Northview Church Looks to the Future in HD
Indiana's Northview Church recently set out to launch four new satellite campuses within five years. Construction wise, this is an ambitious goal. Add a massive AV installation to the equation, with the ultimate goal of having an entirely HD operation, and it is an undertaking of biblical proportions. Between two sites, Northview now has a Blackmagic Design Broadcast Videohub, Smart Control, ATEM 1 M/E Production Switcher and ATEM 1 M/E Broadcast Panel, seven SmartView Duo monitors, 11 HyperDeck Studio SSD recorders, four DeckLink HD Extreme 3D capture and playback cards and a whole slew of Mini Converters. And because of the flexibility, affordability and quality of the Blackmagic Design products, Shaun plans to acquire many more as the church continues to grow.
...Read More »
Dubai Color Artist Gives International Film Festival Favorite, The Intruder!, a Winning Look
Diane Kuo, senior colorist at Dubai's Optix Digital Pictures, is fast becoming one of the top grading artists in the Middle East. Her portfolio boasts a number of 'big brand' commercials, Bollywood feature films and most recently an independent sci-fi film hitting the international film festival circuit called The Intruder!.
...Read More »
Inferno Records Creates Music Videos Just "Like That"
Modern technology has given artists the opportunity to share their talents with the whole world. Pop music singer, songwriter and producer, Killian Wells, made the most of that opportunity when he founded Inferno Records, putting a new spin on the outdated record label business model. Having been heavily involved in all aspects of his career and enjoying the many successes that came as a result, Killian wasn't about to change his winning formula when it came time to produce the music video for his new single, "It's Like That (feat. Nixon)".
...Read More »
NAB 2012: Sony Creative Showcases New Technology
The latest additions to the Sony Creative Software product line include: Spectral Layers, an audio editing platform featuring precise sound shaping capabilities and a unique visual workflow; and ThemeBuilder for Vegas(tm) Pro, a plug-in that enables intelligent template building for professional video projects. Both products are scheduled for technology demonstrations in the Sony booth.
...Read More »
Adobe CS6 Release Delivers Major Innovations for Design, Web and Video Pros
Powerful new releases of 14 CS6 applications and four Creative Suites - Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium, Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design Standard, Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium, and Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection - drive home Adobe's continued innovation across creative markets. A new subscription-based offering, Adobe Creative Cloud, will provide users with the ability to download and install every Adobe CS6 application* announced.
...Read More »
PluralEyes - Sound Synching Software from Singular Software By David Hague
Singular Software has a range of sound synching software available. PluralEyes is the flagship. It works specifically with particular nominated software so you must obtain the one that suits your software. PluralEyes will only play with Green Valley Edius, Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas, Apple's Final Cut Pro and Avid's Media composer. For each of these editing program, Singular Software provides a specific set in instructions which, at first to me at least, sounded a bit arcane, but in fact turned out to be easy to follow. The end result is an additional sequence inserted into to your project with the sounds all lined up.
...Read More »
The Azden WLX-Pro Radio Microphone By David Hague
Viewers will put up with the occasional skippy frame, shaky image or even the odd out of focus, but lousy or stuttery or out of sync audio will never be tolerated and people will turn off. So to fix audio problems, the first thing to do is make sure you are using the right mic for the job, and for interviews, this generally means using a radio transmitter receiver and lapel (also called lavaliere) mic.
...Read More »
What Is Audio Mastering? By Last Drop Mastering
Mastering is the all-important last step in the song/album creation process, and unfortunately one that can often be overlooked. Put plainly, your music will never be at a professional level if it is not mastered properly. This is the stage where dull, listless songs come to brilliant life as one polished, "larger than life" EP or album. They say you need an outside pair of ears on-board for this stage, and preferably one with hundreds (if not thousands) of projects behind them. Even the best mastering engineers in the world send their own material off to another mastering specialist for processing.
...Read More »
The RØDE NTG-3 External Microphone By David Hague
It appears there is no set standard for microphone diameters so in the case of the Panasonic AG-HMC41E (the others are a Canon XA10 and Sony NFX5) for example, when the NTG-3 is placed in the external mic holder it rattles around - not enough to simply slide through, but enough to be a worry.
...Read More »
Home Tech Upgrade Power2U By Ko Maruyama
Not more power through the house, but better access to it. There are so many devices that my family uses that rely on USB charging. Some of these rely on sucking up power daily. But if you already have a bunch of plugs stuck in your outlets, you might want to stop juggling those wall warts and install the NewerTech Power2U.
...Read More »
Boris Soundbite for Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro By Heath McKnight
Soundbite from Boris FX is an excellent dialogue search tool developed in conjunction with Nexidia, a company focused on speech analytics. You can search for specific words and phrases easily with Soundbite, then import into Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro, making it easy and quick to edit hours of interviews for a project. Producers, writers, one-man bands and interns can rejoice while searching through hours of interviews. Say so long to logging video!
...Read More »
TV commercials drive me nuts! By David Hague
TV commercials drive me nuts! Especially those shown in the country, where it is assumed every single person who is watching is a "down-on-the-farm-country-boy" (or lassie). As such, many ads have the poor farmer doing something stupid (using string to tie a gate as against the "new gate locker magico!", or is buying new boots every other day - "Step by step, brick by brick, you and your boots built this country".
...Read More »
Minimizing Wind Noise By Ben Longden
Nothing annoys me more on a location shoot than wind noise. In fact I've had more than an earful of it, and decided to do something serious about it. The occasion was on location at a major horse stud, filming a tutorial for my client, a major veterinarian firm in northern Victoria.
...Read More »
Displaying Closed Captions in Windows Media Player By Gary Rebholz
With the improvements that we made to the closed captioning workflow in Vegas Pro 10 software, you can now create and export closed caption files for use with the videos you encode to WMV format whether for inclusion on a disc or for streaming over the web. That part's easy and we explain the exact techniques for doing so in our extensive training video that you'll find on the Seminar Series training package for Vegas Pro 10 software. In this article, I'll talk about how you can make those WMV closed captions viewable in the Windows Media Player.
...Read More »
10 Audio Editing Tips To Help You Work Faster In Sound Forge Pro By Gary Rebholz
Ten audio editing techniques that will not only help speed up your editing sessions, but also help you get more out of the application and accomplish more with it. Although I focus on Sound Forge Pro in this article, most of these techniques also work in Sound Forge Audio Studio 10, so you can take advantage of them regardless of the version you use.
...Read More »
Mixopolis and Billy Ray Cyrus DRIVE4COPD
The DRIVE4COPD project involved the complete sound design for a 30-second and a 60-second television spot. The two PSA's feature American country music singer, songwriter and actor Billy Ray Cyrus. Mitch had a music track, dialogue, and some voiceover from Billy Ray to work with. In order to bring everything together and create a powerful message, Mitch needed a mix of products that would perform the way he needed them to.
...Read More »
What you need to know about music licensing By Michael Romlochan
If you've ever seen a film or show in which a character has a birthday, you may have noticed that much of the time, characters sing a different tune instead of the famous "Happy Birthday To You" song. I'm sure some of you know why - to avoid royalties for using the song. HOWEVER, What you probably didn't know is that in 2008, the royalties for "Happy Birthday To You" still amounted to about $2 million dollars. That's pretty good for a song that's nearly a century old!
...Read More »
The Business Benefits to Podcasting
Podcasting can be an invaluable asset, increasing the visibility of your career or business. Here are the tools you need to make it work for you.
...Read More »
The Real Deal About Audio Mastering By Nathan Allen - Last Drop Mastering
For any artist or label looking to make a career out of music, mastering is essential. In short, it's the final (and in many ways most crucial) step of music production...the stage where dull, lifeless tracks are transformed into polished masterpieces.
...Read More »
Northview Church Looks to the Future in HD
Indiana's Northview Church recently set out to launch four new satellite campuses within five years. Construction wise, this is an ambitious goal. Add a massive AV installation to the equation, with the ultimate goal of having an entirely HD operation, and it is an undertaking of biblical proportions. Between two sites, Northview now has a Blackmagic Design Broadcast Videohub, Smart Control, ATEM 1 M/E Production Switcher and ATEM 1 M/E Broadcast Panel, seven SmartView Duo monitors, 11 HyperDeck Studio SSD recorders, four DeckLink HD Extreme 3D capture and playback cards and a whole slew of Mini Converters. And because of the flexibility, affordability and quality of the Blackmagic Design products, Shaun plans to acquire many more as the church continues to grow.
...Read More »
Dubai Color Artist Gives International Film Festival Favorite, The Intruder!, a Winning Look
Diane Kuo, senior colorist at Dubai's Optix Digital Pictures, is fast becoming one of the top grading artists in the Middle East. Her portfolio boasts a number of 'big brand' commercials, Bollywood feature films and most recently an independent sci-fi film hitting the international film festival circuit called The Intruder!.
...Read More »
Inferno Records Creates Music Videos Just "Like That"
Modern technology has given artists the opportunity to share their talents with the whole world. Pop music singer, songwriter and producer, Killian Wells, made the most of that opportunity when he founded Inferno Records, putting a new spin on the outdated record label business model. Having been heavily involved in all aspects of his career and enjoying the many successes that came as a result, Killian wasn't about to change his winning formula when it came time to produce the music video for his new single, "It's Like That (feat. Nixon)".
...Read More »
NAB 2012: Sony Creative Showcases New Technology
The latest additions to the Sony Creative Software product line include: Spectral Layers, an audio editing platform featuring precise sound shaping capabilities and a unique visual workflow; and ThemeBuilder for Vegas(tm) Pro, a plug-in that enables intelligent template building for professional video projects. Both products are scheduled for technology demonstrations in the Sony booth.
...Read More »
Adobe CS6 Release Delivers Major Innovations for Design, Web and Video Pros
Powerful new releases of 14 CS6 applications and four Creative Suites - Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium, Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design Standard, Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium, and Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection - drive home Adobe's continued innovation across creative markets. A new subscription-based offering, Adobe Creative Cloud, will provide users with the ability to download and install every Adobe CS6 application* announced.
...Read More »
PluralEyes - Sound Synching Software from Singular Software
Singular Software has a range of sound synching software available. PluralEyes is the flagship. It works specifically with particular nominated software so you must obtain the one that suits your software. PluralEyes will only play with Green Valley Edius, Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas, Apple's Final Cut Pro and Avid's Media composer. For each of these editing program, Singular Software provides a specific set in instructions which, at first to me at least, sounded a bit arcane, but in fact turned out to be easy to follow. The end result is an additional sequence inserted into to your project with the sounds all lined up.
...Read More »
The Azden WLX-Pro Radio Microphone
Viewers will put up with the occasional skippy frame, shaky image or even the odd out of focus, but lousy or stuttery or out of sync audio will never be tolerated and people will turn off. So to fix audio problems, the first thing to do is make sure you are using the right mic for the job, and for interviews, this generally means using a radio transmitter receiver and lapel (also called lavaliere) mic.
...Read More »
What Is Audio Mastering?
Mastering is the all-important last step in the song/album creation process, and unfortunately one that can often be overlooked. Put plainly, your music will never be at a professional level if it is not mastered properly. This is the stage where dull, listless songs come to brilliant life as one polished, "larger than life" EP or album. They say you need an outside pair of ears on-board for this stage, and preferably one with hundreds (if not thousands) of projects behind them. Even the best mastering engineers in the world send their own material off to another mastering specialist for processing.
...Read More »
The RØDE NTG-3 External Microphone
It appears there is no set standard for microphone diameters so in the case of the Panasonic AG-HMC41E (the others are a Canon XA10 and Sony NFX5) for example, when the NTG-3 is placed in the external mic holder it rattles around - not enough to simply slide through, but enough to be a worry.
...Read More »
Home Tech Upgrade Power2U
Not more power through the house, but better access to it. There are so many devices that my family uses that rely on USB charging. Some of these rely on sucking up power daily. But if you already have a bunch of plugs stuck in your outlets, you might want to stop juggling those wall warts and install the NewerTech Power2U.
...Read More »
Boris Soundbite for Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro
Soundbite from Boris FX is an excellent dialogue search tool developed in conjunction with Nexidia, a company focused on speech analytics. You can search for specific words and phrases easily with Soundbite, then import into Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro, making it easy and quick to edit hours of interviews for a project. Producers, writers, one-man bands and interns can rejoice while searching through hours of interviews. Say so long to logging video!
...Read More »
TV commercials drive me nuts!
TV commercials drive me nuts! Especially those shown in the country, where it is assumed every single person who is watching is a "down-on-the-farm-country-boy" (or lassie). As such, many ads have the poor farmer doing something stupid (using string to tie a gate as against the "new gate locker magico!", or is buying new boots every other day - "Step by step, brick by brick, you and your boots built this country".
...Read More »
Minimizing Wind Noise
Nothing annoys me more on a location shoot than wind noise. In fact I've had more than an earful of it, and decided to do something serious about it. The occasion was on location at a major horse stud, filming a tutorial for my client, a major veterinarian firm in northern Victoria.
...Read More »
Displaying Closed Captions in Windows Media Player
With the improvements that we made to the closed captioning workflow in Vegas Pro 10 software, you can now create and export closed caption files for use with the videos you encode to WMV format whether for inclusion on a disc or for streaming over the web. That part's easy and we explain the exact techniques for doing so in our extensive training video that you'll find on the Seminar Series training package for Vegas Pro 10 software. In this article, I'll talk about how you can make those WMV closed captions viewable in the Windows Media Player.
...Read More »
10 Audio Editing Tips To Help You Work Faster In Sound Forge Pro
Ten audio editing techniques that will not only help speed up your editing sessions, but also help you get more out of the application and accomplish more with it. Although I focus on Sound Forge Pro in this article, most of these techniques also work in Sound Forge Audio Studio 10, so you can take advantage of them regardless of the version you use.
...Read More »
Mixopolis and Billy Ray Cyrus DRIVE4COPD
The DRIVE4COPD project involved the complete sound design for a 30-second and a 60-second television spot. The two PSA's feature American country music singer, songwriter and actor Billy Ray Cyrus. Mitch had a music track, dialogue, and some voiceover from Billy Ray to work with. In order to bring everything together and create a powerful message, Mitch needed a mix of products that would perform the way he needed them to.
...Read More »
What you need to know about music licensing
If you've ever seen a film or show in which a character has a birthday, you may have noticed that much of the time, characters sing a different tune instead of the famous "Happy Birthday To You" song. I'm sure some of you know why - to avoid royalties for using the song. HOWEVER, What you probably didn't know is that in 2008, the royalties for "Happy Birthday To You" still amounted to about $2 million dollars. That's pretty good for a song that's nearly a century old!
...Read More »
The Business Benefits to Podcasting
Podcasting can be an invaluable asset, increasing the visibility of your career or business. Here are the tools you need to make it work for you.
...Read More »
The Real Deal About Audio Mastering
For any artist or label looking to make a career out of music, mastering is essential. In short, it's the final (and in many ways most crucial) step of music production...the stage where dull, lifeless tracks are transformed into polished masterpieces.
...Read More »
Vegas Pro 10 Available Now
