Neal Campbell | This is my blog. » audio

Hidden Radio and Bluetooth Speaker

Neal Campbell — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 01:26:44 +0000

Early in the days of GeekBrief.TV, when we had quit the day job to produce the show full-time, I had a need that wasn’t being met by any available technology. I used the show to lobby for wireless speakers that could be placed around a house or an apartment so whatever podcast I played in iTunes would fill the place.

I designed this cube inspired by Tivoli Audio’s Model One as the form factor I wanted.

And then when Griffin Technologies had their Evolve wireless speakers ready, they invited us to preview them at their HQ in Nashville.

We learned about the problems engineers had to overcome to make wireless work without lag and asynchronicity. Those issues have been conquered and now wireless speakers work great. My favorite wireless speaker technology is made by Soundcast. Good stuff.

Industrial Designers, John Van Den Nieuwenhuizen and Vitor Santa Maria have surpassed a goal on Kickstarter to manufacture a gorgeously designed Bluetooth wireless speaker and radio where the whole top is a giant volume knob. About the size of a giant coffee mug, the hidden speaker has a rechargeable battery providing 30-hours of streaming audio.

Gigantic iPhone / iPod Dock: Behringer iNuke Boom

Neal Campbell — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:49:59 +0000

During the production of GeekBrief.TV I wrote about some weird and wacky gadgets. I’m not sure any of them top this. This is one of those products so over-the-top in every way I checked the calendar to verify I didn’t oversleep all the way to April 1st!

The BEHRINGER iNuke Boom will pump 10,000 Watts of concert quality audio into your room of choice. Certainly nothing wrong with that sales pitch! The press release says you get this loud concert quality audio at a great value! The economy’s bad so that sounds super duper! It’s released under the new sub-brand BEHRINGER is calling Eurosound. Eurosound audio products will have modern, European design combined with BEHRINGER’s audio engineering chops. I LOVE me some modern design and great engineering! GIVE ME the DETAILS!

This thing is 8 feet wide and 4 feet tall. It weighs 700 pounds. Notice the scale? See that little iPhone docked at the top? As for that great value? $29,999.99!

This isn’t a gadget. It’s furniture!

The gigantic boom box will be unveiled at CES 2010. Here’s the press release to prove I’m not kidding!

Signal Processing Chain

Neal Campbell — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 03:39:23 +0000

This is an, “I need help!” post that runs pretty technical. I’m setting up audio gear for a new music project and I know the order in which I chain my components together matters. I just don’t know which order and what connections are best (click the pics to enlarge).

I have a Mackie Onyx 1220 because Leo Laporte told me to. Leo always gives good advice. I also have a dbx 1066 Compressor Limiter Gate. The dbx 1066 might not be a link in this chain. A TC-Helicon VoiceWorks Plus is on its way from Sweetwater, and I want to record to a Marantz PMD570.

Is there an audio guy in the house who can tell me how to chain everything together and whether or not I need to skip the dbx 1066?

Using Levelator with Final Cut Pro

Neal Campbell — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 22:30:39 +0000

Max Murphy is a teen podcaster who produces a show called Mac News Weekly. He’s a HUGE friend of GeekBrief.TV.

At the end of Max’s latest episode, the audio on the credits is a lot louder than his audio on the show. I used to do that all the time on Geek Brief. Levelator is an easy way to keep that from happening. I’m posting this for Max, but other folks might find it useful too.

Geek Brief Radio Test Tube

Neal Campbell — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:35:23 +0000

Long story cut into really short pieces…We started Geek Brief Radio, an audio version of GeekBrief.TV because Cali kept getting email from people telling her they watch Geek Brief while driving to work. She, like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, is a safety girl.

GeekBrief.TV is written to be visual, so we’ve never really been happy with Geek Brief Radio except when we do a special audio thing like the Macword Postmortum.

Tonight we tried something different. While I was editing the video, we recorded a different audio version of the same show. I think it has potential. I subscribe to the video version of our show, but not the audio version. I would subscribe to this, I think.

Audio Setup

Neal Campbell — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 00:25:57 +0000

I’m an audio wanna-be. I love audio and I want to understand how to record great audio in the same way I want to understand how to produce good video. We’re setting up an audio podcasting studio for Geek Brief Radio, and this is some of the equipment we’re starting with:

Two Electro Voice RE-20s
A Mackie 1220 mixer
A Mackie Onyx Firewire Expansion Board
A dbx 1066 Compressor/Limiter/Gate
A Mackie 4-Channel Headphone Amp

All of this is Alex Lindsay’s fault. He’s doing a podcast called Gear Media Tech. It’s all about audio gear, and it’s probably my favorite video podcast right now.