Category: Audio

Motu Microbook Usb Audio Interface Review

Although small in size, the MicroBook USB Audio Interface is huge when it comes to audio quality. It is a USB bus-powered audio interface that provides studio-grade audio performance. Despite being small, about the size of a regular pocket, the MicroBook USB Audio Interface can turn your Mac or PC into a personal 4X2 recording studio – all complete with the needed audio I/O and mixing features for professional recording.

The MicroBook lets you have a complete personal recording set up whether on a Mac or on a PC. It has four simultaneous inputs for a microphone, a guitar, and a keyboard or any other stereo line-level device. Its mic preamp gives nothing but a neutral coloration and pristine sound, thanks to 20dB pad and 48V phantom power of its built-in condenser mics. On top of that, the MicroBook offers flexible monitoring options – choose among a programmable analog, a digital and headphone outputs.

Because the MicroBook is slim, its mic input is a balanced quarter-inch jack. If in case you would like to use a mic cable with an XLR plug, there is no need to worry because the MicroBook comes with a XLR-to-1/4-inch adapter. Its Precision Digital Trim Feature lets you digitally control analog trim on all analog units. This only means one thing – you get to enjoy both worlds: the excellent signal quality of analog audio circuitry and the fine-tune precision of digital control. Not only that, you also get to save and recall trim settings on your computer.

But perhaps the best thing about the MicroBook is its superb audio quality. It provides rigid audio quality particularly tailored to meet the demands of most professional recording applications. Because it comes from MOTU’s award-winning family of FireWire, USB and PCI audio interfaces, the MicroBook is without a doubt a product that signifies decades of engineering expertise.

Most of the audio interface brands that we see in the market today (even the expensive ones) usually cut corners with unbalanced analog inputs and outputs. Such imbalance then results to a greatly compromised performance that falls way below an equivalent balanced circuit. But the MicroBook has well balanced inputs and outputs that ensure only the best protection possible against RF interference, AC hum, and other noise-creating environmental factors.

The guitar input of the MicroBook gives the proper impedance loads for guitars, so you can play through guitar-processing plug-ins in a host software without worries knowing that you will get nothing but natural feel and response. Its “mini” eight-inch analog input can also be connected to an iPod or any other stereo line level signal. This allows audio input mixing with other inputs and routed to any output device.

With the birth of the MOTU MicroBook USB Audio Interface, you can now have quality I/O recording, personal audio tracking, laptop-based DJing, among many other applications, on-the-go.

Buy the MOTU MicroBook USB Audio Interface from Gigasonic.com, your trusted music store and get special limited time offers on financing and no interest layaways.

The Revival of the Audio Book.

After 70 years audio books are still going strong. Nowadays it is very easy to download audio books from the Internet, which makes them more popular then ever before.

A short history of the audio book

In 1920 the Royal National Institute for the Blind in England was already doing research on how to create audio books for the blind. At that time there were a lot of ex World War 1 soldiers who had gone blind as a result of the fighting. In 1926 the RNIB started to use LPs to record audio books which could be played on record players (the kind with the big horn, you had to swing a handle a couple of times before it would play).

In 1936 the Talking Book Service was launched. The first two books were: The murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie and Joseph Conrads Thyphoon. The records used at the time could hold 25 minutes of spoken text, so they needed about 10 records for an average audio book.

In 1940 the studio used by the RNIB was bombed, and one month later a replacement studio was bombed as well. The RNIB wanted to start publishing audio books again, but they needed certain materials which had been destroyed.

In America, the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), had started producing audio books as well, and they did send the much needed parts to help their English counterparts. Unfortunately the shipment got lost during a bombing raid of the London harbor! A second shipment however did make it, and the RNIB was able to start again with the production of audio books.

In the sixties the audio books started to appear on cassettes, and later, after the invention of the compact disk player, on CDs.

Nowadays the audio books have become more and more popular then ever before, in spite of their age. One of the main reasons for their ever growing popularity is the fact that audio books can be downloaded straight from the Internet. There are a good few audio book publishers who provide this service, and it looks like their on to a winner.

Audio books, more then 70 years old and still going strong.

How I Learnt To Speak French In 3 Months From Audio Books

Of course, I was taught French during my school days but never took it seriously. As far as I was concerned, it wasn’t important to me and never would be.

After all, English was more popular and I could get along anywhere in the world with my knowledge of English language, right?

How dead wrong I was.

I realized my mistake when I was sent to France for an assignment. I was like a real fish out of water.

Everywhere I went, everyone was speaking French. Finding someone who could speak English was like finding someone in England who could speak Japanese.

Whew, I really felt lost.

Nonetheless, I made a silent resolve not to learn the language, since I wasn’t going to be coming back to France.

But on getting back home, my boss told me I would be going back in 3 months. This time I would stay longer.

I protested, but she didn’t budge.

There and then I made a commitment to myself to learn French before the 3 months was up.

Being a lover of audio books, I went right ahead and bought “Teach Yourself French” audio books, which I played while preparing for work in the morning, while exercising, during my commute to and fro work and any other time when my hands were busy but my mind was free.

At first I didn’t pay too much attention to what was being said in the “Teach Yourself French” audio books because it was a strange language.

But as time went on, it all started to make sense. What really helped was the translations to English for any word spoken in French.

This really confirmed what I had read sometime ago about the power of listening. No wonder God gave us 2 ears and just one mouth. This means just listening is powerful enough to learn virtually any language.

You wouldn’t believe it but gradually I picked up and was able to speak a significant amount of French just 6 weeks after.

You can imagine the surprise on the face of my boss when, 10 weeks later, I spoke French to her without mixing it with a single word of English!

She couldn’t believe it and asked me how I was able to do it. I told her – audio books!

Not only was she very impressed, she made me the head of the delegation she was sending to represent our company in France.

She made sure every other member of my team got their audio books and did exactly what I had done.

When I eventually went back to France 3 months later, I was no longer “a fish out of water”.

It was incredible, but I was able to achieve this without taking any classes, without hiring any private French tutor, without reading any “French tutorial” books.

All of this was possible within 3 months from just listening to French audio book lessons.

Do you know what was most intriguing about this? I did this all in my “free” time. I didn’t commit any special time to this, but the same time I had wasted in the past.

If I could do this within 3 months, I am certain anyone else can do it too.

If there is any language you would love to learn, follow my footsteps and you will be pleasantly surprised what can happen in just 3 months, with the power of audio books.

There are several audio book versions of many leading foreign language study courses that you can get on the Internet.

You can start your search from best-audiobook-store.com directly or via the search engines. Simply type in the phrase or particular title you are interested in and you will be presented with the best results… within seconds.

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Audio Go How newspapers could be leading the audio book revolution

Only a few years ago, a string of TV adverts would flash up with the news that the Sunday paper was giving away a free CD – invariably featuring some of the greatest hits from Tom Jones or Rod Stewart. Now, more than ever, they are offering audio books, which could well be the catalyst that turns a whole new generation onto the delights of the audio book. >

In the past, of course, audio books used to be clunky boxes filled with a few score cassettes hiding away in the murkiest depths of a bookshop. They would then require you to stay perfectly still within earshot of the hi-fi so you could hear it and ensure you didn’t miss any of the plot.

Now, of course, they are little more than strings of 0s and 1s that take up as much space in your house as the device you have put them on. All you then have to do is pop in the earphones and voila. No changing of cassettes, no carrying around your hi-fi; just one, uninterrupted stream of audio that can run from start to finish if you so wished (and had the time to let it run its course).

This technology has been around for quite some time, of course, but its newest adoption by the national papers could well see it taken up by many more avid listeners.

With adverts given as much front page space as the headlines themselves (‘Inside: Free audio book. Download yours today!’) it will be little surprise if the audio book itself doesn’t benefit in the long run.

Of course, the book being given away for free will see the most benefit at first, with hundreds rushing to take up their free download. But then, it’s hard to imagine that all these people who download the audio book will then turn their back on the idea as a whole and never download one again.

So free CDs in your Sunday paper might be giving way to a new kind of listening experience and it could well lead to larger changes in your buying habits, too.