mountain masala

When copyright goes bad

I'm writing some stuff on copyright. This is worth watching.

Young People, Technoculture and Embodied Spirituality

my journal article finally published... some info here. thanks to stephen garner for his work and the opportunity.

new media for sinners and saints

Here's a great article from Union Seminary's New Media Project. Its an interview with Nadia Bolz-Weber, the Lutheran pastor at House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. I met her briefly at Greenbelt in 2008.A remarkable woman and a facsinating church community.

Read  Ancient Liturgy for Scruffy Hipsters with Smartphones

Reason 6 released

The big news of yesterday was the release of Reason 6 by Propellerheads in Sweden. I've been a Reason user since version 2. Reasons is a DAW (digital audio workstation) - ie. instruments, effects and sequencer. Up until version 5 it was solely for inbuilt software instruments, but also featured and increasingly sophisticated set of audio effects. Reason contains instruments, samplers, drum machines, a pattern sequencer and arpeggiator, audio effects and mastering tools, and a very impressive mixer.

One of the neat (and scary) aspects was the rack, you could see front and back of the virtual rack of instruments and effects and reroute cables to your heart's content.

While its mainly be used by me for fun, I have from time to time created audio for video segments (such as here) or use in alt.worship. In an ideal world I'd do more of this. I've also messed around with how to create 'live' ambient soundtracks for worship, with triggered samples and open-tuned guitar.

With version 5, the Propheads created Record, a standalone audio recorder within which Reason could also function, finally allowing the recording of 'live' audio. Now in version 6 they've brought the two together and added some new stuff as well. They've also made a 'lite' version called 'Reason Essentials' and produced a very funky looking hardware audio interface.

New features include:

64 bit processing, time stretch and audio transpose

Pulveriser - crunchy compression, dirty distortion, a multimode filter and flexible modulation

Echo - an advanced stereo echo bringing together the brilliance of modern delays with the organic sounds of analog circuitry and old-school tape machines

Alligator - a three band pattern-based gate effect that turns bland pads into rhythmic textures

Neptune - pitch correction and voice synth device

Line 6 guitar and bass amps

Plus an expanded soundbank with thousands of new patches and loops.

You might say that some of those things are just a catch-up with the competition, but I'd have to say that overall its a very sweet package. And existing owners of version 5 were given a 'pay what you like' upgrade.

now off to play...

when the audience plugs in

On the weekend The Age had a fascinating article about the changing nature of theatre in Australia, particularly in relation to the use of technology and audience participaiton. With the 2011 Melbourne Festival coming shortly, the author highlighted forthcoming as well as recent innovations in technology use, audience participation and overall show/production design.

the examples range from the basic (texting responses to the stage - been there, done that...) to the quite complex (branched narratives - choose your own adventure, and wired goggles for audience).

as usual it has me thinking about the use of technology in education. in the church, we still tend to think of communication technology as a tool that we use to present or communication something to people, rather than something which is multi-way, participatory, interactive and tactile. this of course reinforces an experiential view of education, something which the 'alt worship' scene, perhaps unintentionally, stumbled upon - learning through being immersed in a multi-sensory, interactive experience - more than obersvation or even simulation. this of course is the way in which people use technology in everyday life, not as a discrete tool but as part of embodied practices.

here's the age piece.

multimedia & design resources

I've transferred the youthmultimedia list of links to images, video, audio, animation and presentation resources to a permanent page here. You can also find it under Pages to the right. I hereby promise to keep it up to date. Have fun and send me your suggestions to add. It's a bit light on Flash stuff, as I havent done animation stuff for a while, but I aim to dig out some of that stuff too.

Please report broken links to me here.

Images - Free

http://www.flickr.com and http://compfight.com/ - a Flickr search tool
http://commons.wikimedia.org/
http://www.archive.org
http://www.simplyyouthministry.com/freebies.html
http://all-free-download.com/hight-resolution-photo/
http://www.wga.hu/index.html - The Web Gallery of Art
http://www.freefoto.com
http://www.imageafter.com
http://www.freeimages.co.uk
http://www.sxc.hu
http://www.morguefile.com
http://openphoto.net
http://art.net/%7Ejeremy/photo/public_texture/index.html
http://www.picstyle.de/index_e.html
http://kepek.creart.hu
http://imagepro.photography.com/savagedk
http://www.freemediagoo.com
http://stock.kriegsnet.com
http://geekphilosopher.com/MainPage/photos.htm
http://www.ppdigital.com
http://thefreesite.com/Free_Graphics/Free_photos/index.html
http://www.free-photographs.net/index.php
http://aarinfreephoto.com
http://www.bigfoto.com
http://www.picturestation.net
http://www.stock.b-man.dk
http://www.nationalgeographic.com

Images - Commercial
http://www.istockphoto.com - plus weekly free photo, monthly free illustration
http://www.shutterstock.com - weekly free photo & illustration

Video & Animation - Free
http://commons.wikimedia.org/ - free images, movies
http://www.archive.org - free images, movies
http://www.kore.uk.com/ - free video, animation
http://www.wingclips.com - video clips from feature tilms
http://www.textweek.com - video suggestions grouped by theme
http://www.simplyyouthministry.com/freebies.html - lots of free stuff, including graphics and clips
http://aso.gov.au/education/ - free video clips - Australian
http://www.churchmedia.net/ - online community sharing media resources
http://bibledex.com/ - Short film intros to Books of the Bible
http://www.pleix.net/films.html – short films
http://www.stockfootageforfree.com/ - requires free account
http://movietools.info/ - requires free account
http://royaltyfreestockvideofootage.com/videostore/category/free-stock-footage.html
http://www.motionelements.com/free/stock-footage
http://vimeo.com/groups/freehd/videos/ - required paid account to download
http://www.vjvault.com/
http://muvipix.com/products.php?subcat_id=40

http://www.cvli.com.au - church video licenses to screen feature films

Video & Animation - Commercial
http://www.istockphoto.com -plus monthly free video
http://www.shutterstock.com - commercial photos & video - weekly free photo
http://www.theworkofthepeople.com - video clips
http://highwayvideo.com/ - video clips
http://www.midnightoilproductions.com - video clips
http://www.proost.co.uk - video, audio, animation, books
http://www.worshiphousemedia.com/ - video clips for sale, some free

Advertising Videos
http://www.theinspirationroom.com - reviews of and links to advertising

Audio - Free
http://www.jamendo.com/en/albums
http://www.soundsnap.com/
http://3hive.com/ - reviews of new recordings with links to free tracks

Audio - Commercial
http://www.istockphoto.com - plus monthly free audio
http://www.proost.co.uk - christian site with ambient, electronic and other music

Media conversion sites
http://media-convert.com/
http://www.zamzar.com/

Presentations
http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/ - design tips
http://prezi.com – neat presentation tool
http://www.opensong.org/ - free church presentation software
http://www.zionworx.org.uk/ -  free church presentation software
http://www.indezine.com/ - Powerpoint & presentation resources
http://www.jumsoft.com – Apple Keynote and Pages templates & stuff - commercial

Online Journals & Associations
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/ - Journal of Computer-mediated Communication
http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/ - Journal of Religion & Popular Culture
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/HPPC – International Journal of Media & Culture
http://avalon.unomaha.edu/jrf/ - Journal of Religion & Film
http://popularculturecollective.com/ - the popular culture collective

Cool stuff
http://www.wordle.net – make art from text
http://visibletweets.com/ - visible tweets
http://kuler.adobe.com/ - colour charts for design
Votapedia - CSIRO tool for using mobile phones for voting and presentation

Creative Connections
http://holdthisspace.org.au/ - cheryl lawrie, VIC
http://jonnybaker.blogs.com/ - jonny baker, UK
http://www.postkiwi.com/ - duncan macleod, ACT
http://pumphouse.blogspot.com/ - rob hanks, NSW
http://digitalorthodoxy.com/ - darren wright, NSW

Design Ideas
... coming shortly...

Templates - Apple Motion
http://www.motionelements.com

Templates - Apple Pages
http://www.jumsoft.com - commercial
http://www.facilisi.com/ - commercial
http://oegf.co.uk/ - free

Templates - Apple Keynote
http://www.jumsoft.com - commercial
http://oegf.co.uk/ - free

copyright

just found out that duke university has a centre for the study of the public domain. a bunch of presentations about copyright and music interested me. there are webcasts stacks of interesting lectures..

another reason to go back to my old school when next i travel...

the geek in me

i have been waiting forever for the College to throw out the following two items, and have finally acquired them for a few dollars each:

a marantz CP430 and a sony TCM-5000EV portable stereo cassette recorders. these are pro machines that were worth a lot of money in their day. they were used by radio journalists and other field recorders and have great specs. both seem to be working fine. the marantz is a better machine, with dolby and dbx and stero mic inputs, and the sony has variable speed control!

i've just done some internet searches and the sony comes up with a David Attenborough-type list of field recordings of weird and wonderful native species from around the world. 

I'm VERY excited. one will be used to play the occasional cassette on the stereo in the front lounge, and the other will be used on field trips to undiscovered highlands... or perhaps some analogue recording of my band...

fuzz would be so proud. he probably still has the old ones from downunder...

off to the shed to dig up my old cassettes!

Life Online

Norton/Symantec have released a study called Norton Online Family Report: a multi-nation survey of how families set house rules around internet use. Download the report here. The report found that Australian parents are more controlling of family computer use than the global average. Read an online news report by the Age here (including response from Andrew Fuller).

Nielsen have released new stats that indicate that on average, 22% on online time is spent using social media. 72% of Australians use social networks online. Read the Age report on this here.

ampitube irig for iphone

i'm already tempted by this....

irig