Acme Voiceworx

In the April 2009 issue of Radio & Production magazine I’m taking a look at the AKG Perception line of microphones.

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.

I mentioned the concept of WiMax as it pertained to megayachts awhile ago, and like many of us I’m still waiting for it (or something that looks just like it).

For those who haven’t kept up, c|net has posted a good explanation of the WiMax technology, how it compares to Wi-Fi and 3G, and why you should care. From the article:

“The WiMax Forum claims the technology can deliver 40 Mbps of capacity per channel, which can then be split ‘among hundreds of businesses, thousands of residences, and thousands of mobile Internet users.’ Specifically, the group believes the technology can offer 30 Mbps of capacity within a typical cell radius of up to 3 kilometers.”

Heady stuff, if it works and becomes widely adopted. That, of course, is the issue. Realtime speeds tend to be substantially less than the theoretical:

“By comparison, WiMax can deliver theoretical download speeds to individual users around 10 Mbps to 20 Mbps. But most people using a mobile WiMax service will get between 2 Mbps and 4 Mbps of bandwidth.”

Read the entire c|net article here.

UPDATE: YouTube appears to have fixed the “problem” with their new compression scheme, according to Wired.com. What’s interesting is that they seem to have undone the previous damage to users’ files, which implies that they either kept uncompressed copies that they could re-encode, or that the new scheme worked in real time. Read the update here.

No, it’s not a man-bites-dog story. It is a story about how YouTube’s new audio compression algorithm not only makes all the sound louder, including any noise, but also destroys any dynamic range in music. In some cases it actually generates distortion where their previously was none.

It’s particularly hard on classical or acoustic music as it also raises the level of quiet passages, increasing their noise significantly. We can only hope they get it right at some point. Soon, please.

New YouTube Audio Compression Stymies Uploaders | Listening Post from Wired.com

And yes, it has been reported as a bug:

Recent audio compression issue – Bug Reports & Issues | Google Groups

As they say on comedy-news on local TV: More later as the situation develops.

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?

In the midst of recording and editing dialog for a new videogame (whose name I unfortunately cannot divulge), I caught wind of these new workstation controllers from Korg, cleverly grouped together as the nanoSERIES:

There are three of them, and each is designed specifically for laptop use. They connect to your computer via USB, and appear to be bus-powered (at least for one at a time use. Don’t know if you can connect more with a hub or not). They all speak MIDI, so it should be possible to program them to perform various functions, as most Mac and PC software editors now support MIDI controllers and Continuous Controller (CC) messages. The music keyboard and drum pad units look like fun, but the money piece is the mix controller, shown below.

The nanoKONTROL comes with nine very short throw faders, nine associated knobs, and eighteen buttons for (I presume) mute and solo. It also features a transport section that lacks only a jog/shuttle wheel, and speaks MIDI Machine Control (MMC). A software app called Korg KONTROL Editor promises to provide a friendly interface when it’s time to program this Bad Boy, and the ability to store programs and settings on computer for later recall. I’ll def have to get my mitts on one of these mix controllers for review in RAP, ASAP.

Pricing and delivery information is not yet available, of course. But you can get firsthand info at Korg’s USA website here, or if you’re fluent reading Japanese you can check it out at the source here.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve been following these irregular posts, then you know that I have no life until May 15, when I get to turn in final grades. Let the exams and the grading of projects begin… and I’m late again for a change.

This time there’s an added bonus — my son graduates with a BA in International Relations and walks with his classmates on May 16th.

Congrats, AJ. You done good.

So I decided to postpone the Samplitude 10 review until the June issue of Radio & Production (with approval from Editor Jerry, of course). I wanted more time to explore the program, which is both deep and wide. But Samplitude still has a Rodney Dangerfield complex here in the US — it gets no respect. That’s too bad, because it’s a strong contender as a standalone, all-in-one PC recorder and editor. Compared to Audition, its interface looks and feels more professional to me, and it provides a significantly better mixer with more features and functions. On top of that, it sounds really good; even in-the-box bounces sound good.

Unfortunately, Samplitude 10 is still as spendy as ever. The Pro version lists at $1295, which leaves the street price under a grand. There’s a “standard” version (maximum 64 tracks and eight busses) that carries a US list of $649, which puts street price under $500. The two-track Master version is $349, which streets at something under three c-notes. For VO work, the standard version is close enough, and you won’t miss the Pro’s extras.

Check out the June issue of RAP here.

I know it’s thrilling news, so I won’t bore you (oops, too late). But I will tell you that it was simple, quick, and totally worthwhile. It’s more than a security or bug fix… this time they re-designed the interface and now it’s much simpler and cleaner.

I’m continually impressed by WordPress’ developers. They totally rawk, and I love this blog software.