Everyone loves free stuff. Some free stuff is good … some free stuff is not so good … and some free stuff is junk. George Carlin (who I got to introduce on stage as a rock jock at 97.5 WONE in Akron/Cleveland) was always talking about “a place for your stuff.” Here are a few new items and a couple of revisited links to some FREE stuff. (Please note that when you sign up for some free stuff, they will almost certainly contact you or put you on their “mailing lists.”)
Free Music (for Radio Station)
In the “good old days of radio” (not that many years ago), record companies would beat down the door of most stations offering “the next big hit.” Today, not so much! Fortunately there are some places where stations can get music service (at least to some degree). By the way, if you know of others, please email me below. Thanks!
Free Audio Editing Software
There are numerous paid versions of audio editing software, some of which are actually free. I can’t say I find the free ones quite as good as, say, Adobe’s Audition, but it’s a whole lot cheaper. Audacity is probably one of the most popular (and capable) free audio editing software programs (for Windows, Mac or Linux).
78s Free to Download
What can you say except, “Oh, Wow!” What a great collection of 78s! And thanks to the Internet Archive for doing this!
aTube Catcher
One of my favorite pieces of free software is the aTube Catcher. It’s very easy to use if you need a piece of video (just be sure to obey all the laws on copyright!). If you need to capture audio from a YouTube video, this does the trick. There are actually multiple tools within aTube Catcher for conversion of files, burning discs, and more.
Here are few “Best ofs” (AKA reruns).
Free Production Music
Looking for some background music for a production? The site claims it to be royalty-free music. Just be sure to read the fine print and make sure you are using it as the site suggests you can.
Free Loudness Software Meter
From famed processor maker Orban comes their free software loudness meter.
Free Art
Keep in mind that sometimes the free stuff has limitation (like using it for advertising).
Free Smarts
From the brains at the Microsoft blog comes eBooks, and lots of them. If there’s something you don’t know about computers or networking … or you just want to brush up on the subjects, this is a great place to start.
Space, the Free Frontier
Another rerun (like old Star Trek episodes) is this fun link from NASA. It’s free sounds of NASA (and bonus — some other links to “space audio.”
And Finally …
You might still have your “record collection.” Maybe a box of 45s or LPs … maybe crates full of albums Vinyl never completely disappeared and has even made a resurgence. Reel-to-reels held their value because so many people (probably most of us in radio) still have boxes of tapes. Eight-track tapes somehow are still collectible (especially quadraphonic recordings). And now cart machines seem to be gaining popularity again with many old-school radio folks (Ahh, remember the days of winding carts and replacing pads … and the joy of head alignments and replacing pinch rollers?) Bloomberg had this fun article about making vinyl records, and it’s cool to see the inside of the plant. So “cheers to analog!”
If you stumble across a good or unusual website that might be of interest, please don’t hesitate to send me the link and any info you might have about it. My email address is [email protected].
