I'm back from the Memorabilia show in Birmingham (at which I had great fun!) and realise that half the interviews I recorded on my new 'Mobile recording' kit did not run through the external microphone (which is higher quality than usual) but through the internal microphone (which is, frankly, pants) I should be able to retrieve something usable from most of it, but it's not going to be as good as I intended when I got the new kit. Rats.
My apologies in advance to the interviewees affected by this mistake on my part (I know what I did - I didn't manually select the right option); anyone I cannot edit into a listenable segment on the next podcast will get a huge plug from me instead.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Technology highs and lows
It's been one of those weeks when I am let down by, and uplifted by, technology.
First, the let down: I record a podcast (UK CardCast, thanks for asking!) about non-sport cards and last week, I recorded interviews with Roxanne Toser of Non-Sport Update magazine, and Joanna Kohlbus & Kate RED Bradley - the latter two in a chatty converational call, the former on her own as more of a formal interview. All the recordings were made via Skype and a piece of recording software I've used in the past called Pamela. Pamela works well and I've had some excellent results for past episodes, even when there is more than one perosn on the other side of the call but, for some reason (and I can't work out if it's Pamela or Skype), most of the early part of the Joanna and Kate interview didn't record - I have long periods of silence (when I am speaking) interspersed wit hthe occasional comment or laugh from one of the ladies. I can recover (with judicious editing and some re-recording of my introductory comments) the start, but it's not something I'm happy about - I prefer a straight-off the call thing!
That said, the uplifting thing is that I now have a far higher quality recording kit for outside broadcasts! I occasionally report on shows and other events in person, and when I've done that in the past, I've used the voice recorder option on a tiny MP3 player - the sound quality isn't that great and I usually have to do a fair amount of tweaking to get something vaguely podcastable. Now, however, I have a Creative Zen 3 MP3 player, which has a Line-in socket (offering significantly better recording quality) and a proper external microphone! The first 'live' use of the new kit is the upcoming Memorabilia show at the NEC Birmingham 22-23 November.
The most recent episode of the podcast is now online - that's Episode 12 and features Harris Toser and Don Norton talking about the Chicago show, and Wolfie talking about some UK shows he's attended recently; the aforementioned "Women of Cards" show is being edited and (unless I have any other techie probs!) should be available this week; I should also be recording a shorter show looking forward to Memorabilia next week (just waiting for some information about a possible stage talk for Harris and myself!).
First, the let down: I record a podcast (UK CardCast, thanks for asking!) about non-sport cards and last week, I recorded interviews with Roxanne Toser of Non-Sport Update magazine, and Joanna Kohlbus & Kate RED Bradley - the latter two in a chatty converational call, the former on her own as more of a formal interview. All the recordings were made via Skype and a piece of recording software I've used in the past called Pamela. Pamela works well and I've had some excellent results for past episodes, even when there is more than one perosn on the other side of the call but, for some reason (and I can't work out if it's Pamela or Skype), most of the early part of the Joanna and Kate interview didn't record - I have long periods of silence (when I am speaking) interspersed wit hthe occasional comment or laugh from one of the ladies. I can recover (with judicious editing and some re-recording of my introductory comments) the start, but it's not something I'm happy about - I prefer a straight-off the call thing!
That said, the uplifting thing is that I now have a far higher quality recording kit for outside broadcasts! I occasionally report on shows and other events in person, and when I've done that in the past, I've used the voice recorder option on a tiny MP3 player - the sound quality isn't that great and I usually have to do a fair amount of tweaking to get something vaguely podcastable. Now, however, I have a Creative Zen 3 MP3 player, which has a Line-in socket (offering significantly better recording quality) and a proper external microphone! The first 'live' use of the new kit is the upcoming Memorabilia show at the NEC Birmingham 22-23 November.
The most recent episode of the podcast is now online - that's Episode 12 and features Harris Toser and Don Norton talking about the Chicago show, and Wolfie talking about some UK shows he's attended recently; the aforementioned "Women of Cards" show is being edited and (unless I have any other techie probs!) should be available this week; I should also be recording a shorter show looking forward to Memorabilia next week (just waiting for some information about a possible stage talk for Harris and myself!).
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