Acme Voiceworx

The November issue of Radio & Production magazine features my review of Sony Software’s latest release of Sound Forge, labeled Pro 10. You won’t find a lot of new features, but there are a couple that are compelling enough. No, the major improvements are in workflow and in the user interface, and these are substantial. I like it.

What’s kinda funny is that Sony pulled a quote from my review and used it in an email campaign advertising a free webinar on Forge 10:

Steve Cunningham, (Radio and Production Nov 2009) writes “Sound Forge Pro 10 is to version 9 as a 2010 Ford Mustang is to a 1969 Boss Mustang… still wicked fast, still sounds like business, but so much easier to drive.”

Don’t misunderstand me… I like publicity as much as anyone, and the pull is a direct quote — yup, I wrote that. What’s amusing is that at no time did I ever speak to anyone at Sony Software, either before or after I wrote the review. Furthermore, I bought the upgrade and paid for it myself (which I think is as it should be). But my contact info is in there at the end of the article. I’d have thought they’d send a note asking if I objected to their use of it, or at least telling me they were going to use it.

Makes me go “hmmm…”.

It’s my belief that a lot of voice actors actually fear Digidesign’s Pro Tools for recording and editing voiceovers. Often, VO artists have taken one look over some engineer’s shoulder and muttered “Nope, that’s not for me, it’s too (fill in the blank).”

No wonder — the engineer is probably focused on how many whizzy-cool features s/he can invoke per second, and this can be give the talent a false impression. So here are the top ten objections to Pro Tools and my response to each. Read the rest of this entry »

This month we take a look at several embedded audio players for use in HTML websites, as well as for those based on blogging software like WordPress. Nearly all of these players require MP3-formatted audio players to work, although some will play other formats as well. The players themselves are based on Adobe’s Flash technology combined with some Java scripting.

The reason for this is simple; nearly 97% of all online users have Adobe’s Flash player already installed on their computers, and almost all modern browsers know how to handle javascript properly. Using Flash insures that your clients will be able to hear your demos without the annoyance of having to stop and install yet another plug-in in their web browser.

A free tool that removes the iServices Trojan is now available, courtesy of anti-spyware developer MacScan. This tool removes both the OSX.Trojan.iServices.A and OSX.Trojan.iServices.B Trojan horse, and can be downloaded from this page.

As reported last week, the first remotely-controlled “botnet” created from Macintosh computers has been identified in the field. These Macs are infected with one of the above-named Trojan horse programs, which were identified back in January as being spread via illegal copies of Adobe CS-4 and iWork 2009 software.

MacScan’s removal tool is a stand-alone program that searches for these trojans and removes them if they exist. If neither Trojan exists, the program displays the dialog box to the left and you’re free to quit the program.

Mac users have been particularly fortunate, in that little in the way of malware has yet been aimed their computers. Clearly that has now changed, and given the potential of this malware to at minimum slow your Mac’s performance, and at worst to turn it into a “zombie,” there’s simply no reason not to download and run the removal tool.

The first botnet based on Macintosh computers is here, according to security researchers at Symantec and reported in Ars Technica. A botnet is a collection of software robots (so-called “bots”) which can act automatically and autonomously after being infected with (usually) malevolent software. Botnets consist of a number of such compromised computers known as “zombies,” and these can be directed by the originator of the bot software (the so-called “bot herder”) to perform various nefarious tasks, such as conducting organized DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks on servers, or sending spam emails. Botnets are commonly comprised of Windows computers, although this is the first known botnet comprised of Macs.

Mac users who downloaded pirated copies of Adobe’s Creative Suite CS4 or iWork 2009 may have got more than they bargained for, as some of these copies contained trojan horse software OSX.Trojan.iServices.A and OSX.Trojan.iServices.B. When the user unpacks the pirated software, the trojan is installed and becomes active, turning the Mac into a “zombie.” Since the trojan software was first discovered in January 2009, most anti-virus software has by now been updated to remove the trojan and its remnants. Still, the botnet was recently implicated in DDoS attacks on several servers.

This incident provides yet another reason to avoid installing pirated software on your computer. The success of this Mac-based botnet almost guarantees that more pirated software will be released that is infected, so it’s best to stay away… stay far, far away.

Since we’re looking at interesting controllers, here’s an entirely different take on the issue… what if you could just stick a physical knob onto your computer screen, and the physical knob became one with the onscreen knob? Intriguing.

There’s a prophead-type gent in Cambridge UK that proposes to give you exactly that. Seems this Lyndsay Williams fellow and his company, Girton Labs, are busy working out how to build knobs that magnetically stick to your lappy screen, and via both hardware and software, let you manipulate the underlying onscreen controls and therefore the attached software function.

It’s all very much in the beta test phase, and no prices or delivery date is set (or even hinted at). But there are videos on the website showing the SenseSurface in action… you should go check it out for yourself.

I’m not sure a laptop is the best platform for this — I’m thinking 30″ flat-screen monitors angled back — but if this can truly be made to work it would give us DIY controllers that could be easily re-configured on the fly, depending on the application. I can visualize a box ‘o pots and sliders next to the monitor… sweet.

Hat tip to Charlie Richmond at Richmond Sound Design; the full story at Girton’s website: girtonlabs – SenseSurface – Girton Labs Cambridge

According to antivirus software maker Intego, there’s a new Trojan horse program that targets Macs running OSX. Designed to allow a hacker to take control of the computer, delete files, or damage the operating system, this little nasty masquerades as a poker game called “Ace in the Hole” or simply “PokerGame”. When downloaded and run, a shell script inside the Trojan opens an SSH connection, then transmits the username, password, and IP address of the infected computer.

The moral of the story: don’t download software you receive in email from people you don’t know, or from websites you don’t completely trust. Here’s the link to Intego’s page announcing the discovery, and the Get Info screenshot at right is from their page as well.

I’ll be investigating this further to see how widespread it is. Intego lists its threat level as low, since you have to explicitly download and run it in order for it to do nasty things to your machine. Just don’t, okay?

Yesterday Apple released Mac OS X 10.5.3, the latest revision of their newest “Leopard” operating system. This release contains what appears to be a boatload of security fixes, as well as a tidy list of improvements to various Apple applications.

I do have one Mac running Leopard for evaluation purposes, but the “money” machines are still on 10.4.11, at least until Digidesign qualifies Pro Tools LE and M-Powered for Leopard. Pro Tools HD is currently qualified on OS X 10.5.1, but not 10.5.2; LE and M-Powered are not yet qualified, period.

[Update 05/30/08] So-called pre-release versions of all three, ready for Leopard 10.5.3, are now available from Digidesign’s website. See this. (more…)

I haven’t decided yet, actually. In fact, I just figured out that I have another couple weeks to finish writing it (joy!).

But I’ve been playing with two very kewl products… the MicPort Pro from CEntrance and Magix’s Samplitude 10. Actually I’ve been playing with both at the same time. MicPort is a USB-to-audio converter that so far sounds great, unlike some others out there. Most of the existing converters are noisy and sound like crap, but the MicPort actually sounds very good, and does 96k/24 bits to boot. I think I’m keeping this one.

Samplitude 10, like previous versions (the last one I reviewed was version 8 back in 2005), is very deep. My concern with it is finding whether it’s still a resource-hog… I’ll be checking that this week. More later.

This month’s review concerns one of those products that not everyone needs, but those who need it really need it.

I’ve scored a copy of iZotope’s RX noise reduction plug-in, and so far, it’s sweet. It’s a standalone program that lists for $349 USD, substantially less than the current crop of third party noise reduction plugs. What’s more, RX offers five distinct modules: a de-clipper, a de-clicker, a de-noiser, hum removal, and spectral repair, all in one interface. And quite the interface it is, with the buttons for each modules at the lower left of the interface.

Actually the nice folks at iZotope have given me a full copy of RX Advanced, which retails for about $1200. While it’s nice to have, I can already tell that I’ll do most of my work using the “simpler” controls that come with the regular edition. Here’s the main screen: (more…)