[BC] More Cart Machines

[Alan Peterson]

Putting on my "perfesser" hat for a moment ... 

One of the roughest things I encounter during a semester (besides explain decibels) is trying to describe the concept of a "cart" to audio/broadcast students. In their lifetimes, they have never seen a cartridge player/recorder or its crazy cousin the 8-track tape player; and in terms of computer audio, they are used to playing their songs or funny sounds with a mouse click. "Loading" a "cut" into a "slot" is a foreign idea to anyone who has only ever opened an Explorer and performed right click>play. As such, cart emulators take some getting used to for many of these young 'uns.

In spite of that, a lot of my students have come to appreciate soundboards (found on many websites, usually a panel filled with movie soundbites from Arnold Schwarzenegger, Napoleon Dynamite et al) and other instant-playback-type audio programs. They're catching on, but the concept of "carts" is slipping away more and more, faster and faster, giving way to "WAV files" in general discussion use.

Fortunately, there is plenty of free "cart" software out there for them to work with in order to get the concept: CombiWave Jingle Player, SoniCart, Jazler Show, SoundByte for the Mac, and the Rivendell RDPanel for Linux. There may be more freebies, and of course there are the paid-for programs for pro use, but show me any 19-year-old that believes that something associated with their computer should be paid for!

Alan Peterson
Adjunct Prof., Audio Technology
Montgomery College, Rockville MD
...and a whole buncha other stuff