- 2016-07-06: Subscription Boxlight: 2016-06
- 2016-07-08: Person of Interest
- 2016-07-15: Star Trek (2009)
All of these are episodes I recorded with my sister and her side of the audio is fine. My side, not so much.
When we record these episodes we use a Zoom H5 which is a portable recorder and two handheld microphones (AudioTechnical AT2005USB). When we travel to conventions like the recent Fan Expo Dallas, the Zoom H5 is the device we take with us for recording on the road. To do that, I obviously have to unplug everything and pack it all up. When we get home, I set the Zoom H5 up where we do the Round Table Discussions on the various movies and televisions shows and the Subscription Boxlights. The Zoom H5 has controls allowing the user to set the gain individually for each microphone.
This last time, not only did I mange to accidentally turn the knob on my volume control to 1 (minimal gain, just shy of off) but I also failed to check the settings before we recorded some of our recent episodes.
I didn't notice the problem until I pulled the audio off the device to start editing the episodes. I've fixed the audio as best I can for the episodes. On the Person of Interest and Star Trek discussions, the audio quality for my side of the discussions isn't great but it is generally understandable. My sister sounds as good as usual.
For the parts of the Subscription Boxlight we've already recorded, my side of the discussion is a mess. Since I'm not holding the microphone in those episodes, it is further from me and with the low gain setting, it just barely recording anything at all on my side.
Generally speaking, rerecording an episode results in better audio quality but poorer content as it is a rehashed conversation. I felt the discussions my sister and I had on Person of Interest and Star Trek were good and a rerecording of them wouldn't have the same content quality. Rerecording the sections of the Subscription Boxlight isn't really a viable option since we've already gone through the box and know the items. So the option was to either scrap those segments of the Subscription Boxlight or go with what we had. Neither was a great option.
I've made the decision to go ahead and release the episodes even thought the quality on my side of the conversations isn't what I'd like it to be. If the audio quality doesn't work for you, feel free to skip those episodes.
While I'm not happy with the situation, hopefully after over 1,142 episodes with generally decent audio quality you guys won't be too upset with a handful have some problems.
I apologize for the poor audio in the upcoming episodes and I'll try to be much more diligent about checking the settings on the Zoom H5 each time before recording.
