Doing Pro Audio Podcasts and/or Youtube stuff

RO Admin Joined: Mar 20, 2000 Posts: 4218 Location: Canada

Just wondering if anyone here is familiar in doing podcasts? I'm impressed with what's going on there and think we should all chat more on the subject. I just bought Apple TV and see the huge potential of this new media. Totally awesome what's happening and coming down the pipe. The world gets more amazing, I'm liking it!

Dave Weiner's Riff Of The Week is spot on IMHO.

Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:23 pm

I just got into podcasts about a year ago, and it has provided me with endless hours of entertainment.

I download mostly comedy stuff (I'm a big fan of British comedy) and DJ mixes. Doing this, has made me recently seriously consider doing a bi-monthly or monthly podcast of my own mixes.

The basic thing you have to remember is that you need hosting. All iTunes does, is just provide the link, not the actual hosting. With this in mind, you need something with ALOT of monthly bandwith. Think of a weekly 30 min episode at 128kB/s. That will set you back 36Gb per month if only 300 people listen to it.

Other than that, I am sure you would know how to record and edit it, so it's all up to content.

I am currently subscribed to 0 podcasts featuring anything to do with recording or engineering. For me, they were some of the most boring podcasts I've ever listened to. (thought there weren't that many tbh). I remember once, I downloaded a "recording" podcast and the first episode was an unedited, extremely poor quality recording of a Microsoft R&D guy at a conference, talking (bragging) about the Zune for 45 minutes. Though in all fairness, the others were a bit better, but still nothing I couldn't read myself in my magazine subscription.

So here's what I found out. You're either EXTREMELY informative, or EXTREMELY entertaining. I'll give you 2 examples:

The Scott Mills Daily (a BBC Radio 1 podcast that's hilarious but without ANY useful content)

Hospital Records Podcast (VERY un-entertaining, but I hear the latest, freshest tunes and know EXACTLY what will be getting released, by whom and when)

If you're sort of "in the middle", I don't think it would be enough. It would be like a very bad episode of The Office. Very Happy

And that's my experience with the podcasting world out there.

RO Admin Joined: Mar 20, 2000 Posts: 4218 Location: Canada

mark_van_j wrote:

Doing this, has made me recently seriously consider doing a bi-monthly or monthly podcast of my own mixes.

Hey mark, thanks for chiming in. I'd love to see more RO guys doing podcasts on Pro Audio. As usual, we always need ways to help us pay for the bandwidth. Some of these are free to subscribe, they cost the listener nothing. How do they afford to do this?

I would definitely create a spot for our members to announce theirs, and/or highlight "useful" audio related podcasts or YouTube video's.

Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 11:15 pm

I think this would be a great idea.... It's much easier to learn the nuances of recording when you can listen to audio examples of different techniques that people talk about.

I recently ran across this...

http://www.insidehomerecording.com/

and found it to be both entertaining and informative.

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:45 am

bigtree wrote:

Hey mark, thanks for chiming in. I'd love to see more RO guys doing podcasts on Pro Audio. As usual, we always need ways to help us pay for the bandwidth. Some of these are free to subscribe, they cost the listener nothing. How do they afford to do this?

I would definitely create a spot for our members to announce theirs, and/or highlight "useful" audio related podcasts or YouTube video's.

TBH I was thinking of doing my own Drum n Bass podcast with my DJ mixes, not my recordings... Very Happy

The reason being, I hardly feel qualified to be doing any sort of engineering podcast...

Here's my 1.8 cents US. If it were up to ME, I'd start with a very interactive podcast. RO has a HUGE number of new recording enthusiasts, so this would have to be the main focus group. However, there are already podcasts out there that address this, so I wouldn't limit myself to basic questions, but also to more intermediate ones such as ones that I myself would have. (like can someone PLEASE explain to me the deal with impedance). I would start this by having people write in with questions, or if no one writes in (always have a plan B) grab some questions from the board I would feel would interest the general recording community. I would also try sort of a "mix critique" thing, where people would send in some tracks, and others would comment.

I wouldn't want to do a whole 'thing' on new products, as this is already very widely covered, but maybe a mention of one or two more substantial products or releases.

I would also try to shy away as much as possible from personal opinion, and stick to more facts. You have to know that unless you're Chris Lorde-Alge, no one will take you seriously when you say you prefer the 19 year-old Sony 3348 16bit 48kHz multitracker because it sounds better than anything else on the market today. Laughing

But seriously... As far as hosting, I have actually not seen a podcast I would need to pay for, except for the entire back catalogue of the Ricky Gervais podcast, but that dude seriously needs bandwidth. Most podcasts work either by sponsorship (this podcast is brought to you by...) or by referring you to their website where they have ads posted and stuff like that, where hopefully they get their investment back.

Luckily bandwidth is getting cheaper. Currently I pay $9.99 per month and I have 200Gb storage, 2000Gb bandwidth per month and around 3000 email addresses. So we're not talking hundreds of dollars. This is definitely something that could be scraped together every month.

However the problem is, no one really KNOWS how many downloads would take place. But lets ballpark it here. If there maximum amount of users ever online was a little under 5000, lets start with that. You create a 30 minute podcast (this would probably be the minimum) and you do it once a month (again, minimum) at 128kB/s (uhhh... minimum), that's around 30mb. Per month, that would amount to around 146gb, which isn't that bad.

Anyone else have any suggestions?

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 12:07 pm

I recently worked on the sound design of the first four episodes of a serialized podcast, the concept being similar to the radio serials of the 30's and 40's that can be downloaded to your iPod. The whole project is still in development and in search of additional funding but shows some promise.

Most subscribers would, supposedly, be listening on headphones rather than speakers. My biggest question is should these be mixed differently than other material? Should I be doing the final mix with ear buds? It's new ground for me, I usually do audio post for film and TV.

Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:25 pm

That's actually a really good question. I would stick to doing the mix normally, and at the end, check with a bunch of different headphones and ipod settings. Earbuds have practically no bass, while my Sony V300 have ALOT. Try turning on the "loudness" eq curve (egad!) and see if the mix stays coherent.

But I'm just talking out of my buttocks, because I'm just as curious as you are. Very Happy

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