1938 Committing Attempted Podcast

1938 Committing Attempted Podcast

You want to edit audio tape? No problem. Just get out the grease pencil, the splicing tape, the little aluminum block, the single-edge razor blade, some band-aids and go to town.  Sound cumbersome?  Sure. But it worked pretty well if you got it right, which didn’t always happen.

And you got a pile of audio tape on the floor and half the time a shaving nick on your fingers.  

Then came digital audio and digital editing.  No bleeding. Fast. Accurate.  Easy. Effortless perfection.  Everyone became an editing deity. 

Turning these blog posts into podcasts should be a breeze.  Just open a recording program, read a script into a microphone, cut out the screwups and restarts and all those things that happen between mouth and machinery and presto! A podcast.

Not so fast, old timer.

Editing programs have been “improved” the way so much technology is “improved” by making it much more complicated than it was or than it has to be.

What you saw on the screen was a wave form that looked something like a cardiogram or a polygraph. If it was stereo, you saw two of them.   But today’s modern apps are meant for musicians.

So there are a zillion tracks.  And a zillion controls to click or unclick on.  And like any self-respecting computer programs, there are seven ways to do the same task where one or two would do and one or two ways when you really want a zillion.

Okay, well, it’s the same thing we were using in 1999, but it has grown.  The good news: there are on-line “how-to” videos.

By the time you view some of them, you assume that code writers hate code users and “how-to” gurus want to bore you to death with two minutes of actual instruction and ten minutes worth of blabbing and trying to sell you stuff.

Digression:  To record on a tape recorder, you push the record button. When you finish, you push “stop.” When you want to play it back, you rewind the tape and push play.

When you record on a digital program meant for musicians and choral directors, you have to take a multiple choice test.

What do you want to do? Followed by three or four choices.

How many tracks do you want? Followed by eight or nine choices.

What color do you want these tracks? Followed by a palette with 75 choices.

Then, because we’re talking computers, here, you have to make sure everything that needs to be connected it connected.  It’s not just plugging one thing into another thing anymore. There are 18 steps to make the connections work.  And some of the steps are hidden. You need clairvoyance to detect them.  Maybe call the local seance center. Does Amazon sell divining rods?

For those anticipating a Wessays ® podcast, patience, please. We’ve only gotten as far as choosing which method to use to turn the thing on.

SHRAPNEL:

--Michelle Wolf’s performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner blasted trump, Sarah Huckabee, Kellyanne Conway and others was a disgrace.  Making fun of presidents is standard operating procedure at these events.  But nothing Wolf said was funny, just demeaning, nasty and mean.

--This space can’t defend trump and the trumpettes. But sinking to trump level discourse has no place in anyplace but a comedy club desperate to sell tickets. You want to make fun of these people, all you have to do is listen, watch them and report what they say.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

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© WJR 2018