A Brief and Personal Rant
This has nothing to do with audio, radio, voiceover, teaching, or topics related to the aforementioned. It does have to do with life, and with my beloved ’65 Ranchero. Forgive me this indulgence, and thanks in advance.
Updated to WordPress 2.3.1
One of the things I really like about WordPress for websites is how diligent the developers are about updating their software… keeping it current and making the changes necessary to prevent WordPress from being vulnerable to the hack du jour. The best part is that the upgrade takes all of ten minutes to accomplish.
Heck, if I can do it in my current anti-histamine-addled condition then so can you.
Pro Tools in Yer Pocket
Pro Tools users almost got what they’ve begged and pleaded for o these many years — Digidesign just introduced the Mbox Micro, a USB stick audio interface with stereo outputs (but no inputs) for $279. It’s clever enough… on the end there’s a 1/8th-inch stereo output jack and a little thumbwheel volume control. Otherwise it looks like a USB memory stick, with no cables to connect and no controls save the thumbwheel. Digi says it’ll be available in mid-November.
Now before we all go bonkers, let’s remember that there are no inputs on this little dingus. So while it’s great for mixing and editing on an airplane flight, it won’t really do for cutting voiceovers in a hotel room, right? ‘Cause there’s no inputs, right? ‘Cause Pro Tools won’t recognize any inputs other than the one that’s on the Digidesign interface, right? And this interface ain’t got none, right?
Right.
ClearOne Chat 50 USB in Nov 2009 ProAV Magazine
I’ve just finished writing a Peer Review piece for ProAV magazine on the Chat 50 USB by ClearOne. 
This is one sweet Skype-ing machine. This little box sounds great for VoIP — it has a full sound and the intelligibility is excellent. It works in full-duplex mode, so it doesn’t cut off the sound of the other party when the caller speaks over him. Clear One includes software for adjusting the internal input and output levels and for disabling the Chat 50′s echo canceling feature, and the software can then store these settings in a database of devices for later recall.
The downsides are so very minor — ClearOne says it can be used as a remote speaker for an iPod. Well, yes it can, but you won’t like the results for that… it’s a bit boxey-sounding. But for speech, it is fabulous. I’m keeping mine. Check it out in November’s ProAV, which can be found here.
Spam in The New Yorker?
The school year is just weeks away, and with it will come a larger-than-usual boatload of email spam. The New Yorker magazine explains the problem of spam, and how we continue to lose the battle:
In 2001, spam accounted for about five per cent of the traffic on the Internet; by 2004, that figure had risen to more than seventy per cent. This year, in some regions, it has edged above ninety per cent — more than a hundred billion unsolicited messages clogging the arterial passages of the world’s computer networks every day. The flow of spam is often seasonal. It slows in the spring, and then, in the month that technology specialists call “black September” — when hundreds of thousands of students return to college, many armed with new computers and access to fast Internet connections — the levels rise sharply.
Hat tip to goodexperience.com.
Game Time Again
Summer’s here again, and that means it’s time to indulge in my other career… recording and editing dialog for video games. Got one booked, too, and it’s a biggie.
It’s great fun, really, although it involves a great deal of concentration and focus over a long series of 12-to-14 hour days. It keeps me sharp, and I get to work with great actors, directors, and staff. I’m most grateful to my friends at Cup of Tea Productions for the opportunity to do it yet again.
I’m under NDA so I can’t tell you the title of this summer’s project. But I can tell you that it’s version 5 of a popular FPS (first-person shooter) franchise, and it should be released before the end of the year.
So if I’m in and out for awhile you’ll excuse me… at the end of a day of ADR, about the only thing I’m good for is an hour of “Hitman” on the Xbox. After that I’m horizontal.
US Senate Joins the Webcast Fray
Looks like SoundExchange and the RIAA will be defending their indefensible royalty rates on two fronts — the US Senate has introduced S. 1353, The Internet Radio Equality Act. Along with H.R. 2060 (which is approaching 100 co-sponsors), this bill would vacate the Copyright Royalty Board’s recent decision to charge webcasters both small and large a higher rate than is paid by even satellite radio (and certainly higher than what AM and FM currently pay).
Webcasters are still in need of public support, which you can show here.
Internet Radio Gets a Reprieve, HR 2060
The Copyright Royalty Board has moved the date on which its new, predatory royalty rates for streamers take effect from May 15th to July 15th. This makes it more likely that the Internet Radio Equality Act (H.R. 2060), currently moving through Congress, will indeed pass in time to head off this catastrophe for small webcasters.
Stay abreast of all the developments here, and show your support by taking action as suggested here.
Finals Week at USC
It’s finals week and I have no life, hence the dearth of postings. I’m swimming in yet-to-be-graded papers on Internet Radio, audio imaging projects, and unfinished exams, at least until May 15th.
More will be revealed after that date. Please stay tuned — it’ll be worth it, promise.
Coming Up in RAP – Sound Forge 9
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?
