A Trader’s Tale from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper
The Lois McKendrick runs headlong into trouble when a routine in-system transit goes bad. Ishmael and the rest of the crew must scramble to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it in order to keep the ship alive. Learn more about the officers and crew as they struggle to keep their ship and discover how Ishmael finds out how wrong he’s been about what it means to be a spacer in this latest Trader’s Tale.
Actually I record in stereo using a BLUE 8-Ball mic thru a rather horrid Behringer pre-amp. I record into two channels into a high bitrate mp3 file (iRiver 799 at 372kbps stereo). The music is added in on post-production, after I’ve clipped out all the flubs. I mix in Audacity and I’ll look at the source files to see if I can confirm what you’ve found.
The system may WELL be inverting the tracks, but as for changing the processing … I doubt that I’m going to be making many changes at this point in the game.
There’s an episode coming (7, I think), where I had problems with one of the tracks and duplicated the left channel and replaced the original — if the channel inversion is the problem, then I suspect you’ll be able to hear that just fine.
And, stick with the headset! :D
nate
this book is going great. and yes – so far the first person narrative is smooth and natural – big improvement over our sticky subject in QS – to wit,
WHY WHY!?! _more_ “damn yer good”!!
my tolerance for this riff is a sign for my overarching appreciation for your work at large. lets hope PB keeps the Ish-Drip flowing as we addicts try to cope.
Just D/L episodes 6,7 & 8. You’re right Nate, in ep. 6 and 8, I couldn’t hear your dialog from my mono speaker, but I could in ep. 7. And with my stereo headphones ep 7 definitely sounds mono whereas 6 and 8 have a spatial quality to them. So the channel inversion thing must be the problem. Oh well, I can still listen to them. Perhaps in your future episodes/books, you can change it somehow so mono speakers will work, but it will still sound nice in stereo.
I tell myself I will make the chapters last. I won’t listen to them all at once. I will never stay up late at night listening….. I failed! :(
Hello, my name is Greg and I’m an FS addict! I just can’t help myself! I need the rush, the first one calms me down I’m in a happy place! The problem is not wanting that feeling to leave, so I play the next…then the next. Before I know it they are all gone!
I’m desperate man! Can’t you just cover me this time! You know I’m good for it! Pleas just a few more chapters to get me through the week!!
Damn You’re good! Keep it up!
Thanks for the wonderful book! I’m jonesing for new episodes. I think this is worse than when I was listening to “The Rookie” by Scott Siegler. Just to make you feel good, I get on my podcatcher every morning and the very first feed I check for new updates is FS. Only after that do I check the 7th son feed or Mu Lafferty’s Heaven feed.
Any chance that you’re just going to take a week of vacation from your day job and finish recording and uploading the book in one shot?
I’m posting 9, 10, 11 up to PB today and then going out of town for 5 days. When I come back, I’ll be working on 12, 13, 14 — and that only leaves 15 and 16.
16 is a short epi with only the final chapter.
:(
I’m glad to hear more ep’s are on the way I am totaly addicted as well, and I got my mom hooked on the series too!
How are things going with Double Share? Well I hope!
Thanks for the hard work and great series.
I hope your time off will give you the energy to keep the show releases at this high of a rate… Or faster :)
G_G
Just working my way through Quartershare right now, have Halfshare and downloading Fullshare.
Is there going to to be another like Doubleshare? Cause your books are fantastic!
Keep up the great work.
I’m in the process of writing Double Share now. It’s being much stickier than the first three.
I so love the way they play with cc’s mind and made him believe in the ship
Just got up to date with Full Share episode 11. Listened to Quarter Share, Half Share and now Full Share in one week. Awesome stuff. Love the way you get the listener in with Mister Wong’s growing life aboard a Loise. Love the comic relief and real life stress and strain to Ish as time goes by. A Hornblower in Space, type of listen. Love it. And I am doing copies for my family and friends…
Just listening to the episodes of Full share so far (for the 3rd time). Noticed epi 4 starts out with “you are listening to episode 4 of HALF SHARE”. Took me the 3rd or 4th time listening to it to catch it!
Mercy sakes!! Lemme see if I can get that fixed!
I’ve just finished my 4th time through episodes 1-11. Are 12-14 coming out soon, or should I start over at 1 again?
I just uploaded 12 last night — it’ll be in the next Podiobooks posting set, I hope. Looking at the backlog, I’m not sure that’s true, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Unfortunately I was travelling last week and didn’t get my full recording schedule in so 13, 14, 15, and 16 are lagging. I’m recording tomorrow (Thursday) but Friday is another high demand business day. Updates will probably be delayed until I can finish post-production Saturday.
Sorry about that.
Good to hear you are starting Double Share, b/c I just cannot get enough of your books!
Your writing style is fresh and honest. Mature adult situations are dealt with tactfully, but without losing the raw sexual/sensual energy that Ish feels toward the women in his life.
I’m on Ep 10 of Full Share tonight and I’ll finish more on the train tomorrow morning.
Thanks for helping me pass the time, creating such a fine character to live vicariously through and for the laughs that I do not share with anyone else, but Ish.
Great books, i hope u can get them published, i´d love to have a harcopy of series. The story flows naturally, the characters are vibrant and wery belivable – you really have way with building worlds with words:P
I love these books. They take me back to when I used to play Rift Wars from Flying Buffalo. Rift Wars is a space trading play-by-mail game.
I want to know if more books are coming down the line.
I’m working on Double Share now. It’s being sticky.
keep up the good work.
I am sure you fine the path your looking for.
Its better to find the right way and be happy
with what you have done then to put something
out your not happy with
Nate – There is a problem with the ep 13 feed it is only 1:25 long.
Thanks, Joe. I’m uploading a fresh file as I type this and the PB folks have been notified.
Nate,
You respond within the hour to just about every comment, no matter what time of day.
Do you ever sleep?
What is this “sleep” you talk about? ;)
At the behest of a few really pesky fans :) i’ve loaded the glitched ep 13 here
http://durandus.org/media/PB-FullShare-13.mp3
thank you
oh sorry you got so many people do not understand
that its not up to you when they upload a fix
Thanks for getting ep 13 up so we could listen to it. It was another great show. But now, of course we have to start being “Pesky” ;) for ep 14.
Funny, you and these episodes are just like Ish and the coffee :)
Well, the end is nigh!
Then you’re gonna start getting pesky for Double Share! :)
But I’m grateful for every pesky comment and each request for more content because it means that I’ve done what I wanted to do, and that’s tell stories that people want to hear.
So thanks to you all and keep your fingers crossed for that Parsec Award. Even if I only make the top 5 that’ll be a major accomplishment for me. :)
How many episodes will be in Full Share? I like to wait until the end to start listening, but I am starting to get impatient because I love your work. I want to count down to the end so I can sit and listen all at once. Keep up the good work.
Ben
There are 16. It’ll be in Podiobooks hands by tomorrow (Saturday) night.
N
Time to be pesky again, well Maybe I can wait a little longer… Okay long enough More Please ;)
Hey by the way if you need/want Proof Readers for the written version that, I hope, you’re submitting to publishers, I volunteer! my services for the Whole Series :)
You can contact me through Myspace here http://www.myspace.com/glitch_chaos If you’re at all interested. Otherwise Keep up the Great Work! but don’t forget to sleep every month or so.
I hate it when you tell us you’ve uploaded the to PB. I think I’ve been checking PB twice an hour all day to see if they’ve updated yet.
OK SORRY!! Chapt 15 and 16 are still on my harddrive.
You patience will be rewarded. Hang in there. The initial run of Epi 16 has to be redone and I’m in the process.
IT’S NOT PODIOBOOKS FAULT!! :)
Hey everyone. Nate is just a few ratings from getting Qrarter Share in the top 10 overall # of votes on Podiobooks.com. Please show your support for his efforts and rate all three books as well as any future efforts.
I can’t help but notice that there is a distinct difference between Nate’s fan-base and Scott Sigler’s fan-base. While both could be described as intense, there seems to be a lot of semantic differences. Scott’s fans seem to be generally much more “base” than Nate’s fans, who are somewhat more reserved.
Don’t get me wrong, Scott’s fans are a great lot, and I count myself as one of them. However, to put it in perspective, I see Nate’s fans as being more likely to be found in a country club type atmosphere, sitting down talking about politics and international (“interstellar?”) events over wine or cocktails, while Scott’s fans seem to be more the kind to be found at a sports bar, cheering their favorite atlhetic team over a few pitchers of beer.
That being said, the difference is good.
Oh, and I just rated/voted for all three Golden Age books on Podiobooks.
Calm seas and good trading, Nate!
P.S. I was quite amused to see what the root-cause of the systems problem in the Lois was. Talk about a little thing causing a huge mess!
Nate, thank you so VERY much and keep up the wonderful stories!
Like everyone else on here… I’m really not sure what I’ll do when Ish’s tales are done. Probably listen to them all over again… till my mp3 player breaks.
Hoping to see the books in print!
Geordon, I think the term you are searching for is “refined” and I wholeheartedly agree. This difference in fan base may stem from the content. The character of Nate’s stories seem to have a class and a sophistication about them which is in stark contrast to the more guttural nature of the typical Sigler yarn.
Both have their place, and I personally enjoy both. I agree that Nate’s stories are like a breath of fresh air blowing into the smoke filled bar of the podcasting world.
That’s the word I was looking for: “refined”! Thanks, Lar!
Additionally, I agree with you, that the difference probably comes from the content itself. After all, like begets like. As far as sophistication goes, though, you might tune into Scott’s latest “Bloodcast” for the story “Red Man”. It’s a different direction for Scott, in that there’s not much “blood” in it, but definitely a lot of thought-provoking content.
Thanks for the tip about “Red Man”. I am one of Scott’s original junkies, so I have already caught it via the Bloodcast. The story had a very interesting premise, but I didn’t care for where he took it. It seemed like a very good appetizer without the main course.
Of his short fiction, I think I like “Sacred Cow” the best. If you’ve not caught the fantastic video adaptation done by Earl Newton and the Stranger Things guys, you should check it out.
I know Scott would like the fact that we have hijacked this comment thread and turned it into a Sigler love fest, so I’ll kill this right here. There is more than enough room in the podcasting world for Nate and Scott.
Now back to re-reading The Past Through Tomorrow awaiting the final two Full Share episodes. Thanks again for leading me back to early Heinlein Nate!
Country Club? Good grief, where are you getting your “fan base” data from? Is the assumption that a story lacking profanity and blood necessarily draws a crowd with zero blood pressure? This is very confusing to me. I have listened to Scott’s Infection, Ancestor and Earthcore and was surprised at how little “gore and violence” they contained with the perpetual promise of “lots and lots of violence”. I find Scott’s stories interesting but all of the characters stereotypes that I never care about and his situations largely cliche. Nate’s story is quite the opposite. However, I find the subtle tension in the characters’ choices and situations to be akin to the kind of underlying anger in a Pink Floyd track. No violence and blood, but these are becoming very real people that I care about – for the story.
Full Share is making me wonder where all these other uber-beings Ish is working with have come from. I agree with Nate’s Mission Statement for the ‘Share’ series – that the protagonist is a regular kid with no special powers – but I am beginning to wonder how lucky could a guy be to live and work with people who to the man and woman are constantly looking out for his best interest. I mean, Ish has not really confronted his mother’s death yet, and similarly has not yet been truly tested. I’m afraid that until that test of fire occurs Ish will remain at heroism’s front door.
Could his estranged father provide this necessary gravitas?
I hate to tell you this but ish has confronted in a way not everyone does it in the same way. I mean when he figure out that you cry on the fliter (sp) on the way home he start to real understand about the death.
and that you have to put one foot in front of the other and move forward no matter what happens.
Matthew: I think I understand what you are saying but I do not entirely agree. Ish had an emotional reaction to the death – but that is not the same thing as coming to terms with it. For all we know of Ish’s past – his mother constitutes close to 2/3s. Now it may not be important to the story and thats fine. There are other ways it could play out. However, having a good cry just won’t fix it in this case.
I also agree that Ish has many positive and healthy characteristics like moving forward “no matter what happens” – yet, this is not a problem for him. It appears to be his natural reflex to average life situations. What we do not know Ish is how he deals with extraordinary circumstance and what new, latent traits of his would emerge. Here is why I see it as a possible problem:
1) Ish continues to move forward and advance in his life with little effort; he himself remarks on this frequently.
2) His advancement and success are not by his own doing but the result of a) the little effort required of him and b) the input from his extraordinary crewmates.
So I would like to see Ish succeed by extreme effort and on his own in some way. I also think that the occasional references to his father being ‘out there’ could mean that Nate has something in mind to help Ish understand his mother and self in a new way.
Don’t know why, but it suddenly occurred to me that I may have portrayed my need for a reconciliation more than I really would want for the story. Sure, Ish could just acknowledge and move on after his mother passes in a way, thats what Nate had him do. That could work out for the story in some way. No problem. I just have this gnawing feeling that it was an opportunity (and may remain one) to see how Ish make another developmental leap.
Anyhoo – I am not really arguing for any changes there. Sorry.
Nate – I was wondering when the next episode would be available.
Joe
I’m not sure, Joe. I’m redoing the last episode — we’re more than a few weeks ahead of schedule, but I’m hoping to get the re-do done this weekend and upload 15 and 16 by Monday. After that … when the update goes thru.
Sorry I can’t be more specific. I just dont know.
In part, I stopped listening to your audio books because the audio is now horrendous (after a supposed system improvement from Quarter Share). What you apparently view as the preamp adding space is simply one of the deepest errors an audio system can have — polarity inversion. In headphones, I hear the warmth and clarity of Patrick McLean’s intro (in glorious, appropriate mono), followed by my head getting pulled sideways by the searing phase incoherence of your system apparently having one of its wires/switches flipped accidentally. Mono voice audio is not in need of “correction” or widening; it’s often superior unaltered. No mic pre would be inverting the signal as an attempt to widen; it’s broken or not set properly.
I’m baffled by your stance that you probably won’t fix it. Generations of professional audio engineers have strenuously avoided phase incoherence, yet you’re sticking by a full polarity inversion (with its 100% mono incompatibility), despite complaints from listeners. As a former audio engineer, I assure you that it isn’t just slightly warped, it’s very badly warped. Inversion problems can wreck perceived power, EQ, stereo placement, and — as at least two listeners have noted — audibility itself.
If looking for stereo in the voice track, I highly recommend looking into the mid/side (M/S) technique. It requires a mixer and another mic, but offers full mono compatibility; the side microphone disappears completely in mono — this time intentionally, and with good result. If nothing else, please check your system; likely a cable is miswired, or you’ve a “phase” switch (misnomer for polarity) on the mic pre that should be toggled. Look for button(s) bearing a graphic of a circle with a slash through it, as here:
http://tinyurl.com/26ejja
I thought you stopped listening because it was just too boring, Salty. (Yea I read the review) :)
As *not* a former audio engineer, but just a guy with a story to tell and no background what-so-ever in the field, please forgive my newbish stupidity, bumbling ineptitude, and rank incompetence in publishing 30 episodes of audio garbage. Thank you so much for your careful enumeration of my faults.
But help me understand this.
I’m using a BLUE 8-ball with this Behringer pre-amp
http://www.behringer.com/MIC200/index.cfm?lang=ENG
As you can see, there IS a phase reverse switch on it, but I’m running with it off.
Are you saying it should have been on all this time? How would I have known that? My initial test files showed the wave forms with an “offset” (the only term I have for it, but I’m sure you know what I should be calling it) but just in the opposite direction. If “pointing in” is a problem, then I’m failing to understand why “pointing out” would not be.
My stance that I won’t fix it is predicated on the notion that re-recording, re-editing, re-mixing, re-rendering, re-tagging, and re-submitting the 30 episodes is more than I can really take on. It’s taken me over 100hrs to get these created and, so far, I’ve heard from only about 5 people (all of whom are running monaural setups) that there’s a problem. There may be more that I don’t know about who bailed on me without complaint so I’m not sure how valid my observations are here.
You’re arguing that it’s worth my time (and the Podiobooks people’s time) to redo the 30 episodes for those people who may be coming along behind and using “glorious, appropriate mono”?
As for spending *another* $150 to buy another mic and a mixer in order to re-do what I’ve already done so that I can continue to give it away for free seems unlikely, altho I might be pursuaded to add to the inventory after I get the next three books written and ready for publication – probably sometime next year. Or the year after, if you convince me to stop writing new stories in order to redo what’s up there already.
So what’s your advice, guru? Spend the next two months redoing the work? And how would I know if the re-work is correct?
No, I didn’t stop listening because it was boring. As my review made clear, the boring (obviously used semi-ironically) part was half the attraction.
Thanks for the link to the pre specs. I think I know what happened. Any chance you’re using a Y-cable to take the tip/ring/sleeve (TRS) balanced mono output from the pre into a “left” and “right” split? I’ll assume the answer’s yes, because that (or similar, using the XLR out) is by far the most likely explanation. (Forget the phase switch, now that I see you’re using a mono pre.)
Balanced audio (something almost unheard of in the consumer world, and therefore foreign to the average person) is a signal carried over two-conductor, shielded cable. Each conductor carries a mirror image (flipped polarity) of the other, so that when it reaches its destination, those signals can be flipped again, bringing the desired signal into coherence, while canceling any interference (e.g., hum from fluorescent light fixtures) — in exactly the same way your mono listeners are having the desired audio canceled.
Rather than splitting the balanced signal into a false left/right, there are three options, all good. The first two assume the downstream device (e.g., computer, mixer) has an unbalanced (single-conductor shielded) connection.
1) Simply plug a tip/sleeve (TS) plug into the TRS output jack on the pre, terminating the balanced output right there. My theory correct, this is basically what you’ve been doing, but with the left/right confusion added in (you’ve received no noise-reduction benefit from the balanced output).
2) A more involved and finicky method — find or make a cable that carries the signal balanced until the next device, where it’s terminated unbalanced there. Not worth the effort in 99% of cases.
3) Assuming the downstream device has a balanced input, carry the signal through balanced, using the correct cable.
In all cases, barring the addition of another mic, you should be recording only in mono (or 2-channel if that’s more convenient, but recognizing that the signal’s the same on both sides, and, format depending, it might be using double the disk space for nothing — kinda like the current method, but without the polarity damage).
Re fixing the problem, I was only referring to future recordings. However, depending on if your mixes are automated, you could remix all of the files (not including episode 7, naturally) with little to no pain. Resubmitting would probably be the hardest part. The key thing though, in my opinion, is to eliminate the polarity inversion for future work. It’s nasty, and may be diverting potential listeners on the margin, as you theorized.
How to know if it’s correct? You’ve already demonstrated one of the better tests by recognizing when the waveforms pull away from each other visually. Thar she blows! When it comes to more subjective analysis, one of the best test I used in my studio was pulling up CDs of works I admire, comparing them directly to what I was mixing. That will tell you all sorts of things in a hurry, and almost always leads to improved product. Something about listening to the same mix over and over; easy to lose perspective.
Probably wouldn’t hurt, at least by the time you’re onto the next book, to get a few inches closer to the mic than the samples I’ve heard. If that leads to “P-pops”, a distance-mounted stocking screen will do the trick. Should you decide to rewire or make any changes, I’d be happy to give the new output a listen with my retired ears.
In any case, don’t feel that large amounts of time are required. You could do nothing but zap the right side of your current “stereo” voice track, pan the left to the center, and you’re jamming — basically what you did with episode 7. Not “wide” enough for you? Surely there’s a digital plug-in or something readily available that you’ll find pleasant enough. However, if you’re not going to mic in stereo, I advise — just like they do in the movies, on radio, and almost everywhere else — glorious, time-tested, solid mono.
Geek notice: Not having thought of balanced audio for years, I was reviewing just now and found that the differential-signal theory of noise reduction I spewed is sorta considered overblown these days — “impedance balancing” getting most of the credit. Regardless, the balanced output from the pre is differential, and the handling of it’s where the problem lies; though normally the cold phase of the balanced pair would be inverted back to match the hot, your cabling’s treating them as discrete signals, keeping them separate and incoherent.
Ah! I think you found the answer. I’m not using a y-cable per se — the Behringer has a stereo output jack — but I’m feeding that into an iRiver and recording in mp3 at 392kbps. That device *does* have the choice of recording in mono or stereo, but I picked stereo for the higher rate. (In mono it tops out at 96.) I’ll bet the iRiver is doing the offset. I wonder if Audacity will let me pan the signals back to the middle. I still have the source files for Full Share … hm
And I was teasing about the boring thing.
Thanks for the help and guidance!