If you were looking for a “push this button and everything will be OK,” please note we’re still defining the scope of the show and it’s already forum chapter three.
Koz
What do you suggest I do now?
I don’t want to do the show live because I only want my paid subscribers to be able to access it - live or archived. But I don’t envisage doing it live any more. I just want to record the show twice a week and post it to my paid subscribers.
I suppose the first thing I would ask is that you answer questions when I ask them. I’m not being rhetorical. Simple, home microphone installs depend on the computer, so for a good recommendation, we need to know about that. What kind is it and by whom? How old? Model numbers are good so we can look it up.
Do you have the Audacity program on your computer now and does it work OK? If your machine is really old, it may not be able to either record a radio show or edit it and upload it later.
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It’s a Really Big Deal that you stabilize the delivery and payment method. Most people’s internet connections work much better pulling stuff down than they do pushing work back up. You may find that pushing an hour show up to an internet payment server could take all night. That’s a nasty surprise.
Do you pay for internet shows now? Do you, for example, have a subscription to iTunes for Windows and regularly watch movies or download music to your iPod for when you go jogging? That is the kind of service you are talking about for delivery of your shows and payment. If you have a restricted number of subscribers, actually creating Audio CDs of each show and mailing them is not a dreadful way to go. I do that once a week for a friend.
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I presented the station/posting hybrid because that is by far the simplest, most straightforward method involving no new equipment or learning curve. Absent that, we have to build a home studio.
I seem to be missing where you tell us the address of your old shows.
Koz
By the way, there is a one-button solution. You hire the station to record your show and upload it to your payment server. Nothing changes except you write them checks, the clients write you checks and the station loses the show. They may decide the show is valuable to them enough to pay you.
That’s how the “Car Talk” radio show is done. They hire WBUR Boston University Radio to record it. They did several shows where they skipped the WBUR step and recorded the shows cheaply themselves. The shows didn’t sound right and the production went back to WBUR.
Koz
Computer is a Dell Precision T 3400 bought in 2009. I don’t have Audacity or anything else. I am a total beginner. I do not pay for internet shows. I don’t have subscribers. It gets picked up directly by the radio station. Show can be found with archives at: http://prn.fm/category/archives/wake-up-call/
Really sorry about the delay in answering. I guess it must wait until the moderator allows it through. I am really grateful to you for your interest.
I guess it must wait until the moderator allows it
Don’t worry about that. We moderate new posters until we’re sure you’re not going to try and sell us plots of prime real estate in Florida. So yes, one of the forum elves has to authorize you each time. Any of us can do it. That will soon go away for you.
You understand why I’m dancing around this? People who are comfortable with systems and file management and PC programs, gamer headsets, cellphones and Apps get two-thirds of the way into personal recording and get stuck on one point or another and we can push them over a rough spot. Not so with you. You’re starting from dead zero which is very serious business and is why I’m advocating you don’t do that.
Do you think the station would be up for recording your show for you for a fee? I wasn’t kidding about that. They would probably welcome the revenue stream and your weeks-long learning curve will, at least temporarily go to zero.
OK. This is in your world. You are going to supply a product or service and your clients are going to pay you.
How?
No good businessperson goes into a venture without being able to define the product or service and revenue stream in detail. The Business Plan. What’s your business plan? How you produce the show could very well be determined by your delivery and payment method.
Koz
Very good show. I remain impressed with anyone who can pull off a live phoner and get in and out on time. I was never able to do that with any accuracy. I can do a lot of other production jobs but that’s not one of them.
Koz
I was hoping to wait until I had all the pieces of hardware in-hand, but this will have to do.
I will shortly buy a personal voice recorder similar to the Olympus WS-803. This is a completely self-contained recorder with the ability to tailor the microphone characteristics to record a voice to the partial exclusion of room and environment sounds. This recorder can easily follow you wherever you need to go in order to get a good recording and it makes no noise at all. In a flight of fantasy, I can see you doing the show in the garden in the evening with crickets behind you.
When you’re done, you can connect the Olympus to either a Windows machine or a Mac and transfer the show to Audacity where you can edit out the fluffs and falls, save a very high quality archival file, convert a copy to the yet to be determined delivery format and upload it to the yet to be determined server.
How does that sound? It’s easily a step up from the phoner and avoids all the complexities of recording directly into Audacity with a noisy computer. The computer and its fans can be completely off during the recording.
Since the show is natively in the very high quality WAV sound format (highly recommended), you can create perfect quality Audio CDs for spot sales as needed.
I’m still digging in the instruction books, but I think this unit will do everything either of us need and more.
Koz
Olympus is famous for their accessible products and that’s why I like them. However, they fail to implement the voice-guide system in their studio-recorder series, a pity.
Nevertheless, I would recommend this product as well.
It could be convenient to make the live recordings as usual via phone and to offer a high-quality version of the show recorded on such a personal recorder.
The editing phase of the HQ version could be increased over time from just a 1:1 copy to a extended version with interview sections with guests or over skype, transcription etc.
The editing phase of the HQ version could be increased over time from just a 1:1 copy to a extended version with interview sections with guests or over skype, transcription etc.
And music like your broadcast show.
I don’t think you should hand-hold it like you do with your phoner. I would prop it up on a table or desk and record that way. You need to avoid desk reflections and noises and I’m still working that out.
Koz
But neither of us will probably be doing it with the Olympus which is discontinued. See Attach.
It was a popular recorder. I drove to Frys Electronics/Techie store and even though the web page claims they have 8 in the store, the hook was empty as were the hooks for the adjacent Olympus recorders. The handy recorders from Sony, Philips, RCA etc, were all still there, neatly lined up in their blister packs.
Just go for the replacement on-line, right? Probably not right away. I need to go through the two sets of instructions and make sure they do the same jobs. Remember this thing has to do two tasks, your job and mine, so they can’t peel off any features or services. Worse, the new unit has not been on the market long enough to be reviewed yet, so nobody has had any horror tales. They have a FAQ which, of course, is written by Olympus. It’s well done. It’s just ratty enough to look authentic but sticks closely to the party line and doesn’t say anything negative.
I have about ten different ways to record a voice and I have a sound proof room, but the question is, what are we going to tell you?
Before we go down the traditional USB microphone path, we need the answer to the question of whether you can hear if the computer is on or not from the fan noises. Like if you walked into the office cold at 1AM, could you tell instantly and without looking that you left the machine on by accident?
One of the serious problems with USB microphones is the inability to get away form a noisy computer. You get about six feet or 2M for one USB cable. Then the USB service could become unstable. This isn’t like a USB mouse which can have errors and nobody notices. USB errors on a microphone can be clearly audible.
You never said if you have a cellphone. I’m guessing not.
Koz
Lose you?
Is your computer physically noisy? That’s important when you try to record your voice in the average living room or office.
Koz