This week, a bunch of listener e-mails to answer.
First up, we heard from Bomar in France. After editing and mixing this episode, it occurred to me that this really should have been in Sine Language rather than BTP… oh well, sue me!
Bomar mentioned (among other things), a microphone which is alledgedly capable of picking up the sound of an ant’s footsteps.
Unfortunately, the site doesn’t appear to have any audio samples of this awesome feat.
Mmmmmm, sorry Bomar, but please forgive my scepticism!
Bomar went on to talk about field recorders, which led to a discussion on ‘auto gain control’ circuits (and why I don’t like them).

Next up, I received an e-mail from Ken at Bear Creek Studios who alerted me to a piece of software called Mediasweeper.
This looks really nifty, although I do need to spend some more time with it.
What it is designed to do is to look at your Audition .ses files and show you a list of which assets (read: wav files, mp3′s, avi’s, whatever) are referenced by the session file, and then allow you to either move all those files, or delete any wavs in the project folder which are NOT referenced by the session file!
If it does as promised, this will be a God-send!
Unfortunately, there’s no help file with it.
When I’ve spent some more time with it, I’ll report back.

Then, Wayne Montle wrote to tell me about Pamela, a piece of software which sits in between Skype and your DAW of choice.
What it does is allow you to split your outgoing audio (your voice) and your incoming audio (the person you’re talking to) into a left/right stereo signal so that you can later edit your Skype call with split tracks.
For those with soundcards which don’t offer that flexibility natively, this could be a huge blessing.
Thanks for the tip, Wayne.

Finally, I received an e-mail from Patrique Osborne who was concerned that I was advocating the growing of marijuana in episode 124!
I had a good laugh at this.

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As many of you noticed, I was having problems last week with my RSS feeds being broken.
Turns out that my web hosting company had changed something behind the scenes which promptly broke my feeds.
Although I have already privately thanked him, I just wanted to quickly say “Thanks mate!” to Phil Massyn (publicly) for getting his hands dirty on my behalf trying to work out what had gone wrong.
So…. thanks mate!
If you’re interested in understanding the technical side of podcasting (scripts, computer languages, etc) you should definitely check out Phil’s podcast.

Hi all,
Sorry for the lack of communication this past weekend.
Cath, Max and I went to Melbourne for 4 days.
Had very limited access to internet due to the absolutely OUTRAGEOUS prices being charged by our hotel (A$29 for 24 hours internet!! You gotta be freakin’ kidding?)
It’s now Tuesday night, and we’ve just finished a 10+ hour drive home.
Totally knackered.
Off to bed now.
Obviously, no podcasts.

Sorry for the short notice, but I’m conducting another Adobe e-Seminar tomorrow, at 12 noon Australian Eastern Standard Time (02:00 UTC).
This one will be on Optimizing Audio in Soundbooth CS3.
Interested?
Go here.

I’ve started a Facebook group for anyone who is interested.
Not sure exactly what the benefit of that is, but I guess if a few people join up, we’ll soon work it out, huh?

Take me there!

This week, a discussion on handling noise within your home, prompted by a discussion I had with Luke Stapely on Facebook.

Dynamics processor, with no ratio of compression or expansion. Click image to see full view.

Dynamics processor with text box for finite input and output value entry. Click image to see full view.

Here, all values above -30dBFS will pass through the dynamics processor unhindered. All input values between -30dBFS and -50dBFS will be attenuated according to the steeper slope of the blue line. All input values below -50dBFS will be attenuated as well, but not as radically as those values ABOVE -50dBFS. Click image to see full view.

Here, all input values above -60dBFS will pass through the dynamics processor unhindered. All input values below -60dBFS will be completely silenced. Click image to see full view.

Grab the Antress Modern Expander dll here. (1.2MB)

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Sorry one and all, but I have been drawn and quartered by a really nasty cold this week.
So, even though I have some good stuff for both BTP and SL, it’s another week of “no shows”.

Hey gang!

Just thought I’d let you know that I will be conducting an e-Seminar this Friday at 12 noon Australian Eastern Standard time (02:00 UTC).

The topic is Using Automation in Adobe Audition 3.

If you want to come along and listen, the link is here.