When television was still relatively new, programs occasionally turned their cameras around and let viewers see what was going on behind the scenes. On the rare occasions when this was done, I was fascinated. Today we'll consider some of what happens behind the scenes here. Fortunately, there's no video.
What made these behind-the-scenes visits so remarkable in retrospect was the equipment used. All video cameras were huge and had to be mounted on an even larger pedestal. Houston Fearless was one of the primary manufacturers and the combined gear could weigh 400 pounds or more. The camera was trailed by a huge cable. So the idea of just wheeling the camera out of the air studio and into the control room had to be somewhat daunting. But they did it.
The primary tool used to create the TechByter Worldwide podcast is Adobe Audition so going behind the scenes isn't at all daunting and no heavy lifting is involved.
Adobe acquired Cool Edit Pro from Syntrillium Software in 2003 and it was the basis for what is today Audition. There are two primary interfaces, wave and multi-track. The wave editor is used to edit a single file -- for example the narration track or an interview. The multi-track editor is used to combine (as you no doubt already figured out) multiple tracks -- for example the opening and closing themes, the narration track, various musical bumpers, and additional sounds used in the final program.
But those are the routinely used tools and the headline promises "Audition magic rarely heard on TechByter". In other words, this was mainly my excuse to play with some of the features that I never get to touch normally. Please indulge me and I hope you find this worthwhile -- or at least amusing and somewhat entertaining.
As an old radio guy (and I'm not sure whether the emphasis should be on "old" or "radio"), what amazes me about Audition is the fact that much of what can now be done with relative ease would have been impossible without a digital audio workstation (DAW). I'll demonstrate a few bits of magic in the next few minutes and only one would have been possible in the old days, and then only if the radio station had some sophisticated equipment that the engineers would allow common folks to use. I'll tell you which one after we've heard them all.
Audition's two methods of displaying sound are essential to finding a repairing problems. One display shows the relative loudness of the sound. This is the view that most people will recognize as representing sound because it's the display that's used on television programs and in motion pictures.
The other display shows the frequencies vertically and represents louder sounds with brighter colors. I think of this as being similar to the histogram in photographic applications such as Lightroom and and Photoshop.
Audition can fix a lot of problems -- many more than I have time to talk about, so we'll take a look (and listen) to some of the most common audio problems.
Click any of the smaller images for a full-size view. To dismiss the larger image, press ESC or tap outside the image.
Sometimes an audio track will have pops and clicks. These sounds are often high-energy annoyances that span a wide range of frequencies.
Audition's healing brush is similar to Photoshop's healing brush, except for sound. That may seem illogical, but remember that both sounds and images are really just data as far as the computer is concerned. Techniques that can be used to clear a blotch on someone's face can be applied to eliminating a click in an audio file.
I'm sure it's not as easy as just repurposing code from one application to another, but the concept is the same, or at least similar.
The before and after recordings:
Another common problem involves a constant noise that occurs throughout the recording. For example, a low-frequency hum (usually 60Hz) or an air conditioner or fan can create a rumble.
Identifying noise such as that from an air conditioner is most suited to the standard wave form display. The area at the beginning and end of the track -- where there's no speech clearly shows the hum.
If you're familiar with noise-canceling headphones that can eliminate the sound of jet engines on an airplane, you understand the concept. The headphones identify a continuous sound and then attenuate the appropriate frequencies.
With Audition, the user is responsible for showing the program a clear sample of the noise. After that, Audition takes over and removes it.
The before and after recordings:
Phones are a problem -- cell phones and regular phones. During an interview, a phone may ring in the distance. If the phone is too close to the microphone, there's not much that can be done; but a phone that's across the room can usually be tamed.
Unlike clicks and pops, ringing phones have a substantial duration. Unlike the hum of an air conditioner, ringing phones aren't continuous. Eliminating a sound like this requires a different tool.
The ringing phone creates several short bursts of sound and these bursts occur in several frequency ranges. The phone used in this illustration is particularly obnoxious because it covers such a wide expanse of the audio spectrum.
Removing this much information does degrade the voice slightly. Some additional techniques, or more care in selecting the exact frequencies to remove, could be used to improve the voice. Even so, the track sounds much better without the ringing phone and with no additional work.
The before and after recordings:
So which of these would have been possible in the old days with analog gear? It might have been possible to remove the air conditioner noise with a notch filter, but few stations had them. And even the best notch filter was more a bludgeon than a scalpel. Removing the hum would also have removed a significant amount of essential parts of the signal and the result would have sounded more like telephone audio. We've come a long way, just as we have in text, photo, and video processing. What once would have seemed like magic is now commonplace.
There is one kind of sound that seems to be impervious to all repair attempts, though -- a meowing cat (or a barking dog). The sounds can be loud, irregular, cover a wide range of frequencies, and change in pitch and modulation. If you're interrupted by a dog or, as I sometimes am, by a cat -- about all you can do is record it again.
Length may be a problem. The audio you have might be too long or too short. Unlike on radio, TechByter doesn't have to begin or end at a specific time, but broadcast presentations are time sensitive. If a commercial is supposed to be 30 seconds or 60 seconds, it needs to be 30 seconds or 60 seconds, with very little leeway -- maybe a second or two, depending on the professional standards of the station.
For example, let's say that you have a tag line that cannot be longer than 8 seconds, but the person recording the audio can't do it in less than 14 and a half. Audition to the rescue.
An audio clip can be accelerated or slowed by 20% (sometimes more) without having a detrimental effect on the sound. And Audition can do this without making the person sound like a chipmunk. We'll hear the original recording (14.4 seconds) and the 8-second version (shrunk to just 64%), which may be objectionably fast. But if you can talk the producer into giving you just another 2 seconds, the 10-second version is acceptable.
Conversely, it's possible to maintain the length of a clip while raising or lowering the pitch. In fact, you hear the lowered pitch at the beginning of each podcast. (Yep, that's really just little old me.)
So there's a listen behind the scenes. There are lots of other tools in the box, some of which I've never used and some of which are difficult to illustrate.
When the most recent version of Audition was pushed out to Creative Cloud users, it came with some new educational links covering topics such as the basics, creating a podcast, and reducing noise. This is a good start on making the program accessible to those who have never worked in radio, television, or motion picture production -- in other words, most of us.
There's also a new link in the Help menu. The link leads to more than 10,000 sound effects and thousands of music tracks that can be downloaded and used without additional charge. A new section called Soundbooth Scores is shown as "coming soon".
One thing is clear, though: If you're looking for a way to modify a recorded sound, Audition probably has what you need.
Fraudsters continue to fine-tune their tricks and this week I found two efforts that probably fooled quite a few people. Let's take a look at them and see what reveals their fraudulent nature.
Here's a message that claims to be from Facebook. It says that I have "notifications pending", specifically "4 friend request". Those are the first two clues that this is a fraud. (1) Facebook doesn't send out these kinds of notices. But then again, Facebook is constantly changing and their motto is move fast and break things so you might conclude that this is something new. (2) It's ungrammatical. The number 4 indicates a plural and needs to be followed by a plural verb instead of the singular.
Another clue: The greeting is "Hi". Just "Hi". That's clue number 3. Nearly all legitimate businesses now include your name in the text. Not your email address, but your name. Not just "Hi".
If I needed another clue, I could get one by hovering my mouse over the proposed link to find that its target is a Russian website.
This is annoying, but probably not dangerous. Not all Russian sites want to affect elections in other countries. This one, based solely on its name ("TheMedsMarket") probably just wants to sell me cheap knock-off Viagra.
No sale guys, and Прощай, дураки!
There was a message that pretended to be from BlueHost, a website hosting service or Orem, Utah. It's the hosting service I use for TechByter Worldwide and it claimed that spam was being sent from the site.
Oh, my! I had 24 hours to contact them or they would shut the site down!
I knew that I hadn't been sending spam, so an examination of the message seemed reasonable and determining it was a fraud took only a few seconds.
There's a long URL in plain text. That's something you learn not to do in FRAUD 101. A competent scammer would have hidden the real URL behind a false front, but this mistake saved some time for me. What they wanted me to see ("bluehost.com") was near the front of the link, but the important bits are near the end. The real target domain is "test-hf.su". Although the Soviet Union no longer exists, the old SU top level domain still does.
The other obvious clue is the phone number. The scammer apparently doesn't know that in the US telecommunications system no exchange can begin with "1", so "(888) 143-3365" is clearly fake.
Had I needed any additional proof, I could have examined the message's routing information in the header, which made it clear that the email had originated in Russia, not in Utah.
You don't have to be a genius to outsmart most crooks. Just pay attention to the clues they leave in plain sight.
What would you do if you received an invitation from someone you didn't know to edit a file stored in Google Docs? The right answer to that would be to ignore it. But what if the message came from someone you know?
In that case, the right answer would be to ask a lot of questions. Has this person ever sent you a file to edit previously? Are you expecting one? Does the text accompanying the link "sound" like the person who appears to have sent it?
Google claims to have disabled all of the accounts that were sending bogus messages that attempted to steal login credentials: In addition to disabling the accounts, Google removed the fake pages and pushed updates out to users.
The company says that the attack affected "fewer than 0.1% of Gmail users" -- but given the number of Gmail uses, even one tenth of one percent would be a huge number. Google says its investigation showed that no other data was exposed. "There's no further action users need to take regarding this event; users who want to review third party apps connected to their account can visit Google Security Checkup."
Remember when Microsoft was a software company? Starting with DOS as an operating system and then Windows. Remember MultiPlan, the spreadsheet program that was a competitor for VisiCalc in the early 1980s? Then came Excel, Word, Access, Powerpoint, and others. But now Microsoft is concentrating on hardware.
In mid June, Microsoft will start shipping the Surface Laptop, starting price $1000 (OK, in Microsoft-speak, $999) and the target audience is those who might be considering a MacBook Pro (least expensive model $1100).
But wait. The computer runs a special version of Windows 10 called "Windows 10 S" and I'll leave it up to you to decide what the "S" stands for. This version of Windows will run only applications that are downloaded from the Windows Store. So is Microsoft trying to compete with Apple's MacBooks or with Google's Chromebooks?
Apparently the real market is schools and students. If the computer can run only applications from the Microsoft Store, students can't download an install "unapproved" applications. Microsoft will make it possible for teachers to upgrade the systems from Windows 10 S to Windows 10 Pro so that non-Store applications can be installed.
The Windows 10 S machines boot in about 15 seconds and have 3:2 aspect ratio touch screens. They weigh less than 3 pounds and vary from about 10mm to 15mm thick. Microsoft says the battery life will allow the computer to run all day. The specified battery life is more than 14 hours, but it's wise to assume that -- like EPA mileage figures -- your results will be lower.
Manufacturers of Windows systems seem to be planning to compete with Chromebooks, too. Acer, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Samsung, and Toshiba will release machines in the sub-$200 range in the next few months. They'll have low-end processors, limited RAM, and minimal storage.
