Audio

So I had a bunch of audio files in mono and wanted to convert them to sterero. This is pretty much just a case of copying the single-channel mono stream and pasting it into the two separate channels of the stereo track. I then also wanted to add a fake effect that makes this new dubious stereo track sound something like a genuine stereo track. All this is possible in Audacity. What's more, the program allows batch processing which allowed me to automate this task across a bunch of files.

Today, I started dabbling in doing some screen recording in Linux and while I could find programs to record the screen, I couldn't get the audio working as I wanted. By default, the programs record either the system audio, or the mic audio (or if the program is shit, neither); they don't record both the system audio and the mic audio. The fix for this on my Kubuntu 16.04 (Xenial) system which uses the Pulseaudio system to manage audio is as follows:

I remember, many, many years ago, finding a plugin for WinAMP that allowed (IIRC) easy looping of a section of an MP3. I wanted to do this again. Only this time, there was no WinAMP and I am a foobar2000 user.

This has happened to me on a number of occasions where I've found that my system audio only plays when I switch to a different tty. I don't know exactly how to duplicate the issue . But essentially, if I switch from my Kubuntu 14.10 KDE desktop to a different tty (using something like CtrlAltF5) and then switch back to the KDE tty, I find that I can hear no audio. However, if I switch again to the command-line tty, I can hear that audio that ought to have been playing in KDE. Rather weird, huh?

New Windows 7 system: When I plugged in my headphones into the front audio jack, I immediately started hearing a buzzing and whistling noise in the earpiece. When I switched to the rear audio port, this noise went away. MP3s played clearly on both ports albeit with the buzzing noise in the background when using the front port.

If you, like me, enjoy playing on your guitar to music from your PC, you will share my annoyance at the fact that bands often tune up or down a step or so for different songs. While it might be simple enough to tune your guitar up and down as and when necessary, I think that everybody will agree that it's a bit of a pain. Here's a solution for people like me who tend to have, well, an indolent approach to their guitar.

Everybody geeky is quite likely to have already heard of FM transmitters like this one that lets you broadcast any audio output stream on an FM frequency and tune into it with a radio. I'm a big fan of this gadget and have about 3 around for various uses.

That said, does anybody know of an equivalent video option that will let me tune into a video broadcast via the telly? That would rock! Google didn't help me much in my search... I suppose it's a question of terminology too.

I had an issue earlier today where my microphone was not being detected on my semi-new Windows box. The system uses a Gigabyte motherboard with onboard Realtek audio. All drivers from the driver CD had been installed. But my microphone and front panel input options in the Windows Volume Control were all greyed out.

I am not sure what the exact solution was, but I did all the following things: