It has been almost two years since I last released a podcast. It has been a difficult couple of years; last summer at this time I was in Pittsburgh, and then Erie, to visit my dying mother. We are having another baby in October, so it may be difficult to do any recording for a while, depending on what kind of a sleeper he or she is. I am hoping to get at least a few more stories and perhaps one of the novels completed by then.
Anyway, into the night once again I cast a pod. This may be Hodgson's single best-known short story; it has been adapted for film twice, and the idea has been borrowed numerous times. I find the text to be quite interesting. The narrator appeals to God and gives thanks to God on numerous occasions, but he is undergoing a horrible transformation and dying -- not entirely unlike dying of cancer. it speaks to me of the Book of Job, and also hints that Hodgson's relationship to Christianity was probably not a simple, cut-and-dried one.
I made a few very small edits to the text. Since I represent the "voice" as a modulated voice, with audio special effects, and switch back and forth between the narrative voice and the voice of the mysterious visitor at sea, I have cut out two or three instances of phrases like "the voice continued" and "the voice went on." When listening, there is no need to be reminded who is speaking.
If you are subscribed to the podcast, via iTunes or some other tool, you should be able to receive it now. The listing has not yet appeared in the podcast's page in the iTunes store. I have sent a ping to the server and I'm told it should be there within 24 hours.
I am personally very pleased with the improvements I was able to make in audio quality. I'd welcome any feedback.
MP3 file
10 August 2008
08 August 2008
Sleep is for those who are not Podcasters
It was getting light by the time I finished my first round of work on "The Voice in the Night." Most of that was setup and experimentation work, though, trying to find a vocal effect that I like for "the voice." The vocal take is 50% edited, the project is configured the way I like it, and the rest will go faster. Then I'm on to experimenting with the environmental sounds, mix-down, and mastering settings.
The rough plan is to do a few short stories, just to get the hang of everything again, and then pick a sound setup that I like and use it to tackle a novel. The stories are generally short enough to record in one session, before my voice starts to give out. The problem with a novel is that it will require numerous installments and numerous nights of recording, and I want them all to sound the same. No one likes to go back and re-do completed work, so it's important to try to get it right up front!
The rough plan is to do a few short stories, just to get the hang of everything again, and then pick a sound setup that I like and use it to tackle a novel. The stories are generally short enough to record in one session, before my voice starts to give out. The problem with a novel is that it will require numerous installments and numerous nights of recording, and I want them all to sound the same. No one likes to go back and re-do completed work, so it's important to try to get it right up front!
The Updated Studio
The following is really only for recording geeks; read on if you'd like to know what I'm using to put together my latest podcasts. This is really a bit premature since I'm writing this before releasing any of the new audio, but it will be a good incentive for me to hurry up and get something done.
My current apartment studio setup now starts with a Neumann BCM 705. Choice of microphone is highly individual -- a mic that makes one person's voice sound good may emphasize the flaws in someone else's voice. I'm pretty satisified with the way this mic makes my voice sound. My voice is a little nasal and thin -- I've got an extremely deviated septum, which tends to make me tend towards mouth breathing, and if I avoid mouth breathing, my nose is a little "whistley." (Is that too much information?) Not all the time, but you can hear it, and some microphones emphasize breath noise worse than others. This one seems to be fairly resistant to breath noise, and also to pops, to the point where I didn't feel the need to set up a separate pop filter.
This is Neumann's only dynamic microphone and one of only a couple broadcast-style microphones designed to hang from a boom. As such it might seem like a slightly controversial choice -- why not use a BCM 104, a condenser mic? The 705 was also quite a bit less expensive, which is certainly a consideration. Price was not the only consideration -- I did not want to buy a mic made in China. The 705 is made in Germany.
Also, given that the background noise level in my office/studio is not all it could be, I thought that a dynamic microphone might exhibit a little bit less sensitivity to background noise. So far that seems to be true. It might be interesting to do an A/B comparison with the BCM 104, and to try out some other microphones favored by podcasters, but for now I'd buy the mic again. The hanging broadcast-style design makes it much easier to use for reading.
OK, enough about the microphone. The stand is an unexciting cheap boom stand, not really a spring-loaded broadcast-style stand, but good enough for now. From there the mic goes into an Apogee Ensemble. The Ensemble is probably the item that has the most overall effect on the quality of the recorded vocal track. There are much cheaper audio interfaces and mic preamps, and of course much more expensive ones as well. I chose the Ensemble because I've become very sensitive to noisy mic preamps. It has a lot of headroom and a very neutral-sounding noise floor. I also have been gravitating towards doing all the vocal processing -- compression, etc. -- in software, so rather than set up a typical hardware channel strip I decided to spring for as clean and straightforward an input path as I could manage. The benefit there is that you can change your mind: you can just change some software settings if you decide you want more compression, or less, or sibilance removal, or not. As long as the original signal is clean with a reasonable gain level and some headroom available you have a lot of choices. Recording the effected signal tends to limit what you can choose to do with it afterwards.
I've had an occasional technical glitch with the Ensemble, but for the most part it seems quite easy to use. I'm currently monitoring the signal in headphones on the way back out of the computer, which means I'm hearing it out of phase with my voice, but you kind of get used to that; the latency is certainly far better than it was with my USB recording solutions. I'm only really listening for words that sound unclear, pops, excess breath noise, or anything else that would make me record a second take; I'll listen to it in much more detail later.
Anyway, the Apogee is connected to a Mac Pro. The computer is tricked out with 8 cores and 8 gigs of RAM. This is not strictly necessary for Logic; I could get by with a fraction of that. The memory is really there for doing photo work using Aperture and Photoshop, especially for slides and detailed restoration. But it doesn't hurt -- Apple Logic is very responsive on this machine and I can stack up plug-ins and tracks.
Next time, more about the plug-ins and the challenge of creating vocal effects for horror and science fiction -- they must sound strange, not too terribly cheesy, and also be completely intelligible and not fatiguing to listen to!
My current apartment studio setup now starts with a Neumann BCM 705. Choice of microphone is highly individual -- a mic that makes one person's voice sound good may emphasize the flaws in someone else's voice. I'm pretty satisified with the way this mic makes my voice sound. My voice is a little nasal and thin -- I've got an extremely deviated septum, which tends to make me tend towards mouth breathing, and if I avoid mouth breathing, my nose is a little "whistley." (Is that too much information?) Not all the time, but you can hear it, and some microphones emphasize breath noise worse than others. This one seems to be fairly resistant to breath noise, and also to pops, to the point where I didn't feel the need to set up a separate pop filter.
This is Neumann's only dynamic microphone and one of only a couple broadcast-style microphones designed to hang from a boom. As such it might seem like a slightly controversial choice -- why not use a BCM 104, a condenser mic? The 705 was also quite a bit less expensive, which is certainly a consideration. Price was not the only consideration -- I did not want to buy a mic made in China. The 705 is made in Germany.
Also, given that the background noise level in my office/studio is not all it could be, I thought that a dynamic microphone might exhibit a little bit less sensitivity to background noise. So far that seems to be true. It might be interesting to do an A/B comparison with the BCM 104, and to try out some other microphones favored by podcasters, but for now I'd buy the mic again. The hanging broadcast-style design makes it much easier to use for reading.
OK, enough about the microphone. The stand is an unexciting cheap boom stand, not really a spring-loaded broadcast-style stand, but good enough for now. From there the mic goes into an Apogee Ensemble. The Ensemble is probably the item that has the most overall effect on the quality of the recorded vocal track. There are much cheaper audio interfaces and mic preamps, and of course much more expensive ones as well. I chose the Ensemble because I've become very sensitive to noisy mic preamps. It has a lot of headroom and a very neutral-sounding noise floor. I also have been gravitating towards doing all the vocal processing -- compression, etc. -- in software, so rather than set up a typical hardware channel strip I decided to spring for as clean and straightforward an input path as I could manage. The benefit there is that you can change your mind: you can just change some software settings if you decide you want more compression, or less, or sibilance removal, or not. As long as the original signal is clean with a reasonable gain level and some headroom available you have a lot of choices. Recording the effected signal tends to limit what you can choose to do with it afterwards.
I've had an occasional technical glitch with the Ensemble, but for the most part it seems quite easy to use. I'm currently monitoring the signal in headphones on the way back out of the computer, which means I'm hearing it out of phase with my voice, but you kind of get used to that; the latency is certainly far better than it was with my USB recording solutions. I'm only really listening for words that sound unclear, pops, excess breath noise, or anything else that would make me record a second take; I'll listen to it in much more detail later.
Anyway, the Apogee is connected to a Mac Pro. The computer is tricked out with 8 cores and 8 gigs of RAM. This is not strictly necessary for Logic; I could get by with a fraction of that. The memory is really there for doing photo work using Aperture and Photoshop, especially for slides and detailed restoration. But it doesn't hurt -- Apple Logic is very responsive on this machine and I can stack up plug-ins and tracks.
Next time, more about the plug-ins and the challenge of creating vocal effects for horror and science fiction -- they must sound strange, not too terribly cheesy, and also be completely intelligible and not fatiguing to listen to!
Back from the Dead
The next Hodgson podcast will be a one-part short story, "The Voice in the Night." This will be the first podcast recorded with my new home studio setup. I am still getting the hang of the new gear and software, but so far I'm extremely pleased with the results -- I'm no longer having to work around audio glitches, and the editing and mixing process is now much faster.
Look for it within the next week or so. I will announce it here, and it will be available through my podcast in the usual ways, including the iTunes store, for free, under an updated Creative Commons license.
Look for it within the next week or so. I will announce it here, and it will be available through my podcast in the usual ways, including the iTunes store, for free, under an updated Creative Commons license.
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