Linux has a whole range of applications that are used for recording and editing sounds. Among others, these include Audacity, which sets very high performance standards for the genre, and KWave, which comes from the KDE community. Work on the competitor EKO [1] has been ongoing for the last six years, but most larger distributions still take a pass on the software. This reluctance even applies to Arch Linux, where you will need to build the program from the source code (see the "Installation" box).

Initial Start

The program makes a somewhat strange impression when it is first opened (Figure 1). The interface's layout closely resembles other similar programs. But in spite of the Qt basis, EKO looks more like a post-modern Java Swing GUI that doesn't appear to fit in with the rest of the desktop. The user-interface widgets match fairly well with the desktop. However the same cannot be said for the icons.

Figure 1: EKO adheres to conventions followed by most of the sound editors in this sector except that the decision to include unusual icons is distracting.

You will experience more weirdness when you open an audio file using File | Open . Instead of giving you a selection window, the software jumps to the Files tab in the bar on the right and embeds the dialog directly in the main window. The opened file gets displayed in a timeline and is divided into channels (Figure 2).

Figure 2: When you open up an audio file, you will find yourself in a familiar looking view for editing sounds.

Before delving deeper into the menus, you should devote some attention to configuration. This is done by clicking on Help | System Check . The application will display the external tools it has found for reading in and exporting files.

Additional settings are specified in the Options tab found in the right-hand bar. The Common tab is used to modify various basic settings like the lame command for exporting to MP3 format, plus the user-interface language.

In addition, you should specify how many steps the software saves during editing, thus giving yourself the possibility of reversing steps if this is necessary (Figure 3). An option like this might seem superfluous because you can create obstacles for yourself under certain conditions. Nonetheless, the developers made a firm decision to build it in.

Figure 3: During configuration, some of the settings you create will probably not be needed in actual practice.

If needed, you can use the Sound devices tab to specify sources where the program will get data, and where this data will be sent. During testing, it was not necessary to change any of the other default settings. The software accurately recognized the correct devices.

The keyboard settings in the Keyboard tab are also rich with possibilities. Shortcuts can be created for almost all of the functions. The selection options even let you realize fast access to files that have already been opened.

Editing

The editing process in this tool is pretty conventional. EKO puts the playback buttons in the toolbar. Clicking in the timeline and then dragging the cursor lets you select an area. Clicking the looped checkbox activates infinite loop playback .

The software offers a number of tools in the Functions menu that can be used to modify marked segments. These tools let you do things like insert silence, perform dynamic response compression, and reverse the channels. There are also tools that can be used to generate tones and noise.

The mixer surprises with some very interesting gimmicks. It opens right away in a separate window when the program starts. If you have a smaller display, you might not see this separate window because lack of space causes it to simply disappear behind the main window.

Clicking on the plus icon that sits above the spin control opens another small window. This is where you find the functions for adding echo, distortions, and the crackling typical of vinyl records (Figure 4). You won't always be able to deduce the type of a particular effect from the name given to the function. Experimentation works best in this regard.

Figure 4: The mixer is able to realistically generate the typical crackling of a vinyl record. Unfortunately, the reverse action of removing crackling, something that would be helpful to the restoration of recordings, does not work.

You will find a few unanticipated quirks hidden in the workings of the EKO functions. For example, it is not possible to just export a marked area to a new file. You first need to copy the area via File | Copy , then use File | New to open a new editing area, and finally, insert the data there. This procedure does not sound logical, and that is because it is not. Another surprise lurks in the playback function. Instead of stopping when it comes to the end of a marked area during playback, the software merrily continues onward.

EKO has an onboard tool for fading in and out when you want to straighten up a piece of music. This tool is found in the Functions | Fade menu. It works accurately on the marked area even though controlling the intensity of the process requires several passes. There are no parameters available.

You might be interested in enlarging a marked area so that you can analyze it better. The audio editor enlarges file areas in a roundabout way. The View menu option does not have a corresponding entry. Instead you have to go to Edit | Trim where the appropriate setting for changing the marked area to the size of the window has been hidden away. Repeating the procedure multiple times should get you into the range of individual oscillations. During testing however, the program alternately crashed, or it generated unusable views.

Export

Currently, only WAV and MP3 formats are available for saving files. MP3 is generated via the Lame encoder by saving the data via:

File | Import/Export | Export to MP3

If you merely save the file, the tool automatically selects the uncompressed WAV format.

Even though the settings offer a parameter for modifying the free Vorbis codec, this format does not appear in the exporting options. Nonetheless, there is a workaround for saving data in other formats. The command line for Lame accepts plain text in the settings. This means you can simply enter another command. The entry for MP3 will continue to be displayed in the menus, but the results we achieved during testing were correct.

Regardless of the format selected, EKO does not attach any metadata to exported files. Therefore, playback programs subsequently need an external editor in order to recognize what they are dealing with. The VLC media player and the Gnome application EasyTAG [2] are well equipped to take on the task of recognition.

Help

The Help menu offers support for discovering the possibilities of this tool. The software includes documentation directly in the main window, thus concealing the opened editor. In order to look up functions, you have to switch back and forth between editor and text. It would be more practical if you could swap between support and the editor in a single window, but this does not work. Looking in the web browser is also not an option because the help text is part of the monolithic EKO binaries.

An "EKO Manual" in HTML format is available on the project's GitHub page [3].

Conclusion

The project website is largely silent about the origin and meaning of the program name. There is a vague reference to the word "Echo." During testing, we came up with another name that we thought might be more fitting. We would call the program an "Idiosyncratic Sound Organizer."

Even though the program orients itself primarily toward other editors, it arbitrarily insists on unique settings labels. This approach cuts into the notion that the solution is innovative. The concept behind displaying multiple windows on small screens with limited resolution is particularly impractical. Although the software's behavior when files are opened is a pleasant surprise, it does not rise to the level of actual progress.

Consistency across the desktop is usually part of the design for other programs, not so for EKO. As a result, the software currently positions itself somewhere between recording tools like Gnome Sound Recorder and the mature tools for sound artists that are mentioned above. It is not clear whether EKO will make it into the latter category.

If you are not bothered by the offbeat design, and if you don't want to grapple with the umpteen possibilities and options found in KWave or Audacity, then EKO is certainly worth trying.