Last night was a difficult one for me in a technical sense as I had some significant problems with two of my playout systems. Curiously the one that I now use for Main programming, MegaSeg, which was previously a real pain with dropouts and other issues, is now working flawlessly (touch wood) - thanks to piping its output direct to Nicecast and not going through any processing at all.
Not so the systems - SqueezeCenter (formerly Slimserver) and Traktor Pro - that I use for general playout and special events DJing respectively. These both play out through a mixer (apart from anything else, so I can do voiceovers) and back into the computer via an audio interface and it was the latter that was causing trouble. No matter how I set the buffers in the input to Nicecast, the audio would start to break up. I have just moved the system from a Mac Mini to a Mac Pro and theoretically the much more powerful machine should be able to run everything without any issues at all, but it appeared not. After testing most of the afternoon and disabling every last non-essential on the machine, I thought I had it sorted out properly, but during my playout of the second part of A Christmas Carol it started breaking up badly and I was sorely annoyed.
I was using SqueezeCenter for CCC. It's ideal for just playing stuff out on the fly and talking over it, where MegaSeg, on the other hand, really comes into its own for fully-automated programming with carefully-scheduled sponsor messages and idents and other broadcast accoutrements, and the way I have it hooked up it is a pain to talk over (it would require serious re-patching).
I had no chance to sort anything out after that because we were straight off to the Battle of the DJs at Edwina Heron's home of Coquette. This time we each had a 15-minute slot and were assigned two genres to cover. The idea was to play something from both genres and transition well out of the previous DJs efforts.
Well, I had only half the challenge, as I was starting it all off. In fact I also introduced the event, as Gabi was unable to attend due to a power failure at her typist's home obliging her to go elsewhere. Didn't this happen last year? As usual for DJ gigs, I used Traktor, recently upgraded to the new Traktor Pro and driven by a Behringer BCD3000 DJ controller. Luckily it only burped a tiny tiny bit once and I bet nobody noticed.
My genres were Baroque and Contemporary Celtic. Well, I interpreted the first liberally - as "Ba-rock'n'roll" hehehe... I played some material from Philip Pickett and Richard Thompson's brilliant album The Bones Of All Men, which is a wonderful combination of Early Music (Mr Pickett is a specialist in such things) and rock. The first piece started prettily with solo harpsichord and then went off into a merry dance with drums and electric guitars as well as shawms an' stuff. I segued straight into a couple of similar pieces and then finished my set with a rousing remix of Scotland the Brave by Campbell & Rogers - the "Contemporary Celtic" bit.
Diamanda followed me (as she had done at the first one of these Battles) and led off with a track from the Angels of Venice, which was an inspired choice. And each DJ who came after was as brilliant as we were. Eventually my turn came round again and I announced that second time round we were not bound by the rules - so I launched into ELO's version of Roll Over Beethoven (complete with the classical intro), segued into Back in the USSR by The Beatles and cross-faded that, with FX, into a club remix of Rondo Veneziano's La Serenissima to close the set. Dia picked it up beautifully with I can't quite remember what, and I left soon after, it being late.
Lying in bed I suddenly determined that the reason for the audio problems was the audio interface. It's a shiny new M-Audio 610 and it evidently places much more strain on the system than my old 410, which is now in the USA. I will have to swap it back, but in the meantime I realised that there are inputs on the BCD3000 that I don't use (Traktor uses the outputs), so this morning I hooked those up instead of going into the Firewire box (which I disconnected) and, lo and behold, it all behaved. I tested it locally with Nicecast's own built-in server (which probably loads the system more than a remote one) and it was fine. It was also fine with the Radio Riel Secondary server.
Indeed, it worked so well I was able to whack the Quality slider in Nicecast up to full (which makes an audible difference, whatever they say) and even up the data rate for test purposes to 128kbps - we usually run 96 - although, frankly, with the Quality slider on max, there was very little audible difference. I also took the opportunity to run tone through the system and discovered that the Apple Units multiband compressor plugin I had been using in Nicecast really distorted the audio quite badly. So out with that and back in with my hardware Behringer compressor/limiter. With this setup I was nearly even able to run MegaSeg into the mixer without hiccups, but it does still drop out just a bit so I will continue to use the app for Main programming routing it straight into Nicecast as I have been doing successfully the last few days on the air.
Well, that was a relief. I now just have to save two sets of Nicecast settings, one for stuff going via the mixer and the other for MegaSeg going direct into Nicecast.
Listening Party for A Caledon Christmas Carol
held at Radio Riel Headquarters in Edison over the weekend.
Essentially it was a day's work editing up each of the three episodes voice-wise - mainly tightening everything up to compensate for the latency of the recording system, as it was all done through Skype - which is a lot more difficult than doing it with everyone in the studio, I can tell you: not only is there latency, you can't see anyone for visual cues either Trying to broadcast drama live by that method would be doomed.
After that it took another day to do the post-production proper, namely adding sound effects and music, recording intro and outro and credits, and then mixing and finishing off the files and making them ready for broadcast.
Although there are some parts where the Skype audio quality is less than perfect, I think the overall work has come out extremely well, and everyone played their roles brilliantly.
It was broadcast on Radio Riel this weekend to an excellent reception I am pleased to say, and will also be on the air tomorrow (Tuesday 30th), along with the rest of our material, in a special tribute programme. Visit the Radio Riel web site for details.
*A number of people have asked if the recording is available for purchase. The answer at present is unfortunately not, but we are working on it. There is some content in the recordings that we have the right to use for broadcast but not to release for sale. All being well, we'll let you know when you can get it.
I was pleased to receive a message from Four Winds and Four Directions owner and builder Koshari Mahana, whose work I admire greatly (she is the designer of Brideswell Hall) noting that she had read my journal entry (below) about her house. I realised that I had met her before (I am dreadful with names) and that in fact we had met at the opening of the Great Exhibition, where her husband Loki built the train that brought Queen Victoria to open the Exhibition.
I told her about what I had done internally regarding furniture, and as she seemed interested I invited her over for a tour, which she apparently enjoyed very much. It turns out that she was inspired by a real English stately home in the design of this building, but although I had noticed a certain resemblance to Arley Hall in Cheshire, her inspiration was in fact Somerleyton Hall in Suffolk - check this picture and you will see the resemblance. This also has lovely gardens.
Thus we had a wonderful discussion about Victorian design and furnishings and I noted that I will probably add chimneys to Brideswell Hall, though not with pots: I will instead try to follow something more like the original Jacobean stacks that would have originally adorned Somerleyton. I will write on the subject when I have moved ahead with this plan.
L to R: Fuschia Begonia, Saffia Widdershins, Elrik Merlin and Mavromichali Szondi outside Scrooge & Marley's establishment in Winterland
(Photo: Saffia Widdershins)
It must be noted that the recording – which went very well considering the complexity and the quite large number of people involved – would have been extraordinarily difficult if we had not had the assistance of Fuschia Begonia, who also appeared in the play, as floor manager, determining who was and wasn't required for each section as we came to it. She also captured a backup recording in case there are holes in my own that need to be covered.
We recorded the work in Skype, as we have on some previous occasions, having had complete chaos trying to record in-world using Voice, with multiple echoes and seemingly no way to turn them off. There are severe quality limitations when it comes to trying to do something like this, and although most of the Players sound quite good in the recording, it's by no means an easy thing, especially with a group this size and even switching in and out only those who appear in a given section.
Now, it's into the time-consuming bit, namely editing and post-production, and I can see this is going to take a while, so bear with me while I put this all together!
We also took some promo photos (and will do more another time) and I've included one above. Here's a shot of me sitting at Bob Cratchit's desk.
Issue 14 of Prim Perfect magazine has an article on the Players and you can read it here.
Photo by JJ Drinkwater
Once again I invited Lady Diamanda to provide the music, which she did even more successfully than the previous year, if such was possible, and having originally been concerned that a traditional 3-hour party might be a bit much in these times, we were both gratified that not only did an impressive number of friends, colleagues and acquaintances turn up: most of them also stayed for the duration and a grand time was had by all. Thanks to all of you who attended and I wish you a Happy Solstice! May the coming year be fruitful, happy and peaceful for us all.
Last night was a difficult one for me in a technical sense as I had some significant problems with two of my playout systems. Curiously the one that I now use for Main programming, MegaSeg, which was previously a real pain with dropouts and other issues, is now working flawlessly (touch wood) - thanks to piping its output direct to Nicecast and not going through any processing at all.
