Podcast Academy

In my opinion a solid understanding of analog and digital audio, recording, production, mixing and mastering is a necessity in order to optimize the quality of your podcast production work-flow. I’d like to recommend a fantastic resource to those of you who are interested in striving for and maintaining high quality results.

‘Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science‘ by Bob Katz is considered by many to be the bible of audio mastering. Bob himself is an established Grammy Award winning mastering engineer who is responsible for countless hit records. Katz also created the K-Sytem monitor calibration and metering specification. The underlying concept of the K-System is intended to suggest and maintain consistent level and monitoring management for music production, film sound production, and broadcasting.

The first thing that struck me about this book was how easy it was to read considering the complexity of the subject matter. It is for this reason that I find it suitable for all levels of media producers. Are you curious about the technical aspects of dynamic range management, compression, equalization, monitoring, or level management? If so this book is for you. ‘Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science’ will assist you in building a foundation that in the end will help you to achieve optimum results. [$39.99 US]

Please visit Digital Domain

I’m anxiously awaiting news this week [NAMM] about the long awaited update to DSP Quattro, the 2-channel editing/mastering application for Mac OSX. In fact, it has been over a year since the last update. According to Stefano and his staff out of Rome Italy, they have been busy moving the application over from CodeWarrior to Xcode in order to finally build a Universal Binary.

If you are not familiar with DSP Quattro, I suggest that to head over to the site and have a look. This application supports 2-channel editing, batch processing, advanced CD burning/project management, VST/AU plugins, and live recording.

Currently priced at $150 US, DSP Quattro is a solid consideration if you are looking for an affordable tool that offers professional features and results.

-ptfigg.

This is my second formal endorsement of an application that I promise will impress you in terms of Podcasting and your production work-flow management. I am referring to AudioFinder, by Iced Audio.

Let me stress that I support the entire iTunes concept. However in my honest opinion iTunes is not structured to function as an advanced audio media management tool, or something that is required within a professional production environment. Personally, I need something that will offer: advanced searches and management, batch processing, various aspects of media conversion [sample rate, bit depth, file format, etc], plugin auditioning, basic cutting with subsequent export, and analysis tools. If you share similar requirements, I highly suggest that you check out AudioFinder.

Besides the features noted above that meet my personal requirements, this application offers a host of additional processing and management utilities that create a seamless experience. This translates into a high level of efficiency. I am particularly fond of the Meta Editor module. This provides a super fast method of extracting and exporting ’slices’ of a referenced clip.

Also, due to the embedded plugin support, auditioning clips, as well as processing clips through your favorite plugins is accomplished with ease. The site describes the application perfectly: ‘AudioFinder is an audio asset management system housed in a single [and let me stress beautifully designed] application’ … and it is highly recommended.A few final thoughts: The user forum is active, and the developer is accessible on the forum and on a personal basis [email]. Lastly, this is not your typical $20 piece of Mac shareware. AudioFinder sells for $69 US, and in my opinion, it’s worth every penny …

-ptfigg.