Hack: editing your sermon audio files beyond Proclaim
While Proclaim audio recording is in beta, some of the post-processing features we would like to implement are not quite there yet. We've had many requests to do things like increase/decrease the volume level of a recording or other non-trim related edits; while these are in the works, we're providing the following unsupported workaround to edit your audio files and have the changes reflected within the Proclaim app:
- Download and install Audacity free from audacity.sourceforge.net/download/.
- Find your AudioRecordings folder on Mac or Windows using the following filepaths:
Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Proclaim/Data/[USER FOLDER]/AudioRecordings/
Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Proclaim\Data\[USER FOLDER]\AudioRecordings\
Note: Each Proclaim user has their own folder in "Data." If more than one person uses Proclaim on your machine, you may need to follow these steps several times to find out which data folder is yours.
- In the AudioRecordings folder, sort the items by date modified to find the most recent audio recording. Each folder represents a different audio recording session, so you may have to try several of these folders before you find the recording you're looking for. The file merged.wav is the located in the AudioRecordings folder:
- Open merged.wav with Audacity. On the left side of the screen is the gain (in dB), which can be adjusted to increase or decrease the volume of the recording.
- Once you have adjusted the volume of the recording to your liking, select "Export audio..." from the Audacity file menu and save the merged.wav file in the same AudioRecordings folder from which it came.
Making any trim changes to the audio file in Audacity will cause Proclaim to crash when you attempt to open that file. It is important to not trim the file in Audacity, just to adjust settings like volume.
If you make unrecoverable trim changes to your audio file, you can delete the recording session from the AudioRecordings folder and it will re-sync the next time you login to Proclaim.
Comments
-
This is great. I really appreciate this work-around. I was almost ready to drop Proclaim, but the ease of uploading synced sermon audio has absolutely made the product for me. Thanks for an ever improving service.
Using Logos as a pastor, seminary professor, and Tyndale author
0 -
Justin Gatlin said:
This is great. I really appreciate this work-around. I was almost ready to drop Proclaim, but the ease of uploading synced sermon audio has absolutely made the product for me. Thanks for an ever improving service.
Awesome to hear that you like the new audio recording feature!
If you don't mind me asking, what are the top things that you don't like about Proclaim? We're always looking for feedback on what to improve.
0 -
Proclaim needs to be able to work better with creativity - for instance in power point you can make animations, attention getting cut outs, etc. As far as I know, the only way to do this for Proclaim would be to create an image file outside of Proclaim and upload it. Anytime I have to go outside the Logos suite, it's counter productive - which is why the new Sermon Editor is awesome (I'm sure FL will make it even better :-)). I think Bullet points and indention on slides is still quirky sometimes as well.
0 -
Would it be possible to elaborate on which post-processing tools you hope to add to Proclaim? And whether there has been any progress? I realize recording is still in beta...
But specifically, it would be really helpful to have the ability to apply compression and EQ without needing to use the audacity workaround.
0 -
Josh, the post-processing tools are still under review. I'm interested in what your workflow is like from the time you go off air until your sermons are fully published; if you could provide a list of steps you take we'll do our best to support it when we release post-processing tools.
0 -
Thanks for the reply, Peter! Well, we're looking to change our workflow, which is why I'm inquiring here. Up until now, I have NOT been using the publish option. I have been selecting 'download raw audio' and then taking the file home, opening it in a DAW (Presonus Studio One), applying compression/EQ, adding an instrumental intro/outro, and then uploading to our website, which also has a built-in podcasting function. I do this post-processing because the mix we have in our sanctuary is not the mix we want for our online streaming. So we record the dry signal straight from the preamp through a firewire connection from our soundboard.
I would love to simplify this process so that sermons are published more immediately following Sunday's service. I'm willing to drop the adding extra audio (intro/outro) part for the convenience of Proclaim's process. But we really do need to keep the ability to add compression and EQ. I obviously don't expect Proclaim to include a full DAW, but the inclusion of a couple of basic 'channel strip'-type dynamics processing effects (and maybe if we're including stretch goals [:)] - a Reverb) would allow us to keep everything in-house and would even enable other volunteers, who don't personally own the DAW software that I use at home, to handle publishing as well.
For what it's worth, I have experimented with the Audacity workaround, and haven't been able to get it to work yet. I'm not changing the length of the recording in Audacity, and I'm exporting it back to the same location with the same name, but when I try to re-open the file in Proclaim, Proclaim crashes. I did notice that the file size of the exported .wav from Audacity is about half that of the original, so I don't know if my export settings have anything to do with it. I'm also running the public beta of MacOS Sierra, so it's possible that it's just a bug related to an as-of-yet unsupported operating system.
0 -
Now that I think about it, Proclaim wouldn't necessarily even need to ship with actual effect plug-ins. If it just had the ability to interact with plug-ins that I already have installed on my computer, and pass the audio through them, that would probably be ideal. While Audacity ships with some basic plug-ins built-in, it also can use whatever plug-ins you may already have installed from other DAWs. If Proclaim was just given that same ability, I imagine it would be less coding work and would allow people to use whatever plug-ins they already know and love.
0 -
Is this still doable in some way? I can't find the folders in that location on my Mac. I assume they are somewhere else now?
The main thing I'm trying to do is replace the audio on a sermon recorded in Proclaim. We recorded it in a secondary way and got a better quality.
0 -
Should be the same location Rich. Are you copying and pasting the location into Go > Go To Folder?
If that isn't working, try just entering in ~/Library/ and see if you follow the path down Application Support > Proclaim > Data > (randomly named folder) > Audio Recordings.
If you still can't find it, let us know, I can connect and help you.
0
