You may not be familiar with the company Tronical but you will know their work because they are responsible for Gibson’s Robot Guitar tuning systems. Well judging by this video it appears that Tronical are about to launch some standalone systems that can be retrofit to pretty much any guitar be it a Les Paul [...]
Category: Podcasting
Search for Tracks on Rdio, Spotify, Grooveshark, and More with Music Smasher
With all of the different music streaming services it’s often difficult to find what you’re looking for quickly. Music Smash partially solves this problem by giving you a simple way to search Rdio, Spotify, Grooveshark, Soundcloud, Mog, and Bandcamp.
Music Smasher doesn’t handle every music streaming service out there, but it does a great job of filtering through the ones it can. When you fire up the search you’re linked directly to streaming tracks and the corresponding app will open them. The database is directly from the streaming services and it’s quick to search and launch tracks. For anyone who is swapping back and forth between a few different services it’s a handy tool to have.
Music Smasher | via Evolver.fm
3 ways to improve your guitar sounds in Logic’s Amp Designer
There are a lot of guitar simulation plug-ins available for digital musicians these days. Included with Logic 9 is Amp Designer and Pedal Board – a welcome departure from the older Guitar Amp Pro plug-in. They stack up very well against the competition and are versatile in tone, emulation and layout. In my opinion, the clean amps achieve impressive results when compared to their hardware cousins.
Beyond the presets, there’s a lot more you can do with Amp Designer that is apparent. Toby Pitman goes much deeper in his excellent tutorial, ‘Logic 402 – Logic’s Guitar Recording Toolbox’. Packed with tips and tricks and practical step-by-step approaches to using both Amp Designer and Pedal Board.
In this Quick Tip I’m going to highlight 3 useful tips for guitar tone sculpting glory built-in to Amp Designer.
01 – Move the Mic
When recording a traditional guitar amp there are a two important considerations: what type of mic to use and where to position the mic. The resulting tone can be vastly different if the mic is placed dead-center or to the side of the speaker cone.
In Amp Designer you can choose between using a Condenser, Ribbon or Dynamic microphone emulation from the Mic pop-up menu.
Hover your mouse over the cabinet on the right of the interface (above the Mic pop-up menu) and the Speaker Adjustment graphic is displayed. Drag the white dot to adjust the placement of the mic. Generally, for Rock and brighter guitar tones place it to the side as shown below.
02 – More Equalizers
There are plenty of Amp types and presets. If you still can’t create quite the guitar sound you’re looking for you can mix and match the Model, Amp and Cabinet to build your own custom amp! This incredible… but one lesser known tip is you can choose different EQ types per amp.
Mouse over the word ‘EQ’ and click to display the EQ pop-up menu. From here you can choose between Bright British, Vintage, U.S. Classic, Modern and Boutique.
I find myself tending towards the Vintage and U.S. Classic more often than not.
03 – More Reverb
Rather than insert an instance of Space Designer (or other reverb plug-in) on your guitar channel strip to add space to your sound, you can set the reverb levels directly on the Amp Designer interface. Like the EQ, Amp Designer comes with more than one Reverb type.
Click on the Reverb label (top, middle of the amp) to display this Reverb type pop-up menu.
You can choose between Vintage Spring, Simple Spring, Mellow Spring, Bright Spring, Dark Spring, Resonant Spring, Boutique Spring, Sweet Reverb, Rich Reverb and Warm Reverb.
It’s well worth checking these types out on your guitar sounds. The change to your sound can be dramatic and save you from using a separate reverb plug-in!
Check out Toby Pitman’s Logic 402 – Logic’s Guitar Recording Toolbox to learn much, much more about how to get the best out of Amp Designer, Pedal Board and Logic’s other built-in tools for guitarists.
Adobe Audition Comes to the Mac
Adobe has announced that the public beta of Adobe Audition, its professional audio editing suite, is now available for Mac OS X. Adobe Audition has been available for Windows since 2003 (when Adobe acquired the Windows program, Cool Edit Pro) but this beta marks its first appearance on the Mac.
Audition is a digital audio workstation, similar to Pro Tools or Logic Pro. Adobe Audition for Mac boasts a fast new audio playback engine, native multi-channel support for 5.1 surround sound, noise reduction capabilities and audio effects like de-hummers and volume leveling.
In a company announcement, Jim Guerard, vice president and general manager for Dynamic Media at Adobe, said Audition for Mac is part of an ongoing mission to provide ‘industry leading, cross-platform content creation tools for creative professionals.’
Mac users can download the beta version of Adobe Audition at labs.adobe.com/technologies/audition. The program requires an Intel Mac running Mac OS X 10.5.7 or Mac OS X 10.6. There is no serial number or activation for this download, but it will expire when the beta period ends.
Adobe also offers Adobe Soundbooth, its audio package for users that are not audio professionals. In other words, it’s more of a consumer-grade tool. On its FAQ page, Adobe says that one priority of bringing Audition to the Mac is to improve workflows by providing solid integration with Adobe Premiere Pro.
Adobe has put a lot of work into making Premiere Pro more competitive with Apple’s Final Cut Studio — especially in CS5. In my own experience (which isn’t in a professional capacity, but does include multi-track, multi-source editing), I’ve found Premiere Pro CS5 for Mac to be better and more efficient than Final Cut Studio in many arenas. However, while Final Cut Studio can easily integrate with Logic Pro and Avid’s Media Composer can integrate with Pro Tools, Premiere Pro for Mac lacks its own professional audio component. With Audition for Mac, that gap is now filled.
It’s exciting to see Adobe bring its professional audio toolset to Mac OS X. We look forward to bugging our audio professional friends to see how it stacks up against the competition, especially in Adobe-laden workflows.
(Via Mashable!.)
38 Essential Social Media Resources You May Have Missed
Capping off a busy week at Mashable HQ, we bring you a massive list of social media resources you may have missed. We’ve got 38 of the most interesting features and tools published over the last week or so in case you were, you know, outside during the summer.
Have a look through our social media resources for the Origin of Twitter’s ‘Fail Whale,’ some great Twitter visualizations, or why WikiLeaks and the mainstream media still need each other.
Our Tech and Mobile resources include some amazing Konami code Easter eggs, great (free) WordPress themes to use, and a game plan for keeping BlackBerry relevant in the battle for mobile dominance.
For our entrepreneurs, we’ve got tips on how to self-publish anything, great Twitter lists for C-Suite execs, and a guide on how to structure your startup. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Looking for even more social media resources? You can find this guide every weekend, and check out all of the lists-gone-by.
Social Media
- 5 Things the Internet Will Do for $5 [VIDEOS]
Who would actually advertise to do anything for the cost of an overpriced coffee? We found out with this little social experiment on the website fiverr.com. - The Origin of Twitter’s ‘Fail Whale’
We spoke with Yiying Lu, the designer of Twitter’s iconic error message about her influences, the future, and why she hates the term ‘Fail Whale.’ - 11 Free Services for Scheduling Social Media Updates
Here is a list of 11 free services for scheduling social media updates, either across multiple social platforms or just for Twitter. - 5 Free Ways to Never Miss a Twitter @Reply
We’ve found five free web-based Twitter services that will let you know via e-mail every time you are on the receiving end of an @mention or @reply. - A Look Back at the Last 5 Years in Blogging
How did the blogosphere grow from thousands of personal diaries into a network of media empires? The history of blogging is as interesting as it is complex. - 7 Days on Craigslist’s Casual Encounters
Many people use Craigslist to find roommates or jobs, but there’s another function: Sex. Check out this social experiment to see what the ‘Casual Encounters’ culture is really like. - 10 Free and Fun Twitter Bird Icons for your Website
Finding the right Twitter bird icon for your site can be a challenge, especially if your budget is bird seed. We’ve found 10 fabulous and fresh freebies for you. - HOW TO: Follow Mashable Staff Online
We try to meet our readers where they are at and create a place where conversation can take place. Now we want to give you glimpse behind-the-scenes of Mashable and its staff. - 5 Fab Twitter Follower Visualization Tools
If you’re interested in seeing what your Twitter followers look like as a keyword cloud, on parade, or even on a mug, check out these cool tools. - 10 Great Geeky Tattoos [PICS]
So, you love your tech and the web, but do you love it enough to permanently brand yourself with logos or related imagery? We’ve found ten people that do. - Why WikiLeaks and the Mainstream Media Still Need Each Other
The latest leak from WikiLeaks signals a seminal change for investigative journalism and next-gen whistle blowing – and mainstream media still plays a key role. - Top 16 Unusual Foursquare Badges
We talked to Foursquare’s Lead Designer, Mari Sheibley, about the stories behind 16 of the most unusual badges in their collection. - 5 Social Fundraising Alternatives to Facebook Causes
When it comes to social fundraising tools, Facebook Causes often comes to mind first. In reality, it’s just one of many tools available. Check out these alternatives. - 8 YouTube Channels for Unique Music Performances
We found some hidden gems in YouTube channels devoted to music. Look through to find sample channels and vids featuring the likes of Phoenix and Tom Jones. - Why Online Education Needs to Get Social
Social websites and real-time news channels are exploding in popularity, but online higher education has been slow to adapt. Here’s why college courses need to tap into the social web to stay relevant. - A Brief History of 9 Popular Blogging Platforms
The web is comprised of millions of blogs covering every topic imaginable. Here is short history of some of the most popular self-publishing platforms. - Why Hulu’s New Dance Show is a Game-Changer
Hulu’s new dance show, The LXD, is a game-changer in the way that web series and the arts are presented online. We spoke with the show’s creators about their concept and process.
For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.
Tech & Mobile
- 5 iPhone Apps to Help You Learn to Dance
From ballet, to salsa, to tap dancing, with a little help from the iPhone and these five apps, your feet will be moving in no time. - 10 Cool Konami Code Easter Eggs [PICS]
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start. If you like unicorns, rainbows and bacon these sites with Konami code Easter eggs will make your day. - 5 Energy Efficient Office Gadgets
Once you’re ready to get yourself on track to being energy efficient, check out these five energy efficient office gadgets to help you start saving on every level. - 10 Cool Tech Toys for Kids [PICS]
While you may have played Hungry Hungry Hippos, today’s toys are much more sophisticated and tech savvy, and even a little creepy. Here are 10 of the hottest. - 5 Awesome Optical Illusion Videos
Using nothing more than our eyes’ and brain’s perceptive weaknesses, these clever videos will trick your grey matter and leave you amazed. - 10 Geekiest Apple-Flavored Cakes [PICS]
To satisfy your sweet tooth (and geekiness), we’ve hunted down ten particularly fine examples of Apple-themed pastry. Enjoy! - 4 Ways BlackBerry Can Stay Relevant
To maintain market share in a world of increasing iPhones and Android devices, BlackBerry will have to get back to its roots and forge a new mobile direction. - 10 Ridiculous iPhone Accessories [PICS]
We take a light-hearted look at 10 totally unnecessary iPhone accessories that only the true gadget-addict would consider a good investment. - 10 Beautiful and Free WordPress 3.0-Ready Themes
If you’re looking for a theme that works great with WordPress 3.0 out of the box, check out our round-up of free themes with superb WordPress 3.0 support. - 10 Pieces of Gorgeous Geek Jewelry [PICS]
The geek collective is nothing if not creative, and some of that creativity can be seen in the treasure trove of geek-themed jewelry available. Here are 10 excellent examples. - 10 Free Web UI Kits and Resources for Designers
This post covers 10 of the best free web UI kits, resources and stencils to kick-start the early stages of your next web design project. - 5 Innovative Tech Camps for Kids and Teens
New tech camps offer some of the coolest and most innovative programs around. Take a look and see all the ways your kids could be engaged next summer. - 10 Incredible iPhone Photographs
We’ve collected 10 amazing landscape snaps by iPhotographers from around the world — both pro and amateur — to bring you a gallery of gorgeousness.
For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.
Business
- 10 Steps for Successful Social Media Monitoring
Social media monitoring of your brand image can be a complex process. Here are 10 pointers to heed when investigating your options. - How Small Businesses Will Use Social Media in the Future
In order to peer into the future, we took a step back and tried to build cases based on the evolution of trends and some successful small business examples. - HOW TO: Legally Structure your Startup
Whether you’re the next big thing in social gaming or organic knitwear, each startup eventually faces the same gnawing question: How should I legally structure my business? - How 12 CEOs & Founders are Leveraging Web Video
With all of the talk about how CEOs are getting social, we were curious to see how many CEOs are also branching out into web video. Here are 12 that are making a real impact on their brand. - 15 Twitter Lists for C-Suite Execs to Follow
To get you started or to beef up your current inventory of Twitter Lists, here are 15 great ones for C-suite executives to follow. - 3 Social Sites for Demonstrating Your Business Acumen
Sites like Aardvark, Quora and LinkedIn cater to the business professional seeking out knowledge or educational resources, and they are great for demonstrating business expertise. - HOW TO: Self-Publish Anything Online
These sites and services can help you create and brand just about anything, from books to clothes to software, and even food. - How Online Retailers Can Leverage Facebook’s Open Graph
Facebook’s Open Graph presents retailers with unprecedented ways to drive sales through recommendations. Here are some things to consider when tapping this data.
(Via Mashable!.)
3 Audacity Tips To Enhance Any Recordings
As a blogger and a researcher, I have to conduct a lot of interviews. Some months I’ve conducted two or three interviews a week, and many of those are recorded interviews, because many people don’t have time to answer questions via email. One of the nice things about recorded interviews is that they work well as an audio podcast either available for download from your own blog, or distributed as a podcast at any podcast directory.
Regardless what you intend to do with the interview, one thing that’s for certain is that you want to develop a reputation as a professional interviewer that produces high-quality, interesting conversations with fascinating people.
Only part of the recipe for this is developing interesting and thoughtful questions for your interviewee to answer, but the other significant part of the equation is how well you’ve edited the audio interview into a high-quality, professional show. Many avid audio enthusiasts may find some of the edits below somewhat simple, but for the blogger or podcaster with little audio editing experience, these tips are critical to know.
3 Tips To Enhance Your Interview Audio With Audacity
I use the Audacity audio recording software to record and edit all of my interviews. My recording setup is about as simple as it gets – an Olympic earpiece that doubles as both a microphone and an earphone, so that I can hear the person on the phone while the microphone feeds the conversation into the laptop and Audacity. This works well, and produces high quality conversations, but like anything, there are flaws in the setup that produce less than optimum conditions.
The beauty of Audacity is that you have the capability to ‘fix’ those flaws. The three most common problems that I’m going to touch on in this post are removing background noise, amplifying voices, and integrating quality introduction with music.
Before we start doctoring the audio file with the Audacity audio recording software, let me first introduce the patient. Above is a snippet of an hour-long audio interview that I conducted last month. The two most common flaws are background noise, shown in the center of this clip, and low voice volume (my voice) as shown on the right. You can see that the amplitude when I was talking is about half of that of the voice on the phone – which is to be expected when recording with such an earpiece.
How To Fix Quiet Voices
The first tweak for the common interview issue of quiet voices is also the easiest. The volume of the voice is equivalent to ‘amplitude,’ so all you have to do is use Audacity’s Amplify tool to increase the quiet voice just a little bit.
To perform this task, just highlight the section of audio track with the quiet voice, and then select ‘Amplify’ from the Effect menu option.
In the amplify tool, you’ll need to select an amplification that is just enough to increase the voice volume to a level that’s equivalent to the other person speaking. It may take some trial and error the first time, so just undo the change and try a new value until you get it right.
In my case, I found that an increase of 5 dB did the trick. Once you know the right value, the only tedious part of this fix is that you’ll need to find every place in the track where the quiet voice shows up, and do the highlight/amplify routine to fix it.
How To Remove Background Noise With Audacity
The second most common flaw in an interview audio file is background noise. Maybe you left a fan on in the other room, or there are cars going by just outside the open window, and you realize once you listen to the audio that the sound is terribly annoying and distracting.
The first step in this technique is to identify an area in your file that features nothing but the background noise alone. When you find such an area, highlight that section of the audio track, and then go into the ‘Noise Removal’ tool in the Effects menu option.
Once you’re there, click on ‘Get Noise Profile‘. Doing this captures a snapshot of the background noise itself. The software uses this to ‘erase’ that sound profile from a section (or all) of the audio file. The next step is just to highlight the area where you want to remove the noise (most of the time you’ll just select the entire track), and then go back into this window and select ‘Remove Noise‘.
As you can see, Audacity does an amazing job at cleaning up the noise. There is one caveat, and it is this – carefully gauge the amount of noise that you want to remove. Removing too little won’t do much good, and removing too much will make the audio sound over-digitized or artificially quiet. One thing I noticed is that the middle to lower middle setting is usually ideal.
Integrating A Musical Or Voice Introduction
Have you ever heard those cool podcasts with a great musical introduction? Well, believe it or not, you can do the same exact thing in Audacity in just a few simple steps. The first step, obviously, is importing the music file that you would like to use (make sure you don’t infringe on any licensing issues).
The next step is just highlight the block of music you’d like to use as your introduction (select the correct number of seconds) and then do a simple Copy. Then place the cursor at the start of your audio file, and select Paste. The copied music clip will get inserted into your track, pushing the entire interview to the right.
While this is cool, it’ll sound weird because at the end of the clip, your music will just end abruptly. Instead, you want to taper off the music as you enter into the interview itself. You can do this by highlighting the very last part of your music clip and selecting Effect -> Fade Out from the Menu.
You’ll see the amplitude of the music clip taper off as it approaches the end of the clip, and in effect producing a very nice fade into the interview itself.
By using these three simple tips, you’ve just equalized voice volume, removed background noise, and embedded a professional music introduction into your audio interview. With just these few simple changes, you’ll transform amateur sounding interviews into well produced, professional sounding conversations.
(Via MakeUseOf.com.)
Sony UX voice recorders pass 1000 hour mark
Sony’s latest range of UX series voice recorders are now capable of passing the magical 1,000 hour mark when it comes to keeping copies of lecture after boring lecture. The UX200 is the base model with 2GB of internal memory, while the UX300 and 300F both feature double the storage space, which translates to over 1,000 hours of recording. All models can record in stereo MP3 format with the added benefit of noise cancellation, while playback can be performed at 21 different speed steps. You get up to 15 hours of battery life when recording, or 80 hours plus of non-stop audio playback. Expect to see these hit Europe early next month in time for Christmas.
(Via Ubergizmo.)
Is Dave Winer the biggest innovator of the web?
I don’t want to bore you guys or suck up to him, but I am amazed that no one points this out.
1. He invented RSS.
2. He, along with Adam Curry, pioneered podcasting.
3. He knew people would love Twitter in 2001.
4. He was one of the first bloggers around.
5. He is a visionary in journalism.
6. He pioneered the concept of editing pages without messing up with the code.
Yet, he sucks at webdesign. Don’t have to link to anything here, just look at the websites above. I think he does this on purpose to emphasize the technology behind his sites.
I also laugh at the people who criticize him and say that RSS is dead. If it is dead, stop using it! It is the backend of thousands of web applications and it enables cool new innovative products. Twitter is cool and all of that, but it is completely limited and controlled by a single company. Plus, RSSCloud and PubSubHubBub is coming.
Anyway, what do you guys think about him?
(Via Dvorak Uncensored.)
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