Hope you enjoy the show and keep watching for updates to this site as we get ready to regenerate BUMP!

So enjoy BUMP 041, we hope you’ll stick with us for the future!

Show Notes & Links

Thanks to Lewis King and Chris Thomson for their exceptional work on impodcast.tv

iPhone / iPod / iTunes News

• Queue forms outside 5th Avenue, New York Apple Store for no reason
• Case for iPhone reveals potential 3g iPhone design changes?
• Austrailian iPhone could support speeds of up to 42mbps?
• Apple looking for GPS specialists for iPhone
• iPhoneDevCamp 2 announced
• iPhone to get joint launch in Korea and Japan?
• iPhone to remain exclusive to T-Mobile in Germany
• iPhone coming to Canada next month - with decent data plan prices?
• Google update ‘Reader’ for iPhone web app
• Apple wants to extend music downloads on iPhone to cellular (3g) networks
• Phishing scam now targetting iTunes users
• Sony TV shows added to iTunes UK store

Apple & Mac News

• WiMax coming to Apple’s MacBook Pro line?
• Apple to upgrade all notebook LCDs to LED backlights by 2009
• MultiTouch brought to OS X in full size by Christian Moore
• Apple going to court over Mighty Mouse, cheesed off old patent holder!
• 1-in-10 of BBC’s iPlayer users are on the Mac
• Apple’s Airport line takes 10.6% market share in Wireless routers
• US Defense Department steps into Apple’s purchase of PA Semi, could this be the start of the iTank?

Mentioned Applications / Websites

• Zatoo.com - stream UK TV to your mac! For free, at least for now

Podshow PDN {podshow-529081157852653f3b27762debe5c503}

Apologies for some of the sound issues this week, there were some issues with syncing Chris’ ‘good’ local audio to the Skype audio!

Show Notes & Links

• Apple’s WWDC event sold out! - Over 5,000 attendees expected
• AT&T Put iPhone free WiFi on hold
• Freak Helicoper accident blamed on iPod?
• Apple takes iPod accessory maker to Court
• Apples gets more design awards
• Google ready with native iPhone Apps?
• Could we see a new MacBook in Q3, as early as July?
• Apple devising WiiMote like device for the AppleTV?
• Apple may give Canadian iPod owners $44
• o2 & Apple buddies over 3g iPhone in the UK - Coming soon?
• Is this what we’ll see at WWDC ‘08
• Apple is the 3rd most popular brand name in the UK behind Nokia and Tesco(?!)

Thanks to Chris Wall, Lewis King and Josh Chandler for providing the links

We’re waiting on our show notes team to produce the links for this week, so they should be with you soon, but in the meantime we hope you enjoy the show!

Hope you enjoy the episode

Show Notes & Links

• New iMac specs due next week - story from Engadget
• Apple updates Bootcamp to 2.1
• Psystar offers video of operations
• Apple says 20,000 iPhone developers to date
• Sun still want Java on the iPhone
• 3G iPhone to have GPS and be a thicker design?
• Nike + Apple + Leeds Students
• Apple to stop ‘grey’ UK eStores from selling iPods?
• Apple’s Q2 Results

This week Stu & Chris are joined by Chris Leydon from Keyone Productions & The Podzone and Jack Moore from MacFever.co.uk to talk about the latest news from the world of Apple.

We talk about the Psystar OpenComputer, Tesco wanting to get into the DRM-free music download business, o2 & Carphone Warehouse cutting the price of the iPhone to £169 and the rather ugly rumours of the new Macbooks and Macbook Pros, which of course turn out to be fake!.

This will be a show with the same type of feel but will have more international focus. We have spoke about it on the podcast previously and if you want to know more check out some of the shows.

Now BUMP will not be dying we have no intentions of letting that go but for now we have some plans for that we are working on which we will talk about in the future. When we have more full featured plans we will talk about them and let you know what’s going on but for now we are still here.

Show Notes & Links

• Walt Mossberg predicts 3G iPhone within 60 days
• iPhone SDK beta 3 released, gives away some 3G hints

I’d like to thank everyone for being involved with this show and a big apology for how late the show is, I’ve had a few issues the last few weeks that have slowed down production!

Thank you Steve’s and Happy Birthday Apple!

1. 3G
Most cell phones have 3G. iPhone still uses the slower EDGE network. Good move Apple and AT&T! What’s good is that AT&T will be going on to 3G for the iPhone by the end of the year. My current cell phone, the Nokia N95, has 3G and 3.5G. iPhone is not even close to that.

2. GPS
My father and I were talking about the iPhone on a long car drive, and we decided to talk about some things he would like to see in an iPhone. First thing he said was GPS. Look at it this way. Google Maps is awesome. I use for directions, traffic and all your mappy needs. If the iPhone had GPS, that would help it even more!

3. VoIP
Ah, the good old VoIP. If you don’t know what VoIP is, it stands for Voice over IP. Most famous VoIP client, Skype. Now think about it. Skype + iPhone = Happy Daniel! I use Skype daily. If not daily, weekly! Skype is not only a way to communicate, its free! Instead of paying huge bills on your iPhone, have a Skype Client, and its free Now that sounds good.

So this is just my two cents on what I want to see before I want to buy an iPhone. What do you want if you don’t have an iPhone, and want one. I am more then happy to know! Leave a comment below, or email me directly!

The reason for my absence has mainly been due to some small exams and they are not over yet. I have completed one GCSE this Friday just gone (hopefully got an A according to teacher) a year early and I still have some to come towards the end of April.

I have been working hard on these and they have taken up a lot of my time but rest assured I will be back blogging again and on the podcast hopefully this week. Thanks for everyone who has wanted to hear me again it means a lot and I will speak to you sometime soon.

We also get the chance to speak to Aaron from Stuffed Iggy Software about developing a game for the iPhone

We hope you enjoy this episode, apologies for Skype noise, you all know the story by now!

No show notes for this one, sorry folks I’ve been away on business and hence the late show!!

1) Mac|Life:

Mac|Life provides exclusive, authoritative information and advice for readers who want to get the most out of their Macs, iPods, and third-party hardware, software, and services. The magazine also delivers informative feature articles showcasing the latest hardware and software, an expanded “how-to” section, and candid reviews of the latest gear.

The reason I like Mac|Life so much, is because its content that I enjoy, and the ads are actually pretty good. I have tried a lot of software that I found in Mac|Life!

2) Macworld:

Macworld is the leading independent Web site covering the Apple and Mac market. Macworld
provides breaking news, hot tips, in-depth reporting, news analysis, objective product reviews
and lab testing, and compelling features on the latest Mac, iPod, and iPhone technologies.
This award-winning content, combined with Macworld’s popular forums and compelling blogs
and podcasts, makes Macworld the premier site for all things Apple.

Macworld is also a great magazine because its brought by some great people, and its good, quality content, and the columns are interesting.

Tell me what you think by commenting on the post, or email me directly!

Thanks,

Daniel Brusilovsky
Co-Executive Producer, Blogger
Host and Producer, Apple Universe

We cover some news from the later half of the week first of all and them move on to give you a bit of a run down about how to podcasting using your Mac. As we said in the show if you want to ask any questions please email us, stu or daniel at bumpodcast.co.uk

Show Notes & Links for BUMP 029

The News

• Apple Announces SDK & New iPhone Software - watch the keynote
• BBC releases iPlayer for iPhone
• Jobs says ‘Flash not good enough for iPhone’
• Apple buys UK iPhone patent from BT

Podcasting

I’ve compiled a list of the hardware, software and services we talk about on the show, I’ll add links where I can!
Hardware :

• Apple Macbook, Macbook Pro, iMac
• Blue Snowball & Snowflake
• Alesis Multimix 8 USB & 12 Firewire
• Behringer Xenyx mixers
• MXL-990 Microphone
• Tascam US-122L & US-144
• Mackie Onyx 1640 with Firewire Option

Software :

• Apple GarageBand 08
• Sound Studio by Freeverse
• Sound Converter
• WireTap Studio by Ambrosia Software
• The Levelator

Podcast & Blog Hosting Solutions :

• MyPodcast.com
• TalkShoe
• Wordpress.com & Wordpress.org
• Hostgator.com

Articles and Useful Links :

• Wikipedia - Normalising Audio
• Blogarithims - Skype for Interviews - A How To Video

Well you know, now I can watch some of these, not all shows are available right now but I’m sure that will change, on the iPhone very easily. I managed to watch this week’s episode of Holby City quite happily while sat in bed the other night. I haven’t tried this via EDGE as yet, but I’ll keep you posted.

Could it be better, yes! They really need to build an iPhone interface for it, because the standard one is a bit fiddly! The video quality is very nice though.

So great job BBC!

We talk about Woz’s views on the iPhone, MacBook Air and Apple TV. The updates to the MacBook and MacBook Pro, what these mean in terms of performance and how the price is still not fair in the UK!

We’ll be back later this week with some new shows!

First up, I’d like to thank the team particularly Chris and Daniel, they’ve both been fantastic and it’s great to have Daniel with us on BUMP, I’m sure you’ll agree he’s a great addition to our already fine team! We’ve actually promoted him too, he’s now on the production team as well as a blogger, I gotta say editing video and audio together is a lot of fun.

Update : OK after looking at the podcasting episode we did on Sunday, the audio quality was poor because of TalkShoe, so I’m releasing a news show as BUMP 028, and we’ll redo our podcasting special this weekend with Daniel

Coming up in the next few months we have some great guests planned, more details to come soon and also a huge range of special episodes such ad ‘DJing with your Mac’ and ‘Mac vs Linux - The Live Debate’.

We hope you’re enjoying what we’re doing with the show, if you aren’t then please let us know by emailing us using the contact page!

Thanks for your time

Stu

What does it do?

Nothing.

No really nothing.

It improves stability as everyone already knows with the Apple notes and thats basically all it says. Maybe something to do with 3rd party applications is included but not documented. Engadget say that the jailbroken phones will update without problems everything still intact but be careful and if you have any complaints complain to them not me

It is a hefty update clocking in at around 160 megs it is almost as big as a OS 10 upgrade.

If you have one of the touchscreen Apple devices then update it and enjoy the nothing.

We first of all cover the latest Apple news, including the updates to the iPod Shuffle, the Keyboard firmware update and the BBC content on iTunes and the potential of iPlayer on the iPhone and iPod touch

We then go on to talk about all things video for anyone who wants to start editing video on their Mac. Be warned Stu and Daniel are video geeks, so the stuff we talk about may not be for the newbie, but we do give some great tips about how to get started.

We’ll be back next week with a show all about recording and editing our respective podcasts, we’re hoping Chris can join us for what will be a great show and of course if you want to join us we’ll be doing the show on TalkShoe and you can call in with any questions!

I want to start with the computer that will be handling the recording and editing. After looking at numerous machines, the Apple Mac Pro is the all around best recording machine for intermediate to professional podcasters. The Mac Pro is very powerful, has the look, and has the power to run everything perfectly. If you wanted to go into detail, a 30 inch Apple Cinema Display would be nice, too [Note from Stu : Stop trying to bribe the readers Daniel :-)]

Now for the microphone; Mics are very important in any audio set-up, if you want the best audio sound it is all down to the mic. Most of the professionals are now choosing the Heil PR-40. Personally I would also choose this mic, not only because Leo Laporte uses it, but because its a great sounding mic.

Here comes one of my favorite parts. The mixer. I have had both my eyes out on this mixer for a while, and it has been in my dream set-up for a while now. The Mackie Onyx 1640 with FireWire is one beautiful mixer, and my choice for the perfect set-up.

Now you have a computer, mic, mixer, so what is next? There are a lot of options, but I won’t talk about it in this post. I will be blogging a lot more about Apple, Audio/Video, and all that good stuff.

Thanks,

Daniel Brusilovsky
U.S Correspondent, BUMP
Host and Producer, Apple Universe

iPod Shuffle

With the recent updates to the iPod shuffle. It is now the cheapest iPod ever. And it is also one of the best. The iPod Shuffle is a tiny device about as big as two thumbs pressed together that has either 1GB or 2GB of storage. It has a built on clip so it can stick to your T-Shirt or jeans pretty easy and it comes in a multitude of different colours.

The downsides to the Shuffle are the lack of a screen. You can’t choose what track you are listening to. You can not have it in shuffle mode and skip through all the tracks until you find the track you are looking for but that would be tedious and ware away your thumbs. Another downside is if you are clumsy like me you may loose it as it is small. The reason it is small as it only has 1GB or 2GB of memory which means you will not be able to take around all your music with you with the 1GB taking 240 and the 2GB taking around 500 songs.

The shuffle is great for the enthusiastic jogger as it won’t skip as it uses flash drives or as an iPod for a friend as a present. I may not look as the iPod Shuffle as a primary iPod but I know it is that considered by many.

Summing up Twitter style (140 characters):
The iPod for the person who wants a small sexy device and doesn’t want to carry around a heavy iPod with all their music weighing them down.

iPod Nano

The best selling name of an iPod of all time the iPod Nano is now an absolute beast of a device. With a 2inch video capable screen the ability to play games and up to 8GB of storage it is very cool. The design may look a bit weird if you haven’t seen it in person as you don’t get a representation of the thinness. When you see it in person you just go “Ohhhhh…I get it”
Or was that just me?
Ermm moving on…

The device comes in a 4GB and 8GB models priced at £99 and £129 respectively. The 4GB only comes in Silver but the 8GB can come in a range of different colours the same as the shuffle including Pink. One thing that goes for both the Shuffle and the Nano is Product RED. This is something set up by Bono of U2 fame that if you buy that product some of the sales tax helps people in 3rd world countries and as it is the best looking (in my opinion) go for it.

The downsides are still you may not be able to get all your music on their even with 8GB and although the screen has quite a high resolution it can be annoying to watch movies on after a while. Also the “Fat Boy” Nano look may not be liked by some people and they may prefer a different style.

Summing up Twitter style (140 characters):
The Nano is the perfect middle of the road no fuss iPod for almost everyone. You can get all the different colour’s and its well priced too.

iPod Classic

The big cheese of them all the original McCoy. The iPod Classic. The iPod classic is basically an upgrade to the iPod video. It has a whopping 160GB total capacity or a still massive 80GB counterpart. It has a 2.5 inch screen and basically does the same as the Nano. But can hold more of it. You can get your games and you can get all your movies and music on there. That isn’t a guarantee but most of us don’t have 160GB of content.

If you are going to be going somewhere for a long time without a computer you may want to stock up on TV shows and podcasts. The disk is hard drive on the classic unlike with the other iPods which are all flash. This means that running and putting it near magnets will effect playback and could break it all together. As I found out the hard way…..ho hum. The classic is for the horder that needs everything with him/her at once.

Summing up Twitter style (140 characters):
The Classic is for the person who doesn’t to worry whether they have left their favorite song behind and security in having space free space.

iPod Touch

The newest line to the iPod family the iPod touch. The little ,less developed yet perfectly has its place, brother of the iPhone. The iPod touch comes with all the same functionality except….yep the phone part. Recently it had an update and got 32GB of flash storage which is 2GB bigger than the iPod video was only a couple of years ago.

The iPod touch has WiFI and it is capable of browsing the web via Safari and using the mail and iTunes music store but only over WiFi no connectivity out and about like you get with the iPhone. You get all the other amazing iPhone applications and you can create webclips and anything that is developed for the iPhone will work on the iPod touch.

The main reason I could see for this would be the movies you could watch. With TV shows here and movies not far off the 3.5 inch screen would be perfect for watching movies on the train or bus on the way to work or just anywhere. You may lack some storage with the 8 and 16 gig but if you opt for the 32 you should be well on your way to movie rentals and TV.

Summing up Twitter style (140 characters):
The iPod Touch is for the person who wants the iPhone but it isn’t viable or the person who wants to be able to watch video on a good screen.

Honourable Mentions.

The Apple TV and iPhone are not strictly iPods as they do not fall under that name. I will be writing a post where I talk about the Apple TV solely on its own talking through its merits and its cons. The iPhone will not get a through review like this as until it changes I think we all know what is going on with it and the fact that everyone I know who has got one loves it speaks for itself.

I will be doing this for all items of the Apple product mix. With Laptops and Desktops and then the accessories that make the mac what the mac is. For example talking about the differences between Garageband and Logic Pro.

P.S. If you are looking for a way to fill your iPod I highly recomend the new “The Feeling” album called “Join With Us : Deluxe edition” It has a host of great songs and an exclusive video. Check it out here Join With Us

I Hope you enjoyed this post and I hope it was of some use. If you find a mistake or want to make any comments then either leave a comment in the box below or send me an e-mail at chris [at] bumpodcast [dot] co [dot] uk and I will respond as soon as possible.

iPhone Copy and Paste from lonelysandwich on Vimeo.

This is a really good mock up of how the iPhone copy and paste could and should work. If they choose to implement it in this way I would be a happy man.

If any of the iPhone developers are reading this then take a good look. I find this video could educate you and make you see your mistakes. People complained about Leopard’s Menu Bar and you changed that. If we whine enough about the copy and paste will you? I realise I’m talking to no-one here but I am doing my little bit to help.

Funny great video.

Personally I love Mitchell and Webb from their movie (Magicians to Peep show. The Apple Mac adverts across the pond also crack me up and John Hodgman is hilarious. What did I think of Mitchell and Webbs take on it though.

I definatly like the British twist. They have something that just relates and without this going off into a tangent about how British and American comedy is different, even doing the same advert it comes across more British. Which is good. People have been speculating that the loss of this is due to the fact that people are finding the Mac character in the British version to “up himself”. I don’t see this as true.

Any good advertising is going to promote the product to the consumer. There are many ways to get a consumer to react to advertising, comedy, lust, familiarity and curiosity. Now as sexy as I’m sure many will find the duo I don’t feel lust plays a part.

When people hear “Hello, I’m a Mac. And I’m a PC” they recognise the advert and are intigued to know what they have to say next. If they have never heard or seen the adverts before people will be curious to see what a computers would have to say to each other.

Finally comedy. They always make us laugh and always make a good statement. Here this will prove a point:

Recall your favourite Mac ad?
Got it?
Good.

Now recall any Dell advert?
Anything?
…hello…

Exactly.

What did you think of the Apple adverts? Sound off in the comments below!

Jolly Good!

The BBC have also brought with them; Spooks, Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Little Britain (though the link just takes you to some random song!) Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, The Mighty Boosh, The Catherine Tate Show and Robin Hood (oh well, suppose someone will buy it)

Prices remain at the standard UK £1.89, which squashes the rumours of us getting the content for free! Is this right, well personally I don’t think so, in the UK we pay our license fee for the BBC content, why should we pay again for the privilege of downloading it to our Macs? Unless of course the BBC will give us the downloads feature on their iPlayer service, which is rumoured to be happening later this year, as well as iTunes downloads.

I will be downloading at least an episode of Torchwood and maybe some Spooks, so I’ll let you know what I think to the quality!

We talk about the death of HD-DVD and how this will impact Apple’s HD disc stratergy, will we finally see Blu-Ray drives in our Macs? We cover a lot of the iPhone SDK rumours coming out, expecting the much awaited SDK to be out by the end of this month.

After we’re all rumoured out we ask Daniel a few questions about Apple Universe and his role with us here at BUMP.

I’d like to thank Gaz for joining us on the phones and bringing up some fantastic points! We’ll be back with another show later this week, this will be another Stu & Daniel show (Chris is having a nice break in Center Parcs!)

Trust me, I have asked this question to myself numerous times! But as of now, I don’t have a definite answer to this. There are so many services on the web that incorporate this, but don’t necessarily maximize video. One of my favorite streaming companies on the web is Ustream. Ustream.TV is the live interactive video broadcast platform that enables anyone with a camera and an Internet connection to quickly and easily broadcast to a global audience of unlimited size. In less than two minutes, anyone can become a broadcaster by creating their own channel on Ustream or by broadcasting through their own site, empowering them to engage with their audience and further build their brand. I have worked with Ustream in many sort of ways from blogging to podcasting to even working! Ustream is a great service for “desktop streaming.”

One of the top, and in my opinion, best companies is Qik. Qik enables you to share moments of your life with your friends, family and the world - directly from your cell phone! Keep your world in the know, share a laugh, tell engaging stories. Just point your cell phone and stream video live to your your friends on Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, etc. OR use your cell phone like a camcorder and stream hours and hours of video without worrying about storage on your cell phone. Qik is really amazing on what they do, and I am not saying they are the best because I work there, I thought they were the best since a friend and top blogger Robert Scoble showed Qik to me. Qik really maximizes video from cell phones, and I can’t wait to see where this takes me and Qik!

Now, Apple also has a say in video. Probably not a front-end view, but surely a back-end view. Most of us know Apple because of their amazing hardware and outstanding operation systems, but they also have amazing software. Here is some of Apple’s Video Software:

Final Cut Express 4
Final Cut Studio 2
QuickTime 7 Pro for Mac OS X

Now out of these major 3 I use about 2 of these. I use QuickTime Pro to record all my videos, and I am going to start using Final Cut Studio to edit the footage.

Now, most Mac’s that you buy from the Apple Onine Store give you an option to buy Final Cut Express 4 and/or Logic Express 8. Logic Express is an audio program.

As you can tell, Apple has a nice presence in the video community, but I want to see more! This was just my rant about video, but tell me what you think by either leaving a comment, or emailing me.

~Daniel Brusilovsky
U.S Correspondent, BUMP
Producer & Host, Apple Universe Podcast

So, Apple have a little ‘pro’ photography app called Aperture and they’ve just updated this to version 2.0, which from reading various blogs and hearing photographers on various podcasts, is about time.

So what’s new in version 2, well according to MacWorld UK (I have never used Aperture, so I apologise if I don’t get the impact of some of these features) there’s over 100 new features, a new lower price of £129, which makes it a more reasonable upgrade from iPhoto, and some very nice integration with iWork, iLife and OS X itself.

Another new feature added to this release is that Aperture can now export to your .mac web gallery page, meaning you can enjoy the power of Aperture for editing and tagging your photos, but still have the easy publishing setup with web gallery.

I’ll be honest and say I’ve never really gotten into the whole photography thing, but I would like to, so I’m going to download the trial of Aperture, which can be found on the Apple website, and have a play, I’ll bring you some more thoughts and see what comes of it, I know my dad is wanting to do more with is Fuji S7000 DSLR, so it may be a fun project!

- Airport: Improves connection reliability and stability
- Back to my Mac: Adds support for more third-party routers, as detailed in this article.
- Dock: Updates Stacks with a List view option, a Folder view option, and an updated background for Grid view.
- Desktop: Addresses legibility issues with the menu bar with an option to turn off transparency in Desktop & Screen Saver preferences.
- Desktop: Adjusts menus to be slightly-less translucent overall.
- iSync: Adds support for Samsung D600E and D900i phones.
- RAW Image: Adds RAW image support for several cameras, as detailed in this article.
- Safari: Addresses issues with Safari reliably resolving certain domains.
- Time Machine: Adds a menu bar option for accessing Time Machine features (the menu extra can be enabled in Time Machine preferences).
- Time Machine: Improves backup reliability when computer name contains slash or non-ASCII characters.
- Time Machine: Addresses issues in which some external drives are not recognized by Time Machine.

For full information about this update, please go to Apple.

Personally, I have updated both my Mac’s. PowerMac G5 and PowerBook G4, and so far they are running fine. I am now using WebKit, which is an open source web browser engine. Web Kit gives you nightly builds, and lets you see the future of the best browser for the Mac OS, Safari. As for other improvements, I like having things in my menu bar, and now, there is an icon for Time Machine in the menu bar. Only thing now, I need to re-format one of my external hard drives, and back-up regularly. I have not played with the new stacks feature, but I just updated on Monday, so I still need time to play.

Is it Windows? Nope, it’s not a crash and burn show!
Is Linux arriving in a Limo? No show!

Yes, you guessed it, it’s all Mac based, as a very interesting article over at MacWorld UK points out.

As an avid video and audio geek I’d love to get a look at the rig and play with some of the gear!

As you’ll have read Daniel has joined the BUMP team as our latest blogger and contributor to the show, so to that effect he’s recorded for us a little video all about what he’s going to be doing for us.

I really am honoured to welcome Daniel to the team, he’s becoming a real friend and is a wealth of podcasting knowledge.

Incidentally, I realise that not all of you may want video on the main feed, we will work on that for the future but I wanted to get this out ot you all!

I am writing this blog post to announce that Apple Universe will be re-launching with a brand new web site on Sunday February 16, 2008 at 8:00 PM PST! For more information, please visit www.appleuniversepodcast.com or my blog at www.dbrusilovsky.wordpress.com.

I will be streaming this event on uStream at www.ustream.tv/channel/apple-universe

Thanks,

Daniel Brusilovsky
Host and Producer, Apple Universe

We talk about all the updates Apple put out, both software and the space increases to the iPod Touch and the iPhone. Chris then tells us about the new service from hellotxt.com which iss great for anyone who uses multiple presence services like Twitter, Pownce, Facebook, Jaiku and Tumblr.

Shout outs for today’s show :

• Daniel Brusilovsky from Apple Universe
• Billy Hime’s iPhone on My Life
• Bily & Aaron’s new show Daily Freeware Podcast found at BillyHime.tv
• Aaron’s Amusements - not sure where that is, but find him in iTunes - great show

As you’ll hear at the end of the show, Billy and Aaron have decided to leave the BUMP panel and we’d just like to wish them the best of luck in their new shows and say we’ll miss their contributions

So first up is my latest ‘toy’, the Alesis Multimix 12 Firewire mixer / audio interface.

With BUMP coming into it’s 8th month of production and both Chris and myself deciding we want to really give the show a professional feel I decided it was time to replace my faithful Blue Snowball USB microphone and to invest in a new mixer and mic (the MXL-990 to be precise).

While I was looking around at mixers I found a large gap between the lower end mixers with either an additional USB audio interface like the Behringer Xenyx 1204, or one built into the mixer like the Aleis Multimix 8 USB (the problem is these systems only provide a 2 channel output which means post production would be trickier because you would have no control over indivdual channels) and the high end firewire based mixers such as the Mackie Onyx 1640, which is virtually every podcasters dream mixer (thanks to Leo Laporte, who alone has probably boosted Mackie’s sales ten-fold!)

Then I found the Multimix 12 Firewire, a good and recognised brand (particularly amongst podcasters) and with enough channels for me to get the right setup, but by far the most important is the Firewire interface, which sends every single channel out to the computer seperately, which means GarageBand (other recording software is available!) can have a track for each channel on the mixer meaning post production is much easier and you’re able to normalise any track and apply effects indepently of the other tracks.

The Multimix 12 has a great range of input and output options; Inputs : 4 x XLR / 1/4″ jack inputs with gain control and phantom power to the XLR sockets, 4 x Stereo 1/4″ Jack sockets, 2 track return (which also acts as a return from the Mac, although you can’t record this channel easily) and 2 AUX returns. Outputs : Stereo 1/4″ Jack main-mix output, Stereo 1/4″ Jack alt 3/4 output, headphone out, Stereo 1/4″ Jack control room / monitor out (same signal as the headphone out, Coaxial digital output, 2 Track output (stereo RCA phono) and 2 1/4″ jack AUX sends. Did all of that make no sense to you at all? If so, don’t worry I’m going to be recording a video to show you all about the production side of BUMP and I’ll give you the basics of what all the jargon means!

It’s by no means a huge board either, it’s small form factor means it can fit on my aging and rather poorly built desk (I’m shopping at IKEA for the new one!) but despite its’ small size it’s controls are well laid out and manages to incorpate sliders instead of fiddly knobs for level controls.

I’ve only had one problem with the MultiMix 12 Firewire and that was the power supply which became faulty a week in, however credit to Alan at Andertons Music and Numark Alesis for sending me out a new, and better, power supply within 3 days. The board is now back up and running and I was able to use it to record BUMP 024, which should out on the feed later tonight.

I love this little mixer, and am sad to hear Alesis have discontinued their USB1 and Firewire lines in favour of USB2 (in my opinion a far less suitable solution for audio) if you want to do any sort of audio work, be it podcasting or recording a band or event and can find one of these on ebay, craigslist or Amazon then I hightly recomend it.

If you’d like to know more about the mixer, or anything I’ve mentioned in the post please feel free to email me stu [at] bumpodcast dot co dot uk

So, the day finally arrived, we met at Lister Hill Baptist Church in Horsforth, Leeds and hit record, if it only it was that simple sadly we couldn’t get a net connection via my 3g modem so we had to abandon the TalkShoe plans, we do mention in the show that Billy & Aaron were going to record their own live show, but they decided against it in the end.

It was a great even