The Ramblings of Some Audio Guy: microsoft

Showing posts with label microsoft. Show all posts

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Traverso Free Audio Recording/Editing Software - Simplicity = Virtue?

A week ago I wrote about Open Source Living, a site dedicated to cataloging open source/free software, and was really excited about their audio page. One particular program caught my eye, and I've finally had a chance to try it out.

Traverso is a multi-platform, multi-track audio recording and editing program that boasts a simple and clean user interface. It's still technically a Beta (I downloaded v.42), but it's fully functional. Best of all, it's totally free!

Right from installing, driver support is great with Traverso instantly picking up my 410, and setting up 2 stereo recording tracks for me to play with. I have to say the interface is a little off-putting at first. It's very stark. There are NO bells or whistles on installation. It does have support for skins (and I don't know how that would affect functionality), but I'll only be dealing with the default.

What's good about this minimalist approach?

Well, this program is tiny (about 35MB full install), and snappy. There was no lagging, stuttering, weird pauses, nuthin. It launches up and is ready to go. Recording and playback are accompanied with a very smooth screen slide , which is very pleasing to watch as you play through longer files. Simple. Clean.
This approach is also very low impact on the computer. Along with having a small install footprint, CPU and RAM use is also extremely low. I don't think I ever got above 5% CPU recording 2 Mono and 1 Stereo tracks, and Memory usage stayed between 15-20MB. Those are Audacity numbers for true multi-track recording (though Audacity does have better editing features). By comparison, to accomplish the same recording in Acid6Pro I'll hit 20% CPU usage and upwards of 90MB of RAM use. This is great news for people who haven't built bleeding edge quad core monster workstations. Add in very good exporting and burning. ogg/flac/mp3 support, unlimited undos, non-destructive editing, and it adds up to a pretty substantial package.

What didn't I like about Traverso?

Well not a lot. With such a stark interface, it can be a little frustrating digging through menus to get to the features you want to use. None of the keyboard commands are anything like any other DAW I've ever used, so be ready to hunt through right click menus when you start. Along with that note, the cursor is frustrating to use. I spent 5 minutes alone just trying to playback something I had recorded. The selection and playback cursors are different cursors, and to move the playback cursor you have to hit the shift key. This is a bad decision. I got myself into a little trouble trying to rapidly make some quick edits. I ended up hitting the shift key so quickly that Windows tried to enable sticky shift, which is a major pain.
Also I had a small bug where I couldn't see waveforms while recording, but I'm pretty sure that's a me thing.

All in all I'm VERY impressed with the functionality and stability of Traverso. If you need recording on the cheap (heck on the Free) this is an excellent DAW, and one you should totally check out. Using this program with Audacity, was very much like working between Soundforge and Acid. It's a great unofficial software suite, and you wont spend a penny!

Traverso can be downloaded for Mac or Windows.

Traverso

Open Source Living: Audio Page

Sunday, December 30, 2007

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!

Whew!
I think I need a cigarette...

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Microsoft Windows Sound Design

Fun little vid showing the different start screens and start up sounds for Windows.

I think it's kinda funny since windows 95 was the last operating system I left system sounds on for. Anytime I work on a computer now I eliminate all system sounds unless they're ones I've recorded/collected myself...

Thursday, October 11, 2007

NPR Podcast: "Video-Game Actors Seek a Bigger Share of Profits"

OK, I know the title is kinda "duh". Of COURSE performers are going to want a bigger share of profits, but NPR does a really decent job of explaining why.

When you examen the economies involved on video gaming, it's getting harder to deny that actors should receive either a better buy out or some small residual pool.

I know it's an extreme example of success, but Halo 3's sales are indicative of where "block buster" money is going (since it's not going to movie studios).
*First Day estimates of $170 Million (Spiderman 3 did 150 it's opening WEEKEND).
*First Week Sales of $300 Million (or roughly three times the total box office).
*Drove console sales, resulting in an average doubling of XBox 360's sold week over week.
*Estimated 4500 years of man-hours spent on XBox Live.

So what did the actors get paid?
Well outside of those on the IMDB page for H3, most likely some derivative of scale.
Best case being maybe 3x scale, or about $2100 per four hour recording session, and I doubt that many were paid that well.

And that's it. Nothing else.

One of the big arguments against residuals is risk. Game producers are never guaranteed revenue, and with budgets now approaching and exceeding movie budgets, it can be a scary proposition to put out a game that people might not buy. Production also claims that there wont be additional revenues like movies have (from theatrical, to cable, to DVD, etc).

Fair enough, but I think games do enjoy additional revenues. They're all just game related. Halo 3 is currently a $60 game exclusive on the XBox 360. If MS is smart they'll cut prices on the game around the same time as a big PS3 game comes out (so we should see a brief surge). Next we should see a three game special edition box set with all of the Halo games, so we can re-buy all of that content. After a couple months the game should be ported to Windows PC's, where we'll see another small market surge for the game. So, even if Halo 3 had a $100 million production budget, it was already into profit territory in the first day, and we'll probably see about a year's worth of sales.

I mean even the Wii will play old original Nintendo games at about $5 a pop, so I'm not sure how that's not additional revenues...

Now to be fair, Halo 3 is the exception not the rule. Halo was also made by Bungie, which is owned by Microsoft (well not any more, but at the time), so all of that profit is probably being rolled back into the fact that MS sells it's console at a loss (as does Sony, but not Nintendo).
However, all that being said, I still feel like there is some room to start including baby-step residuals into these contracts. Why not set up the pool after production costs have been met? Basically anything to further reward products that do well, which would attract more talent, probably improve the product, sell more games, attract more talent, etc, etc, etc.

Anywho, here's the link to NPR's story. Give it a listen.

MAN, that was A LOT of typing...

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