The Podcast Pedant

(Yeah, it’s been a while. But look! Here I am again! Enough said on that.)

(Further note: I’ll stick URLs in later. It’s late, and I’m too tired to do it now.)

So I just got back from the 2006 Podcast and Portable Media Expo.

I made it a priority to go this year because, frankly, all of the talk about it last year made me jealous. It sounded like I’d missed the podcasting event of the year — and in 2005, I probably did. There was no PodcasterCon, no PodCamp, and very little at Dragon*Con. This year? It wasn’t the only game in town, but I think it was very much worth the expense to go from a business perspective, and it was a hell of a lot of fun.

I went partly to get some business done, and mostly to meet people. I’d call the business part about a 60% success — I’m not going to talk about everything I’ve been involved with, but I had a few important conversations and missed a few others because everyone was busy. No big deal; that’s what e-mail and Skype are about. The biggest accomplishment was the energy behind the Podcast Guild; we got some new gears turning, and it looks like it’s finally on its way to becoming what it needs to be. ¹ More later on that.

The people, though — that was hugely successful. I met most of the people I was hoping to meet, and many more. And it bears out an observation I’ve made from other events: despite our personas online or behind the mic, in person we’re a big circle of friends. I didn’t shake a single hand that wasn’t warm and welcoming. In some cases this surprised me: as much of a smartass as I am much of the time, I expected at least a few cold shoulders or even harsh words, but there were none the entire weekend. Everyone was cool. It was a great vibe.

Was it a deep learning experience? Not to me, though I confess I’m an unfair judge. I don’t know everything, but I know quite a bit already of what was being presented. However, the few program events I sat in on were more slick, corporate-vanilla, and “on the surface” than deep examinations of the issues. I’d even include Evo’s and my own presentation in that. I actually felt better about the panels at PodcasterCon last year, where there was less speechifying and more intimacy between the moderators and the audience. That’s not to say this was a dud; there were some good messages here. I’m just not sure from my own perspective that a session pass would’ve been worth the money, if I hadn’t had a free pass already as a speaker.

The exhibit hall was much the same: a fun place, but little depth and few surprises. Podcast Ready put on a great face as the primary sponsor,² and the Podango mini-conference³ seems to have been a hit. Most of the rest of it was what you’d expect: here’s Shure and M-Audio, there’s LibSyn, over there’s PopCurrent, yonder are a few podcast producers, etc. There were only two gadgets that threw me for a loop:

• Box Populi’s “Podcast in a Box,” a Linux-based recorder that delivers true, no-kidding, automatic podcasting with zero interface. Aimed right now at the university market under the Meedu brand, you don’t even have to push a button: your tech guy either schedules a start and stop time for your lecture and it begins and ends recording (and publishes to their Web host) with no intervention, or you pop in a USB flash key which triggers the recording, and it publishes when you take it out. I have never seen a podcast process with no grunt work before. I think it’s brilliant.

• The iMorphosis “PodcastLink,” a sort of hardware-based podcatcher that will plug directly into your MP3 player (including iPods) and populate it without a computer. ⁴ This reminds me of those old $100 e-mail and Web appliances — the ones they marketed to your grandparents. Like those, it will fail, because it’s a clever solution lacking a problem. Anyone who has the knowledge and desire to listen to a podcast is going to have a computer sitting around. Under what circumstances is it worth real money to avoid plugging your MP3 player into your computer?

What mattered far more than new gizmos was just listening in for the general tone of the Expo. Leo’s keynote, about getting down to business and protecting what we do as a brand and an industry, pretty much set that tone, and I felt it throughout most of the presentations and a lot of the conversations. You had plenty about podcasting for fun, sure, but underneath it, everyone was really focused on success. There was a drive throughout the whole thing. A hunger. I cannot tell you how many times and in how many ways I heard the word “metrics” used, during the day and late into the drunken night. I can’t really criticize — I was saying the same lines as everyone else.

Is attending the Expo important? That’s a complex question. It’s fun to attend regardless of its importance. I’d say it’s moderately important to attend if you’re treating your podcast as a business; and it’s critical to attend if you intend to stake a claim in podcasting beyond your own podcast. Events like this are, in a very real way, the conversation that podcasting has with itself. The sharpest observation I had was that the conversation was entirely about the people and companies who were there. People talked about Podcast Ready. People talked about SwitchPod. People talked about Blubrry and Podcast Pickle, both of whom had successful and fun party suites.

Apple was discussed very little except in regard to the recent fracas with Podcast Ready. And I barely heard Podshow mentioned at all. Even the Podshow podcasters who attended weren’t talking about Podshow. The ridiculous Hummer limo, running guests to their anti-conference or whatever it was, only got rolled eyes. I’m pretty sure they have no idea how much it’s hurting them to detach themselves from podcasting’s conversation. They weren’t there, so they weren’t on the radar. And a company that survives on the creativity of individuals can’t afford that.

Besides, they’re missing the fun.

I didn’t miss the fun. I had lots of it. All businesses, priorities, and importances aside, I’ll be going again next year.

And I hope to see you there.

1. That “industry consortium” Leo mentioned in his keynote speech? He was talking about the Guild. I’d mentioned it to him the night before. ↩
2. I don’t just say that because I work for them. ↩
3. They called it an “unconference,” but they’re wrong by all usual definitions. ↩
4. Except it’s configured from their Web site. For which you need a computer. ↩

So I finally got a hardware compressor.¹ I was beginning to get tired of applying the same software compression in Soundtrack Pro over and over again — and also tired of the occasional clipping which software can’t solve. I wanted to move just one step closer to a “live to tape” scenario, although I know for certain I’ll never really get there.

After a few days of obsessive review-reading and wallet-shaking, I settled on the RNC 1773 from FMR Audio:

The RNC literally stands for “Really Nice Compressor.” You’ve got to respect that level of forthrightness. It’s a no-frills stereo compressor: there’s no gate, no limiter, no expander, no dual mono mode with extra knobs. What it does have are two compression modes:

1. Normal Mode, which acts exactly like a compressor should. I played around with this a little, and it sounded okay. The attack is very fast and hard, which I found a little jarring. Doubtless I could adjust it, but I never got that far, because what I really wanted to try was:
2. Super Nice Mode, which chains three compressor circuits in series for a very gentle, very transparent compression effect that still retains all its power.

If you Google on the thing you’ll find a large number of sound engineers who swear that the RNC is the best compressor you can find for less than $2,000. I got mine for $175 (plus state tax, and with some cables thrown in) at Humbucker Music, whom I will attest are a great bunch of folks. I ordered it on Wednesday, and it was at my door Thursday afternoon.

I’ve used it twice now for podcasting. I wish I could say something like, “Wow! All I had to was turn the thing on and nightingales dropped dead from envy at my feet.” Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way. New sound gear never works that way. Even on Super Nice mode, I’m still working on tweaking the settings just right. My first attempt (for last week’s Escape Pod intro) used a 6:1 ratio, -8 dB threshold, +6 dB gain. I personally think it came out sounding overpowered, way too flat and pushy. For this week’s intro I used a 4:1 ratio, and made the threshold and gain even at 8 dB (which the manual recommends). It wasn’t flat this time, but I clipped frequently. This could mean I need to make my mic gain part of the equation too.

Don’t take this as criticism of the compressor. The RNC does what it’s supposed to, and it really is beautifully transparent. There’s no change at all in the sound’s tone or noise, just its volume, and that’s rare and lovely. I’m being honest with you about my trials to make the point that there’s no magic bullet. The more gear you have, the more skill you need to develop. Once I learn to use the thing properly, then I believe it will add a volume and clarity to my podcast that will make the investment more than worth it. I can already sense parts of that. It’s just a matter of getting all the pieces into place.



1. I should probably write a post at some point about the finer points of compression and what compressors do. For now, if you didn’t already know, take this for a definition: “A compressor evens out the volume of your signal by making loud sounds quieter.” ↩

I already talked about this on Escape Pod, but it’s worth pushing everywhere. Mur Lafferty, of Geek Fu Action Grip and many other fine audio thingamapods, has gathered short stories that have been podcast by their authors and collected them into the first podcast fiction anthology. Voices: New Media Fiction is available free from Podiobooks.com and includes work by Cory Doctorow, James Patrick Kelly, Patrick MacLean, Tee Morris, and many others. Like all podiobooks, you can set up a personalized feed and get the stories at whatever pace you choose. Every day, twice a month, whatever works for you.

As a fiction author, I shouldn’t have to tell you how cool I think this is. Of course I’m also jealous because I’m not in it — but that’s my own damn fault for creating a podcast that only narrates other people’s stories. That’s cool, though. There’s always next year. Plenty of time for me to podcast that story about the antisocial young man who keeps getting set up for blind dates by his army of killer robots…

Catching up even further on week-old news, I was interviewed by Joseph Nilo for the third episode of Podcaster Confessions. The structure of this one is much like Podcast 411, in that it centers around an interview, but Nilo loads the front and back with information directly targeted at beginning podcasters. I think the podcast is still trying to find its feet, and it’s got a little ways to go before the presentation feels entirely natural, but it’s still within the first few episodes so that’s always true. One it hits its stride I think it has the potential to be one of the most recommended learning resources. Nilo also runs the very polished Mac Pro Podcast,¹ so he conforms to the Rule of Qualification: if you’re going to make a podcast about podcasting, know what you’re talking about first.

Anyway. Good interview. I’m not happy with my own audio quality; I was using a brand new USB headset I’d bought specifically for Skype and nothing else, and should have done more tests with it. But the stuff I said didn’t sound as dumb on subsequent listening as it did when I was saying it. That is the mark of a talented interview producer.

And I didn’t confess! Not even after they shone that bright light in my eyes.

1. Which also interviewed me very briefly in their PodcasterCon video special. I’m the guy with the hat. ↩