Be Quiet Silences All But One Audio Feed in Your Browser

Firefox: There are few things more grating than having music playing in one browser tab while you try to watch a YouTube video in the other. Luckily, Be Quiet can manage your Firefox audio streams for you so you never have to switch back and forth.

Once the app is installed, it works in the background to silence one audio stream when another begins. For example, if you have Pandora playing in one tab, it will automatically pause your song when a YouTube video starts playing in another tab. Once you pause or close the video, the music starts up again. The effect is totally seamless, and frankly, delightful.

Unfortunately, the extension has only been tested to work with YouTube, Pandora, and Last.fm, so this might not cover every edge case, and it tragically won't mute obnoxious Flash ads for you. It's tough to complain though, because it works like it should, and it runs in the background so you never have to remember to enable it. If you're a Firefox user, it's definitely worth checking out.

Be Quiet (Free) | Mozilla Add-Ons via AddictiveTips

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How to Add AirPlay to Your Car for High Quality, Wireless Audio

I was fed up with having so many cables floating around in my car and getting tangled, and I wasn’t happy with the compressed audio quality with Bluetooth. So, I came up with an awesome wireless audio solution. If you're bold enough to pop open an Apple AirPort Express and modify its innards, here’s how to hack Apple AirPort Express to put AirPlay in your car.

Note: Ben's original has been edited down a bit to clarify things for the non-technically-inclined, so if you want the original version, go here.

Requirements:

AirPort Express: $99
Car with an aux input in the stereo and a free “cigarette lighter” power plugStar/Torx screwdriver: $8Regular screwdriver: you probably already have oneUSB cable: we all have spares of these too!Some standard wires5V to 3.3V DC stepdown converter: $4A soldering iron & some solder: $8Super glue: $5Cigarette lighter-to-USB converter: $5-$15A little electrical tape: $5Okay, deep breath. First, you’ll need to modify the AirPort Express so that it draws power from a USB cable, instead of its usual household plug. In this post in the North American Subaru Impreza Owners Club forum, user “enjoiful” describes one technique for this. (You might want to check out his or her photos too, for help with this part). Basically, to pop open the AirPort Express, stick your regular screwdriver in the seams at the corners and try some twisting and prying motions. It should pop open easily.

Unscrew all of the circuit boards from the AirPort Express. You can get rid of the L-shaped power supply, because we’re going to wire the USB power to the 5V-to-3.3V converter and use that instead.

Cut the USB cable, and peel the wrapping towards the larger plug (the one that normally connects to your computer), because you want to keep that side. This will reveal four wires:

Green: USB DataWhite: USB DataRed: +5V DCBlack: Ground

We're only interested in the red and black wires inside of that USB cable, because there’s no data coming over the USB cable. After threading the wires through the hole in the side of the AirPort Express (pictured above), solder the black one onto the ground of the AirPort Express (see photos below).

Then, connect the red one to the VIN (voltage input) wire of the stepdown converter, which is green in this photo, and tape around that connection like this:

The stepdown converter has an output wire leading out of it, which is blue in the above photo. Solder that to the power input of the AirPort Express, as pictured above.

Finally, solder the stepdown module’s ground wire (green in the above photo) to the AirPort Express’s ground. So, that’s two wires connected to the AirPort Express’s ground connection—black and green.

When you’re done with all the soldering, you should be looking at something like this:

You’ve made it through the hard part (hopefully without melting your brain or burning down your house). Congratulations! Now, you’ll want to super-glue everything into place so that it doesn’t jiggle around, potentially causing the solder to break, as you drive over your city’s pothole-riddled streets.

Snap the AirPort Express back together. Then, use another little bit of electrical tape to seal up the hole on the edge of the AirPort Express, so that dirt and dust doesn’t get in there, like so:

It’s time to use this thing. Put it in your car, connect the USB power cable to a cigarette lighter adapter, and plug that into your car.

Then, take the audio cable that came with the AirPort Express and connect that to your car’s input. But wait! You’re not done yet, because you’ll need to set up the AirPort Express and your iPhone or iPad the right way (or Android, because those can totally support AirPlay, as weird as that is).

This looks a bit convoluted, but it’s not, and you only have to do it once.

With the AirPort Express powered up and running, fire up Apple’s AirPort Utility on your laptop, in the car. (You can also do this before tackling any of the steps above, but we wanted to make sure you make it this far before bothering with the software tweaks.) AirPort Utility will display your modified AirPort Express in a list similar to this:

Click the device and select "Edit." First, give it a name and a password so you can connect to it later to configure it.

Click the "Internet" tab. Choose “Connect Using: DHCP,” and leave everything else blank:

Then click "Internet Options." In the Configure IPv6 option, choose Local-link only and hit "Save":

Now, head over to the "Wireless" tab. You want to set the network mode to ‘"Create a wireless network," and give it a name. Select your security level and give it a password–this will be the password you and your friends will use to connect their devices to your car’s wireless audio system:

Click "Wireless Options," making sure the details appear correct for your region, and press "Save":

Almost done. You’ll need to select the "Network" tab and set the Router Mode to "DHCP and NAT," like this:

Then, click "Network Options" and set the DHCP Lease time to 1 day. Set the IPv4 DHCP range to 10.0.1.2 to 200, and make sure "Enable NAT Port Mapping Protocol" is selected. Hit "Save":

Okay, now click the "AirPlay" tab. Make sure "Enable AirPlay" is checked. You can give the the speaker a different name if you wish, but I just left it the same as my AirPort Express WiFi name. You can also set an AirPlay password, but there’s no point, really, because people will already need a password to connect in the first place:

Click "Update" to close the dialog and drop you back to the main AirPort screen. From here, you'll see the little icon next to the name as an orange dot, and the light on the front of the device will also be orange. To stop this from happening, click the device in the AirPort utility (as per the first screenshot in this section), and click each of the warnings that appear and select "Ignore," as we don’t care about them.

This will turn the little light green, and you’re almost ready to go. And remember, you won’t have to do any of the stuff above this again—it’s locked and loaded. However, you do still need to set up your iPhone for this to work, too.

You need to make your iPhone, iPad, or Android connect to the AirPort Express to send music, but to the cellular data network for everything else (including streaming music). We’re going to walk through the instructions for iOS here; Android people using these apps or these ones can apply similar principles on that platform.

Open the iOS Settings menu, tap WiFi, and tap new AirPort Express network. This will connect the iPhone or iPad to your new car-based WiFi network — but you’ll find that because the AirPort Express doesn’t have an internet connection, the internet won’t work on your phone. But we can fix that. Tap the blue arrow next to the name of the AirPort Express WiFi network to view more options.

From the screen (pictured at left), select "Static" as the type of IP address, and then enter the following IP address and Subnet Mask :

IP Address : 10.0.1.4 (for example)
Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0

Make sure you leave Router, DNS, and Search Domains blank! This tells the iPhone that it should use its cellular network to route internet traffic rather than trying to do it via WiFi.

And you’re done! Just one thing to keep in mind here though: When you’re connected on your AirPort Express WiFi network, the data icon at the top of your iOS screen won’t look like the WiFi network symbol, the way it normally does when connected to WiFi. Instead, you’ll see the cellular icon—E, 3G, 4G or LTE, depending on your data plan. Never fear, your phone is actually connected to the WiFi network for the purposes of AirPlay, just like we want it to be.

AirPlay on the Highway: Put AirPort Express in your Car for Wireless Audio Awesomeness | Evolver.fm

Twitter software engineer Ben Novakovic, one of the guys who built We Are Hunted, which would eventually become Twitter #Music, is a clever person. In his spare time, Novakovic devised this way to modify an Apple Airport Express so that it runs efficiently in your car, allowing you or any of your passengers to play the music on their phone—or even stream it using Rdio, Spotify, Twitter #Music, or any other app.

Image remixed from Sean Choe (Flickr), Montaplex, and Geralt (Pixabay).

Want to see your work on Lifehacker? Email Tessa.

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Recordium Records and Edits Audio Right on Your iPhone or iPad

iOS: Recordium is an audio recorder and editor all rolled into the same simple, powerful tool. The app also lets you annotate, mark up, highlight, and share your recordings, and back them up to DropBox, Evernote, or any other storage service you choose.

Recordium is free for a limited time (until June 1), so if you're interested in the app, grab it now. it's also a universal app for the iPhone and iPad, so grabbing it once makes it available for all of your devices. Recordium records audio in MP4 (although you can opt to save in WAV, CAF, or AIFF if you want) and can import audio of various file types for editing. You can record in the background, auto-pause recording when you get a phone call and auto-resume when the call is over, and the app auto-saves while it's recording so you don't lose your session if it crashes or your phone loses power. You can choose from three different sampling rates (8, 22, 44.1 kHz) to adjust the quality (and the resulting file size) of your recording.

The app is a fairly powerful audio editing tool too, and is especially well suited for the iPhone and iPad's touch displays. If you're recording a lecture or a class session, you can highlight areas of the recording that are important or that you want to pay attention to, add tags so you can find important tidbits easily again, insert typed notes to go along with the recording at specific times, and more. If you need to edit the audio, you can just tap and select parts of the waveform in the display at the bottom and either snip, trim, or delete the sections entirely. When you're all finished editing, you can save the final file without overwriting the original (if you choose), upload it to Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, or any other cloud service you choose, or share the file over Wi-Fi to your desktop or another computer.

Recordium is surprisingly powerful for a mobile app, and since it's free until the end of the week, there's no reason not to try it out. If you ever do voice recording with your phone or tablet, or wish you could but didn't have a solid app to use, it's might be a good fit for you.

Recordium (Free) | iTunes App Store

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The Basics of Music Production, Lesson 2: Recording Audio

You can have a lot of fun making music, but getting a good recording and arrangement of your song requires some work and knowledge. Last week we set up a home recording studio. This week we're going to start recording.

Note: This is primarily a video lesson and you'll get a lot more information from watching the video above. That said, the instructions below will suffice and you should hang on to them for reference.

If you participated in last week's lesson, you should have all the equipment you need to get started. If not, read last week's lesson first before preceding. We're not going to make equipment recommendations here, but you should know what equipment you're going to need to participate in this lesson:

Your computer with the DAW software of your choice installed (we'll be using Cubase)A digital audio interface (with 48v phantom power) hooked up to your computerA microphone connected to your digital audio interface, most likely via XLR cableAn instrument (e.g. a guitar, your voice, etc.)About 20-30 minutes of your timeOnce you've got everything ready, boot up your DAW software and let's get started!

Interface elements vary between different DAWs, but they embody the same ideas. We'll use Cubase to demonstrate here, but if you're using something else you should find things are pretty similar. Let's take a look at the common parts you'll need to know about.

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The main project window is where you'll do a lot of your work. This window lets you interact with your instruments and sounds as well as bring up individual channel settings as needed. You can do a lot more, too, but those are the basics.

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The mixer (in Cubase, this is the first of three mixers) looks like a hardware mixing board in a lot of ways. You can adjust the levels of individual tracks, open their channel settings, monitor the master output, and keep a general eye on what's going on with your mix as it plays.

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The transporter does what you probably expect: it transports you around your project. This is where you press record, stop, and play, but also where you can toggle the metronome, set time signatures, loop your project, and get information about where you currently are in your project.

The VST instruments panel isn't something you really need to know about until the next lesson, but it's simply where you add virtual instruments to your project.

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When you click the little "e" button next to an audio track you get its channel settings. You can add input (track-specific) and send (multi-track) effects here, use the built-in EQ, and adjust gain.

Those are the main elements of the interface you need to know about. Read on to learn how to set up your first project!

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You already know how to record audio if you know how to push a button, but digital audio workstation (DAW) software requires some setup before that big red circle will actually capture an audio signal. Although we'll be using Cubase to set up our project, most DAW software works in similar ways. If you're not using Cubase, you should be able to follow along just fine but will need to look in slightly different locations for menu items and certain buttons. Here's what to do:

To get started, create a new project by selecting New Project in the File menu. Select "Empty" as a project type. Cubase will ask you where to save it, so pick one and wait for everything to load.Before you can start recording, you need to make sure Cubase (or whatever DAW you're using) can find your interface and the mics (or whatever else) you have hooked up to it. Go to the Device menu and choose VST Connections.From there, click the Inputs tab and set the first mono input to your first microphone. Repeat this process for any additional microphones or inputs (e.g. electric guitars).Click the Outputs tab and you should see a pair of stereo outputs. Set the first one to your left speaker and the second one to your right speaker.Now that your inputs and outputs are properly routed, close VST Connections and go to the Project menu. Choose Add Track -> Audio.When the new track window appears, create one track and set its configuration to mono. Because we're just recording from a single microphone in this lesson, you don't need a stereo track. In fact, you'll rarely choose stereo even when recording from two microphones because you'll likely prefer to have the channels separated. This provides you with greater control over where they're placed in the recording (i.e. where it sounds like the recorded voice or instrument is) and the character of the sound. When you're done, click Add Track.By default, the new track should have its record enabling toggle button lit up red. You'll see this beneath the track name. If it isn't lit, click on it to enable recording on this track.Also by default, your track should be set to your first microphone. If not, take a look at the panel on the left side of the main project window and you'll see input and output settings. The output should be set to Stereo (which is the default name for Cubase's stereo output) and then input should be set to whatever you named your first microphone (usually Mono In by default, but this can vary). If you see No Bus that means nothing is connected to this audio track, so click on No Bus and change it to the name of your first microphone.Using the transporter—which is the thin horizontal window strip with lots of tools and buttons on it—press the record button. You'll see the recording start. Talk, sing, or play an instrument into the microphone and the waveform of your audio will appear in real time.When finished recording, press the stop button on the transporter.That's all there is to it! You've just recorded your first bit of audio. It probably sounds bad, but that's likely due to a need for EQ, higher gain (increase in the amplitude of the frequency so it sounds louder), or some other problem. We're not going to worry about that just yet because you're still getting used to how your DAW works. We'll tackle mixing individual audio tracks and the entire mix in a later lesson, though you can get a preview if you watch the video above.

Want to learn more? Join us next Tuesday at 5:00 PM PT for our next lesson: playing and recording virtual instruments. Don't forget to bring your MIDI keyboard!

Related You can have a lot of fun making music, but getting a good recording and arrangement of your song requires some work and knowledge. For the next few … Read…

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ASUS Xonar DGX and Xonar DSX Audio Cards Reviews

Legit Mods and Ends Reviews

It’s unfortunate that desktop sound cards are becoming less popular. Many years ago, sound cards with their dedicated audio processors could genuinely benefit gamers and their computers when CPUs were much slower. Nowadays, sound cards are being displaced by such factors as fast CPUs, increasing usage of software audio processing, and improved motherboard audio. Additionally, quality listening hardware is necessary to really hear the difference and the cost of good headphones or speakers is another cost burden many people don’t want to deal with. Cheap audio solutions are acceptable to most people and that's fine, but a more recent to insult to high-end audio is the development of trendy headphone fashion currently led by Beats by Dr. Dre, though I digress.

Nevertheless, there will always users who demand the benefits sound cards can bring to the table. Audiophiles demand sound quality, home theater PC users can utilize the outputs and connectivity, and gamers can step up their game with accurate positional audio. ASUS has tackled these challenges with its Xonar sound card line-up. Today we’re looking at the two budget Xonar cards, the DGX and the DSX, though ASUS has made an entire range of Xonar solutions. Among them are the Essence ST and STX which are targeted at home audio enthusiasts, the ROG Phoebus which complements the gamer’s arsenal, and the Essence One DACs made for the most hardcore of audiophiles.

It’s been a very long time Legit Reviews has looked at a desktop sound card. It’s also quite special that ASUS sent two which allows us to make for a comparison. However, there was much to catch up on and it took me a considerable amount of research on community findings and hours of careful listening to make this review as informative as I can.

The Xonar DGX and DSX are PCI-E versions of the older Xonar DG and DS respectively, both which used the vanilla PCI interface. There are two clear advantages of using the newer PCI-E versions: these cards are compatible on motherboards that only have PCI-E slots and the PCI-E bus can provide all needed power thus eliminating the need for an additional power supply plug.

When it comes to online pricing you can find the ASUS Xonar DGX runs $39.57 shipped and the ASUS Xonar DSX costs $59.24 shipped. All ASUS Xonar cards carry a 3 year warranty.

Output Signal-to-Noise Ratio (A-Weighted) (Front-out)

Input Signal-to-Noise Ratio (A-Weighted)

Output THD+N at 1kHz (Front-out)

Frequency Response (-3dB, 24bit/96KHz input)

Digital-to-analog converter (DAC)

Texas Instruments NE55329 (swappable)

The technical specifications table above highly indicates a myriad of hardware differences between the DGX and the DSX. Predictably, there are differences in their audio characteristics which I will explain further on.

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