Melodyne EditorIn this episode of Monitor, I discuss the good, bad and the ugly sides of using auto-tune. Auto-Tune® is a product from Antares that corrects pitch in music performances. I also discuss GarageBand’s built-in enhance tuning feature. And I take a quick look at the new Melodyne Studio plug-in, which can correct individual notes within a chord. Subscribe via iTunes Podcast RSS feed Listen to this Podcast

It’s that time of year again, so without further ado here’s the Mac Audio Guy Top Ten Mac Audio Products For 2009: Logic Studio 9 $499 http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/ A truly awesome Pro Digital Audio Software suite for just under 500 smackers. (half the price of the previous version!!!) Makes Pro Tools look like Poor Tools. This software is the single best software for audio and music production on the Mac (or any other platform)… period. Zoom H4N $299 http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/h4n/ The H4 was great, the H4N is mind blowing! The H4 was plastic and toylike which just didn’t look like a professional audio recorder, all that has changed. The new H4N is a rugged pro piece of gear. the perfect location recorder for digital cinematography or any other form of field recording. 4 Tracks, built in high quality mics, XLR, 1/4″ and Mini inputs, SDHC cards, and it’s an audio interface! Djay V2.0 $49.95 http://www.djay-software.com/ Beats down Djay software costing Hundreds more. Not only is this the best software dual deck simulator on the Mac, it also interfaces with all the best MIDI controllers if you need to touch the platters. If you don’t have that kinda scratch you can scratch using multi touch on your Macbook. Word! Shure SRH 440 Pro Headphones $99 http://www.shure.com/ For year Sony MDR-7506s were the Pro Audio standard for headphones. for their clarity, comfort and ruggedness, Now Shure has come out pro headphones with all those qualities and they just plain sound better than the Sonys. Deep punchy bass without taking and sizzle out of the highs. You owe it to yourself to listen to these bad boys. M-Audio Session Music Producer $89 street http://www.m-audio.com/ I used to love M-Audio products before they were assimilated into the evil Digidesign/Avid/Borg Continuum. Lately most of the M-Audio line has turned to the dark side with a couple exceptions. The Session Music Producer is one of them. The package has the Session PC-only GarageBand knock-off software and a really great USB Condenser Microphone. Throw away the software and buy this just for the mic. M-Audio Keystudio $99 Street http://www.m-audio.com/ Like the Session music producer above, this 49 key MIDI control keyboard comes with the Session software. Give the software to some poor PC owner and keep the keyboard. Now you wont have to use musical typing in Garageband anymore. Melodyne Editor $299 http://www.celemony.com/ They say Auto-tune is dead, while it may fade from pop radio as an overused and cliche’ effect, Auto-tuning software belongs in every music producers tool box. Celemony has upped the game with the new Melodyne editor which allows you to go into chords and correct the individual notes. you read that correctly, now you can auto tune bad notes in a chord. Somebody must have made a pact with the devil because this software is black magic. Levelator free http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator This is another magical piece of software that corrects levels in recorded voice. It is designed for getting perfect voice levels for podcasts. If you’re recording narration or podcast or any spocken word material you need to download this. C’mon it’s FREE! iPod Touch starting at $199 http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/ Want to run all those cool iPhone Apps but don’t want or need the AT&T ball and chain with the iPhone? Then you NEED the iPod touch. Two words: App Store. The Apple App Store via iTunes 500+ audio apps. ‘Nuff said.

Shotgun Mic on a BoomIn this episode of Monitor, I discuss recording great audio for video or location sound. I talk about the different sound elements of dialog, narration,ambience,room tone and effects. I also talk about location recording equipment including the differences between shotgun, lavaliere, stereo condenser and hand held microphones and balanced vs. unbalanced systems. Finally I discuss wired, wireless and second-system sound and time code and how you can use these in your productions. Subscribe via iTunes Podcast RSS feed Listen to this Podcast

If you’re reading this article you probably are aware that shooting HD video with DSLRs is all the rage among digital filmmakers. There are far more reasons to shoot this way than not, but one of the problems with DSLRs are their sound recording capabilities. THe Canon 5D Mk2, the Canon 7D and the Panasonic GH1 have external microphone inputs but unfortunately these use auto gain control and have no manual control over input levels. Also these cameras don’t have headphone monitoring. The most common solution to these problems is to use film style second system or double system sound.The advantage of second system sound is that you have a redundant high quality sound recording that you can sync to your camera images in post-production. The methodology for second system sound ranges from very simple to incredibly complex methods. [See this article which outlines no less than 16 different methods for doing second system sound. ] Here is my simple method and workflow for capturing and syncing great sound for HDSLRs. First you will need some sort of external high quality sound recorder. It is important to note that your sound recorder doesn’t necessarily have to be a sound recorder. I have several DV and HDV camcorders that have microphone inputs and headphone monitoring. So one possible method would be to use one of these as a 16 bit 48KHZ sound recorder and as an added bonus you may even get some usable B-rool video out of the deal. The other method is to use a dedicated sound recorder, one of the coolest and most popular of these is the Zoom H4n recorder. The H4n is a high quality compact rugged and versatile machine and at $300 it’s a bargain. If you don’t have one or something similar, you should buy one. Of course, you may have a portable DAT machine or some other legacy sound recorder, and any of these will work. Secondly I’m going to presume that you can hook up a high quality external mic to your sound recording device, whether it is a shotgun mic on a boom or wireless lavalier. The ideal situation would be to have a dedicated sound recordist/ boom operator on your shoot, but if you’re a one person operation you can still use a camera mounted mic hooked up to your sound recorder. Okay, this is the most important part of this method: DO NOT DISABLE SOUND RECORDING ON YOUR DSLR! You are going to use the sound as your reference audio. I edited a cooking show where it was a two camera shoot and the Steadicam was the A camera. Unfortunately the Steadicam didn’t record sound and they forgot to slate about half the shots. If I had reference audio for that camera, I would have saved the producer about 20 hours on that edit. So the lesson is, ALWAYS RECORD SOUND. I have a Audio Technika ATR55 shotgun mic hooked up to the hot shoe of my Panasonic GH1 and have found that actually 60% of the time, I’m using the audio recorded in camera. I”m still recording second system sound, and even when I use the camera audio, it’s nice to know that I’ve got back up audio if I need it. Also when you factor in how many of your shots are MOS or don’t need sound, you’ll be surprised how little post production syncing you actually have to do. The only thing to remember, and this is very important, is that if you can’t slate your shots using a clapper, is to be sure to have your talent clap or snap their fingers or snap your fingers when you are rolling before you shout action. ( You could sync to “action” but believe me, a clap is better.) So lets get to the simple method of syncing the sound. I use Final Cut Pro, so I’ll outline the method using FCP, but other editors can use much the same method. Import your video and convert it to whatever frame rate you are going to edit in. Since we are not using time code to sync, frame rate doesn’t matter. Let me repeat that; frame rate doesn’t matter. Next, you want to import your audio in to your video editor. Hopefully your audio is at least 16bit 44.1KHz PCM audio. Recording as MP3 is not acceptable. If you are using a Zoom H4N you may even have 24 bit 96KHz audio, which is overkill in my opinion. I think that 16 bit 48Khz is the best compromise for sound quality, file size and render speed. Once you have both your video with reference audio and your second system audio imported, go ahead and drag a shot to the timeline and be sure to include the clap or snap on the reference audio track. Next drag your second system sound onto the timeline below your reference audio track. Then line up the clap or snap by ear or even the waveforms on the timeline ( make sure you have show waveforms enabled). You can playback your tracks and if you hear flanging, nudge the second system sound track (by using the option left or option right arrow keys in FCP) until the sound is in sync. Once you sound is in sync with the reference track, trim your second system sound track to the same length as the reference track, then select both the video track and the second system sound track and use “Command L” to link it to the video track in FCP. Now that you have your second system (and hopefully better quality) sound track synced and linked to your video shot you can trim and edit the video at will and the second system sound will stay in sync. Your reference audio track is still linked to your video and while in most cases you will mute that track in the final edit, it’s nice to know that you still have it there and in sync if you need it. Lastly you will have to repeat the sync process for all of your master shots, but once you’ve got it down, it’s relatively painless and you don’t have to do any math. I will note here that Beachtek Audio makes a great product for single system sound recording on DSLRs called the DXA-5D. in addition to having high quality XLR mic inputs, it also tricks the auto gain control in the DSLR using an ultrasonic tone. The only trouble is, they are out of stock at the time of the writing of this article.

Yamaha Audiogram InterfaceIn this episode of Monitor, I explain the basics of audio interfaces for the Mac and help you choose which interface is right for you. Subscribe via iTunes Podcast RSS feed Listen to this Podcast

The Mac Audio Guy website was attacked by a hacker and due to the the code injection attack The Site was de-listed by Google and the site traffic went essentially to zero. This made me do some soul searching as to whether maintaining this site was really providing a valuable service and if it is worth the effort to maintain. I decided to carry on. I did a rebuild of the entire site and fortunately was re-listed by Google. I am really busy with several video projects and I am in the process of building my video business and launching the Jay Shaffer Video website, but I am dedicated the getting some more content up here on Mac Audio Guy. and I plan to have a new Monitor Podcast out by tomorrow. Thank you for sticking with the site through this rebuilding process, and I hope to continue to bring valuable information to the Mac audio and music community.

In this episode of Monitor, as part of series of audio basics, I explain audio automation and how it will make you a rock star, maybe. Subscribe via iTunes Podcast RSS feed Listen to this Podcast

Logic StudioApple has released a new version of Logic Studio. Among the new features are “Flex Time” time and pitch shifting and correction. It also includes an expansive collection of vintage and modern amps, cabinets, and stompboxes for guitar players, And new live performance plug-ins let you record loops and trigger backing tracks when you?re on stage. FGind out more at: http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/

Finally the makers of Reason and other “R” word music software are releasing a audio recording package. Get an invite to the public beta and check it out at : http://recordyou.com/

In this episode of Monitor, as part of series of audio basics, I explain decibels and their importance in recording digital audio. Decibels play an important role in measuring sound levels for motion pictures, broadcast and musical recording. Subscribe via iTunes Podcast RSS feed Listen to this Podcast

In this episode of Monitor, I take a look at the Zoom H4 portable SD flash recorder. The H4 is a great field recorder, portable multi-track recorder and stereo audio interface, all in one sweet $300 package. Subscribe via iTunes Podcast RSS feed Listen to this Podcast

In this episode of Monitor, I take a first look at Sequel, Steinberg’s new entry level digital audio workstation software. Sequel is easy to use loop-based music software that is similar to Apple’s GarageBand but is also cross-platform. Subscribe via iTunes Podcast RSS feed Listen to this Podcast

In this episode of Monitor, I explain how to start your own legal radio station. I point listeners to an excellent article on Webcasting Legality by Jamie Zawinski at: http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/webcasting.html. I show how you can take care of music licensing through LoudCity.com and explain why you will need the Nicecast broadcasting software and why you need to rent a Shoutcast server. For more information on Webcasting also see my article on Broadcasting into Second Life. Subscribe via iTunes Podcast RSS feed Listen to this Podcast

Tune-In to the Groove After many months of effort to set up a legal internet radio station, I’ve finally succeeded! Thanks to finding a way to legally licensing the music I play through LoudCity.com. I’m proud to announce RadioGroove.org is on the air! Radio Groove is broadcasting 24/7 completely commercial free. Radio Groove is even available for your land or club in Second Life. Radio Groove features eclectic Jazz and electronic groove music, including Latin Jazz, Dub, Brazilian, Ambient and Down-tempo, Blues, R ‘n B and even Contemporary Lounge. Hopefully you’ll find some music to love or love by on Radio Groove. Radio Groove is almost completely listener supported and I depend on your support to meet my monthly expenses. So please give Radio Groove a listen and donate, every cent helps. Thanks!