TwistedWave – The Travelling VO’s Best Friend

Happy New Year, and welcome back! I’ve been wanting to get to this tech piece for quite awhile…can’t wait to hear your thoughts.

If you’re on the go, you can’t afford to leave your clients hanging. Portability is a must. Here are 3 different pros telling you why you should seriously consider TwistedWave Stereo Editor if you need to work on the road. If you’ve got any thoughts or questions, please fire away!!! You may also be interested in December’s installment of “The Harry Truth,” where Harry Legg explained to readers the importance of portability.

Steve Cunningham – Contributing author, RAPmag

Awhile back, there was a great article in Radio And Production magazine (rapmag.com) called “TwistedWave – Stereo Editor” written by Steve Cunningham. He discusses in detail this trending program that an increasing number of voice over artists seem to be using to edit their work in easy-to-understand lingo.

Based on Steve’s positive review of the software, we decided to check out the program in a little more detail – TwistedWave was created in 2007 by Thomas Thiriez and is designed to be a simple yet effective audio recording and editing program for beginners and veterans alike – this makes is perfect for VO artists in need of suitable audio editing software for a reasonable price. Although it is a Mac-only product, there are versions available for the iPhone, iPad and also online. In his article, Steve points out that this multi-family software is convenient for on-the-go editing when travelling, and in his experience using it on his iPad he found it as effective and easy to us as on his Macintosh. It also accepts an impressively wide range of audio file formats – versatility is a definite selling point! Steve stated that it is an in-between version of Audacity and Adobe Audition, and in his article continues to explain how to install the program and easily record your audio. Some of its features include a wide range of plug-ins and effects including (but not limited to): EQ, compression and limiting (all which are necessary for voice over mixing and mastering), easy conversion of file/s, and batch processing. All this information can be found in more depth on its website http://twistedwave.com/.

Justin Case – Director of Programming & Imaging, Benztown

In my opinion, TwistedWave is a necessary tool for any producer/VO artist on the go!  I can’t tell you how often we use the app to record listener drops, quick VO sessions that don’t require a lot of extra work or any other random project we decide to come up with while out and about.  With technology at our fingertips, we are able to record studio quality listener drops to add to the Benztown production libraries in a persons natural environment.  We have found that stations want the “real” listener sound but to have it not be super polished and sound fake.  TwistedWave allows us to go out on the field, equipped with our handy Apogee MiC of course, and get that killer audio in a great setting, real life.  It does have a lot of built in effects, which is handy, but in my opinion, not necessary.  They aren’t great and the program doesn’t have the power of a regular DAW.  I wouldn’t rely on the compression and eq settings within TwistedWave to replace your home studio, but would do in a pinch for a VO artist traveling and a good producer who can compress based on it being recorded remotely!

Thomas Thiriez – Owner, TwistedWave

Why did you develop this product? The first lines of code were born when I was studying acoustics in Denmark, in 2001. There, I spent most of my time at the university in front of my computer, programming for fun. Because I was studying acoustics, making an audio editor appeared like a natural thing to do.

Who is the primary intended user? When I started working on TwistedWave, I didn’t have any user in mind. I thought a good audio editor would be nice to have, and fun to work on.

What is the most unique way (that you know of) that someone has used TwistedWave? Although I couldn’t find it in my email archive, I remember someone told me he was using TwistedWave to prepare a fireworks show. He was using markers in TwistedWave to prepare the timing of each individual firing. He would then export the markers, and use them in software that would trigger the fires. Someone else wanted to change his voice with TwistedWave, make it sound lower, and tell his children they got a message from Santa Claus.

Are TW’s built-in effects comparable to those of full-service DAW’s? There are not many built-in effects in TwistedWave. Most of them are available from third party Audio Unit and VST plugins. One notable exception is the Time Stretching / Pitch Shifting effect. This one was licensed from the DSP dimension. It is certainly one of the best pitch shifting / time stretching implementations available, and was used by Steinberg in WaveLab 6.

Most users I’ve spoken with love the product. Can you share anything new and exciting that we can expect in 2013? I will continue improving TwistedWave for Mac, iOS, and Online. There is not much I can announce for 2013 yet.

A fully functional 30-day trial is available for free download if you would like to try before you buy, and for a quick introductory tutorial on TwistedWave:

http://www.mindbites.com/lesson/12737

Experiment with TwistedWave and let us know what you think of this trending audio editor!