This week, George (at the Eclectic Mix and One Minute How-To podcasts) wrote and asked about workflow, and whether certain audio processing tasks should be conducted in a particular order, according to their “destructiveness”.

sl068.mp3 [ 12:56 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In ep 84, Shelton answers a whole bunch of listener e-mail.
Also, Bruce’s eagerly anticipated EBay purchase.

Mentioned links:
Harbour Digital Design
Digital Photography Review

David Elfering’s flash pics:

Bounce 1

Bounce 2

Bounce 3

Bounce 4

Bounce 5

Bounce 6

Bounce 7

Bounce 8

Diffuser 1

Diffuser 2

Natural

si084.mp3 [ 48:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In ep 101,

Q+A 0:28
This week, a quick follow up on btp100.
I received some really nice e-mails and comments (on the blog)… thanks one and all.
Winners in the btp100 prize giveaway will be announced next week.

KBSCOTW 5:06
F11 – convert sample type
(don’t confuse with adjust sample rate)

WITE 10:27
effects/amplitude/stereo field rotate
(similar to “centre channel pan” of the stereo expander
and
effects/amplitude/stereo field rotate (process)

INTERFACE 17:48
Track properties area
4 views – inputs,fx,sends,eq

BTW, if you click on those images, you’ll (hopefully) get this really funky darkening of your screen, and the images will load in a slidehow over the top of the website.
If it works, you can use your left and right arrow keys to navigate back and forth through the slideshow, and you can use the ‘x’ key to close the slideshow.
Pretty neat, huh?

btp101.mp3 [ 29:18 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Just a reminder… these are the prizes for episode 100 of BTP.

Peter Baker at Beatbox Music

has been kind enough to donate a copy of the Podcasting Production Toolkit CD.

And to keep the CD theme going, I have 3 more copies of the Adobe Audition 2.0 Essential Training Guide from Lynda.com to give away as 2nd, 3rd and 4th prizes.

OK, so what do you have to do to win one of these great prizes?

A little bit of investigative work is required from you. You have to come up with 2 answers.

Number 1.
In which episode of BTP did I mention doing “CSI-type forensic audio restoration”? (Hint: It was after episode 85)

Number 2.
In episode 100, how many component files were included in Rem’s promo session? (Hint: You’ve got to look at the ‘open session’ dialogue box)

The first person to send both correct answers via e-mail will win the Podcasting Production Toolkit CD from Beatbox Music,
and the next 3 correct respondants will pick up a copy of the Audition 2.0 Essential Training Guide from Lynda.com.

Go forth and slueth!

OK, it turns out that even though I THOUGHT putting the download links into the blog post would be a better idea than putting the video files into the feed, WordPress in all its wisdom decided to interpret the links and include them as enclosures in the feed anyway!

Oh, ye Gods!

If you don’t understand all that, don’t worry about it. It’s not that important.

But, what I have down though, is move the download links to a static page, and include a link to THAT page in the btp100 shownotes/blog post.

Of course, if you’ve already got the file, then you could care less.

If you’re still waiting to download it, it’s just one extra mouse click.

But at least now, the files SHOULDN’T (fingers crossed) be in the RSS feed.

As Phil said in his e-mail to me at 3am this morning, “Oops.”

Seems all you BTP fans put a bit of a strain on the servers!

I’ve been in touch with my hosting providers, and it seems it’s all ok now that the peak load has been and gone…. just have to hope there isn’t another peak hit overnight tonight.
May I suggest that if you’re still waiting to get btp100, grab the smaller mpeg4 version, or better still, grab the torrent file and get the mpeg2 version that way.

And in case you’re wondering, I actually think the mpeg2 version is the better one to look at. There’s less compression artefacts mucking up the on-screen text.

I’ve had Phil Massyn (my webmaster “go-to” guy) install a WordPress plugin called Lightbox.

This is one really sweet plugin, and it functions as a live slideshow for a series of posted images.

As an example, click on one of these thumbnails.
The screen will go almost black, and the image will load in full size over the top of the page.
You will then be able to use your right arrow or the “n” key to go to the next image, and the left arrow or the “p” key to go to the previous image.
And the “x” key will close the lightbox. As will clicking on the “close” button, obviously.

Now, personally, I love this! It just looks so good.

However, here on my machine, it doesn’t appear to be working on IE, but it DOES work on Firefox. I’d be keen to hear other user’s experiences with it. If you’re running IE and it works as I’ve described, let me know. Actually, you could also let me know if it DOESN’T work, too.

At last!
Just when you thought it was never gonna get here… the big one ton is here!

*** EDIT ***

To download the movie, go to
“BTP100 downloads“.

*** END EDIT ***

So, what’s in store for episode 100?
A promo remix in real time, for Rem Lavictoire.

Yeah yeah yeah, but what about the damned prizes, man? That’s all we’re here for!

Oh yeah, right…. ok.

Well, Peter Baker at Beatbox Music

has been kind enough to donate a copy of the Podcasting Production Toolkit CD.
This is a CD of royalty free music AND sound effects that you can use for polishing up your podcast!

While I will confess to not having heard the CD yet, I have dealt with Peter professionally for over 20 years, and he has always represented some of the finest music production companies around… and I have no reason to suspect that this won’t be an AWESOME collection of sounds to have at your disposal.

And to keep the CD theme going, I have 3 more copies of the Adobe Audition 2.0 Essential Training Guide from Lynda.com to give away as 2nd, 3rd and 4th prizes.

OK, so what do you have to do to win one of these great prizes?

Well, this is where you’re gonna hate me. I’m not going to tell you… just yet.
In order to make this fair, I’m going to hold off posting the details of the competition for 72 hours.
The reason for that is, it will give those on slower internet connections a chance to be involved too.
So, at around midday GMT on Wednesday (25th July 2007), I’ll post the details right here.

Nasty, aren’t I?

In the meantime, enjoy the video!

I just got word from Phil Massyn, who has had the opportunity this afternoon to watch btp100.

In his words:

By the way – your video is AWESOME!
Man! I’ve learnt more in this one ep than the entire series!!

Well, looks like my work here is done.

This week, Bruce and Shelton discuss Bruce’s photos of Tacking Point lighthouse from last weekend’s trip to the Gold Coast.

Shelton then goes on to talk about taking photos of people and maintaining a sense of spontaneity.

Also, as discussed, here’s some of Bruce’s photos from the wedding last weekend:

si083.mp3 [ 44:16 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In the last couple of days, I’ve received 2 more e-mails from listeners with examples of their panning photos.

Boy, this was a topic with legs!

Kayne Simons wrote:

Hey guys,
Thanks so much for the Gorilla pod, I loved it so much i went straight out and bought the SLR Zoom version. I just thought i’d share a tip after listening to the panning podcast. I’ve included one of my pictures i took of a friends new car. I find that whilst looking through the viewfinder with my right eye and keeping my left eye open to track the subject it becomes a lot easier to follow the pan when the shutter opens. Anyway thanks for the podcasts guys, Easily the best on the net…
Cheers
Kayne

Nice tip! Thanks Kayne.

And here’s Kayne’s shot:

And then I received an e-mail from Ron Coupland, who wrote:

Bruce and Shelton,
I listen regularly and although I’m not an SLR owner, I’ve learned quite a bit from Shutters Inc. I took this shot of my daughter on the backyard swing with my Canon A630 after hearing the podcast about panning. Usually, I listen to the show before going to sleep at night. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve jumped out of bed and pulled out my camera or opened up Photoshop. This was especially true right after I bought my camera back in September. Although I’d taken more than 16 thousand pictures with the Kodak DC220 Plus that I owned since the late 90′s, I knew nothing about how more sophisticated cameras worked. Little by little, Shutters Inc. has taught me how to use my new Canon.
For the record, I love my A630. It is easy to use and seems to have a good deal of capability for a compact. I would love to know how it is regarded in the industry.
Thanks!
Ron Coupland

Well Ron, I can’t comment on how the Canon is regarded within the industry, but I’m sure Shelton will have something to say about it.

Here’s Ron’s panning shot:

File Name IMG_5171.JPG Camera Model Name Canon PowerShot A630 Shooting Date/Time 7/20/2007 3:16:26 PM Shooting Mode Manual My Colors Mode Vivid Tv (Shutter Speed) 1/30 Av (Aperture Value) 8.0 Light Metering Spot ISO Speed 100 Lens 7.3 – 29.2 mm Focal Length 29.2 mm Digital Zoom None Image Size 3264×2448 Image Quality Superfine Flash Off White Balance Auto AF Mode Single AF Parameters Contrast Normal Sharpness Normal Saturation Normal Color Space sRGB File Size 2972 KB Drive Mode Single-frame shooting

Nice work, guys!

OK, at the risk of turning this whole exercise into an epic to rival “War and Peace”, I have (with great assistance from Andrew “Ozz” Clarke… thanks mate!) managed to encode btp100 into an mpeg4 file at close to 500MB.

Still huge, I know, but quite an improvement on 838MB, I’m sure you’d agree.

Now, because of my not-so-ballistic upload speeds, I will commence uploading this file now, but it will probably take all night before it reaches the server.
Which means, I’ll put a link to it on audio2u.com tomorrow morning when I wake up.

This week’s episode was inspired by a comment on the Zoom Handy H2 portable recorder blog post.
Joseph (from English Mojo) asked about what to look for, and what to avoid, in a field recorder.
After running through a checklist, I moved on to a discussion of how to calculate data storage requirements based on given sampling rates, bit resolutions and channels.
Here are some of my notes:

WAV
1hr @ 44k 16 bit stereo = 10MB/min or 605MB/hr
1hr @ 44k 32 bit stereo = 20MB/min or 1210MB/hr
1hr @ 48k 16 bit stereo = 10.9MB/min or 659MB/hr
1hr @ 48k 32 bit stereo = 21.9MB/min or 1318MB/hr
1hr @ 44k 16 bit mono = 5MB/min or 302MB/hr
1hr @ 32k 16 bit mono = 3.6MB/min or 219MB/hr
1hr @ 22k 16 bit mono = 2.5MB/min or 151MB/hr

MP3 (CBR 320)
1hr @ 44k 16 bit stereo = 2.29MB/min or 137.3MB/hr

sl067.mp3 [ 33:36 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Ozz commented on my last post about the file size being indicitive of an mpeg2 encoding.

And he was right!

I DID say I was new to all this video stuff!

So, I’ve spent the afternoon trying to find an encoder that will crank out an mpeg4 file instead, but I really don’t know much about this stuff. I’m learning as I go.
So, what I’ll do tonight is release the link (and the torrent file) for the mpeg2 version.
Those who can’t wait (and don’t mind the huge download) can go straight ahead and download it.

For those who want to wait, I’ll keep hunting for a way to encode an mpeg4 version, which hopefully, will result in a smaller file size.
If, or when, I succeed in producing a smaller version of the video file, I’ll upload that, too.

Sorry for the lack of experience with this stuff, people. I’m an AUDIO enigneer, ok? Gimme a break.

Cheers.

Hi all,
As promised, btp100 will be a video podcast… well, techincally, not really a “podcast”.
I’ve recorded it, and I’ve edited it, and I’ve rendered it.

And quite frankly people… I’m scared!

This is going to be one huge mother of a download!
Are you ready for this?
It’s 838 MB!

I kid you not.

And that’s why I say that technically, this won’t be a “podcast” because I’m NOT going to put an 838MB item into an RSS feed. That would just not be cool at all. In fact, I’m sure a whole bunch of people would be pretty upset if I DID put it in the feed.

So, how do you get it?

2 ways.

It will be available as a manual download from audio2u (as you’d expect).

And, I’m going to seed it as a bit torrent file. The torrent file will be available in the show notes, but probably NOT tomorrow night.

It will seed from my machine, and Phil Massyn has offered to seed it from his machine as well. So, that’s at least 2 seeds. Only problem is, my cable ISP only allows me to UPLOAD at 30KB/sec! Woohoo! Hold me down, I can’t stand the excitement!

So, if anyone else would be prepared to seed the file as well (this requires having your machine switched on and open to the internet), please drop me an e-mail ASAP and I’ll get you to download the file before the rest of the planet has access to it.

Once I’ve got about 5 people seeding the file, I’ll then make the torrent file available for download for everyone else.
I hope that all makes sense!