TUBE THROUGH THE TUBES

You’re a pop culture pig and catching hot tv shows is no small part of your electronic media diet. For those who may not have found it already, there’s a great way to get your tv fix that’s free and easy with fewer spots.
Ok, so you’ve got ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX websites offering their prime shows in full with minimal commercials. Fancast, AOL, Veoh and others also offer a great variety of full shows and even some download opportunities. They’re all free and the quality is good enough to pull drops and clips. Still, you have to jump across multiple sites to get variety and deeper search ability. Enter Hulu. Hulu takes recent episodes of shows like The Office, SNL, 30 Rock and breaks them down into categories like “Most Popular” and “Recently Added”. There are movies too. Some garbage yes but also some cooler stuff like St. Elmo’s Fire and Requiem for a Dream.
Hulu highlights topical events like red carpet galas and presidential inaugurations in a category called “Spotlight” and in some cases the events are covered live.. For added browsing speed and efficiency, each vid clip has a mouse over Tivo-esque description of the show which helps avoid the “click…buffering…oh jeez! Wrong clip!” scenario. Hulu is a joint venture between Fox and NBC but check it, you can watch the Daily Show, The Colbert Report and other gems from other content providers. So, get your Hulu on, it’s like having a tivo you can take with you minus the cool beep-boop sounds.

THE JOY OF HIJACKING

I’m not going to name any names here, but someone at The Bag is a fan of Bob Ross’ The Joy of Painting series that used to run occasionally on PBS. One of his more memorable sayings was “There are no mistakes, just happy little accidents”. With a hairdo like this, how can you not agree?

But, what does that mean to us audio freaks? ALWAYS BE RECORDING! ALWAYS.
One of the best ways to capture moments of accidental sonic genius is to get in the habit of running software that can record audio that is streaming from any and all audio applications you use. We use an app called Audio Hijack, so we often refer to this as Hijacking audio.

Sure, you could simply hit record on your DAW. But what about that stuttering effect that happens when you use the scrub tool on that new buggy beta version of that audio app that you just acquired from some bit torrent site? Or how about that time you crashed your DAW by hitting some mysterious combination of keys and the audio driver wigged out and started outputting that crazy cool modulating static burst from hell.

See, that’s what Sensei Bob Ross was talking about. You could have grabbed that hijacked audio file, edited that happy accident, slapped some EQ on it, layer a 909 kick drum under it, put a tape stop effect on it. Bam. Done. Radio Gold. You just made “Crashed Audio Driver Static Blasters!” Call your mom, she'll be so proud.

Now, go demo one of the following apps, and start trying to crash your system.

WIRETAP (OSX)

TOTAL RECORDER (XP)

ZEN MONITORING

Much like a bad case of X-box thumb, everybody gets ear fatigue now and then. When you’re slammin’ away in the studio all day, it’s easy to lose perspective. This especially happens with the voice track. If you're burnt, you may think the voice is poking through just fine when the reality is, certain syllables are disappearing or the average listener has to strain to hear the vo clearly through the music and fx.

The solution is simple. When you're buried in a project and haven't had a break, put it aside and come back for the final mix later when your ears are fresh. Better yet, work at low volume levels and avoid fatigue. Low levels can be a big help in determining the balance of your mix. Remember though that with quiet listening, things like a voice or a snare drum will be more audible than a bass guitar. You do need more volume to hear low end accurately so, turn it up when you need to reference the boom factor. There may be a brief learning curve so try it first with music that you know well. Listen at different levels and pay close attention to each instrument.

HIGH PASS FILTERS – NOT JUST FOR BREAKFAST ANYMORE

Sometimes, cleaning up the bottom end on your production can add punch. Adding a high pass filter (which actually cuts low frequencies) can make more room for music and sound design tracks that are providing impact. Applying cut below 75hz on a vo track will take care of rumble that eats up energy in a mix but won’t harm the fullness of the vo which usually exists around 120hz.

In mastering, cut at 30-40hz to clean up sub frequencies that hog room in your mix yet are not audible. For AM radio, you may need to cut more low end since the frequency range on AM is narrower than FM. Runaway low end can pin the meters while the listeners aren’t hearing anything. This sometimes happens when an FM producer is asked to contribute to an AM station for the first time.

If you have good analog meters in your studio, you’ll notice how excess bass kicks the meters into the red and a high pass filter pulls them back. Of course, if you use Brown Bag, you never have to worry about that stuff since we scrub all our music and sound squeaky clean before upload.

A caveat – if you use Waves eq, a low end roll off can result in an increase in output level from the plug. Compensate with output fader of the eq

THE FIVE OUNCE GORILLA

Ok, you have to snag some field audio and listener reactions from your local mall and you don't have a pro ENG rig, what do you do? Grab your iPod and get yourself a Belkin TuneTalk™ Stereo omnidirectional microphone for your iPod nano (2nd gen) or iPod Video (5th gen). Look for the best online deal, $54.00 as of this blog entry. The key to not getting asked to leave the premises of the place you are recording is to wear your earbuds and act as if you are just rocking out to your iPod like every other fashionista. Make sure you set the audio quality parameter to 44.1 and experiment with auto-gain feature for best results. On occasion you might run into the issue of the mic picking up and recording the internal hard drive spin and sputter of the iPod. We don't have an answer for this yet. It might have to do with disc fragmentation if your iPod is already full of tunes and what not. Make sure your battery is fully charged, this type of recording will suck juice like a frat boy. The iPod mic is a great way to go low tech, low dough guerilla and still get good audio.

Here's some links if you want to sniff around...

Belkin:

Google:


TuneTalk™ and iPod® are registered trademarks of Belkin and Apple