Audioforce.net is a directory of free online audio-production tutorials. The external links call up everything from single-sentence tips to digitized magazine articles to movies....
Motion DSP's new Ikena system, announced today, looks to perform some astonishing cleanup on cruddy-looking, overcompressed videos. The initial Linux-based product (including hardware) will set you back $30,000, but this type of interpolation-based cleaning will certainly trickle down into affordable systems before too long. Check out the examples at MotionDSP.com and prepare to be amazed. I particularly like how the...
One of the most interesting technologies at the recent Audio Engineering Society show wasn't accompanied by pulsing LEDs or Bavarian vacuum tubes. In a simple booth, CEntrance was showing its Universal Driver (UD), a $79 piece of software that enhances FireWire audio and MIDI on Windows. In addition to low latency (reportedly 5ms roundtrip), UD supports device aggregation, which...
Looking for some creepy soundscapes for Halloween? Check out the latest release from Darwin Chamber, 3D Halloween Sound FX 2006, which just hit the iTunes Store. Chamber, aka Mark Greenfield, brings an unusual musical sensibility to his environmental soundtracks, thanks to his background in techno music and sound editing for TV and film. Instead of simply pointing a mic...
UPDATE, 2007-08-02: Our in-depth MR-1 review is now online. We also have a new discussion area at the end of the review, so please feel free to continue this conversation over there. Breezing through the AES show press room last Friday, I saw something that made me want to rush down to the exhibit floor: a palm-size recorder with 1-bit,...
One of the most brilliant products I saw at this week's AES show was also one of the most affordable....
The always insightful Eliot Van Buskirk just posted an entertaining interview with Justin Frankel, the programmer behind Winamp, Gnutella, and some visionary new music programs like Reaper and NinJam. In the interview, Frankel shares his design philosophy, discusses his own music, and explains why DRM is a bad idea. He even reveals the origin of the mythical Winamp Llama....
(Click to enlarge.) One of the best audio investments I've made was a pair of Sony MDR-V6 headphones. I bought my set for about $80 back around 1988 after noticing renowned recording engineer Roger Nichols checking mixes on his in the big L.A. studio where I worked. (I couldn't afford the glorious Meyer HD-1 powered monitors Nichols was using,...
UPDATE, 2008-02-29: Many readers have been asking what I think of the new crop of Olympus voice recorders with "ultra high quality stereo recording mode." After poring over the specs for the new WS and DS models, I just requested a review unit of the WS-311M, which seems to have the best combination of features and price to meet the...
Music piracy is now so prevalent that I just heard from a reader who's writing his MBA thesis about it. Most of the questions readers send me have quick technical answers, but the questions from this student were more open-ended, so (with his permission), I thought I'd open the discussion to everyone. I've illustrated the questionnaire with stills from...
