The Variax is an elegant, functional guitar, whose look is lent a great dignity by its lack of pickups. To play in my wife's Nerd Band, the Captains of the Chess Team, I took a perfectly good, new Variax and taped a pickup to it. I also run three wires (Well, four if you count the one I added last...

O'Reilly's Linux Dev Center just published a fairly technical discussion of how the various Linux audio subsystems work. For those who just want to boot up and play, we've run several Linux audio articles, including: Resurrect Your Old PC for Music—with Linux Review: Fervent Software Studio-to-Go Inside a Luxury Synth: Creating the Linux-Powered Korg OASYS Inside Pandora: Web Radio That...

A while ago, I wrote a post where I said that using Skype for interviews was a bad idea. I still stand by the premise of that piece - that Skype-to-Skype connections should not be used in most situations - but a few things have happened in the last few months to change my mind about the blanket statement "Skype is bad for recording interviews."

I was speaking with an artist manager colleague of mine the other day. This esteemed colleague has represented the likes of Alanis Morissette, LeAnn Rimes, and Collective Soul among many others. He's a sharp guy. We were discussing how historically, recording artists frequently lost the rights to their master sound recordings (known as "masters") when they signed recording contracts with...

We're currently wrapping up a review of a high-resolution digital audio recorder for O'Reilly Digital Media. This handheld marvel records in Super Audio CD (SACD) format, and our reviewer has been gobsmacked by the audio quality. UPDATE: Here's the review. The Korg MR-1 records at 64 times the CD sampling rate, using 1-bit converters. Because SACD burners exist only in...

So I read in this article on Salon.com about SoundExchange's "deal" with Web broadcasters. After pushing internet radio to the brink of extinction, they now graciously extend their hand and offer salvation - for a price....

that's right, it's my blog, and i say what i want! (and hey, if i don't, who will?) so, here's a few odd places my work has shown up in recent popular culture: 1. Night At The Museum i'm particularly proud of this one, because the kid in me loves that movie. my grandmother lived on riverside drive in new...

O'Reilly Missing Manual editor Pete Meyers tries reading on his new iPhone. Check it out....

One of the most popular uses of digital recording is capturing people talking. Of course, most people aren't that good at talking extemporaneously on command, and you usually need to help them along somewhat. Fundamentally, that is what most interviews are: helping someone talk about something intelligently and with some structure. Since most people who record are asked to do...

Why put an iPod on your waistband when you can sport a bulbous red guitar effect instead? The pioneering digital kidney bean of tone now comes in a battery-powered version called the Pocket Pod. Five inches wide yet loaded with 300 digital effect presets and a guitar tuner, the Pocket Pod retails for around $129....