And That's the Truth About the Soundbooth, Ruth

I'm a few weeks behind on this one, but I was busy with my IRL job, so, you know, sue me...

{Note from sync.sound.cinema Legal Dept. : "Well, Mr. Dolan certainly has what we in the industry call a 'sense of humor'. To wit, we do not endorse any language that may directly or indirectly induce someone to take legal action against the staff and administration of sync.sound.cinema. Thank you."}

From various places around the web: Adobe has released a free beta of the next version of Soundbooth. Snip from Adobe's site:

Try the Soundbooth beta now. The prerelease of the next version of Soundbooth provides new tools video editors, designers, and others who do not specialize in audio need to accomplish their everyday work such as:

* Arranging audio files on multiple tracks
* Making quick edits and applying fades
* Matching volume levels with a single command
* Removing unwanted noises and background sounds
* Adjusting tempo and pitch
* Recording and polishing voice-overs
* Adding effects and filters
* Previewing MP3 compression quality
* Easily creating customized music — without musical expertise

New features give you even more flexibility and control over your audio. Now with multitrack support, the ability to match volume levels across one or more files, the ability to preview MP3 compression settings before saving, and an enhanced Soundbooth Score workflow, the next version of Soundbooth is a necessary addition to your creative toolkit. Also, with the new Adobe Sound Document file format you can take “snapshots” of your work-in-progress and undo changes made to your audio assets.

It's cross-platform (Intel Macs only), and good for a 2 day grace period.

Link.

We're Surrounded!

Soundtrack Pro has certainly come a long way in its short life, having added surround mixing capabilities in version 2 (though truth be told, while I like the program, it still has a ways to go). But once you've done your fancy 5.1, how do you get it out of the box? Kevin Mcauliffe over at Creative Mac takes us through it step by step. Snip:

I thought that for this article I would look at three very common ways to get your surround sound mix out to tape/DVD. One method for DVD, and two choices depending on your equipment setup for tape.

Link.

Also, be sure to check out Kevin's earlier article about surround mixing in STP.

Vibrating Air Molecules

Blog buddy Emon forwarded this to me:

The Music of Sound is an audio blog by Kiwi mixer Tim Prebble. Snip:

Tim Prebble is a film sound designer & supervising sound editor
based in Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand.

While most of his waking hours are spent working on film soundtracks
other interests include making ambient/alaetorical music, collecting
records, playing double bass, making electronic dub infused beats,
planting sunflowers & wishing he was on holiday in Japan.

Be sure to check out this post and his amazing field recordings captured with a $200 (!) recorder. The price may seem amateur, but the sound quality says otherwise. As he says in the post: "Trust your ears, only." Sage advice.

Link, via emonome.com.