This tip is about
Spin Doctor.
Note added Dec. 2012: I can't get Spin Doctor X to properly mark tracks. The track duration it reports is wrong. It may work in OS 10.6 but not in Lion or Mountain Lion. If you are looking for an app to split a long audio file into multiple tracks, consider Final Vinyl.
The following is a description I wrote when Spin Doctor X was released. Some of it worked for me at that time.
The new Spin Doctor is completely rewritten compared with the former CD Spin Doctor. It has a new interface and appearance but is lacking any manual or help documents at this time. I'm writing this in the first month of its release and it is apparent more work needs to be done on this application. Fortunately, some nice things are working well. {Note: If you have installed audio applications from Bias such as Bias Peak there is a conflict with Spin Doctor. This conflict causes Spin Doctor to crash when it is ready to start creating the waveform. To prevent this you need to go to your root>Library>Audio>Plugins>VST folder and temporarily remove the Bias plugins in order for Spin Doctor to work.]
When you launch Spin Doctor you get a window that lists a column of "Devices" and "Applications" on the left. This is where you tell Spin Doctor what you want it to listen to. If you are using it to capture audio from an analog source then you probably want it to listen to what's connected to the Built-in input unless you've connected a USB or Firewire audio input device to your Mac. If you want it to listen to audio streaming on your Mac from the Internet or iTunes or other application, choose Currently Running as your source. A window will open with all the currently running applications from which you can choose your source. The next time a shortcut can be to choose Recently Used so you only see applications that you've selected in the past. If none of these options work then choose What You Hear.
The next window is where you set your quality and sound levels. These typically are only adjustable for audio recorded through a "Device" rather than an "Application." The default is 44.1 kHz uncompressed AIFF audio. Clicking Options opens a window where you can set the length of time to record before automatically stopping. This is useful for unattended recording.
When you click the Next button you'll see the red button to start and stop recordings. You can pause recordings by clicking the square to the right of the recording button.
I don't yet know what is meant by the "Enable Auto Capture" button.
When you stop the recording a new window opens where the waveform will appear. There is some delay before the waveform appears, so be patient.
Before discussing this waveform window I'll review Spin Doctor preferences. The Auto-define preference instructs Spin Doctor what to look for should you want it to auto define the individual tracks in the recording. The Default Digital setting expects gaps between tracks to be silent whereas the Default Analog setting changes the sensitivity some background noise will be ignored. The Manual setting is for making your own selections with the sliders. Don't confuse it with manually selecting tracks. That's something else that is unaffected by moving the auto define sliders.
The Advanced tab in preferences gives you the ability to write the scratch audio file to any hard drive location you want. I prefer to have it on an external drive, partly because I don't want it included with my Time Machine backups. The Auto Capture setting is the format you want the final audio to be saved as if you choose "Enable Auto Capture." As I said, I haven't experimented with this as yet.
The waveform window is mostly familiar to users of previous versions. You can click Auto-define to have Spin Doctor find individual tracks based on gaps between the tracks in the waveform. You also can manually select tracks by clicking and dragging across the waveform. However, you cannot click and drag across an existing marked track. Let's say that auto define failed to see any gaps and marks the entire waveform as one track. You cannot manually mark tracks on the waveform because there is no unselected area available. The quick fix is simply to select the track in the list below the waveform and click the delete key. Now the entire waveform is manually selectable. To zoom into the waveform for making fine adjustments, slide the ball to the right that's just beneath the center of the waveform. I also very much encourage expanding the Spin Doctor window to full screen by clicking the window zoom button at the very top left (next to the close and hide window buttons).
You also can click and drag the handles for the track start and end markers in the waveform. Since you cannot drag a marker over another this is a handy way to butt the start of one track at the end of the previous track. Double clicking on the waveform moves the playhead to that point. Double clicking on a track name starts playback at the start of the selected track. However, there currently is a bug and the visual playhead doesn't move to the start. Hopefully that will be fixed in an update.
The Identify button is for automatically finding track and artist info from online sources. I haven't yet had it identify a track. The Delete button removes the selected track markers. The Toast button send it to the Audio CD window in Toast. I haven't found a way for it to automatically send to Toast's Convert window but I have a workaround described at the end of this article. The iTunes button is obvious.
When you have a track selected you can name it by entering the text after clicking the Info button at the right. At this time don't spend time entering anything but the track and artist names. Most of the other fields will lose their information as soon as you select a different track. You can enter Artist or Album Artist information for all tracks at once by selecting all the tracks in the list before entering the text.
The Filters section gives you access to the filters installed by Spin Doctor as well as Apple's audio units and filters that may be installed by other applications. Start by clicking the button labeled "Click to add an effect." The first effect added is Spin Doctor's Noise Reducer. Click the Manual button to get a small window with sliders for fine tuning the amount of noise reduction. Remember that pressing the space bar starts and stops playback as you're auditioning the audio with different settings. I am unclear whether the filters can be applied differently to separate tracks. It appears they are applied to any exported track the same. If different settings are needed it may be necessary to not mark some tracks until after other tracks are exported with their filter settings.
Each time "Click to add an effect" is clicked a new filter or audio unit is added to the list. You can change which one is shown by clicking on the filter's name and selecting something else from the drop down list. Once they are shown in the list they cannot be removed, but they can be turned off.
It is important to remember that unless you've saved the file you are working with a temporary file that is deleted when you quit Spin Doctor. If you want to save the entire file to work on at a later time, choose Save from the File menu. You are given a choice of file formats and data formats. I suggest choosing AIFF as the File Format and Linear PCM 16-bit as the Data Format. I don't know why these aren't the default settings. No matter when you save the file the only thing that is saved is the audio itself. None of the work you may have done marking and naming tracks or setting filters is saved. So definitely do not quit Spin Doctor if you aren't prepared to start over from the raw audio track again.
Within the bar with the track's name is an Options button. This gives you a choice to export the individual track to Toast, iTunes or to a File. As before, choosing save to File presents the box where you can select the File Format and Data Format. The default is very odd and I recommend choosing something of higher quality. But send to a file does apply the filters and you can then add those files to the Toast Convert window if you Toast to do something with them other than make an audio CD.
Spin Doctor can be used for separating tracks and adding filters to most any kind of QuickTime-playable audio file (and maybe some others as well). Just choose Open from the File menu to select an existing audio file for treatment.
Edited by tsantee, 04 December 2012 - 01:37 PM.
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