rock and/or roll, to go

November 11, 2007 7:59 PM

MetaFilter Music: The Podcast

After my suggestion of a MeMu podcast got a few favorable responses, I took it upon myself to cobble last week's tunes into one handy-dandy mp3. It's presently hosted through podOmatic, if for no other reasons than economics and convenience. Despite not being an audio or tech guy, I think it sounds pretty good, except for my too-quiet wrap-up at the end, which Audacity simply refused to tweak. Hope you enjoy (And sorry about the voice, I tried to keep my nasal prattling to a minimum).

However, after mathowie rightly observed that a weekly compilation is pretty much a gussied up playlist without the versatility, I'm considering a more focused format for future shows. I have a few ideas - themes, covers, "How I Make Music" featurettes by MeMu contributors, etc. What do you think?

I didn't post this to Projects as I'm pretty much making this up as I go along and am still unsure about the podcast's viability. And honestly, if while listening to it you think "This guy doesn't know what he's doing, I should be doing this," feel free to say so. I'm happy to do this as long as people are listening, but won't hesitate to pass the reins over to someone with more knowledge or resources who could bring it to its full potential.

posted by Alvy Ampersand to MetaFilter Music at 7:59 PM (26 comments total)

Before you do this, check out SongFight's RSS feed of songs, which can be summed up as "the wrong way to do it", because (if you use an ipod, say) you end up with individual songs that don't get grouped as songs, they get fed as a separate podcast each, and so there's no way to forward through each without manually building a playlist.

Ideally, something like this should probably do the following:

1. Have a little bit of commentary on each, perhaps culled from the comments following the posting, but kept very very very brief;

2. Come down into your average mp3 player as something that can be brought up like an album, listened to individually or in sequence (with skip-through) or on shuffle.

Without those two things, I personally wouldn't find it very interesting, but with both I would absolutely check it out each week.
posted by davejay at 8:05 PM on November 11, 2007

Nice work! I realise I haven't spent nearly enough time over at music in the last while so this is really neat, cheers!
posted by TwoWordReview at 8:11 PM on November 11, 2007

Oooooooo interesting!

*lines up for Alvy's autograph*
posted by gomichild at 8:12 PM on November 11, 2007

Coming soon: WonderchickenFilter™, in which I get drunker than a three-peckered billy goat and podrant for a couple of hours about whatever threads hove into view until the inevitable fadeout to snores.

Seriously-like, though, this is pretty cool, Alvy. I keep meaning to cruise MeFiMu more, but then get distracted.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:26 PM on November 11, 2007

I haven't spent nearly enough time over at music in the last while... I keep meaning to cruise MeFiMu more, but then get distracted.

Heh, same, that's where I got the idea. Well, the idea was that someone else would do it...

Thanks for the suggestions, davejay!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:36 PM on November 11, 2007

I just started spending time at MefiMusic again and loving it; there are always some fun gems. Browsing by tags gives you a playlist to your current musical mood.
posted by mediareport at 9:18 PM on November 11, 2007

Hey, cool Alvy! Anything that helps focus more attention on MeFiMu is a fine thing, IMHO. And though you haven't, I see, included one of my tunes in your podcast, well, I'll speak to you again, in the future. Sometime.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:18 PM on November 11, 2007

Lovely!

"How I Make Music" featurettes by MeMu contributors, etc. What do you think?

I think this is a great idea, and I was even once hinted that such a thing (or something very similar) was planned for MetaFilter Music, but other things got in the way.

I think you could open that section by having contributors vote on who they'd like to talk about their recording practices before. This is a great thing, are you going to keep posting the updates here at Metatalk, Alvy?

and flapjax, don't get offended, you are already featured everywhere and are a very well known star of MeMu. You are so famous already, that that podcast could have had a section callled "flapjax presents..." with you highlighting one song from the others.
posted by micayetoca at 7:06 AM on November 12, 2007

I keep meaning to cruise MeFiMu more, but then get distracted.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken

Yeah, I was actually going to ask you about that, trying to understand why people that participate so much in the other areas of the site almost never go there. What keeps you from it, stav?
posted by micayetoca at 8:21 AM on November 12, 2007

I would absolutely sign on to help out with this. Could we mefi-mail users that we want to interview about their tracks, and then talk to a few?

Also, I think a 5-minute teaser would be useful, as a "here's what you're missing- anything good we missed, let us know" sort of thing. People could grab the weekly digest, and it would pique them to go to the site to hear full tracks, etc..
posted by potch at 8:37 AM on November 12, 2007

I'd offer to produce a chaptered AAC file, but I'm a poor college student scrounging his pennies to by a Mac, and don't quite have one yet.
posted by potch at 8:38 AM on November 12, 2007

This is a great idea. I have actually been thinking about suggesting that Someone Else do this for some time now, so I am really glad to see my idea moving forward without my actually having to do anything.. My thinking was that you would highlight 3 or 4 songs per week, with a little commentary (30 seconds to a minute) on each, and perhaps occasional special features -- interviews, retrospectives, theme shows.

I would probably not be a regular listener unless it was subscribable through iTunes, but I think it is a great idea. If there is any help that someone with no podcasting/audio/hosting experience and/or resources can provide, let me know.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:40 AM on November 12, 2007

Speaking of hosting...

I've got a big fat hosting account, with all this sad lonely drive space and bandwidth, and this project smells like it could use a WordPress account. Let me know, I can set that up post-haste.
posted by potch at 8:44 AM on November 12, 2007

"Clean."
posted by chococat at 10:14 AM on November 12, 2007

clean?
posted by micayetoca at 10:48 AM on November 12, 2007

This is a good idea, since there's not really space in the regular MeFi podcast to play more than snippets of a very few songs.

I'm sure this has already been thought of, but podcasts covering the results of recently completed challenges, etc. are a good idea.

I like the "How I do stuff" idea too... You could do either general ones, or maybe specific "making of" ones for particularly popular songs, maybe.

Whatever.

I APPROVE, and that's what matters.
posted by sparkletone at 11:39 AM on November 12, 2007

I kept my pants on while recording.

Thanks for the responses, folks! You've given me a lot to mull over, and of course, any further suggestions/comments are more than welcome. Right now I'm in that weird stage of unbridled enthusiasm and wariness-induced chainsmoking, considering my options, planning, reminding myself of my limitations, etc. I'm using Audacity on Windows, so an enhanced podcast is presently beyond my means, but send me a note when you get that Mac, potch! And thanks for the suggestion and the generous offer, it reminded me that I've been looking for an excuse to get my own hosting :).

Barring any unforeseen horribleness, there will be a new podcast available within a fortnight, and I will be updating this MeTa as new developments unfold. Thanks again, everyone!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:47 AM on November 12, 2007

D'oh, "I kept my pants on while recording, hence the 'clean' label'."
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:48 AM on November 12, 2007

Whee! I'm glad to see someone moving on this, Alvy. I've half meant to give it a go myself for a long time now, and it's hung around at half that whole time, which doesn't get the job done.

I'm very much in favor of shorter sets, teasers, conversation, and more frequent. Getting Music posters (and other mefites, where sensible) talking on it seems like a really key thing.
posted by cortex at 12:07 PM on November 12, 2007

I love this idea and related suggestions. I tend to think of MeFi Music as the small, scrappy, loveable, not-for-profit-style piece of MetaFilter and I love seeing people step up and actually move forward on these various projects (such as this, the monthly challenges, etc).

I agree about shorter sets especially, and having commentary be a part of it.
posted by ORthey at 12:47 PM on November 12, 2007

Hey, Alvy, while you're mulling/recording with pants on, I wanted to say that this is great and I like all the ideas being tossed around in here. Thanks for getting this started.
posted by sleepy pete at 1:16 PM on November 12, 2007

Submitted for your approval... Podcast Logo
posted by potch at 3:09 PM on November 12, 2007

Listened to it at the Y this afternoon. Very nice. It was cool to hear the songs all together in this context, it made me go "oh ya...what was that song?" and go back and check out something I maybe didn't give full attention to the first time or was too busy to catch or was drunk. But, ya, it would be cool to be able to skip/backtrack song-by-song as well as see what was playing at the moment, which is super easy to do.
And that is a sometimes deep voice you have there. It has a nice sort of just-woke-up or I-need-a-lozenge quality to it. In a good way.
posted by chococat at 3:22 PM on November 12, 2007

Way to go Alvy! Thanks for firing this up.
posted by snsranch at 3:57 PM on November 13, 2007

Any chance that this could be featured under the "podcast" link on the top of the page?

I realize this is an external podcast, but it's closely related to a sub-site and it might be interesting for Mefites (specially with the upcoming "How I Make Music" sections).
posted by micayetoca at 11:50 AM on November 16, 2007

micayetoca, that is a GREAT suggestion!
posted by snsranch at 3:45 PM on November 16, 2007