Go paperless with audio greeting cards

It may be easier than you think to go paperless and do your bit for the environment. Be it at home or at work, channeling your digital skills to support the eco-movement this year comes easy with our seasonal audio cards.

How to have a green Christmas

According to Andy Williams, it’s “the most wonderful time of the year” yet without taking the time to reflect your good intentions to become more environmentally aware, may quickly turn into wasteful wishful thinking. You may be in the midst of being torn between sending personal messages to friends and family who live elsewhere and reducing your paper consumption but worry not: create bespoke audio greeting cards with Aroundsound by adding the respective hashtag and you won’t miss out on spreading the end of year love.

How to make your audio greeting cards

We like things to be easy so here are the simple steps to creating your e-card with Aroundsound:

Open the app on Android or iOS and hit record
For the Christmas theme simply add #xmas, #Christmas or #holidays to your title, for New Year’s it will be NewYear, #HappyNewYear or #HappyNewYear2020 – the hashtag will trigger the festive theme respectively (truly magical)
Share with friends and family, upon them opening the link you sent they’ll be listening to your lovely message while looking at the seasonal backdrop to the recording

Continue with paperless intentions using audio cards

Reducing waste by sending personalised voice messages that are also appealing to look at is a winning strategy. If you then also think about the time saved quickly producing and instantly sharing your recording, you’d soon wonder how you’d done without audio greeting cards before. No more queuing at the post office or buying stamps. Sit down one afternoon or record a message on the go – by simply adding one of the hashtags you’ll turn your already warm wishes into a pretty one while doing something for the environment. What’s not to like?

Going paperless at home or at work

Besides the seasonal appeal, how many times have you thought that pile of paper bills and documents gives you the creeps? While you’d still need paper documents like your birth or company certificate you may find that for most parts of your personal and professional life audio records work just as well if not better. Record your to-do and shopping list, record messages for the family and add to them to your family Collection – members will be notified of new recordings and can comment; same applies for your work context. Instead of keeping your written diary start recording your thoughts anytime, anywhere. There are so many good (and productivity enhancing) reasons for using audio recording in your everyday life. Hit record and ditch the notepad during meetings.

Recording your audio card on the go with Aroundsound

There’s a plethora of simple yet effective ways to remove paper from your life, starting with audio recording and documenting. Feel like giving it a try? Be your green best this year and download the Aroundsound app for Android and iOS to create your bespoke audio greeting card. Going paperless couldn’t be more straightforward.

Photo Credit Luke Porter @Unsplash

Marking the Moments in Sounds

Want to make sense of a long recording? Mark important parts and add notes while listening? Look no further than Pins and Notes. Formerly known as ‘Key Moments’ we’ve updated these features so you can be efficient with your recordings.

Pin it

Upon starting your recording you’ll see that you can add Sound Notes or Pins to your recording both on Android and iOS. But how do they work? While you’re recording you might feel like marking an important moment in the sound. Simply ‘drop in a Pin’ with a single tap (no need to stop the recording!) and, if you wish, add in a quick note to describe what the Pin is about. Physical notes taking becomes a thing of the past as you’ll have everything in one place.

Adding Pins and Notes to your Sounds on Android and iOS

Easy Browsing

Pins help you browse between important parts of your recording. Be it in a lecture or while you’re in a meeting simply add a pin without interrupting the flow of the discussion. You know which point to reflect on as you marked the moment. Have you recorded a longer musical inspiration? Adding notes to the Pins will help you enrich the audio with context when sharing it with your band mates.

Browsing through your longer Sounds
Photo credit Timi David

Share the moment

Are you finding yourself recording a number of similar recordings – uni lectures, weekly team updates or band practice? Get organised with Collections and de-clutter your space. Collections are easy to create: once you’ve created a recording you tap on the three dots and choose “Add to Collections”. When organising sound simply go to ‘+’ button of your Collections tab. What’s more, you can invite others to become ‘members’ of your Collection.

How to share your Collections with your network

That allows them to listen to your recording but more so, see your Pins and read your Notes. Perfect for if you’re sharing a class or a speaker event you’ve attended, but your friends and colleagues couldn’t join.

Collaborate to Succeed

By amending the privacy settings in your Collections you allow chosen members of your network to not only join in, but also comment even adding their own sounds. Attending a training or discussing a group project couldn’t be easier. Instead of creating WhatsApp groups with multiple voice messages, you keep all those and comments in one place. Members of the group get notified anytime a new sound is added.

Attending training while staying present
Photo credit Austin Distel

Safe time and energy

Recording everyday moments will allow you to stay present with limited distraction. You can focus on what’s in front of you knowing that you can add a quick Note to mark important parts and listen back in your own time. Should you need to access your files you can do this from any device. Log into your account from your desktop for example presents you with a truly multi-platform experience. Download the Aroundsound app for Android and iOS now and get started with sound recording. You’ll be surprised how many moments you’ll quickly find yourself recording.

Photo Credit Ezra-Jeffrey Comeau @ Unsplash

How to get organised with Sound Collections

You’ve got lots of loose recordings, but you’re unsure what to do? How to de-clutter your stream of sounds? Let’s get you organised with Collections so you can get the most out of your audio recordings.

A place for everything, and everything in its place

As a good old saying by Mrs Beeton goes, there is a place for all your recordings or what we call Collections. A Collection is a place in Aroundsound where you can organise your recordings in a way that makes intuitive sense to you. You might like to think of Collections as an album of topic related sounds e.g. bedtime stories, lessons and lectures, musical notes or work related sounds.

Colourful Collections of sounds

For every minute spent in organising, an hour is earned

Whether you’re going through your recent sounds or starting out recording, a Collection is created as easily as giving your recording a title. Here’s how:

Go to the Collections tab and hit the ‘+’ button
You can ‘add sounds’ directly from that new Collection, or you can select a recording directly from the sounds tab
Tap on the menu and then choose ‘add to a Collection’
Alternatively, when you create a recording, tab on the three dots on the right – “Add to Collection” is one of your options

Audio recordings in a Collection in the Aroundsound App — Get organised with audio Collections

Aroundsound also provides ‘Smart Collections, which are auto-filled with relevant sounds. Just now you will find one for any sounds that have been shared with you called ‘Incoming’ and another for sounds you have shared called ‘Shared’.

How many things are there I do not want?

While you’re busy organising your audio recordings you may realise you’ve got too many of the same sounding laughs and words or acoustic inspiration for your musical practice. Hit delete and make space in your storage for available synced minutes. Likewise, you can trim or crop a recording to keep (and share) the best bit. Our handy how-to guide can give you further ideas to optimise your sounds.

Getting organised with your sounds

Collaborate with Collections

In some cases you’re being organised just for your own piece of mind. However, in many ways there is the option to share a Collection with others – friends and family, band mates or colleagues from work. Try this: when you invite others to your Collection they become a member and can comment and add their own sounds.

What’s more – members that joined can be notified when you add a new sound. It’s a collaborative tool allowing you to share efficiently and securely. When you’re ready to share and thus invite others to join your Collection, you’ll be asked to set the current status of the Collection from ‘private’ to ‘visible to the group’. Of course you can revert back to ‘private’ anytime. Getting organised with your sounds is easy. And it can be collaborative too! Download the app for Android or iOS and try it for yourself. Don’t forget to tell us what you think!

Photo Credit Oleg Ivanov @Unsplash

How to customise your Quick Settings Tile

Hit record even when your phone is locked. Sounds too good to be true? With Aroundsound you can do just that. We’ve put together a short guide on how to customise your Quick Settings Tile so you can record with one swipe and tap.

What is a Quick Settings Tile?

You may already be familiar with quickly checking your phone’s battery level or sending your phone into airplane mode, but not knows that you can customize the menu. Quick Settings Tiles are powerful additions to Android, if your running Android 7.0 (Nougat) or later versions.

There are two Quick Settings Tiles that you can add with Aroundsound:

Start (and stopping) a recording
Add a Key Moment to the recording

Why are Quick Settings Tiles powerful?

With Aroundsound’s Quick Settings Tile you can start a new recording with just one tap. You can follow the steps below or fast track the set up and watch this video. Whether you’re listening to the sounds of birds in your neighbourhood or happen to pass by some brilliant buskers – it’s the fastest way possible to start a recording and stay in the moment even if the device is locked down.

Capture Sounds of Buskers with Aroundsound

How do I add a quick settings tile to Android?

Quick Settings Tiles give you easy access to specific actions like switching your phone on silent, WIFI or airplane more. However it’s not evident how you can customise this part of your phone.

To add Aroundsound’s Quick Settings Tiles follow these simple steps:

Fully slide down the Quick Settings bar
Tap the pencil icon (or if you have a Samsung device, the 3 dot icon) to start editing your Quick Tile Settings
Scroll down or sideways to find the tile you want to add
To add a tile, drag it up to the active tiles

Alternatively and if you’ve got a Samsung device check out this video. Lastly, also check the “Recording with one tap” description directly in the app. Please visit the “More” tap, then under the “Help” section, you’ll find “Recording with one tap” which entails plenty of screenshots.

Recording music lessons with Aroundsound

Sound recording made easy

Capturing your everyday using sound is an exciting way to engage with the world around you. You might be a music teacher familiar with recording or already enjoying compiling sounds of your everyday such as your summer sounds ; for those who are new to sound recording our app has made it easy on both Android and iOS to hit record with one tab and share these sounds with your friends and family. If you’re still a little unsure then check out our short guide for how to get the most out of our app. Try and record a sound next time you’d want to take a picture.

Photo credit James Prestion @Unsplash