Soundmancer

Start here

Soundmancer turns each person’s recording into a transcript you can read, and you edit the episode by striking the lines that go. When you’re done, you export the edit to Audition, Reaper, Audacity, stems or a mix, and you can master the mix in the app. Everything happens on your computer.

What you need

  • Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
  • Your recordings, one file per person, as they came off the recorder or out of your call app. WAV, FLAC, MP3, M4A, AAC, OGG and AIFF all work. One file with everyone on it works too; it’s edited as a single voice.
  • A graphics card makes transcribing fast: minutes for a long episode. NVIDIA cards are the fastest; AMD and Intel graphics are used too, including the kind built into many laptops. Without one it runs on the processor, which works but can take a few hours. Everything else is quick on any computer.

Install

Soundmancer isn’t on sale yet, so there’s no public installer. If you’re in the beta, run the one you were sent, and write to support@soundmancer.com if you need it again. Until our code-signing certificate arrives, Windows may show Windows protected your PC the first time. Click More info, then Run anyway.

You enter your license key in the same app; there’s nothing else to install. See your license.

Finishing the install

The first time Soundmancer opens, it downloads the part that turns speech into text: about 6 GB on a computer with an NVIDIA graphics card, or about 7 GB on one without. That needs an internet connection, once, and takes a few minutes on a fast one. You’ll see Finishing the install with how much is left. Everything runs on your computer from then on, with or without a connection.

  • If the connection drops, it carries on from where it stopped as soon as it’s back. Closing the app partway is fine too: it picks up where it was the next time you open it.
  • Later, if part of it goes missing (a cleanup tool or an antivirus removed a file), or an update needs a newer one, Soundmancer opens as usual with a note at the top and fetches it by itself. Until it’s done, new episodes and transcribing wait; everything else works.

Your show

Once the install is finished, Soundmancer asks you to set up your show: its name, and if you like, who makes it, the album, the genre and cover art. Those become the tags on every episode you master. You can change them any time from the cog beside the show’s name.

After that you land on the show page: the show’s numbers, its episodes, and two tools that work on plain files, Trim files… and Master a file… (see Trim, Master and Align).

Your first episode

  1. On the show page, click New episode… and add the recordings, or drop them on the page. If a file’s name or folder has Episode 33 in it, the episode name is filled in for you.
  2. Click Create and start transcribing. The editor shows each file’s progress while it works: Transcribe each track, then Placing each word in the audio, then Finalize the transcript, then Generating scene divisions. Keep Soundmancer open until it finishes. If scenes can’t be found on your computer, the editor opens with the episode as one scene, and you can split it yourself.
  3. While it works, give each person their name in the track list on the left. If a track started recording late, Align tracks… in the panel under the progress lines it up.
  4. When the transcript appears, read it and cut. See Editing an episode.
  5. Export ▾ at the top right sends the edit to Audition, Reaper, Audacity, stems or a mix. Continue to mastering mixes it and opens Master with it loaded. See Exporting and mastering.

If transcription stops partway (you closed the app, the power went out), nothing finished is lost. Each person’s track is saved the moment it’s done. Open the episode and click Transcribe, or Try again if it stopped on an error, and it carries on from where it was.

Where your work lives

Everything Soundmancer makes goes in one working folder, Soundmancer in your home folder unless you change it in Settings (Ctrl+,). Inside it, each show has a folder and each episode a folder in that. Your recordings stay wherever you keep them; the episode plays them from there.

There’s no Save button. Every edit is saved as you make it, and the top of the window shows when it is. You can copy or move an episode’s folder as it is.

Getting help

  • F1 in the editor lists every key and what it does.
  • Messages and what to do has every message the app shows, word for word, with the fix. Searching the message you’re looking at is the fastest way in.
  • Help > Report a problem… writes a report with what we need to track it down and shows you every word before it goes. It’s sent only when you press Send report.
  • Help > Request a feature… for anything you wish it did.
  • Or write to support@soundmancer.com.