Curry’s CastBlaster beta download available

[owyn]

Curry’s CastBlaster beta download available
blogs and podcasting — by TDavid @ 8:14 pm

Adam Curry has been working with a team on a podcast creation and publishing tool called CastBlaster which is now available for download (beta). For $50 users can register the program and the license key will work with final release version 1.0. The $50 buys 5 activations.

Click here for details (http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20050625/2074/)

Link includes audio review (podcast) of CastBlaster

Download link: http://www.castblaster.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5

90 day free demo according to audio.

Has anyone in the forum any experience using the private or the public beta?

[Illinoise]

"Now with more shinola!"

[owyn]

"Now with more shinola!"

Is that the same as "Sell the sizzle, not the steak"?

[jimk]

Interesting piece of software. Bad UI...not in any way intuitive. Clearly designed by geeks and not designers. I'll be curious to test it out for bit production, but I could never use it to do a show (and hence would not pay for it) for one simple reason:

10 sfx buttons. I've had shows that had 36 elements in them, and I can't be loading the buttons while trying to do the show. I don't see a way to configure my own custom number of buttons...so no CastBlaster for me. I'm sticking with PodProducer for the time being.

[timn]

CastBlaster is currently an XP-only application. This is a limiting factor for me. For other reasons, I have to maintain a Windows 2000 box. Someday, I might be able to justify a separate computer just for my audio applications but not today.

To be fair, Mike and Adam are clearly labeling this a "beta" release. As such, people who download it should be somewhat more tolerant of glitches and report them on the CastBlaster forum.

I agree the interface is not as good as it could be but this is not a fatal flaw -- there will be time to improve it.

But I also feel it's overpriced for what's there -- there's a reason a large number of apps of comparable sophistication are priced in the $29.95 range. Also, the "5 activation" limit feels too much like Microsoft. But I could be wrong and if I am, they can laugh my criticisms all the way to the bank.

[kastanaras]

The website is acting so slow for me that I can't even try the beta version.

[Patrick]

JimK - what do you use that allows up to 36 loaded sounds. The program I use now allows me 16, which has been ok so far.

Always looking for something new.

[ferg]

JimK - what do you use that allows up to 36 loaded sounds. The program I use now allows me 16, which has been ok so far.

Always looking for something new.

Patrick, I use Jazler Show for my sound clips that I play live while recording.
It allows an enormous amount of clips...you can have 5 pages of 25 clips each (and scrolling through the pages is simple, too)...and it's free....

[jimk]

JimK - what do you use that allows up to 36 loaded sounds. The program I use now allows me 16, which has been ok so far.

Always looking for something new.

I'm using PodProducer (http://radix.com.mx/podproducer/en/podproducer.html). It's still VERY new, but the author is ridiculously responsive to user requests, so it just gets better and better each time. And it be free.

To get more rows and columns, just edit the .ini file like so:

[Buttons]
Rows=12
Columns=3

Plug your own numbers in for whatever you need. You can also adjust sampling rates there.

[Recording]
SamplingRate=44100

I know..."editing ini files? What the?" But remember, it;s free and it's beta beta beta. I have suggested a "settings" dialog and he says he'll get to it as soon as he can.

You can save button configs as well. I tend to prep a little all week, adding ideas and sounds to the mix as I go, so I load them up, save the config and just load that next time I'm prepping.

DISCLAIMER: I have no, zero, zilch, nada, zip, bupkis, none, nought, an absence of, a dearth of, that is to say a total and complete lack of association with the software or the author other than as an avid user and fan thereof.

[djacobs003]

Do you think the software based compressor in PodProducer and/or Castblaster is as good as a hardware based one? I am not sure if I should get a hardware compressor or change to recording software that has a compressor built in. I currently use Audacity.