Meta Sound Tools

[Hugh Palmer]

Hello all. 
I've been feverishly working on this app over the past year and it's finally at a stage where I'm happy to release it to the public. You can download a free 2 week trial now at: metasoundtools.com 
Some of the features include:
- Single and batch editing of audio metadata
- Playback and otf mixing of polywav's
- Batch merging of audio files (re-merge your radios into your master recorder files automatically)
- PDF and CSV reports

Lots more to come - I plan on constantly pushing out features on this over the next few months but any feedback on this basic functionality would be greatly appreciated.

[fieldsound]

This looks awesome. I will be trying it out very soon. 
 

Thank you for offering a perpetual license.

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

3 hours ago, Hugh Palmer said:

- Batch merging of audio files (re-merge your radios into your master recorder files automatically)

Worth it for this alone.  Can't test at the moment until the Windows / Linux version arrives.

Any chance it could be integrated with Zaxcom's commandline version of ZaxConvert so it could work with MARF & their microSD cards directly?

[Hugh Palmer]

3 hours ago, fieldsound said:

Thank you for offering a perpetual license.

No worries. I am as over all the subscriptions as much as the next guy. Granted there are some products where all the overhead of running costs justify it (ie any AI integrated apps) but this just isn't one of them. 

 

8 minutes ago, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

Any chance it could be integrated with Zaxcom's commandline version of ZaxConvert so it could work with MARF & their microSD cards directly?

I've had a look at some marf files but I couldn't really decipher what is going on there in terms of encoding magic. So it would require an agreement/colab with Zaxcom/Glen directly. If they're open to something like that then I'd be happy to build it in. 

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

12 minutes ago, Hugh Palmer said:

I've had a look at some marf files but I couldn't really decipher what is going on there in terms of encoding magic. So it would require an agreement/colab with Zaxcom/Glen directly. If they're open to something like that then I'd be happy to build it in. 

I know @Bouke has done some work trying to decode it, but I wasn't really suggesting that ... it was more a question of whether Zaxcom's existing command line tool could be integrated into your project to handle the decoding, while Meta Sound does the batch processing.  Obviously, saving into MARF would be impossible, but there's not a lot of reason to do that.  

Not sure if that would take you into uncertain legal territory or not, but I've had it in my mind to write a shell script to automate offloads for a while, and merging recorder files into my master files would have been a big part of that script.  I'm just hoping your tool might save me the trouble.

[Hugh Palmer]

I'd say that I wouldn't be able to package or integrate my paid tool in with other proprietary software without infringing upon their licence. I'm not sure what Glens view on an integration would be but if he's open to it I think it could be an interesting option. 
 

Yeah so that's the idea. It can offload your days isos back into your master files. Have a try. I'd be keen to know how it goes for you. 

[jvvaladez]

Trying it out now. In the waveform playback screen, can you implement common NLE keyboard controls? Specifically space bar for start/stop and JKL keys?

[Hugh Palmer]

Hello, so space bar should be implemented...? If not that's a bug. 

 

I'll be honest I can't remember what jkl should do in an NLE? I've been on nuendo for too long I've forgotten the standard layouts. 

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

J = backwards
K = stop
L = forwards

Repeat presses increase playback speed.

[Hugh Palmer]

Gotcha! Yes this wouldn't be too difficult to implement... Youtube uses those same controlls (almost).

[Philip Perkins]

I'm all about this!  But, forgive me for being dim--how do I enter the overall project name etc for the report header??  I can see how to edit info for each file...   thx

[Hugh Palmer]

Hi Phillip, I believe that I replied to your email about this but I thought I would repost here in case anyone else runs up against this. 

You can change the project from within the grid or in the details panel at the bottom.

Then when generating a pdf you can populate the headers from the fields within the any wav file you choose by selecting a master with the Star.

 

Alternatively you can add a custom headings with whatever information you would like and that will be populated into the headers too:

 

[Patrick Tresch]

On 9/18/2025 at 2:45 AM, The Documentary Sound Guy said:

J = backwards
K = stop
L = forwards

Repeat presses increase playback speed.

 

And press

K & L for slow forward

K & J for slow backward

[callou]

a huge +1 for an Zaxcom integration/ workflow to merge tx files into the master files ( or maybe 1 separate file with only tx files merged butwith  in and out  and metadata from the main recorder ? so it could be used only if needed..) As a Dialogue editor i would love this ..

[Patrick Tresch]

On 9/21/2025 at 10:09 PM, callou said:

a huge +1 for an Zaxcom integration/ workflow to merge tx files into the master files ( or maybe 1 separate file with only tx files merged butwith  in and out  and metadata from the main recorder ? so it could be used only if needed..) As a Dialogue editor i would love this ..

By Zaxcom you mean other external recorder? 

[callou]

12 hours ago, Patrick Tresch said:

By Zaxcom you mean other external recorder? 

 i mean keeping the files coming from the zaxcom recorder ( Nova or other but i could be any recorder really..) and generating a separate file from the merged transmiters files with metadata taken from the master file of the main recorder ( file name ans scene and take mostly)...So if post needs the transmiter files , they only have to ingest one file. 

Having all transmitter merged to the master file is one way but it makes huge track count  files to import and the transmiter have a less than 1 frame offset that make the file very unpleasent to listen without soloing tracks and could make picture editor freak out ....so if we can avoid that phone call about our tracks beiing phasy .. it could make everybody happy..

[AlbertoParodi]

Hello Hugh,

 

how many computer can I authorize?

 

thank you

[Hugh Palmer]

On 9/22/2025 at 6:09 AM, callou said:

a huge +1 for an Zaxcom integration/ workflow to merge tx files into the master files ( or maybe 1 separate file with only tx files merged butwith  in and out  and metadata from the main recorder ? so it could be used only if needed..) As a Dialogue editor i would love this ..

Hello callou. How about instead of appending the files into the end of the polywav MetaSoundTools replaced the relavant tracks within the polywav - that way the track-count within each file would be the same but you're doing a switcheroo... Might require a different UI to allow user's to manually map which tracks should go where.... Alternatively your suggestion is valid and doable too. 

20 hours ago, AlbertoParodi said:

Hello Hugh,

 

how many computer can I authorize?

 

thank you

Hello Alberto, So you authorise one computer at a time per licence. You could technically switch it between machines however you’d need to re-authorize every time you switch to the other machine which requires an internet connection. It's really designed to be one machine per licence with that licence being portable if desired. Hope that makes sense.

[callou]

20 minutes ago, Hugh Palmer said:

Hello callou. How about instead of appending the files into the end of the polywav MetaSoundTools replaced the relavant tracks within the polywav - that way the track-count within each file would be the same but you're doing a switcheroo... Might require a different UI to allow user's to manually map which tracks should go where.... Alternatively your suggestion is valid and doable too. 

 

MMh...didn't think of that ....seems like a good idea if i had a few RF drop in the day and just want to process one or two takes ( but the sync offset coud be even  more worryng for the post folks..)

for days like in non -scripted show with talents going all over the place i prefer to process my whole day and let post decide if they need the radio files...if the track count move a lot in the day it seems like hard work to tell meta tools wich  iso goes where....even more so if i didn't always have time to name all tracks properly during the day...( happen a lot in that kind of shoot...)

[igomarsound]

any news on a linux / windows version ? 

[Raphael Roche]

Hello, just tried your app

sound  fine :)

don’t you think on the sound report can appaired the interleave instead of the channel?

it’ll be easier for the editor and the post production 💪

 

thanks for your help 

 

best regards 

[Michiel]

I also wouldn't mind a Linux/Windows version 😁

 

Can it do file renaming?

 

I still use Wave Agent Beta.. I use it to rename files to include the notes I added during recording so there's no need to search the sound report as all info is already in the filename. (As someone who also does post I have always despised how certain devices like Cantar give the files some unreadable random digit nonsense... Searching in a sound report to find similar takes, then after finding it searching for file F345hsg45.. Not my cup of tea...)

[igomarsound]

yes. please do a windows linux version 

[The Documentary Sound Guy]

Ditto.  Please don't skip Linux.

[axel]

sorry to chime in late, can it do MS and double MS decoding (to stereo)? - would be awesome.