Episode 1 of my new podcast, Snark Fu, should have been released yesterday, but there were a large number of problems due to having an entirely new setup to record podcasts from the last time I did a show and I made the fatal mistake of using Garageband to record said show.

Last time I recorded a podcast (one where I had to do the editing, etc.), this was the setup:

• Four-Channel Stereo Microphone Mixer
• Wired Handheld Microphone (one for each channel)
• Audacity on the Windows XP operating system

There were more things like video card stuff and other such nonsense that I don’t know anything about, but that was the setup. I knew it, I knew HOW to use it and it produced great results.

But all that equipment is now at our friend A’s house for them to use to record their podcast and now we use the following (since we don’t have shows with more than one person recording in-studio):

• Blue Snowball Directional Microphone
• Recording software (depending on the connection)
• Operating system (depending on the connection)

That’s it! The “depending on the connection” means that if Tim’s recording GameHounds, he’s not recording, so it doesn’t matter if he’s on his Mac laptop or on his PC running Windows 7 as he uses Skype and that’s multi-platform. For the Widget, he’s the one doing the recording and people call in on Skype. For that, he has to use the Mac and the Wire Tap Studio program and will edit the raw audio there, and add the finishing touches in Audacity.

The first ep. of Snark Fu had my friend J as my first co-host, live in studio and we had to share the microphone. That wasn’t the problem, as the Snowball can handle that sort of input. What my mistake was was using Garageband to record that audio instead of Wire Tap.

Why, do you ask?

Because Garageband uses something they call “auto leveling”….the problem is that my friend J and I are very vocally dynamic so we talk loud and normal and that can change in a millisecond. Garageband, a program being run by a friggin MACHINE, can’t keep up with that.

Needless to say, I spent nearly 2 hours adjusting the levels that Garageband fucked up. Yes, I know that one could check off the “auto leveling”, but 1) It was my first time using the program, 2) everything you hear about it is that “it’s so easy to use!”, and 3) the setting is not that easy to find.

So, by the time I got the raw audio fixed so it’s listenable, it was too late to put the finishing touches on and I had to miss my deadline. That annoys me to no end.

In the future, I will NEVER use Garageband again. In fact, I’m going to uninstall it and be done with it. Fuck that noise.

Look for the first episode tonight!