This is a work in progress sound file. I do my show until I get stuck. It doesn’t take long. Koz
My co host and I recorded a fairly long segment of us just messing around and testing stuff. He could hear the music and me. When I play it all back, it sounds great. It’s probably too long to upload here, so I’ll have him jump on skype in a little bit and record a new one for you to listen.
There are going to be a few minor issues like you mentioned…For instance, I think any computer sound that goes into skype will be slightly delayed (not my voice, but any music or whatever) but this is acceptable, its not like hes going to be single along with the music or something. (This happens on The Morning Stream, its usually not noticeable but every once in awhile you can tell the co host is slightly delayed on the music. Even so, the main host usually points it out and it’s funny)
As for editing, my goal is to get my voice and his voice sounding as good as possible before we record and to make sure everything is mixed beforehand. It won’t be perfect, occasionally something will be too loud or too soft, but I think it will be fine. Again, this happens on the Morning Stream occasionally, and its usually pretty funny.
I am not trying to make something super professional at this point. I’m trying to pump out as much quality as I possibly can with as little money as possible. We just want to make a little podcast because…we want to…not to like, make money, or make it super popular.
Scott Johnson from the morning stream has some extremely successful podcasts despite having the occasional hiccup in sound, messup in skype quality, music too loud, etc. Hes connected with some of the best, like Leo Laporte. He has an extremely popular show about the game World of Warcraft. It has over 7000 ratings on itunes, and who knows how many actual listeners. Here’s a link https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/instance-world-warcraft-podcast!/id115594899
I am kind of rambling, but the point is, I don’t think a podcast has to be perfect. Quite the contrary actually. It actually bothers me if a podcast is too edited or too heavily produced. I think it sounds unnatural. Maybe this is just me, because the first podcasts I started listening to were Scott’s, and that’s what I like.
Sorry to ramble. I hope that doesn’t come off snarky. I really appreciate all the help I am getting on here! I will post an audio file as an example of what I have got so far as soon as I can.
Thanks!
Ok here’s the example. No need to listen to all of it, it’s just me and brother messing around for the first time. Ignore my brother’s bad mic quality.
Chase+Ben Test 1.aup (47.1 KB)
We can’t play a .AUP file - that is just “part” of an Audacity project, but it does not include the audio data - the audio data is separate (see: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/audacity_projects.html)
Post the sample as an MP3 at 128 or higher. I need to go back and read that again.
My co host and I recorded a fairly long segment of us just messing around and testing stuff. He could hear the music and me.
My concern is could he hear him? That’s what throws people off – having your own voice come back. Were you able to change music mid show?
Our curse is not that you couldn’t get it to work, but now we need to make it work on a Mac and a Linux machine.
Koz
And, oh by the way, write it up for Windows. If somebody sat you down in front of a computer cold, could you set it up again? Getting it to work yourself is nothing like writing it up so somebody else can do it. “I kept pushing buttons until it worked” is a one-off, sometimes even for that person.
I’m ding to hear that sample. If you use MP3, you can get quite a lot of sound in there before it cuts you off. This is to judge entertainment value, not a critical noise analysis or anything like that.
Koz
Man I am a noob, didn’t know about the whole audacity file being unplayable. I will upload it in MP3 format when I get home later this evening.
As far as my brother hearing himself…He didn’t mention it. He seemed to respond fine and never complained about sound. I don’t know if he was monitoring himself or not. I don’t think he had the equipment to do so, unless Macs can do mic monitoring natively. I have sent a text message to him and asked. I’ll let ya know what he says later.
After you guys hear my file, I will certainly try to recreate what I did on paper. I definitely was able to switch music during the recording. I had intro music, played some other random songs from itunes throught the recording, and I was able to play a sound clip of christian bale (you can probably guess which one, lol) from you tubr. He heard it and laughed.
I am excited to show you guys this when I get home. I’ll update when I can, thanks!
Man I am a noob
Nobody is worried about that. Audacity has some Standard Traps that everybody falls into. A favorite one is being an audio program that won’t save audio files.
How else would you do it?
Koz
Ok here it is, hopefully in a format you can hear…
I had to shorten it a lot. It was originally like 15 minutes long. Now its about…1 minute lol. But you will still get to hear me, my brother, the music I play. You will be able to hear me adjust the volume, and you will be able to tell that my brother can also hear it.
Let me know what you think!
That’s pretty much the perfect clip. It has all the pieces.
I think you’re doing everything I’m doing with half the machines. What was it that he asked and you couldn’t hear?
I know you’re going to get killed when you try to add the second host. If you’re doing everything inside the computer, there’s only one place to stick one microphone.
Now I gotta go back through and start making equipment lists and come back to you for settings and configuration. Maybe tomorrow since it’s almost midnight in this time zone.
Koz
I’m not sure what he was doing when he asked if I could hear him. Honestly I think he was making sure I didn’t hear his wife who was sitting right next to him lol. The only thing he was using at the time was a MacbookPro and earbuds.
I am not sure what you mean about being killed when I add the second host…I am going to be the only person with a mic on my end. My second host is my brother who I was just talking to…Everything worked perfectly for almost 20 minutes that we were on the call. Maybe I am totally missing what you’re saying here…And my mixer has two mic inputs so I could add another on this end if I wanted.
I’ll upload a picture of my setup soon
Ok so here’s a description of what you’re looking at…
From left to right
- XLR cable for my mic, pretty simple
2.Near my thumb (which is covering up an extremely bright blue LED) is the “CD/TAPE INPUT” which I have an RCA cable going into. The other end of that cable is a standard 3.5mm, which goes into the “SPEAKER” (green port) input on my computer. This is what allows me to hear anything on my computer.
-
Straight up from this you’ll see a green cable into an adapter. This is simply my computer speaker cable going into the “PHONES” port on my mixer. This is what allows me to hear anything. When I am recording, I obviously plug headphones into here instead.
-
Lastly, to the very right is a 1/4 orange+white cable which is connected to the “MAIN OUT” on my mixer. The other end connects to the “LINE IN” on my computer using a 3.5mm connection. This is what allows my computer to pic up anything plugged into the separate channels of my mixer, which, right now, is only my mic.
The only problem with this, and it’s not that big of a deal, is I can’t adjust the volume of my computer sounds (skype, itunes, etc) that it RECORDS at. I can adjust how loud I hear it in my speakers or headphones, but I can’t change the level it records at FROM THE MIXER. However, I CAN change the level it records at from the little windows mixer, or from the individual program. So, not much of a problem. I tried to remedy this by hooking the PC up to an actual channel of the mixer…while this works, it doesn’t sound as good and I get feedback if I turn it up very high. I don’t think those inputs were made for a PC lol.
A NOTE ON NUMBER 4. If you don’t have a 1/4 inch to 3.5mm cable. You could instead plug in an RCA to 3.5mm into the CD/TAPE OUTPUT and it works the same exact way from what I can tell. This is what I recorded that clip with. However I just bought a 1/4 to 3.5mm cable so I thought I would use that instead, and leave the CD/TAPE OUTPUT open for what its meant to be.
I think thats everything, pretty simple. I am using no computer software to achieve any of this other than audacity. I do not have a sound card. I have integrated audio. However I think they are pretty decent integrated audio. Here’s a link to my motherboard if you wanna see the audio jacks…http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3908#ov
Let me know what you think and of any possible improvements I could make!
I need to get fresh coffee and read that through. Where are the headphones connected?
Koz
I tried to remedy this by hooking the PC up to an actual channel of the mixer…while this works, it doesn’t sound as good and I get feedback if I turn it up very high. I don’t think those inputs were made for a PC lol.
Oh, they were made to record a PC all right. But they weren’t made to record a mixer playing to itself. It’s one of the problems with Stereo Mix. You basically connected the mixer input to its output. _____eeeeeEEEEEEE.
By the way, to address an earlier concern. I understand you’re not recording “This American Life” (yet), but my broadcast bias tells me you can easily start with a perfect show and create errors through special effects, but it’s a bear to start with errors and fix them later into a perfect show.
Koz
I am going to be the only person with a mic on my end.
The design center is that once a week podcast with two hosts. You could add a second host just by adding a mic, cables and maybe a headphone splitter.
Gigabyte
I don’t know why I thought you were using a store-bought laptop. You built your own or bought a very comprehensive desktop machine. That’s a problem. Most people want to do all these tricks with a cheap Windows laptop. For one problem, most of them don’t have Stereo Line-In, so you can’t just crosspatch cables like you did.
(which is covering up an extremely bright blue LED)
Black electrical tape is your friend.
Koz
I think what’s bothering me most about this is “Everybody Knows” you can’t record Skype like this. We have multiple posts from people who tried and got anything but a good recording. That’s what got my attention.
“Wait, you did what?”
We on the forum do have to watch the natural forum bias. We only see the failures.
Are you on headphones (of some sort)?
Koz
where are your headphones connected?
That wasn’t rhetorical. Are you listening to the mixer? That means I need to go back to the mixer instructions and see what special provisions are made for headphones. The mixer is providing two different mixes, one the microphone “mix” for Skype transmit and recording and a different mix for your headphones. As you experienced, if you just feed everything to everything, it starts howling or distorting.
And while you’re fact-finding, we’re going to need to know the sound settings for Skype and the ones for Audacity. As I found, they can be very different. Skype assigns its own pathways and settings and only tells you if you know where to look. What device does Skype think is its “microphone?” Where exactly is Audacity getting its recording from? What does Windows think it’s sending out the headphone connection? Do you have Audacity set for Playthrough?
Koz
The only thing he was using at the time was a MacbookPro and earbuds.
I believe that’s one of the Skype recommended configurations. I have recorded actual production temporary sound tracks on a MBP using only the internal microphone and quiet room. That’s all Denise was using in that silly test I recorded. The Mac people don’t have to go to great lengths to replace their built-in microphone.
Past the obvious volume control settings on the Mac, there are two automatic settings.
Skype > Preferences > Audio/Video > Automatically adjust…
Does he have that selected?
Apple > Preferences > Hardware > Sound > Input > Internal Microphone, Ambient noise…
Does he have that selected? I think that’s the setting which may try to filter out his wife. Ambient Noise Reduction is magic and I’m only half joking. I just tried it and the two settings do not try to change each other – always a danger on Macs.
Koz
Alright, I hope I can answer everything you mentioned in one post, lol. but it’s gonna have to be later, I am about to head out for the day.
I plug my headpones into the top most port where you see the green speaker cable. I unplug my computer speakers and plug in my headphones. That port is specifically for monitoring.
More to come
Alright here we go…
Where are the headphones connected? They connect to the topmost “PHONES” port. In the picture, there is a green speaker cable. When I want to use headphones, I switch them out.
I did in fact build my own computer and was very lucky to have onboard audio that came with a “Line-in” port. I think other people will obviously need some kind of audio interface to hook up their PC to the mixer. Unless of course your mixer has USB built in. Seems like some of the more expensive ones do
It would definitely be helpful to tell you my PC settings for sound. Here we go…
In windows playback and recording devices panel, I just have “speakers” as my default playback device. This is because my mixer is connected to the “speakers” port of my computer.
For recording devices, I have Stereo Mix as the “default devices” but I have “Line in” as the default communications device. This is because the “line in” port of my PC is also hooked up to my mixer. (as described earlier) [a weird side note] when I record my voice, I am not actually using the Line-in setting. I am using Stereo Mix. If I were to use line in, I couldn’t record my PC at the same time. This works because stereo mix does include my voice as well as everything else. So while I could use “line in” as a recording device, I don’t because I want to record everything on my PC. Sorry, that’s kinda confusing]
For Skype. I have Stereo Mix set as the microphone (this makes it so that skype calles hear everything that goes on on my PC (including my voice because its hooked up to the mixer) For the speakers part of skype, I just have "speakers"as the device. (again, “speakers” are actually my mixer, because my mixer is whats going into the “speakers” port of my PC)
As for audacity, I have hardly messed with its settings at all yet, but as of right now I have “MME” “speakers” and “stereo mix” set. This records everything into one track.
I think that covers it. There are a lot of variables here, and I had to try a lot of different things to get it to work correctly. Hardware is so specific what with drivers and all, it’s hard to tell someone exactly how it’s done.
Like I mentioned in an earlier post, the only drawback is I cant adjust the volume of anything PC related (skype, youtube, itunes) from my mixer. I have to adjust volumes on the PC itself. I think this is where the second computer comes in for Scott Johnson on the morning stream. He could have a separate computer running sound effects. Maybe not. It will be awhile before I ever find out lol, I am pretty content with how I have things now.
Let me know your thoughts