002 — Transmits First Recording
Show Notes
This is a crossover episode that was originally posted on, All Play, where I share the first recording captured via Transmits, what it took to get there and what I plan on working on next. Enjoy.
A milestone has been reached! This is the first episode to be recorded in Transmits!! Obviously, these are early days (the official second recording made in the app was this episode), but recordings are being captured via the web app and stored locally via the File System API in the OPFS (Origin private file system).
The goal is to get this early version of Transmits out so people can start playing with it and capturing their Audio Journals* (*the positioning I am playing with for this initial version of the app. What do you think!?)
I think the idea of audio journals is interesting, and it also seems like some other builders in the bootstrapping/indie maker space–both Peter Suhm [Tweet] (Reform and Out of Beta Podcast) and Brian Casel [Tweet] (Clarity Flow and Bootstrapped Web Podcast)–have started sharing audio/video updates similar to this podcast.
If you want to get early access to start playing around, please join the mailing list here: https://www.transmits.io
To follow along, you can find me at ryanhefner.com, follow me on Twitter @ryanhefner, and keep up with the show on allplay.fm and @allplayfm.
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM
Fathom Analytics
Transcript
00:00 - 00:08
Hey. How's it going? This is Ryan Hefner. Welcome to Transmits. In this episode, this is a crossover episode again from the All Play podcast.
00:09 - 00:44
This is the episode kinda is a milestone of sorts where this is the, the output or the the the actual podcast that is, you'll be hearing is the first, like, I guess, official recording that was made via the Transmits app. It was a local recording done in the browser, and then, it explains kinda where the project's at and where it's going. So without further ado, the first recording of transmit from transmits. Alright. Hey.
00:44 - 01:07
How's it going? This is Ryan Hefner, and this is the All Play podcast. This is gonna be a really quick meta episode, but I just wanted to throw it up there. So it's actually been, I guess, a couple weeks since the last episode dropped, and I announced that I was working on transmits. This is kind of a special episode because I'm actually recording this episode in transmits.
01:09 - 01:34
I have some of the basic stuff working. I have the file system API set up. I also ended up writing a little library that I plan on open sourcing that I'm using to do the file system, access. It is, I mean, it's pretty straightforward. It's it's not doing anything too fancy, but, there are some little helpers in there.
01:35 - 02:13
I was looking at some different libraries that are already out there, but they all seemed a little too they kinda masked a little bit of some of the metal that you wanted to get at. And then at the same time I don't know. It just felt like a good excuse to to write a library. So that will be, I'll actually probably try to butt that up soon. At this point, recordings are being made to the OPFS, which is kind of the the private file system that's in the browser right now.
02:14 - 02:39
This is actually only the second recording that I'm actually capturing with it, so we'll see how well this works for a little bit longer one. The first one is only 5 seconds. Sounded okay. I don't have any of the audio cleanup voice isolation stuff in there yet. Just basically getting this all roughed in and thinking about some of the metadata that I plan on capturing for these files.
02:40 - 03:27
I kinda hacked the system a bit. So, essentially, I'm capturing 2 files per recording right now. One's a JSON file that just has some basic metadata on it, and then the other is the actual raw audio file that is then referenced from that JSON object. And they're disposed just using the same, like, random GUID UUID thing, to pair them up. So nothing fancy, but, it did get my mind going towards what would it look like to actually have a totally local and almost, basically account free version of transmits that people could just use to record and, access their audio files.
03:27 - 04:13
And then if they wanted any of the more advanced features, maybe then they'd have to either, like, sign up or, you know, start paying a subscription or something like that. So yeah. They got the mind going. I like the idea of having as much be local first and not to not to jump on the local first thing, but basically as much to be local in the browser and accessible offline and really in the user's control from both, like, a privacy but also from a performance standpoint. So actually another thing that was kinda interesting is just, like, referencing these files from the, you know, OPFS is actually pretty fast.
04:14 - 04:52
I need to do some more testing as far as actually, like, going offline and loading this up on, you know, a mobile device and just seeing how well that works. But on my desktop, you know, in Arc, everything seems to be working pretty good. The, obviously yeah. If you were to do, an account free local only version, there would be no syncing between your your mobile app and the desktop. I might play around with, you know, exploring, like, how we I I could potentially do some, like, local, like, WebRTC kind of file syncing stuff.
04:52 - 05:34
But t b TBD on that, I think I'd end up actually just doing the, you know, some sort of service, syncing thing before I get too into just, like, local file transfer and syncing stuff, basically like a local Dropbox or something. But yeah. So that's a quick update on transmits. Things are going okay. I mean, a little bit slower than I would had hoped, but, you know, the the kids are out of school, and they're they've got different things going on every week that's a little slightly different.
05:35 - 05:49
Obviously, 4th July. And then what else? I have no idea. I think my parents and their family had come down to hang out. So all those little things, they used to, like, chip away at the the time that's available.
05:49 - 06:29
And then also the contracts that I'm working on have been a I'm not necessarily more intense, but the, some of the stuff that I'm working on requires a little bit more deep diving, and so it's, like, harder to come out of. And at the same time, I can't be fiddling with this stuff and then easily dive into it and just get some stuff done. So it's eating up a little bit more time than I had hoped, but it'll be nice to see how this audio comes out. I'm watching the live waveform right now as I talk, and it's fun to see it jump around. But I have ideas on how I wanna make that a little cooler.
06:31 - 07:18
Yeah. I mean, if anything, I probably I I I wanna get a version actually about this of this up and out sooner than later, so that people can actually start playing with it. But I am gonna just go through and do a little sugar coating on it and set up some, like, nice defaults and kinda just, like, get it ready for an initial showing. But I would like to get people in here just, like, playing with it and seeing what they think and if they start using it. I've also been thinking about what I want to be, like, the main tagline for this, and, obviously, what's on the website right now is not really what I would want it to be.
07:18 - 08:17
I'm almost thinking something along the lines of, like, like, audio journals, like, audio journaling app or something like that, with the idea that you could basically, like, capture this stuff and then reflect on it and get the transcripts and kinda use these things. It's actually kinda funny. I've noticed that a few other people in kind of the bootstrapping indie, SaaS, indie maker space are looking to actually do pod like, they're looks like they're maybe setting up podcasts. I mean, Peter Soom has actually already kinda started doing it, and I think it's roughly along the lines similar concept or similar format as what I'm doing with these all play episodes. And I think, Brian Castle too from Clarity Flow.
08:17 - 08:52
I think he sent something out where he's he might be doing some of these things. So I actually think these recordings are nicest to get out, and then you can kinda play around with who you share them with. And I think it actually is like a interesting space for transmits to be the one space to kinda quickly kinda gather these things and then choose whether you wanna share them out or not. But just to get them down and kinda use it as, like, a verbal scratch pad of sorts. But, I'm gonna wrap it up there.
08:52 - 09:11
Just wanted to give a quick little update. I'm kinda into this. Hopefully, this audio will sound good. I probably end up we'll just take like, end up taking this audio file and running it through Adobe Audition in case, it doesn't sound so great, but we'll see how it goes. Maybe I won't have to.
09:12 - 09:30
But, yeah. Transmits. This episode brought to you by Transmits, at least this recording. But, yeah, I'm gonna leave it there. I am Ryan Hefner.
09:30 - 09:50
You can find me on Twitter @ryanhefner and online at ryanhefner.com. Follow the show on Twitter @allplayfm , and check out the site at or not at at, but, at the URL allplay.fm . Alright. Have a great one. Later.