[audacity4blind] An informal questionnaire to list members
- From: "David R. Sky" <davidsky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 16:56:55 -0800 (PST)
This is an an informal questionnaire from Scott Berry and David
Sky, the two moderators of the audacity4blind list. We would
appreciate your help in answering any or all of these questions, in
large part for all of us to get to know each other a little better,
and to help us further develop our growing list and website.
Following the questions, we will answer them ourselves, so you'll
get to know us a bit better too.
First of all, we're curious about your background - how did you
become interested in using Audacity? What skills have you developed
as a result of using or wanting to use Audacity? What skills do you
want to learn or improve on? Are you particularly skilled in some
area which might be helpful to someone else on this list?
Secondly, we'd like to get a general 'feel' of what you'd like from
this list (apart from the obvious reason that this list is for
blind and visually-impaired Audacity users). Is there something
specific you wanted to learn about using Audacity? Did you want to
learn something else related to audacity and/or digital audio? Has
there been something particularly challenging for you to do using
Audacity?
And is there something else you'd like to add to this?
Below are Scott's and David's own responses to these questions:
Scott: I have been a musician since I was a little kid, I was about
six when I started to play the piano. I have been in one band, but
didn't use much specialized equipment - most everything we did was
live and no recordings.
My interests lie in multitracking. I also would like to begin a
podcast, and would like to do multitracking for this. I am also
interested in doing my day-to-day audio activities using Audacity.
The problem is that there are presets in the sound effects, but I'm
not so hot at fiddling with the numbers. If it sounds good to my
taste I use the defaults; if it doesn't, I skip it.
Digital audio encumbers a lot of foreign words - it would be nice
to have some of those demystified. This way a person can feel much
more at ease using those same words. Not only that, but also know
what they are doing while editing audio. The more you learn, the
better!
David: I played keyboards in two bands in the early 1980s, doing
both live shows and recording. I have been doing analogue
multitrack recording of my own music since about 1985, just after
I went totally blind. After hearing different sound effects in
music, I wondered how I could duplicate some of those effects,
especially after I started hearing about digital sound recording
and editing. I wondered how would I be able to do all this using a
computer, especially as a blind person?
In 2004 I learned about Audacity, a free digital sound recorder and
editor. After using Audacity and subscribing to the general
Audacity users list, I learned 'Nyquist' sound effect plug-ins
could be made for audacity by someone with a text editor. I was
excited, and began learning how to use and write Nyquist. I've
written many sound effect and sound generator plug-ins since,
including duplicating many of the effects I had heard in the past.
I continue writing such plug-ins for my own and other people's use
and enjoyment.
there was something missing though - the ability to easily do
multitrack recording using a screen reader, just like sighted
Audacity users. I joined the Audacity development list as part of
encouraging the development team to make Audacity increasingly
screen reader accessible. In 2005 a man whose wife was blind joined
the development team - he wanted to help make Audacity more
accessible for her. Because of his work, screen reader users of
Audacity 1.3.1 beta can now easily do multitrack recording and
editing. (As of the date of this writing, 1.3.1 is still being
publicly tested and streamlined.)
Thanks very much for your response!
Appreciatively,
David Sky
Scott Berry
Monday March 6, 2006
To unsubscribe from this list please use the following command:
freelists-users-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject.
Other related posts:
