Friday, August 30, 2013

The Revolution Of High Tech Recording Industry


Today, music is one of the biggest entertainment industries in the world. This market is hotter for many reasons. First of all, customers’ demands and tastes are higher and more diversified than ever. Second, the number of people and companies working in this field are increasing at such a dizzy speed that it creates a very large pool of tough competition, and of course, to survive, they have to be unique and distinguished.

We can list out herewith some relevant industry jobs such as Recording, Radio, Television and other Media, Working live shows and tours, Music Retailing and Instrument Repairing, Education and Instruction and many more. Among them, the recording industry is one that has been applying high-end technologies for many years.

The recording industry commenced at the start of the 20th century, when publishers of sheet music dominated the music business. With a quick development pace, recording industry gradually dominated and controlled the music industry. This is the kind of mass-production copies’ business that can fix the price in the market.

To be the priority in the effervescent market of recording, what can they do? – Reducing the price? – Noisy brand-name advertising? – Or investing in technological upgrading of products and services? Of course, though technologies change very fast every day, people still make the choice of high-tech applications as the best way to affirm their positions in the music market.

Regarding recording industry, we consider that this is not only a technical but also a creative career. High-end technology is useful for both sides of this job. Recording engineer definitely must be technically skilled with the equipment. They must manipulate skillfully with all the buttons or knobs to get the correct sound that the artist or the producer want to have. A good microphone is necessary in the first step to begin with the recording process. And then, with the instruments, they find out the expected sounds – not music. The recording engineer, finally, will make the adjustments to enhance the music, morph, add effects… Some years ago, in order to do these steps, they had to resort to many equipment. In this case, the results obtained take a lot of the engineers’ time and labor. However, today, thanks to the development of high-end technologies, recording engineer can apply modern equipment to make their work easier and more professional. One simple example, with a PC and some installed music morpher, music editor softwares, they can mix and edit music like a skilled recording engineer.

In the other side of this job, creativity is also very important. Music industry is a very specific one that requires creativity. The recording engineer must have the feeling, the sense of music that can create different and unique sounds that express music in the best way. With the same song recorded by two engineers, we have two ways to express the music which depend on the creativity of the recording workers. The recording engineer can apply some intelligent softwares specialized to perform a good job. Sometimes, just by adding a wave sound, increasing the frequency or reducing the noise of the music, we have colored up the recordings.

More and more recording engineers believe in the important role of high-end technologies for their career. They are willing to spend money on equipment, modern music editor or music morpher softwares to support their work. Some people pay up to thousands of dollars for their recording studios, but some know how to save money. They find out the efficient softwares that can work properly as a mixer, an editor with very competitive price from $30 to $100. They know how to update their “companion” by frequently downloading the latest effects or supporting programs. By this way, high-tech supports for both professional recording studios and some home recording studios.

“A war is happening, not the Iraq war, but the high-tech war”. However, we will not perish in this war if we know how to use and control technologies for our purposes. Holding in hand the weapons of music softwares, we will be the unique winner, the best one in the running of entertainment industry, especially recording industry.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Careers In Entertainment Production

A career as a rock star or television star is unattainable for most hopeful teens who dream of being in the spotlight. While many dream of being the next One Direction or Justin Timberlake, this may be a little far-fetched. However, teens don’t have to give up their dream, at least not completely. Few star-struck teens actually realize how many careers are available in the entertainment production industry.

Large numbers of people are needed to put on concerts, make film movies or animate cartoons. These are the people who work behind the scenes to make great entertainment. Careers in this industry are as varied as the people that work in them. There are a few careers available that many may overlook, such as: free lance illustrator, dance choreographer, set designers, writers, or 2d animation specialists. Below are just a few of the many fields available in the entertainment production industry and a short summary of what they do.

Illustration

An illustration artist can mean many different things. In the traditional sense illustration artists draw pictures for books, magazines and other publications. They also work with computer graphics, designing web pages, doing character creation for animation studios and even making their own cartoons. They are versatile artists whose primary medium is digital graphics such as flash, photoshop and other such programs.

Dance

Dance provides more opportunities than just backup dancer for a music group. Jobs range from choreographer (the person who makes up the routines) to the person who makes the costumes and dance equipment. Since dance comes in many genres, the field is diverse. Without dancers entertainment would not have the appeal that it has now. However, without the entertainment production staff like teachers and choreographers, those dancers would not have made it very far.


TV/Movies

Television and movie stars are glamorous and popular. What most people don’t realize is that it takes the work of many people to make that actor great. Movie and Television stars are very talented, but they need people to write their scripts, shoot the film, do their makeup, build the sets, and so on. Most people who work in television work in entertainment production rather than just acting.


Books and Print Media

The most well-known job in the field of print media is an author. To bring a book to the shelves an author needs editors, publishers, layout designers, and book reviewers. The author writes the book, and then it goes through reviews, revisions, and printing. Each of these steps requires a talented professional. There are many diverse opportunities available in print media.

Music

Music production has two sides. One could work for companies that distribute music such as radio stations, online music stores or even event planners for concerts. Conversely, one could work for a music recording studio that actually produces new music. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Working on the distribution side can be rewarding for those who love to listen to music or like music trivia. Working on the production side is more suited for those people who like being on the cutting edge of music. Plenty of opportunities exist for people who don’t have musical talent but still have a passion for it.


Animation

Animation is a diverse field that employs more than just artists. Animation studios typically have writers, animators, software designers, and sound engineers. Animation is most often, distributed through the internet and TV. Studios often employ people who know how to work with these types of mass media.

In addition to the jobs listed here, many others exist that are not related to entertainment production but are still in the entertainment industry. Examples of these are accountants at a TV studio, CEO of a publishing company, IT specialists for TV stations and the list goes on. Aspiring teens don’t have to give up their dream of working in the entertainment industry when they don’t make the cut for American Idol or loose the school talent show. Working in entertainment productions is a question of desire rather than talent. If a person wants to work in entertainment production, there is a job for them whatever their interests are. They just have to be creative and then work hard.


Monday, August 26, 2013

Create Your Own Streaming Audio Studio For Under $50

Creating your own Streaming Audio audio studio has never been easier. There are so many great products around today that will allow you to produce high quality streaming audio for a fraction of the price it used to cost.

HARDWARE

The first thing you will need is a compatible computer. Today every new computer is already set up with everything you will need. A basic sound card with a mic and line in jack. If you do not have a sound card they are very cheap and you can get a good one from any standard computer shop.

Next you will need a good mic. These come in all sizes and shapes with different configurations however a general all round mic like the Logitech Noise-canceling microphone is fine for beginners. I suggest you get a desk top one to start with, as you may want to move into video later and so you wont want a headset in your videos.

Of course you could go up a stage and get a preamp with a professional mic but this will start running into dollars and the whole aim of this article is to help you get started.
Next you will want to get some cables to connect up your tape recorder and other audio equipment. Again the computer stores now have packs that will connect up pretty well any device into your computer to digitalise your sound. You want to record directly onto your computer however you can get those old tapes and Vinyl records into a digital format also.

SOFTWARE – RECORDING

Recording your audio is probably one of the most critical parts of this process and again you can get software that ranges from free to many thousands of dollars. For this exercise I suggest you download the free copy of Audacity. This is an excellent free software package that will allow you to record from your microphone or any equipment you have.
It provides excellent editing capabilities and also will allow you to edit multiple tracks and then combine them into one single track. For a quick overview of how to do this you can watch this video and also download the software

http://mp3soundstream.com/Audacity_Tutorial_-_Free_Audio_Editing_Software.html 

SOFTWARE – CONVERTING

The next piece of software you will need for your studio is a converting program that will allow you to convert different formats. For example you may have a real audio file and you want to convert it to mp3. dBpoweramp is like the Swiss army knife for the audio industry and will convert just about any file to any other file format.

Convert from one format to another, just about every audio type is supported: mp3, mp4, Windows Media Audio (wma), Ogg Vorbis, AAC, Monkeys Audio, FLAC and many others whilst preserving ID Tags. It will also rip CDs for you.

 
SOFTWARE – REDUCTION
If you are going to stream an mp3 direct then you may want to recompile the file to a smaller format. RazorLame is a so-called “front-end” for use with LAME. LAME is a great MP3-Encoder, it’s very fast, it produces high-quality files, has many advanced features (like Variable Bitrates and Joint-Stereo), and it’s open source. Unfortunately, it is a command line utility, and that is where RazorLame comes in: It provides an easy-to-use graphical user-interface which makes MP3-encoding even easier!
The best way to use this software is to get one file and compile in a number of different formats to test the size against quality.

 
SOFTWARE – STREAMING

There are a few different ways of streaming your new audio files. If you have Macromedia products you can simple organize this your self however there are some great third party programs around that will do it all for you at a fraction of the cost.

MP3 SOUND STREAM

This is a simple piece of software that takes any mp3 or wav audio and converts the whole file into a swf file and then attaches a button so that viewers can listen on a web page without needing to download any extra software. This is because the flash plugin is on 98% of computes and if not it will automatically detect and load the small plugin. This is great for anyone not wanting to get into all the technical aspects of streaming audio.
You will not need to reduce your files at all with this program as it does it all for you. This is perfect for anyone wanting to stream one file at a time and wants to do it quickly and efficiently. It will stream even over most modem connections.

http://www.mp3soundstream.com 

MSIJUKEBOX

For people wanting to stream a number of files then MSIJukebox is a great alternative. This software lets you choose any number of mp3 files and then organises them using an XML file. By using the above free programs you can significantly reduce the size of these files to save on bandwidth.

Because MSIJukebox streams the actual mp3 you can also have a lot higher quality playback including stereo files. This is much better for those wanting to stream a number of very high quality mp3 files.

 
SUMMARY
So there you have it. A complete studio set up for under $100. Just download all the free software and purchase any of the streaming audio products that you want. You can then create, edit and manipulate any audio files you like. You will also be able to add these audios to your website.

With the web surfer becoming much more “web savvy” than they were a year ago, they are expecting not only information but also an entertaining web experience.