Random Acts of Insightfulness #1 - James Blaylock
OK, it’s officially Saturday, so this is going up late. Earlier in the day I had believed that there was some error in a plugin I was trying to utilize, but I have since realized that the error was, in fact, my own stupidity…
I am confident this surprises no one.
Anyway, this is the inaugural edition of Random Acts of Insightfulness, the Normality Restored interview series.
Our first guest is none other than James Blaylock, World Fantasy Award and Philip K Dick Award winner, as well as a someone I consider to be a personal mentor.
The entire interview is just over 45 minutes, and so I have chopped it into four easily digestible mp3 files.
Topics discussed include writing (of course), William Ashbless, Steam Punk, the usefulness of MFA programs, carpentry and Czech film directors.
Enjoy!
I’ll point out that my voice is much easier to hear in this interview because (again, stupidity) I had the mic facing me and not set in a neutral position…live and learn I suppose…
My hope is that this will turn into a somewhat regular feature. I have already confirmed installment number 2, but there has not, as yet, been a date set to conduct said installment, so stay tuned…
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March 8th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Any errors are Killian’s fault
March 10th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Hmm, it no workee for Tengu. Interview sounds all chipmunky. This make Tengu sad.
March 10th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Well, I’m not one to speak ill of others but…it’s probably your fault in some way…I’ve actually listened to them on three separate systems with no problems, so ?
but failing the stream actually working, you can grab the mp3 files
http://www.normalityrestored.com/wp-content/uploads/podcast/
March 10th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I like chipmunkies.
March 10th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
this is f’ing great man. i am glad you thought of doing this. have you got a bunch more traffic lately?
March 11th, 2008 at 9:05 am
There was a spike the night the page when down but as to continued highs I’m not seeing it.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:05 am
A bit, I think the next one may increase traffic even more, and after that, who knows…
Thanks for the compliment. I think I sound, I don’t know, lame I guess, but Blaylock was pretty damn awesome, as he usually is.
Did you (or anyone) have problems with the stream?
March 11th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
no, not at all.
March 13th, 2008 at 10:49 am
At least one other person I know of has experienced the chipmunky Blaylock…my initial assumption, however, is that it’s something that we can’t control on our end.
April 18th, 2008 at 7:53 am
You are correct in thinking this is not something you can fix at your end Killan. The usual reason for sounding like a chipmonk is an incorrect codex at the users end causing them to hear the bit rate at twice normal speed.
Since the default player for the browser can be different than the default player for general use the user can have a hard time figuring out this is their problem. Bit rates for the file are important as is the number of channels, my recommendations are below.
You need to have the user update the default player used within the web browser and/or provide a download link additionally for those folks wishing to grab and listen to the mp3 directly rather than listen via the web browser default player (you show in the post up thread the following and it worked for me) you will need to create a button which points to the specific show segment under each player button which defaults to downloading the segment as an mp3 rather than just opening another window to play that link or have text suggest they right click and save or do the mac thing to save for that OS. http://www.normalityrestored.com/wp-content/uploads/podcast/
In short the listener needs the latest set of codex(s) for the OS they are using since all players will use the correct codex or closest matching codex (for some players) and these files are streamed at twice the rate (bit rate vs number of channels) the users player can handle, and we see the reason for the changed pitch… here, a brief inspection shows us the actual problem…
Filename: - RAOI 1 - Blaylock-1.mp3
File Type: - 16000Hz, 16-bit, Mono - MPEG Layer-3, 128 Kbps (Mono)
Uncompressed Size: - 16.6 MB (17,415,936 bytes)
Size on Disk: - 8.3 MB (8,708,196 bytes)
Length: - 9:04.248 - 8,707,968 samples
The size compressed shows as twice the file on disk size, roughly, and the only change you made to the standard 128 is to make it mono from stereo, the player is expecting stereo at a slower bit rate and is confused if it is using the incorrect codex.
I would change this output to 48kbps (Stereo) as the file will be smaller and more accessible to the average player whether on a computer or in a standalone pocket MP3 or car mounted DVD/MP3 player.
Also, use a quality recording application such as Adobe Audition or an older shareware version called Cool Edit Pro. Use an inexpensive stereo (or greater) mixer for 2 or more microphones, match all the elements and try for a less lively room sound. Preserve as lossless wav format (or your choice of lossless format, some are compressed for space savings withut loss) and make any corrections to this master file only — editing any MP3 and the many times of re-saving it to that format is what gives you the hollow ringing sound even at the 128 x 2 or greater bit rates a lot of editing software uses for the save file.
All the Best,
–
Mike C
April 18th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Hey Mike, thanks for information. At some point, if this interview thing continues, I’m going to invest in some actual equipment and/or software. As it is, the two interviews I’ve done have been recorded on a hand-held digital recorder and spliced using Audacity…not exactly a hi-tech (or even low-tech) setup I know.
I will keep your suggestions in mind if/when my equipment is up to the task of actually doing any of them.