Author
3D1on
fading into... digital static... very... very... slowly...
scene zero and one are here:
http://radio.indymedia.org/node/10438
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/0_howard_stern_opera.ogg
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/1_howard_stern_opera.ogg
Original content
time frame: 0510 to 0629
rouge net length: 132:32:04 (h:m:s)
load: 2.488325784gigabytes
torrents: 26
bit rate ranges: 24-32-56-64
sample rate ranges: 8-22-24-32
mode: stereo or mono, fixxed bitrate
The Opera:
106663863bytes
137 object files (reduced from 169 after sorting)
playlist length: 01:47:27 (high accuracy, low precision)
working average length per cut: 105.2seconds
number of subdirectories: 7
maximum number of cuts per directory: 78
largest sample: 305seconds, 6960264bytes
smallest sample: 2133millseconds, 36389bytes
samplerate range: 8kHz-64kHz
Processing
0) accumulated content
1) stored content
2) cut
3) tag cuts for contents *
4) compress cuts
5) backup of cuts
6) edit cuts (search (using tags! *), mark ends, delete)
7) adjust each cut for rms **
8) compress and backup finals
9) assemble and compile into single object files
overall time frame: 25days
trim time frame: 0704 22:50 to 0705
rough memory load: 1.3gigabytes ***
* this area of (keeping track of what makes up individual cuts) is increasingly an area of use under development for me in my work now - so much so it is almost a job all on its own worthy of its own, unique artistry!
** i decided to leave out this step (basically it just puts each clip at the same volume for the listener, but it requires processing each cut manually and in this case is making mostly minor changes that i would just as sooner leave alone anyways so as to provide clarity to the listener that this is content i have accumulated from encodings on the internet - i did not encode any of this content!) - please note, the files have been thusly editted, only globally instead of each cut (the significance of which might be a lengthy explanation)
*** obviously, this far exceeds what is needed and is mostly comprised of duplication
Note: the trick here, really, was 2) - these are very large files that can require 4gigabytes of memory for any editing. Swapping to harddisk all of this information could take days. The easiest way out is to utilize the full-duplex capabilities availble in most sound cards today. Next, one program plays the file.
This becomes problematic, thus the numerous points of processing. Basically, without visualizing the audio as a 'wave' (like on an EKG), one needs an audio player with good controls (i.e. single stroke keyboard shortcuts). One concern here is that kind of activity routinely freezes computers.
Visualization of the audio itself inside of an editor is the best way. But that takes a lot of memory.
My work was made easier by taking the 5 hour audio files and using a simple object file utility, called a splitter. The only, very minor, complication that arises here (aside from the fact that it is a bit of an end-run around the operating system and its "extensions" guides) is when you have a clip you what that has been spliced right down the middle. Digitally, this is no problem. So file-splitting was key to this fun as heck cut.
One other point. I am moving from a software-only approach to editting and into one that takes more advantage of capabilities inherent in the technology. It comes down to point 9).
What it comes down to is that I normally will take all of my cuts and, one by one, copy and insert them into one, single audio file. This file I can store as I go, which has always been helpful in dealing with computer crashes, among a host of other benefits - such as using point 7) when I see fit or just taking some licence in general with the audio clip before or during insertion into the main audio file.
How is this changing? More and more, I take the easy road! I simply take my clips (which is not always challenging, at least numerically - the disordered state data can take is usually the greater challenge), stick it all into an ordered playlist, and record from the playlist player into the audio editor. Simple!
This is more what I am used to from my years with analogue. All you need, as any engineer will tell you: good metres! You need to be able to SEE when you are peaking. The fun part (and I do think this can be fun - after all, the final product 'does all the work for you...' forever!) is that it forces you to be very intuitive with the _content_ of what you are doing. Gasp! Making adjustments on the fly is truly the closest an audio geek can get to transforming these wastoid machines into veritable musical instruments!!!
2 Howard Stern Opera - files 098-169; 144megabytes (native)
1 Howard Stern Opera - files 050-097; 145megabytes (native)
0 Howard Stern Opera - files 000-049 147megabytes (native)
p.s. I barely detected one error during assembly. So there is a remote chance that a few seconds here and there should not have been included. No spacing between cuts.
p.p.s. These notes are incomplete.
07061232
hardware:
cpu - pentium4
motherboard ram - 256
audio interface - soundblaster live! soundcard
human interface - lcd screen, computer speakers, headphones, wired mouse & keyboard
connectivity - external coaxial cable modem
backup storage - cdrw media
total req'd harddiskdrive ram space - approx. 4gigabytes
software:
operating system - windows xp 2002 home, sans 'patching'
copy utility - sound recorder, "sndrec32.exe" - from 1995
native audio - pcm wave audio
audio compression - ogg vorbis variable bitrate
playlisting, ogg conversion, review & testing - winamp2.78c x86 from december 9, 2001
editor - goldwave 4.16 (freeware) - from 2000
HOWARD STERN IS BULLSHIT
What you have here is greatly the work of Dan The Song Parody Man. Although it must be noted that about half of the Opera is pulled from snippets in the commercial advertisement breaks. So his work comprises the bulk of the originality that I heard in the short time I tuned in.
The rest of the Howard Stern Show, the other 98.7% of what you would not hear here (that is, if you listen!), is basically highly egotistical in nature with interviews, performances, and spectacles. It has been running for a couple of decades now until leaving 'terrestrial' radio (analog) for 'satellite' (digital) radio (audio) this past January 9th. Much of the hype surrounds being able to broadcast bathroom humour and grown adults behaving animalistically (not very explanatory, but you will get the idea from listening) without black marker censoring (referred to as "censorship"). This defines the new version of a well-known liberal thang, called 'free speech', carried over from nineteenth century stylings and, honestly naive or on purpose, taps directly into the american (liberal) mind (i.e. 'revolution').
I have, over the years, personally recommended to people that it is wise to ignore the comments of others. In the two months I listened to the Show, every comment that I received from those around me whom I told what I was listening to was both negative and instantaneous, viceral. Yet none of these people had listened to the Show or seen the new Show. So please listener of audio, do not take any of this as coming from any sort of position based even remotely upon opinionated rhetoric! Let us be plain. Do you have five hours in your day to listen to, like... anything? But I am not providing this as a service.
This serves to simply present one side of the Show. The recorded bits. The schtick outside of adults bantering in the atypical, quasi-Sade machismo chauvanistic schadenfreude characteristic of the painfully successful brand, Howard Stern. The parts between the cracks of talk and ad. There is no licence here - I am extracting the parts and compiling them for you, the listener, in chronological order. I have put some effort, too, into the elimination all duplicated longer parts.
So, why? I think that this is the best way to examine the Show: to have you, the listener, wade into a one hundred minute pool of one very narrow view of the world from an aging know-it-all egotist (Howard Stern believes he is key for the development of most of american and radio culture of the last quarter century). And irrelevant of attempts to the contrary, he is misogynistic and homophobic - and intelligent, if not really just quite sly and extroverted. There are over three million americans who signed-up for subscriptions to listen to the Show in a very short period of time. He is infamous to the famous yet trivial to the rest. (he also just coincidentally happens to be a mega-multimillionaire - sum of the order of a half billion usd in contracts - not that it is supposed to matter)
In June, the satellite service began streaming on the Internet to an international audience. This is important for several reasons. But note: programming is derived, to a great extent, from listeners calling in on landline telephones. Furthermore, Stern has always been positioned as the quintessential Modern Americana (characterized by a belief that whatever offends must be good because it offends, classic Christian Imperialist mindset if ever there were (sorry for the outdated terms, but they apply to Modernists too)). Also, audio programmers have now been affected by the digital age and its enormous catelogues and libraries. Of this, the greater Show has 23,000 hours worth to itself sort, compile, and broadcast.
Finally, many of the 'radical' order are fans of the Show, its successful appeal to the working class (Stern would undoubtedly enjoy laying claim to the Donohue-esque television talk shows that couple political diatribe with the likes of 'transvestites having sex with their mothers' circus freakshow spectacles littering morning and daytime tv programming). Many are not fans. Love and hate. I do not appeal to any of these as groups. Not being employed, I do not wish to, either - derision is the sentiment that pays the bills! I freely admit, there are compelling parts of the Show. But the key word is, parts. That is, cuts. And this is just but one mere Show among many. Satelite programming utilizes channels, of which Stern has two. In this is are several other radio shows, even from his fanbase (re: "wackpack"), news about the shows, wireless televised content, and even the first radio sitcom is in the works.
As for myself, I have no opinion on this or anything in this life. What I see here is of significance mostly to a globe that I see as being affected today by two elements: the Internet and the use of audio medium as communication.
Stern would like to make this all about Media.
I am just cutting it as I hear it.
Thank you.