It’s been a long time coming. According to Clear-Com (Vitec Group), the FCC is in the final stages of approval for the use of CellCom10 in the US. Popularly know as FreeSpeak10 in Europe and elsewhere, the name was changed for the US and Canadian markets due to trademark issues.

UPDATE (12-05-2005) : The FCC has approved the CellCom10 for use in the US, and is already in use at Harpo Studios in Chicago.

It’s been slow going for Clear-Com on this one. They have been showing mockups and feature descriptions of the product at trade shows for at least a couple of years.

CellCom is a revolutionary new concept in wireless intercom, combining license-free digital transmission with an intelligent base station that interconnects with wired communications. Go beyond the typical wireless party-line or even two-channel capability, with one-to-one and group conversations initiated from your beltpack!

CellCom10 supports up to 10 drops and operates using an active transceiver network. The transceivers are strategically placed throughout the desired coverage area and connected back to the base using standard CAT5 connections. The system as whole acts very much like a mini cell phone network, managing the movement of each beltpack from one transceiver to another.

CellCom10 also has the capability to interface with 2 standard party-line channels of com or 4 cross points on a digital matrix, such as the Eclipse or Matrix3 lines, greatly expanding up wireless communications possibilities.

Clear-Com also has a CellCom50 which supports 50 drops, which has not been approved for use in the US.

Latin: Audio, video, disco

Translation: “I hear, I see, I learn”

Believe it, or not… Latin Phases on Wiki

From “For Your Entertainment”: The author, and fellow audio engineer, John Sibley, is my hero. In the midst of a cross country trip, returning to Vegas from a job in Detroit, decided to point his car to the south, and go to Houston instead, to assist the Red Cross with their efforts to help the hurricane victims.

I’m proud to know you…

You can read his account in his Blog:
For Your Entertainment: A Brief Departure From The Funny

OK- I like a gadget as much as the next guy, but does anyone really need this. The bulb monitors itself and when it burns out it sends a message through Powerline IP to a server which in turn sends an SMS message to your cell phone.

They may be on to something if they started making FEL, HPL and PAR bulbs…

SMS Lightbulb : Gizmodo

A couple of years ago when Stephen St. Croix wrote about iTMS in his column in Mix Magazine, The Fast Lane, he expounded on how cool it was to use this new distribution method. It offers those of us who don’t like to wait the opportunity to get a song or and album, NOW. While the lossy encoding is a drawback for pro audio applications, the quality is acceptable (for the most part) for casual listening.

What do you get for your dollar? Compressed, DRM restricted, AAC encoded computer file. You can listen to the song on your iPod or in iTunes, but only one iPod and one copy of iTunes. (although there may be more possibilities, see the ml_iPod post) One gets to see a small jpg of the album art, but not much in the way of liner notes. Let’s assume there are 12 songs on an album. iTMS generally charges $.99 per song or $9.99 for an entire album, which is a small savings if you want the whole album. One selling point is that you don’t have to buy the whole album. You can get just the songs you want, and you can get them now, but you pay a premium for this feature.

That’s great, but what about other things that can add value to the digital music experience. While low bit rate files may be ok for listening by the computer, what if I want higher bit rate versions or CD bit rates for listening on the stereo in the living room. Or even higher bit rate and word length versions for those who care. What about the liner notes, and high quality album art. How about going the extra mile that the DVD has gone, and offer the musical equivalent of “deleted scenes” or the “bloopers reel.” $.99 seem like a lot of money for restricted low bit rate, non-transferable tunes.

Perhaps Nine Inch Nails has hit on something….They are offering the song “Only” for download, as a ProTools session. This is cool. For the audio geek, professional engineer or the basement engineer, you can take their tracks and mix it yourself. Now that’s a Value Added concept. While the “Mix Your Own” concept might be more than most people want, it demonstrates an important concept in digital music distribution, the ability to offer a much wider range of “products” to a wide range of customers. It feels empowering to me. I tend to purchase CD’s. It puts the decision in my hands as to how I want to deal with the music. I can have it any way I want it, from the CD to 48kbps MP3 or anything in between. Being able to download an entire ProTools session of a piece expands the possibilities even further.

Nice work….

ProSoundNews Online Daily - Digidesign & NIN Offer Free Pro Tools Session Download of “Only”

This is from Mix Magazine. A little computer assembler named Musicxpc has created a recording workstation in a Shuttle XPC chassis.

I have a Shuttle XPC, although not from Musicxpc, and I love mine. While based on the published spec one could build one for a few hunderd dollars less than the retail price of the fully assembled machine, Musicxpc has a few items that add value. Most noteably the system recovery software. Some may not find this to be all that, but for the musician, who doesn’t want to be the IT department, it may be worth the premium.

MusicXPC Professional C3 and C4

M-Audio just released a control surface for use with GarageBand. It’s called the iControl and it looks pretty cool.

iControl gives you total tactile control over GarageBand. You get dedicated transport buttons and jog wheel, eight rotary encoders for track functions like volume or pan, or effects parameters in GarageBand’s EQ or any other AU plug-in. You also get dedicated mute, solo and record-enable buttons. Automatically recognized by GarageBand.

I don’t have a copy of GarageBand, but this caught my eye, as I am always interested in what companys are doing to interface the real world with the digital world.

In these days of digital production and digital audio consoles, and the plethora of other gadgets used in audio, interface design has become an even bigger project than it used to be. In the days of analog gear, the controls were all there because they were part of the electronic circuit. Some of the layout was “designed”, but some of it was the way it was because it had to be for the electronics to work correctly.

Now, designers of interfaces have a different set of choices to make. To take a conception of what is possible in the digital world and translate that to a useable, intelligent tactile control surface, can be maddening. Especially when a particular piece of equipment crosses between different markets and uses.

M-AUDIO:iControl

This is kind of an old article from Mix Magazine, but I thought I’d mention it again. I guess I started thinking about this radio after a conversation I had regarding radio receivers and overloading, or de-sensing.  There is so much RF energy flying around these days, that cheap receivers are becoming less effective.  I guess this is monumentally important when it comes to wireless microphone receivers.

Tivoli Audio Model One

Kill Your Radio

According to Mix Magazine, XTA has the new DP428 to add to their line of digital audio processors. I have always been a fan of XTA’s work, and I think this is a great step in the right direction for them.

the DP428 offers 4×8 matrix capability, 48dB crossover slopes and a host of EQ solutions. There are four inputs, each offering gain control, a 28-band graphic EQ, eight filters and a delay.

UPDATE: (March 29th, 2005 8:47pm - XTA’s DPA428’s web site is up and running) XTA is also announcing the ‘Walkabout’ kit. They might as well put their brand name on technology that many have been using for years. The kit contains a NetGear WG511T PCMCIA card, for use in a laptop computer, and a TCP/IP to RS-232 bridge manufactured by Wiser. XTA states:

We have found that the Netgear WG511T wi-fi card provides greatly extended range and improved stability, over and above any WLAN systems built into laptops or tablet PCs (such as those featuring ‘Centrino’ processors).

XTA has also gone through the trouble of re-writing the firmware for the DP226, DP224 and SiDD to enable set-up of the ‘Walkbout’ from the respective units. With the continuing push for integration in control protocols in audio, perhaps the next generation of products will have the TCP/IP interface built-in, rather than having to rely on external equipment and manufacturers for this sort of functionality.

XTA DP428 Audio Management System, Walkabout Kit

For more information about purchasing XTA products in the US contact Group One Ltd.

Did anyone else see the Oscars this year?
Check out this link to Randy Thom’s acceptance speech for Sound Editing for his work on ‘The Incredibles’.

Perhaps someone from the Tony’s heard this…

Thanks Randy for saying it loud and clear.

Academy Awards - Sound Editing Acceptance Speech