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Fade In Examples - CLICK to Enlarge

There is a clear and audible difference between Exponential and Linear fade-ins for music and vocals. Exponential Fade-Ins usually start at a very low decibel and take a little while to get louder, but once they get to about 50% of where the audio is going to go, they quickly get to the maximum volume that the fade-in is going to specify. This is different from Linear Fade-Ins because linear fade-ins grow to the maximum allotted volume at a constant rate. What is interesting is that the amount of time that the fade-in is going to use, directly effects the sound of the fade-in, and the respective type of fade-in becomes more dramatic as the length of the fade-in transition increases. To illustrate this point, a fade-in of 2 seconds is pretty fast. So the choice of fade-in here will be, “Do I want to have the listening jump right into the music after being pulled from white noise or static?” or, “Is there a little lead backbeat kicking in that I want people to munch one before the song starts?” Respectively, if you go with the first question of wanting people to get yanked into a song from some white noise, then an exponential fade-in might sound pretty good. But conversely, if you are going with the second question, and want to constantly ease into the track, then a linear fade-in might make more sense.

But let’s say you have some dense pads or intriguing piano part that you want to fade-in. But you want the fade in to take 10 seconds, instead of 2 seconds. The choice of fade-in type will be much more audible in this situation and will probably make or break your intro. An exponential fade-in will take a long time to get cooking here, and the first 3 seconds will probably go unnoticed as silence to most listeners, especially if it is a crowded party. But after the sound becomes audible the fade-in will be attention getting.

On the other hand, a linear fade-in for this scenario might work if you are doing a constant dance beat or something in 2/4 time that has a marching feel to it. This is because linear fade-ins are of a ratio of 1:1, and the constant audio growth in volume will subconsciously coincide with the steady tempo of the musical piece. Therefore if the drums or bass line have a hook that is chugging and catchy and they show up early within the fade-in, then a linear fade-in may be the way to go.

Exponential fade-ins make a little more sense with dealing with sound effects or rhythmically complex pieces of audio. This is where one wants the attention of the listener to be on the tone, harmonics, and/or timbre of the sounds…instead of the rhythm or beat.

These are definitely not guidelines or rules, they are simply shortcut tricks in order to help visually approach fade-ins when using computer programs. So many computer audio programs allow vector based control of volume, that a quick glance at the two basic types of Linear and Exponential fade-ins never hurts. Remember, experimentation and trial n’ error are the best ways to get the perfect sound for a fade-in. And with vector based volume control, where you use a pencil tool to make dots and then move the dots, one can always make a fade in that starts like and exponential one, then finishes up in a linear fashion.

Also if you ever hear, “inverse exponential” when related to a fade-in, that just means, starting with the low volume and then very quickly getting to the higher volume.

-Tyler

An Old Book

Surviving in a writers group takes talent and skill. Some people think that having a nice smile and pleasant comments will be good enough, but a writers group often needs more than that.

The most important part about joining or starting any writers group is to determine the level of professionalism of the group. This does not mean finding out if people are going to wear ties or not. The professionalism you should be interested in…is whether or not one needs to have been previously published before in order to join the group. This question is KEY and once you get your answer you need to dig further.  Does the group view self publishing the same as more conventional methods? Has he group organizer been published before? Once you have these answers you will be able to more easily gauge your comfort levels with the group.

I organize a science fiction and fantasy writers group and whenever there is a new member I clearly state that we all are trying to get published eventually (or in my case, as soon as possible) with a printed hard-copy publisher. And that all of us are in the same boat and we want to share our work and get critiqued and sharpen our skills. It is extremely important to know what you are getting into before opening one’s self to what can be a very personal and yet heart wrenching and exposing experience. Whatever masks we wear in everyday life, a rough draft can remove a few of them within 30 seconds.

So something to think about is what kind of feedback does your group want? Is this a more beginners group for people to share work and mostly get cursory praise and encouragement, or is the group more critical and give feedback regardless of feelings or personal attachments? Both types of groups serve excellent functions, so it is important to determine what kind of feedback you need.

Let’s say you are in a critical group where the people are genuine and have good days and bad ones just like everyone else. The key is to have thick skin and take everything the group says with a few grains of salt. The next thing is that there is such a thing as trash feedback or critique. Simply repeating what you know or comprehend about the excerpt really does not benefit anyone. People want to either know either macro or micro feedback.

Respectively, macro feedback would be critique or impressions on how someone felt about the entire piece and its themes or setting. Or macro could be whether or not a character is compelling or not. Think big picture kind of stuff. People love this kind of feedback, especially on a rough draft because it can tell someone if they are on he right track or not. Now, if there is confusion, then definitely bring that up and discuss that. But simply giving a synopsis of what was just read is unnecessary, and is not critique at all.

Micro feedback is great also. This could be anything like, grammar or style issues. Suggestions on use of commas, or dialogue. Micro feedback is a good way to give specifics that can sharpen a piece. Sometimes giving micro feedback that the other members of the group disagree with is highly valuable. This is because everyone can discuss the method, like writing thoughts with italics vs indirect sentences. Sometimes the discussions can give greater insight into writing style and can shed light on misconceptions. Giving micro feedback should always be targeted at specific areas and pages, so don’t just say, “You use to many commas.” Give actual examples of where the author does something and then read it back to the group so everyone can benefit.

The same concept of giving specific examples during critiques is important for both micro AND macro feedback. This makes the person who shared the work feel like he or she is having the actual story critiqued, instead of the writer herself being knocked down a peg.

Another hugely important thing to think about when going to writers groups, is that if you can’t think of super insightful to say, it is perfectly okay to give a specific example of a sentence that you enjoyed or that worked for you as a reader. This is a great way to start a critique and not everyone may agree with you, so it can also spark discussion. Being positive about a piece is much superior to saying nothing, or else just regurgitating facts about a piece. But remember to be specific, a general, “I liked it,” has very little value. Tell us what quote sparked your interest, or perhaps a certain type of character or setting seemed fresh to you. What was something that if you were a literary agent or publisher, would attract or repel you from the piece? Things like that are great.

A huge tip for being part of a writers group, is that sometimes coming a little bit early can be a ton of fun. As a group organizer, I find that a few minutes before writers group, I really enjoy chatting about peoples’ weeks and writing experiences. This helps to build friendships and can help to establish trust. If there is no trust in a writers group, people can tell immediately and they will probably clam up.

Hopefully some of these tips were useful, and I wish you the best of luck and fun in all your writing endeavors!

-Tyler

Photoshop load times

Here’s a quick tip if you are using Windows XP. I was running Adobe Flash CS2 or Photoshop CS2, and I picked an odd resolution for my square (non-widescreen) monitor.  The resolution I was using was 1152 x 864. Well, whenever I would open up a picture in Photoshop or try and modify the document size of a flash project, my computer would lag for about 30 – 45 seconds. What happened a couple days ago was that I was making some changes to my computer and it ended up automatically switching my resolution to a more standard one of, 1280 x 1024. When I was running that resolution my files loaded much faster and I was able to adjust my document settings and project sizes in Flash quite quickly. Another thing to note is that I use an nVidia Geforce 7800 GTX graphics card, so this issue may be hardware dependent.

-Tyler

Public Domain pictures are great for blogs - Find more at pdphoto.org

DISCLAIMER: This post applies to citizens of the USA. If you live in another country, other restrictions may apply to you. But feel free to read on and get ideas.

DISCLAIMER: The information in this post is for entertainment purposes only. And you should not base any legal decision on the information in this post. If you learn something that benefits you, that’s great. But do your own research and just use this as a starting point in order to further your endeavors.

If you run a blog, then you may come into the situation of needing photos. Public Domain photos and jpg files are great in case you can’t take a picture yourself that will fulfill your needs. Now, you may be thinking, “Why not just grab a photo from someone else’s site and then post it?” The reason why that isn’t a good idea, is because most images you see on websites on the internet are either copyrighted or else copywritten “by default.” So you can’t use copyrighted photos. And if you think that you will get away with it, think again. There are simple, free services that can tell if you’re using a copyrighted photo, such as, “TinEye.com.” So you really need to be careful with this stuff.

But I’ve found two great resources for Public Domain photos and jpgs. The first is the, Wikimedia Image Commons. It is easy to find public domain photos here. All you do, is search “Public Domain (then the name of the type of picture you are looking for).” For example, if I was looking for a Public Domain picture of a dog, then I would search in the search box: Public Domain dog.

It’s really that simple.

You may be wondering, “What’s up with these CC and GNU licenses? …can I use those?” I personally wouldn’t mess with those. I stick with pics in the public domain or else I take the photo myself.

There are a lot of pictures on the Wikimedia Image Commons that aren’t Public Domain. They are actually CC or GNU. So you need to make sure to put “Public Domain” in your search.

Another great resource for Public Domain photos in PDphoto.org. The creator of this website is Jon Sullivan and he truly has done a wonderful service to the online community by sharing his excellent photographic works.

Similarly to Wikimedia Image Commons, PDphoto.org does have a lot of CC and GNU images. So you need to make sure to double check each image and see if it is Public Domain or not. But if it is Public Domain, then you should be able to use it. Mr. Sullivan says he’d appreciate a donation or else attribution if you use his pictures.

If you look at the picture on the top of this post, it was from the “San Francisco” category at PDphoto.org

-Tyler