Comments on: Episode 12: Dr Aleks Krotoski

By: Making a podcast – some notes and observations – Roo Reynolds

Making a podcast – some notes and observations – Roo Reynolds — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:32:27 +0000

[...] recent complaint was that the stereo separation is sometimes too great; you hear one person in one ear and one in [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:25:36 +0000

Hi Chris,

On the offchance that you’re listening on an iPhone 3GS or a late-2009 model iPod touch, there’s a “Mono Audio” setting in Settings > General > Accessibility that should downmix the stereo for you.

Cheers,
-Tom

By: roo

roo — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:11:17 +0000

I’ve just installed wptouch too. Try browsing the blog on your fancy iPhone now and let me know if you see any problems. Cheers.

By: leila

leila — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:28:25 +0000

Yeah – thanks Chris (& excellent debugging there Roo), we genuinely value all feedback, of any sort. It’s all we have! Hope you like today’s ep. x

By: roo

roo — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:12:42 +0000

One microphone each you say? How decadent.

Actually, we could (and should) do a better job of audio mixing. I have some ideas there. Thanks for your support, and continue to expect good and exciting things from us.

By: Chrs

Chrs — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:25:29 +0000

Thanks for being so understanding Roo. Appreciate any efforts you make to overlap the stereo mix. Maybe you could each have your own microphone? I know it’s a pretty crazy idea, but maybe it will work. I kinda think that’s what the do at those radio staions, but I’m no expert.
In the mean time maybe I’ll look into buying one if those pillow speakers they used to advertise in the TV guide.

By: roo

roo — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:33:12 +0000

Oh, and re the wptouch plugin: thanks. Good idea. I’ll enable it over the weekend. Leila will have to test it though; I don’t even have an iPhone. Imagine that.

By: roo

roo — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:04:25 +0000

Well, it is a stereo podcast, and Leila and I are often on opposite sides of the microphone, with any guests often occupying the hallowed middle ground. Sorry if our stereo separation is a bit too great for you. My fault. I’ll try to let them overlap a bit more, but editing a podcast is hard, and boring.

Unless you’re prepared to downmix to mono, I’d suggest the next time you experience the pansy-ear-punching pain, you try the following:

1 – pause the podcast (you wouldn’t want to miss any of it, after all).
2 – gently remove the offending earbud. If it’s hurting, that’s probably a good idea anyway.
3 – turn over, so if your left ear was facing the pillow, it’s now the right ear.
4 – insert the other earbud in your other ear
5 – press play to resume your listening experience.

Now, you’ll probably be hearing Leila more loudly than me. Pansy issue resolved. Of course, you might now be experiencing a feeling of being punched in the ear by a girl, which might be worse.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:34:40 +0000

Roo, I’m not actually doing anything to downmix the recording, I simply listening in with just one ear through either the L or R channel.
Thinking about it, I could probably rewire a set of eabus to put the L+R channels to each earbud, but i canvreally be bothered. I guess most podcasts are stereo, but the mix between their L&R channels is not as wide as yours so there is as much difference between them.
The ear bud headphones I use in bed are the inexpensive JVC gummy ones. I have a nice set of AKG cans for when I’m rocking the streets around Hoxton, but they are a bit big for bedtime.
Regarding the pain, I would say it more an annoying discomfort. A bit like beign gently punched in the ear by pansy.

By: Roo

Roo — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:51:41 +0000

Chris: what are you using to convert the mp3 from stereo to mono? I want to try it for myself. Also, what sort of earbuds are you using, and can you describe the pain in a little more detail?

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:37:35 +0000

Hi guys! I’m loving your podcast. Only picked it up a couple of weeks ago when it was featured in
iTunes.

Just wondering if it would be possible to improve the audio? It sounds resonable in stereo but it’s terrible on mono. You see i tend to listen to you while i’m in bed and lying on one side. It hurts my ear if I have the earbud in the side I’m lying on so I try to use just one earbud in the non-pillowside ear. Only this sounds real bad. BTW, I don’t have this problem with other podcasts, just yours. Why would that be? Anyway, hope you can sort something out so that my pillow ear doesn’t get hurt.

Also, how about enabling the wptouch extension like on Leilas blog?

Keep up the great work !
Chris