ShortCourses- How a Digital Camera Works Digital cameras are very much like all earlier cameras. Beginning with the very first camera all have been basically black boxes with a lens to gather the light, a wheel you turned to focus the image, an aperture that determines how bright the light is, and a shutter that determines how long the light enters. Both the earliest cameras and the most state-of-the-art models available today are really just black boxes. The big difference between traditional film cameras and digital cameras is how they capture the image. Instead of film, digital cameras use a solid-state device called an image sensor. In some digital cameras the image sensor is a charge-coupled device (CCD), while in others it's a CMOS sensor. An image sensor sits against a background enlargement of its square pixels, each capable of capturing one pixel in the final image. It's All Black and White After All It may be surprising, but pixels on an image sensor only capture brightness, not color. There's a Computer in Your Camera
Freeware Synths - Ten of the Best You might be on a tight budget, but you needn’t miss out on some great synths: the freeware community has been happily programming some excellent plug-in instruments and effects over the last couple of decades and the number of synths that you can now download for free is quite staggering. Quality varies enormously, so we’ve rounded up our ten favourites, trying to include as many for both Mac and PC as possible. Several are emulations of classic hardware, and one or two are becoming classics in their own right, so get clicking and try this lot for free… Crystal Mac/PC One of the best Mac and PC freeware synths out there (and now available for iOS for $4.99) Crystal has been at the top of the freeware charts for many a year and won its large fan base through great sounds featuring subtractive and FM synthesis, so has a wide and varied palette. Web www.greenoak.com Wollo Drone PC One of the top-rated synths at the excellent Plug-in Boutique (www.pluginboutique.com) – and we certainly agree.
Image Sensors and Signal Processing for Digital Still Cameras First Listen: Warpaint, 'Warpaint' hide captionWarpaint's self-titled album comes out Jan. 21. Mia Kirby/Courtesy of the artist Warpaint's self-titled album comes out Jan. 21. A few years back, the band Low sold T-shirts emblazoned with a fine unofficial motto for its music: "I don't like cool, I like beautiful." That may be the product of an essential contradiction at Warpaint's core: It's a band that both feels new — its full-length debut, The Fool, came out in 2010 — and has 10 years of shared experience behind it. The result is an album that captures both discipline and seemingly easy creative sprawl.
Single-Sensor Imaging: Methods and Applications for Digital Cameras 47 Sites Every Recording Musician Should Visit In a recent “Open Mic” we asked you, “Which music-related sites do you visit regularly?” This article is a summary of the great suggestions given in the comments to that article. You can make the list even longer by commenting on this article. As you’re reading this article, Audiotuts+ needs no introduction. This is a great Flash site with many resources to help you learn music theory. The site content is split up as follows: Lessons, including topics that cover notation, chords and scalesTrainers, that teach you notes, keys, intervals, triads, keyboard, guitar and brass. Michael comments: “I have found very helpful. This is a site that helps you with scales and chords. The charts are guitar-based, and there are options for various alternate tunings and other stringed instruments. A website that helps you learn musical scales and chords. Subtitled “Learn music technology”, this site is all about learning audio. Joe comments: “Great Ableton/sound design videos.”
Digital Photography Tutorials Learn how to take and edit digital photographs using visual tutorials that emphasize concept over procedure, independent of specific digital camera or lens. This is a complete listing of all tutorials on this site; click the drop-down links in the top menu to see particular topics. Photography is going through an exciting transition period as many film photographers are beginning to explore the new capabilities of digital cameras. While the fundamentals have remained similar, other aspects are markedly different. This is a great time to get involved with digital photography. These tutorials are rarely influenced by changes in image editing software and camera equipment — due to their unique concept-based approach. View in other languages: Português Русский Deutsch Français Italiano
Korg Volca Keys Delay Circuit Noise | Audio Cookbook I have had the Korg Volca Keys for a little over a week and have gotten quite comfortable with the unit. The feature set can be learned in a matter of minutes, but the sonic range of the instrument is impressive and much more broad than I expected. The strength of the Volca Keys is in the modes: poly, unison, octave, fifth, unison ring, and poly ring. The sound I posted earlier, for example, demonstrates the poly ring modulation mode. Lately I’ve been enjoying syncing the Volca Keys with my DSI Tempest and Korg Monotribe, but more about that later. Of course a hardware analog synth that exhibits the diminutive size and cost that the Volca Keys does is bound to have some limitations. To illustrate the noise introduced by the delay circuit I created a few versions of a simple test sequence. Korg Volca Keys Sequence with No Delay: Korg Volca Keys Sequence with the Internal Delay: Korg Volca Keys Sequence with Simple Delay: Korg Volca Keys Sequence with Memory Man Delay:
Resy's Unique Sound Tools: Morphing Triangle Software, Hardware in a Can If you’re looking to give yourself sonic inspiration in a new shape, a musical marketplace has some deals for you now. Resy is a recently-launched curated shop for “indie” instruments, both hardware and software. It’s worth mentioning them now because they have a lovely deal through end of day tomorrow Monday the 23rd, and also because these two tools are unique and quirky stories themselves. And Resy has the clever idea of making twee music videos showing off the instruments, rather than the usual dry promos. First up, there’s einKLANG, the morphing software instrument that’s all about the triangle. Yes, in place of endless screenfuls of identical knobs, einKLANG uses mathematical models to morph between tone “colors,” all laid out on a central morphing triangle. The plug-in runs on OS X and Windows. Grab the deal here – US$49 including one of the new tone packs:EISENBERG AUDIO EINKLANG SYNTH +1 TONE PACK I have to admit, I missed this synth, so perhaps Resy is already onto something.