"PFAU" Post Facto AUdio
(P)ost (F)acto (AU)dio
background WAV record - KEEP button
Summary:
Why? (hear me out... )
With PFAU I can catch the sound-bite of a politician from the news for example ... and don't have to record the whole radio programme.. or get that last song from the radio. (http://www.ihug.co.nz/bFM.ram)
Why named PFAU?
It has no deep meaning. "der Pfau" is german for peacock. It is pronounced PFOW (the PF sounds like releasing air-pressure), and rhymes with NOW. The icon on the task-bar naturally will be an "eye" from the feather of a peacock. (Why did God give peacock such beautiful feathers? Because she fucked up their voice.) The long name is: Norbert Haley's and (your name here) Post Facto Audio Recorder Money?
Well.. if you are capable of programming the PFAU ... and you do a really excellent job ... you should be compensated for your time at the very least. However, I feel the basic PFAU ought to be freeware. Advanced versions (see below) may be sold. If you like, I, Norbert, will sell the software for you. I am already selling a low-cost item (the APD, 10$, see below) and have considerable experience with this cumbersome task. I don't mind spending time on this. My main advantage is that the banks here in New Zealand allow easy handling of low amounts of money, i.e. I can take VISA, cheques and even operate a joint business account with you _at little expense._ If thats what you want ... no problem.
Background information:
Since real events can not be anticipated (unless you use Norbert's "Astronomical Pocket Diary" y23.com/apd/ ;-) the way to preserve for posterity these "I-wish-I-had-recorded-that" -events is to use buffered recording. The PFAU is the practical solution for audio-events. I predict that the need for "post facto" recorders will become larger as the information-mountain piles up. Not everything can be recorded, but with a reasonable hindsight an ex post facto decision can be made on whether to keep a recording of the event.
Advanced Ideas:
The following advanced features can be implemented in the advanced version of PFAU (maybe called: "PUTER", another german name for "peacock, peafowl"):
and when signal processing is a possibility:
What to expect from Version 1.0 ?
I expect a small (pfau.exe, 20k?) programme. When started it shall immediately iconise and sit on the taskbar. I started it with pfau -s32000 -t300 -m meaning sample rate 32000kHz, 300 seconds buffer, mono. The hard-disk light is flashing slowly.. as it records.
All audio controls are handled by the win95 volume-control-mixer-thingie, pfau just records and dows nothing else. And it does not significantly slow the computer down ... it just uses 10-30mB of space in the temp directory.
So I am computering along, while listening to the radio. But then Oh yeah! there is the sound-bite I wanted to record for so long ... I can take my time and move my mouse to the task bar... and after the soundbite ends, I hit the peacock icon (keep-button). This makes the last 5 minutes permanent in a file called 07061324.wav and also creates a log-file 07061324.log which contains all the information needed to later determine the exact point in time, when the audio-event was recorded. (**atompfau)
Wow... I got it. Now I use COOL96 (from www.syntrillium.com) and cut the part I want from that large file. Then I normalise it, run the equaliser, limiter over it, and even time-stretch the all important word in the sound-bite, so that it melts on your tongue. Voila. Another task well done.
But, hold on... while I was doing all this.. the announcer said something extremely interesting about the sound-bite... and I just (you have guessed it): take my time and move my mouse to the task bar...
Howzat? Gaddadoit, man!
So, if you think you can do it ( C++ ?) then go ahead. If you know only a part of the solution, and need someone else to help, or if you want to suggest a particularly clever way to go about programmingthe pfau... by all means please contact me: Norbert: click here I am happy to coordinate people, too.