Ho-ho-horrible: Music sales plunge 20 percent this Christmas

Music sales tanked this Christmas, dropping 20 percent lower than last year's level. Labels are looking to boost their digital sales numbers to compensate for the CD's decline, even if that means dropping DRM.

read more | digg story

Top Ten List NerdGasm! Lifehackers Top Twenty Top Ten Lists!

I'm a SUCKER for Top Ten lists, and Lifehackers Top Twenty Top Ten lists doesn't disappoint!

• Top 10 iPhone Applications
• Top 10 Free Windows Downloads
• Top 10 USB Thumb Drive Tricks
• Top 10 Free Computer System Recovery Tools
• Top 10 Wi-Fi Boosts, Tweaks and Apps
• Top 10 Free Video Rippers, Encoders, and Converters
• Top 10 Free Wallpaper, Fonts and Icon Sources
• Top 10 Body Hacks
• Top 10 Ways to Sleep Smarter and Better
• Top 10 Google Products You Forgot All About
• Top 10 Must-have Firefox Extensions
• Top 10 Ubuntu Applications
• Top 10 Ways to Clean Up Your PC
• Top 10 Mac OS X Tweaks
• Top 10 DIY Office Projects
• Top 10 Free Mac Downloads
• Top 10 Food and Drink Hacks
• Top 10 New and Improved Apps of 2007
• Top 10 Home Networking Tricks
• Top 10 PDF Tricks

Whew!
I think I need a cigarette...

Letterman and WGA Reach Agreement!

He Shoots, HE SCORES!!!
(lol teh cheesie)






This is extremely exciting news! As reported by NYT, Worldwide Pants Inc, the company behind The Late Show with David Letterman, and The Late Late Show with Colin Ferguson has worked out a deal with the WGA.

Read the whole article HERE.

This is my favorite part of the article:
On Friday evening, the leaders of the two writers unions, Michael Winship of the East Coast guild and Patric M. Verrone of the West Coast guild, upped the ante in a letter sent to members. It said the unions would urge actors and politicians to appear on the Worldwide Pants shows and stay clear of the others, which would be subject to even more intense picketing.

Take THAT Carson Daly! SCAB!!!

More End of the Year Top Ten/Best Of Lists

I'm a SUCKER for top ten lists...

ExtremeTech's List of Ten Worst Technologies and Trends of 2007

Gizmodo's Top Ten list of gadgets that will get you fired from your office job

ExtremeTech's Top Ten Tech Tips of 2007

Consumerist's Top Ten Products of 2007

Kotaku's Most Commented stories of '07

Enjoy!

Apple forcing us to turn down the volume?

So, this story isn't new, been floating around teh intarwebs since before Xmas (and I've written about this before), but I still think it's worth taking a quick look at.
The Telegraph reported on Dec 23rd, that Apple has filed a patent that would allow future iPods to calculate how long you've been listening to music, at what volume you've been listening, and would gradually turn down the volume on you. This is supposed to be a big magnanimous gesture on Apple's part, as people can plug into music all day long thanks to huge amounts of storage available. As hearing loss can be a gradual event, most people might not even know they're doing damage.
This idea sounds great in theory (like a rev limiter on car helps save fuel and forces you to not do something too stupid), but I see some huge flaws.

First off, will this be a feature we can turn off? It sounds like a silly question at first, but Apple has shown a tendency (as do a lot of tech companies) towards locking consumers into doing things their way because they "know better" (iPhone I'm looking at you). If Mommies and Daddies get concerned about little Timmy's Nano, Jobs & Co could make this a new locked in "feature" to assuage concerns, or make it painfully difficult to disable.
Why would I want to turn it off? Well the majority of the time I listen to my iPod it's usually plugged into speakers of some kind. Also I hate proprietary docks and connectors, so I plug my Nano in using the headphone jack. In my car I have a line in, and at home my stereo has an "MP3 port" (which is just a fancy way of saying "line in"). In both cases I'll jack the Nano to about 80% volume and then control the actual speaker output via the stereo. If this system is monitoring the ipods output it's going to think I'm blasting my ears for hours at a time. I don't want to be fighting my MP3 player while driving...

Secondly, this issue with people listening to music too loud for too long is mostly Apple's fault at this point. A lot of people credit the success of the ipod with the distinctive design of the white earbuds. Well guess what? Those are HORRIBLE for your ears! They don't create any seal around the ear's opening, so your music is constantly having to compete with the sounds around you. The louder the noise, the louder you'll have to turn up your music. The ipod is a fantastic DAP. The headphones included are the worst dime store crap you could put in your ears.
If Apple really cared about protecting people's hearing, they would drop these headphones immediately, or would include an accessory like the Griffin Ear Jams to help with the problem. Even the Zune includes "premium" headphones which help with noise cancellation, and should allow people to enjoy music at lower volume.

When I do listen to Nano with headphones, it's either on Sony EX51's (pictured) or Sennheiser cx300's. Even when working out, I have a hard time listening above 50% volume, which according to the Telegraph (sidebar), is about as noisy as a loud restaurant or office building, and shouldn't damage the ears for about 24 hours of listening. That's a lot of music...



Check out the article @ The Telegraph. It is an interesting read, though I really think Apple might be missing the point.

The Man of Another 100 Voices

LOL, his velociraptor sucks...

Video: Changing Microphone Positions on Speakers

A great little video from MusicLover over at 5min detailing the different sounds you get from moving a microphone in relation to a guitar amp. Distance and angle play a huge factor in the type of sound you're looking for:

3 down, 1 to go: Warner Music Group drops DRM

This has been reported all over teh intarwebs! Warner is making all of its music available as MP3 files for sale at Amazon's music store. I've never seriously used iTunes outside of some giftcards I've received, but it looks like I'll be checking out Amazon's Music store...

read more | digg story

The REBOOT dedicates an entire episode to Game Audio

Hey this is a pretty good show! I've never seen this podcast before, but I think I'll be subscribing. Wonder if I can Miro it? ... hmmm ...

Anywho, a reader sent in this specific episode knowing my about my love of all things audio, and ... they also just happen to be one of the guys interviewed. LOL, I love my readers!

This entire episode of The Reboot is on video game audio, it's development, and evolution into a more cinematic form, so check it out. It's pretty cool.




Thanks David!

Vote for the New Voice of the NBC Nightly News

...but not really.

Were you not entirely thrilled by the announcement that Michael Douglas was going to be the new voice of the NBC Nightly News?

Well neither was voice actor Peter O'Connell. He runs the AudiO'Connell blog, and he's holding a casting call. Submission time is already up, but you can still vote on which voice you like (I'm voting for Kara Edwards cuz she's awesome).

The winner gets ... nothing ... far as I can tell (this being TOTALLY unofficial), but bragging rights are bragging rights, so go check it out. There are some classic voices up to listen to.

Listen to the nominees.

Vote on your fave.

Home Recording Sound Card Wizard

Are you in the market for a sound card?
Don't know which one to get?

Brandon Drury of RecordingReview has you covered!



He's a created a nifty little web app to help buyers decide which sound card to buy.


You can check it out here!

Free Open Source Software for You for Free. Did I Mention that it's FREE?

I'm a big fan of the free stuff. I write a lot about Audacity. I've checked out programs like Reaper (sadly no longer free) and Wavosaur. I would gladly ditch Windows were it not for a small (and shrinking) number of programs that I need to use.

Enter Open Source Living, a web site dedicated to collecting and cataloging Open software. Right now the collection is a little lean, but already has some great software finds, a few of which I had never heard of but will be downloading soon to try out.

Their Audio Section is already pretty formidable with Players, Podcasters, Recording software, Mastering, MIDI, and Rippers.

If you're looking for some great software (and hey the price is right) I would highly recommend checking this out!

MERRY DAY AFTER XMAS!!!

We had a great Xmas day, made out like bandits, and saw a TON of movies.
I hope you all had a happy holiday season, and all the best for the new year!

I took these pics of Biggs with Mrs Audio Guy while walking off some of our holiday gorging.
Enjoy!

Knight Rider trailer teases us with sexy Will Arnett

Nuthin else to say about it. Watch the clip.



Yup, sexy!

News Sound Bites - Whole ton-o-stuff coming back from XMas

Yeah I gotta bunch, so lets jump in.

Jalopnik told me that Plantronics thinks you look stupid with that BT headset. Put it in the new Plantronics car charger when not in use.

Nokia's crushing on Apple, wants to make sweet music iTunes downloading babies.

Speakers = Sexy? AudioJunkies thinks so, has list of top 15 speaker sets with the curves to compete with your girlfriend.

Blizzard, your favorite WoW/Starcraft developers, are starting a podcast on game development.

In other BT Headset news, Engadget has the scoop on the Adtec AD-HSM10, one of tiniest headsets I've ever seen. I shall call it "the button" (instead of the nonsensical string of letters and numbers - Come on people! Consumers buy NAMES, they buy iPods and Zunes and ROKRs and Walkmans not "AD-HSM10's"! HOW DO YOU EVEN SAY THAT‽‽‽), and be mad that we'll probably never see it stateside.

FreewareGenius lets us know about Tunestor, a free Firefox plugin that automates downloading an mp3, and putting it right into iTunes. I don't use iTunes, so this is useless to me. I'm only writing about it for you, my faithful readers. I'm teh selfless!

Was my post about SpokenText not enough to sate the Text to Speech beast in you? DownloadSquad gives us another TtS to satisfy that "read it to me" urge.

Toon Zone interviews the original Speed Racer and Trixie!

ay-dee-ache-es-em-tenza ... nope still sucks... it's "the button" now ... I've decided!

Wired delivers the Top Ten Love!

What can I say? I'm a sucker for top ten lists, and Wired's got a bunch of them for us.
Top Ten Gadgets
Top Ten Gadget Let Downs
Top Ten Videogames
Top Ten Vaporware
Top Ten Earth "Hacks"



All in all, I'm totally there. I only have two issues.

1. The kindle being on both the the TT gadgets AND the TT Heartbreaks.
2. The Tesla being on the Vaporware. Living in LA and driving by the Tesla store that's being built (Santa Monica and the 405, not cheap), kinda shows a bit more promise than true Vapor.

Happy Holidays from Aperture Science

http://aperturescience.com/

Are those Half Life crates?

RIAA is producing fake news?

OK, I don't know exactly how true this might be. The story on LiveLeak (from user "Fakenews") is:

Recording Industry Association of America wants to Scare / Inform TV News audiences. The company I work for just distributed this video package nationwide to TV News Stations. It already aired in Dallas and one network and one major news gathering service have requested tapes. This thing could be all over the news this week. The video you see was preceded by graphics which told stations who paid for the content.

This is how the RIAA and other organizations get their news out and influence consumers like you.

That's quite a claim. I'm not saying he's a liar, but I think we would've noticed if our news outlets had sold out to major corporations, become profit based at the expense of us citizens, and transformed into a platform for knee jerk reactionary mis-information.
I mean we TOTALLY would've caught that right? Right?



BWAAAAHH-HA-HA-HA
*GAAAAASSSP!*
*COUGHcoughkoffkoffCOUGHCOUGH*
HA-Ha-ha-huh-huh-huh
heh-heh
haaaaaaaa....

Whew.

Alright, I'm not sure it's legit. First off the voice over is atrocious, like REALLY bad. I guess local stations could replace with one of their reporters, but if that's the spot, it's not good.
The production looks several years old, like the way the text sides into view. Like something I would've done in high school (stop laughing I'm not that old).
Also, I'm not entirely sure what the point is. I think it is important to inform people about counterfeit products, but last I checked file sharing is destroying true piracy. I do enjoy the hamfisted attempt at the end of the clip, cluing us proles in to the hip and trendy new things coming out. Watch out! It's how the hip kids will be listening to music. Yeah! Teh funnie...

About the only thing I do agree with is the definition of pirated media. I only believe you're "pirating" media if you're trying to profit from work you didn't make (like this guy). If you're downloading stuff for free you're just a thief!

If anyone catches this "news" segment on TV, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, let me know. I'd love to know if this is legit!

The Santa Sessions

Who knew Dailey & Associates had such a sense of humor?

This is a shameless rip off of The Voice Over Times, as this is the vid on their front page, but I like it, so I'm posting here too!

Happy Holi-daze!



Enjoy!

Thanks V.O.T.!

News Sound Bites - Vox in Second Life, Bionic Ears, iTunes add ons, your web security

Vox Daily has an interview with Ari Ross, a trailblazer voice over artist using Second Life as a springboard for his voice over career. It's a pretty interesting read on an example of where this business is going (like everywhere). You might recognize him from the CSI/NY episode about SL.

Engadget's got the scoop on the Carina hearing aid being developed at Envoy Medical. doodoodoodoodoo (lame attempt at writing out the bionic woman ear noise)...

Lifehacker has their list of the 23 best iTunes add ons. Some cool stuff, like album art plugins, automation tools, and digital radio.

Are you paranoid (like I am) about your web security? Me TOO! Good thing Google has these handy videos up on Youtube about protecting your web privacy!

Spoken Text reads the words for you, and here I am using my own eyes like a sucker...

I know, text to speech isn't crazy exciting, but I have a lot of fun with it anyway, so deal.

Anywho, what IS kinda cool about SpokenText, is it's a bit more fleshed out than most TtS web apps. Some serious thought has gone into the feature set, like being able to read documents, email, and web pages, and efforts have been made to also help those that actually need readers, so it's kinda for real practical, ya know.

So check it out here, and if you like the service try to donate. They're currently trying to purchase voices from AT&T to help flesh the service out a bit.

Here's a sample of SpokenText for your listening enjoyment:


Not too shabby!


Thanks DownloadSquad!

Voice Over 101

I'm a sucker for those old black and white educational films...



Heh-heh, teh funnie!

David Anthony Pizzuto goes crazy during Game Zombie Interview

Crazy in a good way!
David is asked to give them some voices, and boy does he deliver!
It's been my pleasure to work with Dave in the past, and the man plays evil well ... maybe a little tooo well... hmmm...

Seriously though, Dave is a great voice actor, and has recently become a driving force in getting actors better compensation for their work in videogames.

GameZombie.tv presents a conversation with the David Anthony Pizzuto, a major voice actor who's performed in Pride and Glory, Blazing Angels 2, SWAT 4, Steel Horizon, 50 Cent: Bulletproof; Credits: Producer: Spencer Striker, VJ: Jessica Frasher, Editor: Gabe Goldstein

read more | digg story

News Sound Bites - there's a lot today...

Gizmodo helps you sing and play drums at the same time in Rock Band. They didn't think of a regular Mic stand though...

Outi earphones are out now for $110. Bone conduction is interesting to me. Without a speaker to blast sound into your ears, these could be better for your ears (unlike earbuds). They just look really uncomfortable...

MusicThing has the scoop on Chimera, a CD sized analog mono synth, with patch points and MIDI. It looks really cool.

Into recycling electronics? Check out Plink Jet! It's a robotic musical instrument made from inkjet printers. They also have movies of the bot in action!

Creative has released the 32GB flash memory Zen. It's an iPod Nano on steroids, featuring 32GB of built in storage, upgradeable storage (with SD memory cards), support for Tivo to Go, and an FM radio. SOunds like the perfect alternative to those not digging the new iPods or Zunes.

One year ago today, Lifehacker helped you digitize your cassette tapes.

Radio Head and Weezer are coming to Rockband.

X-Play names Bioshock game of the year. COD4 wins best shooter and sound design. Oddly no voice acting category...

LA Times has a great write up of the current animation situation. With a lot of production getting shut down because of the wga strike, quite a bit of animation will be untouched, as it's done under an IATSE deal. Check it out.

Dreamworks Animation stock is up, pretty much because of Shrek the Third.

John Barrowman (Dr. Who, Torchwood) will be narrating his autobiography, titled 'Anything Goes'. The audiobook should be out February 2008.

Downloadsquad has the scoop on Voice Thread. It's a compelling web app that gives people the ability to record commentaries for pictures, documents and videos. It's kinda like bringing story telling and oral history to web 2.0.

And lastly (whew) Gamevideos has footage of the Spike VGA's red carpet:

Vote for your favorite Microphone?

I don't know what oobject is?

I don't much care.

They're currently voting on the top 25 classic/vintage microphones of all time.

That's enough for me...

The Shure 55 is currently leading, but I just put in my vote for the U47! So, yeah, that'll show em! It is crazy to see all the funky futuristic metal shapes mics used to come in. Every now and then we get something fun like a Blue or a Solaris, but most of what I use day to day is just so bloody practical looking...

Check out the vote here at Oobject.

Microphones are a classic gadget because, even today, their design is often based upon Art Deco or Machine Age styling. Here is a chart of vintage and vintage style microphones designed to show how that style evolved and how it is still copied today. Vote for your faves.

Sound Design tips from Create Digital Music

FOLEY IS FUN!

Create Digital Music has some great sound design tips up on their site. What's great is they also include some pictures, so you can see what's involved in getting sounds for media. Pretty funny stuff too.

It's all really crazy, and is some of my favorite recording. We all know the basics, punching a steak for realistic body hits, breaking celery for bone and tissue damage, but I had to come up with some fun ones for my last animation project. Sound effects rule!

Here are just a few.

A slinky and a dollar store toy microphone made great high tension lines and steel cabling.

Slamming a bottle of juice into our apartment's stove became the footsteps of a giant killer robot (and pissed off the neighbors).

Our old ink jet printer/scanner became the motors and servos of the killer robot (think robocop).







And of course there's our in house space alien:



Check out Create Digital Music's article for even more great sound design tips!

Thanks D4Dirty!

Michael Douglas is the new announcer for The NBC Nightly News

So long Howard Reig. You'll be missed.

Here's the official announcement from tonight's NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.
Sorry for the low quality video, I didn't have time to properly set the DVR.



It's kind of an unexpected move IMO, but I like his voice. It's strong, intelligent, mature, and it has just a little edge to it. Hopefully he'll grow into being a really good announcer?

I really will miss the patriarchal authority of Reig though...




















Whoa! Easy there Douglas!

I was also thinking of "Listen up BITCHES!!! HERE COMES THE NEWS!" as the caption...

News Sound Bites - high end audio, Telcos given immunity, art of audiobooks, more...

Hey lets get to it!

The Consumerist (through Slate) takes a look at high end audio systems. I think it's funny to do that as most people listen to some form of compressed audio. Even CD's (to an extent) are not full representations of the sounds we hear.

Wired's Threat Level kindly informs us that our government is getting ready to sell us out again, by offering amnesty to Telecoms that spy on us, without the involvements of the courts, on behalf of the American government. Yay! GOOOOOOO WARRANTLESS!!!!

I love reading Katherine Powers' audiobook reviews over at Book World and The Washington Post. This link is out to four more short reviews to check out.

Martin Jarvis makes this book a greater pleasure to listen to than to read, his extraordinary vocal characterizations transfusing it with life. Though one of his American accents is a mutinous mish-mash with a will of its own, its bearer is, fortunately, bumped off early on.

Ahhhh Classic!

Sound Designers, Puremagnetik has released their Technosphere toolbox. I'll let Sonicstate tell you about it:

Puremagnetik has released Technosphere, a sound design toolbox of over 100 sonic textures and composer effects. Produced from a composite of live field recordings, studio instruments and intensive effect processing, Puremagnetik say that Technosphere brings a unique palette of soundscapes, transition effects and scoring tools to the Puremagnetik catalog.

If you're looking for even more Voice and Audio news. Check out The Voice Over Times, which I believe just went live today. I've already checked it out, and they've got some decent talent writing articles, and some very helpful content. That is, go check them out AFTER you've finished reading through my archives...

;-)

In Response to Using your Camera as a Field Recorder

A member of ProAudioNews responded to my post about using your camera's camcorder mode as a field recorder.

JQB:
Interesting idea, however walking around with a massive camera around your neck makes you look like a tourist. Also without a decent mike with mufflers you will can get lots of problems with wind and movement crackles.

I felt like responding to JQB's response!

First off, my camera is not "massive" thank you very much ;-), and I live in LA, so people walking around with cameras [shrug] tourist, paparazzi, whatever. Everyone walks around with cameras here, ya know.

So without going and actually reading my post, the point was to be able to get clean, decent, usable recordings with a minimum of fuss, expense, and without calling attention to yourself. I needed outdoor ambiance, and I couldn't get the results I wanted with voice recorders, mp3 players, or cellphones. I didn't want to haul my laptop, soundcard and mics out to Santa Monica (where with that kinda kit I could just imagine being asked for a permit).

I was able, though, to get what I needed from a Powershot S2 in sound recorder mode.



Just as an example I took a recording of our apartment's fountain using my PPC6700 in voice memo mode, and my S2 in sound recorder mode. Both were recording in stereo, 16-bit @ 44.1K, and both held from the same distance. There was no post done to the sound at all other than to convert to 320Kbps mp3's.

PPC6700:


Powershot S2:


Just for kicks I took the S2's recording and made it into an underwater ambient.


Thanks for reading JQB!

Tensions between SAG and AFTRA heating up again?

Just sent in to me from a friend.
It looks like SAG and AFTRA will be feuding again.
A concerned group of SAG actors have posted a petition to the Screen Actors Guild Board, and it has collected almost 400 signatures since December 2nd.

The concern:

To the financial detriment of actors, The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists is undercutting Screen Actors Guild contracts by offering inferior wages and benefits in jurisdictions that traditionally belong to Screen Actors Guild.

The petition:

Protecting Actors

Resolution to Screen Actors Guild Board of Directors

WHEREAS a steep price has been paid by actors who came before us to acquire residuals and the Pension & Health benefits that have become the lifeblood of actors, and a steep price is being paid now by the writers to prevent free exhibition days and to gain a fair compensation in the continued exploitation of creative work;

And WHEREAS our Phase One collective bargaining partner, AFTRA, is giving away what the writers are currently on strike to secure, (AFTRA gave away simultaneous internet streaming, 10-20 play days on cable in the first year, multiple plays per day, no residuals on any of these plays and thus no pension and health benefits);

And WHEREAS, by federally authorized elections, these shows are not AFTRA’s jurisdiction but are Screen Actors Guild’s and have been raided from S.A.G. where residuals and Pension & Health benefits would have been paid;

And WHEREAS in 2002, without a membership referendum, the AFTRA National Board gave the Association of Talent Agents (ATA) financial interest in exchange for $500,000; the same package that was rejected by a vote of the S.A.G. membership;

And WHEREAS we have such fundamental differences with regard to residuals, Pension & Health benefits, the proper place of agents in their representation of actors, and the participation of members in decisions critical to their welfare;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that Screen Actors Guild take every measure available to enforce its jurisdiction up to and including taking a vote of actors to determine who they want to represent them in collective bargaining agreements in all aspects of their work.

I don't want to pick sides here, but I will say that I find it unpleasant to have two guilds divided over the same space. SAG and AFTRA share some forty thousand members, and any time a contract is up, they spend more energy trying to undercut each other than working out a fair deal with production. As long as this bargaining position is maintained, actors will never have true "collective" bargaining, and the contracts negotiated will continue to work towards the actor's detriment. Either there needs to be a clearer division between who gets what, or the two guilds need to merge.

This is of course easier said than done...

Read the rest of the petition here.

Thanks David!

Great Vintage Christmas Recordings with Lapsed Copyrights!

Tis the season, and Wired's Listening Post has you covered!
They've got links to holiday music that has lapsed and fallen into public domain. Most of it is pretty old (one song going back to 1904!), but if you're looking to fill out your holiday play list, this stuff is classic!

CHECK THEM OUT HERE!

And just for kicks, heres Eddie Cantor's "The Only Thing I Want for Christmas (Is Just to Keep the Things I Got)":

News Sound Bites - WHOLE TON o STUFF

Yep. There's a lot of news to cover today.

Apple finally gives in on custom ringtones for the iPhone. A not so mysterious "Share ringtone with iTunes" button has popped up in Garageband. It's about time. The ringtone lock down was a stupid, ill advised, arbitrary way to milk customers for extra revenue, while simultaneously providing little to no benefit.

Seibertron.com interviews Frank Welker! Yup, the REAL Megatron. Not to say Hugo didn't do a good job in the movie, but if you grew up in the 80's, this man's voice represented everything that was evil.

It never even occurred to me that they would bother, but apparently they did get "names" for Alvin and the Chipmunks. Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, and Jesse McCartney voice the rodents in the up coming movie. Why? Really, I mean, why bother? No one cares. They weren't used to promote the movie. You can't recognize the voices. The performances wont be "better" than using true blue VO people. There's no benefit. I don't get it...


The Cincinnati Post takes a look at narration in TV series. I finally saw Amelie for the first time, and Pushing Daisies totally nails the quirky yet emotion tone of that film. Good times.

CNET News has a photo gallery up of Skywalker Sound, a totally drool-worthy look at one of the most advanced post production facilities in the world. Careful clicking on the link, because if you're anything like me, there's going to be a LOT of gear lust...

And lastly (i know right?), Do you own a Wii? Have you noticed an increase in the cockroach population of your abode after your acquisition of said Wii? There's a rumor floating around "teh intarwebs" that the Wii emits a sonic frequency that attracts the little buggers. I don't think it'll stop me from trying to grab one to rock some Mario Kart.

The Final Whisper in "Lost in Translation" Revealed?

LOL! I guess I should preface this with a spoiler alert?
I'm a sucker for this kind of stuff. I find it very satisfying when film makers leave things up to their audiences to figure out, but I also like to know what the film makers intended. I'm a total behind the scenes commentary junky, like hearing Tarantino's theories on what was in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. You know MacGuffins right?

If you don't really care to know, then don't watch this vid. I think the second half works really well, though I can't quite make out the beginning. All in all, still a really sweet scene, from a great movie.

When Sofia Coppola’s Lost In Translation, one of the big topics of conversation revolved around what Bill Murray’s character whispered in Scarlett Johansson’s ear at the conclusion of the film. YouTube user Vid22 used digital processing to clear up the audio and finally reveal the answer.

read more | digg story

How did I not catch this! Will Arnett the voice of K.I.T.T. ‽‽‽

Seriously people!
How can you all let me miss this stuff???
I had to go to a CAR BLOG to hear about this‽‽‽

Anywho, Jalopnik has the scoop on the new voice of KITT for the resurrected Knight Rider series planned. Of course, because it's a car blog, they're more focused on the fact that the new KITT is a Ford Mustang and not a GM car (the original KITT of course a Firebird). I feel this is missing the point . It's WILL FRIGGIN ARNETT!!!

Seriously, this is really cool. Arnett is a very good voice over performer, and has done a ton of commercial work, not to mention credits in Ratatouille and Ice Age: The Meltdown.

That actually brings up an interesting issue. As Arnett is currently the voice of GMC... ...will there be any fallout over him voicing an autonomous, artificially intelligent, crime fighting Ford?


Read Jalopnik's Post and see pics of the new KITT.

New Video Player for Some Audio Guy!

Hey all!
Just a quick heads up on a few small changes to the blog.
I finally had the opportunity to check out my readership, and you guys have been really good to me. My numbers have doubled again over the last two months, and you guys are reading me on every continent with internet access. I'm looking forward to even more come 2008, as I'll be adding features, podcasts, contests, and hopefully some guest writers so you don't have to "hear" my voice all the time. ;-)

The first of these changes happened last night. I got rid of the audio player at the bottom, and replaced it with a Youtube video crawler. It's set to troll Youtube for videos related to audio, voice acting, and sound design. It also preloads related videos, so you should be able to hit play and watch several videos in a row.

Also, over the next several days, I'll be messing around with the advertising on the site, hopefully getting it to blend in a little better. Ads are sort of a necessary evil these days, but I'm trying to make sure they don't distract too much. I'm also trying to make the ads more specific, so if you do happen to look at them, they'll be for products and services you guys actually care about. No more writing about Mackie mixers and getting ads for Bob Mackie Barbie dolls!

If you have any comments or suggestions please feel free to drop a comment or email me directly at:
SomeAudioGuy@gmail.com

Thanks, and have a great holiday season!

Makeshift Field Recorder - Your Digital Camera

While working on an animation project, I really needed some wide open sounds, ambiance, street sounds, basic background stuff. Field recording. I tried using my phone's memo function (not great), and I tried using a hand held voice recorder (also not great and surprisingly expensive for very little storage). It started to look like I would either have to lug my laptop, soundcard and mics somewhere (inconvenient and I don't like calling that kind of attention to myself), or I'd have to drop $300+ on something like a ZoomH4 or Microtrack, and I didn't want to do that.

I was getting really frustrated, until I realized I had a gadget ready to help.

If you're anything like me, you probably have a ton of gadgets and kit lying around for those "just in case" situations, and if you're a lot like me, then you probably also collect hobbies. Over the last year I've really gotten into photography, and by "really gotten into" I mean I like to take pics of my dog sleeping and stealing the remote.



While I've spent a lot of time figuring out how to use the photo features of my camera (a Powershot S2), I haven't spent very much time on it's other settings. My camera actually has a pretty decent camcorder setting with, wouldn't you know it, built in stereo mics and a wind filter. Digging into my camera's manual a little deeper, I found it has a stand alone sound recorder setting, with a TWO HOUR limit per recording (and I can record several times over on my 2GB memory card, WAY more than I would ever need for ambient noise). The recordings aren't compressed either, and are a standard 16-bit .wav which can be edited in any standard audio editor.

What's great about cameras, is that they also have pretty standardized accessories. My $9 mini-tripod became a great stand to minimize bouncing and bump noises, and in a pinch can be used as a makeshift short boom. You could even go mono-pod if you wanted to.





On my camera, the lens doesn't engage when recording sound, so I left the lens cap on, and recorded totally anonymously. No one was the wiser, and I got exactly what I needed.
Get it? Batman. Cuz I'm all teh-stealthy-recording-McBat-guy.

The only drawback I could find was the fact that these mics are WIDE. They pick up EVERYTHING. I had to sample a couple different street sounds as I was picking up people's conversations. You certainly wouldn't want to use this if you needed something tight and directional, but if you need something wide, it's worked better than any other gadget I've tried so far (short of actual field recording kit, picture not of me).




To wrap up, I wouldn't recommend going out to buy a camera just to do this (you'll end up spending almost as much as you would've on an H4 or Microtrack), but if you already have a digital camera with a camcorder mode, than your bang for buck is WAY higher than buying something else (like a crappy voice recorder), and should totally hold you over until you need to buy something more sophisticated.

Enjoy!

News Sound Bites - Music Software, MP3 Player busts Cop, Morgan Webb, OpenHulu

Some cool stories to check out around the web.

ExtremeTech has started a series on digital music creation. What's interesting about the read is it's from a gadget blog writer, not a pro-sumer musician, so the advice is a bit more consumer-friendly. [Part1, Part2, via ExtremeTech]

NYTimes has a story up about a kid busting a cop with his MP3 player. Apparently he wasn't read his Miranda, and caught the whole thing on an MP3 player in his pocket. The iPod doesn't have built in recording, hmmmm... [NYT via Gizmodo]

MTV Multiplayer is trying to boost its readership, and it picked a perfect interview to do it. Morgan Webb discusses the challenges and frustrations of being a girl gamer (a little skewed by the fact that she's probably the most recognized girl gamer on the planet right now). I just think it's funny when she says she avoids forums because some jerk always ruins the discussion, and of course the comments on the interview are mostly jerky comments. [MTV Multiplayer]

And lastly, are you bummed that you haven't been invited into Hulu's private beta? Are you dreaming of all that free (ad supported) TV, just waiting to be streamed to your computer monitor (which if you're like me is nicer than your TV anyway)? Well, you can stop bumming out! A kindly web citizen has taken it upon himself to link as much Hulu content as he can to OpenHulu.com. I'm watching TinMan right now. While I type this. I know! [OpenHulu]

Ask Engadget - Best Earbuds?

I really like the "Ask Engadget" posts. They open the comments to the community to try and get advice on a particular topic. This one is all about music earbuds, and is right up my alley.

First off if you're still rocking the white buds that came with your ipod, STOP IT! The headphones that come with most MP3 players are REALLY BAD FOR YOU!

I'm talking about the really-cheapy-hard-plastic-rest-just-on-the-outside-of-your-ear-phones. The problem with these earbuds is they don't create a very good seal around your ear. That means a LOT of sound from the outside world can leak in. The more outside sound that leaks in, the louder you have to play music to rise above the extra noise. The louder you have to play music, the faster your ears get tired.
Some experts even believe that hearing loss starts after an hour of listening on buds, so the problem will compound as you have to keep jacking the volume as your ears tire and wear out.

So how do we fix this issue? We reduce the noise around you!

Recently there have been huge advances in consumer noise reduction technologies, and you can pick between Active and Passive reduction.


Active reduction headphones have a microphone built into them that "listens" to the world around you, and then "removes" the noises you don't want to hear.

Passive reduction is just that, passive. It works by creating a better seal around your ear to physically stop sounds from entering your ear. Either way, there's less competition for your ears, less crap for your ears to filter, and you can turn down the volume while having a better listening experience.

Both active and passive have their pros and cons. Active needs power, and that means a battery bulge somewhere. Active also wont block single noises, just constant noises (airplane engines, traffic noise). This can actually be good as you should be able to carry a conversation with little effort, or you should be able to hear an alert if your walking around (like a horn honk from a car about to run you over).
Passive on the other hand blocks EVERYTHING. It's a hard adjustment for some, as the world around you will sound like you're underwater.

Personally I actually prefer Passive, just because of the battery issue, and I like the thicker bass that usually comes with having your ear closed up, though some people find it muddy. Right now I'm rocking a pair of Sennheiser CX300's, which were a great buy at $45.

Using the following links, shop for Music or Headphones on Amazon, and you'll be supporting this site at no cost to you!

News Sound Bites - Wavosaur, Writers, and Hi-Def Transfers

Just a couple cool links for ya'll.

Download Squad has the scoop on Wavosaur, a free tiny portable audio editing suite. Does it have what it takes to compete against products like Audacity?

Gizmodo is looking for writers! If only there were an influx of really good writers, with time on their hands, looking for new projects ... hmmm ... (I kid because I love)

Sound and Vision Magazine has a great article on the challenges of transferring Blade Runner to HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. YAY! I get to buy the movie AGAIN once I get an HDTV! I can't wait!

Canadian songwriters propose monetizing P2P in Canada

The Songwriters Association of Canada has proposed an interesting solution for Canada's P2P woes. Charge customers a fee at the ISP and monetize file sharing. I think this is a great idea. Realistically if something like this had happened during the first Napster, the music industry wouldn't be in the shape it is today (and everyone would be making a LOT more money). I would have no problem paying TW $15-20 more a month to treat the whole internet like a Netflix-watch-it-on-demand-type service. To bad it'll probably never happen here stateside... schniff...

read more | digg story

How to properly pronounce the hard words - HowJSay.com

Man it's all about web apps today I guess, but here's a good one.

When it comes to dissecting copy, I've gotten pretty good at looking up the tough words on sites like dictionary.com. Recently a lot of those site now feature audio pronunciations, which is great, but not all sites have all of their entries voiced yet. Sometimes you have to search out a few sites to actually hear the word you're looking for.
Hard? No.
Kind of a pain? Yeah, a little.

So, trolling Lifehacker, I've found this neat little service called HowJSay. Basically it's a search field for word pronunciations. Handy, easy to use, bookmark it and go. They've currently got over 80,000 words indexed, and I haven't really stumped it yet (except for those really obnoxious pseudo-science words used in cosmetic ads).

CHECK IT OUT HERE

How to speak Droid: R2-D2 Translator

I can't tell you how many times I've been strolling around WeHo, and thought to myself "man I wonder how R2-D2 would yell obscenities at people".

Well wonder no more!
Thanks to the R2-D2 translator you too can discover how to tell someone to "piss off" in droid speak.

R2-D2 TRANSLATOR

Hangin at the IPR cd release party!

Just grabbing a drink and hanging with my pal Joe. We're about an hour from hearing It for te first time!
Sweet!

You Smell Nice...

High-Five Hollywood!

I can't say why I love this vid. Maybe it's my Puddy obsession, I don't know, but it's funny in that really stupid slow build chuckle to the end kinda way.
High-Five!

They call me mellow yellow...

It's late.


I'm just pissing around online.


I'm having a really good time just listening to music.


My "feeling mellow" playlist for the night:
*Crazy (unplugged) - Seal
*Stuck in the middle with you - Stealers Wheel
*Head Over Feet - Alanis Morissette
*The Freshman - The Verve Pipe
*Stars and Boulevards - Augustana
*Pinch Me - Bare Naked Ladies
*Piano Man - Billy Joel
*Save Tonight - Eagle Eye Cherry
*Son of a Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield
*I Can See Clearly Now - Johnny Nash
*Don't You Forget About Me - Life of Agony
*Walk on the Wild Side - Lou Reed
*Bittersweet Symphony - The Verve
*Crazy - Nelly Furtado (Gnarls Barkley cover)
*No Woman No Cry - Bob Marley
*Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes
*What is Love - Howard Jones
*Thank You - Boyz II Men
*I Will Survive - Cake
*Yellow - Coldplay
*You Got Me - The Roots
*The First Cut is the Deepest - Cat Stevens

What are you listening to right now?

Oh, and the pic at the top is one of mine! Not bad huh?