Oddball sound job of the month

[Philip Perkins]

I don't know if my original post on this topic went thru or not.  Apologies for the repeat if it did.  This is the setup for a highly unstructured multicam video shoot at a new age groove-and-drum-fest for a new PBS doc.  20+ drummers (lost count) spelled by ukelele and guitar songs.  A drum-wearing music director w/ a wireless lav.  Tiny space, lots of audience participation, singing, clapping and astonishingly loud drumming.

Philip Perkins

[RPSharman]

Philip,

I sure do enjoy your posts.  This one is no exception.  Looks fun.

Robert

[FSBELLA]

philip,

nice 9 ch. mixer. that psc mixer was and still is f'n great. in rental, there is one of psc'c 4 ch "sela" mixers.

bty,

is that blue box on the left side next to the mixer a denecke boom distro? (sorry,forgot the name right now or model #)

thanks.

[Philip Perkins]

philip,

nice 9 ch. mixer. that psc mixer was and still is f'n great. in rental, there is one of psc'c 4 ch "sela" mixers.

bty,

is that blue box on the left side next to the mixer a denecke boom distro? (sorry,forgot the name right now or model #)

thanks.

It's a little clunky but the price is right--I was relying on the limiters in the 302 to hold my main hall pair while I mixed the DX and other inst. mics  (302 comes in via a "cascade" input I had them add.)  The directs are going to a Traveler which is out of sight on a shelf below.  The Sela was the first mixer I saw any real movie sound mixer use (the same one JW had), and I saw harry Caul had one in "The Conversation".  I always thought it was a very sensible and design that made for a very compact setup.  I got the M6 used from you guys, and the price was very good (no Cooper for me....) and PSC did a huge amount of work on the thing for me for very little money.  Yeah, the blue box is the base station end of a Denecke TB1 system, which we use because I have just never gotten around to adapting my boom system to the talkback and boom mon section of the M6.  One of these days...same w/ the remote run switch and the 702.

Philip Perkins

[Simon Paine]

Nice pics.

Looks like a fun gig.

I've noticed we all seem to post pics here, but no one ever posts sound clips. Ironic don't you think ? I only just thought of it now, because Phillips picture got me thinking, "I wonder what 20 very loud drummers in a small space playing eukelel music would sound like ?" Any chance we could get a clip ?

[Jeff Wexler]

I realized also that I don't even know how a sound clip would work in this forum software. I don't imagine it would be playable "inline" but I'm sure the file could be downloaded and played. I am attaching here a little sound clip from Ray Charles --- I use the text of this as a signature in my email.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

[note: high quality sound files are often too large to post here; I have downsized this clip to an AAC file at 128kbps]

[cmgoodin]

I realized also that I don't even know how a sound clip would work in this forum software. I don't imagine it would be playable "inline" but I'm sure the file could be downloaded and played. I am attaching here a little sound clip from Ray Charles --- I use the text of this as a signature in my email.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

[note: high quality sound files are often too large to post here; I have downsized this clip to an AAC file at 128kbps]

Jeff,  if you want to embed a sound file that is playable by everybody don't put it in a form that is "MAC centric"  convert it to MP3 if you want others to be able to listen. AAC is not normally a click-able streaming format in the Windows world except through custom applications like iTunes.  But mp3 IS universally click-able and playable by everybody including Linux and older Mac and Windows machines.

-----Courtney

[Jeff Wexler]

Jeff,  if you want to embed a sound file that is playable by everybody don't put it in a form that is "MAC centric"  convert it to MP3 if you want others to be able to listen.

-----Courtney

I know that AAC is Mac-centric but that was the quickest thing I could do. Even if I had put up an MP3 file I don't think it would play WITHIN this php driven software (that does not have plug-ins to support what I call "inline" playing. The MP3 file would still be a FILE that had to be downloaded and played locally on the computer. That's all I was saying. It occurs to me that I don't even know what utility software I have that can convert to MP3. I seem to remember that even within Quicktime (which can play almost anything) you can save audio in MP3 format.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

[cmgoodin]

Well, I don't know how the current MACs handle clicking on media files, but on a PC if the file is a registered format for Windows media player, when you click on the link it will start to download it and launch the media player and start to play it as soon as a small amount has been buffered.   You have to have Quicktime installed for the AAC files to play.  While Windows Media player is on all Windows PCs, Quicktime is not. You have to consciously download and install it.  Many windows users don't like to install it because it used to take over your media files.  It also seems to require you to finish downloading the file before it starts to play.   This feature makes me hate QuickTime only compatible files embedded in the website.  When you click on them, you are presented with a blank page in the browser while the entire file downloads.  (no information, no "downloading file" message, nothing). You can't even continue to read the page that contained the link, because it is blanked while the entire file downloads. Then finally several minutes  later when it is completely downloaded, it will play in the Quicktime player embeded in the browser.  With Windows Media player, the MP3 and WMV files start to play almost immediately and with a fast connection they never stall like they do with Quicktime streaming.  Also, the Windows media player launches in another window allowing you to continue to browse  the current page or even navigate to other websites while it plays the MP3 or WMV or WMA file.

You can use iTunes  to convert to MP3 files. Or many other utilities. Almost all recording software has a save as or Export to MP3 format.

---Courtney

[Jeff Wexler]

You have a few things stated incorrectly regarding the Mac and Quicktime.

"Well, I don't know how the current MACs handle clicking on media files, but on a PC if the file is a registered format for Windows media player, when you click on the link it will start to download it and launch the media player and start to play it as soon as a small amount has been buffered."

Works the same way with the Mac, when you download something it can be opened automatically by the appropriate application, but you also can set the Mac to always "open with" or to NOT open at all after downloading... your choice. In the case of files that need to be "played" whether they play immediately or not is more a function of how the media file itself has been encoded. For example, a Quicktime file can be set to start playing automatically after there is sufficient data in the buffer to allow smooth and continuous playback.

"You have to have Quicktime installed for the AAC files to play.  While Windows Media player is on all Windows PCs, Quicktime is not. You have to consciously download and install it."

This is true. Quicktime is, however, on all Macs, so there you have it. If a Windows user wants to play Quicktime files, yes, you have to download and install Quicktime...  big deal. When Mac users want to play Windows Media we have to download some awful Microsoft Mac version of Windows Media Player (or, thankfully, Flip4Mac plug-in which plays Windows Media files perfectly IN Quicktime --- I have seen things actually play better in Quicktime on the Mac than they do with Windows Media Player on a PC).

"Many windows users don't like to install it because it used to take over your media files."

Any Windows user who talks about how some app "takes over" has no business talking about anything. Microsoft Windoiws rules the martketplace by this --- taking over everything to the point that you have no control over your own computing experience. I am sure there is a setting preference (whether the regular Windows user can ever find it) that stops Quicktime from taking over anything. It's like the Default Browser issue...  no, Internet Explorer does NOT have to be your default browser but how many users can actually ditch IE easily.

"It also seems to require you to finish downloading the file before it starts to play."

This is only the case when the file has been encoded to NOT play (stream) until fully downloaded. This is not the proper way to do it certainly for web use. Many of the Quicktime movies, like the movie trailers on the Apple site, will play as soon as a few seconds have "downloaded." You do have to click on the little PLAY triangle for some of them but it will certainly play well before it has fully downloaded and this is a function of the file itself. The exact opposite is your basic YouTube scenario --- the video file starts to play immediately, some times before the player is even fully formed on the screen, and then stalls out almost immediately, trying to buffer enough to continue playing something. Bad coding.

"This feature makes me hate QuickTime only compatible files embedded in the website.  When you click on them, you are presented with a blank page in the browser while the entire file downloads."

This is certainly not always the case, but if you are talking about bad website design I have had the very same thing happen with Windows Media files that have not been prepared for streaming (things like so-called "hinted streaming", buffer size before play, etc.).

"Also, the Windows media player launches in another window allowing you to continue to browse  the current page or even navigate to other websites while it plays the MP3 or WMV or WMA file."

This again is a function of the amount of control you have over how your browser works with streaming media and how the file has been encoded. Some files cannot be played using the external (stand alone player application) whether it is Windows Media Player or Quicktime Player --- the file must be streamed from within the browser page and cannot technically be downloaded or streamed outside the page.

There is a lot more to be said about this but I imagine most are pretty bored with this discussion. In any case, none of this answers my original question: will sound files play within this forum, "inline" as I like to say, and I think the answer is NO (regardless of the format of the file or the OS platform). On some people's computers, once the file is downloading or downloaded, the computer may launch an appropriate app to play it, but that isn't what I was talking about.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

[cmgoodin]

Jeff wrote:

There is a lot more to be said about this but I imagine most are pretty bored with this discussion. In any case, none of this answers my original question: will sound files play within this forum, "inline" as I like to say, and I think the answer is NO (regardless of the format of the file or the OS platform). On some people's computers, once the file is downloading or downloaded, the computer may launch an appropriate app to play it, but that isn't what I was talking about.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

But Jeff, I did answer you in my first paragraph.  On a windows PC if you just do a single click on a link to an MP3 file it will launch Windows Media player (in a seperate window) and start playing it while it is still downloading. Or "inline" playing as you refer to it. You don't have to save it first then load it in the media player. It all happens automatically with a single click.  On a normal DSL line the MP3 can be a 2-hour long file and it still starts to play almost immediately and never stops. This is how I listen to podcasts on my PC since MP3 can download faster than it plays. 

Of course this will only happen if you haven't installed the pushy embedded Quicktime player that tries to take over MP3 playback from links to files embedded in web pages.  IF you have that installed and don't drill down deep in the settings and turn it off, will insist on downloading the entire 2 hour file before it starts to play the file.  During that time you have no indication what is going on.

IF you say on a Mac it starts playing right away you should make audio files MP3 if you want to post a link. It will then be the best for people of any computer persuasion.

It has nothing to do with poor encoding of a web-page or any PHP coding.  The players are part of the operating system or add-ins to the browser. Sure you can set the parameters to "Stream Only" for a copyrighted or protected file so people can't necessarily capture them easily.  But this has no effect on the above mentioned scenario.  WMP will start to play any MP3 file, whether it is special stream only format or just a plain MP3 recorded on your dedicated MP3 recorder as soon as it has about 5 seconds buffered  locally.  Quicktime for Windows doesn't do this.

When you click on the   Ray Charles link in your original message does it start playing in your mac?

---Courtney

[Jeff Wexler]

(note: high quality sound files are often too large to post here; I have downsized this clip to an AAC file at 128kbps)

Now, I have re-posted this as an mp3 file. My original question, when I talk about playing "inline", I really was talking about a feature of this Simple Machines software. What I mean by inline is similar to what the mail.app does, if you want it to, on the Mac. When someone sends you .pdf (file) it will display right in the body of the email so you can read it without launching Acrobat Reader or Preview. The equivalent here would be that the sound file would play right in the software.

Ray_Charles_-_sound.mp3

[Jeff Wexler]

So, with the mp3 file, much to my surprise, when clicking on the file in the forum post, iTunes launched and played the file immediately...  this, I believe, is the equivalent of what Courtney was saying, that the audio file plays (in its own app/window) outside THIS application/program (Simple Machines Forum software). I should add that the file did download also the Desktop (my default location for all downloads).

Regards,  Jeff Wexler