The conversation was frank and informative and it was nice to reconnect with the likes of Julien and Charles who I haven’t seen in a while.

After much conceptual talk in the morning session about context and content and connections, Hugh McGuire did a great job “rebooting” our conversation when he led off the afternoon with a poignant reminder of why, I think, most of us in the room choose to spend the entirety of a Sunday in November sitting on the floor — lovely as the plush red carpet was — talking about podcasting.

Hugh played a clip from well-known Canadian podcaster Scarborough Dude which very effectively reminded us it’s about the audio; that audio, whether it’s online, on the radio, or on a portable device … that audio has a way of communicating to us, of engaging us, of captivating us in a way that the written word or visual media simply cannot.

Chalk it up to the primacy of language, the power of the spoken word, or the theatre of the mind, the fact remains, audio is the most powerful form of communication we have.

And our love of audio is why we choose to spend 6 hours numbing our butts at the NAC yesterday.

PodCamp Ottawa 2008
Our theme is, “Fresh Thinking and Approaches”
Date: Sunday, November 23, 2008
Time: 10:00am - 4:00pm (welcome at 9:45am)
Location: National Arts Centre, Panorama Room

Register online here:
http://podcampottawa.pbwiki.com

Come on out and share your ideas on podcasting and meet some really nice people.

I don’t know how Obama’s presidency is going to go, and I don’t hold my breath for any miracles. Any president of the USA has one hell of a challenge on his (or her) hands, and the O-man has inherited a bigger mess than anyone can clean up.

But, man if he wanted to make me happy, he could not have started in a place nearer to my heart than his Tech/Science platform, released today.

[read article] and listen to podcast

With the digital music explosion, the issues of copyright, authorship and ownership have never been so important. Tune in to hear a re-broadcast of Jim and Greg’s interview with legal expert Lawrence Lessig. Listen

The BBC also say they plan to release versions for other mobile devices soon.

For now, point your iPhone or iPod Touch to:
bbc.co.uk/podcasts

Mark Blevis yesterday announced Podcamp Ottawa to be held Novermber 25 in the Panorama Room of the National Arts Centre (go figure ;-)

The idea here is a back-to-basics “UNconference” day of discussions including an Audacity presentation by Mark’s Canadian Podcast Buffet co-host, Bob Goyetche, and a WordPress session lead by Charles Hodgeson.

Updated: Registration is free. Attendees will be asked to make a $10 donation to the Snowsuit fund. Check out the wiki and register soon; attendance is capped at 80.

LibriVox makes it to 1,000!

LibriVox, the free audio book project has just cataloged it’s 1,000th
book: “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” by Edgar Allan Poe (read by
Reynard T. Fox).

LibriVox.org started in August 2005 with a simple objective: “to make
all public domain books available as free audio books.” Thirteen
people collaborated to make the first recording, Joseph Conrad’s
“Secret Agent.”

Two years later, LibriVox has become the most prolific audiobook
publisher in the world - we are now putting out 60-70 books a month,
we have a catalog of 1,000 works, which represents a little over 6
months of *continuous* audio; we have some 1,500 volunteers who have
contributed audio to the project; and a catalog that includes Jane
Austin’s “Pride and Prejudice,” “Moby Dick,” Darwin’s “Origin of the
Species,” “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” Einstein’s “Relativity:
The Special and General Theory,” Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason,” and
other less well-known gems such as “Romance of Rubber” edited by John
Martin. We have recordings in 21 languages, and about half of our
recordings are solo efforts by one reader, while the other half are
collaborations among many readers.

We are always looking for new volunteers! Come join us.

Best,
Hugh McGuire
http://librivox.org
info@librivox.org

Congratulations, Hugh, and everyone involved with Librivox. You’re what the interwebs is all about.

“Radio: An Illustrated Guide” by Jessica Abel and Ira Glass. This is a comic book on how the This American Life team produces the best damned radio show going.

Ira Glass on Storytelling (a 3-part YouTube video). Glass is the genius behind TAL.

“From Idea to Air“ by Tod Maffin. An e-book by the CBC’s Tod Maffin on what makes compelling audio and how to get it to air.

And of course the seminal …

“Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting” by Robert McKee

All great sources for starting discussions around engaging audio.

More and more though, we’re trying out different locations and situations to record our shows to mix things up a bit. For instance, we’ve received great feedback on our NACOcast Live shows, where Chris Millard conducts interviews with guest artist either before or after an NAC Orchestra performance — Recorded in front of a live studio audience, as the pros like to say. A very recent example is the interview show with Pinchas Zukerman and soprano Measha Brueggergosman.

We’ll likely do more of these types of shows as the orchestra programmes more interviews and presentations as part of their audience enrichment initiatives. They’re fun to do and they make for great podcasts, but we’re finding that post-production of live audio can really stretch the boundaries of the time we have for post-production. The problem is that essentially, we’re in a cavernous lobby, using lapel mics, with multiple voice types and levels. We’re also mixing for the live audience through the PA as well as for the recording — Lots of stuff to juggle.

One could spend hours and hours in post-production, compressing, limiting, adjusting EQ and applying a myriad of audio plugins to make listening to 45 minutes of audio enjoyable to the podcast listener. Or, one could use The Levelator.

The Levelator is a free drag and drop application for MacOS, Windows and Linux. Without getting too too geeky, it performs a series of adjustments including gain optimization and RMS normalization. The results are quite surprising and extremely expedient. While we would never use a tool such as The Levelator for a studio recording — and definitely never on anything that included music — for live interviews, Skype conversations, re-purposed or archival audio, The Levelator can be a very effective time-saver.

Have you had experience with The Levelator? Leave a comment with your experiences and thoughts on the subject.