[Ronk]

[Ronk]

also guys i've got such an excellent beard. i don't want to brag, but it's a beard to write home to.
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[another coma]

okay, so I want to point out a few technical things now. anyone who is participating in the cast should read this, even if it's stupidly long:

Headphones - yes, use them, and turn off your speakers. at least one participant's speakers were bleeding back through their mic, causing delayed speech that looped back on to the server. I don't need to explain why this is hard to get rid of!

Micing - in an ideal world everyone would have a microphone of reasonable quality suited for this type of thing, but none of us are made of money either (although, I would encourage P1 to seek out something other than what he used, it picked up everything but him). if you do get a mic, seek out a directional mic (also called a cardioid mic), and NOT an omni directional mic, since directional mics pick up what they are pointed at (you).

Fortunately there are a couple of things you guys could do immediately to improve the quality of the audio. Provided you are not using a headset, the general rule is to place the mic about a hand's length away from your face. To do this, spread apart your fingers and place your thumb at your mouth, and the mic should be where your pinkie finger is.

If you listen to the audio from this trial, you'll notice a LOT of breath noises and plosives (also called "p" pops), since many of you guys placed the mics right in the path of your breathing. This results in the diaphragm of the mic becoming overloaded by the pressure of your breath, creating unpleasant white noise. This happened with Renfrew, Cuba, and TMFK a bit.

There are a few ways to remedy this. you could use pop filters and windscreens provided you have them/are inclined to buy them, but I would recommend at least positioning the mic slightly off-axis from your mouths, so that it's still pointed at the source of sound (your mouth) but well out of the path of your breathing

Look at this picture for an example

If you are using something like a headset this might take some manipulating to get the balance right, but it's really important. If you are unsure of where NOT to place the mic, place your hand right in front of your face and says some words that begin with 'P" and "T", and you'll feel where this zone is. Also, let out a deep exhale and take note of where that breath travels as well. You'll likely end up placing the mic either to the sides or above your mouth. again, remember to tilt the mic towards your mouth!

Gain Staging - here I am going to have to do a little more research on whatever server is going to be used (Vent or otherwise) but you guys need to take note of the gain settings of your microphones. Toups, your waveforms looked like rectangles, so you were distorting at some stage. Others ran the gamut of being at a good level (Cuba, Ren) to far too quiet (TMFK and P1).

If you are using Windows or a Mac and going directly into the sound card, open up the sound preferences and check the recording sensitivity of the mic (if you are using an external audio interface though, it might have a physical gain control). if the gain is set too high you will be distorting, but too low is no good either. you basically want to be as loud as reasonably possible without distorting at your loudest moments. I would recommend opening the sound recording utility and doing some test recordings to find the optimal settings, and trust your ears. Beyond that, I'm not sure if there are additional volume controls on the Vent Server Things, because I have never used them. The bottom line is that if we can all make an effort to check on this before hand we will improve the audio quality dramatically.

Noise - both Toups and Renfrew had some pretty bad noise (that 60hz hum) and without really seeing what you have and how the equipment is arranged it's difficult for me to comment on how to fix it. one thing that might cause it is a ground loop, which occurs when your equipment has more than one path to the electrical ground (basically all of the audio/computer equipment that's plugged into the wall should meet at a common ground before entering the socket, like through a power strip). also, cheaper mics that don't have shielded cables tend to pick up noise too. Also make sure that your mic cable isn't getting close to any other electrical equipment or electric cables in the area. Additionally, the culprit could also be the internal wiring of the audio inside the computer. So it's kind of hard for me to advise on what exactly is producing the hum, all I can say is experiment with swapping what equipment you have, and check to see how all of you computer and/or audio stuff is plugged into the wall.

that's pretty much all I can muster for now, but I think it's more than enough. if anyone has any questions or I didn't explain well enough, please ask me.
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[CubaLibre]

there is an input gain slider in vent settings. the reason my volume (if nothing else) was at a good moderate level is because i've used this same headset and vent before in games and have calibrated it just based on other people's reactions (too loud, too quiet).

as for plosives and breath noises i realize that's a problem but most headset mics are designed to be right in front of your face. i'll experiment with moving it out of the way but then it might not pick up my voice reasonably.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[another coma]

yeah, it's hard to eliminate it entirely with the headsets in my own experience, so wherever you had it is probably about as good as it gets. I'm hoping that anyone else who ends up using a headset heeds the advice though. all things considered your audio was pretty much the ideal in this whole thing.
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[Renfrew]

My microphone is a cheap non headset mike I picked up at Walmart Saturday night. I was using push to talk so I didn't think I would have a lot of problems with it picking up my speaker noise. I haven't had a chance to listen to the podcast yet so I'm not sure how I sounded. Whenever I talked I held the microphone close to my face, so I'll refrain from doing that again.

[CubaLibre]

yeah actually renfrew aside from holding the mic too close your audio was pretty good.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Rud31]

my research showed plantronics mics are pretty good, I just want to try one in store before I buy it on amazon.
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[negativedge]

man just get headsets and there won't be any problems. I've spent countless hours in vent with very few issues.

[eskaibo]

I had some friends recording something with a headset mic in middle school, they wrapped a bit of a hoodie around it as a windscreen
so if you've a bit of thick fabric and a rubber band or something maybe that'd help?
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♪ x x x ♫ x x x ♫ x ♫ ♫

[eskaibo]

OK guys about 9 minutes through

P1 you really gotta get a cleaner signal 'cause I'm just tuning out half your stuff ;_+
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♪ x x x ♫ x x x ♫ x ♫ ♫

[P1d40n3]

;_;

I get it! Stop rubbing in my crappy mic.
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[Toups]

[Toups]

well guys, there's also this
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[This Machine Kills Fascis]

[falsedan]

ronk does your beard require close attention from specialised barbers just sayin'
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[Ronk]

if hattori hanzo was a barber, he would've retired long after my first neat trim.
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[falsedan]

j/k my last beard cut was by a blonde italian lady who was so freaked out I had to step her through the whole process
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[P1d40n3]

OP has been updated with a new list of people who will be there.

I cannot, as I won't have a chance to nab a new mic. ;_; Carry on without me my SBers!
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[P1d40n3]

Make sure if your name is in the OP that you can attend!
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[Rud31]

I will definitely try to be here for this one.
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[kael]

I'd love to get in on one of these sometime if the topic is something I have anything to say about!

Also willing to help out with the audio editing if no willing hands are available. I used to do editing for a radio show back in the day, so I'm somewhat familiar with the techniques involved (though it's been a while).

On a side note, I'm pretty sure you can convert a Ventrilo recording into individual (per-person) WAV files, so you could go pretty far with the editing if you wanted - editing out long 'uhhhh' vocalizations/pauses to improve pacing, moving subsets of the discussion around to make it flow better, etc. Things like that would really help the final podcast feel a lot tighter and more interesting to listen to (though I think B Coma did a great job). To some extent this would also allow you to clean up lower-quality mic output by removing noise, etc.

[Rud31]

Listening to the podcast now.

I love Godhand.
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[psiga]

Listening to this on Rud's recommendation. It's fun; y'all did nicely.

The talk on game mechanics was fun.
I'd say that, yeah, there's no shame in videogames highlighting twitch and timing events, in the same way that there's no shame in chess or whatever not having twitch and timing events. Product of the medium, etc etc. I'd agree that Super Turbo is probably the closest thing we've gotten to a chess level of sophistication (though still not quite); games like TF2 are maybe poker level (except for the poorly balanced new additions), and a lot of games are lucky to be rock-paper-scissors level.

You got me looking at a Let's Play of God Hand.
In some ways it reminds me of Bushido Blade. Not a huge amount, just that it reminds me of what happens when people try to hybridize things and push the boundaries. Looks intriguing. It's one piece of a puzzle that most people don't even know can be assembled. I can see why SB likes it, and why other people might not get past the first level. I see where the earlier conversation was going, about games that progressively introduce you to their complexity and challenge (which GH isn't good at), as well as the games that let you enjoy playing even if you're fucking up (which GH isn't good at). It seems more challenging on an intellectual level, like a foreign film that's difficult to wrap your brain around since it's not accessible by way of genre or culture norms. If you can hold with it, and come to really understand what it's trying to do, then hot damn.

OK, I'm only like 40 min into the recording, but have work to do, so I'll come back to this some other time.
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[drobe]

booji contact confirmed

[boojiboy7]

Yeah I am in here. just awaiting other people. was this starting at 3 or 4 eastern? I never know GMT to eastern as -4 or -5.

[Rud31]

I'm in here now.
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[| BLUE | BLACK | PURPLE |]

[Rud31]

Anyone want to come on in do so!
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[negativedge]

why you bitches gotta do this during football

[Rud31]

oh god I switched mics and everyone left.

Guess this week failed.
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[P1d40n3]

Wait, what happened?
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[psiga]

Freeman killed everyone with precision ballistic pigballs. Everyone, that is, except Rud13, who, like in comedic movies, obliviously ducked the projectile while changing mics.

HA HA HA HA HA ha h..
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[P1d40n3]

[Ghost Dinosaur]

I hope someone was recording.

[P1d40n3]

[Rud31]

Uh..me and boojiboy7 talked shit for about an hour waiting for other people to show up (and I was 30 minutes late) and then I had to change headsets and everyone left. Drobe was also in the channel but didn't really say much, but was insightful when he did speak.

boojiboy and I already talk a lot on gchat, so we only had a couple of pauses, I mainly talked about games I had played recently and him and drobe's thoughts of them if they had played them. We talked a bit about KoTOR2 and Bioware, Dead Rising, and a good topic for a podcast of just him and me (it's called: Sony you god damn morons.)
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[This Machine Kills Fascis]

Sigh.

Pi, I knew that as soon as you and I stepped aside the whole damn thing would fall apart!

Do not be disheartened Select Button! Next week we will continue the talent search.

Can we give up on pretending that we're going to stick to any one topic for now? Because it's not like anyone would have talked about Halo for more than ten minutes without deviating, and apparently choosing just one topic ends up alienating our relatively small pool of people who have mics.

New Rule (Maybe): While we're still in the audio meet up stage, we'll have set starting topics, but people can still show up if they know little or nothing about them, because--hey--we'll probably end up talking about Mario, anyway. Or--hey--maybe next week we should talk about something as open-ended as, say, Mario? The conversation is guaranteed to be a mess, but--guys--we have to keep building steam with this thing!
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"Godzilla could be anyone."

[This Machine Kills Fascis]

[Toups]

whoa really? how?
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[Ronk]

i listened to that a life well wasted podcast, and i thought that maybe we should do an episode on why you game/when you came to the idea/ideals behind SB/ABDN/IC/gamer's quater, and when you found out about those and all that nonsense.
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