that to isolate sounds in field recordings that would otherwise be impossible to grab.

I hope to have an in-depth look at the finished tool soon, so no conclusions about the shipping software yet, but in the meantime, see our preview from the beta.

In a little while, Steve Jobs will be keynoting Apple’s developer conference. I doubt that anyone will be thinking about audio drivers. So in the remaining moments to do that, let’s go — because 10.5 looks like it’s yet another release from Apple that takes music production seriously.

Most of us didn’t expect any major improvements in Apple’s Core Audio in 10.5 — nor need them, as Core Audio is rock-solid for most of what we need to do, in terms of performance and reliability. That’s not to give Apple a free pass; there have been some compatibility issues with point releases (10.4.9 comes to mind), bumps in the AU plug-in format’s evolution, and so on. But at the end of the day, the Mac is an OS that works for music production, more seamlessly and easily than anything else out there. Yet Apple is in fact making some improvements to its audio driver system even in 10.5:

164 Professional Audio Input and Output with Leopard Mac OS X Essentials Presentation
Discover Leopard’s support for the recently-approved USB Audio Device 2.0 class specification and how to write spec-compliant descriptors for your high-speed USB audio device. Find out how to unleash the power of FireWire peer-to-peer networking using Leopard’s all-new FireWire audio drivers and enhanced Audio/Video Control (AV/C) media services. Learn how to implement user interfaces and vendor-specific AV/C commands to control your audio device.

So, wow, in other words … in a release that’s largely focused on Core Animation and the visual side of the operating system, Apple has added new FireWire support, networking over FireWire, and driver-free USB 2.0 support. (Right now, you can plug-and-play class-compliant USB 1.1 audio devices, but not USB 2.0. Erm … or whatever those two USB specs are really supposed to be called; that’s another discussion.)

Joystick has a quick report from a GDC lecture presented by Jason Page and Michael Kelly from Sony, discussing the future of ‘next-generation audio’ on the PS3. What’s interesting about their take is that they believe that use of highly customized sample sets and MIDI can provide a much more interactive and adaptive approach to dynamic game scoring than the increasingly popular use of fully-orchestrated soundtracks. The Interactive Audio Special Interest Group (IASIG) has been working towards the same conclusions for several years, as they move towards completion of their Interactive XMF format specification. No doubt this is a topic that will come up more as the technology to deliver both high-quality sample sets AND highly adaptive scoring systems becomes ever-more available to developers.

Renowned Nintendo composer Koji Kondo also presented at this year’s GDC, and we’re on the lookout for reports. If you’ve got any, please pass them along.

Some of our game-minded readers may be spending the week in San Francisco, at the Game Developers Conference. Reader and interactive media developer Brad Fuller writes to let us know he’s drafted a series of HTML documents that highlight all of the audio-related sessions for this year’s conference. If you’re lucky enough to be in attendance, hit some of these sessions, take some good notes, and send us a report when you return!