RADIO AND RAILROADS

In the news recently was a rumor that Greenstone Media, a feminist radio network, is going to shut down. One of it's backers is none other than Gloria Steinem. Whether it survives or not isn't important to this post. What's more important is it's beginning which was only about a year ago. When interviewed about the development of Greenstone's programming by women, for women she was asked, "Why radio"? Her reply indicated that she thought radio was the most democratic of all media. We'll risk putting words in her mouth to explain further.

Radio is just about everywhere. The average household has more radios than televisions. Receivers are cheap. Until HD came along, you could get a hand held radio for next to nothing. All you needed was a nine volt battery to stay connected to world news, a local baseball game or the music that accompanied some of the great moments in your life. The internet doesn't come close to being as democratic as radio. So, what is all this web chatter about the grim future of towers and transmitters?

Theater survived talking pictures and radio survived television. AM radio survived FM. All of these have been declared to be on life support by someone with air time, print inches or cyberspace to fill. That task is now almost exclusively the domain of the internet. The web has a mechanism to deliver negativity quickly and easily. Just paste "FAIL" next to anything and surfers flock to it like Romans to a slaughter at the coliseum. But what about success? Is there any way to seek out and denote innovation or evolution? Maybe, but it certainly isn't as popular or as visible as "FAIL".

Isn't radio old technology? Yes, but so is the railroad, another business many tried to declare dead a long time ago. In the end, the railroad could do certain things better than any new technology so although, it got smaller, it survived.

On the flipside, criticism is good. Everybody needs to be checked into the boards now and again to be reminded to keep their head up. Maybe that's where radio is right now. It might have a bloody nose from getting it's face smacked into the glass but it will be back. A little smarter for the lesson as well. (This edition of Analogy Theater brought to you by Spishak Cola).

Creative and scrappy radio people have made a lot of amazing things happen for a long time. It's doubtful they'll roll over. Greenstone Media was one example. The company saw a need and took a risk on something that hadn't really been done before. Even if they don't make it, it was the right thing to do. Innovation is messy and involves much more failure than success.

Fortunately, we live in a time where anything is possible. One indicator of that would be that Jesus Christ has his own radio show. Surely, he could have chosen any outlet and he chose radio. Maybe he too felt it was the most democratic medium.

FRESH SNAPPER

We at the BAG have become fans of a cool audio app called Snapper. It's a Mac only goodie, sorry PC. The folks at AudioEase have really presented a great productivity tool. You can audition sound files from the finder, make selections from the waveform and drag them out as "snippets", convert and export to AIFF, WAV, BWF, mp3 and mp4a. What is really slick, you can spot into Pro Tools to cursor position or the audio bin.
The sweetness of this app is evident as soon as you start using it. If you rely on CDs as your source for content, get ready to save yourself a boat load of time in auditioning, transferring files, re-auditioning.... you get the picture. Just select what you want from the waveform and drag it to your session. Presto, it's like magic.
Snapper supports multi-channel formats and sampling rates from 1kHz to 384kHz.
You can also convert to mp3 and email the file via a one click button. Snapper really is a productivity utility with rich features. AudioEase has a 100 day fully functional demo. Check it out, it is a great partner when using your Brown Bag Production Library.
Link: http://www.audioease.com/Pages/Snapper/SnapperMain.html

THE LIFE OF LES PAUL

Waukesha Wisconsin was home for Les Paul but it would seem he didn't spend much time there once he learned to play guitar. He played on air as a live musician in St. Louis and Chicago radio in the 1930s even though he was born in 1915. He was a high school drop out.

He gets credit for the solid body electric guitar (1939). He developed multi track recording and many audio effects like phasing and delay. The details can be argued but there is little doubt that he was a pioneer in creating a whole new world of recorded music. In 1950, Les hosted his own radio show on NBC. While he kept inventing, he never stopped playing the guitar. He was a relentless performer and won 2 Grammy awards at age 90.

There are other honors of course. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, National Inventors Hall of Fame, and the Grammy Hall of Fame are all on the list. He was a creative tornado that even a severe car accident in 1948 could not stop. Paul had only limited use of his right arm after that and had doctors set it in such a way that he could still hold his guitar.

You can get more details on Wikipedia and many other sites. We just wanted to take a moment to applaud his talent and passion.

To seem him in action demonstrating the Les Paul-verizer watch this.

Les Paul died at age 94 on August 13, 2009.

MAGIC COMPRESSION

The knobs may look old but, this pic is of a brand new LA610 MKII micpre/channel strip from UAD. Specifically, you're seeing the compression section. How can this be? Where are the threshold, ratio, attack and release settings? Not needed. This unit has magical internal workings that only require you to turn the beefy peak reduction knob to taste. We use this tube driven beauty and can't get over the smoothness and texture. What it does for a microphone is impossible to find in a plug in.

THE PRICE OF LOUDNESS

Is louder better? That debate is raging all over the audio world. While the debate continues, there is no question that overall, recorded music has been getting louder over the past 20 or 30 years.

On vinyl, levels had to be kept lower since louder meant wider grooves and less audio per album. Smart, resourceful people back in those ancient times used the volume knob on their stereo to achieve a desired listening level. Those people had to be resourceful since they spent most of their time running from flesh eating dinosaurs.

Rumor has it that audio playback and listening devices today still have these volume knobs. Why the loudness competition in recording and mastering studios then?

Part of it is driven by artists and part by engineers. Another part is driven by information that says if a person hears the exact same song at different levels, he'll always say the louder version sounds better. We've never seen that study but, that info gets thrown around a lot. Human ears tend to hear more highs and lows as volume increases so, it's certainly not a wild concept. Boomy bass and crisp high end seem to sound good to most folks.

The debate rages on with no end in site. Levels will probably get louder as long as someone is making gear that will accommodate. What does that mean? Who knows but, as audio people we should at least understand the basic principle that more loudness means your audio will be affected in other ways. Trying to get the loudness and sound you hear on high budget recordings in your (project) studio comes at a price.

Mastering studios have mondo expensive and sophisticated gear which most radio or project studio producers will never see or be able to afford. The big guys are in a world of their own and the rest are forced to do what they can with whatever plug ins they can afford or crack.

A very popular loudness tool for a long time has been the Waves L2 limiter. Great plug right? Yes, but the harder you push it, the more it goes all Freddy Kruger on your audio. Limiters limit, it's that simple. More limiting means a ceiling that your audio can't get through. Your audio will sound crunchy and you may notice a loss in top end.

Adding loudness with eq and compression have their effects as well. When you boost eq you add distortion in upper harmonic frequencies. Some say a little of that is good. Hard to know where the line is since too much can smear the sound. Gotta use your ears.

With compression, more equals less dynamic range. Also, there's the pumping. A little might be good but too much could drive listeners nuts.

In the midst of the loudness war are many produers who feel that boosting loudness is simply unnecessary and frivolous trickery. They also believe it's counter to good audio. They would prefer that listeners kick it old school and adjust the volume control to determine level while the audio source remains truer to its origins. It makes for great discussion over a few microbrews. The way it's going, it may join politics and religion in the list of topics most likely to start a fight.

G-G-GARTH RICHARDSON

On the far right is the producer of bands like Atreyu, Chevelle, Rage Against the Machine and MANY more. One of his buds in the biz happens to be our mixer Joe Primeau (left). Both of these guys have seen the inside of nearly every decent studio from LA to Toronto.

Garth stopped by the Bag studios to borrow a stapler and say hi to Joe. They're both Canadian so, hockey was discussed even though it's frakkin' July.

Garth told many wild stories none of which can be repeated. Those are the best kind. Party on Garth.

WOODSTOCK 40 YEARS LATER

It's considered by many to be the biggest and most powerful event in music history. The impact was so huge that now, 40 years later, Woodstock is being celebrated so widely that those who weren't born yet when Yasgur's farm was rocked by Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Ritchie Havens and the rest want in on the legacy.

With that in mind, the Bag crew has been working on production pieces that will flash you back to the summer of love. They'll begin showing up on all Brown Bag services tomorrow.

FRIENDED THIS GUY YET? (click on pic)

PRO TOOLS WORK FLOW TIP

Ever had to go back to a project and update it? How many times were files missing or not labeled properly? Getting into better work flow habits can lessen your headaches and make your life easier.

The first habit to get into is to name your audio files! You may be familiar with what’s what while you’re working on the project, but one month down the road you will have no idea what audio_01, audio_02 is. It’s also a good idea to consolidate your files before moving on from a project. You can do so by highlighting each track in the timeline, making sure that the area highlighted starts at zero and continues until all the audio in the track ends. Then under the edit menu select “Consolidate Regions” (or use the shortcut option>shift>3) You will have then created one continuous file starting at zero. Once you have done this to all of the final audio go to the regions bin on the right side of the edit window and in the drop down menu click on “Select”, “Unused” Then choose “Clear”. The next window that appears will ask you if you want to “remove” or “delete” the files. Choose remove. Now that you have just the final audio in the session go under the File Menu and select “Save Copy In..” and check the box “All Audio Files” in the “Items to Copy” dialog that appears. This will create a new folder with just the final audio along with the session file. Leaving your original session untouched. You can either trash the original files or move them off to another drive. One last thing I like to do is open the new session I created and make sure it doesn’t ask for any missing audio and everything plays fine. Doing this will help remove the clutter from your drives as well as insuring that if the project file ever gets corrupted or you have to use the files in an editor other than Pro Tools you can simple drag the wav files into another DAW and have them all line up in perfect sync!

QUICK TIP

Tube mics are more common these days. Probably because some are made in China and you can pick one up for around $300. The sound is warm and the electronics are even warmer.

To help dissipate heat away from the capsule and avoid damage, mount the mic upside down as seen in the pic.

SECRET SAUCE

Some of the sound you hear on Brown Bag libraries comes from this strange and wonderful piece of analog machinery. Ok, it's not strange, it's a classic Studer A810. It weighs more than a Fiat but, when it comes to getting certain sounds, there is no substitute. It resides in a remote, semi-secret, temperature controlled location for completely fabricated security reasons.

Yes, tape is obsolete at radio stations and almost everywhere else,however, it still has a significant place in the recording biz. We look at it as a plug in. Whatever goes through it will absorb it's characteristics. There are parameters to tweak as well.

This baby does 30 i.p.s and has lots of extras. The speaker is perfect for checking your audio in mono and summed stereo. The VUs are great for mastering. Better than digital for sure. It's biased for 499 and calibrated at +6 so you can drive it hard.

We don't exactly fire it up everyday but, when we need it, nothing else will do. Software developers have been hammering away at tape emulation for years and have yet to nail the uniqueness of this magnificent beast.

Fun Fact: that sticker with the green dot in the upper right was placed there in 1999 by an engineer to signify Y2K compliance. That's way too cool for us to ever remove it.

WHERE'S THE BEEF?

Your tweaking some sounds for your next master piece, yet they are sounding a bit thin.

How do you remedy this? Do you squash them with even more compression? You could add more low end but that may muddy up your sound. So, how do you add that little extra juice, aka, "The Beef".

There are a wide variety of tools that add, subtract, raise, lower, squash, squish, shine and mangle your sound. That extra oomph can be achieved by using a distortion effect. Yes, distortion. There are countless varieties of distortion, from smooth to utter mayhem. We are talking about the subtle use of this magical phenomena in audio and sound. Distortion can add "The Beef" tout de suite (that's French for immediately). Dial up an overdrive or distortion effect and start tweaking, you will quickly hear your sound transforming. You are looking for the sweet spot of saturation to add robustness to your sound. Experimentation is always the best method. Try positioning the effect in different placements within your inserts or effects chain. Remember, the key word here is subtle for you may only need to tweak the parameters ever so slightly depending on your effect of choice.

SAME AS IT EVER WAS

Radio formats have become more standardized. Music research and economics have made that inevitable. The wild days of free form radio only existed because there was very little to lose. No pot of gold to protect. As always, information changes things. So that explains music but, what about imaging? There is still very little in the way of research on it and it isn't tied so directly to economics. Why then does so much imaging project a similar vibe?

This is another topic with no definitive answer. Imitating success to advance your career is certainly part of the equation but, we'd like to suggest something less obvious.

People are often defined by limitations. If you want to play football and you're 130lbs, you don't play on the line. You learn to run fast and catch passes or kick field goals. Bending that concept a bit, radio imaging forces a variety of limitations that deny individuality. Similar deadlines (and other time crunch factors), similar formats, similar tools, similar objectives, and similar job structure can easily add up to a similar final product.

Another factor that can lead to sameness is the web. The sharing of acid loops, drops, sfx and plug in settings doesn't promote individuality. It leads to McImaging. This is important because imaging, like many other aspects of radio, needs some fresh ingredients. Microwaving another McPromo ain't makin' it.

Try to find some time now and then to monkey with your plugs and make your own presets. Wipe your brain clean of what others are doing and consider what you think is cool. Develop a thumbprint. A blues guitarist doesn't have to sing or say his name for listeners to know who it is. They know from his style. Most players are using the same scales, instrumentation and subject matter so, style is everything. It's not such a stretch to apply that to imaging. You may be using the same voice, same imaging package and same plug ins as another station in your format but if you bring your own style to the party all that means squat. You'll really be in the creative game and isn't that why you produce imaging for a living?

A NEW KIND OF TRIBUTE

It seems there's always been a need for people to laugh, cry, gasp, smile, frown or be scared half to death in the faux reality of entertainment. Whether it's a dramatic stick drawing on a cave wall, a Shakespearean play or a Spielberg movie, folks just love a corkscrew loop on the emotional roller coaster of escapist media. Of course, it's not always fake.

When famous people die, many are genuinely sad or even overwhelmed. At the very least, they're extremely interested in information and circumstances related to the passing. That leads to a flood of media attention. We mentioned this in our June 26 post on tribute production.

We feel compelled to follow up on that post by sharing another tribute we found. Here's the link...http://billietweets.com/. This piece is another in the fast rising groundswell of user produced content. It's fresh, unique and clever. It doesn't have the production value or emotional tug of say a long form HBO promo but, it grabs you just the same. It has originality going for it and that's a lot.

How did a microblog time-suck like twitter become a production tool and creative inspiration in and of itself? Hard to say but a simple theory is it's new and when you get a new toy, you play with it ferociously at first until you've squeezed every last bit of fun out of it, or broken it. You experiment with unintended uses to see what is possible. At least these are things that a child or creative adult would do. As far as breaking it, you've all seen the fail whales.

In an age where everything feels like it's been done before, twitter and the like can give things a fresh edge. Underneath, the billietweets piece is just another MJ tribute. It uses video, audio and text, all pre existing tools. It doesn't even add creative content, it only follows the words of the song. Despite all of that, it FEELS new. You haven't quite seen it before.

The deal is, technology changes quickly but the human condition, not so much. Computers haven't stopped us from laughing, crying and all the rest. At one time we gathered in the town square to get info and catch up. Fast forward to the water cooler and then fast forward again to web. Somewhere in there, was a time when we used to stare at the radio, completely awed by what came out of it.

All the buzz now is, how will radio find it's new place by making nice with the internet? How will it avoid being run over by twitter and the other cutely named devourers of attention? We don't have the answers but, as creative people, we can certainly see that the new web toys are demanding to be played with more often. They challenge us all to find unintended uses with unexpected results. That doesn't sound like the end of radio, it just sounds like fun.

THE PRODUCTION TRIBUTE

With Michael Jackson's death came a flood of audio tributes throughout radio. Some say this idea has been overdone and should be deleted or overhauled.

What to do? Go with the critics and skip it, or stand on tradition and risk being the old skooler? This is difficult because so many radio conventions are coming under fire. Revenue is down and it's easy to say that whatever radio is doing isn't working. When faced with this type of issue, we turn to the audience. Do they think it's tired? Is it a tune out? Let's start by taking a look around.

What we're observing is deep coverage in all media to feed the ravenous appetite of a huge fan base that wants to remember and celebrate Michael in many different ways. 30% of twitter's traffic became about him. Artist The Game released a song with Chris Brown, Diddy and 5 other aritsts as a tribute. Every info outlet from the New York Times to TMZ covered the story as well as the vigils that followed.

In contrast, Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon tributes were tougher to find. Audio clips were played and mentions were made but more elaborate, produced tributes were scarce. That puts it in perspective. It doesn't seem that radio is tribute happy or has beaten the relevance out of the concept. When something big happens, radio, like any other broadcast medium, airs relevant content to address what's top of mind for a large part of the audience.

Maybe the beef some critics have is that tributes can tread a fine line between reverent and cheesy. Point taken. Sometimes quality can suffer when you're producing against the clock to feed the immediacy beast and a tribute is a delicate piece of production. Preparation is key in these situations.

We would suggest asking yourself a question or two for starters. Do you have a plan for production when major events break? What are your go-to resources that you can rely on for quality material?

On a broader scale, we'd like to say that good is good and audiences rarely tire of high quality entertainment. Ok, Sarah Connor Chronicles was canceled but, on a personal note, we think of that as the exception rather than the rule. Consider that movie trailers have been around a long time and have followed a fairly narrow formula. Nobody is saying "trailers have to go...the formula is tired". Many websites are dedicated to nothing but trailers because people don't seem to tire of them.

It's our opinion that a well crafted tribute piece is still a powerful programming element that deserves all the attention and resources you can give it. It's another area where imaging jumps to the front and becomes the radio station.

FILTERED VOICE SET UP VIDEO

The filtered voice is everywhere. Even though everyone is doing it, it's good to share info in hopes of trying different things to get the best results. There are many approaches to getting a similar sound so, we just wanted to share one that works for us frequently. See the video on youtube.

SRI LANKA GETS RIPPED

Our trip around the world continues as TNL Radio in Sri Lanka picks up Ripped. Wherever there's rock, there's Ripped. Check out TNL online.

DOES THIS MAKE ME LOOK FAT?

Honest feedback is hard to find. Nobody wants to be the bad guy. Certainly, nobody wants to tell an audio producer that his voice is not so hot, his reading skills are sub par or his production style is inappropriate. It's hard to be your own judge since you're too close to your work. You need reliable info that is completely honest without crushing your soul.

This is one area where the web is not the answer. Comments online tend to be extreme and you often have no idea of the sources experience. It takes an honest relationship with someone you respect to fill the feedback void. Think about it. Is there at least one qualified person who would tell you the truth if you put out a stinky promo? The PD doesn't count since they can't really tell you why it's stinky.

If you have that one honest person, that may be all you need. Good thing since finding more than one is almost impossible. Just as important, why not be that person for someone else. Tread carefully though, since many do not wish to hear that they are less than pure genius. Those who can handle the truth are the ones bent on self improvement and they'll likely reciprocate.

If we can increase honest feedback, we can increase the quality of radio imaging across the board. In that spirit, take a friend to lunch today and tell 'em they stink. They'll love you for it.

VEGAS BABY!

One cannot live without distractions. Confucius or somebody said that maybe. Here's 30 seconds of the control 24 in vegas mode. Don't worry, it's sfw. See in hd on youtube.

HARVARD ROCKS

In a recent radio interview, a member of Incubus talked about the fact that he's attending Harvard. His main reason for doing so is, "I just want to learn stuff". One of the things he's studying is music but, he also has interests in biology and physics.

Being diverse is important. It's easy to forget that when you're spending days and nights in a studio because it sucks you in like a good video game. You forget about time, space, sleep, nutrition and hygiene. Production studios and the creative process are addicting. Even though computers have made everything incredibly fast compared to the analog days, nobody is checking out at 3pm to play golf.

This is where the Incubus example factors in. It would be easy to obsess in the life of a musician but, a lot of rock stars believe diversity is important and being in the studio too much can lead to creative burn out. Biology and rock may not seem connected but, exposure to most anything can be brought back to the studio and tossed into the creative process. Exposing yourself to completely different environments, people and experiences can help keep you fresh.

Sure, there are times when you need to obsess in the studio to make things happen or meet a deadline. When there's a break, however, getting as far away from the studio environment as possible can be the perfect thing to keep you energized and edgy. While taking classes at Harvard may not be your thing there's always cliff diving, bear wrestling or a weekend ice road trucker gig.