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.
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.
 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
Want to know the difference between a analog and digital or bit-depth and sample rate? How about tutorials on Pro Tools and Logic editing software, M-S stereo and EQ processing?
It’s all at WikiAudio, a “free online pro audio encyclopedia and information database that anyone can contribute to,” with everything audio from AAC to XLR.
New protools|blog by PT Software Strategist, Scott Church. There’s also the ProMedia Pro Tools Training Center, the ProToolerBlog, the Pro Tools Users community, and the Yahoo! Pro_Tools group.
via Gregg- Undercurrents and Rich- SoundRcih.
HV’s Jeff Rice is interviewed in this Associated Press article “Recordings aim to capture calls of the wild West” about the Western Soundscape Archive:
Although it’s just a year old, the site already has more than 800 recordings. The goal is to catalog the nearly 1,200 species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians that roam 11 Western states. It will also feature “ambient soundscapes” from wild places across the region.
Jeff recently hosted our Bugs & Birds HV hour.
NW audio artists, you have til Oct’s end to submit your Jack Straw Productions – 2008 Artist Programs Applications:
THE JACK STRAW ARTIST RESIDENCY PROGRAMS offer established and emerging artists in diverse disciplines an opportunity to explore the creative use of sound in a professional atmosphere through residencies in our recording studios and participation in our various presentation programs. You may apply to more than one artist program, but must submit a complete and separate set of applications for each program.
Every once in a while an interview approaches audio art. This interviewee is Don Liljenquist, the elderly homeless man Bob Novak hit (& run) with his black Corvette. Liljenquist was at George Washington University Medical Center. He’s questioned by WMAL-AM DC reporter Troy Russell; “Novak Victim” (2:09 mp3):
Hearing Voices from NPR®
021 Tony Schwartz: Documenting Life in Sound
Host: Barrett Golding & Kitchen Sisters of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-10-07 (Originally: 2008-07-23)
“Tony Schwartz” (52:00 mp3):
Tony Schwartz, media pioneer, audio documentarian, and the most famous radio person you probably never heard of, died June 2008. We hear:
The Kitchen Sisters‘ Lost & Found Sound-portrait, “Tony Schwartz, 30,000 Recordings Later.”
And the Tony Schwartz-inspired verite documentary of the town he lived in and loved, “New York City: 24 Hours in Public Places” (thanks to Transom.org).
Tony Schwartz died Sunday (NY Times obit | Wikipedia | Tony’s site). In 1945 Tony Schwartz began documenting life in sound. He recorded New York City cab drivers, French folk songs, kids’ street games — tens of thousands of field recordings made all over the world. His work, now collected at the Library of Congress, is an aural history the way we sound.
In 1999 the Kitchen Sisters did this exquisite sound-portrait, “Tony Schwartz: 30,000 Recordings Later” (20:38 mp3):
The above is from the KS’s CD Best of NPR’s Lost and Found Sound Vol. 1.
Tony also worked in the ad industry, and co-created this classic 1964 LBJ (vs Goldwater) “Daisy ad”:
Soundwaves on fire, now if they could just turn it into a sound editor; a classic physics experiment, the “Ruben’s Tube:”
NPR has changed. As evidence I offer this early 80s promo produced by Jesse Boogs for NPR. This imagistic radio dramatic audio artistic style said NPR then. Now, not so much; “Morning Edition promo” (1:00 mp3):
“Advanced Beauty is an ongoing exploration of digital artworks born and influenced by sound…is an ever-growing collaboration between programmers, artists, animators and architects. The first release will be a collection of Audio-Visual Sound Sculptures, on High Definition DVD and 5:1 Surround Sound. “
And, if you happen to be in Sheffield England in early May, you can attend a premier of these sound sculptures at the Showroom Cinema.
I’ve included a preview of the sound sculptures below:
Concord Monitor photojournalist Preston Gannaway won a Pulitzer for her shots in a series of articles which “chronicle the death of Carolynne St. Pierre, a Concord NH woman who wanted to leave her children with a record of her final months.” The online version is this beautiful photo-audio slideshow called “Remember Me.”
via Bill Slammon- WVEW
The latest PRX podcast has an environment/media mix, first whispered then shouted, Amy Conger‘s “Secret and Noise” (4:12 mp3):
Turns out that a French recording from 1860 may be the oldest known recorded human voice, “Au Clair de la Lune” (mp3):
Here’s the New York Times article on the First Sounds project.
Been using the FR-2 Field Memory Recorder for a few months now. Really like the sound of the mic pre-amps, and the internal phantom power also seems to drive my mic-of-choice well (ShureVP-88 Stereo Condenser). Net result is a noticeably cleaner sound, especially compared to the consumer mini-dat ‘chines I’d been using as back-up and on bike trips.
It’s about the size of a thick hardcover book; bigger than I thot — funny how even tho I read the specs, 206 x 132x 57 mm (8.1 x 5.2 x 2.2 inches), my desire for a small machine still made me think this thing would be more compact. Also it has internal stereo mics and speaker, neither features I wanted. But it is light, has a speedy USB2.0 post, and other flash-recorders had more serious probs for me.*
One tragic flaw: The Fostex back battery case cover is a pain-in-ass and doomed to bust someday; cuz the batteries have to be placed just right or they stick out and keep cover from closing properly.
So it’s a fine machine, sounds great, is rugged (except battery cover). But: I paid $500 for my Fostex, and it’s now $600; so at that price the Oade Bros Marantz 660 mod may be the better deal.
Here’s some recordings, the first with the VP88 of some close relatives, currently incarcerated, “Cognitive Evo Group, Univ of LA- External Mic”
(0:34 mp3):
Continuing the incarceration theme, when internationally known producer Scott Carrier came to visit, it wasn’t long before I was off to the cop-shop to bail Scott outta jail. So I brought my recorder along and taped his coerced confession, using the internal stereo mics. The Fostex was just sitting on the truck seat and picked up pretty well, “Car Talk- Internal mics” (0:30 mp3):
And again with the internal mics, here’s the gate thru which we later DID NOT trespass, when the criminal returned to the scene of the crime, “Gate Swing- Internal mics” (0:32 mp3):
Scott sez he’s learned his lesson. We at HV remain skeptical, having heard this declaration from him before.
*My probs w/ other $400-600 recorders: The Zoom H4 is a piece of plastic shit, w/ no vol dial– just a switch w/ three level presets (haven’t seen H2 yet). The M-Audio Microtrack only has an internal battery, which rules it out for long road trips w/o frequent AC, especially on bikes. Edirol R-09 is hissy; as is, the outta-box non-Oade Marantz 660 (see: Transom review).
Bombs become the beat in this final scene of Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1970 film “Zabriskie Point”. Music by Pink Floyd:
From sound designer David Grimes comes this cut-up speech-song, “Embarrassed” (1:36 mp3):
Grimes also did the sound for It’s JerryTime’s video “B Train Blues.”
From their site: “The Vegetable Orchestra performs music solely on instruments made of vegetables. Using carrot flutes, pumpkin basses, leek violins, leek-zucchini-vibrators, cucumberophones and celery bongos, the orchestra creates its own extraordinary and vegetabile sound universe. The ensemble overcomes preserved and marinated sound conceptions or tirelessly re-stewed listening habits, putting its focus on expanding the variety of vegetable instruments, developing novel musical ideas and exploring fresh vegetable sound gardens.”
From their automate CD, here’s an excerpt of “cut 2” (1:03 mp3):