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…”.

I say, big deal. So the Microsoft Zune flack gets dissed by the iPod/iPhone/iSteve flack. Whatever. What is interesting is the one Zune HD feature that Mr. Breen thinks not much of a feature at all:

Radio. HD Radio, at that. Here’s his quote:

“…Microsoft, from all appearances, is jamming its fingers in its ears and sing-songing “iPod! iPod! iPod! We have radio, iPod doesn’t!” as if radio, of all things, is the killer app (which, if you really want it on your iPod touch, can be had via one of a handful of apps).”

The inference is clear and comes right out of Jerry Del Colliano’s playbook. Radio? That old thing? What’s next? A built-in ashtray and cigarette lighter? Goodness, why did Microsoft even bother?

This devaluation of radio is not surprising, coming from an iPod fan. However, what I find jarring is how quickly radio has become just one of 10,000 other 99 cent apps that can be installed on your iPod.

That is, if you really want it in the first place.

AKG has a long and storied reputation for producing some of the best studio mics around — can you say 414? — but can their latest line of inexpensive Chinese-made microphones maintain that reputation? How well do they stack up against the competition?

The short answer is yes, mostly. Read RAP for the whole story.

Webcasters are still in need of public support, which you can show here.

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Stay abreast of all the developments here, and show your support by taking action as suggested here.

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.

In the Radio hall it was great to spend some time with the folks from OMT, who have given their iMediaTouch automation software a nice facelift. Much cleaner-looking. With the merger of RCS and Prophet Systems (yielding one unit to be known as RCS), there’s one less player in the automation business, although PSI’s products will go on. In particular, their small Player 101 looks like interesting provided it has enough functionality for logging and converting show segments to uploadable mp3. Even small stations need the ability to convert content and make it downloadable — in some ways they need it more than do larger stations.

Finally, I was please to spend time with Steve Church of Telos, who not only took me thorough their Axia range of AoIP products (Audio over Internet Protocol), but even let me sit in the BMW where I listened to a surround HD broadcast of a morning show. I’m a surround skeptic, but I have to admit it was fun to feel like I was in the middle of a morning zoo show while sitting in the driver’s seat.

Enough for now, but more later.

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.

In my opinion the CRB’s ruling is wrong in so many ways that I scarcely know where to begin, but it’s hostile to both artists and consumers. More ominous still are the rumblings from SoundExchange, the RIAA’s online collection agency, that collecting artist and label royalties from AM and FM radio stations is a good idea, too. Here’s SoundExchange’s John Simson in the Washington Post:

Where webcasters and the recording industry do agree is on the unfairness of making tiny Web stations pay for performance rights while huge radio companies pay nothing. Congress decided that Web stations must pay royalties to the composers of each song and to the performers and record labels, even as traditional AM and FM broadcasters continue paying only the composers — a quirk in the law that gives broadcast radio a huge advantage.

Simson agrees that “there’s really no justification for broadcast radio not paying, and we’re going to try to address that.”

You can read the background on this ruling at RAIN, and can get the legal-beagle 411 at David Oxenford’s Broadcast Law Blog. More importantly, you can send a message to your Congressperson by signing the petition at SaveNetRadio.org. The new rates go into effect May 15th, so please don’t dawdle.

Sign up and send a message. It’s pretty much the only avenue left.

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Everybody loses.

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