Pod Peeves

[goatkeeper]

Plosives!! I hate, hate, hate plosives. That's the huge explosion sound you hear with P's, T's, and sometimes K's and Q's. Before you begin a recording session, stand there for five minutes and get your microphone adjusted properly. Or, better yet, get a windscreen. That'll improve your sound so much.

Mixing variances are also an annoyance for me. I just finished listening to Sigler's Ancestor through Podiobooks.com. the outro for each episode would drop decibels like it was a hole filled bucket. Please keep it steady all the way throughout.

Haha, yah, I can tell you worked in radio..."plosives" is new to me though, I'll have to start using that.
I think most would agree that mixing variances are the #1 podpeeve out there.  EP and PP are almost never guilty of this (yay!) but yah, Darker Projects and Sigler (to a much lesser extent) make it hard to love the stuff they do because of poorly mixed production. 

Still, I while I think good production flare can add a lot to theaudio market, I think the most important factor will always be the story.  Variant Frequencies has mastered garageband and all the free loop sound effects and jingles out there, but I just can't get into it because the stories aren't as diverse and fun as escapepod.  I love EP because of Steve's personality, the great production and the diversity in narrators, authors and concepts. 

[Listener]

Plosives!! I hate, hate, hate plosives. That's the huge explosion sound you hear with P's, T's, and sometimes K's and Q's. Before you begin a recording session, stand there for five minutes and get your microphone adjusted properly. Or, better yet, get a windscreen. That'll improve your sound so much.

Mixing variances are also an annoyance for me. I just finished listening to Sigler's Ancestor through Podiobooks.com. the outro for each episode would drop decibels like it was a hole filled bucket. Please keep it steady all the way throughout.

Haha, yah, I can tell you worked in radio..."plosives" is new to me though, I'll have to start using that.
I think most would agree that mixing variances are the #1 podpeeve out there.  EP and PP are almost never guilty of this (yay!) but yah, Darker Projects and Sigler (to a much lesser extent) make it hard to love the stuff they do because of poorly mixed production. 

Still, I while I think good production flare can add a lot to theaudio market, I think the most important factor will always be the story.  Variant Frequencies has mastered garageband and all the free loop sound effects and jingles out there, but I just can't get into it because the stories aren't as diverse and fun as escapepod.  I love EP because of Steve's personality, the great production and the diversity in narrators, authors and concepts. 

As a former radio guy, the way I get around P-popping:

1.  Point the mic down from slightly above my head and don't speak directly into it, instead using gain to control loudness.
2.  Microphone condom.  Mine's bright orange and plushy.
3.  Know what you're saying.  It doesn't hurt to reread a sentence if you think you're going to pop a P.

[goatkeeper]

Microphone condom!!

[Russell Nash]

2.  Microphone condom.  Mine's bright orange and plushy.

That just sounds like really personal information.

[wakela]

New Pod Peeve!  After more than a year!

Unfortunately, this is something EP and PP are guilty of.   Boing Boing does this on their blog, too. 
Everyone and everything mentioned is fantastic. 

"Today's story is read to us by the utterly amazing X.  X is the host of the uber-stupendous podcast Y, and contributes to the blog Z that is so good I'm going to have to change my shorts after this intro.  The closing music is provided by ... oh, my God I can't even say their name they are just so completely awesome." 
(Please take this as the friendly jab it is intended to be.)

If everything is described as being superlatively great, then it waters down the greatness. 

[stePH]

As a former radio guy, the way I get around P-popping:

1.  Point the mic down from slightly above my head and don't speak directly into it, instead using gain to control loudness.
2.  Microphone condom.  Mine's bright orange and plushy.
3.  Know what you're saying.  It doesn't hurt to reread a sentence if you think you're going to pop a P.

I made a great pop-filter for practically no cost using a wire garment hanger and a nylon stocking.

[Planish]

Get on with the show.

Intro music +
Apologies for getting the podcast out late this week +
Apologies for having a cold and a crappy voice +
A story about something cute my kid did

GET ON WITH IT!  Just start talking.  About something interesting.

Not a big fan of the idle banter, either.

Sometimes the idle banter is the show, viz. Air Out My Shorts which is ostensibly two people reading short stories submitted by listeners. The stories typically take up about 20% of the show, and much of the time is spent with interruptions by one of the hosts, making fun of critiquing the story, or making references to something silly that the story reminded them of.

That being said, the idle banter is rarely a plus.

[Russell Nash]

Get on with the show.

Intro music +
Apologies for getting the podcast out late this week +
Apologies for having a cold and a crappy voice +
A story about something cute my kid did

GET ON WITH IT!  Just start talking.  About something interesting.

Not a big fan of the idle banter, either.

Sometimes the idle banter is the show, viz. Air Out My Shorts which is ostensibly two people reading short stories submitted by listeners. The stories typically take up about 20% of the show, and much of the time is spent with interruptions by one of the hosts, making fun of critiquing the story, or making references to something silly that the story reminded them of.

That being said, the idle banter is rarely a plus.

This would be why I don't listen to AOMS.

[H. Bergeron]

I agree wholeheartedly about 'plosives' and bad mixing - it can be especially bad since I listen to my podcasts in the car through a cheap FM transmitter from my Zune, so if the sound quality is second-rate to begin with, well... it doesn't gain anything in the process of being played.

My personal pod peeve, even though it's actually no one's fault, is something with Escape Pod.  I found EP a few months ago and have been systematically listening to all of the back episodes, from Imperial onwards.  I'm having a great time of it, but there is one major problem I am running into again and again.  Steve will mention some podcast or project that sounds really, really cool.  I'll go online to look for it and, of course, the damn thing has already ceased to exist or turned to utter crap and THEN ceased to exist.  Oi.

[The Dunesteef]

My biggest pet peeve has to do with editing. There have been numerous podcasts where the reader makes an obvious gaffe, stops for a few seconds, and then goes back and rereads what they messed up. That's perfectly fine. I mess up all the time when I'm reading copy. However, most of these recordings are made on a DAW (digital audio workstation), so its easy to go through and edit out the mistakes. When I hear the mistakes, it automatically makes the podcast sound second rate to me. I'd rather the product be dropped into the feed late rather than listen to stumbles.

I whole-heartedly agree with this one.  There's nothing more unprofessional than hearing somebody read the same line twice.  Listen to the dang thing through once before you put it out.  I can usually forgive one screw up, but the other day I was listening to a story, and the narrator screwed up and reread lines around five or six times in the same episode.  Seriously, if you're not even going to try to put something nice out, then I guess I won't listen any longer.

[Windup]

Sometimes the idle banter is the show, viz. Air Out My Shorts which is ostensibly two people reading short stories submitted by listeners. The stories typically take up about 20% of the show, and much of the time is spent with interruptions by one of the hosts, making fun of critiquing the story, or making references to something silly that the story reminded them of.

On the strength of Steve's recommendation, I tried to listen ot AOMS. Twice.  I can't say any of the banter worked for me; it sounded mostly like the sort of chit-chat you'd get out of drunks at two in the morning.  Not my cup of tea....

[The Dunesteef]

There are those here who hate banter and would do anything to avoid it and there are those here who like banter so much that they skip the story to get to the banter.  What would be an acceptable compromise?  I was thinking that placing the banter (or monologue or whatever) after the story, like they do on Pseudopod would be a good compromise, because then those banter haters can just hit the skip button and move on to the next podcast.  Is that enough?  There's also the idea to make two versions of the podcast available, one with and one without banter.  But that eats up a lot of storage space, and can probably only be done every so often when the banter gets too long and out of hand, or maybe when the story is short enough.  What do you all think?

[stePH]

On the strength of Steve's recommendation, I tried to listen ot AOMS. Twice.  I can't say any of the banter worked for me; it sounded mostly like the sort of chit-chat you'd get out of drunks at two in the morning.

I haven't listened to the show in question, but from what I've been given to understand, that's exactly what it is.

[Swamp]

There are those here who hate banter and would do anything to avoid it and there are those here who like banter so much that they skip the story to get to the banter.  What would be an acceptable compromise?  I was thinking that placing the banter (or monologue or whatever) after the story, like they do on Pseudopod would be a good compromise, because then those banter haters can just hit the skip button and move on to the next podcast.  Is that enough?  There's also the idea to make two versions of the podcast available, one with and one without banter.  But that eats up a lot of storage space, and can probably only be done every so often when the banter gets too long and out of hand, or maybe when the story is short enough.  What do you all think?

If it is one person in a semi-prepared essay-style intro and/or it is very brief, I think it is okay at the beginning. (like Steve used to do)

Creating a separate comment free version works, but it clutters the feed on both ends.

I don't think you can go wrong with putting it at the end because once the story has been read, I can skip the comentary/banter if I'm not in the mood.

[goatkeeper]

If you make your podcast in AAC or some enhanced form you can put chapters in it.  Tis the way of the future.

[sirana]

I think the idle banter is something that you either love or hate. In my case I could listen to Preston and the Wordwhore for hours. The perfect AOMS in my oppinion would scrap the story reading and the phonecalls and be just an hour of bitching and nonsequiturs from the hosts. But I can see why that puts other people off as well...

If you make your podcast in AAC or some enhanced form you can put chapters in it.  Tis the way of the future.

I highly doubt that AAC will ever replace MP3. Once a format is used on such a scale and has become the ultimate audio format it takes more than superior compression algorithms *cough ... ogg vorbis ... cough* or inhanced features like AAC to dethrone it.

[wakela]

I like the idea of at least one person doing that bantering to have something at least minimally prepared.  It drives me crazy when people say, "this kind of reminds me of the David Brin story....what was it .... with the dolphins ..... hmmmm ... this is going to bug me all day ..... "  Dude, aren't you sitting at a computer with internet freaking access? 

I've been listening to Star Ship Sofa, and I like the round table discussions he has.  They are rambly and free-form, but they are at least based on the current story. 

[FNH]

Complete feed screwups bug me a little bit.  I'm a regular listener (in the UK) of a tech show from a stateside radio station.  The podcast is obvisously created by computer linked to a timer that chops the audio up when the shows are due to start and end.

For three weeks the show I downloaded was not the tech show, instead it was speechs by political people in the lead up to the US presidential election.

Dudes check your feeds!

[fuzzygnome]

I hate sharp sizzling S's even more than punchy P's, that seems to be an even more prevalent thing from podcasts

[Planish]

I dislike podcasts that put ads in. I guess it´s fair enough if they´re being paid for it but a 30sec ad in a podcast is a loooonnngg time, and when the ads are from other podcasters and/or people with really annoying voices or badly mixed sound/music effects then I turn the podcast off entirely. Say "Brought to you by" or whatever, but don´t give any elongated ads or fake sounding endorsements.

Decoder Ring Theatre drops in ads, but they do them like the Old Time Radio ads, with the actors reading them in character. That's pretty much in keeping with the rest of the DRT podcast, it being a pastiche of OTR. Typically birthday greetings and whatnot, so they tend to have a bit of fun with them. Very few are promos produced elsewhere and simply pasted in, IIRC, so you aren't uh, ... whaddayacallit .. disengaged.

[Planish]

Oh, here's another one.

Right now I'm following a particular podcast novel from podiobooks, and the order of the chapters are all out of whack in my iTunes library. On my iPod, the order is different, but still out of whack. Since the beginning of each chapter title is the same, I have to scroll one line at a time, wait for the line to scroll sideways so I can read the chapter number, and then move on. What a pain. Oh yeah, it has LOUD INTRO MUSIC, soft reading then LOUD EXTRO MUSIC.
Sometimes (for other podiobooks) the order is mixed up in iTunes, but sorted correctly on my iPod. Not so bad.

With Podiobooks.com novels, the "The End" episode is always just before the real last chapter.

[Zathras]

DAMNIT!!!  Why the hell do I get my ear drums blasted by the intro music on a lot of Escape Artists podcasts and then have the levels drop to near inaudibility?  EA is not the only offender, I have 3 poker podcasts that I cannot listen to while driving because the levels are in the mud.  Well, except for the intos and outros that would rupture my ears if I listened with ear phones. 

Look, I know you have a lot of cool recording gear and a quiet place to listen, but that's not how most of your audience listens.

[Raving_Lunatic]

I get around the EP/PP/PC sound problems with massive, loud over-ear earphones and amplifier.
makes jogging hard, plus I can't hear ANYTHING else, plus I look like an idiot while out walking and am a target for muggers/

[Zathras]

Aaaaaand Podcastle has joined Clonepod in the recommended episode only list.  My ears get blasted by everything but the story.

[Ben Phillips]

DAMNIT!!!  Why the hell do I get my ear drums blasted by the intro music on a lot of Escape Artists podcasts and then have the levels drop to near inaudibility?  EA is not the only offender, I have 3 poker podcasts that I cannot listen to while driving because the levels are in the mud.  Well, except for the intos and outros that would rupture my ears if I listened with ear phones. 

Look, I know you have a lot of cool recording gear and a quiet place to listen, but that's not how most of your audience listens.

I have been meaning to have a chat with the other producers about sound levels, actually.  Does Pseudopod have this problem for you?