Other podcasts

[Patrick R]

Basically the way we do it is I have both parties press record, then I count down to three and have both parties try to clap into the mic at the same time, so there's a visual spike in the recording. The two claps never sync up perfectly, but it gives you a good baseline. Then, in Audacity, you just import both recordings, sync up the claps, and then adjust as needed. It's not like music, where tracks have to be perfectly in sync to sound any good at all, so generally* this editing together of the podcasts only takes about five minutes. Then you just export it as a single track.

 

And this way you can adjust the volume of the individual tracks, in case one is too loud or too quiet, or even edit out pauses without creating noticeable jump cuts in the audio.

 

*I have had issues with one guest where the program they used to record kept omitting tiny bits of data from the audio, which made their track faster than mine, which meant I had to spend 4 hair-pulling hours editing the two tracks to keep them in sync but that was a one time problem. Usually it's really easy.

[JonCole]

I record with a 3rd party for Skype, should I just record directly into Audacity? FWIW, I know some people have everyone record their own audio and then editor syncs it up but I have no idea how that method works.

 

Yeah, put simply as possible each person on the call uses Audacity or any other recording program to record their mic locally. When I did it, at the beginning of each recording everyone would count down from three and then clap at the same time to have a point to easily sync the files. By recording separately, you can sweeten each track separately and then combine them, which is a lot more effective before everything is mixed together. For instance, denoising works by detecting the ambient sound and eliminating it - but when two tracks are premixed, there are two or more layers of ambient sound and an audio program can't distinguish between them very well at all.

 

As far as logistics go, we would usually have Audacity export to a shared Dropbox folder or something so the editor can easily access all the files. Also, someone would usually still run a Skype-recording program as a backup. You only have to lose a recording due to some weird technical issue in Audacity once before you vehemently take up the practice.

 

Edit: hah, Patrick pretty much covered all of this.

[Patrick R]

I thought I invented the clap!

[Ben X]

[JonCole]

I thought I invented the clap!

 

I was once on a podcast where they clapped THREE TIMES. Like, one two three clap, one two three clap, one two three clap. Seemed a bit superfluous and I have rarely felt so silly.

[Professor Video Games]

 

Now don't drag poor steve into this.

[Apple Cider]

That's really interesting! I've only done that method roughly, once, and it was a huge pain getting tracks to sync for some reason because I had to edit out pauses or whatever.

[Apelsin]

I was once on a podcast where they clapped THREE TIMES. Like, one two three clap, one two three clap, one two three clap. Seemed a bit superfluous and I have rarely felt so silly.

 

We clap a whole bunch on our podcast because we keep screwing up the intros and get sidetracked

[namman siggins]

Criminal: an investigative podcast that explores criminals, their crimes and/or people who have been on the other side of crimes. They've been picked up by Radiotopia. Worth checking out if you're a fan of Serial; although, Criminal has been doing it a bit longer than Serial. http://thisiscriminal.com

NPR is coming out with a new show next year: http://www.npr.org/about-npr/369399291/introducing-nprs-new-show-about-human-behavior

[syntheticgerbil]

I wish Not a Game podcast would stop continuously rotating their original hosts with seemingly random people. Like it seems rather rare to get an episode with Pip, Cara, Tom, and Craig all at once. Admittedly, I haven't listened to them all yet, and I've been strangely working forward and backward, but I'm really growing to love this podcast and especially Pip's banter with Craig, but it frustrates me a lot. There's still a lot of issues with sound quality but I have gotten over my dislike of Cara's voice. I guess because even from the beginning I always wanted to hear what Cara had to say so that outweighs the voice/accent. I don't know what it is.

 

I sometimes wish they would also get more into the social issues of games, as it seems they completely glossed over the past year or two of controversies, but I think they usually address that stuff in their columns on various sites, so maybe it would be exhausting to rehash that in the podcast.

[JonCole]

I couldn't get over the audio quality of Not a Game Podcast. It didn't really help when I tweeted Tom about the quality and he basically said point blank to me that they're not interested in improving it.

[Reyturner]

Listen to the You Are Not So Smart Podcast episode about the Halo Effect and come to understand everything that has happened on the internet for the last 6 months. 

[SuperBiasedMan]

Listen to the You Are Not So Smart Podcast episode about the Halo Effect and come to understand everything that has happened on the internet for the last 6 months. 

I'm re-recommending this as one of my favourites, particularly because the latest is an extra long 2+ hour episode where he re-broadcasts segments taken from his books that clearly demonstrate different forms of bias. So you can listen through and obtain a good repertoire of biases.

 

...though admittedly that means after the main episode that lasts around 30 minutes, the rest of the show is less representative of how each episode works.

[sclpls]

I am so excited about the return of the Best Show.

[SecretAsianMan]

I don't know if this really counts as another podcast, but Idle Thumbs was asked What's the Best Video Game of All Time

 

Edit: Discuss said podcast here

[Argobot]

Our own PatrickR asked me to be on his movie podcast....to talk about books. It was a lot of fun!

http://t.co/nxRObyCrRl

[Patrick R]

AND WE FORGOT TO DO THE CLAP THING I JUST ILLUSTRATED AT THE TOP OF THIS PAGE.

[bakelite]

There's a new episode of Hardcore History. Excellent as always.

[Bjorn]

There's a new episode of Hardcore History. Excellent as always.

 

 

I'm listening to the most recent Common Sense episode, Torturing our Values, right now. I'm almost always behind on Carlin's stuff, even with the infrequency that he releases stuff.

[bakelite]

It takes me forever to finish an episode of HH. I like to listen to podcasts while falling asleep, so I get through maybe twenty minutes a day over a ten day period.

[Bjorn]

I almost always listen at work, but Common Sense and HH both tend to be so dense that I find them more distracting than the typical news stuff that I usually listen to, so I'm less likely to start them up.

[bakelite]

I think of it more as an episodic audiobook than a podcast, it's not the kind of thing you can give 50% of your attention while doing the dishes.

[Badfinger]

I'm listening to the most recent Common Sense episode, Torturing our Values, right now. I'm almost always behind on Carlin's stuff, even with the infrequency that he releases stuff.

 

After binging incredibly hard on HH this summer, I thought I would really appreciate Common Sense. I think outside of a history buff and historical context, his politics niggle me a little bit? I know he's attempting to be either apolitical or spreading the bashing around to all sides, but it rubbed me wrong.

 

Also you'd THINK I would have noticed HH show up in my new podcasts feed. Too taken in with GOTY stuff I suppose.

[Bjorn]

I am not on board with all of his modern political commentary, he treads a bit too conspiratorial for me at times.  But I'm generally interested in how he approaches things, and the best shows are when he draws some interesting thematic parallels between disparate events.  He's also often willing to provide some context for modern events in a way no news outlet really does anymore. 

[JonCole]

I am not on board with all of his modern political commentary, he treads a bit too conspiratorial for me at times.  But I'm generally interested in how he approaches things, and the best shows are when he draws some interesting thematic parallels between disparate events.  He's also often willing to provide some context for modern events in a way no news outlet really does anymore. 

 

I used to listen to Thom Hartmann for this (I don't know if he's still doing what he was doing, I used to listen to his satellite radio show) because while he's not a scholar, he was a bit of a self-taught political historian who provided some admittedly progressive but context-rich commentary. I also liked his show because he'd invite a co-host for every show and about half of his co-hosts were of an opposing political persuasion.