I’ve been back in New Zealand for a little over a week now. It feels like way longer though, but I guess that’s just what coming home feels like. It was a little weird being back in the States. It’s not that I spend a lot of time here in New Zealand feeling out of place or ‘other’ or anything, but it’s a significant enough about of time that going back to the US where I blend right in was weird. When I spoke, I didn’t stick out. No one asked me about my accent. It was nice. And it was nice to be surrounded my (mostly) familiar things and eating foods I missed (I did a lot of eating foods I missed). Overall though the trip reminded me that I’m glad to live in New Zealand. Things are slower here. That has its pros and cons, but for me I think the cons are worth it in the end.
One downside to coming back is that I’ve been a lot slower and less motivated to really sink my teeth into recording again, which surprised me. The last few days I was in the States I was really missing my games and making videos but when I got home I just felt lazy. Another factor is that I am kind of intimidated by the new microphone I got. That sounds weird, but the more I think about it the more true I realize it is! It’s a studio quality mic, but I obviously don’t live in a studio quality environment. In fact if I spin my chair around I look down the entire length of the house – through the living room, kitchen, hallway and into my bedroom. And the Game Room where our computers are does not have a door. So the mic has a straight line through the house to pick up all the extra noise. Not to mention that it’s so sensitive that it picks up the magnetic hum from the USB port it’s plugged into (yes, I even got a separately powered USB hub to plug it into. Still the magnetic hum).
The magnetic hum is the part I’m most concerned with because, unedited, it is a high pitched annoyance. So to counteract it I have to do a bit of editing in Audacity. But there’s definitely a line where there’s too much editing and voice quality begins to get compromised. It’s hard to find that line for me because the audio file sounds different in Audacity than it does in Vegas Pro than it does when it’s finally on YouTube. I still have a lot of tweaking to do because of this to find what kinds of editing I should and shouldn’t do. I also have to continue to tweak mic placement and gain levels.
All of this has left me a bit intimidated. It’s just a little bit more hassle to record an episode, which isn’t ideal. But when I listen to the audio, I can tell my voice sounds a lot better, clearer. It’s just a matter of getting rid of all the stuff around it that I need to figure out.
Because of this combo of post-vacation laziness and mic intimidation, I haven’t put out nearly as many episodes this week as I normally do. Hopefully next week I’ll be back in full swing though. Here’s the episodes that I have managed to put out though:
Tower of the Moon – Ep 15 – Torchlight II
LOTRO LM – Ep 97: Razor Helm Thing