Studio Six Digital audio apps and new pro mic/ audio interface for the iPhone

by J.S. Gilbert

Okay, it’s no secret that I’m not a big fan of Apple. As a company they remind me of Eddie Haskell from Leave It To Beaver. Playing the I am too cool for school card after they purloined their cool 1984 GUI from a dumpster diving party at Xerox, is old news. And I could almost forgive their age discriminatory b.s. in total, due to the incredibly hip and versatile iPhone. But then these wolves in sheep’s clothing had to extend their exclusivity deal with AT&T, singularly the worst carrier in the world. But it is such a cool phone that lots of folks I know walk around with the iPhone and something else, like a Blackberry that’s with a better carrier, you know just in case they may actually need to make a phone call.

So now that I have that off my chest, there’s some apps and hardware out that are so incredible, I am actually thinking of getting an iPhone. Although I will keep my Verizon Palm, if I do.

The company is called Six Digital Audio and what they’ve come up with is da bomb.
Let’s start with their AudioTools, which includes a base set of apps and a bunch of optional modules. Included in the base set of apps are an SPL Meter, which also works with their iaudiointerface microphone (more on the mic later). There’s also a full and 1/3 octave spectral analysis, db level and frequency measurement, Audio Scope – A dual-trace audio-band oscilloscope that includes auto- and single-trigger modes, variable sweep rate, and up to 128x gain, Audio signal generator that include sine waves, square waves, white noise, and pink noise. The base set also includes input monitoring software, file export software, graphing and calculating functions and input/ output calibration tools.
Optional modules kick the iPhone up a notch with deep analysis tools, pro SPL meters and Graphs, Speaker Polarity Analyzer, distortion measurement tools and a bunch of other things that I have no idea what they do, but look very impressive nonetheless.

Audio Interface Features
In addition to a great audio test & measurement accessory, with iAudioInterface you also get a professional-grade general-purpose audio interface suitable for recording. It includes a full pro stereo line level input, headphone amp or line out.

But, I have perhaps saved some of the best for last, especially for voice talent and singers, the ipro microphone.

iProMic is a professional-grade microphone for all models of iPhone and iPod touch. It is suitable for acoustic test and measurement, as well as any application where a high-quality, low-noise, wide-frequency response microphone that can handle extended SPL levels is required. See our Specifications page.

iProMic is essentially the microphone component of iAudioInterface, with all of the electronics mounted inside the mic. It connects to the iPhone or iPod touch dock connector with a hard-wired cable, and so bypasses the low-frequency roll-off filters that are present with the internal mic and any mic that is plugged into the headset connector.

Because iProMic connects to the dock connector via a 0.5m black cable, the headphone out connector is not blocked on the iPod Touch. The headphone output is available on both the iPhone and iPod touch while iProMic is in use.

iProMic is a mono mic, but it does present it’s output to both iPhone / iPod touch input channels. This way, it will work with any app that is expecting the normal left-input channel for the microphone, and it will also record into both channels of any recording app. The mic is powered by the iPhone / iPod touch, and is a low-power device.
When used with AudioTools, iProMic gives you a great platform for acoustic analysis. And, the output is still available via the headset connector.

The iProMic is under $150 and the base set of apps is around $20. The interface is priced under $250.
For more info visit www.studiosixdigital.com


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Biz Stone is a Moron.

by J.S. Gilbert

Biz Stone is a Moron.

Years ago, I was told that intelligence often has little bearing on a person’s income earning capacity. I believe George W. Bush proves that statement and now it would seem also Mr. Biz Stone.
In case you don’t recognize the name, Mr. Stone is one of the founders of twitter and approximately in August of 2009, I was prepared to go to downtown San Francisco and kick him in the balls. Then I found out he had no balls and I pretty much figured that by now he would have died from his own stupidity.

So you may wonder what happened to cause me to so loathe this twit and why, now, 6 months later I would be writing this blog. Well, for that we need to go back in time to August of 2009. I was an active twitter user at twitter.com/jsgilbert. I had accumulated almost 10,000 followers, among them some very impressive names in marketing, advertising, publishing, broadcasting and so on. I was retweeted and I retweeted others and I had invested hundreds of hours building up an impressive little twitter presence. But somehow, I got hacked into, or at least that’s what I think happened. I went into my account and promptly changed the password and all was right – or so I thought. Then I received an email from twitter stating that my account had been suspended for 30 days due to suspicious activity. I sent them several communications explaining what I thought had happened and I received a couple of standard responses from some computer. And if you go to www.twitter.com/jsgilbert, a full 6 months after this, you will see that my account is still suspended.

This despite the fact that I was one of the most successful and popular twitterati at the time and perhaps responsible for Mr. Stone getting several thousand new twitter users.

I have left messages for people at twitter and tried to communicate further to no avail. Although at this point, I realize that twitter is little more than a passing fad and that Biz, like so many dot com CEO’s before him, will probably be looking for something he’s more suited to be doing, like work as a pizza delivery boy one of these days.

But here’s what set me off on this moron. He sent me the following email the other day. Yes, the poor hapless schmuck can’t even differentiate the accounts he has unceremoniously tossed to the curb from the people who may actually care 2 poops about him or twitter.
The following is his email to me, as it appeared with no adulterating or enhancements.

-start of email-

Hi there,

In the early days of Twitter, I used to send out short updates just to keep everyone in the loop since so much was happening. It’s been a while, but you signed up for short, monthly updates from Twitter so we thought it was time to start sharing more information. We’ve had quite a year. If you haven’t visited in a while, we’d like to invite you to come have a look at http://twitter.com — we’ve been busy!

Growing Up
In the course of a year, registered Twitter accounts have grown more than 1,500% and our team has grown 500%. Recently, we hired our 140th employee! His name is Aaron and he’s an engineer focused on building internal tools to help promote productivity, communication, and support within our company. We celebrated with a little dance party.

Features of Note
Some features of note that we released over the course of a year include the ability to create lists, quickly spread information with a retweet button, and an easier way to activate your mobile phone to work with Twitter over SMS. We also built a new mobile web site that looks and works much better on smart phones.

Feeling Inspired
By working together during critical times when others needed help, sharing important information that otherwise might not make the news, and inventing new and interesting ways to use Twitter, you’ve shown us that Twitter is more than a triumph of technology — it is a triumph of humanity. Projects like Fledgling and Hope140 were inspired by you.

Chirp!
While there may only be 140 full-time employees working at the Twitter offices, there are thousands of dedicated platform developers who have now created more than 70,000 registered Twitter applications creating variety and utility for all of us. We’ll be gathering this spring at Chirp, our first ever official Twitter developer conference.
Thanks,
Biz Stone, Co-founder (@Biz)
Twitter, Inc.

PS: This was sent to voicesf@pacbell.net for the account @jsgilbert. If you’d rather not receive newsletters from Twitter, you can unsubscribe immediately. For questions, please visit us at Twitter Support.

-end of email-

Strange how he brags about the 3rd party developers he has, since it was no doubt accessing one of them that opened my account up to a vulnerability. No benefit of the doubt. No personal touch. No attempt to reconciliate. And now this. Biz Stone, you’re a douche!


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2009 Will Create More Information Than All Previous Recorded History

by J.S. Gilbert

There is an interesting observation going around these days that says “more information will be created in the year 2009 than in all recorded history up until that year”
Of course this creates a great deal of rubbish that one must sift through in order to find a nugget of something valuable. Figure it out. How many people do you know who you would say are experts on something? How many people do you know who come from a place of experience to truly offer a valuable opinion?

At the center of this information overload is the internet. Admission is cheap and open to just about anyone. There are no qualifications. You don’t even really have to be very literate, and yet you can post your thoughts and opinions on any subject you wish. It doesn’t matter if you have almost no experience or indeed no experience. If you can turn a phrase well or can appropriate a well turned phrase, so much the better.
And this dear reader is the problem.

Places like LinkedIn offer the opportunity for people who answer questions to gain “expert” points, but that would mean that the person asking the question would have to pick your answer as the best or one of the best. The problem is that there is a difference between an appropriate answer and the most popular answer. This type of system is also used to pick the winner of “So You Think You Can Dance”, which through its own admission delivers America’s Favorite dance and not necessarily the best dancer. Given that many questions are raised due to some sort of “ignorance” or lack of knowledge o the part of the person asking, it’s hard to believe that in most cases, this same person would actually know the best answer they received. Answers that may be out of their comfort zone, politics or religion may get the old thumbs down.

This type of system doesn’t foster truth or honesty, especially when people consider that everything they say and do on the internet is available for public scrutiny. Most live in fear of saying or doing something that may hurt them in the future. I’m sorry but you can’t have this apartment because 7 years ago in a chat room you said something bad about Obama or perhaps you follow the “wrong” group in Facebook.
In a way it reminds me of the old Twilight Zone episode starring Billy Mumy. He was a little boy who could will things with his mind. He could make people disappear or turn you into a cartoon or a lamp. And he had a whole bunch of people he held prisoner in this big house. All they could do was say “That’s really good Anthony” “You done real good”. Apparently he could tell if they were thinking bad thoughts about him.
Thus, the problem with our information these days is that we get a lot of it from people who really and truly aren’t qualified to be giving opinions and/or the information is highly tempered by the need for it to be “positive”, inspiring or at the very least make its giver look good.

Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad), says “A lot of people are afraid to tell the truth, to say no. That’s where toughness comes into play. Toughness is not being a bully. It’s having backbone.”

Lots of information out there, and most of it not worth the price of the ram chip it was created with.

It would seem that rather soon, enough B.S. meters will go off and new ways to establish pecking orders, validation and verification will come into play. We currently have a great deal of control over which information we get to see, but soon we will have ever more control. In short my good friends, a system (systems) will come into play that will make sure another Perez Hilton can’t ever occur.

Until then, I would take everything with a grain of salt. Google people, places and things to get a better sense for the information that’s out there and pay careful attention, because these days words are appropriated and mixed up slightly and land on another website or 300 other websites.
It takes a little work and in some cases may require you do some independent thinking, which could give you a headache. You will be better off if you dig deep and don’t take things at face value.


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I love this online video, but I’m not paying for it!

by J.S. Gilbert

According to a Pew survey, 62% of Americans who use the Internet, watch online video, while only a little over 45% surveyed said they were active in social networking. Compare this to a survey taken in December of 2006, where the percentage of respondents who routinely watched online video was only 33%. That’s tremendous growth in less than [...]

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The Governator Guy

by J.S. Gilbert

I have a dream job or you might say dream jobs. I could find myself on any particular day writing a couple of radio commercials, performing the voice of a maniacal zombie and then ending it off by working on a viral video. 
I also love the fact that so many of my clients and fellow [...]

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Why I think twitter is doomed to eventually fail

by J.S. Gilbert

At approximately 9:30 am on Monday, August 11, 2009, twitter suspended my account. But that’s not why I think twitter will eventually fall by the wayside to a similar, but improved business model. It’s more the why’s and wherefore’s. I have sent twitter a dispute. But it will not be looked at for at least [...]

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