SUMMARY

In this episode, the HPR_AudioBookClub discusses The Call of Cthulhu.

Non-Spoiler Thoughts

Pop Culture References

Lil' Cthulhu

Metallica's "The Thing That Should Not Be" (Master of Puppets, 1986)

Call of Cthulhu (RPG)

South Park, 3 ep arc

Arkham Horror

BEVERAGE REVIEWS

As usual, the HPR_AudioBookClub took some time to review the beverages that each of us were drinking during the episode

Thaj: Plain old water..... boring as usual

x1101: Rising Tide Calcutta Cutter IPA. Pine and citrus flavors gently accompany huge doses of hops

pokey: Wallgreens generic hot flu remedy (comparable to Theraflu). Its gritty and tastes bad, but it helps if you're sick with a cold or flu.

semioticrobotic: Harney & Sons Pumpkin spice herbal tea. semioticrobotic also recommends letting one of these tea bags steep in hot apple cider.

pegwole: Black Coffee

THINGS WE TALKED ABOUT THIS TIME

Coconut Oil, Red Dwarf, Batman, Dr. Who

OUR NEXT AUDIOBOOK

Cybrosis by P. C. Haring

Cybrosis by P.C. Haring

OUR AUDIO

This episode was processed using Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/. We've been making small adjustments to our audio mix each month in order to get the best possible sound. It's been especially challenging getting all of our voices relatively level, because everyone has their own unique setup. Mumble is great for bringing us all together, and for recording, but it's not good at making everyone's voice the same volume. We're pretty happy with the way this month's show turned out, so we'd like to share our editing process and settings with you and our future selves (who, of course, will have forgotten all this by then).

Mumble uses a sample rate of 48kHz, but HPR requires a sample rate of 44.1kHz so the first step in our audio process is to resample the file at 44.1kHz (Tracks > Resample > 44100). Resampling can take a long time if you don't have a powerful computer, and sometimes even if you do. If you record late at night, like we do, you may want to start the task before you go to bed, and save it first thing in the morning, so that the file is ready to go the next time you are.

Next we use the "Compressor" effect with the following settings:

Threshold: -30db

Noise Floor: -50db

Ratio: 3:1

Attack Time: 0.2sec

Decay Time: 1.0 sec

"Make-up Gain for 0db after compressing" and "compress based on peaks" were both left un-checked.

After compressing the audio we cut any pre-show and post-show chatter from the file and save them in a separate file for possible use as outtakes after the closing music.

At this point we listen back to the whole file and we work on the shownotes. This is when we can cut out anything that needs to be cut, and we can also make sure that we put any links in the shownotes that were talked about during the recording of the show. We finish the shownotes before exporting the .aup file to .FLAC so that we can paste a copy of the shownotes into the audio file's metadata. We use the "Truncate Silence" effect with it's default settings to minimize the silence between people speaking. When used with it's default (or at least reasonable) settings, Truncate Silence is extremely effective and satisfying. It makes everyone sound smarter, it makes the file shorter without destroying or distorting any actual content. It makes a conversation sound as fluid during playbac