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Education · Advocacy · Activism

Education, Advocacy and Activism

Free training, tools and resources for journalists, advocates, activists and campaigns, with a focus on Idaho transparency, civic data and liberty.

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🎬 Training: Technology and A/V Production

7 learning modules. This page updates itself when items move between sections.

Lessons for making things people will watch and hear: sound theory, recording and mixing, video production, radio and video ads, reels, music theory and songwriting. Each lesson ends with something to make or measure, usually in one of the free studio apps.

In this section
  1. Sound Theory Learning Module
  2. Audio Editing and Production Learning Module
  3. Video Production Learning Module
  4. Video and Radio Ad Development Learning Module
  5. Video and Reels for Social Media Learning Module
  6. Basic Music Theory Learning Module
  7. Songwriting Learning Module

〰️ Sound Theory Learning Module

Free lessons with sources, a short quiz and progress saved in your browser.

A guided path through the SoundStudio audio theory tutorial, with the pieces it skips: how ears judge loudness, why 48 kHz, what LUFS targets mean, which frequencies do what, and how rooms and microphones get in the way. Every lesson ends with something to measure in SoundStudio. A module of Journalism Training, 5 lessons.

What is included: 5 lessons and pages
  1. What Sound Is and How You Hear It 14 min
    Sound is moving air pressure, and your ears judge it unevenly: they hear 20 Hz to 20 kHz at best, favor the 2 to 5 kHz region, and make bass seem quieter than it measures.
  2. Digital Audio: Samples, Bits and Nyquist 13 min
    A digital file is a list of measurements: the sample rate sets the highest frequency it can hold, the bit depth sets how quiet the noise floor is, and the job decides 48 kHz or 44.1 kHz.
  3. Decibels, Loudness and Delivery Targets 16 min
    Tell dBFS from dB SPL, read LUFS and true peak the way ITU-R BS.1770 and EBU R128 define them, and know the loudness targets for streaming, podcasts and broadcast as of October 2026.
  4. Frequency and Tone: Naming the Bands 15 min
    Learn the plain names engineers use for each frequency band (rumble, boom, mud, boxiness, presence, sibilance, air), how harmonics stack up, and why a voice and an acoustic guitar fight for the same space.
  5. Rooms, Reflections, Phase and Stereo 16 min
    Rooms add reverb and comb filtering you cannot fully remove later, two microphones can cancel each other, and a stereo mix has to survive being folded to mono. Fix it at the microphone with distance, soft surfaces and the 3:1 rule.
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🎚️ Audio Editing and Production Learning Module

Free lessons with sources, a short quiz and progress saved in your browser.

Record a clean voice, then edit, clean, shape and mix it in SoundStudio, duck a music bed under it, repair clicks and pops, and deliver a file at the right loudness for a podcast, a stream or a broadcast spot. A module of Journalism Training, 7 lessons.

What is included: 7 lessons and pages
  1. Recording a Voice You Won't Have to Rescue 14 min
    Pick a mic, set the distance, tame the room with blankets, and set your gain so the recording peaks around -12 dBFS at 48 kHz, 24-bit.
  2. Noise: Avoid It, Then Reduce It Carefully 13 min
    Tell hum, hiss, rumble and room tone apart, fix what you can at the source, and use SoundStudio's noise tools without leaving the voice watery.
  3. Editing Speech Without Making It Robotic 15 min
    Cut on breaths and hard consonants, keep joins click-free with fades, remove ums and false starts selectively, and handle breaths with a light touch.
  4. EQ and Compression on a Voice 16 min
    High-pass at 80 Hz, find and cut mud at 200 to 400 Hz, add a little presence at 3 to 5 kHz, tame S sounds, then compress with numbers you understand.
  5. Music Beds and Ducking With Volume Pins 15 min
    Put voice and music on tracks, duck the bed 10 to 18 dB under the voice with Volume Pins, set ramps that sound natural, and fade in and out cleanly.
  6. Repairs: Clicks, Clipping and Plosives 13 min
    Find and fix mouth clicks and digital glitches, rebuild flat-topped clipped peaks, and soften plosive thumps without dulling the whole track.
  7. Loudness and Delivery 16 min
    Hit the right loudness for where the audio is going (podcast, streaming, broadcast), keep true peak under the limit, pick the right file format, and batch the job with StudioConverter.
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🎬 Video Production Learning Module

Free lessons with sources, a short quiz and progress saved in your browser.

Plan, shoot and edit a short news or explainer video with a phone and maybe a cheap mic, then caption it and export a file that plays right everywhere. A module of Journalism Training, 7 lessons.

What is included: 7 lessons and pages
  1. Planning a Shoot 14 min
    Write one sentence of purpose, choose script or interview, build a shot list and sort out releases and permission before you press record.
  2. Phone Camera Settings That Matter 13 min
    Choose resolution and frame rate on purpose, lock exposure and focus, use stabilization wisely and decide orientation before you shoot.
  3. Light on a Budget 12 min
    Use window light well, build three-point lighting from household lamps and stop mixed color temperatures from turning faces two colors.
  4. Sound on Location 14 min
    Choose between lav, shotgun and phone mic, get the mic close, beat wind, record room tone and sync a separate recorder with a clap.
  5. Framing and Coverage 13 min
    Frame an interview with the right headroom, lead room and eyeline, and shoot the wide, medium, close, B-roll and cutaways an editor needs.
  6. Editing on a Timeline 15 min
    Build a radio cut from the interview audio first, lay pictures over it, use J and L cuts to smooth the joins and tighten the pace.
  7. Captions, Color Basics and Export 15 min
    Choose burned-in or sidecar captions, do a simple color correction, and export an H.264 file at the right frame rate, bitrate or file size.
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📺 Video and Radio Ad Development Learning Module

Free lessons with sources, a short quiz and progress saved in your browser.

Write, cast, mix and deliver 15, 30 and 60 second video and radio spots that say one thing clearly, follow the disclosure rules for political and issue ads, and arrive at the station in the format it asked for. A module of Journalism Training, 7 lessons.

What is included: 7 lessons and pages
  1. One Ad, One Message 12 min
    Boil an ad down to a single thought, name the person it is for, and decide the one thing you want that person to do when it ends.
  2. Structures for :15, :30 and :60 Spots 15 min
    Budget words by length, then build the spot on one of four shapes that work: problem-agitate-solve, testimonial, contrast and story.
  3. Writing for the Ear and the Eye 13 min
    Radio copy has no pictures to lean on and video copy should not repeat its pictures. Learn the habits that make each one work.
  4. Two-Column Scripts with Timing 16 min
    Lay out a video spot as a timed two-column AV script and a radio spot as a timed audio script, using a full invented :30 of each.
  5. Voices, Music Beds and Sound Design 16 min
    Cast and direct a voice (human or AI), get consent and disclose AI use honestly, then build a licensed music bed that ducks under the voice and lands at the right loudness.
  6. Political and Issue Ad Rules 18 min
    The disclosure rules for political and issue ads on broadcast and online: FCC sponsorship identification and the political file, federal 'stand by your ad' statements, Idaho's attribution and synthetic media laws, equal time and lowest unit charge, and where AI disclosure rules stand as of October 2026.
  7. Delivering Spots to Stations and Platforms 15 min
    Hit exact length to the frame, meet broadcast loudness, build a slate, label files with a unique code and send each outlet exactly what its spec sheet asks for.
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📱 Video and Reels for Social Media Learning Module

Free lessons with sources, a short quiz and progress saved in your browser.

Make short vertical videos that stop the scroll, read with the sound off, fit each platform's frame and length, and leave your computer as a clean file every app will accept. A module of Journalism Training, 6 lessons.

What is included: 6 lessons and pages
  1. The first two seconds 11 min
    Open on the conflict, the claim or the visual surprise, put a text hook on screen, and never start with a logo.
  2. Vertical framing and safe zones 13 min
    Shoot and build for a 1080x1920 frame, and keep faces and text out of the strips where each app puts its buttons and captions.
  3. Captions burned in 12 min
    Put the words on the picture so muted viewers get the story: big, high-contrast, two lines at most, and parked above the app's bottom overlay.
  4. Pacing and length by platform 12 min
    Know each platform's current length limits, then cut for the length the story earns, which is usually far shorter than the limit.
  5. Audio for reels 13 min
    Get the voice clear first, use music that is licensed for the way you are posting, stay clear of copyright claims and strikes, and set a sensible loudness.
  6. From long video or article to reels, and out the door 15 min
    Mine a long video or article for clips with one idea each, build them into a series, then export clean H.264 1080x1920 files with good cover frames.
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🎼 Basic Music Theory Learning Module

Free lessons with sources, a short quiz and progress saved in your browser.

Learn the handful of theory ideas that folk, country and protest songwriters actually use: notes, keys, chords, number charts, rhythm and the capo. By the end you can read a chord chart, move a song to a new key and tell the band what you want. A module of Journalism Training, 7 lessons.

What is included: 7 lessons and pages
  1. Notes, Octaves, Half Steps and Whole Steps 12 min
    The twelve notes, why they repeat, and the two step sizes every scale and chord is built from.
  2. The Major Scale, Keys and Key Signatures 14 min
    Build any major scale from one step pattern, and read a key signature without breaking a sweat.
  3. Intervals by Ear 13 min
    Name the distance between two notes by counting half steps, and recognize it by ear with melody hooks you already know.
  4. Chords: Triads, Sevenths and the Chords in a Key 15 min
    How major, minor and seventh chords are built, and how one major scale hands you the six chords most folk and country songs use.
  5. The Nashville Number System and Chord Charts 14 min
    Write and read songs as numbers so any player can play them in any key, and read the common chart symbols.
  6. Rhythm, Meter, Tempo and Strumming 13 min
    Count 4/4, 3/4 and 6/8, set a tempo in BPM, and write strumming patterns down so another player can copy them.
  7. Common Progressions, Transposing and the Capo 15 min
    The progressions behind most folk, country and gospel songs, written out in five keys, plus how to move a song to the singer's key with or without a capo.
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🎸 Songwriting Learning Module

Free lessons with sources, a short quiz and progress saved in your browser.

Write folk, Americana, country and protest songs that hold together: a clear form, a title worth repeating, lines that sing naturally and verses that move a story. Then demo the song, clean it up and register it. A module of Journalism Training, 7 lessons.

What is included: 7 lessons and pages
  1. Song forms, timing and where the title lives 14 min
    The four forms folk, country and Americana songs use, how long each part runs, and where to put the title so people remember it.
  2. Prosody: making words and music agree 15 min
    Put stressed syllables on strong beats, choose open vowels for long notes, and match the feel of the music to what the words say.
  3. Rhyme types and rhyme schemes 13 min
    Perfect, family, slant and internal rhyme, how to read and choose a rhyme scheme, and when a near rhyme beats a perfect one.
  4. Story verses that move 15 min
    Write verses like camera shots, pick the detail that does the work, move from verse 1 to verse 3, and let the same chorus mean something new each time.
  5. The protest song tradition and how it works on a listener 16 min
    Where American protest songs came from (the Carter Family's song collecting, union songbooks, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, the civil rights movement) and the techniques that make a protest song land.
  6. Demo it, clean it, put the words on screen 16 min
    Record a phone demo, build a simple DAW demo to a click, try an AI version in MusicStudio, clean any of them up in SoundStudio, and make a lyric video in Lyric Bench.
  7. Copyright, registration and getting paid 15 min
    How copyright attaches to a song the moment it is fixed, the difference between the song and the recording, how to register with the US Copyright Office, and what PROs and The MLC do.
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