Ah! The gamers have arrived!

Hey everyone, we've scored a critical hit here on The Power Source! Episode 20, "The Drinking Game" is available for download from the RSS feed (linked from the site), and on iTunes! This week, I'm joined by Jeff Greiner, who has quite a bit of experience in the Podcasting sphere. Listen in; he's hilarious.

As normal, we need your question, comment, segment, or bumper! Send it to powersourcepodcast@gmail.com , because that's where I'll find it! Remember, the Segment Contest only goes through March 20th, so get your segments in for a chance to win a number of prizes. For complete rules, prizes, and even a few suggestions, visit my blog at lorddreadman.livejournal.com and look 'em over. =D

And, for those of you who like this show, I've just started a new show called The Mosaic (as mentioned on The Power Source). Go check it out at www.mosaicpodcast.com and learn why YOU should be Blacking Out with us.

Talk about the episode here, and let us know what you think! Also, be careful when playing the game ... dying of alcohol poisoning is, seriously, a pretty ignominious death.

Jared
Host of The Power Source
www.powersourcepodcast.com

Very excited! The Tome Show is my absolute second most listened to podcast (after The Power Source of course). I've just downloaded number 20 and will listen tomorrow. Thanks for putting it up.

You guys read my letter! Awesome.
And just to clear up confusion- I am in fact a dude.

And the reason I mentioned Icingdeath was because I used the Icingdeath 'mini' but kept the black dragon stats to throw them off. When they got confused at him resisting the sorceror's acid powers they got to make a nature check to figure out what he really was- a hybrid black dragon/white dragon.

I originally included that in the email, but I removed it for brevity and just forgot to remove the mention of Icingdeath.

@ psychopez.

Sorry if I'm missing the point there, are 'Daily podcasts' a specific thing or are you assuming that I don't listen to many podcasts?

Or was it sarcasm in which case you'd be right, on average I listen to about 5 hours of various podcasts every day in work.

ps. if there are podcasts that come out daily what are they about?

Again sorry for being dumb and thanks.

In this episode of The DM WarChest I talked about creating your own handouts for players. Whether these are based off your own design or an image file from the web or an adventure they can add a nice touch to your game.

This is the origianal image from the WoTC website:



Here is what it looked like after I took off all the landmarks. I'll have my players write these onto the map directly once they have discovered a location:


Next time we open the WarChest, we'll talk about adding the extra's to your dungeon or encounter - on the cheap!

Matt

WOO HOO!

Thanks PinballWyzard. Was great to hear a new segment, some nice advice also. You know it's never hit me the idea of buying parchment like paper before. I remember many an occasion trying to 'age' my printer paper with strong tea or the like, once to find it washed all the ink away. Looking forward to your next installment.

I'm also hoping to hear some other segments soon. Keep up the good work Gamer Nation!

So it was sarcasm! I can never tell on forums. I listen to them everyday in work so go through quite a few, however I keep it down to three topics: Video Games, Games Workshop Games and Role Playing Games. Quite like a child really with my love of games.

Technical question, how should a segment be submitted file-wise? A single file or separate opening/content? If there a particular preferred file type or quality that would make editing easier?
For us non-professional podcasters, is there a go-to piece of software or website?

Ah! Excellent question, and I apologize for not making that clear.

Now, I'm unfamiliar with recording any way but my own, but I doubt many people own Adobe Audition, so I don't have great advice there. Perhaps Ryven will drop in and say what program he works with.

As to the type of file, "mp3" works best because it is easy to send, and I can import it directly into Audition. Now, I can work with just about anything else, but it, likely, won't be as clear, because I'll need to play it through my mixer and record it again. I also use "wav" files, but those tend to be enormous, and you might not be able to send it off via e-mail.

Thanks to everyone for participating! I'm really looking forward to your segments, since they really make the show much better! You're awesome!

Jared
Host of The Power Source
www.powersourcepodcast.com

Oh, and make sure you submit the entire file the way you want it played on the show. It's a lot less work for me if you put your segments together and I can just plug them in at the end.

Thanks!

Jared
Host of The Power Source
www.powersourcepodcast.com

Thanks Norsk!

It works pretty well. To squash any worries too, I have about the cheapest bubble jet printer you can buy. One of the things I didn't mention was its nice to print it out on a regular piece of paper first - just a test run.

You also might have to trim a sheet down before you can fit it in your printer that that becomes obvious pretty quickly. I'll record another segment here soon which is probably one of my favorite tips because I haven't seen another DM online do it before. Its also one of the biggest 'bang for your buck' things I do and every DM and player that sees it for the first time loves it!

Matt

Having tried to do this now I can say making a podcast is not easy. I seem to have an inability not to breathe heavily on the mike like a man making an obscene phone-call.

@The_Jester

I use Audacity - it's free and not very difficult to use. As to the breathing problem, I too can sound questionable when recording and I tend to really pop "p" and "s" so this is the solution I use:

1) Use a headset mike; position the mike portion so it's about at the bridge of your nose. No, really - that far up.

2) Boost the microphone input on your sound card a couple notches. You're going to hear a soft static in the background, but it's ok. Go ahead and record anyway, but leave some dead air at either the beginning or end.

3) Once you've recorded, highlight the dead air space and use the "Noise Removal" function to get the profile of the background fuzz. Then remove it from the rest of the track. Now you have a much cleaner sound.

I realize there are more technical and efficient ways to go about doing this, but I offer you the cheapest which is probably what you're looking for.