Acme Voiceworx

Sony’s Sound Forge version 9 is out… how good is it? Is it worth upgrading from version 8 or earlier? We’ll soon see, as I have a copy coming for the June issue of Radio & Production magazine.

I’ve been using version 8 for a year or so, but I still think version 5 was the best since Sony bought Sonic Foundry’s product line. Simple, solid, and very stable.

Variation on an old joke: how many old audio editors does it take to install a new version of software? Five. One to install it, and four to talk about how good the old version was.

Sorry. That sucked, didn’t it?

I don’t go to as many shows as I used to, and I forget how much work it really is to properly “do” a tradeshow like NAB. They’re claiming over 106,000 attendees, and I’m inclined to believe them.

So what was hot? The Red One digital camera, that’s what. Hands down, the hottest item at the entire show.

Rather than list all the feeds and speeds here, I’ll simply point you to their website where you can see it all for yourself. But I will tell you that the images produced by this thing are stunning. These guys really did it right, and the fact that they were able to get a “custom” codec included in Apple’s new Final Cut Studio 2 (one of the other “hots”) represents a coup. I’m much more a sound guy than a video guy, but I want a Red One digital camera, period. (more…)

Last Monday the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) declined to hear requests to reconsider its ruling that raises the royalties Internet radio stations pay to record labels by about 300%, retroactive to January 2006. It’s widely believed that this move will put small- and medium-sized webcasters into bankruptcy, and will essentially mean the end of Internet radio as we know it.

This is not about whether composers, artists, and labels should be paid — they should. It’s about how much to pay them. It’s about whether a nascent industry will be allowed to grow, independent of the corporate megaliths inadvertently formed by the ill-conceived Telecom Act of 1996. (more…)

…isn’t the normal audio plug-in or software widget review. No, it’s a narrative describing how I simplified my life by converting my websites to WordPress (and how you can do it too). Radio & Production magazine can be found here.

USC’s own KSCR put together a fine SCCRC today (see title for acronym translation), where I was asked to wax on (and wax off) on the value of good imaging to college radio.

I consider it an honor to do so, because I’ve learned much of what I know about good imaging from the likes of Dave Foxx at Z-100 in New York and Dan O’Day here in Lost Angeles. These guys are complete professionals, and they understand the power of a single message properly delivered.

Props to both for helping me teach the next generation how to build the stuff that goes between the music, and do a better job of it.

I really hope we’re done with it. His remarks were ugly and indefensible, and so was the MSM’s reaction and behaviors in response to it. There’s blood in the water, and it’s the blood of the media eating one of its own.

Everybody loses.

I’m trying to get my hands on one of Frontier Designs’ new Alphatrack fader controllers for a magazine review and general thrashing. I played with one at NAMM in January and it wuz kewl – it’s a compact desktop controller consisting of a single moving fader and several knobs that would seem perfect for a small studio.

Now it seems they’ve sold through the first three production runs, and won’t have a loose one for me until mid-May. Damn thing must be good, or at least popular with the early-adopter crowd. More to come, but meanwhile you can look at the pretty pictures here.