SPECIAL NOTE: A VERY special thank you to my favorite VGM Cover Band, "The OneUps" for turning me onto the idea of using "launch pages" to share episodes. That is, instead of a link to the episode on, say, Podbean (from whence it ultimately originates, and which I've been linking people to on all previous "episode repeater" blog posts), I can link to a page full of links to the episode on all outlets on which it appears, so that people can listen / view on their own preferred platforms, with just one link! This really ups my game, OneUps - and so, a HUMONGOUS THANK YOU!
So, it is with great pleasure that I say...
Episode can be found here: https://li.sten.to/c2e7
Today’s Broadcast is C2E7 for Theme Thursday, April 28th, 2022. Today’s focus will be a collection of cutesy, dancy, feel-good tracks, on a program Hugues named for us: “All Night Super Kawaii Dance Party”!
Track # / Track / Game / System / Composer (s) / Selected by
01) Lovely City - Lovely Planet - Multiplatform - Calem Bowen - St. John
Earcatcher - 00:00:00
Music - 00:00:09
Introduction - 00:02:57
Discussion - 00:06:16
Top of Show Business - 00:09:08
02) Kimi wa HoeHoe Musume (Ending / Staff Roll) - Idol Hakkenden - Famicom - Kiyohiro Sada, Tomoo Misato - Hugues
Music - 00:26:46
Discussion - 00:29:52
03) Evil Dante - Cratermaze - TG16 - Toshiaki Takimoto, Katsunori Takahashi, Takayuki Iwabuchi, Keita Hoshi - St. John
Music - 00:32:49
Discussion - 00:34:38
04) Tiese Shopping District Theme - Gurumin - Multiplatform - Falcom Sound Team JDK (prob. Hayato Sonoda) - Hugues
Music - 00:37:45
Discussion - 00:41:20
05) Stage 1-2 - Jumping Flash 2 - PS1 - Takeo Miratsu - St. John
Music - 00:47:07
Discussion - 00:50:31
06) After School - Persona 3 Portable - PSP - Shoji Meguro - Hugues
Music - 00:57:19
Discussion - 00:59:30
07) Nice Day - Spindizzy II - X68000 - Toshiya Yamanaka and/or Tetsuya Nakano - St. John
Music - 01:01:40
Discussion - 01:05:15
08) Dreams of Love and Literature - Doki Doki Literature Club - Multiplatform - Dan Salvato - Hugues
Music - 01:08:58
Discussion - 01:12:54
09) Crystal Breeze Springs - Lovely Planet Remix - PC - Satsuma Audio - St. John
Music - 01:16:31
Discussion - 01:18:45
10) Electoria - Sonic Crackers (unreleased) - Genesis - Junko Shiratsu, Masato Nakamura - Hugues
Music - 01:21:31
Discussion - 01:24:20
11) Stage 1 - Chip Chan Kick - PCFX - Hitoshi Sakimoto and/or Masaharu Iwata - St. John
Music - 01:27:20
Discussion - 01:30:17
12) Clothes Make The Man - Shakedown Hawaii - Multiplatform - Hugues
Music - 01:33:40
Discussion - 01:35:25
13) Message from Nightopia - Nights into Dreams - Multiplatform - Naofumi Hataya - St. John
Music - 01:38:41
Discussion - 01:41:50
End of Show Business - 01:45:38
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT (-IMPORTANT-) - 01:46:54
MOAR End of Show Business - 01:49:24
Our Other Shows - 01:50:10
Graduation II Discussion - 01:52:50
Sign-off - 01:53:55
14) Track 9 (ending probably) - Graduation II - PC Engine - Isao Mizoguchi (likely) - Hugues
Music - 01:54:20
Blooper Reel - 01:56:40
Total Episode Runtime: 02:04:35
Retro Game Club can be found here:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/retro-game-club/id1453018680
You can also follow Retro Game Club on Facebook and Instagram @retrogameclubpodcast and on Twitter @rgcpodcast.
Hugues’ blog (and his Sega Genesis demo) can be found here:
You can find Nerd Noise Radio on Facebook and on Twitter each @NerdNoiseRadio. There are also two Facebook Groups: Nerd Noise Radio “Easy Mode” where we just have general video game and nerd fun, or for the gearheads among you, Nerd Noise Radio “Expert Mode” where we deep dive sound hardware, composer info, and music theory.
Nerd Noise Radio is also a member of the Retro Junkies community, which can be found at www.theretrojunkies.com. And we are a member of the VGM Podcast Fans community on Facebook. St. John is also the admin of the Podcasters of Des Moines Facebook group, which features a number of other podcasters and great programs from the greater Des Moines area.
Thanks for listening! Join us again in May (exact date TBD) for C1E64: “ThreeFer Thursday”, and wherever you are…..Fly the N!!
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BLOGSPOT-EXCLUSIVE ADDITIONAL SPECIAL NOTE 1 of 2: Not only has my game been upped in terms of link sharing for this episode (thanks again, The OneUps!), but this episode is also the official debut of St. John's NEW MIC (on Nerd Noise Radio, anyway. The actual debut happened a little earlier, while St. John was guesting on NintenDomain Podcast #315).
While St. John believes that in the grand scheme, his new $100 RØDE Podmic dynamic mic is ultimately neither better nor worse than his old $100 AudioTechnica AT2020 condenser mic, he DOES believe that it is much better in the narrower context of what he's trying to do with Nerd Noise Radio in terms of trying to get that nice, tight, "rrrraadioooo" sound. In fact, he believes in retrospect that the reason he was always only able to get 95% of the way to the sound he was looking for and never cross that final 5%....is because he has been using the wrong mic type this entire time. St. John has spent the past 5yrs laboring under the false impression that condenser mics were what most radio shows, and radio show-style podcasts used, when in reality, it's actually dynamic mics, especially in the professional radio shows that he has been attempting to invoke and somewhat emulate this entire time.
So, this episode debuts the new mic. But it also debuts St. John's new enhanced production techniques. Now, to be sure, it's not so much that these new techniques are amazing. In truth, they're still pretty basic and generalist / amateur. Instead, it's more that the production techniques previously were so rudimentary and limited, that even this step into production mediocrity still warrants "a giant leap forward".
Where previously, all I did was volumes and fades (and in rare cases, a little noise reduction on the speaking voices), I am now doing a lot more. On voices, I am applying not only volume and noise reduction, but noise gate, compressor, limiter, EQ, deEss, click removal (in some cases: when the source audio is not high enough quality, click removal does more harm than good, and I leave it out), loudness normalization, and normalization. Then I export the voice in a format that applies further normalization and "non-clip" volume maximization. For the music, I still mostly manually volume set the various tracks, and of course, still manually do all the fades. But now I also export in a format that applies further normalization to result in a tighter sound with even more consistent volume levels across tracks.
Also, in the past, getting volumes between St. John and Hugues, as well as the talking and the music has always been hit and miss, with the music too loud in C2E3, and the talking too loud in C2E5 / C2E6, and overall episode volume a little on the low side to prevent too much blowout (with a little bit of blowout happening anyway). Now, I make two takes on the voice, one with Hugues a little too loud, and one with St. John a little too loud, and balance them out together in post before exporting the final voice. And then, we do the same with the music, two versions: one with the voices a little too loud, and one with the music a little too loud, and precision balance them against each other that way.
The final result, it seems, is better balance between hosts, better balance between tracks, better balance between hosts and tracks, tighter sounding music, and cleaner, tighter, richer, smoother, and more robust voices, and lastly, with a greater overall episode perceived loudness. Now, to the listener: when you listen to St. John, you'll be hearing BOTH the differences between mics, AND the differences between production techniques, and it'll be hard to tell where the one change ends and the other begins. However, listening to Hugues, any change you'll hear will be pure "production changes" since his mic, set up, and technique hasn't changed. If you listen to this episode against C2E6, and then listen to Hugues, that'll be pure post-production differences.
Lastly, a while back, as an Archive.org Archive-Exclusive "SUPER-BONUS", I uploaded a little production I did comparing the mics. I used a third (much, MUCH crappier little Jabra headset) mic to do the general narration so that the AT2020 and Podmic would stand out and not get lost in the sea of narration. Actually, this crappy little Jabra mic is the exact same mic I used to record the little "editor's notes" interruptions to today's episode about the Steam Deck. If you'd like to hear more about these mics, and hear a little bit of direct comparison in various environments / conditions, you can hear it....here: https://archive.org/details/super-bonus-new-mic-who-dis-session. Also, for your convenience, here's an Apple Podcasts link to C2E6, in case you wanted to do direct comparisons between our final Ch 2 production using the old mic / old methods, and our first production using the new mic / new methods: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nerd-noise-game-club-c2e6-fast-music-for-slow-times/id1191401173?i=1000549889563
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BLOGSPOT-EXCLUSIVE ADDITIONAL SPECIAL NOTE 2 of 2: Calling this one a "Blogspot-Exclusive" is a bit of a stretch, since it gets explicitly mentioned in the show, as well as my plans to mention it elsewhere in the future. But I guess for now, the text in this note, at least, -IS- a Blogspot-Exclusive: due to family situations, I'm trying to find ways to reduce time I spend working on the podcast, and invest more of that time into my family - WITHOUT cancelling the show, or breaking / amending its regular delivery cadence. So, that means, for me, finding ways to trim a little fat here and there, and avoid great big projects. As such, one way I've identified to do that is to [at least for this year] cancel the "Best of 2020/2021 - Listener Picks" episode. If there is a large amount of listener outcry over this, we'll look to bring it back in 2023 for "Best of 2022". And if there is no significant listener complaint, we may just never bring it back. The power is yours in this regard. You light us up, we'll bring it back. You don't light us up, we'll take that as a sign to just keep it gone. It does sound like Hugues will be making a Best-of, though, so you'll still get two episodes. Anyway, all of this arises just because I'm trying to find a way to balance changing family situation needs and dynamics with a desire to keep the show going, and reliably delivering on the fundamentals, and cancelling the Best of Listener Picks seemed the most logical way to do that. We'll keep a listening ear out on listener feedback on the matter. So, if you want us to bring it back next year, that'll only happen if you tell us so and tell us outright. As I said earlier (and to quote Captain Planet): "the power is yours!"
Cheers!
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