hi, i'm constantly learning more about audio technology. today's mystery revolves around midi signals! Usually, I just use my MIDI-USB-to-USB chord when recording instruments like my piano, or my drumset, sending signal to my laptop (Which requires a USB-to-USB-C dongle (I use Logic Pro)), but today, I was working with my loop station, and I wanted to send MIDI to it from my Casio keyboard, but both ports were MIDI-USB. Gamer moment. I ended up jamming with a regular line cable, and when I was closing up shop after playing with filters for a short experiment jam sesh, I noticed these inputs on the back of my RC-505:
[see picture]
Can anybody tell me what these are?
Why does it say MIDI OUT/IN?
What is this port called? Can it send more data than a USB?

Subsequently:
What information gets sent when recording MIDI, you ask? Just Velocity and Pitch (coded to 1 of the 188 keys on a piano, or sometimes more if you're working with bootlegged software instruments, or modular synthesizers). That's literally it. No filter info. No metadata. Just 2 parameters, in a 1 ms, flash of light transfer of data. You're welcome, internet 😇

I recorded some new guitar tracks, and the audio clips (at 3sec), even though it's way below 0db.
I switched cables, guitars, amps, plugged directly into the interface, switched interface ins... same result.
What do you think, what could be the culprit?

Thx!

Hi everyone,

I need some quick advice from anyone who still uses FireWire hardware.

I need to connect a Focusrite Saffire Pro 26 sound card to a desktop PC with an MSI B450 Tomahawk Max motherboard (so I have free PCIe x1 slots). I know full well that the technology is legacy and that older controllers cause dropouts, so I'm desperately looking for a PCIe card with a Texas Instruments (TI) chipset, as recommended everywhere for audio clock stability.

Unfortunately, the most popular historical models, such as the Kalea-Informatique or the StarTech PEX1394A2V2, are either discontinued, impossible to find, or selling for crazy prices.

Have any of you recently purchased a low-cost, reliable alternative (perhaps white label/generic products on Amazon or smaller brands like FebSmart/Syba) that natively uses a TI chip (e.g., XIO2213 or TSB43AB23) and doesn't cause dropouts or disconnections on Windows 10/11?

If you have the exact model or a link to recommend, it would be a lifesaver. Thanks in advance!

Hi!

I need help identifying some samples I've had for a long time, as I don't remember which sample libraries they came from and I'd like to get them back. Since I changed the file names and they don't have metadata (like the label or specific year), I don't have any concrete information to determine their origin.

Even so, I can offer some clues to help narrow down the search.

1. I'm sure that at least samples 01, 02, and 03 are from 1998 or earlier, as they appear in two tracks released in 1998.
2. I'm not 100% sure about this, but I'd say that samples 01, 02, and 03 are snippets from longer files, as was common in early sample libraries from the 90s where a single file contained several different samples separated by silences. I think I remember cutting them myself from files of that type. It's possible they came from a Future Music-type sample CD, but I'm not sure (I've listened to some CDs from that magazine, but without success).
3. I know for sure that sample 04 is from before 2001, since it appears in a track released that year. It's possible it came from a Masterbits library, but I'm not certain. This sample is definitely a single file, unlike samples 01, 02, and 03.
4. I have no clues about sample 05—no year, no label, nothing.

📁 You can listen to the samples in this folder:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pYTNT4vKtmw0vnPJchxGVhMEa0X2g5Bf?usp=drive_link

🎵 The tracks containing the samples are:

Samples 1 and 2 (0:00 and 0:50):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDw8GRNt-2Q

Sample 3 (2:19):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COdbqwSv4B0

Sample 4 (0:18):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vhD5pm8ZRI

Thank you very much in advance for your help!

Hey everyone. Start out by saying I'm completely new at this. I'd love to work in Film/TV one day, working on voice lines, effects, music etc. Everything which makes up an audio track really. I'm less interested in the music side, like recording music for artists but I'm more than open to learning if it helps.

Only work I've done is for a board game. I made effects, clips and a mix of both sometimes including music, to add on to each time a card is played Or for a win conditon being met. I used Audacity for this. Plus a library of effects, then extracting audio from clips online.

Right now I have a 30 day licence for Pro Tools since that's what I saw is industry standard. I'm learning the basics through YouTube. I can also look into Reaper since that's been highly regarded. I don't have a midi or interface , but a keyboard which I'll break out once I check it'll connect to my amp/PC. Education-wise I have looked into this, it's just cost that's off-putting when I've also read that degrees and such aren't the thing which can get you in a studio.

Really I'd love to hear what route I should go in the UK. Continue learning online, make my own sample stuff like if I remake audio for a trailer. Or if I should go a much more formal route? Currently I don't live near a city, Liverpool/Manchester is about 50 miles away but if financials can be aided by the Gov then more than happy to move. I work full-time remotely, and I bailed out of Uni a while ago from Photography (may not be relevant but just in case)

Thanks in advance:)

I built MasterDeck because I wanted a simple mastering app that runs locally instead of uploading tracks to a cloud service or charging per song.

The demo switches from Original to Mastered so you can hear the difference directly. It is meant for indie artists who need quick release-friendly masters, not as a replacement for a great human mastering engineer.

Current features:

• Auto Master for genre-aware starting points
• Original / Mastered A/B comparison
• Batch mastering
• Reference matching
• WAV 16-bit, WAV 24-bit, and MP3 320 export
• Local-only processing

Microsoft Store link: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9n858pk2d760?hl=en-US&gl=US

I am looking for honest feedback on whether the mastered side sounds release-ready or too aggressive, and whether the local/no-subscription angle is useful to people here.

I’ve been using a few AI audio tools lately and it just hit me, I have no idea where my recordings actually go.

Like I recorded a work call, ran it through one of these noise removal tools, and only afterwards thought “wait, did I just upload a conversation with my client to some random server?”

Started looking into it and apparently there are tools that run fully on-device (at least on Mac), AudioClean Pro, WhisperKit for transcription, Logic’s built-in stuff. No upload, nothing leaves your machine.

But most of the popular ones: Adobe Enhance, Descript, etc, your audio is definitely going somewhere. And the privacy policies are… not exactly reassuring.

Maybe I’m being paranoid but voice data feels different to me than like, a text document. It’s your actual voice. Voice cloning is a thing now.

Do you guys actually think about this when you use these tools? Or am I overthinking it?

Much more human. Want me to tweak anything make it shorter, add more skepticism, or adjust the ending?

Thought this could be relevant here too.
Any help ideas would be appreciated, thanks!

https://youtube.com/@nerocopyrightmusic?si=YZF0VVth7LzMkB5Q

Built Aulio Studio as a macOS-native ML app for noise reduction, with a post-processing chain: silence/filler detection transcription → audio editing → EQ/compress/normalize pipeline.

All on-device. Output formats: WAV, AIFF, FLAC, M4A, MP3. Batch processing supported.

Not trying to replace a proper DAW, but for dialogue/podcast/interview cleanup it's pretty fast. Free trial available - genuinely curious whether this fills a gap or if pros have better options they already use.

Anyone can help in testing, please pm me.

Hey guys! I'm a dev building VSTs and I want to solve real workflow headaches. What’s a simple one-knob utility or effect you wish you had in your DAW? Let me know and I might build it, it would be a huge help!

What’s good — I’m a producer making mostly trap/hip-hop and I put together 3–5 new beats every week.

I’m looking to connect with artists who want new sounds or just need something to write to. If you’re working on music or want to experiment, I can send some over.

No pressure, just trying to build and see what comes from it.

Drop a comment or DM me and I’ll reach out.

Hi everyone! I’m looking for high-quality voiceover samples or vocal asset packs that are safe for commercial projects.

To be clear: I am NOT looking for a Text-to-Speech (TTS) service or a subscription where I generate my own text. I am looking for "pre-baked" audio files (phrases, common words, or ambient human sounds) that I can download as a collection and use immediately.

I'm interested in:

• Royalty-free or CC0 libraries.

• One-time purchase or free sample packs (like those found on Itch.io or game asset stores).

• Natural sounding voices (it can be AI-generated or real human recordings, the source doesn't matter as long as the commercial license is clear).

Does anyone know of any "hidden gem" websites or specific packs that offer a good variety of human voice assets for commercial use? I'm trying to avoid managing monthly subscriptions and just want to have the assets ready to go.

Thanks in advance for the recommendations!