SOLUTIONS

Last week I mentioned that I was attempting to make a "blimp", a special casing to house a microphone so you can mitigate the effects of the wind blowing outside.

I'm pleased to say it worked a treat, and here is a picture of the finished item. Instead of £200 it cost just £40 to make.

Another challenge then arose. Some sound recording that had been captured earlier was fairly poor, but we don't have the time to film them again. So the solution is to record the artists voices again, in sync with the original. We call this ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement) To achieve this, the audio has to be recorded with zero background noise. Ideally you should create it in a recording studio, which has the walls covered in a bumpy, acoustic foam, that basically "deadens" the room.

But these costs thousands, or you have to travel to a studio and hire one. Again, expensive.

So I broke out the pens and pencils, and tools, again, and set to designing a table-top portable version.

I finished it today, and I am amazed how well it works. Total cost: under £50. Here's a wee picture, complete with microphone and pop-shield, headphones and a 7" monitor for the artists to watch themselves in the original recording:

Maybe I should make a "how to" on a YouTube video, or an article on "Instructables.com".  Or you could just ask me.

Finally, I've been trying to find a remote control for my MacBook Air. It wasn't just to control Key Note (Mac's version of Power point), I wanted to go a step further and control videos playing on the screen. I wasn't even sure if that was possible.  The Mac's getting on a bit now, like myself, and software updates have left it behind a bit. There are remotes out there, but my laptop is no longer compatible with them.

What to do?

No, I haven't made one. Practical things I can do, computer coding is a bit beyond me.

But I have found a solution, and thought I'd post it here as it may help others. It's called ROWMOTE, and first of all you download the app to your smartphone (79p). You also need the other half, which is the software on your computer. All well and good, but the version I found was not compatible with my system. A bit more searching, and I found the downloads for older versions, and, voila, I have my remote.

Just in case you are in the same situation, first, here's the link to the app for your phone: Rowmote app

And for the software part, the link to the older versions (which you need to install for it to work) for your Mac computer OS X: Mac Rowmote

Then you launch the programme on your Mac, then select the installed app on your phone, and it will give you a password number to enter when prompted on your computer, so the two can link.

And, relax.