Transom Tools‘ audio-tech wiz, Jeff Towne, has writ a clear, comprehensive guide to Pro Tools Shortcuts. All kindsa tips and tools to select, navigate, group, fade and bounce sound in PT. All these shortcuts are good to know, some will change your working life.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
037 Prison: Life Behind Bars
Host: Joe Richman of Radio Diaries
Airs week of: 2010-03-17 (Originally: 2008-11-12)
“Prison” (52:00 mp3):
A Prison Diary (2001 CD | NPR series) from a former Polk Youth Institution, North Carolina. Former inmate. John Mills is out now and co-hosts our hour with Prison Dairies producer Joe Richman. (Check the accompanying Picture Projects 360 Degrees, a multimedia “Perspectives on the U.S. Criminal Justice System.”
Voices and sounds of youth in at Utah’s Washington County Crisis Center, a techno tone poem. Handcuffs, metal detectors and slamming cell doors are striking musical instruments, and incarcerated teenagers in this streetwise chorus. (PBK: site | space.)
Payton Smith’s calls her mom in prison with some questions, produced with Transom.
Another Prison Diary from Sergeant Furman Camel, a guard at Polk Youth Institution, North Carolina.
The Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola Prison, is a sprawling old plantation on the Mississippi River. Angola holds more than five-thousand prisoners, mostly African Americans. Unless they’re pardoned by the Governor, lifers know they will never again see the outside world — that they will die inside Angola prison. Producer: David Isay with Wilbert Rideau and Ron Wikberg; mix engineer: Anna Maria deFrietas.
A photo-audio-essay gallery of Scott Carrier’s story on Mount Kailash in Tibet, one of the world’s most venerated holy sites.
Seal does Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come:”
UPDATE: WFMU just posted 14 versions of the song, including Aretha, Otis, Dylan, and the original Sam Cooke “A Change is Gonna Come” (3:13 mp3):
Hearing Voices from NPR®
036 Paintbrush: Lives of the Artists
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-12-02 (Originally: 2008-11-05)
https://www.carolinasmilesnc.com/getting-prednisone-without-prescription/
“Paintbrush” (52:00 mp3):
Sound-portraits of painters:
getting prednisone
Singer Jonathan Richman puts forth the proposition that Pablo Picasso was never called an @#%hole; recorded in 1972, released on the 1976 album The Modern Lovers.
Susan enlists elementary school kids to evaluate the paintings of Pablo Picasso. Their art crit proves accurate and insightful. Co-produced by host Larry Massett.
The poet paints a depiction in prose of her pal Pablo.
A history of injuries and inspiration unfolds in this an audio biography of the legendary Mexican artist.
From Jonathan’s 2008 solo CD Because Her Beauty Is Raw And Wild.
Almost half the eligible voters in this country don’t bother to vote. But some people are passionate about politics. They pass out pamphlets, work the phones, write letters to the editor. We wondered why, when so many people couldn’t care less about politics, these people care so much. So we went down to the party headquarters and asked them. Aired on NPR Day to Day; by producer Barrett Golding, “Political People” (7:20 mp3):
Original song written for this story by Greg Keeler.
NYT data sets and multimedia design team up with IBM “Many Eyes” technology to bring you the Visualization Lab, where you can create your own “visual representations of data and information,” such as:
Louis “Studs” Terkel Louis (May 16, 1912 – October 31, 2008) signs off America’s latest greatest radio show.
This I Believe “Community in Action” (4:06)
From Studs Terkel: Voices of Our Time; The Original Live Interviews, “Mahalia Jackson, 1963” (6:20)
Studs links: Wikipedia | Transom Review | Prime Time Radio | WFMT-FM Memories| Chicago Historical Society | WNYC 2003 Interview | Third Coast Luminary | Chicago Tribune
The photographer for 538 has a spread at Daily Kos, “Eight Epic Weeks Across America,” and a collection of outstanding political pix at his site: BrettMarty.com.
A/V- Simple Sound/Slide Shows will be an audio-visual web widget for the masses, a tool which synchronizes sound and images online, built for the needs of small public radio stations and independent producers.
It’s just in planning/possibility stage right now, but this player is our proposal to the Knight News Challenge; read it, rate it, review it.
Don’t answer the phone, and definitely don’t put your hand inside. Aired on NPR Day to Day; by ZBS with music by Tim Clark, from their 90 Second Cellphone Chillin’ Theatre, “The Box” (2:57 mp3):
From 236.com (Political Comedy – Unfair and Unbalanced):
Did watching the 2nd and 3rd debates give you a feeling of déjà vu? This montage of synced-up footage from all three presidential debates confirms our deep-seated belief that every debate was exactly the same.
“Synchronized Presidential Debating:”
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
035 1968— Summer of Hate
Host— Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airdates— 10/29/2008 – 11/05/2008
1968 (53:00 mp3):
It’s another presidential election year; the American people are deeply divided and deeply entrenched in another unpopular war. The topic is not 2008, but 1968. If 1967 was the Summer of Love, maybe 1968 was the Summer of Hate.
We hear Dale Minor report from the battleground during the “Tet Offensive;” part of from Pacifica Radio Archive 1968 Revolution Rewind.
We go live to the “Chicago 1968” DNC demonstrations, mixed by Barrett Golding. (Voices: Martin Luther King, Jr, Robert Kennedy, Edward Kennedy, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, journalist, police, and demonstrators at Chicago 1968 Democratic National Convention. Music: “Ballad of the Green Beret” by Sgt. Barry Sadler, “For What It’s Worth” original by Buffalo Springfield and cover by The Staple Singers.)
We drink “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” stirred by producers Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler. (1968 Tom Wolfe book | 2009 Gus Van Sant film Weekend America “This Weekend in 1968” | Voices: Carolyn Garcia, Mountian Girl” & “Hardly Visible” George Walker | Merry Pranksters)
We hear the songs, speeches, and news reports of the times in “A Shortcut Back to 1968,” sliced by Peter Bochan. More…
Post-Madonna Prima Donna, Jason Cady’s CD, is out on Peacock Recordings (see prev post: Jason Cady & The Artificials).
Post-Madonna Prima Donna (2001) is a one-act opera. The subject is language, sepcifically, in this excerpt, the Minnesota vernacular. “Post-Madonna Prima Donna: Recitative 1 | Aria” (1:01 | 3:02 mp3):
Also on the CD is an 11-part Odi et Amo (2006), a cantata inspired by the love poems of the ancient Roman poet Catullus.
You just got back from checking RealClearPolitics polls, didn’t ya? What’s that, like the fifth time today? I know, bro, I’m there w/ ya.
That’s why I’ve resolved to drastically change my daily routine. No, not by mindlessly checking polls any less, but rather by adding another site to my hourly obsession list: Five Thirty Eight.
These guys are baseball stats folk who, for the last few months, have turned their mighty number-crunching powers from earned-run averages and stolen bases to Electoral Votes and Senate races.
Like RCP they average all the recent polls. But to 538 all polls are not reported equal: “we assign each poll a weighting based on that pollster’s historical track record, the poll’s sample size, and the recentness of the poll.”
Their result is not the typical whose-up by how-much number, but instead their more baseball like Win Percentage pie chart (mostly blueberry right now, with a small slice of cherry). 538’s Super Tracker graph plots trendlines, with points for daily averages. An Electoral Vote Distribution chart uses 10,000 voting simulations to outputs the probability for a range of possible outcomes, based on daily data. And their Senate Projections are likely the best in the biz.
Why the name 538? It’s the number of electors in the electoral college.
Aired on NPR Day to Day, a wide-eyed glimpse into the world of Michael White, insomniac; how it feels and sounds to spend night after sleepless night. By producer Matthew Swenson for SALT, “Night of the Insomniac” (4:45 mp3):
From XKCD, “a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language,” this one’s titled “Listen to Yourself:”
 is a 99-cent  audio-recorder app for the iPhone/iPod Touch (w/ external iPod mic), from BIAS (makers of Peak and Deck editing software): AppStore | MacWorld article
Kert Dees is now 98. In October 1929 he was a Houston college student with a keen interest in finances. Producer Ben Trefny of KALW news (SF, CA) presented Dees’ recollections in a series of Crosscurrents features called “Witness To History.”
In the first Kert Dees remembers “The Start of the Great Depression” (3:01 mp3):
Subsequent reports are “Living Through the Great Depression” and the The Road to Recovery.” The stories also aired in NPR WESUN:
Hearing Voices from NPR®
034 To War: Getting In and Getting Out
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-11-18 (Originally: 2008-10-22)
“To War” (52:00 mp3):
We get out of one conflict and into another:
Our show host travels the country in early October 2001, asking everyone the same question: “Are You Ready for War?”
An NPR chronicle leading up to the last day of US flights out of the Vietnam War, 30 April 1975: the fall of Saigon, with original recordings by one of the helicopter pilots.
UH1 helicopters at sunrise in Vietnam, photo by Lowell Eneix, 121st Assault Helicopter Company, US Army (from Vietnam Helicopter online gallery).