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Don
6 posts
Audio input level issue with the stream
Edited by Don on
I am really loving the stream (on YouTube since I started late) and it is everything I ever wanted to know. I have wanted to know forever how to actually write games at a low level in Windows and how to output sound directly to the sound card going back to the days of DOS.

That's why I'm kind of sorry to post something negative to start off with. I am currently up to day 009, and the audio clipping of the recording has been driving me crazy every day. So I temporarily checked day 020 just to make sure it was still occurring before I mentioned anything about it.

Casey, your recording input level seems to be too high. (You can see it in the little moving bars of your recording program, when it reaches the maximum volume and and little line gets pegged all the way to the right.) When it hits the maximum volume on the input, the audio becomes clipped, and it makes a scratchy sound. It only occurs when you emphasize certain words louder than others.

Would it be possible to lower the input level of your mic, so that that doesn't happen? I figured I'd mention it now, and maybe it would be solved by the time I get to day 021 or something...

One last off topic thing. In day 009 you were talking about the game jam, and I got chills because the one time I got to go to the Game Developer's Conference in 2002, I went to a session with someone presenting who had talked about the exact same game jam (Eric Zimmerman of Gamelab, I believe). He showed one of the games which was just a swarm of Doom monsters surrounding the player as the camera slowly zoomed out. :)

I'll keep watching and learning no matter what, I just hoped that my suggestion would improve the audio, mostly for my own benefit. :)
Don
6 posts
Audio input level issue with the stream
Update: Ah, I see... 40 minutes in the video on day 009, you did say you were clipping because you were talking too loudly. I was thinking of a solution that wouldn't depend on changing your presentation style.
Marc Novakowski
12 posts
Audio input level issue with the stream
I haven't encountered any audio clipping issues on the YouTube videos. Perhaps it was just the live stream that was clipping?
Don
6 posts
Audio input level issue with the stream
Edited by Don on
I actually mean the YouTube videos; I haven't watched a stream while it was live yet. But, I believe it is in the actual input because on occasions where he had the recording program on the screen you can see it max out the peak volume meter (which corresponded to the clipping sound precisely).

For example, in video 020, when he says "hello" in the first few seconds, you can hear the clipping. At least it is clear as day on my headphones.

Here's a great video about setting input/gain level for voice recordings (which would apply for streaming just as well) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw8ppTPUXlo
Casey Muratori
801 posts / 1 project
Casey Muratori is a programmer at Molly Rocket on the game 1935 and is the host of the educational programming series Handmade Hero.
Audio input level issue with the stream
drivers99
I am currently up to day 009, and the audio clipping of the recording has been driving me crazy every day. So I temporarily checked day 020 just to make sure it was still occurring before I mentioned anything about it.

The mic volume was dropped to 70% by day 20, so I guess if it's still happening, it may just be that I need a better microphone that does compression.

I went to a session with someone presenting who had talked about the exact same game jam (Eric Zimmerman of Gamelab, I believe). He showed one of the games which was just a swarm of Doom monsters surrounding the player as the camera slowly zoomed out. :)
That was Sean Barrett's game (@nothings on Twitter). It was called "Very Serious Robodoom": http://www.indiegamejam.com/igj0/games.html

Eric Zimmerman was never at an Indie Game Jam, so I'm not sure who was presenting. It could have been Sean, or it could have been Chris Hecker.

- Casey
Don
6 posts
Audio input level issue with the stream
Oh, that is awesome. I remember some of those games as well now, which were also presented. Ah, I had remembered Zimmerman from a couple sessions I went to and must have conflated him with it somehow.

In order to try to help, I just tried to duplicate the problem, and long story short, it's not easy. So, I'll just try to ignore it in the future.