Technology Update

Never reported back about the new Toshiba laptop. Working great! Except for some sort of Toshiba software that keeps opening up telling me I have messages, it has been a seamless transition. At some point, I will spend a few minutes and turn that off.

Took just a few minutes to get the audio chain set up so that I knew I could reliably record on the road. The first set up was with the dbx mini pre-amp I have been using for years, but early in the week a new MicPort Pro arrived and that was even easier to set up. I’m hooked on it, just like everyone else I know who has one.

The only thing I am missing right now is a single piece of Auralex acoustic foam in the 2″ pyramids – not the long wedges – the little pyramids. Need to replace the old foam in my […]

2018-02-06T06:48:42+00:00April 3rd, 2010|Categories: Business, Recording, Technology|Tags: , , , , , |

Technical Troubleshooting

Argh! Turned on the system the other day and there was a phased hum/tone thing going on in the background of my recordings. Nothing had changed (well, maybe the weather), but suddenly my output was unacceptable.

I was able to clean up the background noise well enough for auditions (and it didn’t affect my ISDN sessions), but luckily, I didn’t have any paying work that couldn’t be delayed until a fix was found.

Was it the Mackie? Was it the cable to the computer? Was it the mic cable? One thing at a time – one precious minute after minute – I eliminated and pondered. Finally, I packed up the Mackie and the cable to the computer and trundled them down to San Diego Professional Sound and Music.

Turns out the 2nd channel on the Mackie is kaput – or at least has a permanent […]

2018-02-06T06:48:43+00:00March 18th, 2010|Categories: Recording, Technology|Tags: , |

Read the Manual

My inclination – when faced with a new piece of software (or pretty much anything) – is to install it and start using it. Read the manual? Not me. There are menus and a help button! (In the case of my cell phone, there is 611.)

Manuals usually have pages and pages of information that I already know and to find the bit of information I don’t know would require formulating a question that the Table of Contents understands.

However, in the case of Word 2 Wav, the manual is simple and short. Had I read the manual, I would have been able to save myself even MORE time this past year. Thank goodness Herve reads the forums.

W2W is a wonderful piece of software that I use at the beginning of my recording process for long form narration and IVR files. Although it is not a finishing program […]

Lots of mu-law / u-law questions

There has been an uptick in posts to various groups recently about a very standard telephony format called mu-law or u-law.

This is one of the most common telephony formats and there are several tools that can be used to convert to this format – PC and Mac.

If you are on a PC, then most of the audio recording software that professionals are using will do the job – I personally use Adobe Audition.

For Mac, Switch from NCH works well and is pretty easy.

If you are new to telephony – here are a couple of caveats:

  1. The sound files use a low sample and bit rate in order to play them back over the phone – they will NOT sound good to your ears when compared to a regular file
  2. Always capture at a regular sample and bit rate of at least 44.1 and 16 bit.
  3. Downsample to 8K
  4. Do NOT change […]
2018-02-06T06:48:52+00:00January 22nd, 2010|Categories: Business, Recording, Technology|Tags: , , , , |

Phone Patch vs ISDN vs Self-Directed vs Outside Studio

Had two back to back phone patch sessions today that started me thinking again about the various methods of doing a session. Live in-person at an outside studio. ISDN. Phone Patch. Self-directed. There are pros and cons for each depending on various factors such as the type of script and how far away the outside studio is.

The first session today was with a studio that I have had to drive to in the past for sessions. It is up in Orange County. I’m practically in downtown San Diego. The last time I made the drive – about 1.5 to 2 hours or so depending on traffic – was the day Sarah Palin was announced as a Vice Presidential Candidate. The drive up and back that day was anything but boring.

But it does take a chunk of time out of your day – a minimum of about 4 to get there, do the session and […]

2018-02-06T06:48:56+00:00August 11th, 2009|Categories: Musings, Recording|Tags: , , , , |

Friday is trash day

Friday is REALLY noisy around here. And even noisier every other Friday when the Black “trash” AND the Blue “recycle” bins are picked up. Prior to the trash trucks grinding down the alley – are the alley elves who push their shopping carts along looking for bottles and cans to recycle.

Then there is the Volkswagon that comes home at noon everyday down the back alley and idles while the garage door goes up – then revs up and goes into the garage. Add that to the random and scheduled selection of police and news helicopters and my frustration level definitely goes up on Fridays.

But for some reason, during a session, things seem pretty quiet and when something does rumble past in the alley or overhead it is only the smallest of interuptions.

So why do these interuptions bother me so while I am trying to get auditions done on Friday!

2009-08-07T12:27:04+00:00August 7th, 2009|Categories: Recording|Tags: , |
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