# Free Sound effect playback for Mac OSX?



## zac850 (Aug 22, 2004)

Hi Guys,
I was wondering if anyone knew of any good sound effect playback program for Mac's. As of now I am using iTunes, which works perfectly well, but you need to stay on it to make sure it doesn't go to the next track in the playlist. 

I was wondering if anyone knew of any good program that was free that would work.

Thanks guys,
Zac


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## JasonH (Aug 29, 2004)

I've used quicktime player. Just make sure the correct window is highlited and hit space.


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## mbenonis (Aug 29, 2004)

I've thought about writing one, but sadly, time has always gotten in the way.


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## JasonH (Aug 29, 2004)

or just burn them to cd and use a decent deck to run them


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## Nephilim (Sep 7, 2004)

AudioRack might work?

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14672


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## rgsw (Sep 7, 2004)

have a play with garage band i'm sure there must be an option in it sumwhere


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## SuperCow (Sep 7, 2004)

The application Play Sound is a simple sound player. Simply drop any sound file onto the application icon, and it will play, no fuss, no muss. It's also fully AppleScriptable, which can be very useful.


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## JasonH (Sep 8, 2004)

rgsw said:


> have a play with garage band i'm sure there must be an option in it sumwhere



why would the option be in there?
that doesnt make any sense...
not to mention garage band has way too much overhead for on the fly playback.


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## zachlipton (Dec 16, 2004)

I'd take a look at Cricket (http://www.soundcrack.net/cricket/index.html). It's not free ($150 though you might be able to arrange a school discount). It was written by a professional sound designer specifically for theater use. It can handle multiple outputs and fades between them, has a built in equalizer, play up to four tracks at once, and a lot of other goodies. You can also download it and try it for free, the only limitation is that you can't save your show files until you actually purchase it. I've ran entire shows off of an iBook and Cricket, it works really well and makes running cues brain-dead easy (press the space bar on each Go).


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## Peter (Dec 17, 2004)

The thing i do to with Windows Media Player 10 to make sure one sound doesnt run into the next is simply create a 30 second or minute wav file of complete silence and put that inbetween my real cues, that way, i have at least 30 seconds to hit the pause or stop button. This also works nicely when you have to playback 1/2 of a conversation with an actor on stage, that way, you can let it just keep running, and hit the next button to jump to the next recorded line. Sure, it's low tech, but it is simple, easy, and it works!


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## Nephilim (Dec 17, 2004)

zachlipton said:


> I've ran entire shows off of an iBook and Cricket, it works really well and makes running cues brain-dead easy (press the space bar on each Go).



Wahey! It's Q-Manager, but for OS X. Awesome. Pity there's no free version though.


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## zachlipton (Dec 17, 2004)

Nephilim said:


> Pity there's no free version though.



Yeah. Well the guy has to eat somehow. If you can at all afford it, I'd look at it though. It's really made for what you are looking for. At a minimum, you could always try the demo, and if it works for you, figure out how much you can afford and send them an email, explaining how you're a school and can pay this much and would it be possible to do an educational discount. Worth a shot.


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## Nephilim (Dec 18, 2004)

zachlipton said:


> explaining how you're a school and can pay this much and would it be possible to do an educational discount. Worth a shot.



Not any more I'm not 

By 'free version' I mean something similar to what Pete Hashagen did with Q-Manager and made a rather limited version (no EQ, no fade cues, no show control, nothing really except 2 channel cued playback) available for free and charged for the fuller-featured versions.


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