Tag Archives: apple

Summary

by

I didn’t plan to write a summary post, but lately I think this would be the best to tell everything what’s going on. So here it is, a wide variety of things randomly happening around me. I had so many projects continuously going on that sometimes I lost in the flow. Fortunately there’s an app for this too. ;)

Versatile interface

I had been pondering for months about a really versatile and useful interface that I will be able to use in many different, but equally demanding situation. After long months of searching, testing, pondering and re-testing I decided to get the Sound Devices USB Pre2.

It wasn’t an easy decision, because when it comes to equipment I’m very picky, the candidate must be: sturdy, well engineered and built, versatile, very good sound quality both in and out, have to have multiple connection options, must work flawlessly with wide variety of computers, etc. So, you can expect a review in the next few weeks.

Weight issues

Many of you know that I have a little partner with me almost all the time, the Sony PCM D50. I’d been using the basic model of Joby’s Gorillapod, and as it turned out, unfortunately it cannot hold the recorder safely in place. It’s still a great little flexible tripod, but not adequate to use it with the Sony. I thought the bigger model (hybrid) would be fine, but a short test run proved otherwise.

So, the ultimate choice is the even bigger Gorillapod: SLR Zoom with the ball head.

Obviously it is much bigger in size, but this can hold the recorder firmly and safely at the place I want. I had to decide which is the more important factor, size or safety and I decided that safety is much more important (at least for me).

You can see the size difference here:

The good thing in the new, bigger Gorillapod is that you can use it as a proper tripod if you want to, but in a second, it can be the usual super-twisted holder you already know.

Pro Tools 10.3

The new update which corrects many bugs that disturbed all of us in post production. All I can say is so far so good. It works fine without any crash or hiccup. I’m still on Lion, plan to upgrade to Mountain Lion in the near future, but right now I have no time for that, and as the golden rule says: never ever upgrade during big projects… I postponed the upgrade. Even before updating Pro Tools I made a complete system backup for safety, and I suggest the same to you. Always backup before any serious upgrade.

I’ve heard good things about Mountain Lion and as the latest release from Avid actually supports the new operating system, maybe my upgrade is going to happen sooner than I first thought…

Macbook Pro as a power-horse

Yes, I admit I’m a geek. Sometimes I lost control over myself, so I upgraded my laptop. The old hdd has been retired, and a brand new Samsung 830 series SSD replaced it, the difference is quite amazing. But you may already know this, but might miss the fact that I upgraded to 16GB of ram. Well, Pro Tools just loves it. It really boosted the whole performance.

I use Freememory on my laptop, and with 8GB I sometimes ran into problems. Now, with 16GB in the machine, every ram hungry app can eat ample amount while the os still have enough to work with.

iPad stand

I’ve been looking for a good iPad stand for a long time. The required features were:
* shall be stable (obviously)
* made from durable materials
* able to place it on the top of audio consoles of all kind
* small enough that it doesn’t need much space when not used

And then I came across this:

Twelve South Compass iPad stand. Just the perfect solution for me. It holds the iPad safely, because of the legs it can stand on consoles and virtually everywhere. And, when not used it can be very small in its own little holder. As it is made from steel it’s very strong, fulfils all my need.

Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter

I waited for this, and after such a long wait Apple released it. Immediately bought one to test it with different external HDDs and with an RME Fireface UFX sound card.

With the HDDs I experienced no problem at all, actually it is pretty fast and you save yourself a complete Firewire port.

But, the real good news is that it works perfectly well with the RME sound card! Without a hiccup. Tried it during recording sessions, during mixing and editing and it’s been working fine from the first minute. Of course a Thunderbolt hub would be even better, but I’m happy with this little adapter now. Belkin promised to release a Thunderbolt hub in september this year. They haven’t released it yet, I hope we don’t have to wait too long now.

Omnifocus to keep me sane and at least partially organised

You may know the Omnigroup, they make spectacular software for the Mac and for iOS devices. Omnifocus is a GTD application which can be perfectly utilised in post production.

It’s useful if you have many small things to do, but also perfect if you have various recurring tasks for the day or for longer periods. I’ll write about it in the future, for now it’s enough to know that it’s a really remarkable application. A real life saver for me.

Future articles

First of all, thank you for the suggestions and lots of emails!

Of course the Shortcut for our pleasure will be continued shortly, and I plan to make some really interesting new things more tied to post production sound. I won’t make any promises, but I will really do my best to post interesting things, so stay tuned, lot’s of interesting things are on the way…

HDD to SSD change

by

Recently I bought a new system drive. Well, not an average replacement of the original regular hard drive, instead, I decide to jump into the SSD world. After a little research I decided to buy the Samsung 830 series drive with 256Gb capacity.

While I had been going through many reviews, frankly I became more and more confused. One part of the reviews were positive, described the the difference between an average hard disk and a solid state drive incredible, while the others stated exactly the opposite. I knew that this change couldn’t be absolutely bad, but wasn’t sure about the definitive positive side of it. To make the long story short, after a while I bit the bullet and bought the drive.

At this point I still didn’t know the exact truth about SSDs but of course after so many articles and reviews I had some idea.

The procedure

Obviously with a complete system drive change there are multiple options we can choose. First, start from scratch, install a fresh operating system, than the apps we need, etc. The second is (which is the option I chose) to make a bootable “backup” of your system drive onto the new SSD. I’ve used SuperDuper, but there are many alternatives available, use whichever you like. Almost the only thing you have to remember is to make the clone drive bootable. Every backup software offers you this option, and obviously without this your new drive won’t work.

So, os drive cloned to the new SSD, ready to go, let’s do the hardware part of it.

It’s really a very simple and easy process. For safety, I downloaded the iFixit guide to my iPad to keep it as reference during the change. With all the necessary preparation and the actual change does not take longer than a few minutes. If you are not so familiar with computer building it may take 20 minutes top. And it’s really easy.

This is the hardware part of the assembly.

Now we are ready to launch the system with the brand new drive in it!

The results

I was prepared to have some hiccups during the process, but believe me, it’s a completely trouble free experience. Push the power button and enjoy the new drive. As you can guess I was very excited to see the speed change. To be honest there is no night and day difference in the boot/shut down time. It is faster, but not that unbelievably faster. The main advantage is obvious when the system is ready for the daily torture. Different softwares just pops up after launch, almost without any waiting, without any spinning beach ball. Click the icon, and almost immediately you can use the app.

With bigger things like Pro Tools, the difference is amazing. I trashed prefs and databases to force Pro Tools to rescan plugins. While with the older drive it took a good minute or a little more to scan all my plugs and launch Pro Tools, with the new SSD it takes about 15–20 seconds. With all the scanning and launching!

A normal launch would take 45–55 seconds, with the new system drive, it takes 15–18 seconds. But wait, there’s more! Working with Pro Tools is a much faster and snappier experience. Disk cache is amazingly fast, plugin guis just pops up almost immediately. It really feels like a huge Pro Tools upgrade. I wonder what could happen if Avid would really optimise Pro Tools for speed and efficiency.

Here’s a little chart comparing the “before-after” results (not scientific results!):

I admit I have a very bad habit. I always leave applications open, ready to work. Even when I switch off the machine I leave the “reopen apps” option on. Before the SSD, sometimes it was a complete nightmare as booting up the computer took more minutes before every app opened up again. Now, it seems quite natural. Although the normal boot up time is not that much faster, the app load times are so much rapid that I can hardly see the loading. Even when I leave 8–10 apps open before shutdown, after the login screen it takes about 3 seconds to reopen everything from a word processor through the mail to the browser.

So to answer the ultimate question: YES it is worth changing the old HDD. Regarding longevity I have no experience yet, but the 3 year warranty and my regular system backup gives me confidence.

For the real geeks, here’s the first test result:

iOS apps for us, sound obsessives

by

I would like to recommend a few very useful iOS apps which helps me tremendously in many situations be it live or post production work. I assume I’m not the only one who use clever little apps in his workflow. In case you know some other, suggestions are always appreciated.

AudioTools

This is one of my very favourite one. It is a very serious tool with lots of options and possibilities. It is made by StudioSixDigital. There is a base app, and if you need more you can buy things inside the app through in-app purchase. SPL meter, acoustical analysis tools, speaker tests, generator, audio calculator and many more.

Obviously on its own, none of the iOS devices is good for serious measurements, but they are definitely good for some troubleshooting, and with some clever gadgets, they can indeed become more serious tools in our arsenal.

StudioSixDigital realised that these gadgets needs some help to really be helpful, so they decided to invent and manufacture some complementary device such as the new iTestMic. With this little microphone, you can perform quite serious measurements. Obviously it won’t outperform the most sophisticated instruments, but it is capable of doing very precise things.

The company ported the famous Smaart tools to iOS, and I have to tell you it is wonderful. Fast, reliable and very useable.

Live Toolkit

As the name suggests, it is more intended toward live sound applications. Made by Rockbaby, a very well thought out app which not only useful for sound guys, but for “light” guys too as it can show you the fixture sets, dmx address dip switch positions.

On the sound side, it provides a good converter for distance (meter-feet-ms-hertz), eq (bandwith-q), and weight (kg-lbs). The more sophisticated part is the ability to determine your limiter settings through speaker and amp parameters.

It is not an app packed with features, but still offer some very useful things, it’s fast and stable.

Backline calc

It is made by Audiofile Engineering, and as their reputation is high for a reason, this app won’t disappoint you either. One of my favourites actually as it is so useful.


What it does as a calculator:

length:

  • note length
  • bar length
  • song length
  • beats to tempo
  • time to samples
  • compare tempos
  • change tempo
  • sum times
  • subtract times

pitch:

  • note name to
  • midi note to
  • frequency to
  • wavelength to

timecode:

  • frames to timecode
  • convert timecode
  • change timecode

electric:

  • compare power
  • compare voltage

acoustics:

  • distance to time
  • time to distance
  • SPL
  • panning

files:

  • file size

In every function there are easily adjustable sliders, but with a double-tap, concrete values can be entered as well. The whole gui is very minimalist and very easy on the eye. If one thing I would like to be changed is to blend some calculation together, as sometimes it is harder to find the right calculator from the long list. But keep in mind that it is a free app!

RadioKit

Also made by Rockbaby, a very valuable app which helps to identify the safe frequencies for your wireless packs. Knows many devices, country regulations, you can define user groups, make different sets and save them for later reference.

I cannot count how many times I need an app like this during the summer festival season. Tuning the wireless sets to safe zones is very fast and easy with this little app. From this point on, you can check and/or retune your wireless mics or in-ear monitors after a few taps on your iPhone. It’s also comes very handy in theatre situations where we use many wireless equipment.

MusicMath

Today’s last app is also a very useful one in my opinion. MusicMath is a timecode calculator, a tap tempo utility, a length to delay to modulation calculator and a note-frequency-cents-midi calculator all in one little app. Made by Laurent Colson.

Touching the info (i) button anywhere in any calculator brings up the application’s help.

Every little built-in utility has some nice treat for the user. The timecode part has a history function, the tap tempo utility has a rounding function which can be handy, the delay part provides all the information you need after you’ve set the desired tempo and the note part provides different temperaments and diapason. Touching a note will play the note, so you can also hear the different tones.

You can have even more…

Of course the above ones are only a few recommendations which have been working for me exceptionally well, but as you know, the app store is full of applications like these. Before purchasing anything, I suggest to search the internet for information, reviews, and recommendations to be sure the chosen app will serve you in the long run. It is important even though these apps are very cheap for what they offer.

Magic Trackpad with Pro Tools

by

Finally the day have arrived that I can share some thoughts on this little “magical” device. I’ve been using it for a few weeks now and I didn’t wanted to rush any review prematurely, as with any other new gadgets you have to give yourself time to get really used to it, to feel it and master it. First impressions can be very misleading in both direction. In the first few days some can feel it is so magical that no other device should exist, or the opposite: hate it and want the money back. The truth – as usual – is somewhere in between.

Within the first few days I used the magic trackpad without any additional feature enhancer software, just to get the feel of it, to get accustomed to it. If anyone ever used any touch sensitive iOS device before, then multitouch gestures won’t be completely new. I’m a well-known iPad addict, so for me these multi-touch things are very natural to perform. If you are not really that “touch-type” person, I recommend to use it first with the very basic things just to become familiar with the multi-touch experience. If you jump right into the middle, you might get lost and eventually angry. Everyone needs some time to really master the different gestures. Once you are comfortable with the basic gestures, you’re ready to take the next step. Don’t rush it, or you’ll soon become disappointed. This process is really very person dependent, someone become a multi-touch ninja in a few days, others might need a few weeks before they can absolutely distinguish the various gestures. No more warning.

The magic trackpad is literally a huge touch-pad, almost the same that you can find in any Apple MacBook Pro, but fortunately it is much bigger in size. It is a bluetooth device operating with two AA batteries. The batteries lasts for weeks even if you use it constantly. At first I wasn’t sure about that if it’s really adequate for any serious work. But after a few hours of usage I knew that this is really a special piece.

By default it has limited gesture knowledge, but you can easily unlock this limitation with some software. At first though, I urge you to practice the basic gestures for a few days, you’ll thank me later. It is really just a friendly advice, because I’ve heard too many complaints from people who thought they would handle it in a few hours, and they’ve failed. They became frustrated as they were constantly mis-performed the gestures, and finally most of them gave up and sold their trackpads.  (now really end of warnings) In Lion, there is a default behavior called natural scrolling, which can be strange and very counterintuitive while using Pro Tools, so I simply switched it off in the preferences.

Assuming you’re already good in “gesturing”, the next step is to download the free BetterTouchTool application. I know that there are more of its kind, but this is probably the most sophisticated one. From now on, the only limit is your imagination. This little utility opens up the door to the real capabilities of the magic trackpad. You can define virtually any kind of gesture to any shortcut, so the trackpad soon become not only a nice pointing device, but a powerful tool in your arsenal.

This little tool supports ample multi-touch gestures performed with up to five fingers, this includes: touch, pinch, swipe, tap, tip-tap, clickswipe and almost any combination of these. There is one even more magician like option, that is the 11 finger tap/whole hand, but I didn’t find it useful. Don’t be daunted by the “menu”. Start with little steps, one or two special gestures first and when those are burned in, you can move on to define more. If you become a master of it, there’s even an option for application specific gestures. I recommend to practice the newly defined gestures, and only define new ones, when your failure rate is incredibly low. There is a very helpful feature in BetterTouchTool called Show Live View where everyone can check if the performed gestures are correctly identified. BetterTouchTool is a very deep little app, you can even adjust the sensitivity of taps and swipes and other things. Experiment and tweak the advanced settings until it really fits you.

After a few weeks I’m still in the middle of experimenting and exploring new possibilities, but right now, my settings are these:

  • One finger swiping and tapping is behaving like the normal mouse movement and left click.
  • Two finger tap is right click
  • Two finger swipe up-down-left-right is scroll up-down-left-right
  • Three finger swipe is dragging: with this, you can move any floating window around, and select areas in the edit window, manipulate plugin parameters
  • Pinch in-out (with two fingers) is zoom in-out (r and t with keyboard focus on)
  • Single tap top left is export selected clips
  • Single tap top middle is play-stop (space bar)
  • Single tap top right is bounce to disk
  • Single tap bottom left is consolidate
  • Single tap bottom right is identify sync point
  • Four finger tap opens the workspace window
  • Four finger swipe left-right jumps and select previous-next clip
  • Five finger swipe right opens the mix window
  • Five finger swipe left is zoom toggle

This is my setup right now with the magic trackpad. It is going to evolve, but I use the same method I suggested above, make little steps and be sure that I am comfortable with every newly defined gesture.

I can tell you that I didn’t really know what to expect from the magic trackpad, but now it has become an almost indispensable tool. I still don’t know if it will be as good and reliable as the Kensington Expert mouse, but it is a stellar tool. And one word about RSI. Though this gadget will not help cure your RSI (if you have), but while it is very hard to change hands with a mouse or trackball, it is very easy with the magic trackpad even if you don’t have so good manual dexterity. At worst, you skip some of the gestures when you’re using it with the left hand for example, but you’ll be able to use most them with both hands.

Here’s a little video showing the gestures enumerated in the post:

For HD quality, please go here.

If anyone interested in this setup, drop a comment or a mail and I would happily share it.

The big switch to Lion part 2

by

If you followed the previous ‘switch’ post, you know that I was almost ready with the install process. Now, after a few more hours of installation, authorization, etc. I’m ready with all the installation chore. All my softwares, all my plugins are up and running. Just in case you forgot it: I’m absolutely against the built-in migration assistant app. Use a full backup instead.

First experiences

I’ve heard many good and bad things about Lion, but nothing can be more informative than personal experience. The first few days with the new os is absolutely flawless. I had to set up a few things in the os to fit my taste and workflow. These are not complicated things, but one article helped me much: Ceri Thomas’ Taming the Lion blogpost.

While I absolutley love Apple’s minimalist phylosophy, sometimes they rip away too much (in my opinion of course). I love to see hidden files and folders, my hard drives, etc. These so called personal preferences can be set in a few minutes. Once you are ready with all the personal things, nothing else left but to use the computer as usual. For me, Lion is faster and much more snappier than Snow leopard. I know that different hardware leads to different results, but each and every of my little tests showed the same speed increase. Of course, the most interesting part is how will the new os behave under pressure? In professional environment, when we deal with sessions in Pro Tools, then need to denoise some material in Izotope rx, then have a recording session with multiple cue mixes, then maybe need to do a temp mix. These are the real benchmarks.
I don’t just trust a new os. To be honest, probably I’m one of the most suspicious when it comes for a big change like this. I’m untiringly test the system in every possible situation to make sure about its stability and reliability. With Pro Tools it seems to me that it is up to the task. I mean I have almost zero problem with snow leopard 10.6.8 (beside a few bugs in pt) and now Lion seems to handle the tasks even better. The whole system tends to stay more responsive and snappy under the burden of huge sessions.

I wait a few days, trying out new things in Lion, and then I’ll decide how the “new-twice-as-amazing” features are working for me. Now, it’s enough about computers! But now, I started to experiment with magic trackpad, I’ll report back about it… :)