Mac Creative > All Reviews > Software > Audio and music > Audio applications > AudioFinder Review

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 AudioFinder Review

Catalogue, preview and process audio files, building a library that will make samples easy to find

Karl Hodge

Manufacturer: Iced Audio
Pros: Batch actions, digital effects and sample cataloguing for all attached volumes
Cons: Saving scan sets is less than intuitive
Price: $69.96 (£35.59)
We rate this 4 out of 5.Star rating:

AudioFinder is another tool for cataloguing content, with a narrower and finer focus than Spotlight or Google Desktop. Mac musicians, podcast makers and videographers will know that searching for sound samples on your hard drive poses a unique challenge. Spotlight can find keywords in textual content, but it can’t tell if your sound file is a Led Zeppelin loop, a banging bass drum sample or the sound of marbles dropping into a biscuit tin. Neither can AudioFinder. What it can do is help you organise your sample collection so you’ll know exactly where to find a specific drum hit the next time you need it.

AudioFinder offers a range of features, but the best way to start is by indexing every sound file on your machine. You can also index external drives, including sample discs in the DVD/CD drive using the Scan Volumes feature.

The main purpose of the program is to organise your disparate collection of sound files. You do this using Scan Sets. For example, you can search your collection for all files that contain the word “drum”, then save the scan result with its own unique name. Alternatively, you can manually select samples and save them as a set. You can batch-rename selected files too – with more descriptive titles, for example.

The package has a built-in preview window for listening back to sound snippets, complete with editable loop points. You can trim and splice samples in this view too – though it’s no real substitute for a dedicated audio editor like Adobe Soundbooth. Still, a series of powerful DSP tools help you process and manipulate sound samples quickly and easily. Normalise a batch of sounds with one command or convert samples to AIFF, WAV, MP3 or SD2 formats, for example.

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