14 DAY TRIAL // Aviary has been building a name for itself and, unlike some if not many companies out there, it’s mostly due to the quality of its products. Its online image editors are remarkably potent and the company has been pushing a steady stream of updates and new features. One of the lesser known apps, though, has nothing to do with image editing. Aviary Myna is an online audio editor with a decent feature set, though, probably not as polished as its other apps.
But the fact that you can edit audio in the cloud with decent performance is achievement enough, which is why Aviary is looking to promote Myna. It has partnered with legendary DJ/producer Diplo’s label Mad Decent to run a remix contest. The challenge is to remix the latest Yeasayer single O.N.E. using the online editor and then enter your creation into the competition.
OK, secret tip, you can actually use any audio editing software out there to remix the track and, unfortunately, most people will probably go down this route. Don’t tell Aviary that, though. Still, it will be interesting to see how many people will use Aviary Myna and what they can come up with. In the end, any tool can only take you as far as your creativity is willing to push it.
If you do decide to use Myna, you can open a new project with all the audio samples from the track already loaded. You can then mix and match the samples and apply effects to them. There are a number of effects you can use, all the expected ones are there, stuff like Flanger, Reverb, Hi and LoPass filters and so on. It’s not a comprehensive list by any means, but it’s a solid selection.
There’s one caveat though, you’re going to need a pretty powerful machine when you start piling up effects and tracks. And because everything happens in the browser, don’t expect real-time response from the software. Unfortunately, this is crucial for any audio editor that wants to be taken seriously. For now, it’s fun to play around with Myna, but it will take some amount of work from the developers before you can call it a viable alternative to lightweight audio editors.
That being said, if you want to beat the odds and show everyone you’ve got the skills to make awesome beats with even the most basic tools, nothing is stopping you from having a try at it. You can register for the remix contest here and get started in a manner of seconds.