News
Episode 23 - Bottoms Up
18 Sep 2008 01:19 Author: At-Risk
Panther
First of all, I’m sorry that I haven’t been updating
this site very regularly lately. My job is taking a
lot of my time and energy lately (six day weeks for
the last several), leaving little for podcasting.
That said, I did manage to add something new, which I
should have done a long time ago. We now offer an RSS
feed for the MP3 version on our podcast! Now people
whose media players don’t handle AAC can subscribe
and get the MP3 version from a feedreader rather than
having to wait for me to update the site. The URL for
the new feed is this:
feed://www.foxstuffers.com/MP3/KnotCastMP3.xml
I still recommend the AAC version, because it’s slightly higher audio quality in smaller files, but enough people get the MP3 version that I thought this would be worth doing.
That said, here’s the episode from last Thursday!
This week on KnotCast, the crew goes Bottoms Up for the topic and hear back from our listeners on what they really like in their submissive partners.
We also read emails from listeners about long distance relationships, faking it in bed, dealing with tard fiances, and answer an email about giving girls a test drive in bed while being a bit... gay.
All this and more on episode 23 of KnotCast.
Episode 23 - Bottoms Up (AAC; 22.2 MB)
feed://www.foxstuffers.com/MP3/KnotCastMP3.xml
I still recommend the AAC version, because it’s slightly higher audio quality in smaller files, but enough people get the MP3 version that I thought this would be worth doing.
That said, here’s the episode from last Thursday!
This week on KnotCast, the crew goes Bottoms Up for the topic and hear back from our listeners on what they really like in their submissive partners.
We also read emails from listeners about long distance relationships, faking it in bed, dealing with tard fiances, and answer an email about giving girls a test drive in bed while being a bit... gay.
All this and more on episode 23 of KnotCast.
Episode 23 - Bottoms Up (AAC; 22.2 MB)
Audio Equipment Update
03 Aug 2008 20:30 Author: At-Risk
Panther
Savrin brought up an interesting point earlier today.
He was browsing the FA forum and ran across a post
where someone said that people are essentially greedy
and that without a paper trail for the donations to
show how they were used, he didn’t feel they could be
trusted. I agree with the sentiment, so we’ve decided
to publish the receipts for what we have purchased
with your donations.
First, I ordered two three-packs of microphones, six insert cables, and seven pairs of Neutrik XLR cable terminators for $120.78 from Musician’s Friend. That shipment should arrive Monday.
Next, an audio processor and 50m of XLR wire for $187.39 from BSW. This one should arrive on Tuesday. Just in time to spend the night wiring mic cables.
Finally, I called my Sweetwater rep on Friday and ordered the same mixer we had before, an Allen & Heath Zed-14 for $399.97. It should be here by Wednesday.
Sorry I had to trim out names and so forth. Those are all copied out of the E-mails I received with only minor formatting changes.
$708.14 total for what will end up being a better setup than we originally had in a few ways. Now all that we have left to purchase is the equipment case and the computers. For the moment, we are using a Mac Mini which Jen loaned to us. I upgraded it to 2 GB of RAM, and it’s nice and zippy now, so we’ll be using it this week. That should be long enough to get some idea of just how much the insurance will cover and at least order new machines. We may have to take next Thursday (August 14th) off, depending on whether she needs the Mini back or not, but that should be it.
Also, a few people have expressed that they don’t think a $5 donation is helpful. $5 is a pair of cable terminators. It’s an insert cable. It’s almost five meters of very high quality microphone wire. Honestly, every little bit helps. While a lot of the things we’ve had to buy are fairly big-ticket, there are lots of really small costs that add up very quickly. Every dollar helps, and we are sincerely thankful to everyone who has donated.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to drop me a line. audio@foxstuffers.com
First, I ordered two three-packs of microphones, six insert cables, and seven pairs of Neutrik XLR cable terminators for $120.78 from Musician’s Friend. That shipment should arrive Monday.
Next, an audio processor and 50m of XLR wire for $187.39 from BSW. This one should arrive on Tuesday. Just in time to spend the night wiring mic cables.
Finally, I called my Sweetwater rep on Friday and ordered the same mixer we had before, an Allen & Heath Zed-14 for $399.97. It should be here by Wednesday.
Sorry I had to trim out names and so forth. Those are all copied out of the E-mails I received with only minor formatting changes.
$708.14 total for what will end up being a better setup than we originally had in a few ways. Now all that we have left to purchase is the equipment case and the computers. For the moment, we are using a Mac Mini which Jen loaned to us. I upgraded it to 2 GB of RAM, and it’s nice and zippy now, so we’ll be using it this week. That should be long enough to get some idea of just how much the insurance will cover and at least order new machines. We may have to take next Thursday (August 14th) off, depending on whether she needs the Mini back or not, but that should be it.
Also, a few people have expressed that they don’t think a $5 donation is helpful. $5 is a pair of cable terminators. It’s an insert cable. It’s almost five meters of very high quality microphone wire. Honestly, every little bit helps. While a lot of the things we’ve had to buy are fairly big-ticket, there are lots of really small costs that add up very quickly. Every dollar helps, and we are sincerely thankful to everyone who has donated.
If anyone has any questions, feel free to drop me a line. audio@foxstuffers.com
KnotCast, now with stereophonic sound!
23 Jun 2008 03:05 Author: At-Risk
Panther
I’m thrilled to announce the little side project I’ve
been working on. I call it KnotCast 2.0. For the past
few episodes, we’ve been recording with a new process
that gives us stereo sound. Each host is to one side
or another in the “stage”, as it were. The new
process is documented over on our Technical page, in
case you’d like to read about it. I can also
answer questions directly.
The feed address for the stereo AAC is:
www.foxstuffers.com/Stereo_AAC/KnotCast2AAC.xml
We mostly recommend this for listening with headphones or surround sound. It doesn’t sound as good in cars or on smaller speaker systems. Hopefully, I can get the guys to record a little stereo demo clip so that people can test how it sounds on their equipment and in their environment.
Unfortunately, there is not a stereo MP3 feed yet. I’ve been creating the stereo MP3 files, but they average about 110 MB for the last four episodes. That will chew through bandwidth quota like nobody’s business, and we don’t want to drive up Furnation’s hosting bill. We will definitely be including them on the DVD we’re planning to sell, and if enough people ask for download access to them, we may be able to work something out.
We hope you enjoy the new feed!
Edit: Just got our first question about it, and it’s a good one.
Q: Is this the file that is downloaded through the podcast directory in iTunes?
A: No, iTunes’ podcast directory still has the monophonic AAC version. To subscribe to the new feed, go to the Advanced menu and pick “Subscribe to Podcast...”. Enter the URL above and hit OK. Now, you are subscribed to both feeds. If you like the stereo feed, please unsubscribe from the mono feed to save us some bandwidth each month.
The feed address for the stereo AAC is:
www.foxstuffers.com/Stereo_AAC/KnotCast2AAC.xml
We mostly recommend this for listening with headphones or surround sound. It doesn’t sound as good in cars or on smaller speaker systems. Hopefully, I can get the guys to record a little stereo demo clip so that people can test how it sounds on their equipment and in their environment.
Unfortunately, there is not a stereo MP3 feed yet. I’ve been creating the stereo MP3 files, but they average about 110 MB for the last four episodes. That will chew through bandwidth quota like nobody’s business, and we don’t want to drive up Furnation’s hosting bill. We will definitely be including them on the DVD we’re planning to sell, and if enough people ask for download access to them, we may be able to work something out.
We hope you enjoy the new feed!
Edit: Just got our first question about it, and it’s a good one.
Q: Is this the file that is downloaded through the podcast directory in iTunes?
A: No, iTunes’ podcast directory still has the monophonic AAC version. To subscribe to the new feed, go to the Advanced menu and pick “Subscribe to Podcast...”. Enter the URL above and hit OK. Now, you are subscribed to both feeds. If you like the stereo feed, please unsubscribe from the mono feed to save us some bandwidth each month.
New equipment
02 Jun 2008 01:08 Author: At-Risk
Panther
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been slowly buying new
equipment for the podcast. Among the things I
purchased are five new dynamic vocal mics.
Admittedly, they’re el-cheapo microphones, but
considering that this isn’t exactly being mastered at
24-bit, 96 kHz, I don’t think mic quality would make
that big a difference. It’s enough that each host now
has his own mic.
From here out, you should hopefully notice much less background noise. Earlier, we miced two of the hosts with lapel mics and the other two with a single vocal condensor microphone. Since they can’t both be properly positioned for that single mic comfortably, I had to turn up the gain and step it back a little. Now that we can get a mic a few inches away from everyone, there is no need for that, so the mics won’t pick up as much room noise.
I have some other changes that I’m working on, but I’m not sure how well they will work. If I’m able to get good results, I’ll post more about them. For now, it’ll have to be enough to know that I’m not just sitting around and that I’m actively trying to improve things.
From here out, you should hopefully notice much less background noise. Earlier, we miced two of the hosts with lapel mics and the other two with a single vocal condensor microphone. Since they can’t both be properly positioned for that single mic comfortably, I had to turn up the gain and step it back a little. Now that we can get a mic a few inches away from everyone, there is no need for that, so the mics won’t pick up as much room noise.
I have some other changes that I’m working on, but I’m not sure how well they will work. If I’m able to get good results, I’ll post more about them. For now, it’ll have to be enough to know that I’m not just sitting around and that I’m actively trying to improve things.
Episode 9 update
11 May 2008 00:51 Author: At-Risk
Panther
Well, they recorded another take of episode 9. This
time, Damien had to be elsewhere, so Fuzz, Savrin and
Zapnut recorded it without him. There are a few audio
glitches, but I'm about 1:10 h:mm into it and there's
nothing insurmountable so far. It'll just take me a
while to finish up the editing and I wanted to warn
people.
I swear, one day I'll teach these guys how to properly mic themselves. ;-) Either that or pick up a few SM58s.
I swear, one day I'll teach these guys how to properly mic themselves. ;-) Either that or pick up a few SM58s.
KnotCast - Positive Trends.
22 Apr 2008 02:13 Author: Savrin
Panther just ran the numbers again.
March:
Episode 1: 285
Episode 2: 197
Episode 3: 183
Episode 4: 93
April as of 1 AM Central Time going into the 22nd:
Episode 1: 341
Episode 2: 205
Episode 3: 226
Episode 4: 238
Episode 5: 344
Episode 6: 301
Episode 7: 93
Keep in mind we published Episode 7 at about 4 PM on the 21st. It has only been up for about 9 hours and we already have 93 downloads.
Total to date:
Episode 1: 618
Episode 2: 394
Episode 3: 402
Episode 4: 322
Episode 5: 344
Episode 6: 301
Episode 7: 93
These numbers compensate for a single person downloading it once in March and once in April. Thus, the total of the unique numbers for each month is slightly higher. This is becoming much more popular than we had expected it to be. Looks like we're up to roughly 300-320 distinct, regular listeners less than two months after we published the first episode.
March:
Episode 1: 285
Episode 2: 197
Episode 3: 183
Episode 4: 93
April as of 1 AM Central Time going into the 22nd:
Episode 1: 341
Episode 2: 205
Episode 3: 226
Episode 4: 238
Episode 5: 344
Episode 6: 301
Episode 7: 93
Keep in mind we published Episode 7 at about 4 PM on the 21st. It has only been up for about 9 hours and we already have 93 downloads.
Total to date:
Episode 1: 618
Episode 2: 394
Episode 3: 402
Episode 4: 322
Episode 5: 344
Episode 6: 301
Episode 7: 93
These numbers compensate for a single person downloading it once in March and once in April. Thus, the total of the unique numbers for each month is slightly higher. This is becoming much more popular than we had expected it to be. Looks like we're up to roughly 300-320 distinct, regular listeners less than two months after we published the first episode.
Knotcast by the numbers
10 Apr 2008 00:53 Author: Savrin
First off, we are recording tomorrow. We've got a lot
of good emails in already, so thanks for sending in
all this fun material.
Also, our tech-savvy at-risk panther logs everything on the server. So here are some interesting numbers.
5th episode to-date Total: 191
AAC: 116
MP3: 75
82 iTunes users
77 Firefox users
13 IE7 users
4 FMOD/3.74 users - This one looks like a generic music player framework used on some consoles and so forth.
2 Safari users
2 IE5 users on Windows 98
2 Opera users
2 CorePlayer users (probably the same person from two locations)
2 hits from Yahoo's indexer
1 IE6 user
1 hit from Googlebot on the AAC
157 total Windows users
24 total Mac users (almost all of which used iTunes on an Intel Mac)
1 Linux user
9 bots and miscellaneous
81 downloads on the 6th (the day it was released)
55 on the 7th
21 on the 8th
29 on the 9th
5 on the 10th so far
So it looks like we've got in the neighborhood of 200-250 listeners. That's a small con's worth. Pretty cool stuff. :D
Also, our tech-savvy at-risk panther logs everything on the server. So here are some interesting numbers.
5th episode to-date Total: 191
AAC: 116
MP3: 75
82 iTunes users
77 Firefox users
13 IE7 users
4 FMOD/3.74 users - This one looks like a generic music player framework used on some consoles and so forth.
2 Safari users
2 IE5 users on Windows 98
2 Opera users
2 CorePlayer users (probably the same person from two locations)
2 hits from Yahoo's indexer
1 IE6 user
1 hit from Googlebot on the AAC
157 total Windows users
24 total Mac users (almost all of which used iTunes on an Intel Mac)
1 Linux user
9 bots and miscellaneous
81 downloads on the 6th (the day it was released)
55 on the 7th
21 on the 8th
29 on the 9th
5 on the 10th so far
So it looks like we've got in the neighborhood of 200-250 listeners. That's a small con's worth. Pretty cool stuff. :D
Episode 5
04 Apr 2008 00:19 Author: At-Risk
Panther
Well, the fifth episode has been recorded, and wow is
it long. All told, there's nearly two hours of audio.
I need to trim out the lead-ins and lead-outs on both
sections and mix in the music. Hopefully it'll be up
before too long.
Introducing: Jen Ferret
18 Mar 2008 01:46 Author: Savrin
An actual, real, and straight female, guest cohosting
with us this coming podcast. They do exist. :O
Send in comments to KnotCast@FoxStuffers.com if you doubt her existence or want to ask a question of her.. or anything else.
Send in comments to KnotCast@FoxStuffers.com if you doubt her existence or want to ask a question of her.. or anything else.
Now comes in MP3
02 Mar 2008 23:32 Author: At-Risk
Panther
Due to popular demand (okay, one person E-mailed us
about it and we thought it would be a good idea),
KnotCast is now offered in MP3 form. I'll try to get
both versions published simultaneously, but there may
be a delay. Frankly, the AAC version is more
interesting to me, since it provides such higher
quality for the file size as well as all of the
"Enhanced Podcast" features like chapters, album art,
and embedded links. As a result, the AAC will likely
be published first, but an MP3 version should follow
shortly thereafter. It just requires a bit more
manual tweaking. So without further delay, the first
episode of KnotCast in MP3 form:
Episode 1 - Let There Be Knots (direct link; MP3, 26.7 MB)
Episode 1 - Let There Be Knots (direct link; MP3, 26.7 MB)
KnotCast: Cumming Soon!
19 Feb 2008 23:35 Author: FuzzWolf
Greetings chaps,
So I had this horrible idea I posted in my LJ a few weeks ago and after recording a test show tonight, it looks like we're actually going to make this horrible podcast.
So, coming soon will be KnotCast which will be a furry-themed, highly adult podcast where we'll discuss sex, knots...sex...umm, I'm sure we'll move beyond that at some point.
However, in the meantime if you have any furry, sex or furry sex themed questions please send them to KnotCast@FoxStuffers.com. This'll help give us some ideas for topics and will also make you e-famous when we read your e-mail in the podcast OMG! o.O
Anyway, KnotCast will star damienhusky, fuzzwolf, savrin and zapnut.
We'll announce when the first episode is online both on our journals and on knotcast so keep an eye out.
So I had this horrible idea I posted in my LJ a few weeks ago and after recording a test show tonight, it looks like we're actually going to make this horrible podcast.
So, coming soon will be KnotCast which will be a furry-themed, highly adult podcast where we'll discuss sex, knots...sex...umm, I'm sure we'll move beyond that at some point.
However, in the meantime if you have any furry, sex or furry sex themed questions please send them to KnotCast@FoxStuffers.com. This'll help give us some ideas for topics and will also make you e-famous when we read your e-mail in the podcast OMG! o.O
Anyway, KnotCast will star damienhusky, fuzzwolf, savrin and zapnut.
We'll announce when the first episode is online both on our journals and on knotcast so keep an eye out.
KnotCast promos
30 Jan 2008 22:58 Author: FuzzWolf
I gotta write some of these promo ideas for KnotCast
down before I forget them:
Open yourself up to something new, KnotCast
Not going anywhere for a while? KnotCast.
You know you want it, KnotCast.
Feeling empty? KnotCast.
Fill the void in your life. KnotCast.
We'll plug you in. KnotCast.
Feeling tied down? KnotCast.
Okay, that's enough for now. :-)
Open yourself up to something new, KnotCast
Not going anywhere for a while? KnotCast.
You know you want it, KnotCast.
Feeling empty? KnotCast.
Fill the void in your life. KnotCast.
We'll plug you in. KnotCast.
Feeling tied down? KnotCast.
Okay, that's enough for now. :-)
Podcast...
29 Jan 2008 23:00 Author: FuzzWolf
I had this thought at work today, I wanna start a
podcast for canine furries and call it
KnotCast.