Audio Questions

[Charles Martin]

> From: David Thrasher <idave at earthlink.net>
>
> I've been getting some nasty 60 cycle hum when recording sound with my 
> camcorder on the set that I've built in my living room. I'm using 
> external mics through an inexpensive Nady mic mixer which feeds to the 
> camcorder. One of the mics, a Radio Shack lapel mics, seems especially 
> prone to the hum. A few questions about this:
>
> I'm in an old house that was built in the 1920's and some of the 
> wiring is old. Is it possible that some of this old wiring is 
> unshielded and basically "broadcasting" 60 cycle hum and the mic 
> cables are picking this up acting as antennas?
>
Certainly could be. You could look at double-insulating the mic cord to 
reduce this.

On another note, I've heard that the stand-alone or VST version of 
SoundSoap from griffintechnology.com will fix this in post. I've 
ordered it but have not received it yet. I have some footage where the 
audio is fabulous except for that 60cycle hum, and I'm hopeful that 
SoundSoap can do what I'm to incompetent to manage -- isolate JUST that 
problem frequency and eliminate it without affecting the other sound.

_Chas_

Two studies in "Innovation":
28-Apr-03: Apple introduces revolutionary legal music service (300,000 
downloads @ .99/ea on the first day), releases iTunes4 (by far the best 
jukebox software in the world), updates Quicktime to encode AAC audio 
(superior to MP3).

30-Apr-03: Microsoft's MSN division introduces the iLoo, a portable 
toilet with internet access. A week later, they claim it was "a hoax" 
they played on themselves. A day after that, they admit it was a real 
product but it's now been killed (and that they lied when they called 
it a "April Fool's joke"). This from the company that wants to bring 
you "Trustworthy Computing."