Mac Audio Guy

I got back on the podcast track this week with a new podcast. This week I talked about using a USB Headset, and previewed the Belkin TuneStudio and the Alesis iMultiMix 8.

You can subscribe to the “Monitor, The Mac Audio Guy Podcast” in iTunes by clicking this link .

Or get the RSS feed here

written by macaudioguy

I’ve been editing like crazy to launch CleverMedia’s newest podcast, MacMost.
Since we are all passionate about Apple it made sense for us to do a show about Macs. And geeks that we are, we also have a lot of inside Mac knowledge to share.
We feature Apple oriented news, tips and tutorials, answer questions and even have a contest in each episode.
In addition ,we post all of our video tutorials as stand alone videos for future reference. The Show is aimed at non-geeks who want to learn how to get the most from their Mac, iPod, AppleTV, iPhone or other Apple oriented products.
Check out the Website at http://macmost.com/ And if you can, subscribe to the podcast via iTunes and write us a review. You can also watch the show on youtube and blip.tv.
I know some of you you are still PC users, but there is even some content for you, especially if you have an iPod or the new AppleTV.
Please tell your friends about the show. Also feel free to let me know what you think and give me suggestions on how to improve the show or what you would like to see.

written by macaudioguy

It seems at least half of the people I talk to about Mac audio recording are really confused about what software and hardware they should be using. While projects vary widely, they can generally be broken down into three categories:

1. Basic recording and stereo editing. An example is transferring an editing your vinyl collection or a radio program.
2. Basic MIDI and audio multi-tracking. An example would be using Garage Band to compose a song.
3. Professional level MIDI and audio multi-tracking. An example would be live multi-track recording or video soundtrack work.

Continue reading »

written by macaudioguy

In order for an audio file to be readily accessed from the Internet it needs to be compressed. Additionally it also may be “streamed.” There are many compression schemes out there but by far the most prevalent is the MPEG I layer 3 format which generally yields at least a 10 to 1 compression ration over the raw audio file. The ubiquity of the MP3 format has the advantage that practically every media player on every platform supports playback of MP3 files.The data rate of a MP3 file is directly related to the quality or fidelity of the audio file. For music the material should not be compressed to less than 64Kbs (kilobits per second.) For delivery of voice material you can compress your audio to a data rate as low as 16kbs and still maintain intelligibility. Check out the example file (travel16kbs.mp3)

Before I go into various streaming options I want to address embedded media files. This is the method in which a media file is associated with a media player plug-in the Web browser and plays back in the browser window. Check out the example file (Delusional Travel Pop-up) You will notice that this file does indeed “stream” and is a relatively simple Web delivery solution.

Streaming audio is often misunderstood. A “stream’ in reality is simply a file that tells a media player where and what a media file is and to begin playing it. In other words the stream file is simply a play list. Here is a chart of common streaming audio formats:

Of course there are many other formats out there and often various media players playback a variety of formats, the above chart is a little deceptive in that almost any format has a player on all of the computer platforms. That said, the most prevalent and easiest to implement streaming format is the .M3U format. An M3U file is simply a text file that has the fully qualified URL of the .mp3 file or files that you want to stream. There is often a false sense of security for the publisher of streaming media. The reference files are fairly easy to hack and there exist several software packages on the market specifically aimed at “stripping” streams. Check out the example file (Travel M3U stream)

Which finally brings me to more secure media delivery formats. Macromedia’s Flash product is one of the most successful and common methods for delivering multi-media content over the Web. With it’s ability to handle many forms of media and it’s robust scripting capabilities and the fact that most Web users have the Flash plug-in, make it an ideal Web delivery medium. You can create a small Flash movie which contains your MP3 compressed audio, which will stream and additionally include a script which will only allow the movie to be played back from your server! Short of holding a microphone up to the computer there is no way for users to steal your audio content. There are three caveats to this methodology:

Check out the example file (secure Flash stream) “What about server solutions?” you ask. In most cases these are set -up to “handshake” with the browser or plug-in to determine what data rate the clients connection can handle, and then the server delivers the apropriate file. Secondly some of solutions allow the file contents to read and written at the same time. Which allows for real time streaming or webcasting, as well as content insertion (commercials for example.) Of course, Apple’s Quicktime Streaming Server would be the preferred solution for Mac audio professionals

written by macaudioguy

DLS and General Midi Part one, GarageBand’s Best Kept Secrets.

This week I’m starting to tackle a little more complex subject than usual.
I’m working on a soon to be released Cell phone game (or as it’s known in the industry, a mobile entertainment project) and due to the paltry memory of some cell phones the music has to be delivered as a General MIDI file. No, General MIDI isn’t a French military officer; it’s the file format that we’ve come to know and hate from the animated Gif School of web design. The trouble with this project is that the original soundtrack was created in GarageBand. And I need to deliver a MIDI version of the thing. The reason is that as a WAV file the 30-second intro song would be well over 200K even at 8KHZ 16bit Mono. Whereas, the Midi file will be a modest 8K in size. Continue reading »

written by macaudioguy