Comments on: rock and/or roll, to go

rock and/or roll, to go

Alvy Ampersand — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 19:59:23 -0800

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.

By: davejay

davejay — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:05:27 -0800

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.

By: TwoWordReview

TwoWordReview — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:11:26 -0800

Nice work! I realise I haven't spent nearly enough time over at music in the last while so this is really neat, cheers!

By: gomichild

gomichild — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:12:48 -0800

Oooooooo interesting!

*lines up for Alvy's autograph*

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:26:36 -0800

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.

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:36:07 -0800

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!

By: mediareport

mediareport — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 21:18:53 -0800

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.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 22:18:38 -0800

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.

By: micayetoca

micayetoca — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 07:06:47 -0800

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.

By: micayetoca

micayetoca — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:21:01 -0800

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?

By: potch

potch — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:37:11 -0800

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..

By: potch

potch — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:38:12 -0800

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.

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:40:27 -0800

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.

By: potch

potch — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:44:51 -0800

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.

By: chococat

chococat — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:14:48 -0800

"Clean."

By: micayetoca

micayetoca — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:48:26 -0800

clean?

By: sparkletone

sparkletone — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:39:07 -0800

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.

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:47:45 -0800

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!

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:48:51 -0800

D'oh, "I kept my pants on while recording, hence the 'clean' label'."

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 12:07:42 -0800

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.

By: ORthey

ORthey — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 12:47:18 -0800

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.

By: sleepy pete

sleepy pete — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 13:16:32 -0800

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.

By: potch

potch — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 15:09:21 -0800

Submitted for your approval... Podcast Logo

By: chococat

chococat — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 15:22:53 -0800

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.

By: snsranch

snsranch — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 15:57:31 -0800

Way to go Alvy! Thanks for firing this up.

By: micayetoca

micayetoca — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:50:48 -0800

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).

By: snsranch

snsranch — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:45:18 -0800

micayetoca, that is a GREAT suggestion!