Aviary launched an online audio editing application called Myna today, and it's all kinds of awesome. Don't get me wrong, it's not exactly Pro Tools or Adobe Audition and it doesn't come with all the audio effects you would expect from those applications. But here's what it does and does well: It lets you create and edit multitrack audio recordings using a Flash-based web interface that's so natural to use you would swear it was a desktop application.

When you first load Myna you can either upload audio files from your computer or record audio tracks up to a minute using your computer's sound card and/or microphone. You can also import clips from a library that Aviary provides.

The editor itself is very easy to use for anyone who has spent time using virtually any audio editing software, from Audacity to Garage Band to Pro Tools. You just drag your tracks from the clip library or imported tracks area to the timeline and drag and drop them into place. One thing that did take me a few moments to figure out was that in order to split a track you need to click the "selection" tool from the toolbar on the right side of the screen, highlight a section of the audio file, and then click the Edit menu to split a track. This means it's tough to create a truly precise split point.

You can trim tracks just by grabbing the beginning or end point and dragging. And you can zoom in and out either by hitting the zoom buttons int he toolbar or by grabbing the edge of the slider above the audio timeline. You can also add fades, pans, or other automation points by clicking the "auto" button on any track. There are also a handful of effects including Reverb, Flanger, and EQ effects.

I haven't tried using Myna to mix down music yet, but my background in audio production is as a radio news journalist. And I can say without a doubt that Myna provides about 90% of the tools I would need to file a story on the go if I didn't have access to a computer with audio editing software installed. Of course, it does take longer to upload audio tracks to Myna for editing than it would to edit them on the desktop, but once a track is uploaded, you can import it into other projects in the future.

Myna has been in the works since Aviary acquired DigiMix in March. You can check out an overview video of Myna in action after the break.

[via CNet]

Aviary, maker of excellent web-based creative tools with bird-themed names, has done it again. The latest addition to their impressive collection is an easy-to-use web app for taking screenshots of any webpage. Just put the URL of the page into your address bar after http://aviary.com/ and you're good to go.

Once you've got a page open in Aviary, you can crop and edit it online. The standard brush, text and shape tools you're familiar with from other image editing programs are available, so you might be able to get away with doing everything you want on the web instead of resorting to Photoshop.Two caveats: you'll need to sign up for an Aviary account to save your work, and editing results may vary if you use the CPU-intensive "advanced editing" features.

[via Lifehacker]

Aviary has added a new tool to its suite of online image editing applications. The company is calling Falcon an "image markup editor" as a way to differentiate it from Phoenix, which is Aviary's online "image editor."

Basically, Falcon was designed to power the new Talon Firefox add-on I mentioned last week. It offers basic image editing tools without all the bells and whistles found in Phoenix. The utility is less than 90k in size, which means it loads much faster than Talon, letting you edit images found on the web or uploaded from your desktop almost immediately. Today Aviary released it as a standalone tool that will work in almost any web browser.

Falcon doesn't support layers like Phoenix. And the tools are all much simpler to use, which could make Falcon attractive to anyone intimidated by fuller featured image editors like Phoenix, or Photoshop.

I got a chance to catch up with Aviary today at a CEA event in New York, and the first thing I wanted to know is when the company will be ready to launch its web-based audio editor. Aviary makes web-based image editing tools, but the company purchased online audio editor DigiMix in March with the intention of launching its own audio production tools. And with the recent announcement that music community site Indaba Music would be updating its web based audio production suite, I was wondering what Aviary had up its sleeve.

So here's the deal. Sometime this summer Aviary will launch its digital audio editing application. It will let users create and mix audio using a web interface. There will be a variety of sounds available to work with, or you'll be able to upload your own audio tracks. At launch you won't be able to record new audio tracks using the web interface, something Indaba Music's new suite is expected to offer.

But while Indaba music's site is built around a community of users who share and talk about music, Aviary is building an application that will have an open API that the company hopes will be used across the web. In other words, if all goes according to plan, you won't just be able to edit audio at Aviary.com, but also on other sites making use of the tools.

In the meantime, Aviary is continuing to move ahead with its image editing tools. The company recently launched an Firefox add-on that lets you right-click on any image in your web browser to edit it with Aviary. The company hasn't begun to promote the add-on yet, because it's still experimental. But it's already been downloaded over 5,000 times.

Aviary offers a suite of web-based image editing tools. Most of the basic features are free, while Aviary charges a subscription fee for full-featured Pro accounts.

If Aviary is something of a web-based version of PhotoShop, DigiMix is a web-based Pro Tools alternative. The web application is a multitrack digital audio workstation in a browser. Digimix is build on Adobe Flex and Flash technology, and supports editing up to 15 tracks with real-time mixing.

DigiMix launched a public alpha last year, but the service is currently unavailable to the public.

Today Aviary announced that it has acquired DigiMix and plans to incorporate the audio editor into its suite of applications. It's not clear at the moment how long it will be until we see a public version of DigiMix, or whether the service will be free, subscription based. My guess is that Aviary will use the same sort of freemium model it offers for its other tools, providing some features for free and charging power users a monthly fee.

In the meantime, you can check out a demo video of DigiMix after the jump.

What's really cool is you can reverse the process as well - a nice touch especially for your aging grandparents - like a face lift without the surgery. Dodo is a great tool to have in your editing arsenal and since it's web based, you can have it with you anywhere you go.

You can sign up for an Aviary account at http://a.viary.com. Be sure to log in, then log out and log in again to activate the Dodo tool.

Aviary is an ambitious suite of web based image editing apps created to enable collaboration among artists of all genres and to provide artists a direct distribution channel to the marketplace. If you're already discounting online flash applications as a plausible alternative to desktop apps like Adobe Illustrator, Gimp, Photoshop, etc., Aviary agrees with you to a certain extent.

What Aviary is offering, make that "soon to offer" is a score of online tools that integrate with one another in one package. The idea is to provide online collaboration capabilities to artists, especially hobbyists and budding artists. The tools are especially useful for quick collaboration, mock ups, and initial team feedback, in ways where file sharing from desktop apps just aren't. And that's Aviary's niche.

Aviary's tools aren't your typical crop, resize, take out red eye kind of tools. Think 3D modeler, vector editor, Flex based pattern generator, color swatch generator, video and sound editors, desktop publishing, and the list goes on and on.