Making NUS webcast sound better with Logic Pro and another free software

Ever got frustrated over how horrible webcast in NUS can sound? Well, it's 2 days away from the start of the exams, and I'm stuck with webcasting the 2nd half of my econs (which thankfully is not the first exam). It doesn't help that the breeze online lecture for the e-learning week has super low audio quality.

There's this non-stop high frequency hiss around the 5Khz range that super irritating. Not to mention the vocal clarity is pretty poor too. Which leads one to wonder why NUS never bother to provide better quality audio for their webcast when it's so easy (and there are tonnes of free software to do that too) to clean up hiss and noise and improve speech clarity.

Anyway, I decided to pamper myself a little and clean up the noise in real-time. Only problem, the webcast is played in "breeze" adobe presenter, and there's no way of downloading it to play in my beloved iTunes where I can use the EQ to turn down all the high frequencies. HOW? Internet explorer never came with an equalizer.

Ok, for those of you who are wondering, I am using a Mac, and I webcast in windows XP on parallels because stupid Aspresso Classroom webcasts doesn't allow 2x speed using anything but internet explorer. Anyway, that doesn't matter, this method still works anyway.

So for those of you using Mac out there (yea, mac rocks!), here's what I did, and you'll find it quite simple to follow too. What you'll need is:

• Logic Pro
• Soundflower (which is an open-sourced freeware which is meant to be a bonus product for some professional software)

Firstly, I channeled my sound output from parallels to soundflower. Once you've installed soundflower, it'll add 2 new input and output devices to your Mac's Core Audio drivers (one 2 channel, one 16 channel). As you can see, selecting the 2-channel soundflower as your output device is brainless. Just select it under parallels' Devices menu.

Now, you'll have to catch that from within Logic. So now it's time to fire up logic and select the same soundflower 2ch as the input device.

Again, This is not that hard. Just go to Logic Pro -> Preferences..., and change the input device to soundflower (2ch).

Now, what you want is to crate a new empty project in Logic Pro, which I believe you can do by yourself. Then create a new stereo Audio track, with inputs 1-2 (from soundflower as set in preference), and output to stereo 1-2 (which goes to your built-in output as stated in the preference above). Screenshot attached here for total noobs :-p

Ok, so our channel is set up.

Now, we have to set up our I/O for the audio track. As you can see, it takes input from Input 1-2 and outputs to Stereo Out. I adjusted the equalizer to pull down all the high frequencies (which the human voice will never include anything about 7000Khz, at least for speech, so I pull it down to the minimum). Just double click the dark blue box with the horizontal line will give you the EQ graph. Click and hold those empty squares below the Inserts will bring up a menu, where you can add all the real-time effects. I included Specialized->Speech Enhancer, Dynamicx->DeEsser and Compressor just to hint to you a few effects that could be great for vocal enhancing and clarity. Overall, it should look like that:

Finally, you'll need to click the 'I' down there (it'll turn orange) to monitor the input from soundflower. This way, you'll hear everything from the soundflower outputted from parallels, channeled through the effects and denoise, and outputted to your headphones/speakers. Go on, play that awful webcast again, and it should sound much better, and even super good if you tweak those settings a little. Voila, it's that easy!

You could play with some other stuff like the Specialized->Denoiser, and see whether that works for you. Just experiment till you get the golden voice.

Ok, for those of you who are not using parallels, or if you cannot control which audio device your program outputs to, you'll have to do it the not-so-elegant way. That is, make your whole Mac default output to soundflower, and then make logic output to the built-in output.

To do this, go to System Preference (don't ask me where to find it, you should know!), click on Sound, and choose the Output tab. Under the Select a device...., choose Soundflower (2ch)

The configuration for Logic should remain the same, and it should work like magic. Yup, if you're thinking what I'm thinking... You're most probably right! You can send any sound (from throughout your Mac) into Logic, process it the way you want, and output it. What's MORE IMPORTANT here, you can RECORD anything that plays out from your computer speakers! Go figure... The possibilities only limited by your imagination.

One caveat here. You'll have to leave logic running in the background. That should take about 150MB of RAM. I have 4GB, and I don't feel any effect of leaving logic pro opened, but you may feel the lag, so you may want to close logic once you're done with it. And also, once you're done with all those stuff, don't forget to switch back the audio device (either in system preference of in parallels) to your built-in output or whatever you are using. Else you might be wondering why parallels doesn't have any sound, or why your Mac is suddenly muted. :-)

Ok, I know most of you can't afford Logic Pro (but seriously, at S$698 for student price, it's not that bad an investment after all, you'll never know when those tools come in handy). I am not affiliated to Apple in any way, but Logic is seriously good. I just wish it was more er... polished, like soundtrack pro and logic working better together (or even merged into one)...

Anyway, enough of me rambling. There's a totally free way for you to do exactly what I did (ok maybe with less of the nice effects, but basic EQ and denoise should work fine). Using AU Lab, which comes free with your MacOSX (in the 2nd disc that you've most probably never touched before), you can more or less achieve similar results, which is totally free, and works well too. It will be slightly more technical (there's always a catch to it, huh?), but the reward is sure worth it if your lecturer just doesn't know how to use a mic properly.

I'll go into that once I have some free time (or when I'm bored again after my nth webcast). Stay tuned, mac lovers... I'll be back with more goodies!

Meanwhile, Connie Chung (EC1301) is just so humourous if you webcast her lectures at 2x...

And if you have any tips for EC1301, i'll be glad to have it like... within these 5 days...

It is well with my soul with some history

The music is just awesome. It has a very strong effect on the emotion. The 2nd verse, especially, just sweeps me up, and throws me right into the turmoil and sorrow of Horatio Spafford, and his beloved wife, during the lost of their children. The feeling of lost, grief, and hopelessness is suddenly so real. Yet, the second part of the verse, though still in the minor harmonic, pumps in so much hope, so much sense of belonging to Christ, that one feels like hope has never felt better than in a time of extreme grief.

"It is through our deficiencies that God is most glorified." Hope will not have it's meaning if we need God any less.

Baffled - Again

It seems that Raffles Hall did very well so far even at half its usual strength. So well, that people may even start to wonder...what's the secret to keeping such a vibrant and active hall even with so few residents. Jonathan took a closer look at hall life and it looks like we have found ourselves an answer...




It seems time runs backwards in Raffles Hall! No wonder people from outside if hall always complain that events never seem to start on the predetermined time. RH keeps its own time, different from the rest if the world.

-published from mobile device

Be thankful

Sometimes we ask, how can we be thankful in such a situation? Well, I just saw a commercial on mobile tv I'm the bus, and there was 3 tips.

Be thankful for your mistakes
- they teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful for your limitations
- they provide opportunity for improvement.

Be thankful if you're tired
- it means you've made a difference.

Not sure how applicable is this, but it's sure quite encouraging. Especially when our normal reaction toward such events is always complain first, think later. At least, it can take away much of our stress, and make us more thankful people.

Concert surprises!

Jerome happily came in to my room with a nice letter of absense for me. Considering I'm not really contributing to concert this year, this was a rather pleasent surprise!

Here's the letter explaining my absense from classes.



Not too bad, eh? I am entitled to 2 years leave. Drats...how am I to reclaim 2 years of leave that I've wasted :-s

-via iPhone

Raffles Hotel a.k.a. Renovated Blocks

I was so excited coming back from COMEX, having bought a new external firewire HD, with firewire and all... When I reached my room, I found my roomie on my laptop! He was surfing you tube, and wait, something's very different... His side of the room was now EMPTY!

Ok, so it turns out he was looking for the a youtube video that goes auf wiedersehen... goodbye... to greet me when I arrive back in my room. ARGH!!! depressed xia! he's all moved out and settled down in the new room while I'm still stuck with a whole room of mess taunting me, waiting for me to move. Anyway, he didn't manage to find the video, so there... I caught him while he was looking for it.

Anyway, I decided that I'm going to move bit by bit. Yup, just like your serial connection in EE2007, you move data out bit by bit, complete with handshaking, parity, error checking and all... Anyway, most of the crucial stuff have been moved to my new room, (i.e. my printer, notes, calculator, computer fridge, and everything I need to study. So I'll just study, until I'm tired of studying, then start moving some stuff again...

Cleaning the room is another story. The whole room was dusty with all the construction dust, made my whole pail of water like teh-tarik... But it's rather nice and cooling after moping the floor 5 times. We have new window panes too! They have a very mild, slightly off green tint, but transparent for most purpose. Somehow I feel that they are much cooler than the black ones we used to have, maybe because black absorbs heat. I was wondering whether it is those heat reflecting glass, which lets visible light in, but reflects the infra-red spectrum which heats up the room...hmm... but Tirza pointed out that those would be too expensive to be possibly used in RH... hmm, one never knows, since this whole renovation which seems very minor, already cost a few millions...

Tables are much longer too! nice color, and a lot more plug points than last time.

Lighting have changed, the color is not kinda daylight, but not warm white, which is yellow, hot, and dull. Well, at first, I thought I would prefer cool white, or cool daylight, but this one seems to be perfect, much more natural, and closer in temperature to natural light. It doesn't blink when coming on too, and turns on almost instantaneously when you turn on the switch... must be some kind of new energy saving light.

Ooo, and since I'm taking the end of the split, I get the whole end of the corridor to decorate and keep my stuff. Actually, each split level now has a door, making it quite exclusive/secluded/private, whatever have you. Would think of something to do with that extra space some time later...

Still, there are some hiccups. Some rooms still don't have internet access. Water is still muddy in some blocks. As of now, only 1 block have a proper water dispenser (by proper, I mean with attached filter). But the continuous email updates from our beloved Siew Teng is always ready to comfort the disheartened, and offer a pinch of humor when all else fails. Alas, I'm only 50% done in my shifting... :-(

Can't sleep

Very packed timetable this semester. Very little time for myself. Day starts at 9, ends at 6, by the time night comes, I'm just too tired to study.

Was worrying of what I should do next semester to lighten my schedule. It seems so impossible, so unlikely, that I will ever improve my life. I keep wanting to escape, hoping that life will be better in future. Keep thinking of how I would have done it if given a second chance...

But fact is, life has to go on, and nothing's changing... The only thing I can change is my attitude...

Keep worrying about what to do in the future, when the current problem is not even over... Gah! I need to worry less... I should just be faithful and take a day at a time...

Hope I will learn to take it to the Lord in prayer...

Very nice song, so meaningful words... No need instruments, the words speaks for itself... And the pictures, they fit just right with the words...

How often we fail to cherish how blessed we are to have a friend...

How often we overlooked the fact that help is waiting just right there...