---
title: "Stop.  Quickie time."
date: 2005-02-25T20:54:48-05:00
url: https://blog.lmorchard.com/2005/02/25/stop-quickie-time/
author: Les Orchard
---

# Stop.  Quickie time.

* I've got ["Cover Me" from Bruce Springsteen][cb] stuck in my head--thanks [Coverville][cv].

[cb]:sdf
[cv]:sdf

* Okay, so let me get [this][misme] straight: The fact that Canada exercised it's sovereignty in [refusing to join up with us][ref] on the brain-dead missile defence plan means that it's [reliquished its sovereignty][noref].  Double-speak and bullies, hooray!  Somehow, I think this sort of thing makes us the target of more missiles than Canada--and keeping US military assets out of your country seems like a better missile defense to me.

[misme]:http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/39910
[ref]:http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/02/24/missile-canada050224.html
[noref]:http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/news/shownews.jsp?content=n022421A

* Just heard an *awesome* mashup on Adam Curry's [Daily Source Code][dsc] podcast, [Seether by Veruca Salt VS. Don't Go by Yazoo][mash].

* Oh, and speaking of podcasts.  My pet peeve:

  <font size="+8">For</font> <font size="-2"> the</font> <font size="+1">love</font> <font size="+8">of</font><font size="-3"> Bob</font> <font size="+2">please</font> <font size="-1">watch your</font> <font size="+5">audio</font> <font size="-2">levels</font><font size="1">!</font><font size="+5">!</font><font size="0">!</font>
  
  Is there anyway everyone could take some cues from radio and maybe try to agree on a decibel level common between podcasts?  And maybe even within the same podcast?  I mean, maybe this is where the thousands of dollars of equipment in a studio comes in handy, with compressors and such, but there's gotta be something to be done.

[dsc]:http://www.dailysourcecode.com/
[mash]:http://gyllerfelt.se/mashed/

<div id="comments" class="comments archived-comments">
            <h3>Archived Comments</h3>
            
        <ul class="comments">
            
        <li class="comment" id="comment-221089203">
            <div class="meta">
                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://www.kryogenix.org/"><img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=cbde212986000125ff4322c25c1e50ce&amp;size=32&amp;default=http://mediacdn.disqus.com/1320279820/images/noavatar32.png"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://www.kryogenix.org/">Stuart Langridge</a>
                </div>
                <a href="#comment-221089203" class="permalink"><time datetime="2005-02-26T22:43:48">2005-02-26T22:43:48</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content">Audio levels are hard. On LugRadio (www.lugradio.org) we used to have all sorts of issues with the sound balancing. The reason it's now fixed is that we use the not-very-cheap Cubase SX for mixing. While I take your point entirely, saying "you've gotta pony up a lot of money for decent mixing software" raises the bar to podcasting enormously. It's be like only allowing weblogging with a paid-for TypePad subscription.
I wish there was Free software to do this, but there isn't, really; I mean, we're a Linux radio show and we're not doing it...</div>
            
        </li>
    
        <li class="comment" id="comment-221089204">
            <div class="meta">
                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href=""><img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=1ea5ff5011b97bde940f38b83cbac74e&amp;size=32&amp;default=http://mediacdn.disqus.com/1320279820/images/noavatar32.png"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="">fluffy</a>
                </div>
                <a href="#comment-221089204" class="permalink"><time datetime="2005-02-27T12:42:16">2005-02-27T12:42:16</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content">Many free/cheap recording packages these days come with software compressors.  It's just a matter of educating people on how to use them.</div>
            
        </li>
    
        <li class="comment" id="comment-221089206">
            <div class="meta">
                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://advogato.org/person/mbrubeck/"><img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=85232f8499fd6ee91623408fc23835d1&amp;size=32&amp;default=http://mediacdn.disqus.com/1320279820/images/noavatar32.png"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://advogato.org/person/mbrubeck/">Matt Brubeck</a>
                </div>
                <a href="#comment-221089206" class="permalink"><time datetime="2005-02-27T23:31:28">2005-02-27T23:31:28</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content">For normalizing sound levels between podcasts, ReplayGain (e.g. mp3gain, vorbisgain) would be a useful standard.  I've been meaning to add that to Audacity someday.</div>
            
        </li>
    
        </ul>
    
        </div>