I fell in love with this show from the very start, when my long-time partner and I started listening, about a year ago. We love the format, the "not your mamma's Witchcraft" teaser and even the catchphrase "magickally delicious."

My only concern, technically, has been with sound. Often, Serenity's voice is faint enough that I have to turn my volume all the way up to hear her... and I know girlfriend isn't the shy, reserved type who's hard to hear when she speaks! lol. Episode 20, while as equally-enlightening as any previous show, was a sound nightmare, yo. Serenity could barely be heard at all, while Chris's sound was as loud as heck! I had to find a happy medium in the volume on my computer to try and not be blown away by Chris but still hear Serenity clearly.

I don't know if it was because of Chris's sound system from where he was speaking, or if he had his computer's volume on, etc, but there were moments of terrible echo on his end when he would speak. He seemed to realize this and either adjust how he was sitting or tweak something about the sound on his end, because it would seem to stop after he would be a few sentences into his discussions.

Just letting a sister know, cuz the Raven loves to listen in, baby!
The Good Witch of the North,
Raven-Feather

I have the same sound troubles with my computer. There are episodes where I am straining my ears to hear even with the volume full.

I agree, the multi-person episodes could use some better post-production.

What I did for the 2 person episodes (e.g. when Serenity and Seren are both on), on my car's audio system, I turn the volume up and the balance more towards the left (left being Serenity's channel).

Serenity, perhaps you could do something like that in post-production. If you use Audacity, that isn't particularly difficult as long as your recording is in stereo (default). If it is in mono, you can copy the track, make one channel left, the other right and on the top channel, click the triangle and select "Make Stereo Track"

Audacity 1.3 (still in Beta) supports Levelling, you may wish to use that functionality as well. That's saved me a bunch of times when recording quality hasn't been the greatest.

- Dave of P.C.P.

Hey there guys!

I want to thank you so much for the feedback. I really appreciate knowing what I need to fix and what needs improvement so good looking out.

I have just started having guests on recently, so working the kinks out of the system has been a little, uneven at best.

My main issues has been the type of mic I am using. I used to use the headset/mic combo, but my husband recently bought me the desktop model and I have not been happy with it at all.

When I am doing the podcats, I like to relax, sit back, move around, etc. I am not able to do this with the new mic, and when I forget, it really shows.

When you hear my voice as really low, especially on recent podcasts, it's because I am not remembering to stay straight, be still and speak directly into the mic. From now on, especially for the CW*CW podcast, I am really going to have to remember that.

I will be buying another mic of the headset variety on the 8th or 9th and that should really fix up the unevenness.

We use Acoustica Mixcraft for our post-production, and it's actually really good software. We just can't fix a stupid podcaster who refuses to speak into her mic directly -- at least, not until they come out with Acoustica MIRACLE .

Good looking out guys and thanks again for the great feedback.

Post edited by: Serenity, at: 2008/02/03 19:17

Hehe, despite having moved away from a headset setup back in Episode 9, in Episode 54 we are still sucking at the whole talking into the microphone thing on PCP .

I can sympathize with the complexity Skype and call-ins can introduce to a production setup. We're still sorting out those issues ourselves.

Looking forward to future episodes .
- Dave

We are aware of the sound recording issues. Since we are using Skype's plugin PrettyMay, this program is awesome, but the sound is recording into on sound file.

Using Mixcraft, I used the compression rate of 20:1 at 3 db. BUT, because the levels are so extreme, even the best program with the best compression would not properly level the sound simply because it is in one sound file.

Pretty May of Skype records her audio on the left channel and the guest audio on the right channel. AWESOME right? NO, Mixcraft does not have the ability to seperate the audio channels into two seperate tracks.

The program I used to use, Vegas, would be a better program to use because I could seperate two channels of audio off of one audio file. Once I get Vegas re-installed on my computer, the shows with guest would greatly improve.

On Serenity's solo shows, where her audio was fading is the fault of the headset she was using. I bought her a desktop mike as recommended to me by a friend of mine. WELL, it was not a good idea anyway. A headset is a better idea. So when Serenity or me gets our next "check", we will go out and by a nicer headset for Serenity to use, using USB connectivity and wireless, so she can really be mobile.

We are slowly making strides to improving the shows quality and Serenity is right in the fact that she just started doing guest shows. Until we get all of the kinks worked out, we are working with what we got .

Editor, Antonio Edward...