How to QA and quality control your audio files

If you’re working with audio, such as podcast episodes, music, journalism, or otherwise, you’ve probably felt the need to perform quality assurance on audio. Quality assurance for audio ensures a positive user experience by delivering high-quality audio content that is clear, consistent, and free from disturbances or defects. Further, maintaining high audio quality contributes to a positive brand image; poor audio quality can lead to a negative perception of your brand, whether it’s music, podcast, radio, or otherwise, thus affecting customer trust and confidence. Notetracks can be used as a quality assurance application for audio such as music, podcasts, and more to gather notes and annotations precisely on the track (think of SoundCloud meeting Google Docs).

To begin to use Notetracks as a quality assurance app for audio, create a new audio project and give it a title.

Next, add your track to the workspace. You can do so by clicking either of the two ‘Add Track’ buttons on the left side of the screen.

You can also add your tracks by directly importing via Dropbox or Google Drive. You can also drag and drop.

Your file will now be uploaded into Notetracks. Next, ensure you’re in the comment pane at the top of the workspace. This will allow you to begin making notes and analyses on your track to improve and ensure its quality.

Use the playback controls at the bottom of the workspace or drag the playhead to navigate through the audio track you’d like to test.

Once you’re at the point in the audio where you’ve begun to note quality issues, you can leave a note or comment directly along the waveform. Then, press the ‘New Comment’ button or double-click on the waveform where you’d like to start testing, improving, and analyzing your audio.

Once you press post, the note will now show up visually in the workspace alongside the waveform. Quality assurance for audio software helps identify and address audio issues during the production phase, preventing problems from reaching the final product or end-users.

You can also leave markers in Notetracks. Markers are great to use to quickly note a point of interest, such as a section of audio that sounds low-quality. You can listen to the track and leave markers at the same time, making it easier to denote and perform quality assurance on audio more accurately.

To leave a marker, navigate to the left-middle of the workspace and click the ‘New Marker’ button. It will now show up visually along the waveform. Markers appear the same as notes do, but don’t have anything written in them. You can edit markers to include text after they’re created and they will then act as a Comment.

Quality assurance in audio is essential for ensuring a positive listening experience, maintaining brand reputation, and meeting the technical and artistic standards of various industries. It plays a critical role in creating reliable, enjoyable, and accessible audio content across different platforms and applications. With Notetracks, quality assurance for audio becomes easy, intuitive, and collaborative, all in one place.

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