Automatic Post Production offer

kayray · Post by **kayray** » September 21st, 2013, 1:40 pm

Well! First time I've noticed this thread. I've made an account at Auphonic and will give them a try on my next recording.

kayray · Post by **kayray** » September 26th, 2013, 9:32 pm

I've used Auphonic for my last few short recordings, and I must say I am VERY impressed! I think my finished recordings sound better than they did with my old post-processing routine, and my TINY bit of background noise is cleaned up nicely (it's so tiny that I don't bother cleaning it out, but it's nice to have it gone anyway).

Dropbox integration is lovely. The ability to make presets and fill in proper id3 tags is great.

Nifty!

Norman · Post by **Norman** » September 28th, 2013, 8:02 am

Rapunzelina suggested i try Auphonic at -20 LUFS and i couldn't be happier!

My sections of the "Aviation Instructor's Handbook" can be an hour long, and my volume can change each time i record for a few minutes, and during recording. I try to do the background noise for each session in Audacity, but i rely on Auphonic for the volume and the first pass at ID3 tags.

These guys are great!

P.S. I export from Audacity to .wav for submission, but let Auphonic convert to .mp3

Post by **TriciaG** » September 28th, 2013, 8:24 am

Cool, Norman!

If you want, you could save some upload time by exporting to FLAC instead. It's also lossless, like WAV, but the files are smaller.

kayray · Post by **kayray** » December 21st, 2013, 11:14 pm

After using auphonic on a several recordings, I've gone back to my old system. I don't have enough noise to bother cleaning it, so I just use my 10-band EQ filter to get rid of the bottom end and then use a touch of compression. :)

Auphonic still seems useful if you need more post-production than I do. For me it's not worth the up- and download-time.

J_N · Post by **J_N** » June 18th, 2014, 2:36 am

Auphonic is no longer free

You still get 2 hours per month for free, but for any more than that you have to pay (not hugely expensive, but for my purpose not needed)... https://auphonic.com/blog/2014/06/18/auphonic-goes-freemium/

Guess I'll have to go back to manual post-processing now - and maybe try to figure out, how auphonic does what it does to make the recordings sound so clean at the end

Post by **TriciaG** » June 18th, 2014, 5:50 am

I saw that, too. I'm highly disappointed, but I shouldn't be surprised.

The downloadable version is still free:

I don't want to use a web service. Can I install Auphonic on my desktop computer?
Yes. Our audio algorithms are included in the Auphonic Leveler Desktop App.
Note that Metadata (Tagging), Chaptermarks management and Automatic Content Deployment features (FTP, SFTP, Dropbox, etc.) are not available in the Auphonic Leveler.

EDIT: My mistake; the desktop version is NOT free, but around $90.

Post by **Availle** » June 18th, 2014, 6:09 am

You can buy what they call one time credits instead of a monthly subscription. If I understand correctly, they first let you use up the two hours of free audio before touching the one time credits, which are valid indefinitely. Also, if your input file stays the same, you can use different settings our output formats.

I don't find it hugely expensive, you pay (with one time credits) between 1.80 and 1.09 per hour of processed audio. Recurring credits are cheaper.

I'm not sure about buying the credits, I usually get along fine within the two hour limit. We'll see.

Oh, I've just seen auphonic is a little company made in Austria...

You wouldn't want to reconsider and be patriotic, Julia?

Post by **MaryAnnSpiegel** » June 18th, 2014, 6:56 am

I got the e-mail today as well:

Hallo [me]!

After more than two years of free Auphonic, we have to introduce our long promised freemium plans because of financial reasons.

Here is our new pricing model:
https://auphonic.com/pricing

We want to make this change as user friendly as possible, but that's of course not that easy.
Therefore we wanted to ask you, if you think that our model is understandable and reasonable?
Do you think that the pricing is good?

Thanks for your ongoing support and we would be happy about any feedback!
LG
Georg (from Auphonic)

--
auphonic - audio post production software and web service
http://auphonic.com
audio algorithms, machine learning, signal processing and more

I can easily record 2-3 hours a week. I've used Auphonic in the past for all my files except poetry, but I think in the future, I will simply use Audacity noise cleaning and volume adjustment, and leave it at that. I don't think the sound difference on my files from using Auphonic is worth $25/month.

No problem with them moving to a cost model, based on their pricing levels, they must have some very heavy users. But I was hopeful that they would find some way to exempt out the Librivox readers since we're not producing recordings for sale or profit.

MaryAnn

J_N · Post by **J_N** » June 18th, 2014, 7:13 am

Availle wrote:Oh, I've just seen auphonic is a little company made in Austria...
You wouldn't want to reconsider and be patriotic, Julia?

I know, pretty cool, right? Runtastic is Austrian, too... we have some impressive start-ups...

I don't mind that they charge now - for (semi)professionals this is a brilliant service to clean up podcasts etc. and worth the money - but for Librivox what I can achieve with manual post-processing is still completely OK... I will finish my solo with auphonic, for consistency - but currently I am not recording anything close to 2 hours a month for it

so I should be fine for now...

Like MaryAnn, I was using it for anyhting longer than 5 minutes... now it seems I must perfect my post-processing... I want that clean sound

An exemption for Librivox would be nice (maybe an additional 2 hours or something

) - but how could they administrate that? Someone joins Librivox, gets free access and then leaves and continues using the service for other purposes...

Post by **philchenevert** » June 18th, 2014, 7:17 am

This is just the next logical step for the company. I tried Auphonic and it did a fine job but I could not hear a real difference between what I did myself and the Auphonic files so I just have kept doing them myself with Audacity. Plus of course I tend to focus much more when I know that I'm responsible for the final product; irrational but that's me.

All this talk about editing makes me think it is time to do another "How Phil edits: Version III" videos. It's been about 2 years since the last one. Not that I edit great, indeed some might say that I'm much too forgiving of my mistakes, but a few people have found it the first two entertaining and a bit helpful. Well, at least entertaining! And I am a firm believer in sharing our knowledge.

J_N · Post by **J_N** » June 18th, 2014, 7:24 am

Phil, I always enjoy your videos

What I found impressive with auphonic was... a couple of weeks ago I tried helping someone new to improve their audio recording and I found it utterly impossible to do anything about the terrible audio quality... just for kicks, I put it through auphonic and it sounded soooooooooo much better... it could have been put into the catalogue right there and then... and I would really like to know, how they do it... unfortunately I did not save the before and after.

auphonic · Post by **auphonic** » June 18th, 2014, 8:10 am

Hallo LibriVox!

I know that our freemium model is difficult for some of you - especially for you, MaryAnnSpiegel!
But I guess many will also go into our "free" category ...

We would of course like to support librivox, as you are producing these audio books for public domain.
However, this is just the start of our pricing model, so if you have any ideas how we can improve that (which is also easy to administrate), we are very open!

How many of you are actually over 2h?
If it is just you, MaryAnnSpiegel, we are of course happy to make an exception!

LG
Georg (from Auphonic)

LibbyG · Post by **LibbyG** » June 18th, 2014, 9:37 am

auphonic wrote: How many of you are actually over 2h?
If it is just you, MaryAnnSpiegel, we are of course happy to make an exception!

LG
Georg (from Auphonic)

Vielen Dank for working with us, Georg. For my solo recordings, I produce about 1.5 to 2.5 hours per month, but when I have a completed dramatic reading (which is 3-6 times per year) I use up to 6 hours at once. Right now, I use auphonic before any other editing, which means that my files are 20%-30% longer than the edited file. I could switch to using auphonic after other edits to cut down on my file sizes.

J_N · Post by **J_N** » June 18th, 2014, 9:52 am

It's really great that you are open to suggestions...

One thing I can think of is: Does auphonic have some sort of gift voucher system in place (or planned)? You could allocate us a certain amount of hours in the form of voucher codes (1h per code or something) that we could hand out as needed or something along those lines...

[It would have to be administrated by an Admin, though, which means more work for them - but not a lot, I think...]