Category Archives: Audio Recording

Inspire 1394 Mac Driver Updated to 1.1

Half a year ago I purchased an Presonus Inspire 1394 Firewire Audio Interface. The original driver had a small glitch that caused the Mike gain knobs to become dysfunctional whenever the control panel was put into “Win Shade Mode”, i.e., the reduced size window showing only the gain knobs, but hiding the mixer:

Dysfunctional Mike Gain Knobs in Version 1.0

Here’s how it should look and now does in the corrected 1.1 release:

Proper Mike Gain Knobs in Version 1.1

On a side note, the application name has been changed from “Inspire_1394.app” to “Inspire 1394 Control Panel Mixer.app” such that simply copying the application into the application folder will not overwrite the old version. This also means that any links in the dock must be updated separately. I learned this the hard way, because I updated to version 1.1 some time ago, but only yesterday noticed the improved functionality.

Better Sound with SnapzProX

When recording a screen movie, e.g., a software tutorial, with SnapzProX, you can choose to record a voice-over with either the built-in or an external microphone. The problem is that the sound quality is not very satisfying given that it is a straight recording. It would be better if you could filter that audio recording in real-time. The solution comes through Soundflower and Audio Hijack Pro. Continue reading

Home Recording Without Background Noise

I recently started getting into home-recording, primarily to do voice-overs on videos or to record screen tutorials for my parents. Of course I don’t have a quiet sound studio at my disposal, so my study has to do. When I turn off the radiator and close the door, it is actually pretty quiet except for the fan on my iMac. That plus background recording noise won’t go away and is quite distracting on plain voice recordings. Some searching online pointed me in the direction of using a noise gate filter: Continue reading