Happy new year!
A quick mention of our holiday cruise (blog and pictures start here),
an e-mail from Steve Filmer regarding a couple of articles on NPR;
this one on the loudness wars, inluding this great pdf,
and this on one the average level of TV commercials,
a quick mention of James Cameron’s epic, Avatar,
and the final segment (I guess?) on vocal recording, including hung mics and signal structure. I know I’ve covered signal structure in the past, but am having issues finding which episode that was in. If anyone knows off the top of their head, drop me an e-mail, would ya, please? Cheers!

sl122.mp3 [ 19:23 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In episode 120, some thanks to those people who have made donations via the button on the front page of audio2u.com,
a couple of links to look at:
JR sent in this link to a laser microphone,
and somebody (apologies for not taking note of who sent this in) advised me of the forthcoming Waves Vocal Rider plugin.
Then, it’s on to a cotinuation of the discussion of vocal recording and processing methodoligies.

sl120.mp3 [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This week, Jim Addie hits us with “War and Peace – part 2″ on the way dynamic volume adjustments are made on playback in home theatre receivers,
and Ernie asked if I could put together some thoughts on recording and processing the voice, so consider this the first part of a 2 or 3 part series on that.
Jim also provided a link to the Orban processor used for real time loudness adjustment for TV broadcast.

sl119.mp3 [ 31:29 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hold on to your hats, people…
In episode 92, a listener (who wishes to remain anonymous) commented on the possibility of hearing damage inflicted by driving with the windows down, and the possibility of same being caused from riding your pushbike in busy traffic. The earplugs he’s using while riding are these.
Of course, my regular listeners know that I love my Sennheiser CX300′s… damn, I oughtta be on commission!
And that led to a discussion of noise-isolating vs noise-cancelling earbuds and headphones.
All of which led me to speculate on telephone handsets and whether or not they do us more harm than good.

Then, Jim Wesihorn checked in with news of a new pdf from the good folks at Izotope (makers of the VST/DirectX Ozone mastering plugin).
Seems they’ve turned out a whopping great 75 page document on audio restoration.
Going to have to check that out some time soon!
Thanks Jim!

Then, Steve Mayfield sent me a link about a dummy head binaural mic for your video camera!
Crazy looking thing.
One would hope it works well given the price tag!

Another long time listener who wishes to remain anonymous wrote to assure me that no, there is no distorion in my podcasts!
Phew! What a relief!
I didn’t think there was, mind you.

He also went on to provide some interesting real-world feedback on sample rate conversion.

Then, Matt sent me this screen shot of the Pro Tools manual where apparently, even Digidesign doesn’t know the difference between “bit rate” and “bit resolution”.
Why do I feel like I’m fighting an up hill battle here?

Then, Luke asked about vocal training.
I suggested googling some of these words:
‘voice’, ‘vocal’, ‘coach’, ‘training’, ‘tuition’, ‘diction’, ‘eloqution’, plus your local area
or check your local phone book.

Next, E. Bernhard Warg sent me an mp3 of a shoot out between a Coles 4104 ribbon lip mic and a standard lav mic, with regard to ambient noise suppression.

Then, Jim Addie sent in some great information on how the Red Book standard was established.

And finally, there were some listener comments on audio2u about my disaster last week.

sl092.mp3 [ 33:53 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This week, a few listener e-mails to answer.
Curtis from the “Dingy Room in a Nowhere Town” podcast asked about mouth clicks and how to deal with them.

Mark Hobold from the “JapanesePod101” podcast is very happy with the Zoom H2. Some of his recordings made with the H2 can be heard here.

And Vassya asked about which frequency range should be used for what instrument? He also included a link to this chart which shows the range of frequencies covered by which instruments.

sl079.mp3 [ 16:19 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This week, I received an e-mail from Slau regarding an article he wrote for SoundOnSound magazine back in ’95 regarding digital and analogue levels. It’s definitely worth reading, and you can do so here.

I also had a query from Bruce McKinnon at the Dogbox podcast about convolution reverbs, and how they work.

Plus, the second instalment in the “making a promo for your podcast” series.
This week, the voice over.
Both directing someone else, and doing it yourself.

sl072.mp3 [ 18:13 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download