Audemos have created bespoke sonic branding for the  ‘Future Now project’, a  Team within BBC Training and Development . Future Now are the BBC’s multiplatform training specialists and wanted branding for use across all their in house video and audio production.

Audemos were asked to create a sound that reflected the philosophy of Future Now. Creatively the brief was challenging, as it was necessary to work within the existing guidelines of the Training and development branding but the BBC team were encouraged to share ideas through the branding process, demanding something that was futuristic - but not technological, inclusive - but not patronising.

The finished results can be heard here: BBC Future Now Intro

We are delighted (really) to be creating audio guides to the South Downs. Audemos are producing six short audio guides to delight and enchant walkers, riders and visitors to the rolling hills of Southern England.

The series of short audio pieces is entitled ‘LANDSHAPERS’ and together they tell the story of how the Downs have evolved over 6000 years of human intervention to become one of Britain’s most celebrated landscapes. Richly textured with sound design, the audio guides feature renowned archaeologists, geologists, and ecologists as well as farmers, historians, shepherds and wood colliers (charcoal makers to you and me). The series will take listeners on a journey starting with the chalk formation on the sea beds of the cretaceous period, through the arrival of the first humans, the impact of the industrial ages and right up to date with modern agriculture.

The series of six programmes are currently in production and will be launched in the Summer of 2008. They will be available as downloads from www.visitsouthdowns.com, and distributed on MP3 players in Tourist information centres from Eastbourne to Winchester.

And I have to agree.  I’ve been banging on about content is king and delivery being transparent for a long time.  He says:

“I am not a podcaster. I’m a journalist, a pundit, an entertainer. I create audio and video shows and distribute them over the Internet. Maybe that’s YouTube, maybe it’s my own web site, maybe it’s via an RSS feed. The medium isn’t the message - the message is the message. It’s not a podcast, it’s a show, and I plan to call my shows by the right name from now on.”

It’s a great post, so go read it.

Apple have just updated their Pro website with some nice articles on integrating sound to create more dynamic journalism.

There’s loads of technical advice and info on essential equipment and some stories from journalists who use sound in some pretty cool ways.

“Audio can really make you feel like you’re there” says Nhat Meyer, a photojournalist who creates audio slideshows (a mixture of still photos with ambient sound and audio interviews) for the award-winning Mercury News in San Jose, California. “It can be as simple as natural or ambient sound, or it can be informative, through interviews. It definitely provides a multidimensional view of an event.” A great example is Meyer’s audio slideshow depicting the record-breaking 715th home run by the San Francisco Giants Barry Bonds. “You can hear the crack of the bat” exclaims Meyer.

If you’d like to talk to Audemos about creating your own sound enhanced media, email or call for a free consultation.

What about the first step, which is surely editorial, a story to tell and some talent.

If you have some talent or a cool story but don’t want to get bogged down in the geeky stuff, get in touch for a free consultation.

Podcasting on Apple OSX

Audemos recently signed a 12 month contract with Jack Brand Marketing to support them with music and sound production for the international beer brand Heineken.

Jack Brand creates and distributes content for different brands ranging from Haymarket Publishing through to Heineken and V2 records.

“It’s great to have Audemos working closely with Jack Brand as our business develops. With new clients coming on board it’s essential that we have the kind of professional skills they offer at hand so that we can respond to our clients requirements”

John Hazell, Jack Brands Commercial Director.

Audemos couldn’t agree more.

Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - theatre: The podcast’s the thing to revive radio drama

Interesting piece on the podcasting boom, Odeo’s demise and Apples success in claiming over half the podcast directory users almost overnight.

I think it’s great that Apple made it so easy for so many people to link up with new niche content.  I have to say that a lot of the podcasting content is rubbish, but that’s because it’s so easy for anyone to do the tech stuff.  That doesn’t mean everyone is a great story teller or that everyone even has a story to tell.  For Audemos, podcasting is a great way to deliver content.  Doesn’t mean we will stop making great radio shows for traditional radio stations or sonic branding for organisations that understand the power of sound.  But, podcasting allows us to create a series or channel and offer that to the world, and in days of old, like 3 years ago, we would have had to go through a long commissioning process chasing maybe a few time slots.

PODCASTING: Battle over — and Apple won - Valleywag

When will listening to and accessing podcasts be transparent

Hopefully very soon.  Songbird promises to be a new kind of media player.  Bloggers have called it “The Firefox of media players”.  Songbird themselves say this,

Songbird™ is a desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and skins (feathers). Like Firefox®, it is built from Mozilla®, cross-platform and open source.

It is currently in public beta, and has been for around 12 months.  It’s meant to be out of beta sometime in 2007, and it won’t be a moment too soon.

At Audemos, we want to offer our clients the easiest way for their users to listen to their podcasts.  And when we say easy, we mean pretty and easy.  Right now, there is no easy way for everyone to access podcasts on every platform, it just doesn’t exist.  Songbird goes a long way to sort this problem.

Songbird works on Windows, Mac and Linux.  It works with iPods and most other MP3 players.  It can sync with iTunes and can also play music you have bought from the iTunes music store.  But, the best bit for me is the browser that allows you to search for podcasts using google/yahoo/search engine.  You can browse to pages that have podcast feeds, and Songbird searches out all media on that page and allows you to download them to add to your iPod or stream them.

Listening to podcasts needs to become as easy as switching a radio on or playing a CD, and Songbird is a small wingflap in the right direction.

Croncasts review says it best

I haven’t been this excited about a technology or piece of software since I first found out about podcasting.

So go check it out.

There’s a great story on the New York Times website about authors podcasting their own works.

Several times a week Mr. Sigler, 37, steps into a walk-in closet in his San Francisco home. He reads into a microphone that connects to his computer via a sound mixer. Hanging shirts envelop him, masking ambient sound.

Our creative director Simon has been involved in a similar project called Welcome to mars.  Here’s the blurb:

Ken Hollings presents a live twelve-part series of unscripted reflections on the fantasy of science in the early years of the American Century

With electronic sound production by Simon James

Between 1947 and 1959, the future was written about, discussed and analysed with such confidence that it became a tangible presence. This is a story of weird science, strange events and even stranger beliefs, set in an age when the possibilities for human development seemed almost limitless.

Each show was produced live and broadcast on Resonance FM in London.  The recordings were later turned into a podcast series.  The main difference with Welcome to mars is that the shows came first, and the book is coming out hopefully this year.

You can subscribe to Welcome to mars here.

If your an author that would like some help creating rich audio versions of your work, get in touch with Audemos.