THE BORE

General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: Eel O'Brian on September 22, 2007, 12:56:59 PM

Title: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Eel O'Brian on September 22, 2007, 12:56:59 PM: I locked the other one to start fresh, since we're actually going to do this.

I've just invested in a Ventrilo server with 10 slots.

Anyone who signed on to participate in the "Pilot" podcast, or is interested in participating in future podcasts, should:

1. Invest in a decent headset/mic or stand-alone mic. Get a pop/wind screen for the mic. I just used the one off my 360 headset mic.

2. Download the ventrilo client here: http://www.ventrilo.com/download.php (http://www.ventrilo.com/download.php)

3. PM me for the password. I'll send the server info you need to connect.

4. Set up your ventrilo client to use "PTT" - which means you press a hotkey to talk. There's a delay on voice recognition, and it makes a popping sound when it kicks in, so it sucks. Press the key.

PODCAST RULES

When we're just goofing off and soundchecking I don't care what you say or do, but when we're actually recording please:

1. Adjust your microphone. If you set it in line with the tip of your nose and space it about three fingers away from your mouth, it won't pick up as much breathing noise.

3. Try not to bump your mic, and keep the background noise to a minimum. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but if I hear your wife/dog/Mom in the background, or I hear you eating, or you're shifting around so much it sounds like tin cans tied to a cat's tail, I'm going to have to mute you or boot you off the server. The quality probably isn't going to be the best in the world to begin with, and a bunch of bumping around and background crap will just make it that much worse.

4. Try not to talk over each other. If there are a lot of people a little of this is understandable and unavoidable, but please try to respect each other and let people finish their thoughts.

5. While we're recording, at certain points I might call for a brief pause in the conversation, or say the word "Edit" out loud. It's just to set cues to help me edit the recording.

6. Don't use a "Radio Voice." It's annoying. Just be yourself, and enunciate properly.

THE PODCAST

1. We still have to come up with a name. List your suggestions here, and we'll vote on the best ones.

2. For the pilot cast, there will be two segments. The first segment is a general "What did you buy this week" discussion, where you can list your purchases and we can all laugh at them. You can also do mini-reviews of your loot. The second segment will be a focused discussion on a specific topic, whether it's a movie or a game or a TV show or a current event or whatever. Make your suggestions for the initial topic here, and we'll vote. None of this is set in stone, so things might change for the next show, depending on how we all feel about how this first episode turns out.

3. I need to know what you want to be called on the show. Your real name, a username, or whatever. You can PM it to me or post it here.

4. Once we have agreed on the show title, the final group of participants, a topic for the first focused discussion, and a time and date for recording, I'll write out a show outline and PM it to everyone who's going to be in the cast. Please familiarize yourself with it - it's a good idea to have it on hand during the recording, so we won't stray far off-topic.

5. After I have edited the show, I'll set up a host site for it at libsyn, and there'll be a page with show notes and such. If anyone wants to get creative with the blog/show notes page and do a little design work, you're welcome to it. Let me know and I'll give you the info to log in and change the layout/look.

Here is a list of the people who have committed to the cast, copied from the other thread. If anyone changes their mind, please let me know so I can take you off the list. There are three slots open, but the maximum is ten. I may have to cut it down to five members for the next cast if there's too much lag or overlap or chaos.

Me
Drinky
Mupepe (yes, you can sing)
Cajolejuice
T324
Billy Rygar
Happy Rhymenocerous

*Phoenix didn't say he was in, but I want to use that rap

I've probably forgotten a bunch of things I was going to write, but I'll add them later. If there are any questions or suggestions please post them here.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Eel O'Brian on September 22, 2007, 05:44:17 PM: I need to do some test recordings this evening to play around with editing Audacity (noise removal, trimming, adding music), and to set levels for the inputs etc. If anyone wants to bullshit around on the Ventrilo server tonight and sort of get used to it, let me know and I'll shoot you the login information via PM. This isn't the pilot podcast, just goofing around and trying to get a handle on all this stuff. No rules. Hey, maybe we'll Karaoke!*

spoiler (click to show/hide)
*NO
[close]
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Phoenix Dark on September 22, 2007, 09:15:16 PM: btw I won't be able to participate; I gave me old mic to my brothers. It was pretty suck anyway and ruined our last podcast attempt lol
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Eel O'Brian on September 22, 2007, 09:53:59 PM: Can I use your rap?
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: bork on September 22, 2007, 09:54:44 PM: What time would you be trying to do this podcast?
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Phoenix Dark on September 23, 2007, 02:51:07 AM: Quote from: Eel_O_Brian on September 22, 2007, 09:53:59 PM
Can I use your rap?

Definitely lol. Are you gonna put a beat behind it?
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Ichirou on September 23, 2007, 02:59:24 AM: I'd like to participate in this but I hate the sound of my voice. :-\
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Smooth Groove on September 23, 2007, 03:17:36 AM: Quote from: Ichirou on September 23, 2007, 02:59:24 AM
I'd like to participate in this but I hate the sound of my voice. :-\

Who cares? Just join it so that the podcast can have a guest from Japan.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Ichirou on September 23, 2007, 03:28:29 AM: Nah, you guys have got lyte edge for that.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Eel O'Brian on September 23, 2007, 01:02:41 PM: I need tech help, badly. I cannot figure out how to record the ventrilo chats in Audacity and transfer them to .mp3

Ventrilo has a built-in recording function, but it records it in something called a .vrf file, and there's no converter I have been able to find. I have to set up Audacity to record the playback from the Vent chat, and that basically means I have to record the session twice. And it sounds like crap.

The only other option I can think of is that everyone would have to download audacity and record their end of the conversation, then upload the .mp3 to me for mixing. That means a ton of different tracks to edit and mix, and that will take forever.

Anyone familiar with this, or who might know someone who could help, please do so. Otherwise, there's just going to be no podcast unless we use skype or something, or I can figure out another way. I am obviously in over my head here.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: demi on September 23, 2007, 01:06:13 PM: How did the GAF people do it? PM Hyoushi on GAF, Eel, he edited the GAFCast for them.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Eel O'Brian on September 23, 2007, 01:18:25 PM: I might just start a thread over there and filter out the useful information from the certain ridicule
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: FlameOfCallandor on September 23, 2007, 01:22:52 PM: What about people who cant PM other people?
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Eel O'Brian on September 23, 2007, 01:26:59 PM: What do you mean? You can't PM? Post any suggestions here, then.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: border on September 23, 2007, 01:45:05 PM: A podcast with 10 people would be chaos. I can't think of any shows that are able to consistently pull off a cast of more than 5.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: FlameOfCallandor on September 23, 2007, 01:46:36 PM: Can we do a radio sit-com with the cast of evilbore? I think TVC wrote a few scripts for the evilbore cast a few months ago.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Ichirou on September 23, 2007, 01:50:58 PM: Quote from: FlameOfCallandor on September 23, 2007, 01:46:36 PM
Can we do a radio sit-com with the cast of evilbore? I think TVC wrote a few scripts for the evilbore cast a few months ago.

That would be kinda funny but I bet the posters who would be the butt of people's jokes would be offended...like G. And Synbios.

Oh, wait...
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: FlameOfCallandor on September 23, 2007, 01:56:40 PM: The only fair way would be to make fun of everyone.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Ichirou on September 23, 2007, 01:58:27 PM: Or make fun of people who are banned and can't whine about it. :-*
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Smooth Groove on September 23, 2007, 02:11:25 PM: Quote from: Ichirou on September 23, 2007, 01:58:27 PM
Or make fun of people who are banned and can't whine about it. :-*

A podcast of all the lepers and banned people would be fun. G, Miles Trahan, Lemurs, Synbios, etc. would make a pretty entertaining podcast.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Ichirou on September 23, 2007, 02:17:15 PM: The entire podcast would be spent insulting us. :'(
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Eel O'Brian on September 23, 2007, 02:20:10 PM: Well, there's not going to be any podcast period unless I get some help.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: demi on September 23, 2007, 02:22:47 PM: Someone go on GAF and PM Hyoushi, direct him to this thread. He can give better insight.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Eel O'Brian on September 23, 2007, 02:29:10 PM: I PMed him. Hopefully he'll answer. I'm also going on several other sites asking for info, specifically Video Game Show, since they have five guys at once doing the cast. From what I have been able to gather just googling around, it looks like everyone might have to record their end themselves and I might have to mix all the tracks together. If that's the case, we'll have to scale back the number of participants to no more than five, because that's just a ton of mixing.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Smooth Groove on September 23, 2007, 02:39:34 PM: Quote from: Eel_O_Brian on September 23, 2007, 02:29:10 PM
From what I have been able to gather just googling around, it looks like everyone might have to record their end themselves and I might have to mix all the tracks together.

That's not very fun at all because there'll be no back and forth interaction. Would it help if you just start off with a smaller number?
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: demi on September 23, 2007, 02:40:21 PM: It was fun just voice chatting period, should consider setting up an evilbore server just for the hell of it.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Eel O'Brian on September 23, 2007, 02:46:07 PM: Smooth -

How it would work is this way:

We'd all download audacity and lame encoder for output to mp3.

We'd all set up the Audacity recording to match each other's settings.

We'd all connect to the Vent server.

We'd record our separate voices through our mics on audacity while we're talking. When we're finished, everyone would upload or send their mp3 files to me for mixing.

There'd still be interaction, the recording would just be in separate tracks.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: DJ_Tet on September 23, 2007, 03:31:29 PM: Quote from: demi on September 23, 2007, 02:40:21 PM
It was fun just voice chatting period, should consider setting up an evilbore server just for the hell of it.

Yeah, voice chatting is fun, I don't think anyone's going to do all that mess for a podcast. There has to be an easier way.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: T234 on September 24, 2007, 10:59:03 AM: I need to go out and buy a headset.

Recommendations?
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Eel O'Brian on September 24, 2007, 11:40:18 AM: I use a Plantronics 345 USB headset I bought at Wal-Mart for $30. YOu can find it in the VOIP/Skype/Computer section. Everyone said I sounded really clear through that. Analog mics and headsets connected through the line/mic in and headphone jacks hiss and pop all the time.

As for the podcast, Hyoushi answered my PM. He said at first they used Skype or Teamspeak, everyone recorded their own tracks, and he did the mixing. That's a hell of a lot of work when you have more than 2-3 people, so that's out for me. Now he says they're all in the same room, so he only has to edit one track. I think we can TRY to use ventrilo, but we have to be aware of lag, and there will be other requirements.

1. We have to accept a lower quality codec setting to cut the lag.

2. We can't have 10 people at once. Too chaotic, too much overlap. I think 5 is the max. We can rotate the cast in each show to fit in everyone who wants to participate.

3. Everyone has to have a USB headset or mic for clarity.

Then, I'll just have to record everything twice - once through vent in their ".VRF" format, and then rerecord through Audacity for editing. I can live with that over having to mix five or more separate vocal tracks. Checking the vent boards, the next version will include saving as .mp3, but who knows when that will release.

Or, we can go with skype. There are plenty of programs that record skype conference calls at once and save them as mp3. Again, the quality would be lesser, but I can try to boost it and smooth it as much as possible in post-processing.

Other than everyone recording their own vocals and uploading them to me, there are no other alternatives that I have been able to find.

For evilboreans in foreign lands, the time difference will be a problem, but if anyone wants to do a CAG-style "Man in Japan" or whatever, I can set up a time to record that bit separately, and mix it in with the rest of the show.

If anyone has a specific bit and isn't in the regular 5, I can record that separately as well and mix it in as a segment of the show.

What do you guys think? Who's game to try and go with what we have, and patient enough to make the necessary adjustments? The only thing you have to spend actual money on is a USB headset or mic. The rest is just your time, and patience in getting our levels/settings correct for the best acceptable sound quality. The rest is on me. It's going to be a lot of work no matter what, but I have to learn this stuff anyway.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: T234 on September 24, 2007, 11:44:04 AM: I'll do it.

Just be forewarned, I have the most potent southern accent of anybody whose voice I have heard over the internet.*

*Including xbox live.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Eel O'Brian on September 24, 2007, 11:45:23 AM: I have a li'l bit of NC in my voice, too, so no worries.
Title: Re: The Official Podcast Thread
Post by: Eel O'Brian on September 24, 2007, 11:47:55 AM: By the way, when we're not recording the podcast, everyone is welcome to use the Vent server at any time for chatting. Just PM for the login info.