Information Sells

Information Sells Upgraded to WordPress 2-7

Oh boy! I just upgraded Information Sells to WordPress 2.7

So far so good.

THE UPGRADE

I’ve been upgrading my plug ins conscientiously, as new versions are released. Sadish announced that all his themes are WP 2.7 ready. So, although I’d planned to wait at least a few seconds before upgrading, I jumped right in.

I used the Automatic Upgrade plug-in as I always do. The only problem I encountered was that, once I’d upgraded the database, WordPress dropped me back to the new WP 2.7 dashboard instead of the Automatic Upgrade Plug-in control panel. I had to manually re-activate all my plug-ins.

FIRST USE BUG REPORT

In Firefox 3, on a Windows XP notebook with a 1024×768 resolution monitor, the right hand side of the Add New Post window is covered by the Publish, Tags, and Categories windows. I’ve had to roll them up to write this post.  That’s pretty annoying, actually.

The Upload/Insert Media process isn’t as smooth as it was in WordPress 2.6, either. I had to manually adjust the size of the image 3 times before it fit correctly.

Maybe WordPress 2.7.1 will arrive tomorrow.

On one of the forums that I read regularly, someone asked if there was a way, using Audacity, to bleep out a swear word in an interview without otherwise editing the interview.

This isn’t a situation that comes up every day, but there are certainly times when you’ll want to bleep - rather than cut - a few seconds of audio. If you use Audacity, this is a quick fix, requiring only a few mouse clicks.

The short video below shows how it is done.

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If you watch the credits at the end of a movie, you will see several mysterious job titles: Gaffer, Best Boy, Key Grip, Foley Artist… The names give no indication of the function, but you’d never bother watching more than 30 seconds of a film that didn’t employ these people. They are the lighting and sound technicians who bring film to life.

Most Hollywood films - whether they blast you with loud, sci-fi style special effects or stick to quiet dialog during long, peaceful walks on the beach - have almost all sound except dialog added after shooting. When someone opens the front door, walks up the stairs, flips a light switch, and flops onto the bed - the Foley Artist supplies the sound.

Your You Tube or DVD productions may lack a Hollywood budget, but they can still benefit from the addition of post-production sound effects. Perhaps a crucial interview suffers from a low level hiss in the background. You can use the Noise Filter in Audacity to roll off some sounds - but it is not always 100% successful. The addition of another background sound can mask the noise. A carefully chosen, quiet musical track, or even, if the interview was recorded outside, the sound of birds chirping can be effective without being annoying.

But the cost! Finding good quality, royalty-free audio tracks is expensive and time consuming. Digital Juice has three great Sound Effects collections that sell for $150.00 each, but it can be very had to justify that sort of expense for a one minute You Tube video. And many on line videographers and product developers simply do not need such large collections. Alternately, the internet offers dozens - hundreds - of sites with free, low quality WAV and MIDI sounds. Some are pirated, some have no license agreements (which could bite you later). Is bad better than nothing?

Where do you turn?

Sound Snap

Sound Snap was begun by professional sound technicians as a way to share high quality, royalty free sound effects. They are scrupulous about both the quality and the legality of the sounds on the site. Some of Sound Snap’s contributors have worked on films ranging from Batman Begins to Happy Feet. These are people who know how to record quality sound - and they want to share.

Sound Snap arranges sounds by category, for easy browsing. You can find everything from Animals to Exterior to Nature to Sci Fi to Music - and more. There are currently 16 different categories, each divided into sub-categories. You can also search by keyword. The downloads are available as either MP3 and WAV.

All you have to do is register, and this amazing library is available for immediate use.

Don’t let your video productions suffer from bad sound - become your own Foley artist and bring them to life. (And once you become obsessed with sounds, share your own recordings at Sound Snap.)

Headset microphones are used by many screencasters. They produce acceptable sound at a reasonable price - particularly USB microphones like the Jabra GN2000 USB Headset - and they leave your hands free for keyboarding. Unfortunately, you can often tell when a screencaster is wearing a headset by the background sounds.

Most people’s first instinct is to speak directly into the mic by placing it in front of the mouth. This results in the mic picking up breathing sounds and popping on letters like “p” and “b”. The correct position for the microphone is counter-intuitive. It should be beside or below your mouth - where it will be less likely to pick up exhalations.

In their newsletter today, B&H Photo & Video compares many different headsets, both wired and wireless. You can find a PDF of their comparison of three lower end (i.e., less expensive) models here

They also offer this advice on microphone type and placement:

The proper positioning of the microphone arm and boom is important in order to ensure a clear, consistent vocal delivery. The optimal placement of the mic is usually 1-2″ from the corner of the mouth. Positioning the mic directly in front of the mouth is not advisable, as plosive distortion and exaggerated bass response (called the proximity effect) will undoubtedly occur. We recommend using omnidirectional polar pattern head-worns for most applications. They are easy to use and provide excellent quality audio We have found that omni mics offered a surprising amount of ambient isolation, probably because of the close proximity of the mic to its source and the small size of the capsule. Omni’s tend to be much more forgiving off-axis in terms of signal pickup and exhibit little or no proximity effect compared to cardioids. Directional polar patterns are sometimes better suited for situations where there are loud monitors, extreme feedback or environmental noise.

Position the microphone to the side of your mouth

B&H Photo’s newsletter recently featured an interesting, very detailed article on choosing the right microphone for interviews.

As we’ve written before, most consumer camcorders have an onboard microphone, but it should be avoided if sound quality is important. The onboard mic will pick up ambient sound (traffic, wind, dogs barking etc) as well as the sound of the camcorder’s motor.

A lavalier microphone is a good choice for a single narrator - but you’ll need extra equipment to get two lavalier mics to work with most camcorders. Indeed, finding a reasonably priced, consumer grade camcorder with a microphone jack is hard enough. Finding a built in method to plug in two microphones is fantasy.

A shotgun mic, like the Rode VideoMic, is one solution - but it is still susceptible to ambient noise in a busy location.

The preferred solution for most professionals is a handheld microphone. As B&H’s newsletter explains:

While the act of sticking a microphone in someone’s face may not be the most inconspicuous method for capturing the sound of their voice, it’s still a great tool because against adverse circumstances, handheld interview mics still attain better audio than other types of mics in this situation. The reason for this is that they tend to get closest to the sound source. Proximity plays a huge role in audio, and the closer your microphone is to the person’s voice, the better it will sound.

However, not all handheld mics are created equal. One that works for a stage performance by a musician will have different characteristics than one used by a lecturer on stage. An interview mic will be different than a lecturer’s mic.

If you are doing interviews, here’s what to look for:

1. A long body. This improves reach and it gives you room to add an identifying flag to your mic
2. An omnidirectional pick up pattern
3. Check the connectors! Professional microphones frequently have XLR connectors. Your camcorder may have only a mini-jack input. Be sure the camcorder’s inputs and the microphone’s plug are compatible

How much can you expect to pay for a solid, handheld microphone? $80.00 on up. If you think you’ll use this microphone frequently, don’t stint on quaity - but don’t confuse price with value, either. The Shure SM63L is an excellent mid-level microphone.

You can find a very useful table listing handheld microphones and their prices, dimensions, and frequency responses in the B&H Photo and Video Newsletter

The Conversations Network has posted a great tutorial on getting top quality audio podcasts using Skype. Take a look:

http://www.blogarithms.com/index.php/archives/2007/12/23/skype-for-interviews/

This tutorial will walk you through changes to both Skype and firewall default settings. There is a lot of detail, but it is very easy to follow.

The two most important steps to getting good audio are quite simple:

1. Use a USB headset, rather than an analog one.
2. Upgrade to the latest version of Skype, which has a greatly improved audio codec.

In last week’s Video webcast, there was a question about how to fade music out while fading voice narration in. The trick is to use multiple audio tracks. The exact steps will vary, of course, depending on your audio software. Many video editing packages - like Sony Vegas Movie Studio - have multiple tracks. But others, like Camtasia and Windows Movie Maker are limited in their ability to handle multiple audio tracks.

If you find that you need more flexibility than your software allows, try using Audacity. It’s free and it is very powerful. You can import the audio from your video project into Audacity. Do whatever editing and mixing is necessary. And then re-import the newly edited file back into your video project.

Here’s a very short tutorial on fading multiple tracks using Audacity. (Don’t be fooled by the black poster frame - just click to play)

A final word of caution: when you render your video, the audio will be compressed. Until that final step, especially if you are importing and exporting your audio for editing, try to keep the tracks uncompressed by using the .wav format for audio. You’ll end up with better sound in the final product.

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Here are two identical versions of the same short video. All that changes is the background music. Click to play (don’t worry - there is no poster frame, but the videos start when you click on them.)

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Different Music

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I’ve heard it said that 60% of a good video is audio.

When you are creating a video for eBay - don’t forget to add sound! You can add a voice over narration, explaining the benefits of your merchandise. Or you can add a simple musical soundtrack to help create a mood.

Whatever you do - try not to make it too loud. You have no control over the volume on your buyers’ speakers. If your music is a loud, pounding piece of music and the browser’s speaker volume is set to MAX - they may immediately click out of your auction just to avoid being deafened!

You want to entice buyers - not drive them away. A pleasant, sunny bit of music can make your video seem more professional, and your product more desirable.