37: SongSmith comes before the hack January 26, 2009 6:59 PM Subscribe
With Matt on vacation in Hawaii, Josh cortex and jessamyn talk about SongSmith, Star Wars, whether or not anyone has actually read Wodehouse, and what the hell supermarkets are doing with bacon placement these days. This podcast was recorded Thursday, January 22nd, and runs just under an hour.
Helpful Links
Podcast Feed
Subscribe with iTunes
Direct mp3 download
Music Tracks
Bubble Bath Baby
Jimbo Jambo Rub-a-Dub-Dub
Harmonica Odyssey (and other bad SongSmith ideas)
Music
MeFi Songsmith thread
songsmith tag on music
Bandbox software
Did you say "banned in a box"?
Happy Slider T-shirt
Songsmith ad on YouTube
mrzarquon's Runnin-With-The-Songsmith
Projects
School of Hard Knocks (posted to MeFi)
Velociraptor Roulette (posted to MeFi)
Jobs
write me a letter
creepy photo retouching
MeFi
Blandings' Wodehouse
Growing up Star Wars
Svelte Young ColdChef
Asbestos McPinto's pic
Sestina Madness
Huge 17c/45 Spaceship in Conway's Life
questionable programming utilities
Ask
Animalstravaganza
Unanswered Ask questions
Askme Stumped
Name This Song, Please?
ReGenesis
Ice falling from buildings
Nerd Training
On Ghostbuster Nerddom
Music Talk
February is album-in-a-month month
Helpful Links
Podcast Feed
Subscribe with iTunes
Direct mp3 download
Music Tracks
Bubble Bath Baby
Jimbo Jambo Rub-a-Dub-Dub
Harmonica Odyssey (and other bad SongSmith ideas)
Music
MeFi Songsmith thread
songsmith tag on music
Bandbox software
Did you say "banned in a box"?
Happy Slider T-shirt
Songsmith ad on YouTube
mrzarquon's Runnin-With-The-Songsmith
Projects
School of Hard Knocks (posted to MeFi)
Velociraptor Roulette (posted to MeFi)
Jobs
write me a letter
creepy photo retouching
MeFi
Blandings' Wodehouse
Growing up Star Wars
Svelte Young ColdChef
Asbestos McPinto's pic
Sestina Madness
Huge 17c/45 Spaceship in Conway's Life
questionable programming utilities
Ask
Animalstravaganza
Unanswered Ask questions
Askme Stumped
Name This Song, Please?
ReGenesis
Ice falling from buildings
Nerd Training
On Ghostbuster Nerddom
Music Talk
February is album-in-a-month month
Note that at the time of the podcast, we had no idea what the fuck we were in for this last weekend.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:37 PM on January 26, 2009
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:37 PM on January 26, 2009
Brandon doesn't like it when Josh speaks of himself in the third person.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:53 PM on January 26, 2009
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:53 PM on January 26, 2009
Is it just me or is this like the chillest podcast ever?
posted by special-k at 7:54 PM on January 26, 2009
posted by special-k at 7:54 PM on January 26, 2009
Well, I've noticed that the outside air temperature has dropped 3 degrees since I started listening.
posted by pjern at 8:09 PM on January 26, 2009
posted by pjern at 8:09 PM on January 26, 2009
Animalstravaganza
*sigh*
Next up, the Molest-A-Thon!
posted by turgid dahlia at 8:10 PM on January 26, 2009
*sigh*
Next up, the Molest-A-Thon!
posted by turgid dahlia at 8:10 PM on January 26, 2009
The poor man has been trying to have a very nice vacation since a week before the site was hacked. Terrible timing.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:23 PM on January 26, 2009
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:23 PM on January 26, 2009
Who hasn't read Wodehouse???
posted by BrotherCaine at 8:24 PM on January 26, 2009
posted by BrotherCaine at 8:24 PM on January 26, 2009
Where's Matt? Home clearing brush?
Home DOS-ing Metafilter to see if his mods are on the ball.
posted by turgid dahlia at 8:24 PM on January 26, 2009
Home DOS-ing Metafilter to see if his mods are on the ball.
posted by turgid dahlia at 8:24 PM on January 26, 2009
I read one Wodehouse, once. He's like a poor man's Evelyn Waugh.
posted by turgid dahlia at 8:25 PM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by turgid dahlia at 8:25 PM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]
Obama really did change everything!
posted by blue_beetle at 8:33 PM on January 26, 2009
posted by blue_beetle at 8:33 PM on January 26, 2009
i've read Wodehouse dammit an' I'll spit in yer eye ifn yez has it differnt, yez clear?
posted by mwhybark at 9:03 PM on January 26, 2009
posted by mwhybark at 9:03 PM on January 26, 2009
in fact i've a right mind to read him agin, right this ver' moment, fer fuckis sake
posted by mwhybark at 9:04 PM on January 26, 2009
posted by mwhybark at 9:04 PM on January 26, 2009
The poor man has been trying to have a very nice vacation since a week before the site was hacked. Terrible timing.
When I saw the attack thread in MeTa Saturday morning, I knew he was screwed, and felt bad for him (and pb). I've been there several times. I don't know why those calls always come when I'm shitfaced and juuust falling asleep*. There's nothing worse than sobering up in an extremely well-lit, freezing data center with nowhere to sit and no end in sight.
* Ha, ha, yes I do.
posted by popechunk at 9:07 PM on January 26, 2009
When I saw the attack thread in MeTa Saturday morning, I knew he was screwed, and felt bad for him (and pb). I've been there several times. I don't know why those calls always come when I'm shitfaced and juuust falling asleep*. There's nothing worse than sobering up in an extremely well-lit, freezing data center with nowhere to sit and no end in sight.
* Ha, ha, yes I do.
posted by popechunk at 9:07 PM on January 26, 2009
Oh and your "aggle aggle" Calvin and Hobbes strip is on page 72 of Something Under the Bed is Drooling, page 201 of The Essential Calvin and Hobbes and page 42 of The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book.
posted by ND¢ at 9:23 PM on January 26, 2009
posted by ND¢ at 9:23 PM on January 26, 2009
Also, my baby is not potato-headed. She is awesome and loves Science!
posted by ND¢ at 9:30 PM on January 26, 2009
posted by ND¢ at 9:30 PM on January 26, 2009
Is cortex the last Cylon?
This joke is now out-of-date. Please resubmit. Thank you.
posted by crossoverman at 3:50 AM on January 27, 2009
This joke is now out-of-date. Please resubmit. Thank you.
posted by crossoverman at 3:50 AM on January 27, 2009
I can take Wodehouse. My wife loves him....but only if I read it to her. I don't even do the voices, so I don't know what her deal is.
posted by DU at 4:23 AM on January 27, 2009
posted by DU at 4:23 AM on January 27, 2009
Hey what's the song around the 39 minute mark? I tried to listen to the listed tracks, but they didn't sound the same (but my music player keeps cutting out, so maybe that's it)
posted by bluefly at 4:35 AM on January 27, 2009
posted by bluefly at 4:35 AM on January 27, 2009
DU: Like the King of Sweden you know what she's needin'.
posted by Dumsnill at 4:50 AM on January 27, 2009
posted by Dumsnill at 4:50 AM on January 27, 2009
This is not showing up in my iTunes feed.
Same here.
posted by popechunk at 4:53 AM on January 27, 2009
Same here.
posted by popechunk at 4:53 AM on January 27, 2009
Au contrare, plutor was photographed at the meetup! It's in my flickr photostream (which I can't link to right now because work blocks "file sharing sites").
posted by backseatpilot at 6:03 AM on January 27, 2009
posted by backseatpilot at 6:03 AM on January 27, 2009
My first podcast mention. Hugs all around.
I'm sorry that I've been the Meetup Slacker™ for the last few months. Here, let's plan one for a weekend when I'm available. Hm.. *flip* *flip* *flip* ...Uh.. *flip* *flip* .. How's September look for you?
posted by Plutor at 6:56 AM on January 27, 2009
I'm sorry that I've been the Meetup Slacker™ for the last few months. Here, let's plan one for a weekend when I'm available. Hm.. *flip* *flip* *flip* ...Uh.. *flip* *flip* .. How's September look for you?
posted by Plutor at 6:56 AM on January 27, 2009
This is not showing up in my iTunes feed.
It is entirely possible that I by some means or other screwed the pooch there. Matt did his best to convey the details of getting all the podcast upload/publish stuff over the phone, but he was calling from the exact windiest point on Hawaii and most of the conversation sounded like he was just whistling directly at his iPhone's mic.
Hey what's the song around the 39 minute mark?
That was Kill Me Now, Queen, one of my later SongSmith experiments when I was getting inspired by all the other on-tempo mixes people on the internet had been doing.
I wasn't originally expecting to make all the bumper music be SongSmith tunes, but after the hack on the site I couldn't easily get at Music and so browsing for some nice recent tunes was kind of shot. I hit pb up for a special fetch of the stuff I could remember -- Shambles' tunes, Runnin' with the Songsmith—and then just made do with my SongSmith stuff since I had local copies. Plus cgc373 hooked me up with an mp3 rip of the Roxanne mix on youtube.
Some random audio edit notes, while I'm at it:
This is the first time I've tried editing the podcast, and it was fun if also a little annoying in that Garageband Always Stops Just Short Of Featuredness way. You can't lock two different Garageband tracks together as far as I can tell, which means if you want to perform precisely the same crop to both of them you have to just, you know, do it twice and be really precise about it manually. That's some silly bullshit right there. So I took Jess's audio and mine, lined them up as best I could (more on this to follow), panned one a bit left and one a bit right to give it a stereo feel (this is more noticeable in headphones) so that when we talk over each other it's not quite as, you know, OVER each other, and mixed that down to a single track. One track, one set of edits, yay.
Lining the tracks up is a little tricky, because we're recording these things over Skype and lag on either end can vary. It's not a big problem, because we're talking about pretty small variances in latency, just probably 50-200 milliseconds most of the time, so it's not like we're doing an interview over a bad satellite connection. But both of our mics did pick up a bit of the other person's speech. Mine in particular got a fair amount of Jessamyn's in it. And so if you listen carefully, you can hear what sounds at times like a bit of reverb, and at other times like a distinct echo, of Jessamyn's voice in tinny miniature over on my side of the track.
Not a great big deal, but a little vexing—because the latency between us varied during the recording, there was no way to just line up Jessamyn Actual with Jessamyn Echo, because the echo kept shifting around! I got it close on average and left it at that, and next time maybe I'll try to adjust my headset better to keep audio from sneaking out of the cans.
On volume: I really like the improvement in overall volume consistency the podcasts have had since Matt started throwing the whole thing through Levelator, but I also really dislike the way it ends up inducing pumping during peak volume, especially on the bumper music because it tends to make that just sound like butt IMHO.
The better (but more fiddly) way to deal with this is to apply compression early, to each individual track that needs it. Now that I know my way around Garageband a little*, that was actually doable. I applied some compression to each of mine and Jess' original vocal tracks before I made the stereo mixdown above, and ended up I think throwing another compression pass at that stereo mixdown itself too (silly, I should have just done it right pre-mix, but not really a problem either). That got the vocals up nice and consistently loud from the getgo, which meant that the final mix didn't really need any compression itself—the bumper music was all already pretty reasonably mixed, so it was just a matter of adjusting relative volume for each of the music tracks and creating little fade-in, fade-out volume envelopes for each of those.
*Months ago I was always shouting at Matt, "Compression! Compression!" And he was all "How? How?" And I was all, "I don't know! Let me check it out in Garageband, there's gotta be, what the—I—what—why can't I right click on anyth—GODDAM STEVE JOBS—".
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:57 AM on January 27, 2009
It is entirely possible that I by some means or other screwed the pooch there. Matt did his best to convey the details of getting all the podcast upload/publish stuff over the phone, but he was calling from the exact windiest point on Hawaii and most of the conversation sounded like he was just whistling directly at his iPhone's mic.
Hey what's the song around the 39 minute mark?
That was Kill Me Now, Queen, one of my later SongSmith experiments when I was getting inspired by all the other on-tempo mixes people on the internet had been doing.
I wasn't originally expecting to make all the bumper music be SongSmith tunes, but after the hack on the site I couldn't easily get at Music and so browsing for some nice recent tunes was kind of shot. I hit pb up for a special fetch of the stuff I could remember -- Shambles' tunes, Runnin' with the Songsmith—and then just made do with my SongSmith stuff since I had local copies. Plus cgc373 hooked me up with an mp3 rip of the Roxanne mix on youtube.
Some random audio edit notes, while I'm at it:
This is the first time I've tried editing the podcast, and it was fun if also a little annoying in that Garageband Always Stops Just Short Of Featuredness way. You can't lock two different Garageband tracks together as far as I can tell, which means if you want to perform precisely the same crop to both of them you have to just, you know, do it twice and be really precise about it manually. That's some silly bullshit right there. So I took Jess's audio and mine, lined them up as best I could (more on this to follow), panned one a bit left and one a bit right to give it a stereo feel (this is more noticeable in headphones) so that when we talk over each other it's not quite as, you know, OVER each other, and mixed that down to a single track. One track, one set of edits, yay.
Lining the tracks up is a little tricky, because we're recording these things over Skype and lag on either end can vary. It's not a big problem, because we're talking about pretty small variances in latency, just probably 50-200 milliseconds most of the time, so it's not like we're doing an interview over a bad satellite connection. But both of our mics did pick up a bit of the other person's speech. Mine in particular got a fair amount of Jessamyn's in it. And so if you listen carefully, you can hear what sounds at times like a bit of reverb, and at other times like a distinct echo, of Jessamyn's voice in tinny miniature over on my side of the track.
Not a great big deal, but a little vexing—because the latency between us varied during the recording, there was no way to just line up Jessamyn Actual with Jessamyn Echo, because the echo kept shifting around! I got it close on average and left it at that, and next time maybe I'll try to adjust my headset better to keep audio from sneaking out of the cans.
On volume: I really like the improvement in overall volume consistency the podcasts have had since Matt started throwing the whole thing through Levelator, but I also really dislike the way it ends up inducing pumping during peak volume, especially on the bumper music because it tends to make that just sound like butt IMHO.
The better (but more fiddly) way to deal with this is to apply compression early, to each individual track that needs it. Now that I know my way around Garageband a little*, that was actually doable. I applied some compression to each of mine and Jess' original vocal tracks before I made the stereo mixdown above, and ended up I think throwing another compression pass at that stereo mixdown itself too (silly, I should have just done it right pre-mix, but not really a problem either). That got the vocals up nice and consistently loud from the getgo, which meant that the final mix didn't really need any compression itself—the bumper music was all already pretty reasonably mixed, so it was just a matter of adjusting relative volume for each of the music tracks and creating little fade-in, fade-out volume envelopes for each of those.
*Months ago I was always shouting at Matt, "Compression! Compression!" And he was all "How? How?" And I was all, "I don't know! Let me check it out in Garageband, there's gotta be, what the—I—what—why can't I right click on anyth—GODDAM STEVE JOBS—".
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:57 AM on January 27, 2009
cortex, sorry if you just answered this, but is it just me that found your voice VERY quiet at some points in there? I didn't have the volume super-high as I was listening while alone at work, but I had to pause and go back a few times.
Also, the 'sestina' pronunciation bit coincided with me gouging a lump out of my finger, and I had a good five-second pause of wondering if I really had to pause it and stop laughing long enough to find a plaster. Nice work.
posted by carbide at 8:12 AM on January 27, 2009
Also, the 'sestina' pronunciation bit coincided with me gouging a lump out of my finger, and I had a good five-second pause of wondering if I really had to pause it and stop laughing long enough to find a plaster. Nice work.
posted by carbide at 8:12 AM on January 27, 2009
Whatever happened to Adobe Audition, Josh? Also, are you guys using closed headphones?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:31 AM on January 27, 2009
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:31 AM on January 27, 2009
You can't lock two different Garageband tracks together as far as I can tell, which means if you want to perform precisely the same crop to both of them you have to just, you know, do it twice and be really precise about it manually.
Put the playbar cursor thing where you want to split the tracks, shift-click to highlight both tracks,
command-T to split'em.
"Compression! Compression!" And he was all "How? How?" And I was all, "I don't know! Let me check it out in Garageband, there's gotta be, what the—I—what—why can't I right click on anyth—GODDAM STEVE JOBS—".
Go to the "Track Info" window, click on "Details" and there's all kinds of compression, reverb, eq, effects, etc. They're limited, for sure, but they're there.
posted by chococat at 8:34 AM on January 27, 2009
Put the playbar cursor thing where you want to split the tracks, shift-click to highlight both tracks,
command-T to split'em.
"Compression! Compression!" And he was all "How? How?" And I was all, "I don't know! Let me check it out in Garageband, there's gotta be, what the—I—what—why can't I right click on anyth—GODDAM STEVE JOBS—".
Go to the "Track Info" window, click on "Details" and there's all kinds of compression, reverb, eq, effects, etc. They're limited, for sure, but they're there.
posted by chococat at 8:34 AM on January 27, 2009
Put the playbar cursor thing where you want to split the tracks, shift-click to highlight both tracks, command-T to split'em.
Yes, but then shift them left or right to accommodate the edit, which means making sure either both are selected and thus shift with one drag (does Garageband support this? I'd guess so but don't think I've tried recently), or manually drag each one to the new point. Repeat for 10-20 edits if you're keeping it simple. Curse every time a misclick gets in the way.
Curse some more because even at Garagaband's max zoom doesn't come close to letting you look at (and select over) an hour of track time in one window.
I want to find out that all these kvetches are groundless, so if there's a "Garageband isn't intentionally weaksauce on a lot of details that it appears to be" manual out there, let me know. I've definitely gotten more comfortable with it over the last few months, but for all that I can't escape the feeling that they really would like folks like me to shell out for Logic or whatever and are doing their best to try and make that happen.
Go to the "Track Info" window, click on "Details"
Yeah, solid on that at this point—the frenzied cursing in footnote was back when I first started using it. We're getting along better these days.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:43 AM on January 27, 2009
Yes, but then shift them left or right to accommodate the edit, which means making sure either both are selected and thus shift with one drag (does Garageband support this? I'd guess so but don't think I've tried recently), or manually drag each one to the new point. Repeat for 10-20 edits if you're keeping it simple. Curse every time a misclick gets in the way.
Curse some more because even at Garagaband's max zoom doesn't come close to letting you look at (and select over) an hour of track time in one window.
I want to find out that all these kvetches are groundless, so if there's a "Garageband isn't intentionally weaksauce on a lot of details that it appears to be" manual out there, let me know. I've definitely gotten more comfortable with it over the last few months, but for all that I can't escape the feeling that they really would like folks like me to shell out for Logic or whatever and are doing their best to try and make that happen.
Go to the "Track Info" window, click on "Details"
Yeah, solid on that at this point—the frenzied cursing in footnote was back when I first started using it. We're getting along better these days.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:43 AM on January 27, 2009
is it just me that found your voice VERY quiet at some points in there?
I was actually pretty low-energy on Thursday for whatever reason, and I think I was just really damned quiet at times. The compression helped a lot with balancing it out, but I might have mixed myself a little too low regardless? I dunno, first time out behind the mixing board as it were, feedback is always useful.
Whatever happened to Adobe Audition, Josh?
I still use it sometimes, but the outright convenience of Garageband on the macbook has been keeping my attention lately, complaints aside. It's also a platform that me and Matt and Jess can all pass around easily should we need to do so. So it's kind of a natural for the podcast.
Also, are you guys using closed headphones?
I am, I would guess Jessamyn is too, pretty sure Matt does as well. I think I was either wearing mine sloppily or they just don't seal well on my ears—it's a fairly inexpensive USB set, I may just invest in something a little nicer some time in the future.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:50 AM on January 27, 2009
I was actually pretty low-energy on Thursday for whatever reason, and I think I was just really damned quiet at times. The compression helped a lot with balancing it out, but I might have mixed myself a little too low regardless? I dunno, first time out behind the mixing board as it were, feedback is always useful.
Whatever happened to Adobe Audition, Josh?
I still use it sometimes, but the outright convenience of Garageband on the macbook has been keeping my attention lately, complaints aside. It's also a platform that me and Matt and Jess can all pass around easily should we need to do so. So it's kind of a natural for the podcast.
Also, are you guys using closed headphones?
I am, I would guess Jessamyn is too, pretty sure Matt does as well. I think I was either wearing mine sloppily or they just don't seal well on my ears—it's a fairly inexpensive USB set, I may just invest in something a little nicer some time in the future.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:50 AM on January 27, 2009
I read one Wodehouse, once. He's like a poor man's Evelyn Waugh.
No.
If you have read only one novel, I can forgive your ignorance, but Wodehouse is not a poor man's anything. He was a tremendously gifted writer, an exceptional prose stylist whose genius was in whipping up humorous soufflés. It is easy to mistake his slight subjects and farcical plots as a lack of content, yet his work has long been revered for its richness of language. Any one of Wodehouse's stories contains an astonishing variety of vocabulary, a capacity for literary allusion to satisfy the most intellectual of tastes, a wealth of witty dialogue, and an unsurpassed talent for simile. He has many fans in the loftiest reaches of literary study6, and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oxford University in 1939.
Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by modern writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett.
If you want to read something but are not sure where to start, "Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend" which Rudyard Kipling (and many others) said was an example of the perfect short story.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 9:08 AM on January 27, 2009 [4 favorites]
No.
If you have read only one novel, I can forgive your ignorance, but Wodehouse is not a poor man's anything. He was a tremendously gifted writer, an exceptional prose stylist whose genius was in whipping up humorous soufflés. It is easy to mistake his slight subjects and farcical plots as a lack of content, yet his work has long been revered for its richness of language. Any one of Wodehouse's stories contains an astonishing variety of vocabulary, a capacity for literary allusion to satisfy the most intellectual of tastes, a wealth of witty dialogue, and an unsurpassed talent for simile. He has many fans in the loftiest reaches of literary study6, and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oxford University in 1939.
Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by modern writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett.
If you want to read something but are not sure where to start, "Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend" which Rudyard Kipling (and many others) said was an example of the perfect short story.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 9:08 AM on January 27, 2009 [4 favorites]
The Sennheiser HD-202, or its successor EH-150, is very inexpensive, comfortable and shuts out the world. Don't mix anything on it however -- it's delightfully bottom-heavy. I'm on my third pair (pretty heavy use, of course). I bend the frame inward a little every couple of months to preserve the fit/seal. (I have no affiliation with Sennheiser.)
(Substitute something American for the link, Musician's Friend or what have you)
I wonder to what extent an audio app deserves the "convenient" label when it engages in such crimes against the universe as not allowing multitrack splices. But then I am a difficult customer.
Also, why would you need a "platform"? As long as it's just standard PCM WAV/AIF you can just shuttle around material to your hearts' delight, no?
These are just my unprompted know-it-all two cents of course -- I was just a bit surprised.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:12 AM on January 27, 2009
(Substitute something American for the link, Musician's Friend or what have you)
I wonder to what extent an audio app deserves the "convenient" label when it engages in such crimes against the universe as not allowing multitrack splices. But then I am a difficult customer.
Also, why would you need a "platform"? As long as it's just standard PCM WAV/AIF you can just shuttle around material to your hearts' delight, no?
These are just my unprompted know-it-all two cents of course -- I was just a bit surprised.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:12 AM on January 27, 2009
Plus it was like Patwick Swayze's best movie ever.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:12 AM on January 27, 2009
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:12 AM on January 27, 2009
Yes, but then shift them left or right to accommodate the edit, which means making sure either both are selected and thus shift with one drag (does Garageband support this? I'd guess so but don't think I've tried recently), or manually drag each one to the new point.
Ya, you can move several regions at once. You can drag and shift all 10 or 20 edits at once to shift them, if you want, and if I'm getting what you mean.
For giant, long projects I usually divide them in half and split the second half onto a new track underneath so you're not constantly scrolling and can zoom in closer for more precise edits.
Not a Garageband apologist (I mostly use CuBase) and ya, it's limited in a lot of ways. Pretty good for quick and dirty stuff, though, and the price is good.
posted by chococat at 9:13 AM on January 27, 2009
Ya, you can move several regions at once. You can drag and shift all 10 or 20 edits at once to shift them, if you want, and if I'm getting what you mean.
For giant, long projects I usually divide them in half and split the second half onto a new track underneath so you're not constantly scrolling and can zoom in closer for more precise edits.
Not a Garageband apologist (I mostly use CuBase) and ya, it's limited in a lot of ways. Pretty good for quick and dirty stuff, though, and the price is good.
posted by chococat at 9:13 AM on January 27, 2009
Also, why would you need a "platform"?
Anyone who wants to help "simplify" the process by doing the mixing, fine tuning and uploading themselves and turning it around over a weekend when the site has been hacked [or any other weekend] is more than welcome to volunteer.
I use a decent but not great Logitech headset which works okay for me.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:25 AM on January 27, 2009
Anyone who wants to help "simplify" the process by doing the mixing, fine tuning and uploading themselves and turning it around over a weekend when the site has been hacked [or any other weekend] is more than welcome to volunteer.
I use a decent but not great Logitech headset which works okay for me.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:25 AM on January 27, 2009
Thanks for mentioning my post... PHILISTINES. And it's "WOOD-house."
posted by languagehat at 9:29 AM on January 27, 2009
posted by languagehat at 9:29 AM on January 27, 2009
jessamyn, you misunderstand. I meant that Josh seemed to imply that somehow the two(/three) of you need to use the same application - I was just wondering why.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:43 AM on January 27, 2009
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:43 AM on January 27, 2009
Ah, not necessarily need so much as potentially useful. Matt and I have talked about throwing the project back and forth in the past to split up editing, and while a bounce out to mix for the handoff would be a reasonable compromise method for getting across an application gap, that would really kneecap some of the flexibility in the handoff.
Speculative at best, just part of the picture in my mind.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:48 AM on January 27, 2009
Speculative at best, just part of the picture in my mind.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:48 AM on January 27, 2009
I was just wondering why.
Sorry, just sounded a lot like "get a mac/pc" The more we can routinize getting the podcast out the door with the fewest possible steps, the more likely it will be that we'll have a regular podcast.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:10 AM on January 27, 2009
Sorry, just sounded a lot like "get a mac/pc" The more we can routinize getting the podcast out the door with the fewest possible steps, the more likely it will be that we'll have a regular podcast.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:10 AM on January 27, 2009
I listen on headphones, so I noticed the new stereo separation immediately. Thanks!
I prefer Levelator to level compression because it helps when someone gets quieter toward the end of the sentence, then even quieter, or louder, without fiddling with levels. I don't have the time, but jessamyn wandered off near the end of one sentence... But yeah, it's not good for already mixed music.
If you're worried about the echo, you could look into noise gate, or just gate, depending on what you're using. Below a certain sound level, it cuts off the mic.
Hm. I might have Garage Band. I'll check.
You got "sestina" right (sez-TEE-nuh) but not "automata" - it's ought-AH-muh-TAH.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:18 AM on January 27, 2009
I prefer Levelator to level compression because it helps when someone gets quieter toward the end of the sentence, then even quieter, or louder, without fiddling with levels. I don't have the time, but jessamyn wandered off near the end of one sentence... But yeah, it's not good for already mixed music.
If you're worried about the echo, you could look into noise gate, or just gate, depending on what you're using. Below a certain sound level, it cuts off the mic.
Hm. I might have Garage Band. I'll check.
You got "sestina" right (sez-TEE-nuh) but not "automata" - it's ought-AH-muh-TAH.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:18 AM on January 27, 2009
Oh, & my one-word description of this podcast is "discursive." It was fun.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:20 AM on January 27, 2009
posted by Pronoiac at 11:20 AM on January 27, 2009
It's actually ses-TEE-nuh (not "sez") and aw-TAH-muh-tuh (not "-TAH").
posted by languagehat at 11:22 AM on January 27, 2009
posted by languagehat at 11:22 AM on January 27, 2009
Didn't occur to me to try and gate out the echo, yeah. That's a good idea should it come up in the future.
And yeah, Levelating the raw vocal tracks would be a good step one. I considered trying to work a peak limiter into the effects chain initially but didn't get around to bothering with it.
I never get "automata" right. I even know how to say it right, and know I'm saying it wrong every time I say it, but I can't seem to get the horse back in front of the cart on that one.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:24 AM on January 27, 2009
And yeah, Levelating the raw vocal tracks would be a good step one. I considered trying to work a peak limiter into the effects chain initially but didn't get around to bothering with it.
I never get "automata" right. I even know how to say it right, and know I'm saying it wrong every time I say it, but I can't seem to get the horse back in front of the cart on that one.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:24 AM on January 27, 2009
The Velociraptor Roulette request here and here.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:35 AM on January 27, 2009
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:35 AM on January 27, 2009
I was actually pretty low-energy on Thursday for whatever reason, and I think I was just really damned quiet at times. The compression helped a lot with balancing it out, but I might have mixed myself a little too low regardless? I dunno, first time out behind the mixing board as it were, feedback is always useful.
Cool, I hope I didn't sound too critical. I've just transcribed a long interview tape which was an essay in the uselessness of my muttery, high-to-low speech patterns in recording, so I am not remotely intending to throw stones. It also might totally just be me keeping the player at safe-for-phone-answering volume.
posted by carbide at 11:48 AM on January 27, 2009
Cool, I hope I didn't sound too critical. I've just transcribed a long interview tape which was an essay in the uselessness of my muttery, high-to-low speech patterns in recording, so I am not remotely intending to throw stones. It also might totally just be me keeping the player at safe-for-phone-answering volume.
posted by carbide at 11:48 AM on January 27, 2009
Ya, you can move several regions at once.
Thank God, I was perplexed for a moment there that GB wouldn't support such a basic thing in any sort of way.
The more we can routinize getting the podcast out the door with the fewest possible steps, the more likely it will be that we'll have a regular podcast.
I hear you. Then again, Josh and I are used to shooting the breeze somewhat over audio recording gear and techniques, so there's that. And I know this is all unsolicited advice and all, me I just like listening to the podcast, think it basically sounds fine and appreciate you guys taking the time to do this. But know that when someone mentions something like "there's this technical thing in the audio procedure that bugs me" I instantly slip into insurance-salesman-at-party mode, and I can't stop talking.
So in that vein, if I'd rule the world here's how I'd do it:
1) Everyone uses fully closed cans, not semi-opens.
2) Everyone uses a USB condenser mic so it can be physically separated from the headphones somewhat. Conversely, use dynamic mics which pick up a lot less spill, but then you have to eat them like an ice cream.
3) Everyone records only their own input. If at all possible, one person also records their Skype output (ensemble) as a safety. Run your own sound check by speaking loudly and record at -10 dBFS peak or so to leave a bit of headroom.
4) Every recording is bookended by one person calmly, steadily counting to ten with the rest joining in. It's a silly ritual, but it really helps take the sting out of any necessary sync-up.
5) After recording, everyone sends out their recording as a nicely application-agnostic WAV or AIFF file (or a 320kbps MP3 if absolutely necessary) to whoever's mixing.
6) Import all, line up starts, conform durations if necessary (Time Warp is really handy for this in Cubase, elsewhere just use a calculator and your version of "time compress/expand"), check against ends.
7) Give everyone a bit of 2:1 compression with a low threshold, slow attack, medium release, adjust to taste. Gate if necessary (but not as abruptly as Skype does natively, by Thor!). Gating before compression.
8) Mild panning as Josh mentioned helps open up the soundstage. If you have a nice reverb you can add a pinch of early reflections on the master buss, but only if the tracks are very dry on their own (i.e. especially when using dynamic mics), and even then add only a very little amount. Adjust gain for roughly equal loudness.
9) Brickwall-limit the master buss: peak at -0.1 dBFS, reduction by maybe 6 dB peak, but maybe a lot further than that. (A big reason people keep clamoring for compression is not just the need to turn the volume up: thing is when the podcast ends and you put on your favourite Nickelback mp3s again, you forget the volume was up and tend to hurt your ears.)
10) Dither (if you want to get fancy), export, encode, do a spot check, upload.
If that is unfeasibly complicated I understand. It's not really advice after all, really -- just how I'd do it if I were king of the Internets.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 12:09 PM on January 27, 2009 [1 favorite]
Thank God, I was perplexed for a moment there that GB wouldn't support such a basic thing in any sort of way.
The more we can routinize getting the podcast out the door with the fewest possible steps, the more likely it will be that we'll have a regular podcast.
I hear you. Then again, Josh and I are used to shooting the breeze somewhat over audio recording gear and techniques, so there's that. And I know this is all unsolicited advice and all, me I just like listening to the podcast, think it basically sounds fine and appreciate you guys taking the time to do this. But know that when someone mentions something like "there's this technical thing in the audio procedure that bugs me" I instantly slip into insurance-salesman-at-party mode, and I can't stop talking.
So in that vein, if I'd rule the world here's how I'd do it:
1) Everyone uses fully closed cans, not semi-opens.
2) Everyone uses a USB condenser mic so it can be physically separated from the headphones somewhat. Conversely, use dynamic mics which pick up a lot less spill, but then you have to eat them like an ice cream.
3) Everyone records only their own input. If at all possible, one person also records their Skype output (ensemble) as a safety. Run your own sound check by speaking loudly and record at -10 dBFS peak or so to leave a bit of headroom.
4) Every recording is bookended by one person calmly, steadily counting to ten with the rest joining in. It's a silly ritual, but it really helps take the sting out of any necessary sync-up.
5) After recording, everyone sends out their recording as a nicely application-agnostic WAV or AIFF file (or a 320kbps MP3 if absolutely necessary) to whoever's mixing.
6) Import all, line up starts, conform durations if necessary (Time Warp is really handy for this in Cubase, elsewhere just use a calculator and your version of "time compress/expand"), check against ends.
7) Give everyone a bit of 2:1 compression with a low threshold, slow attack, medium release, adjust to taste. Gate if necessary (but not as abruptly as Skype does natively, by Thor!). Gating before compression.
8) Mild panning as Josh mentioned helps open up the soundstage. If you have a nice reverb you can add a pinch of early reflections on the master buss, but only if the tracks are very dry on their own (i.e. especially when using dynamic mics), and even then add only a very little amount. Adjust gain for roughly equal loudness.
9) Brickwall-limit the master buss: peak at -0.1 dBFS, reduction by maybe 6 dB peak, but maybe a lot further than that. (A big reason people keep clamoring for compression is not just the need to turn the volume up: thing is when the podcast ends and you put on your favourite Nickelback mp3s again, you forget the volume was up and tend to hurt your ears.)
10) Dither (if you want to get fancy), export, encode, do a spot check, upload.
If that is unfeasibly complicated I understand. It's not really advice after all, really -- just how I'd do it if I were king of the Internets.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 12:09 PM on January 27, 2009 [1 favorite]
Does GB support VST? There might be a decent freeware brick limiter plugin somewhere, I'd be happy to keep my eyes open for one.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 12:12 PM on January 27, 2009
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 12:12 PM on January 27, 2009
languagehat, see, I looked up the pronunciation, but I didn't want to actually look up every strange symbol there. I'm not surprised that I goofed up as I nerded out. At least I didn't put "sez Tina." On preview: Well, my nerdery is completely eclipsed. Hey gfnti, is there anything to be said for delaying one side, like, half a ms in addition to the panning to help with placing voices?
posted by Pronoiac at 12:19 PM on January 27, 2009
posted by Pronoiac at 12:19 PM on January 27, 2009
Oh! The player doesn't come up at full volume. Turning that up might help, people.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:55 PM on January 27, 2009
posted by Pronoiac at 12:55 PM on January 27, 2009
If that is unfeasibly complicated I understand.
I'm just going to assume this is satire and move on....
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:18 PM on January 27, 2009
I'm just going to assume this is satire and move on....
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:18 PM on January 27, 2009
If that is unfeasibly complicated I understand.
Heh. It might be pushing it a skosh, yeah, but we can chatter via email some more if you want to keep nerding out.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:35 PM on January 27, 2009
Heh. It might be pushing it a skosh, yeah, but we can chatter via email some more if you want to keep nerding out.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:35 PM on January 27, 2009
If you thought the Coldfusion error was shitty punishment for deleting a comment, wait til you see what happens when you delete my next post.
posted by gman at 2:25 PM on January 27, 2009
posted by gman at 2:25 PM on January 27, 2009
Total nerd-out, fo sho. Though if I can help out for real in any way, no problem. I'll shut up for now, yes.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 2:42 PM on January 27, 2009
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 2:42 PM on January 27, 2009
You know, "Chatfilter" would be a much better title for this episode.
posted by Pronoiac at 3:18 PM on January 27, 2009
posted by Pronoiac at 3:18 PM on January 27, 2009
I finally got around to listening to this. Thanks Jessamyn, that was a super cool shout out.
posted by The Straightener at 5:26 PM on January 27, 2009
posted by The Straightener at 5:26 PM on January 27, 2009
There is no cooler shoutout than one accompanied by inane, inappropriate laughter from an interlocutor.
I learned this from watching The Wire.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:46 PM on January 27, 2009
I learned this from watching The Wire.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:46 PM on January 27, 2009
I used Levelator & mixed in the original episode mp3 for the songs: episode 37, louder. The volume drops during the switch because I'm lazy I wanted to get this out quickly.
posted by Pronoiac at 8:37 PM on January 27, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by Pronoiac at 8:37 PM on January 27, 2009 [1 favorite]
languagehat: It's actually ses-TEE-nuh (not "sez") and aw-TAH-muh-tuh (not "-TAH").
I say aw-tuh-MAY-tuh. Let's call the whole thing off.
posted by not_on_display at 11:02 PM on January 27, 2009 [1 favorite]
I say aw-tuh-MAY-tuh. Let's call the whole thing off.
posted by not_on_display at 11:02 PM on January 27, 2009 [1 favorite]
And Wodehouse is pronounced Woodhouse, not Woahdhouse. If anyone's interested.
posted by Grangousier at 8:40 AM on January 28, 2009
posted by Grangousier at 8:40 AM on January 28, 2009
My indifference is pronounced.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 8:46 AM on January 28, 2009
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 8:46 AM on January 28, 2009
If "It's" not what I think it is.... ahhhhhhhh
posted by zengargoyle at 4:25 PM on January 28, 2009
posted by zengargoyle at 4:25 PM on January 28, 2009
Grmph. A micro-shout-out to the Alien thread but no link?
posted by Artw at 5:14 PM on January 30, 2009
posted by Artw at 5:14 PM on January 30, 2009
Oh man, Artw, I was thinking we'd shouted it out properly a couple podcasts back, with link and everything. I guess it got lost in the Best Post shuffle or something.
THIS ALIENS THREAD WAS GREAT, EVERYBODY.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:31 AM on January 31, 2009
THIS ALIENS THREAD WAS GREAT, EVERYBODY.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:31 AM on January 31, 2009
Contests are wonderful and change is great and everyone on MeFi is absolutely wonderful and deserves kudos and recognition and love and puppies and flower and ponies and airtime and everything, but...
The MetaFilter Podcaaaaaaaaaaaast Song is coming back, right? RIGHT?
Because it's my favourite song ever. Seriously. I sing it freakishly often and the dog enjoys it, too.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:06 PM on February 14, 2009
The MetaFilter Podcaaaaaaaaaaaast Song is coming back, right? RIGHT?
Because it's my favourite song ever. Seriously. I sing it freakishly often and the dog enjoys it, too.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:06 PM on February 14, 2009
The songsmith podcast theme was definitely a one-time thing, yeah. Though I feel weird about the original theme now that I'm doing the podcast too—all pointedly not introducing myself and shit, it's odd.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:14 PM on February 14, 2009
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:14 PM on February 14, 2009
But I don't care how you feel. I care how I feel. So that's OK then.
I suppose you could always re-record it EXACTLY THE SAME but with one more "Welcome!" verse. It would take me a podcast or two to get used to but would not require a medication change, so I could live with that.
posted by DarlingBri at 10:29 AM on February 15, 2009
I suppose you could always re-record it EXACTLY THE SAME but with one more "Welcome!" verse. It would take me a podcast or two to get used to but would not require a medication change, so I could live with that.
posted by DarlingBri at 10:29 AM on February 15, 2009
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posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 7:27 PM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]