Unit 5: Audio

Research

What is a podcast

“An audio recording, typically featuring speech, that may be downloaded or streamed on a computer or mobile device, generally available as a series to which people can subscribe.” (Oxford Languages)

I have learnt what a podcast is and what works well and what I would improve in ours. I want a ours to be a informal conversational disguising different topics within the gaming/developing areas this is because we all know those areas.

The Thomas Brush Show

In The Thomas Brush Show he invites indie game developers who have wonderful games that they made in Unity/Unreal/Godot as he interviews them about the process and the little niggle bits. Breaking down the ideas and concepts of games and having the right mentality. He tone is very formal but it open to a little bit of laughter. As they break down games and ask questions about topics. This podcasts is very good at breaking down indie game development and the people he invites are even more better as you can hear not just his experience but others within the area.

One podcast I like is when Thomas Brush interviews Gavin Eisenbeisz who founded Two Star Games and how one person managed to achieve a huge goal and the mindset behind it. However, in a close second he interviews the maker of Ready or Not which is a popular FPS.

The WAN Show

In The WAN Show ran by Linus Tech Tips (Linus Gabriel Sebastian). Linus talks about technology around the world. For example the RAM issue and how expensive it is. This is a talk like show where arguments do happen based on personal opinion. The tone is very mixed between formal or informal which is what I like.

Level Design Lobby

In Level Design Lobby they have a straight forward format that talks about game development it is very conversation focused as they talk about important things such as creative process. The main talker is Al Yang who is the game director of Silent Hill F. It is a very informative talk about story, fear, and making the game Silent Hill F. However, Level Design Lobby is the owner of the podcast and brings people from many backgrounds and games to talk on their show.

I liked the fact the tone was once again conversation focused like the other podcast I have done. However, it is very formal conversations which makes it straight to the point which is good however, I feel like adding more hummer and informalities would make this better.

The formatting of the podcast will be very informal compered to the The Thomas Brush Show and Level Design Lobby. Whereas, The WAN show is more informal and conversational. We will be going for a conversational feel to the podcast allowing us to go with the flow.

Planning

Name: [Insert Name Here] –yes this is the name

Target audience

The target audience will be gaming enthusiasts, 16-30 years old. The best reach for my audience is social media such as YouTube this is because of their side app such as YouTube Music. We will also be using Spotify as that is one of the most used precast apps.

How will you make it engaging?  

I will be making this engaging by the casual informal tone and the lovely sound of the can opening. With background music in order to make it so the voices aren’t drowning. I will also add a chipmunk overlay to make the voices sound like Alvin and the chipmunks. I will also add a basic visual style. This will also be a informal discussion as we explore the 3 acts of what we will be speaking about.

Who am I working with?

I am working with Josh, Skye, Brad and myself this is a team that we think will work well this is because we are good friends and often work well on our separate projects giving each other feedback and ways of improving. Josh will be our main speaker with me and brad supporting.

What is the purpose of the podcast?

I am making this podcast so that so we can have digressions about numerous topics. This is so I can see different point of views and our takes on what is happening. This is for the audience so they can also hear our POV. The USP is that it suppose to be humorous with the vocals sounding pitch with some background music so the vocals don’t get too annoying.

Weekly log

Week 1

Gaming before AI – We will be looking back at our previous games we use to play when growing up and before AI started getting involved within the gaming industry.

Gaming in the age of AI – We move on the state of gaming in the present with AI and their influence on the quality of modern games. Featuring games such as Call of Duty and Expedition 33.

The future of Gaming – We then start trying to predict the feature of the gaming industry and feature topics such as Will the AI bubble pop?  Will the price of RAM return back to the way they was if so when?

We also rushed the planning as we wanted to get the special room which had reduction of outside noise (helped but not a lot). However, we got confident and that we was able to do it in one go however, once we started to use the microphone and hit the big red button the lack of preparation showed we had to redo many takes and took around 1 hour redoing it. We also found difficulties recording such as no pop filter or when some was walking outside it picked every little sound up this damaged the recording even more as sometimes it was louder than our voices.

Week 2

After doing some reflecting we found out that we needed a stronger plan of action this is because of how poorly the first action went therefore, Skye did a document to make it easier to understand the points that we was trying to make this still wasn’t a script as we want to keep it informal. Whist she did that the rest of us decided to have a crack at audio editing.

This is my first attempt of audio this was my first time touching the audio editor and I wanted to get formila with it. I tried to cut based on who was speaking (Owen, Josh, James, Brad, Skye) and sound effects. This was a good introduction to the software however, later I found that I didn’t like the software much as using audacity so I will be using that it is also a better as I can also work at home.

Week 3

We now decided to do a another retake of the recording however, we used different equipment thanks to Josh we managed to use his MacBook which had a much better audio. The environment was much quieter, as less people was walking past. We managed to get the recording done this week in one lesson.

Week 4

This is the week I started my production which you can see in the production section. We gave all of our clips would have been given to Josh and he didn’t want to ruin anyone’s work. I was tasked with Intro and Outro as they are the smaller segments compered to the other acts.

Week 5

Josh managed to get all 4 of our projects into one massive files.

Production

Attempt 1

This is where I deleted the sections that did not apply to me this is because my main focus on the shared project is so that I can primarily focus on my sections.

Here I deleted some of the silences this is because I didn’t want it to sound too edited but to sound human like.

I wanted to add equalization for clarity cutting low-mid frequencies then high-passing below 80–100 Hz to remove background noise.

Adding a fade out so the byeee is more stable and fades out.

Attempt 2

There was some loud thuds which required a exclusive Apple feature therefore, I asked Josh if I could borrow his Mac-Book in order to get this effect. I also added too many effects in my attempt one this is because of the poor PC quality that caused by audio quality on the PC’s audio IO.

I also added loudness normalization in order to make the voices even more dominant. Allowing better audio quality.

This was a more simple approach to the audio as I didn’t want to overcomplicate things too much as it was very hard to remove the thuds otherwise. Even when removed any more effects would emissive the background noise.

Final product

Here is the final recording. I edited the introduction which is 0 – 21 I also edited the outro 6:12 – 6:25. This is because I had the smallest segments. Many thanks to Josh for putting it all together.

Reflection

What worked well?

The final podcast being fully made between 4 people actually worked out well. The final podcast managed to sound in sync and very similar to each other you can tell a slight difference in editing but it remain consistent. We all managed to get a long as it was a topic we enjoyed.

I faced technical issues on Attempt 0 when moving to audacity at first. I managed to complete this podcast but then it got errored and I could not recover my work. However, I pushed forwards and managed to create another copy which ended up in the final podcast.

What didn’t work well?

Teamwork makes the dream work is a very popular saying however, I did struggle this is because my goal was to make a podcast that was similar to everyone else sections limiting my control over my sections. I wanted to change the pitch of the section to make it sound more like Alvin and the chipmunks for a little bit of comedy however, that would not suit the others work. As the main goal was to make it seamless which, we did meet this goal. I also feel like we needed better microphones this is because they was very sensitive to noises so the tiny tap would have been picked up instantly. I also feel like having a better area to record would have been better however, the college provided us with the best room they could therefore, we did our best to edit it out.

At first we struggled a lot with the equipment that was given to us. However, Josh came up with the amazing idea to use his Mac-Book and therefore, helped significantly but that still had issues as it would still pick up background noise but at least not as much as the microphones given via the college.

Overall

My overall skills I have developed and thoughts I had on the unit was mostly positive with the odd 1 or 2 things getting in the way. Teamwork is a industry standard technique and is important for the work placement.

What could I do differently next time?

Next time, I would of liked to have done more for the project. This is because my role was basic. This is because I was editing intro and outro the smaller sections this was decided because I did want to make my own podcast editing wise however, that backfired and therefore, I only had time to do a share one. This was because I significantly over thought the writing process as I feel like I have written too little and kept trying to beef it up then realised that none of it was relevant to the podcast. I also over thought the production as it felt too simple to do and wanted to add multiple things.