[drunkard]

I assume that some folks are curious how the podcast is produced. This thread is for you.

Hardware Used:

• Edirol FA-101 - Firewire based external sound card with phantom power, high quality DACs, and low-latency drivers
  
• Realtek ALC850 AC '97 Codec - Built-in sound hardware, Mic Input and Digital Output used by Skype
  
• Shure SM58 or Studio Projects B1 - Primary microphones, used to record my voice at a high quality level
  
• Cyber Acoustics Headset Microphone - This secondary microphone is used to communicate through Skype

Software Used:

• Skype - A reliable, robust, and free PC-to-PC VoIP solution. Nothing else has proven to be as reliable, including Teamspeak and Ventrilo.
  
• Sonar 6 - Records two separate tracks of audio, for the Skype audio received (other participants voices), and my primary vocal microphone. Has complex functions for mixing and mastering audio. I trim, cut and paste, rearrange, and manipulate the audio tracks to create something resembling a podcast.
  
• VAC - Used to re-route and mix audio from any audio device with Virtual Audio Cables (not necessary but it allows for more flexibility)
  
• MediaMonkey - Used to convert the final mastered Wave file to a MP3, and add ID3 tags

With Sonar 6, I use many VST and DrectX plug-ins to apply noise reduction, gating, EQ, compression, and limiting.


Illustrates the usage of hardware and software connections.

So far I've covered the technical aspects of the show, but that still leaves what is arguably the harder part to accomplish, the actual show!

In order to have topics worth discussing, I use an RSS reader to keep up to date and search for stories on the web. In order to keep track of stories for the podcast, I post articles to del.icio.us, a fantastic online bookmarking service. By the way, anyone can tag web pages for the podcast. All you need to do is sign-up for del.icio.us and add "thevistaforumspodcast" to your del.icio.us network, then post it to your del.icio.us account with the tag "for:thevistaforumspodcast" and it will then be reviewed for inclusion on the next show.

A couple days (usually) before I expect to record another show, I issue a PM to members who asked to participate, and include a list of the topics as well as an expected time and date to record, essentially a Show Outline of sorts. The recording schedule is never set in stone, and changes are often made to the time at this point, but usually we will record on a Saturday or Sunday, at about 4PM GMT. I confirm with any members that respond that they will be able to take part, and then it's a go.

On the day of, we start off by all signing in to Skype and having a group chat to make sure we're all ready to go, and get any questions we have answered before hand. To avoid problems during the recording, members load web-pages for our topics before we start, and shutdown any applications that may steal precious network badnwidth. Then we start a conference call and briefly make sure the audio quality is good enough to record for all members. This can be a bit of trouble, since the internet sometimes cooperates less than we might like, but usually Skype manages to connect us all reliably. It should be noted that often the conference call includes members from literally all over the world, for example I'm in eastern Canada, Daniel is in the UK, while Mak is in Australia!

We start off the show with me introducing everyone, we run through our topics in a order defined in the Show Outline PM, and finish off with goodbyes. I know that's a bit of an over-simplification, but I can't really describe in any more detail since the shows are a free-form discussion for the most part.

After we've recorded, I start the editing process. I don't like to remove anything if I don't have to, but sometimes we might ramble on or get repetitive so i try to listen critically. This part of the process is harder than it at first seems to be. Nobody is their own best critic.

Finally, I end up with a mastered Wave file that is transcoded to MP3, tagged, and uploaded. I help William create a podcast discussion page, and then after that it's out of my hands.

Well, I'm sure I've missed some things in the process, but I'm tired of typing this, and if your still with me at this point, your probably tired of reading it!

Until next time, cheers!

[c0lin]

Heh neat. I knew the process but I like your diagram haha.

[drunkard]

colin86, on Dec 8 2007, 04:04 PM, said:

Heh neat. I knew the process but I like your diagram haha.

Yeah, isn't it awesome? Diagrams rule!!!

[caretaker]

That must have taken you a while to put together. Good one.

[.William]

drunkard, on Dec 8 2007, 08:49 PM, said:

Finally, I end up with a mastered Wave file that is transcoded to MP3, tagged, and uploaded. I help William create a podcast discussion page, and then after that it's out of my hands.

...and then, I put together the post on our blog site in WordPress, and post it, and then you can download it.

[zanjt]

Thank you Drunkard and .William. I found the post very interesting and informative and appreciate the work you do to produce the podcast. I enjoy the podcast`s update on the news and new stuff because I have neither the time, patience nor technical know-how to understand without the layman`s terminology. Please keep up the terrific work and Have a Merry Christmas!

This post has been edited by zanjt: 09 December 2007 - 06:34 AM

[Dave™]

zanjt, on Dec 8 2007, 07:35 PM, said:

Thank you Drunkard and .William. I found the post very interesting and informative and appreciate the work you do to produce the podcast. I enjoy the podcast`s update on the news and new stuff because I have neither the time, patience nor technical know-how to understand without the layman`s terminology. Please keep up the terrifice work and Have a Merry Christmas!

I Love Skype.

[osuwildlifer]

Hey, that's so frickin cool! Thank you for taking the time to explain it all to us. I've now got a better picture of what's going on in the background. Great work.

[Mak]

Wow nice! I think this deserves to be pinned!

Topic Pinned.

[Will_Stutler]

DUDE!!!!!you go through all that every podcast, holy flippin heck...that be a lot of work

you get three gold stars from me



i really can't thank you enough for doing it, you always do a great job
and to Mak good idea pinning this, perhaps when people complain that its taking to long will see that its not as simple as hitting the record botton on the ol'VCR.........you know those things that where before DVD players

[Dave™]

Wow, you do a lot of work, never knew there was that much to it...i was listening to it last night and though about how much work you put into it...


Thanks A Lot

[Jakers]

I just got a new laptop, and purchased Windows Vista, so I joined the forums. I'm a good friend of Drunkard's, and I was in the room he was recording in during the 4th episode, and I can tell you, just the setup takes quite a while, and then organizing the participants, and actually recording, all the way to post production is a marvelous feat. I've seen him do it all, and he's quite a genius

[caretaker]

Jakers, on Dec 11 2007, 12:21 PM, said:

I just got a new laptop, and purchased Windows Vista, so I joined the forums. I'm a good friend of Drunkard's, and I was in the room he was recording in during the 4th episode, and I can tell you, just the setup takes quite a while, and then organizing the participants, and actually recording, all the way to post production is a marvelous feat. I've seen him do it all, and he's quite a genius

Well welcome to the forum Jakers. and you can tell the Drunkard that if he ever comes to OZ I'll by him a beer or two, you are welcome in join us. hope you will enjoy the forum.

[Dave™]

Hey Jakers,
Welcome to the vista Forums

[drunkard]

I've deleted The Vista Forums Podcast Del.icio.us account, used previously for tracking show topics. It became cumbersome after we made a few changes to the way we prepare for the show. Now, topics are listed in a forum dedicated for the podcast staff.