I'm moving!

After quite a while with Blogger, I've finally broken down and purchased DanMisener.com. That's where you'll find my new blog (with all of this site imported). My RSS feed remains the same: http://feeds.feedburner.com/danmisener/ If you're interested, the new site is hosted by Frozen Webhost. I like them a lot.

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This American Life Scoring Music iMix

Some things I know to be true:

1. I like the music on This American Life
2. I'd like to be able to buy some of the music used in This American Life
3. I like iTunes
4. I don't like RealAudio

So I spent part of my Saturday afternoon compiling an iMix called This American Life Scoring Music. You can find it in the iTunes music store, or if you have iTunes installed, just click the previous link. Note that all of the music from the TAL website isn't included in the iMix. iTunes doesn't have everything. But if you're looking to make a radio show of your own that sounds a lot like TAL, this'd be a good place to grab some tunes.

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NPR Podcasting Workshop

Via the always informative BoingBoing comes a link to AudioLuxe, advertising a "Content Crash Course for Podcasters" run by NPR producers, at an NPR station:

Why should professional broadcasters have the monopoly on quality? DIY doesn't have to be dull! Learn the tips, tricks, and time-tested techniques professional public broadcasters use to capture and keep a listener's attention.

Why isn't CBC Radio doing this?

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Witness the awesome power of the Mailmobile

CIMG0144.JPG, originally uploaded by Dan Misener.

The CBC's Toronto Broadcast Centre has a robot that delivers mail. It's a motorized cart that follows a track through the halls. It's also equipped with sensors to keep it from running over children and small animals. Earlier this week, the mailmobile failed to avoid a terracotta pot outside our offices. The destruction is documented on my Flickr account.

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From Idea to Air

I spent this past Saturday at Tod Maffin's From Idea to Air workshop at the Royal York in Toronto. It was a day-long workshop based on his popular e-book, and run as a fundraiser for the MS Society of Canada. I started freelancing for the CBC about three years ago. I started by selling short documentaries to Radio Syndication, and continued by making radio pieces for shows like Metro Morning, Definitely Not the Opera, and Outfront. I continue to make items for CBC's Content Factory and Brent Bambury's Saturday morning show Go. ... And I wish that three years ago I'd had the opportunity to participate in Tod's workshop. It was great, and Tod took the group through everything you need to get a piece to air on CBC Radio. He covered finding an idea, pitching the idea, collecting audio, interviewing, scriptwriting, mixing... and getting paid. Personally, I was familiar with a lot of what was covered, but it was inspiring to be in the same room with so many people excited about making radio, and listening to samples of some great work (much of it from my favourite radio program, This American Life). Tod's doing his workshop two more times, and the next one is in Vancouver. If you want to make public radio, but don't know where to start, think about applying for a spot. It'll be well worth your time.

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CKDU Goes High Power February 14, 2006

From CKDU.ca, about the Valentine's Day move to high power:

At 1:00 PM AST, CKDU 97.5 FM will cease to broadcast. At 7:00 PM AST, CKDU 88.1 FM will rise like a phoenix out of the 97.5 ashes. Tune in for exciting live programming hosted by Nick Barrington (Elegant Voltage) and featuring a stable of our wonderful programmers and volunteers.

This has been a long time coming. Congrats to my Haligonian radio colleagues.

Free coffee

I'll be on CBC Radio's Go tomorrow (Saturday, January 14, 2005) morning, talking about how to get free coffee.

More on recording with your iPod

Via Engadget , news that XtremeMac has announced something called the MicroMemo, which

consists of an adapter with a built-in (bur removable) flexible mic, and records 16-bit audio from 5G iPods at 22 KHz. It's powered by the iPod and will cost $79.95 when it ships later this year.

One question: why 22KHz? Why not the take advantage of the iPod's full capabilities? We already know it can do 16 bit/44.1 KHz/stereo. Anyway, here's a link to the MicroMemo product page.