Hart's Dynamic Media Blog

Most Audition users already know about the Spectral Frequency Display and use it to analyze and repair recordings regularly. But here's a trick that most people didn't know about. Did you know that you can record while using the Spectral Display? Dan, one of our QA guys, was the first to point out to me how useful that can be, and since then I've talked to a bunch of people about how they this during live recordings to analyze their gear and spot problems in the recording early. In fact, at NAB I spoke to one of our customers who regularly uses two copies of Audition: one on a desktop to do the actual multitrack recording, and another on a laptop monitoring his master mixer output to the house. Not only does he monitor the master out during the show, but beforehand he solos each channel on his board and looks at the output in Spectral Display to see how everything is going to work out.

To do this yourself, just set up a recording as normal in the Edit View by creating a new file and then select View->Spectral Frequency Display to set your display. Next, go to Window->Spectral Controls so you can set your display settings. I like recording in the logarithmic display since it lets me see the low frequencies better. My laptop can handle 2048 bands and still maintain smooth scrolling, but you can select whichever works best on your system.

Then let it roll by hitting the record button. Here you can see what it looks like when I whistle a sweeping tone:

Not exactly Mozart, but it gets the point across. :)

While you're recording you can also run your Frequency and Phase Analysis windows for the total data load. You could use the Mastering and Analysis workspace and just change it to the Frequency Display as outlined above.

Posted by Hart Shafer at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A heads up for those of you who get Radio and Production magazine: the latest issue (May) includes a nice review of Audition 2.0. They don’t put the whole review online but there’s a teaser for it on their site.

Posted by Hart Shafer at 04:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A useless picture for a Friday afternoon:

Clearly my travels have kept me away from my reading, and I didn't even think of anything until a coworker came in and started laughing about it. I better get cracking or it's going to be a big enough earthquake hazard for the facilities folks to get on my case.

Posted by Hart Shafer at 04:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A while back I saw this article on how Google was going to be moving into selling radio advertising in much the way that they sell online text-based ads through their various programs. You know the ones I'm talking about--they show up not only on searches on google.com, but they appear on just about every blog, homepage, and forum on the internet.

The reason they are so popular is that they are the easiest way to start making money from your content online. Just sign up with Google, put a little block of code on your page, and watch the checks start to arrive. The ads are context sensitive so they always match what you're talking about on the web page so they seem more relevant. The site owner is happy because they're making money from Google. Google's happy making money from the advertiser. And the advertiser is happy because they are getting site visitors and paying per click instead of per impression, so it's easy to see the return on investment. (Setting aside the fears of click fraud for now).

Anyway, so I totally forgot about Google's move into radio until I was at NAB wandering around the audio hall, and BAM!, there was a Google sign. I was taken aback for a second trying to figure out why they were there, and then I saw the sign was really for "dMarc by Google." dMarc specializes in all aspects of radio advertising and also has Scott Studios and Maestro radio automation systems. Google's angle as far as I can tell is that stations using these systems can tag slots for advertising that they're willing to take directly from Google. Then, if there's an advertisement that will fit, some other material (say, a station promo) can be preempted for paid material automatically.

This is where the fascinating bit comes in. There is a core tension for a station--they won't get as much for an ad through Google than they will working with an advertiser directly since there's another party involved, but they want to fill as many of their open slots with paid advertising as possible and if the slot wasn't going to be paid for anyway...

The documentation I picked up from Google at NAB talks about how there is "no cannibalizing" and "no sacrificing of margins" because they maintain "complete station anonymity" and "rate card confidentiality" so that "advertisers never know what station their buying, on the market and overall listener demographic." Hey, that sounds great. Almost like free money!

But now the interesting part... if I'm Coke do I really care which station my ad runs on if I know I'm hitting 18-24 year olds in Detroit? Or 24-40 year olds in Dallas? At that point, what does going directly to the stations get me other than a lot more work? It seems to me I don't, which would mean that Google could have as large an impact on radio advertising as they've had on internet advertising. It only takes one station in a market that's having a hard time filling its advertising slots to start the trend and they could end up with major advertisers they may not have secured otherwise.

Of course, I'm a long way from business management in radio and this is basically public stream of consciousness so I have little doubt I'm missing something here! Drop a comment and let me know if this is happening in your area, or if your station has tried working with this system and how it's gone. Or maybe whether you'll do this kind of ad buy only over your dead body. I'm fascinated by the Google model so I'm curious to see how it plays out in another arena. Thoughts?

Posted by Hart Shafer at 05:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This is a fascinating article, even if it IS a bit tangential to the music business. Apparently one of the only remaining factories for tubes for music gear is under threat from organized crime in Russia. I've been worried about takeovers before, but never anything like this!

Posted by Hart Shafer at 12:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The awards and honors for Adobe Production Studio keep rolling on in from the NAB show last month. It has pulled in:

• The NAB AIM award (chosen by NAB attendies via ballot)
  
• Best of Show from Digital Content Producer
  
• 2006 Viddy Award from Videography magazine/CMP Media
  

Rock and roll!

Posted by Hart Shafer at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A couple days ago I saw a picture of the Lightsnake, which at first glance looks like a normal 1/4" cable but actually has a USB port on the other end. The whole sound card is built right into the cable so that you can plug your guitar or keyboard or whatever straight in to the computer for recording. I know purists will scoff, but I think the idea is outstanding--how incredibly convenient! And it's perfect for folks who want to record themselves but aren't ready to start getting into more complicated setups. Has anyone tried one of these? Do they work and sound alright?

[via Engadget]

EDIT: I got a note that said that it is limited to a 48k sampling rate which would be disappointing if true.

Posted by Hart Shafer at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

We're now accepting submissions for the next-revision of the Adobe Customer Reel! For those of you who aren't familiar, what we do is compile some of the great work that our customers have done and put it on a DVD to play before (and during) trade shows, hand out at events, post on our web site, and so on.

You can find details for how to submit your work on the main customer reel site as well as watch an excerpt from our current reel. For those of you looking to submit audio-only work, keep in mind that this DVD will be designed to be played on big monitors so there will always be some visual element going. That means that all the audio we pick will need to be paired with video that was submitted by someone else, so some types of work that folks are doing (interviews, books on tape, etc) probably won't fit smoothly. But we have a serious need for some cool music to pair up with these videos, and if you have something else you think might work for us, please take a minute and send it in!

The customer reel is always one of my favorite things we do here because I get to see and hear all the amazing work all of our customers are doing every day. Picking the relatively few pieces to put on the reel from among all the great work we get is the hardest part!

Posted by Hart Shafer at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was interviewed a couple weeks ago by the ever-sharp 2 Smart Chix on the ever-popular topic of podcasting and Audition. The mp3 of the podcast is posted on their blog.

Posted by Hart Shafer at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Well, I almost feel recovered from NAB. It was a week that was as outstanding as it was exhausting--the Adobe booth was packed until just before the end of the show (when the whole floor was empty as all the folks attending tried to beat the rush to the airport) and the overall response was overwhelming. This is the first time I've experienced launching a product before a big trade show and in a way it was pretty liberating. Normally, we're working up until the last minute polishing what we're going to show and trying to make sure that the whole thing stays secret. Then, when we start talking we have a big rush of folks trying to see what we announced and we have the big job of showing what we've done (and convincing everyone what we did matters).

This time, the word had already been out for three months and we have plenty of people out there who have already gotten their hands on the products, or at least read all the reviews and commentary. So instead of us having to stand up on stage (or at demo stations) and spend all our energy just letting people know what the top 10 features were, we spent the whole week talking about the whole solution and what it would mean to everyone's work. People were there to see it in action before making their final decisions and came with their well thought-out questions around their own work. They didn't need to be convinced--they had already read the reviews--they just needed to kick the tires. It was a blast.

Outside the Adobe booth there was plenty of cool stuff to see. The talk of the show for the video guys was the Red digital cinema camera. They had it cloaked in a big (red) tent and just let a few people in at a time to see it (and I was told they didn't actually have a camera in there after all that). Still, the promise of interchangeable parts and relatively accessible pricing for such high resolution footage could be pretty revolutionary. If it ever ships--I'm always a little skeptical of "real soon now" products. On the plus side it was designed by Oakley so it looks like something the Terminator would carry.

Unfortunately, I snapped a lot of cool stuff using my Treo as a sort of visual notepad so I could relate them here, but I had to reset it over the weekend (for unrelated reasons) and I lost all my pictures! As such, I've shamelessly stolen this picture from Bob:

Which shows our booth in setup mode on Saturday. Anyway, it was great to meet so many of you that have been reading the blog, as well as all the other folks who came through the booth and maybe are just now checking it out. Putting faces to names is always a lot of fun.

There have been a few other gadgets and announcements to hit lately, and I'm hoping to get to them in the next day or two. Stay tuned.

Posted by Hart Shafer at 04:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)