WebKittyn Warbles
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Confessions of a (non)Podcasting Moron. (Warning: Long)
Up for a story? It's not a long story but it's a tale of frustration, determination and woe. Much woe. Come, sit. Have a doughnut and a mug of grog and hear a tale of woe.
Allow me to provide a short bit of background for those who don't really know me. I am anal. Yes, yes I am. I am a perfectionist who can be driven crazy by the smallest flaw in my vision. I have been known to sit down with a project and remain sitting there at it for way too long. Trying to get a footer just perfect on a client's forums becomes a 13 hour event with no breaks except the quick trip to the bathroom. 16 hours straight on an area for the MUD and that's only descs.
My personal life may be a constant exercise in perpetual bad decisions but when it comes to anything 'work' related, I turn into this obsessive anal nutcase. Certifiable.
And I rage, oh how I rage. I am Irish/Finnish/Russian/Romanian and I am my father's daughter (he's the Irish/Finnish half). It doesn't really mean anything but if something isn't working for me, I rage. I lose all memory of 13 years of private school and I morph into a screeching, whining, crying, evil, pox-wishing shrew. Yes, shrew. Luckily Gotard has learned how to pat me on the head and 'there there' me enough that I shush. It's never rage directed at people, I don't take anything out on people but (for example) Movable Type has been called some miiiiiiighty funky things more than once. It's actually funny in a sick 'laugh at the moron' sort of way.
(points to the door - there's more inside. Bring some more grog.) The plus side to my obsessive-anal-ness is when I'm done it's usually pretty farkin' impressive. The above-mentioned forums with the 13 hour footer remain to this day the best bit of forum design I've done (even if the footer was removed but that's another story). Blogs of Roleplay is up to 258 blogs so I must have done something good there. The MUD, while not bulging with 50 players on the who list at once, has been around 6 years and is a high-quality thing. The end result of my insanity is usually better than what was expected.
I don't deal well with things that make me feel stupid. I'm not a rocket scientist but I'm pretty smart. When I first started my love affair with Movable Type it was the most volatile relationship I have ever had. I saw this amazing program that could do anything but I just did not have the know how and it was painfully frustrating. While I don't claim to be close to an expert now, there isn't much I can't make Movable Type do and I would never use anything else (and this from a person with a commercial license for expression engine).
I signed up to be a part of Mango Radio. That would explain the new category. I'm the new kid on the block in a group of people who are familiar with each other (I have no idea if any of them know each other or not). I ran into some people in a corner of the 'net and there was instant rapport. Not anything hokey or cyber sex-ish, nothing like that. But it's pretty awesome to accidentally stumble across people who are as sarcastic, bright, witty and twisted as you are, ya know?
I've got my talkradio experiences, I have a ton of 80s music and memories. I have a decent broadcasting voice (even if I still sound a bit manly from the bronchitis). I have some semblance of a personality and some great ideas of what I could do to make my part of Mango Radio a quality thing.
Immediately my overall philosophy kicks in. I have to produce something good. I understand this isn't WABC but I, more than a lot of people, understand how strange things happen on the net. One day you're just a blog, the next day you're Matt Drudge and have your own show on Fox News and a serious website. I had people look down their noses at me when I bowed out of financial stability and corporate America to try and follow my visions and do it for myself (which I still have yet to achieve but I get closer). How many Sirius station runners started out on net radio, how many one-time talkradio stars are now on net radio.. It's the next step.
I don't know Mango. I don't know why he's doing this or how serious he is about it or what. I know there was a personality click and he's cool to talk to because he's not looking for love or cyber sex. I can tell he likes things well done, he's got a wiki tiki tavi going on that really impresses me.
So I want this to be good. I want to give to him for his project the same level of quality I get from the staff on the MUD, from the Seal with my server and MT. I want to give what I expect to get, it's just the work ethic I have bred into me.
So I have all of this. What I don't have is a bloody fucken' clue.
I shoutcast. I have shoutcast on this domain and I've streamed for people before. I know what podcasts are from seeing them all over and being up on the latest trends but it's a superficial knowledge.
Yesterday, 10:15 AM. Sit down at computer and begin research on coming up with a 'radio show.'
11-ish: Get on MUD, ask the Seal. Discover Audacity. Download and install Audacity and the lame ripper thinger.
I dove into deciding what songs to use off the playlist. When I figured the songs out, I made a new playlist of the selected songs to try and come up with some sense of playing order.
Then I broke the songs down into blocks in word pad and thought out where I wanted clips of me talking. End result - a tight little outline of what I anticipated to be good.
It was somewhere between 1 and 2 when that was done. Next step, I imported all the songs (19) into Audacity. So far, so good.
Then I went to record the first talk clip. I sounded like a moron. Ok, first attempt is allowed to sound bad..... 9 attempts later I was boggling at how freakin' impossible a simple 45 second clip was and that I was actually having problems talking?!?!? What the..
By the 16th attempt I decided I liked it. Imported it to Audacity and moved everything around so it was in order. I wanted to see how things sounded so I hit play.
What the bloody friggin HELL is this!?!?!?!!?!?
It was 19 songs and one audio file all going at the same time, that's what it was. One bashing cacophony of sounds never meant to be joined together in an orgiastic musical frenzy.
At this point Senor Seal explained to me that Audacity is not a live streaming sort of thing. You have to take each clip (song or voice clip) and manually set it at the end of the one before it. It has a shitload of effects you can add in if you know what the hell you're doing.
It's now somewhere around 4 and I'm starting to twitch. This is just like Gotard's music programs and laying tracks. This is something I've never done before and man does it show.. Can we say 'oy,' boys and girls?
By 7 I had 3 voice clips set and lined up with 5 songs. 22 minutes and 39 seconds. All nicely lined up with a pithy fade and music over the voice in a few places. It actually wasn't bad..
Time to export as MP3, what do you mean 18 minutes?!?
Load in up in winamp with great expectations and GAHHHHHHHH, who the hell is that tinny person talking into a can!?? Oh hell no, do this over.
What followed was re-encode after re-encode after re-encode. I was in my little zone where I wasn't talking to anyone, there was no life outside this tenth circle of Hell I had found. My initial file was called manrad.mp3, by the time I realised I was perma-screwed it was .............. 12:14 AM.
14 hours and 14 minutes had just gone by and what did I have? 22 minutes and 39 seconds of good intentions and horrific tinny audio. My manrad was now up to manrad13 (and that's with each one taking 12-18 minutes to re-encode).
As I wiped the drool off my chin, the Gotard delivered his analysis.. The mic I was using was just crap. There was no way to clean it with effects, you can't make porcelain out of shit.
At this point I was wondering if it was time to gracefully bow out and accept that I was beaten by an evil force stronger than I. The pity party lasted about 15 minutes.
Gotard rose to the occasion, I give credit where it is due. This is his area, he was the professional DJ and he's the musician. He told me he would get an adapter for his real-deal Shure mic that would take care of the echo in the tin can sound. He offered a few suggestions on how to make the talk sound more even. He volunteered to help with the placing of the tracks if I couldn't find a kinder way to do it. Of course there will be quid pro quo, Clarice. In learning this I can use his programs for his music as well but that's fair.
I spent the next hour until 2 whining about how ungodly stupid it is that I can't just do it in realtime. Why the hell can't a person do something like shoutcast where they talk, play, talk, play play play, talk and record it???? He patted my head, said 'there there' and stuck a three musketeers in my mouth to quiet me.
Ended up watching live Gaza coverage until almost 7 this morning, woke up and realised I accomplished nothing yesterday.
One person told me it was 'fine' and I should go with it. Problem is, 'fine' isn't enough. I don't get 'fine' from the ToDers, I've never known how to give 'fine' and call it enough. If I wouldn't use it for myself, I'm sure as hell not going to offer it up to someone else for use in their vision.
Woke up too damn early, 9:20. My head hurts and my mind is ooze.
Gotard showed up around 1:30 with a blessed turtle latte and bagel from Dunkin and lo and behold he actually GOT the mic adapter. He can crawl behind the machine when he gets home later.
This is usually the point where someone says "hey kittyn, didn't you know you can just use
I will beat this.
I will figure it out or find the right program and I will come up with quality product. I've got the iron clad will now and those in my circle know there will be no peace or talk of anything else until I have this working how I want it.
I may be the new kid but I catch on quick and I'm not new to radio. Give me a month, you'll see something good.
For now, I'm going to sleep. I'm bloody exhausted and until he either sets the mic up or someone suggests a better way of doing this, I am at a welcomed momentary standstill which I shall take as a message from somewhere that it's time to sleep and re-charge. I beat Movable Type, I'm not going under to podcasting.
I would also love any suggestions anyone who actually makes it to the end of this warble might have. Please, share your software suggestions. I don't mind paying for/registering a program if there is one that lets you stream and record and convert.
I have a good feel off of this, I think he can take it somewhere. Just needs more than DJs talking into tin cans with poorly orchestrated mixes!
Oy. Oy, I said. OY.
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Wish I had any kind of help for you, but you know me and my opinion of my voice, radio is the last place you will find me and I hate microphones almost as much as I hate cameras. But I do wish you all the luck in the world, and I KNOW you can do this, will do this, and will excel at this in less than the month you say to give you.
on 08/18 at 06:16 PM -
Oy, that sounds like a massive issue to me. I would be just as confused and confounded as you. I completely understand your want to have it a certain way, yer a woman of vision, you want these things to match your image of them. It’s an excellent drive but definitely exhausting.
After seeing you go through the weblog setup, mud administration, MT, Forums, the original opensource scariness from Livejournal, I have NO doubt you will kick this thing in the proverbial buttocks.
I wanna hear!
Navarre on 08/18 at 06:52 PM -
I haqve no clue, and once you figure it out, I want to know how. I’ve been dreaming of some podcasts, just to play with it… but alas, audacity beat me.
Good luck!
Autumn on 08/18 at 08:08 PM -
It just looks hard. By the time I saw her at the station, it looked like she had the basics down. It was the sound that wasn’t up to par. I have great confidence she will shine. She’s got the monkey work aspect pretty well practised from the trial and error. We’ll see after Scotty rigs the warp engines for optimal performance.
Darkstar on 08/18 at 08:56 PM -
I used audacity for the shitty radio show.
I’m very anal myself.
I liked the way I could control the way the clips started and ended. It took my several hours to produce 45 minutes of audio.
My mic sucked so the voice is tinny on that one.
I got a new mic(not great but better) and now I can record the vioce parts straight into audacity. Its going pretty good.
If I can help, let me know.
I won’t be online much for the next few days, but shoot me an email, if you need anyhting.
And remember, whatever you put together will sound better than the Shitty Blogs Radio Show.
jeckles on 08/19 at 09:39 PM
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