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We’ve just released the latest episode of the Ubuntu UK Podcast. In this episode we’ve got an exclusive interview with Stuart Langridge about the Ubuntu One Music Store. We also discuss the new branding for Ubuntu, which has just been announced! There’s a whole heap of other stuff in there too – a Command Line Lurve, the “Bit About Ubuntu” and some great feedback. Download it now!

The first episode in the third season of the Ubuntu Podcast from the UK local community was released today and has already received a great response from listeners in the IRC channel. Hopefully the release will keep those who have been pestering for an episode happy for now. Despite repeated mentions in the final episodes of season two and comments in the blog posts for the episodes, at least two people assumed that our season break meant we had stopped doing the show entirely! I can’t quite work out why, if people are bothered by the absence enough to blog/tweet/dent/post about it that they haven’t listened to the episodes!

We haven’t made any major changes to the format from the last season, although we may have a few surprises up our sleeves for later in the year.I think we all felt a bit rusty at the recording session, even after only six weeks off! Interviews are always difficult but that’s what we tackled first. Other than that, the episode was recorded in order.

It seems like the first OggCamp was only a few weeks ago, but already the plans for the next OggCamp are out. Oggcamp10 as we are wittily calling it, will be at the Black-E centre in Liverpool on the 1st-2nd May.

This year’s event will be bigger and better than before, stretching over two days. The venue is a very cool community arts centre in a very cool city. It’s an unconference, so we don’t know what’s happening over the weekend yet, apart from there being another Linux Outlaws and Ubuntu UK Podcast live recording. We are keen to expand the free culture side of the event this year, whilst still retaining a good deal of Linux geekery, so the tagline is “Free Software, Free Culture, Free Thinking”. Get your thinking hats on, we need some great talks offered by you, the lovely attendees!

This year there will also be an official Friday night event: the Rathole Roadshow featuring David Rovics and Attilla the Stockbroker.

If you’re planning on coming, please sign up to the Facebook event. It’s not compulsory, but it’s a great help to us if you do! You can also keep up-to-date with us on twitter and identi.ca. There will be more details going up on the website soon.

If you’re not sure what all this OggCamp stuff is about, check out the retrospective of last year’s event.

The Zoom R16 is a multi-track solid-state recorder, capable of recording 8 tracks simultaneously and playing back an additional 8 tracks. It retails in the UK at about £350. It is a much more complex and sophisticated device than the Zoom H4n which I reviewed earlier this year. This is evident from the proliferation of buttons across its face. In addition to the faders for each individual channel, there is an array of cryptically-named single-function knobs. Happily there is a basic recording guide at the front of the manual which helps the user get up and running quickly with the most simple of multi-track recording tasks.

Zoom market the R16 as a multi-function device, not just a portable multi-track recorder, but a control surface and multi-channel sound card. When you consider the price of equipment needed to get similar functionality (e.g. an Alesis Master Control, a MOTU 896HD or MOTU 8Pre), it looks especially good value. To have it all in one unit makes this sort of technology much more accessible the keen amateur or anyone operating on a tight budget.

We used the R16 for recording an episode of the Ubuntu UK Podcast, as well as the live show recorded with the Linux Outlaws at OggCamp. It was vital that the pressure of providing a live sound mix for the OggCamp audience did not get in the way of capturing a good recording for the many thousands more people who would download the episode after the event. The R16 is primarily designed for musicians, which I am most certainly not, but Zoom certainly see podcasters as part of their market so I was pleased to try the R16 out. My “use case” meant that I didn’t need to try out the many effects available, but was able to record and bounce down a podcast recording session to a stereo pair pretty easily.

I purchased an 8-way jack-to-jack loom to allow me to take the direct output from each of 8 channels on my Soundcraft M12 mixer to the R16. This worked beautifully, giving me a pre-fade recording of each track on the R16 but also allowing me to mix the live audio. The pre-amplifiers cope well with the signals fed from the desk, and the peak indicator LEDs are useful for an engineer who has to monitor both a live desk and recording equipment.

The transport controls should be familiar to anyone who has used a software DAW. The display is backlit and clear, but a little cramped for the complexity of the menus through which one has to navigate to complete pretty much any operation on the R16. There are menu maps in the manual, and it does become easier with familiarity, but a larger LCD screen would be a welcome upgrade in any future revision.

The build quality of the R16 is good, especially for the price. The faders aren’t as smooth as more expensive mixers, but are more than good enough. The buttons have a nice solid click and the jog wheel feels firm too. The rear of the unit sports 8 multi-purpose XLR and jack sockets, which also feel solid.

The R16 supports SDHC cards up to 32GB, though it only comes supplied with a 1GB card. If you were recording all 16 tracks, 1GB would fill up in about 12 minutes or so. That’s more than enough for most songs, but nowhere near enough for an album (or podcast!) so most users will want to buy a few large SD cards if they plan to work on a variety of projects. The cover for the SD card slot is not hinged, but comes right off. There is a screw hole which can be used to secure the cover permanently, but for those who wish to change the card even irregularly the detachable cover seems cheap compared with the rest of the product.

The R16 can be run from batteries, and it claims to run for over 4 hours on 6 AA batteries, but the supplied PSU is very light so I’d suggest carrying it around with you anyway. It can also be powered from the USB bus of an attached laptop, which is handy. There are also two built-in microphones, the same excellent ones found in the H4n, which makes the R16 suitable for making even simple recordings. However, the unit is much bigger than a handheld one, not something you’d be able to just slip into a backpack. It isn’t supplied with a protective cover, but there is one available from a company called Tourtek.

Phantom power is restricted to just two microphone inputs. I suspect this is because the power required to drive more than two phantom power devices is too great for the PSU or batteries to deliver. Two of the 8 channels can be switched over to the internal microphones and another two switched to a high impedance input to accomodate line outputs from other equipment.

Being a Linux user, rather than Mac or Windows, I connected the R16 to my PC running Ubuntu 9.04. (Zoom do not claim to support PCs running Linux, so this was entirely specualative on my part, but important to me, and I suspect important to the majority of my readers.) Whilst it works flawlessly as a mass storage device, giving you access to the contents of the SD card over a USB connection, it does not work as an external sound card. Not being a simple stereo device, it does not use the USB audio interface common to just about every other external sound card. This is obviously a technological restriction, but a frustrating one nevertheless. I can only hope that either Zoom or some clever folks in the Linux community are able to produce an Open Source driver, as the versatility of the R16 is one of its major selling points and at the moment Linux users are missing out.

A similar story applies to my attempts to use the R16 as a control surface with Ardour. It seems there is no common standard for control surfaces, so support for each one must be written separately. At the time of testing, there was no support for the R16 in Ardour, so I wasn’t able to test this aspect of it either. The unit does come bundled with Cubase LE 4, which presumably does integrate with the R16 as a control surface.

Overall, the R16 is a great device at a very agreeable price. Even though I wasn’t able to use all of its functionality, it did its job as a multi-track recorder superbly. Zoom have done a great job of incorporating functionality previously only found in separate units into one superb package.

A while ago Jono posted an article in which he praises Laura for all her hard work in the FLOSS community:

By day she is a technical writer, user experience advocate, and geek, but by night she joins the other reprobates on the rather excellent ubuntu-uk Podcast and she was heavily involved in the planning of the hugely successful OggCamp. Laura is not only accomplished in both her work and Open Source activities, but she always brings an incredibly warming atmosphere to the projects she is involved in, including many LugRadio Live events both in the UK and the USA.

Sometimes people assume that Laura has been dragged along to some geeky event or other, suffering quietly while I run around having fun. But she says that she would have ended up in the FLOSS community even if we hadn’t met. Laura is genuinely enthusiastic about FLOSS and the community around it. When things don’t Just Work she perseveres, raising bugs and trying workarounds, rather than reaching for the Windows CD. We have spent many long car journeys talking techie – usability, engineering, networking and more. Laura has also been incredibly supportive of my FLOSS antics, for which I am very grateful.

As I type she is playing with her Arduino, looking very pleased that she has made an LED flash. Yup, she’s definitely a geek. And I like that.

As I’ve done a few times before, I’ve made a seasonal donation to a FLOSS project. This year I have chosen to make a donation to the Ardour project. We use Ardour to produce the Ubuntu UK Podcast and it’s fantastic to have a sophisticated, professional-grade digital audio workstation package available on Linux. Ardour is unusual among FLOSS projects in that the core developer relies on donations to enable him to work full-time on Ardour, so I’m more than happy to help support him!

Why not make a donation to a FLOSS project that you have used a lot this year?

This blog post is later than I would have liked, but its tardy arrival reflects the maelstrom that has been the past couple of months. This autumn always looked like it was going to be busy, and that was without the added upheaval of changing jobs. Which is my way of implying that this post may be rambling and not very well polished in places. Anyway…

Two weekends ago was the last LugRadio Live. Definitely. They promised. Friday night was the usual meet up in the Hog’s Head. In some ways this is my favourite part of the whole weekend. The anticipation builds throughout the day as people tweet their journey into Wolverhampton, the City of Dreams (if only for Adam Sweet.) By about nine a substantial portion of the pub is full of geeks. It is great meeting up with people with whom one mostly interacts online, sharing a few beers and quite a few jokes.

Shrunk to one day this year but with all the character and atmosphere of previous years, this LRL was one of the best. As ever, I was in charge of the AV crew, a job made a lot easier by the very helpful technical staff at the Newhampton Arts Centre. It was great to see a number of people returning to help out on the crew as everyone had a reasonable idea what was expected of them. I’m proud to say that, barring a few minor glitches, all the preparation paid off and the day went smoothly.

My other duties on the Saturday were something of a departure for me. Firstly, the “secret project” I have been working on for many months (actually, it runs into years now) was presented to the public: The premiere of “Don’t Listen Alone: A documentary about LugRadio” took place over the lunchtime slot in the main room. More on that in another blog post. Secondly I gave my talk, “Podcasting for fun and, erm, fun” based on my experiences working on the Ubuntu UK podcast. I’ve never talked at LugRadio Live before and I had no way of ascertaining what the audience’s expectations were, so I was fairly nervous beforehand. That said, it seemed to go down well and the room was certainly pretty packed.

As usual I didn’t get much of a chance to see other people talk during day, but I enjoyed the caricatures of the speakers on the main stage being drawn by Chris Hayes. This is simply a great idea, though a lot of work for the artist. Aq had also hacked up a twitter display for the main stage, which displayed any tweet appropriately tagged but anonymised. There was much discussion later in the weekend about whether the anonymisation was a good idea, but it certainly gave rise to a lot of good jokes.

The live show wrapped up the day, reminding me of the first ever LRL back in 2005. As ever there was piss-taking, japes and laughter. Jono inexplicably wanted to wear the raccoon outfit for the recording, sat at the middle of the action like a rotund sweaty meatball. Andy Stanford-Clark won the auction for the LRL banner, complete with signatures from all seven LugRadio presenters. The hard-working Ron was given a meal out with Mrs. Ron in recognition for his efforts over the years. I was presented, totally unexpectedly, with a laptop, which left me gobsmacked and even more sure that the LugRadio community and the presenters in particular are wonderful and lovely people (depsite the impression they try to give on the show. ) They also said that if someone organises an event next year, they will turn up and do a live show at it (professional commitments allowing). More of which later.

The climax of the show was getting all seven LugRadio presenters, past and present, on stage together. Adam, Ade, Sparkes, Chris, Aq, Matt and Jono deserved their standing ovation. LugRadio was a big part of my life for the last few years and yet the novelty of hearing those first episodes has never worn off. I used to listen to them on my 128MB MP3 player over and over again, walking around the streets of Shirley chuckling away to myself and trying to interpret what they were saying. There simply was nothing like it at the time. So thank you, all of you.

After a karaoke party in the basement of the Connaught Hotel, at which I was made to join three of the four gents in singing YMCA, (there is a video on the Internet somewhere, but I’m not linking to it), it was time for…. OggCamp.

At some point, around June, it seemed like a really good idea to organise an event on the day after LRL. After all, we thought, lots of people will already be in Wolverhampton, and several had already expressed disappointment that LRL was only going to be one day long rather than the two days it has been in recent years. At no point did I really anticipate that organising two separate events in two different venues is a lot more work than organising one event over two days. I had undoubtedly learned a lot from the LRL team over the years, but the effort to pull together a one-day conference over three months (alongside all the real world demands of a job etc.) was huge. The resulting event was OggCamp, a joint effort between the Ubuntu UK Podcast and the Linux Outlaws. It was great being able to play to everyone’s strengths, with Dan providing a lot of the PA kit and Fab working on the hosting and design elements (including the fantastic advert in Linux Format).

We had no idea how many people would turn up. As an unscheduled conference, we also had no idea how many people would turn up with something to talk about or do. Having lots of people is no good if there is nothing for them to participate in. 70-odd people had said they would attend on the Facebook event, but I knew that was no guarantee. Equally there are people in the FLOSS community who don’t use or like Facebook. OggCamp was being held in the official LRL hotel, so it would be easy for people to get to. But if they were hungover from the night before, they might just stay in bed. So it was all guesswork. In the end, I think we got it about right, as 150 people turned up and the schedule filled up quickly. The second time I was gobsmacked in one weekend was walking past a queue of people three storeys long round the stairs to the main room. Exhilerating and scary at the same time.

Forunately the event got off to a good start, with Andy Stanford-Clark talking about his twittering house after a brief introduction from the six podcast presenters. Thanks to some teamwork between Dan and I running the PA, I was actually able to chat to some attendees and see parts of some talks. It was great to have quite a variety of subjects being talked about, pig analysis probably being the most random but very suited to the barcamp atmosphere.

Before I knew what was happening, it was nearly time for the live show. The Linux Outlaws and Ubuntu UK presenters had decided to combine their efforts for an hour to record in front of an audience. We had a raffle and everything. It was a very different show from the LugRadio one the previous day (though all four LugRadio presenters managed to grab the radio mic at some point during the recording) but that was a good thing. You can get the different resulting podcast episodes from Ubuntu UK (family friendly) and Linux Outlaws (with all the naughty bits left in).

Before long it was all over with, everything packed back up into cars and hotel rooms. I was left with a new appreciation for the efforts of the crew at events like these, this time from the outside. The OggCamp crew carried boxes, collected signs and did all that was required of them, usually before being asked. They made the event happen, really.

We were left with the overwhelming demand to run another event next year, especially in light of LRL ending. We have had some suggestions, including having it over two days, having a scheduled track, having the LugRadio presenters do a live show, doing it somewhere other than Wolverhampton and more. We appreciate all the feedback and will start discussing what shape the event will have in the new year.

The website for what will be the last ever LugRadio Live featuring the last ever LugRadio Live and Unleashed is now in the wild at http://lugradio.org/live. Check out the retro-goodness. LRL is happening on the 24th October at the Newhampton Arts Centre in glorious Wolverhampton. I’m going to be there, so it will be great. Get onto the website and register. Like, now!

Thanks to Aq for sorting out the promotion of OggCamp on the site, which is totally un-coincidentally happening on the following day, at the Connaught Hotel, Wolverhampton. Check out the OggCamp site too.

On Sunday October 25th 2009 the combined forces of Ubuntu UK Podcast and Linux Outlaws are putting on a one day barcamp style event in the glorious city of Wolverhampton. You are cordially and warmly invited, especially if you are of Linux-y, Open Source-y persuasion. Please help us spread the word by blogging about it, or Facebook-ing, tweeting, denting or shouting.

The location isn’t totally random, of course. It’s the day after LUG Radio Live, which is, as ever, being held in Wolverhampton. LRL has generally been a two day event but has been scaled back to only one day this year. This seemed like a great opportunity for us to put on an event on the Sunday. Many people were expecting LRL to be a two day event again and had booked to be around on the Sunday already.

How will OggCamp differ from LRL? Well, it’s a barcamp-style event, which means that there won’t be a full speaker schedule published before the event. It also means that you – the potential attendees of this event – can turn up and volunteer a talk about anything you want! We’re not just expecting geeky talks about obscure programming languages, so get your thinking caps on and see if you can come up with something a bit different! If you’d like to run any ideas past us, please see the bottom of this post for how to get in touch.

Where OggCamp will be a little bit different from a true barcamp is that both the Outlaws and Ubuntu-ites will be recording some content for our shows. We don’t know much more than that, but if you ever wanted to contribute to one of these podcasts, this is your best chance yet!

We’d also like to hear from companies who might be interested in sponsoring the event. Please contact me using the link at the top of my website, or IRC, or twitter, or anything.

For more information, check out the website, Facebook event page, twitter and identi.ca accounts. Or just leave comments on this post.

I have just taken delivery of a Zoom H4n portable audio recorder. We have used a Zoom H4 for recording material for the podcast “in the field” (quite literally on one occasion) and this new version offers some great improvements according to the specs, so I was keen to try it out.

The first thing to notice is that the two devices look very different. There is clearly a shared heritage in the design, with the two crossed microphones at the top and XLR sockets on the bottom, but the two devices are very different stylistically. I’m trying to resist using a Star Trek and ST:TNG comparison here. Although the H4n looks different, it doesn’t feel that different from its predecessor. It’s squarer and so looks more rugged, but don’t be fooled by the darker grey side panels. They are still made of thin plastic, not rubberised.

A quick inspection of the contents of the box reveals a number of bundled goodies. A 1GB SD card is supplied, enough to record 90 minutes of stereo audio in WAV quality, although those planning to make use of the new multi-track features will want to upgrade to one of the supported SDHC cards rapidly. Also included in the box is a wall-wart PSU, this one is lighter than the one supplied with the H4. There is a windshield included, which is one of the few parts of the supplied equipment which is worse quality than before. Whereas the H4 windshield fitted neatly over the microphones, the one supplied with the H4n has to be crudely pulled over the whole of the top of the device. Even then the shield doesn’t seem to fit particularly well and I’m sure it will need repeated adjustment in use.

The most puzzling inclusion is a microphone stand adapter. This screws into the tripod mount, now thankfully on the underside of the unit rather than a separate tray velcro-ed around it. The H4n can then be attached to a standard microphone stand clip. It isn’t a sophisitcated part, but may be of use to those who don’t have a proper tripod. Finally, the light draw string bag which protected the H4 has been replaced with a fairly solid plastic case for the new version. This is a hugely welcome change, which will provide the H4n with adequate protection in bags and on the move. A USB cable and a copy of Cubase LE make up the contents of the box. An optional remote control is also available.

Like its predecessor, the H4n runs on two AA batteries, but they are now installed in a compartment on the rear of the unit, not under the flap at the top. Importantly, the SD card slot has been moved to the side of the device, so you can now remove the batteries and SD card independently of each other. The manual claims that the H4n can run for 6 hours on one pair of AA batteries. There is also a special “stamina” mode which can stretch them to 11 hours. If true, this is a vast improvement over the H4, which usually drained batteries within two hours. Being naturally cynical of manufacturers’ battery life estimates, time will tell just how well the H4n treats its batteries in the field. It can also be powered via the USB cable, but only for transferring data or when being used as an external sound card.

The first thing I noticed when I powered the H4n up is the screen. It’s much larger and clearer than the old version. The time counter and VUs are much more easy to see as a result.

The H4n seems to have suffered from a button explosion, compared to its predecessor. The H4 had a jog-dial, a big red recording button, 4 recording mode buttons and a multi-purpose play/fast forward/rewind/stop button. The H4n has retained the jog dial on the side but replaced the recording mode buttons with input selectors (Mic, 1 and 2) presumably to better facilitate multi-track recording. The recording mode buttons themselves have morphed into dual-purpose buttons allowing selection of each of the 4 tracks, as well as folder, file, speed and WAV/MP3. The multi-purpose dial has been split into four separate stop/play/fast forward/rewind buttons, with the menu now being accessed via a dedicated button on the side of the unit. There is also a new record level rocker switch on the side.

The new separate stop/play/fast forward/rewind buttons do make navigating through a recording much easier. It’s trivial to skip back a few seconds, something which will be of use to those transcribing recordings, as will the ability to play back recordings at 50-150% of the original speed and the ability to add marks whilst recording and skip between them during playback. Being able to pause and resume recordings without creating a new file on the SD card is also a handy extra.

The built-in speaker is a new feature. Whilst it is obviously not a sophisticated way of monitoring recordings, it is clear enough to be useful for speech. The record level rocker switch allows adjustment of levels during a recording, something which only used to be available through the menu system. Positioned under the thumb would be when holding the device, I hope it’s not to easy to accidentally knock the level whilst in use. There is also a jack on the underside to connect a stereo microphone, useful if you are unable to physically mount the H4n in an appropriate location for a recording.

The microphones on the H4n have the same clear recording quality as the older model (though Zoom tell me that they are actually better quality than the ones of the H4, I haven’t had enough opportunity to fully test them myself) and rotate to provide a wider stereo field if desired. The active recording mode, stereo, 4-channel and multi-track, is shown by an LED at the top of the unit, which is covered up when the windshield is in use. In stereo mode, either the build-in microphones, the external stereo microphone or the XLR/jack inputs can be used. The 4-channel mode allows external inputs as well as either the built-in microphones or the external stereo microphone to be used. The audio from the external inputs is saved to one stereo pair, and the audio from the build-in mics to another. This in itself allows for much more flexible use of the H4n, perhaps recording the output of a mixer via the inputs and picking up crowd noise via the built-in microphones. In both the stereo and 4-channel modes, one of ten directories can be chosen into which to save the audio files. As if that wasn’t enough, the H4n has multi-track support, allowing individual playback and recording of four tracks. It also allows multi-track recordings to be saved as separate projects. I haven’t much call to use this feature, but my experience with the H4 tells me that anything as complex as multi-track recording on a device with a jog-dial, it can be frustratingly slow to configure and tweak settings.

There some additional software features, some of questionable value. Whilst the ability to encode WAVs recorded on the H4n to MP3 files after recording, not just at the time of recording, is a bonus, the inclusion of a karaoke feature has to be somewhat more frivolous. Adding a metronome, guitar tuner and effects processing may be of use to some musicians, but I suspect most will want the H4n to function purely as a recording device, and use external effects pedals.

As I mentioned before, there are two modes available when connecting the H4n to a computer via the USB cable. It can act as a simple USB card reader, giving access to the recordings on the SD card to the host computer. In this mode, the only difference over the H4 is that the H4n is a “high speed” USB 2.0 device, transferring large recordings much more swiftly than the older version. The H4n creates directories on the card for recordings made in each mode – stereo, 4-channel and multi-track. The second option is to use the H4n as a portable external sound card, offering connections at 44.1kHz and 48kHz, as well as having a range of on-board effects. This makes it ideal for use with a laptop to edit audio on the move and I can see this being of use to radio journalists in particular. Both the SD and sound card modes worked flawlessly on my Ubuntu system.

This unit was shipped with firmware version 1.30, but a quick check on the http://www.zoom.co.jp website showed that there was a newer release, 1.40. There are a handful of bugs fixed in this new version. Firmware releases for the H4 often fixed some very annoying bugs, so I suggest keeping an eye on the new firmware releases for the H4n too if you have one.

It seems that Zoom have built on the solid work of the H4. The only thing missing is an S/PDIF digital input port, which would let the H4n to be a very convenient replace the combination of laptop and I/O unit which I currently use for recording the podcast. The lessons they have learnt from the H4 have been worthwhile and the H4n is a much more flexible and useful device as a result, but one that doesn’t compromise its core functionality. It will save me carrying as much equipment around when we record in field, which on its own is enough to let me recommend it.