Thanks From the Farm Studio in PEI

Thanks to those not away on summer holiday for some wonderful work in the past few days...

Thank You Barnett Cox and Associates for letting us finish the first series of your wonderful creative campaign for Community West Bank.

Thanks also to EC Productions for allowing me to voice track your HD documentary on the Save Our Seas Foundation and it's work with sharks and manta rays. I can't wait to see the final production!

Also, thanks to EHY for calling on us for your ongoing work with the Chumash Casino.

While Steve Gordon is calmly manning the helm in Santa Barbara, I am frantically managing summer production of a different kind here on Prince Edward Island, Canada.
And though part of each day is devoted to studio recording and business issues on the West Coast, we're finding time to plant and harvest a good crop of family fun and fresh vegetables this summer.

For those whose geography is as poor as mine, you'll find that PEI is Canada's smallest province, located just a few miles off of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick on the east coast of North America.

My wife and I are here with our two boys for the summer, managing our organic farm.
We're growing a variety of herbs and produce which we sell to the fresh market.
The crops are pretty much in the ground already for the short summer season. Long daylight hours help things grow (it isn't dark until almost 10:00 PM). We've had a late start of summer with lots of clouds and rain. But the last few days have been sunny and hot, which has really launched our plantation into full swing!

The Goleta Valley Mesclun Salad mix we grow is very popular and the French Breakfast Radishes have been a good accompaniment. We're also rich in Spinach right now and the Swiss Chard and Beet Greens too are selling well.

We're about to be awash in sweet shelling Peas and it won't be long before we're digging up baskets full of new Yukon Gold Potatoes. Summer Squash is flowering now and Zuchini and Yellow Crook Neck varieties will be coming soon. The Cucumbers are flowering and these are in much demand locally for fresh eating and fall pickling. Yellow wax beans will be coming in August and Pumpkins will be big and orange by the time I return to Santa Barbara in September. Corn and tomatoes have been slow to start, so we'll see what nature does with those crops. There's too much more to mention!

In addition to our cash crops, there is other work that goes on. We're planting a fourth of our crop rows in green manure crop to keep out weeds and feed the soil for next year. To do this we planted field peas and oats which will die off this winter and leave rich compost for the spring plowing. To that purpose, we're encouraged by warm rain forecast for tomorrow. Hopefully this will start the California poppy seeds I've planted along the lane.

Nature on her own also blesses us with wild harvests of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries in their seasons. On the shore we dig clams and harvest mussels for steaming pots of savory seafood.

Summer truly is a time of bounty. Here's hoping you are enjoying the gifts of summer wherever you may be!

Help With Flash Audio Presets and Internet Audio Quality

For those of us in production one of the problems we face is the bandwidth issues that are established in production tools themselves.

When we match audio to picture we often find ourselves creating large files which get digitally compressed by default presets in the software. These defaults tend to be particularly tough on audio, often squashing it down to a low resolution file that sounds grainy at best.

These settings are designed to protect a certain level of picture size and resolution in playback through streaming media. But they destroy the delicate nuance of sound and make it the rough equivalent of a telephone.

There are several ways to improve this situation and deliver quality picture and sound to the user. But we're still looking for help, particularly in Flash, to adjust the defaults and allow better sound while preserving the picture. We've seen some very good examples of this and we know it can be done, but we need help from a Flash wizard who can help us understand the processing and how to optimize it. We think this is an important step toward guiding our post production clients to appreciate and expect better results online.

First of all, we know how to create good sounding files for marriage with Flash. One trick we employ is reducing stereo files to mono files whenever possible. This reduces the gross size of a full resolution file by half and allows for less compression in the mixdown. We then compress the mono file to a 192k resolution MP3 file that retains good, clean quality. Even so, we find that our pre-compressed and configured files are then re-compressed by Flash so that the results are often muddy and unsatisfactory compared to the compressed files we deliver.

Does anyone know how to strip in premixed audio and prevent Flash from further compression of the audio in the mixdown to picture?

The problem seems to be just as bad or worse when Flash handles full resolution audio
in a mixdown.

Your input would be helpful.

The Rabbi, The Bull Rider and the IQ Test

Did you hear the one about the Rabbi, the Bull Rider and the IQ Test?

Well, neither had I until a client presented us with a challenge.

We were called on to produce a series of radio commercials for an agency that needed us to co-ordinate production between their creative talent in another city, a professional bull rider in Colorado and a local Rabbi. They also needed us to cast an authoritative voice to be the "brand" announcer. The agency directed the talent by phone patch and finished production was delivered to broadcasters from a virtual studio on The Production Room website.

Then there was the IQ test. Or more properly there was Stephen Murdoch, local author of the new book, "IQ: Smart History of a Failed Idea". If you're an NPR listener, you probably heard our live ISDN feed to "Talk of the Nation" from Washington DC. The program feed came from The Production Room in Santa Barbara. As a listed ISDN service provider for NPR stations, we're increasingly using ISDN to link guests in our studio to programs on this national network.

I'm hoping more of our local Industry, Agency and Independent producers will discover that we can do for them what we're already doing for major companies, producers and networks around the world. We've come along way to bring professional production options to Santa Barbara.

If you need a level of service compatible with major studios and networks, a connection from a major market to Santa Barbara or if you're a regional agency in North America, Asia or the EU in need of a professional production partner, we're ready to help you.

La Belle Digital and Your Location Audio

Often lost in North America in the deluge of truly wonderful audio gear developed and sold by American audio brands is some truly handy gear from other parts of the world.

One fine bit of gear I picked up several years ago has become idespensable in my tool kit. The V2 VX Pocket sound card from Digigram (France) has been a lifesaver. It retails for about $400.00 US but I got mine on-line for a lot less. It's a fully equipped PC sound card that slips into a laptop PC and it allows me to plug my pro audio gear directly into my computer no matter where I am. I've found that a lot of interfaces offer overkill solutions for multitrack recording. This card fits my more simple need to plug 2 channel pro sound gear into a laptop.

We had a meeting of the Santa Barbara Indie Co-op at the Production Room to share tips on location audio with some independent film makers in SB. While we covered the basics, I wasn't able to point to some of the wonderful opportunities for capturing live audio direct to digital - and even previewing or editing on location.

With my laptop and a battery powered Behringer mixer (Germany) I can record high quality location audio with phantom powered mics directly into a digital file.

The difference between on camera mic plug-ins and consumer grade PC laptop audio cards is that the VX Pocket is configured with a "pigtail" of cords that allow you to plug inputs and outputs to and from the sound card at line level (pro) with XLR connectors directly to and from a mixer. It also allows a SPDIF digital in and out connection. This is really handy for interfacing with other digital gear.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I am not a technical engineer. So audio gear that plugs together like a kids toy and delivers quality that passes muster in the main studio is my kind of gear.

When I'm on location in Canada, my studio consists of my laptop, the VXpocket Card, a Focusrite Platinum Mic Preamp, a main amp, some monitor speakers and my editing software. With that and an internet connection I have recorded audio for film, a PBS Documentary, broadcast TV and Radio Commercials, and on-line media.

For just a few dollars more than it takes to plug a location mic into a camera, Indie film makers can track high quality location audio into battery powered remote gear and get better sound to work with in post production. And you can even do some of your pre-production on location, which will save you time and money. Synching to picture could be an issue for some but by using 48k .AIFF files, you should be able to strip in the audio in Final Cut without too much trouble. Let me know your thoughts about that...

Please share your location audio problems and let us us help you with some tips that
may save your next post session. Our advice is free...and worth every penny!

And by the way...shouldn't you be subscribing to this blog?

Podcasts: Communication, Branding or Marketing?

What the heck IS a podcast.

I honestly thought I knew. Generally, podcasts are described in technical terms and defined by how they are distributed. Podcasts are usually represented as low tech messages or program content that are subscribed to or downloadable online. Like blogging.

But that isn't actually what a podcast is to the communicator or the listener and they are the only two parties that matter in this equation.

We are working in a medium created by technicians. We need to start defining our terms better. To start with I recently found that it's important to define what a podcast DOES.

I had designed a podcast project that would include informal interview style Q&A with the client which I would minimally edit into a simple audio program structure: intro, body, conclusion, close. Nice and clean.

We tried it. The client didn't like it. They felt it didn't represent them. Ironic since they had spoken every word themselves. But it was a predictable result.

Any Company, Individual or Commercial entity that has invested in creating a brand identity will not allow anyone to muck about with some half arsed effort at ad-libbing lamely through a podcast about who they are or what they do.

So Podcasting is on the road to becoming just like other "Reality Programs". That means highly produced, tightly controlled and structured to look and sound informal. In the process, goals are defined, ideas are focused, communication is direct and brand identity is protected.

There's a lot more to this than meets the ear, and I'll have more to share about this very soon. Right after the client hears our revised program.

And by the way, shouldn't you be subscribing to this blog?

Local Media Misses Fire Season Premiere

Multiple broadcast signals (appx. 23) are licensed for the expressed purpose of serving the public in the Santa Barbara metro. That's 23 local channels that will reliably air detailed coverage of whatever Paris Hilton does.

So how many local reporters showed up to cover a brush fire above the city on East Camino Cielo last night at about 9:40? I don't know but I couldn't find any news about it until The Daily Sound was linked to me this morning on Blogabarbara.

If you don't live here, you may not think that matters.

But if you are like many who have noticed that there is no local news or public emergency information on your local TV, Radio, Digital and Satellite stations, then it does matter. Towns across the country are giving the FCC an earful about broadcasters who have failed to serve them in an emergency. What's the FCC doing about it? Holding regional public hearings.

What are the broadcasters doing about it? Very little. Because they don't have to.

If that seems wrong to you you're not alone. And let me share what I've learned about the subject here in wild-fire prone Santa Barbara.

Radio stations here cover local news during the day. At night, the staff goes home. They turn off the lights, turn on the answer machine and lock the doors.

TV stations operate pretty much the same way, except KEYT, which still has a live 11:00 PM local news cast. They're pretty much the only local news after sunset.

The last wildfire disaster hit Santa Barbara in 1991. The one before that was 1978. The one before that was 1964. You get the picture?

In the 1991 fire, one person was killed and 440 homes were destroyed. A lot has changed since then but not for the better. Since 911, the rules have changed from the top down. A local event may suddenly be controlled by a FEMA director instead of local fire and police officials. And if an earthquake hits at 3:00 AM, there probably won't be ANY local news until somebody gets to the radio/TV station. Or you might get an EAS bulletin. More about that in a moment. But First...

Over the past several years I've talked with broadcasters, residents and emergency service providers about our current situation. Everyone knows there is a problem. Everyone knows the problem is communication of emergency news and information in a disaster event. The logical entity to take the lead here are the broadcasters. Except for that one little problem. Remember? They don't have to.

Well, THEY think they don't have to. And they should know. They helped lobby the FCC to make the rules. And here's a general idea of what the rules are.

"Harrumph! Mr./Ms. Broadcaster, you are hereby charged as a public trustee with serving the interests of the public. Since we at the FCC have no idea how to interpret what the public interest is, we leave it to you to decide."

One thing that complicates this situation for our otherwise satisfied broadcaster is the EAS or Emergency Alert System. EAS replaced our old Cold War Favorite, "The Emergency Broadcast System" ("If this had been an actual emergency..."). Since people hear EAS alerts on their local stations, they assume EAS is under local control. And they are wrong. EAS is actually meant to allow the President of the United States to address the nation in a national emergency. Homeland Security has put the director of FEMA in charge of the EAS. And FEMA can also trigger a national EAS broadcast.

After that, participation in EAS is voluntary and effectiveness is limited by the ability to respond to a local alert.

"Broadcasters and Cable Systems may decide individually whether to transmit such messages that originate at the State and Local level"

(FCC Report 05-191 Released 11/10/05 Section II, Part B, Paragraph 8)

So...you decide what the public interest is and don't worry about EAS unless the President is talking.

And what, you humbly ask, does this have to do with a fire on East Camino Cielo last night? Glad you asked.

While I am grossly irrtated and perturbed about the wholesale slaughter of the concept, "principled local broadcaster as trustee of public interest", you my friend may ignore my crusty attitude and let your local station know that they'd better straighten up - or else! Which brings me to The Public Comment File.

Every broadcaster is required to maintain a public file. Almost any citizen of good standing with interest in the community can file a complaint with a station regarding it's public service. The station must also open it's file to public inspection. The FCC reviews this file and the station response at license renewal times.

Since the FCC has declined to define public interest, this is a very important vehicle for pressuring broadcasters to meet community needs at the local level.
It's important to document the facts and submit them to the public file each time a station falis to be of service. Over time a pattern of failure can be established and a broadcaster will have a tougher time claiming that they serve the public.

The events of last night would seem to be a good place to start in Santa Barbara.

Super ISDN Celebrity Hollywood Extravaganza!

Yes, thanks in part to key word searches we're back to the breathless headlines of the good old days, when gossipy newspapers strung nouns and adjectives together like plastic cranberries and popcorn on a Zody's Xmas tree.

Today certainly was our day to, "Service the Stars!"...so to speak.

First up was an ISDN engagement for our friends at Campbell, Mithun, Esty of Minneapolis, Minn., wherein animation and commercial VO star Jeannie Elias (Over The Hedge, The Wild) stopped in for a commercial read. The Montreal native is now at home in So. Cal. (A gratuitous plug being mandatory for those north of the border who love to play, "Guess Who's A Canadian" eh?)

Next up was an ISDN session with TV and Film star John Corbett (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Northern Exposure, etc.). John was in for an ISDN session courtesy of DDB Chicago. Always the cool breeze when he visits The Prod Room, John just came off the road with The John Corbett Band which recently hit Chicago and Kansas City.

Finally, ever vigilant engineer Steve Gordon stepped out onto our second floor landing to hail a citizen who was parking his car and blocking our driveway. The motorist turned out to be Kenny Loggins, who graciously scooted his car out of the way.

Only in Santa Barbara.

And by the way, shouldn't you be subscribing to this blog?