Jogunwarrior wrote:
I'm really looking forward to listening to this. A podcast focusing on customizing is an awesome idea, and is always something that I wanted the WOJM crew to discuss more often.
Is this going to be a regular ongoing podcast?
We've covered customizing a couple of times, but we are too general of a cast to cover customizing on a regular basis. A JC cast is a much better idea.
Good show. I am not a customizer, but I kept up as best I could.
The pilot suffered from pretty much the exact same thing that every other first time pilot does and that is audio. I was just re-editing the WOJM pilot for an upcoming project and thought, "Wow, this was REALLY bad." Chuck sounded like he was in a cave, Greg's mic was making a weird click, and you could hear me furiously typing and mouse clicking. That episode went 46 minutes in its current posted form. After I went back and edited out all of the long awkward pauses, all the UMs, AHs and "ya knows", and running it through Levelator, it sounds marginally better and shrunk in length by 10 minutes.
The guys at the GCRN taught me to always do audio tests with your guests to make sure it sounds good. Even on Skype you
should all sound like you are in the same room (most of the time). If there is an echo involved, in the instance we troubleshooted (is that a word?), the user did not have the Skype audio settings correct and was being heard by the internal mic of his laptop, thus is sounded like he was on a speaker phone. The funny thing there was, he was a host on another podcast and he has been recording like that for some time. Oops! Mic quality also matters, but only spend the money for a better one if you know you will be doing more shows on a regular basis. I also think my internet provider is very good, so a big pipe is always helpful.
Another thing to remember, podcasting is not live radio. If you talk over one another or just butcher something you wanted to say, back it up and do a second take. There is no reason to do everything in one take. The editing process should make everything sound seemless.
Hope this helps. I've leaned on a few in the community for tips. But often tips come in the way of critisizms which tell you what you need to fix but not how to fix it. A lot of trial and error has been involved with WOJM. Some hits, but a lot of misses. Some ideas seem great in theory, but fizzle in practice. I am still learning when it comes to editing. It is an ongoing process.
Above all, have fun!