Something That Happened.

This is

Stories by Harold, in a variety of formats - including text, audio, video, and podcasts.

Featuring several years of
quality archived content!
Expand/Collapse archive

Read an example archived post now!
Expand/collapse example

Thursday, September 11, 2003

Regrets...
I've had a few.
But then again,
Too few to mention!
--"My Way",
written by Paul Anka
When I hear that song, I think of Frank Sinatra, and sometimes Elvis or Sid Vicious -- all of whom have been known to perform, in their own unique manner, that wonderful song. Wonderful because -- though I don't always enjoy hearing it, I've heard it so much -- the song is a wonderful personal anthem. That's something we all need: a personal anthem. A song that praises our individuality; a mark of devotion to oneself. After all, they say you're going to have a helluva time loving anyone else unless you've first learned to love yourself, right?

This is not to replace your love for your God, or your spouse, or your family. I'm simply saying that we all need to give ourselves a bit more self-love at this time of year. (No, not that type of self-love !) Too many of us beat up on ourselves throughout the year, and then nearly destroy ourselves at year's end. No wonder there are so many suicides during the Holidays; the messages bombarding us are to Buy Buy Buy and to Give Give Give -- but what if you have nothing to give but love? If you have a dearth of that good stuff, then you'll have a bitch of a time spreading it around to your neighbors.

So be good to yourself, whether you're Christian, Pagan, Wiccan, Athiest, Hindu, Islamic, Mormon, Podcastin, or otherwise. Don't take the pills, they won't do you or anyone else any good; you'll simply miss out on the Next Big Thing (which may turn out to be Your Next Big Thing). Just do things your own way, singing that little hymn as you do so:
For what is a man,
What has he got?
If not himself,
Then he has naught.
To say the things,
He truly feels,
And not the words,
Of one who kneels.
The record shows,
I took the blows
And did it my way!

Sunday, November 07, 2004

Podcat, that showcasing feline, was curious about my technical setup, so I present to you my method of producing podcasts:

Hardware

I use a Blue & White Power Mac, one that you could probably now call an "old" Mac now that it's been around for nearly 6 years. It's got a 500MHz PowerPC G4 inside the engine case (a Sonnet upgrade), accompanied by 384 megs of RAM. I've also added an Adaptec PowerDomain 29160 64-bit PCI SCSI card, which allows for data rates of up to 160MB per second. I'm low on hard drive space--a mere 9 gigs inside and another 9 attached externally--so I have to burn alot of CDs to clear my recorded audio from my drives.

Software

I record using a piece of freeware called Audio Recorder which lets you record in AIFF or MP3 file formats, then I import my recordings into the freeware app Audacity in order to be edited. (I don't record directly to Audacity because the program often crashes on my system, which is currently running Panther. Panther itself never crashes, but Audacity sometimes misbehaves. Still, it's a great program, and free.) Once I've completed my editing, I save the file as an AIFF and import it into iTunes, another free application. So all of the software I'm using is currently freely available (except for the operating system).

Audio Hardware

Now here, perhaps, are the most important components of my setup. I have a nice microphone that I picked up on eBay for about $100, a Beyer M58 I learned about reading Transom.org's Tools column. I was unable to get any sound out of the mic and onto my hard drive until I purchased a Behringer Eurorack UB802 mixer, a very basic mixer you can carry around in your backpack with your Powerbook. (The Chris Lydon Web Studio, which has a design objective of portability, has the same mixer.)

Technique

This is my basic recording process, though I'm constantly experimenting with new methods of recording. I fire up the Mac, including the external hard drive, and open the Audio Recorder application. I plug in the mixer and set its levels accordingly, depending on whether I'm going to whisper into the mic or yell and holler. If I'm recording a "live" show, I plug various recording devices into the mixer--CD players, cassette players, microcassette players, etc.--and cue them to the audio I wish to add to the mix. Otherwise, I simply record my voice, then record the additional material and import everything into Audacity to mix and edit. Once the recording is mixed/edited to my satisfaction, I export it and then encode it to 128kbps VBR MP3.

During the recording process, when I desire to add a soundbyte from another podcast, I usually use an MP3 CD player to playback the sound. This requires burning an MP3 CD with the podcast(s) I wish to incorporate into my recording. Had I an iPod, it would be much easier since I wouldn't have to waste time burning the CD, but since I usually burn a CD full of podcasts before retiring for the evening anyway, it's not that big a deal.


So there you have it. Future audiocasts may require different software, but I'm hoping to stick with this setup for awhile. Hopefully one of the future releases of Audacity will quit crashing and acting buggy on my system!
posted by Harold  11/07/2004 10:02:00 PM
Comments: Post a Comment



Links to this post:

Create a Link



<< Home

Businesses in Huntsville, Alabama

*

I once posted, in this space (this right column), the following:

If I had friends they would be listed here

That particular bit o' text, that silly and idiotic phrase, was repeated a dozen or two dozen or so times and was intended to be temporary. I had been working on a project -- a new layout for this blog -- and had intended for that text to be placeholder content. That is, the text was supposed to temporarily replace the content that had previously occupied this column (which was a list of links to friends -- that is, other blogs and web sites I linked to). I didn't know what content I was going to place into that (this) space, so I placed a bunch of duplicate phrases here as a placeholder so that I would remember to fill in this space again later.

At the same time, I thought I was being cute with the heading:

NEW & IMPROVED FRIENDS!

The fact remains: I still don't know what content to put here, in this column. Links again? Pictures? Video? Audio? Ads? Oh, hell no! It hasn't come to me yet, but I'm sure it will eventually, and when it does it'll come quick and (as usual) with consequences.