Fix your Magic Mouse without any magic at all – get rid of that odd bug!

Hi guys, it’s Andre.

I guess a lot of Mac users also use Apple’s Magic Mouse, a pretty cool wireless computer mouse with touch sensitive surface.

Despite that it’s my favorite mouse to use, it has a really odd bug. Every time, I lifted the mouse, it lost the connection to my computer when it touched my desk again.

One day, everybody in our office had the same bug. Googling the problem gave me solutions like ‘change all your bluetooth setting by using the console’ or ‘trash your preference files’ and so on. Nothing really helped, until we found a solution and to be honest it was simple as hell. Check out how to fix this bug without calling a VET or using black magic.

Somehow, the batteries inside my Magic Mouse were loose and lost contact, when I was moving it. I had to prevent them from moving around inside the mouse, so I opened it, jammed a piece of paper in there and guess what, it really worked!

If you’re having the same trouble, try it by yourself. Just experiment with more or less paper. It also worked with bubble wrap. It sounds a bit weird, but this was the solution to my problem.

To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed by Apple to create a pretty expensive computer mouse which comes with that kind of bug, but at least it’s working now and I can finally lift my mouse without the fear of losing the connection.

Cheers and have a great day.

Don’t always rely on digital luxury – double-check Tab To Transient in Pro Tools

Hi guys, it’s Andre.

Tab To Transient might be one of Pro Tools’ coolest features and is really dominating my way to navigate through audio while editing. This clever feature detects the transients (a short, high-amplitude sound at the beginning of a waveform) just by pressing Tab after activating it.

The second symbol from the left needs to be highlighted in blue, to have Tab To Transient activated.

But don’t always trust the digital luxury tool. This technique isn’t always perfectly accurate. Especially, when you’re doing pretty fine editing and need everything perfectly in place.

Below is an example:

The left marker is the position where Tab To Transient sent me and the right marker is the actual start of the audio, so the selected area is just air.

Most of the time, Tab To Transient is a really cool feature, but don’t just rely on a transient finding algorithm while editing. Otherwise you might be bouncing out some air or wondering why some of your audio is not in time. When you’re doing important cut, always double-check Tab To Transient and see if it’s right.

Thanks and have a great weekend.

Avoid this error message or how to copy stereo plugins to mono and reverse in Pro Tools

Hi guys, it’s Andre.

I’m pretty sure, a lot of Pro Tools users already know this error message. Every time, I want to copy a stereo plugin to a mono track, this window pops up. Sometimes it can be a pain not being able to simply copy a stereo plugin to a mono track. This can be pretty annoying, when you have a lot of stereo and mono tracks and simply want to copy your plugins between them.

Today, I found a pretty simple technique to get past this error message without rebuilding your settings by comparing both the stereo plugin and the mono plugin. Check out, how it’s done!

Making the chain complete – The ultimate broadcasting processing or meet Andy’s new passion!

Did you ever get the chance to see your station’s secret weapon in sound processing live in action? – The key behind cutting edge broadcasting sound. If not, you better contact your station’s engineer and make sure, you’ll hear it with your own ears, because here’s the magic happening.

After various discussions with the man himself, Greg Ogonowski (the guy who is the mastermind behind the Optimod) and Gary Kline, the CTO of Cumulus Media and various other broadcasting specialists, this topic is my new baby. I am super interested and know that I have to learn a lot more about the transmission processing, which is the last step in your station’s chain. Did you ever ask yourself the question, what exactly broadcasting compression will do and what it has to do with the elements you put together in the studio? If not: NOW IS THE TIME to ask that question and to learn more. This could be a great way to sound better than the competitor — a great way to stand out!

Various manufacturers are fighting for the best sound and every station has its favorite. What about yours? What do your engineers prefer or do you have an own favorite in sound processing? What product treats your station’s sound the best? Let me know.

Cheers, Andy

A FREE app, as simple as the name says – All2MP3

Hi guys it’s Andre,

Working in audio and multimedia will confront you with various file formats for any kind of audio and video from various DAWs, video editing and many different other kinds of software. AIFF, APE,  WAV, WMA, FLAC, OGG, etc… Not every format matches any kind of software and often you need expensive codec convert software for the various formats. Here’s the free Mac only alternative for audio codecs - All2MP3. 

The name explains it perfectly: convert any audio file into mp3 or extract the audio as mp3 from a video. Drag your file (or files) into the window, choose quality and file path and let All2MP3 do the rest.

Get the FREE download link here: http://www.tresrrr.com/All2MP3/ENGLISH.html

(I’m running 10.7.5 on my Mac and All2MP3 works perfectly)

A simple alternative to expensive converters and perfect for guys who are handing a lot of file formats and just need them as playable format on their Mac.

Cheers and have a great one,

Andre

Benztown does the Robot Rock or Daft Punk Talkbox magic

Daft Punk are ruling the charts. The French pioneers of electronic music returned this year with the hit single ‘Get Lucky’ and their signature robot sounds. To get close to this unique sound, we got ourselves one of Daft Punk’s favorite toys — the talkbox.

Check out our talkbox setup and how Oli created the original Daft Punk robot sound in our unique Branding for ‘Get Lucky’ – Time to do the robot rock!

THE biggest EVENT in RADIO IMAGING or meet the new Iron Imager: WPLJ`s Dan Kelly!

What a weekend! LA, sunshine and high class imaging!

At this year’s AllAccess Worldwide Radio Summit, Dan Kelly and reigning contestant Paul Duffy proved their skills in an epic battle of imaging skills. 60 minutes – 100 Ingredients – one winner!

First of all, thanks to both Paul Duffy and Dan Kelly to serve us this spectacular final.

The rules were simple: Create a 30 second music Promo in one hour! Now, here’s the turn: Our finalists had to do an Alternative format Promo, so this was new for both of our finalists. A format outside their comfort zone.

This year’s judges (Ken Benson, President, SparkNet Research & Consulting; Louie Diaz, Program Director, Alpha Broadcasting/Portland; and Trevor Shand, Imaging Producer & Writer for Rogers Broadcasting/Canada and KROQ/Los Angeles) had a hard time making a decision, but after a night of analyzing the pieces and voted for Dan Kelly as the winner.

He received $1,000 cash and the most prestigious title in Radio Imaging of The Iron Imager 2013.

Check out the guys’ final Promos and some great shots from the event!

Make your session fit the beat – Consolidate and elastic audio going together

Hi guys, it’s Andre.

Radio imaging also contains pretty generic work including creating a lot of elements in short amount of time. Useful for this task are shells, already produced intros and outros, which you just need to combine with the needed VO audio, Listener samples or music hooks. Today, I’m showing you a simple trick to get such a shell in the right timing for a different speed, so you can re-use it.

Below you can see a shell and now check, how I will quantize the whole shell into a new tempo.

Iron Imager 2013 – These are the places our finalists need to check out!

We’re close to the finals! This weekend, LA will experience an epic imaging battle like never before. New York’s finest, Dan Kelly will compete against reigning champion and Irish Warrior Paul Duffy for $1,000 cash and the prestigious title of the Iron Imager 2013

Before the competition starts, our finalists have a few time left in the city of angels. So much to see, but no time.

To make their time in LA the most awesome as possible, we hooked up with our Benztown crew in Cali and asked them for their hottest locations in LA, which our finalists need to see. To all you guys in the LA area, this is where the cool guys hang around

Check out LA’s hot spots!

Iron Imager finalist Brian ‘Sludge’ Haddad gives some final advice

My buddy Brian “Sludge” Haddad was in the Iron Imager Finals last year. It was close, but finally he lost in a 2:1 split decision against the reigning champ Paul Duffy. Sludge is a great guy  and a lot of you might know him from the Philly market as an On Air presenter and Imaging Guy. Now, Dan Kelly, the contender of this years Iron Imager gets ready to rock  - the perfect reason to ask Sluge how it felt to be there, how to win against Duffy and how to rock LA.

Enter Sludge: