Hart's Dynamic Media Blog

Earlier this week the folks who run www.audiomastersforum.net let me know that it’s back up and online after a brief hiatus. The Audio Masters Forum is the premiere independent community dedicated to discussing using Audition so it’s great that they were able to get the whole system up and running again. The forum also has a full archive of posts dating back to the original Syntrillium user-to-user forums so that they provide a unique value with continuity all the way back six or seven years. In any case it makes a for a great resource along with the official forms at www.adobeforums.com.

They let me know a few days ago but I wanted to give them a few days to work out the kinks on the new server before sending anyone over. Note that the URL is new (there was a little hiccup with the old one) so update your bookmarks.

Thanks, guys, and keep up the great work!

Posted by Hart Shafer at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

The timing is coincidental to my previous post, but the Adobe Design Center has posted 3 chapters from the Audition 2 Classroom in a Book. They include the first two chapters (the Quick Tour and Audition Basics) and one of the latter chapters (Premiere Pro integration). The Design Center also posted the sample files that go along with the chapters so you can work through the lessons on your own.

Posted by Hart Shafer at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've got an extra copy of the Adobe Audition 2 Classroom in a Book and I thought it'd be cool to just give it to one of you fine readers out there. To keep this simple (and fair) just add a comment to this post with a short note about why you'd like the CIB and make sure that your email address is correct in your post. I'll pick one commenter at random at the end of this week (let's say, Friday at noon my time) and if you're picked I'll email you for your address. Note that I'll pay the postage to mail it, but if you're outside the US you'll be responsible for your own local taxes, etc, etc, if any apply.

EDIT: OK, thanks for the comments. I'll "draw" a name at random using Excel's handy random number generator, and the lucky person will get an email from me tonight!

Posted by Hart Shafer at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Last month the San Jose Mercury News ran a cool article about how the tech guy for Madonna's current tour, Jason Harvey, uses the Adobe Production Studio backstage to edit, manipulate, and play out all the dozens of video feeds that are shown on huge video screens throughout the show. (It's since been picked up by a bunch of papers, so you may have seen it in your own local paper). As Jason says, the whole production is more theater than concert but I think it's fun seeing this kind of video work done during an ostensibly music event. It seems like this is part of the same popularization of "VJs" doing video remixes live as their own art, just at the very high end of the production value scale. In any case, I see these collisions of video and music just happening more and more in the future.

Posted by Hart Shafer at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I was younger I read a lot of fiction and science fiction, and a fair amount of it was of the alternate history genre. How would the world have been different if this or that relatively small battle or other event had gone another way? The software equivalent happens a lot, although it’s generally more about things like what Xerox could have done with various things out of PARC (like the graphical user interface) then alternative endings to world wars.

We might have a new one to add to the list, now. I read this article on Ars Technica that indicates that Apple and Creative were initially going to work on an mp3 player together, and Creative decided not to go with the partnership. The iZen? How would that have changed the tech landscape? Considering how many people now refer to Apple as “the iPod company” (and that revenue from iPod and iTunes exceeded revenue from software and computers for the first time earlier this year) it’s safe to say that the impact would have at least been huge for them—and considering market share for iPod vs. Zen at this stage I’d have to guess it wouldn’t have been positive. Or could Apple have applied its firm aesthetic sense to mp3 players coming out of Creative? That seems unlikely.

I’ve heard lots of different opinions about mp3 players, from how “they’re great for keeping up on lots of different music” to “mp3s are killing appreciation for quality” to “all those headphones are isolating everyone, creating zombies.” I can see all those angles, but with the number of hours I spend on airplanes I know I simply couldn’t imagine not having my hundreds of albums in my bag. My serious listening still happens at home, but that CD book I used to carry back and forth with me to college weighed enough to hurt my back.

Posted by Hart Shafer at 04:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Frank Moldstad over at Digital Media Net has just posted a quick walkthrough of docking windows in Audition 2 for anyone who's curious about how the new panels work.

Posted by Hart Shafer at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I first heard about the HHB DRM85 combo microphone/flash recorder I thought it sounded like a great (if a bit pricy—it seems to be going for about $1299 most places) solution for a lot of interview-centric folks out there. Up until now I hadn't seen an actual real world evaluation of how it worked in the field, but Radio World online just posted exactly that. Even better, they verified that the ability to add markers to your recorded audio comes through directly into Audition, which is really convenient for marking those bits you'll want to make sure to listen to later. It can record for 3:15 in PCM mode so not having to listen to all of that again would definitely speed things up.

Posted by Hart Shafer at 04:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)