KATG Listener PODCASTS

[brianward81]

Thanks Dah, I'll definitely check that out!

[hayroob]

If you get a good plugin for doing multiband compression and limiting you can punch up your voice tracks to match your music and then it's just some quick mixing to get to a nice balanced sound. When you really hammer into it with compression or even levelator you get a lot of bizarre perceived volume issues. The compressor will want to bring the loudest parts down and the lightest parts up and you'll get kick drum hits that sound the same as toms. Basically it just gets all muddy and no good. Compression isn't a big issue on voice only podcasts, but with music it definitely hurts to over do it.

Only caveat is I have no idea what kind of plugins audacity plays well with because using it makes me want to put a fork in my eye

[orion549]

Hey, I just set up a dedicated blog page for my podcast here. Please leave comments there! I noticed the last one got 10 downloads, thanx for those who listened!! I think that's pretty good for a first podcast! I'm starting to record a new one today, so hopefully I will have it up by this weekend!

[shoogbear63]

Originally Posted by hayroob

If you get a good plugin for doing multiband compression and limiting you can punch up your voice tracks to match your music and then it's just some quick mixing to get to a nice balanced sound. When you really hammer into it with compression or even levelator you get a lot of bizarre perceived volume issues. The compressor will want to bring the loudest parts down and the lightest parts up and you'll get kick drum hits that sound the same as toms. Basically it just gets all muddy and no good. Compression isn't a big issue on voice only podcasts, but with music it definitely hurts to over do it.

Only caveat is I have no idea what kind of plugins audacity plays well with because using it makes me want to put a fork in my eye

We're pretty much voice only, I'm still working on getting the audio as level as possible (KATG sounds pretty much perfect in terms of levels). Audacity isn't handling things perfectly, I've been thinking of getting a compressor (as in a piece of hardware). I'm still new to a lot of this stuff, so I'm very open to suggestion.

[orion549]

Well, part of the reason KATG sound is good is because their mics cost $500-$1000 and they probably also have a mixing board and pre-amp before the sound even hits thier computers to record. They have a proper studio in there. There's only so much that software can fix, if you're not using the proper hardware (like me.) To get even slightly better audio for mine, I'll either need to figure out how to hack my recorder to up the recording quality in the first place, or wait to buy a better recorder. Even then it'll probably not sound studio quality like KATG.

[shoogbear63]

Yeah, I've got a mixing board and decent mics (with pop filters, shock mounts, etc) and we try to get the levels right as much as possible before the show... but it's hard to compensate for people moving, getting excited, and mostly laughing (that causes the largest sound spikes for me).

[McNally]

I go pretty old school as far as music/talking levels. If the song's too loud, I just make it quieter. Usually about 3 decibels off the top of the songs does the trick, unless something is unusually loud or quiet, and then I have to tinker.

I have been playing with compression a little, and I actually kinda like how it wonks out the songs a bit. That combined with dropping everything to 96kbps makes it seem like you're listening to the show through a radio, where everything's a little crappy and off. Somehow that tickles me.

[D-Rex]

We Never Fail To Disappoint

This a podcast I do with my partner in crime, Ben.

[juliofromny]

Originally Posted by orion549

Well, part of the reason KATG sound is good is because their mics cost $500-$1000 and they probably also have a mixing board and pre-amp before the sound even hits thier computers to record. They have a proper studio in there. There's only so much that software can fix, if you're not using the proper hardware (like me.) To get even slightly better audio for mine, I'll either need to figure out how to hack my recorder to up the recording quality in the first place, or wait to buy a better recorder. Even then it'll probably not sound studio quality like KATG.

I found my blue mics to be decent and at a good price ( the 8-balls are like $89 or so each)

Originally Posted by McNally

I go pretty old school as far as music/talking levels. If the song's too loud, I just make it quieter. Usually about 3 decibels off the top of the songs does the trick, unless something is unusually loud or quiet, and then I have to tinker.

I have been playing with compression a little, and I actually kinda like how it wonks out the songs a bit. That combined with dropping everything to 96kbps makes it seem like you're listening to the show through a radio, where everything's a little crappy and off. Somehow that tickles me.

yeah that's the basic trick I use atm, thanks to you giving me that advice after episode #1. I use the compression on the music as well (I read on CNET that it helps prevent the music from going flat when you lower the levels. Whatever that means). I think it's worked thus far, but I've only had 2 people tell me things regarding the sound so it's hard to gauge. I don't think I really have an ear to tell crap from quality and so I'm definitely not a great judge on sound quality.

[orion549]

I might try to bring the music down to a lower kbps rate, since my recorder only does 32kbps, it might make the voice sound a little less shitty in comparison, although I still can't make up the difference too much since it also records at 8000kHz, unlike 44100kHz that the songs are in. I've been looking to see if there's any way I can hack into the thing and change it (I really don't need 20 hours of recording time) but it's not looking promising, and I don't know enough about this stuff to do it myself.