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The Paracast Audio Quality Poll

  • Thread starter Thread starter ElmoFUD
  • Start date Start date
Forums New posts

The Paracast is available as a 128K audio file: Is it too large?

  • Yes. Return to 64K. I don't mind slight reduction in sound quality.

    Votes: 7 36.8%

  • No. Keep it as it is.

    Votes: 7 36.8%

  • I don't care either way.

    Votes: 5 26.3%
  • Total voters
    19
  • Poll closed .

Free episodes:

Gene Steinberg said:
the spots are kept at a single level at the top of the limits, to make them seem louder.
Click to expand...

An old trick that TV always used and still do.

Ian said:
Most of the podcasts I listen to have reasonable sound quality, including the Paracast. But as Gene says, the connection quality can be a problem for some of the contributors.

But amongst the worst for audio quality are still Don Ecker's podcasts. Yes I know they're free, have no commercials and I know he hasn't got pots of cash to install state-of-the-art gear, but his sound equipment must have some sort of basic audio monitoring meters allowing manual adjustment, even if there are no facilities for volume "normalization". Even the cheapest 1970's mixers from Radio Shack have VU metres to allow the operator to keep the levels of different channels, jingles, mics, etc. fairly constant.

The jingles are at one level, and his mic another, often at least 20 dB difference. His recent interview with Bob Kiviat nearly blew my ears off at one point near the start. And throughout the interview, Don's mic was turned up so high it distorted (again), although someone somewhere turned the distorted volume down. But the damage had already been done to the quality of Don's voice...

I may be doing Don a disservice. It may be something going on at Cyber Station of which Don has no control.

Nevertheless, despite my whining about the technical matters, I reckon Don's programmes and interviews are in the top three paranormal podcasts regarding content; he has good subjects, certainly knows his stuff and there are plenty of others out there that could listen and learn from him...

Ian
Click to expand...

If Don wants to I would be happy to chat through how to get his levels straight as it is just a simple balance he needs and maybe a PAD or two depending on the setup.
I don't know his setup but all things can be made to work given a bit of thought.
Hell an "H-Pad" is easy to make.. two 4K7 resistors and a 680 ohm between the two.. instant 20db pad and those resistors cost nothing.

If he needed them I would make them and post them to him.
 
Bananas said:
OMG TOO MUCH EFFORT I QUIT!

E: That's a joke in reference to that one listener who doesn't want to listen anymore cause thye have to right-click, once, to dl the episode. :D
Click to expand...

gifcastieliquit.gif~c200
 
Christopher O'Brien said:
...or maybe get a compressor/limiter plug in. Just a thought...
Click to expand...

On a related note, I have stopped listening to some of the episodes before they were over because of the compression artifacts. At least I'm assuming they're artifacts from compressing the files for the download archive.
 
It's a speech based podcast. It doesn't need to be high bit rate, especially if the contributor is on a phone, or Skype.

To sate the obvious, smaller lower-bitrate files are faster to download and take up less space in the player.

Just try and keep all the studio/contributor/jingle levels the same - which the Paracast generally does.

But, yes, I know the advertisers insist in higher volume for their stuff. We'll have to live with that...

Ian
 
Ian said:
It's a speech based podcast. It doesn't need to be high bit rate, especially if the contributor is on a phone, or Skype.

To sate the obvious, smaller lower-bitrate files are faster to download and take up less space in the player.


Ian
Click to expand...

TBH this was my position but I'm a convert. I have found that since the new format I can play the episode either on my pc or phone/mp3 player and listen to the show at a comfortable volume while doing other things. Before I would have to listen at the highest volume and try to stay focused on what was being said in order to follow the conversation. Now I can go about my business and listen to the program and still follow along.
 
Gene Steinberg said:
It's worth 30-40MB per episode.
Click to expand...

Right. My confusion. You were talking KBPS ( Kilobytes Per Second ) not K ( Kilobytes for the file size ). Perhaps some other compression algorithm or an EQ setting might reduce that phase shift sound that I'm assuming is the compression artifact. Or maybe that's the result of the Skype compression and is there before you do any compression on your end. I'm not sure, but in some cases it has an effect on me that is actually somewhat disorienting and requires too much effort to keep listening.
 
We normalize levels (with an app called Levelator), and sometimes use noise gates to reduce background noise. The rest is at the network, and we have no control over that.
 
I wonder if our good friend Don Ecker should try that normalizer program. Sometimes the levels of his voice compared to the guest can be deafening. Just constructive criticism Don. I LOVE your show.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
 
I wonder if our good friend Don Ecker should try that normalizer program. Sometimes the levels of his voice compared to the guest can be deafening. Just constructive criticism Don. I LOVE your show.
Click to expand...

Seems I'm not the only one who has noticed...

But what's wrong with just watching the meters and using the faders for goodness sake? It's called 'studio craft' and it's the fist thing anyone working in a studio is taught - or it should be.

Watching the levels using the meters doesn't need any fancy 'normalization' equipment, just an alert human being. The harder electronics has to work to adjust for wildly varying levels, the worse it sounds - it's not a panacea for poor operating.

Ian
 
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