Call for Help: Fix the Podcast

[beezball]

Oh teh noes!111!m I've ruined the podcast!??

My life is borked.

[reaper239]

eviebae mentioned a good idea, all you would need to impliment it is some recoarding software, might i suggest audacity as it is free and open source (not a fan of audacity's layout, but it's hard to beat free). then you do a countdown over skype (everyone would have to use headphones of course) then at zero, everyone hits record. use whatever system you used to skype in to record, export, then bcause of the countdown, and audio cues, editing shouldn't be too difficult. it works in my mind, but without good coordination, it would be difficult to impliment well. it all boils down to coordination. well, that's a simple explenation of a complicated soloution, but, i think eviebae is on to something.

here is skype (not like everyone doesn't already know where to find it, but just covering my bases): http://www.skype.com/

and here is audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

[nikvoodoo]

eviebae mentioned a good idea, all you would need to impliment it is some recoarding software, might i suggest audacity as it is free and open source (not a fan of audacity's layout, but it's hard to beat free). then you do a countdown over skype (everyone would have to use headphones of course) then at zero, everyone hits record. use whatever system you used to skype in to record, export, then bcause of the countdown, and audio cues, editing shouldn't be too difficult. it works in my mind, but without good coordination, it would be difficult to impliment well. it all boils down to coordination. well, that's a simple explenation of a complicated soloution, but, i think eviebae is on to something.

here is skype (not like everyone doesn't already know where to find it, but just covering my bases): http://www.skype.com/

and here is audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

For all intents and purposes....that's pretty much what happens. Britt starts a skype conference call, we all start recording, and then as people are introduced you lay their answer into Britt's introduction and everything is lined up perfectly.

The issue has never been lining up the audio tracks. That's the easy part. The harder part is mastering sound levels, eliminating background noises, and that sort of stuff. I say that as someone who hasn't edited the podcast before, but as someone who has cut together radio shows using multiple overlapping sources in the past.

[reaper239]

gotcha. i thought you guys did like, one master recording from skype (i don't listen to the show, but was intrigued by the thread for some reason). getting the levels shouldn't be too bad, but getting rid of background noise could be problematic. of course, i've only ever mixed band audio and not a podcast with a lot of talking soooo... yeah.

[nikvoodoo]

gotcha. i thought you guys did like, one master recording from skype (i don't listen to the show, but was intrigued by the thread for some reason). getting the levels shouldn't be too bad, but getting rid of background noise could be problematic. of course, i've only ever mixed band audio and not a podcast with a lot of talking soooo... yeah.

It's easy to do in one way, but sorta hard in others. Because there is a lot of down time in each person's individual track you can sample traditional background noise (hum of appliances, air flow etc) and that will give you the profile you can eliminate from the rest of the track. Problem comes when you eliminate those noises, you'll sometimes cut the voice up a bit.

There's obviously issues with people who record incorrectly (I've done this more than once when Audacity forgets my goddamn preferences...) and record lo-fi, or have too hot a mic, or any other assortment of issues.

And now here's the question: Why don't you listen? Give it a try! This week should be a good one

[beezball]

I actually do all my editing using Sony Acid Pro. I use audacity for pre-editing noise removing and compression. I'm not sure if you haven't listened in a while or what, but I edit my podcast very thoroughly and take out any noticeable skype lag, which is for the most part negligible. Any "delay" you do hear, is actual reaction times, whether someone is just taking their time thinking, or is shocked because someone just mentioned meat and girth. Once you get the initial line up done then you don't normally have any problems throughout the rest of the show. I've easily put in around 1000+ hours editing podcasts, so I consider myself fairly knowledgeable on the subject.

[nikvoodoo]

I used to use Cool Edit Pro 2.0 for all audio needs. But then I got a Mac and I wasn't in college anymore to.....

....the statute of limitations for what I may or may not have done to obtain Cool Edit Pro is still in effect so my lawyer has advised me to not continue with this post.

[beezball]

I understand... Mucho...

[AdrianHD]

I actually do all my editing using Sony Acid Pro. I use audacity for pre-editing noise removing and compression. I'm not sure if you haven't listened in a while or what, but I edit my podcast very thoroughly and take out any noticeable skype lag, which is for the most part negligible. Any "delay" you do hear, is actual reaction times, whether someone is just taking their time thinking, or is shocked because someone just mentioned meat and girth. Once you get the initial line up done then you don't normally have any problems throughout the rest of the show. I've easily put in around 1000+ hours editing podcasts, so I consider myself fairly knowledgeable on the subject.

Noob.

No, the syncing isn't an issue, but yeah, having to cut the down time, fix everyone's audio levels, or figure out a way to balance if people talk over each other (which happens often just because it's Skype) is the main beef of the editing.

[beezball]

I do cut down on that down time. as for the talking over each, I re-listen to each of those segments to make sure that they are intelligible, if not, I separate them a little, but I prefer to leave some of that in to make it more organic. It's just my style choice I suppose. Are you talking about recent episodes? As in the last 4?