Archive for August, 2007
How to make an audiobook for iTunes
Fancy making an audiobook to sell on iTunes? Here’s what you will need.
- A script
- A microphone
- A filing cabinet
- A chair
- Two buckets (ideally metal ones)
- A sound editing program
And here’s how to do it:
- Plug the microphone into your sound editing program.
- Move the filing cabinet to the farthest corner of the room.
- Put the microphone on top of the filing cabinet.
- Put one of the buckets on top of the microphone.
- Move the chair to the corner diagonally opposite the filing cabinet.
- Put the second bucket on your head.
- Read the script very quietly.
- Save the file in the lowest possible sound quality.
- Profit!
Jaguaaaaargh
I like cars, and I particularly like good-looking cars. So when Jaguar showed off its XF concept, saying that the finished car would look very much like it, I promptly added it to my “probably won’t ever be able to afford one, but want one want one want one” list - something I’d never do with the S-Type, the exceptionally ugly car it replaces.
Here it is:
Note the aggressive nose, the raked headlights, the purposeful stance and the sculptured lines. And then forget about them, because here’s what the actual XF looks like.
It’s like a builder showing you the plans for a really nice extension, and then you discover he’s just glued a B&Q shed to the side of your house. Although to be fair, they have carried across some crucial details from the concept - so for example, it clearly has four wheels.
Richard Cobbett on BioShock
In a nutshell, if Bioshock isn’t Game of the Year, odds are good that we atheists are going to look a little silly at having to explain God showing up to make a new Monkey Island. It’s the best FPS since Half-Life 2. It’s the closest thing to System Shock 2 since Shock 2.
And if there’s any justice in the world, everyone responsible for the miserable pile of arse that was Doom 3 is out there right now, slashing their wrists with the retail CDs and sobbing to sleep on unsold expansion packs.
But while it’s great, it’s flawed (I’m still in the early stages, but his criticisms of the stuff I’ve played so far are bang on): Beware the plot twist!
Out of the blue, Irrational suddenly feels the urge to pull down its pants and start mooning you through the screen with a bit of bizarre meta-gaming nonsense. And I’m not sure why.
Quick review: Samson C01U Podcast Pak (USB condenser mic)
I’ve been talking about this in the comments of another post but I figured it’d be a good idea to post a quick review (not least ’cause it makes the information easier to find if you’re Googling).
So, you’ve got a computer and you want to make music or do some podcasting. Internal mics aren’t up to the job (particularly on laptops - they just pick up hard disk thrashing and fan whirr), headset mics are okay for Skype but a dead loss for music, and proper studio mics cost a packet and need an external power source. Enter Samson, whose Podcast Pak is aimed - yes! - at podcasters. I reckon it’s pretty good for home music makers too.
Dull details first: some shops will charge you £129 for this pack, but if you shop around you can get it for £84 (via an Amazon partner in my case, but other music shops have similar deals). I did a quick Google and the going rate in the US seems to be about $160, but I’m not up to date with US bargain hunting so you may well find it cheaper. If you don’t want the goodies but do want the mic, the going rate is around £50.
What you get: the Pak comes in a lockable, well padded aluminium case with cut-outs for the various bits and bobs. Inside there’s Samson’s C01U condenser microphone, a 10-foot shielded USB cable, a desktop mic stand, a spider shock mount and a mic stand clip with an unscrewable European mic stand adaptor (the Samson stand is a US fitting). You also get a copy of the basic but OK Cakewalk Sonar LE software (PC only), although if you’re on a Mac you’ll use Garageband anyway.
What you don’t get: Samson’s SoftPre software, which provides a low frequency cut, preamp gain and phase switching. It’s well worth having and you can get it for nowt from the Samson website.
So is it any cop? Garageband recognised it immediately, and while I thought there was a bit of delay while monitoring the input it turned out to be Garageband running out of puff. Muting a few tracks and changing Garageband’s buffer size reduced but didn’t eliminate the problem, so if you’re doing vocals and monitoring them at the same time there is a slight but noticeable delay. As the Samson’s a USB mic there’s no way round this - you can’t hook it up to something else for real-time monitoring. If you’re singing, the best bet is probably to strip Garageband right down to minimise this delay or just switch off mic monitoring altogether.
If you’ve used a condenser mic before you’ll know what to expect. For vocals or speech, close-miking gives a wonderfully warm and deep sound, which in my case made me feel like Barry White. Like all such mics the sound changes according to where you put the microphone, so it’s worth experimenting: up close acoustic guitars are way too boomy for my taste, although the low frequency cut in the software preamp can get rid of unwanted rumble. It’s classic microphone proximity effect: the closer you are, the more bassy things get.
It’s very sensitive, so you will need a noise gate - Garageband has one in software - to get rid of unwanted noise. In my case it picked up planes going past, dogs barking in the street… which is actually a pretty good thing for podcasters, because it means you can stick the mic in the middle of a table and record group discussions. If like me you tend to tap your foot and generally fiddle around when the microphone is live, you’ll really, really appreciate the shock mount, which stops that stuff reaching the mic.
Signal noise doesn’t seem to be a problem. The Samson has an internal preamp, and the trick seems to be to use the SoftPre software to whack the gain up and then keep the volume low in your recording software. Do it the other way round (low gain in SoftPre and high gain in Garageband) and the results will be hissier than a big box o’snakes.
I paid my own cash money for this, and I’m pleased I did: it’s exactly what I want from a mic without costing too much money. But if you fancy one, shop around - the price differences out there are dramatic.
You’ll find more info, tech specs etc on Samson’s website.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ve woken up inside a bad dystopian novel
People who even think about going for a drink face being banned from their town centre for up to two days under wideranging new police powers. Potential trouble-makers can be asked to move on and stay away – even if they have not touched a drop of alcohol.
Well-behaved people who refuse to stop drinking can also be targeted.
…
The banning orders – called ‘directions to leave’ – can last for 48 hours and any breach can be punished with a fine of up to £2,500.
Fingerprints and DNA samples will be taken.
…
Police can act against someone for doing nothing more illegal than looking like they might cause alcoholrelated disorder, whether they have started drinking or not.
[Via Fark]
Shop “to open” shocker
Glasgow’s Apple Store opens on Saturday morning. T-shirts, competitions, people with too much time on their hands blogging to say “I’m queuing outside the Apple Store!”, neds getting free MacBook Pros from said people with too much time on their hands… you know the drill.
Wii Fit sounds like a hoot
The next Wii Sports (ie. a top laugh for pissed people)? It certainly sounds like it.
MTV’s song shop: from frying pan to fire
MTV’s Urge download shop is moving from Microsoft’s DRM-hobbled, won’t work on iPods technology to, er, Real Networks’ DRM-hobbled, won’t work on iPods technology.
The Inquirer makes an excellent point:
The Urge store - supposed to be the Volish play to head off iTunes - was announced, to great fanfare, at CES last year, with Microsoft rolling out Justin Timberlake to say how awesome the new store was going to be. [Then] Microsoft screwed most of its partners - launching its Zune player and its own-brand Zune music store, and ditching Plays For Sure compatibility - and Urge instantly went from Microsoft’s flagship platform to an also-ran. And being an also-ran to an also-ran to iTunes is not a good position to be in.
So DRM isn’t just bad for punters, but bad for providers too. Although it’s still bad for punters.
the company would stay on Windows Media Player 11 for a while and that discussions about phasing out the service were ongoing. Customers who bought music from the store will face a fun time - although Microsoft could transition their accounts to the Zune store, the DRM is incompatible and so will break their portable players.
As if you needed another reason to avoid DRM’d music your favourite music service deciding to hop camps seems to be one.
R.E.M. have a live DVD coming out
Woo-hoo! It comes out on the 16th October, making it a particularly fine choice of birthday present for an ageing hack whose 35th birthday is just a few weeks afterwards. Ahem.
There’s a trailer here.
Tesco home phone is crap
With telecoms, it seems, you get what you pay for. Since moving to Tesco’s “cheaper than BT!” home phone service the other week, I’ve lost caller ID, my phone has developed a fault that means the ringer goes constantly if someone hangs up before you get the chance to answer, and my broadband has gone to hell (I can barely access websites, let alone any multimedia). Oh, and you cannot get through to the support line and they don’t return your messages.
Still, it’s cheap!