Testing again: fast, but not that fast

Another shot at a listenable variable-speed version of FIR

In FIR #158 today, we mentioned that Eric Tobler has provided us with another variable-speed version of FIR, this one at 25% instead of 40%. At this speed, the show doesn’t sound quite so rushed as the earlier attempt, but it does reduce the overall length of the show from 72 minutes to about 53 minutes.

Please give a listen and let us know what you think of this speed. Download the MP3 and leave a comment to this post. Or you can listen right now from this page:

Thanks. And thanks again to Eric for his dedication to this effort!

Posted by shel on 07/27 at 02:16 PM

  1. Interesting experiment, but listening to this would make me loopy.  OK, even more loopy than I already am.

    Yes, you can tell the difference.  Only chipmunks would think the speed was normal.

    This reminds me of the old trick employed by some radio stations in the 70’s and 80’s.  Turntables were sped up by 2% to make the station sound a wee bit more lively than their competition.  Legend has it that Buzz Bennett first did it at KCBQ in San Diego.  It worked and was copied all over the country.

    To increase the speed by 25% is just too much, I fear.  Shel and Neville don’t sound more lively.  They sound like they’ve taken caffeine intravenously.

    Posted by Robert French  on  07/27  at  06:41 PM

  2. Nice try, but still, I thinkt it would be better, if speeding up were an option on the mp3-player and not in the mp3-file-itself. Maybe listeners would like to speed up parts of your podcast, not the whole show.

    But thank you for starting the debate and I hope the idea will be passed on to Apple, Creative, and all the other mp3-player-manufacturers.

    Posted by Karin Hoegh  on  07/27  at  10:51 PM

  3. Hi Guys,

    Definitely a nice try, but even at this speed (and deliberately avoided reading the comments until after I listened) this technique really put me on edge. I just had a client ask me to do something similar, and the result, like yours, was listening to the long and fast disclaimer at the end of a car commercial.

    Yours is the longest of the ‘Casts I subscribe to, and I will admit that I rarely make it through an entire show. If length (of time) is a problem, I’d like to make two suggestions:

    1. Edit, edit, edit. There’s a lot of music, a lot of chat. Get to the gems fast and then get out of them. Downside of this is that it can be pretty time consuming.

    2. Pre-pro the show to give yourselves time allotments for each segment. When you’re going in to X minutes on a phone interview, it’s time to wrap it up to make room for other material.

    Or a combination of the two. I wouldn’t presume to know what you consider the most important parts of the show, but I do have a hankering to load up a file and see what I can whittle it down to for you.

    Just gotta make time ;-)

    Cheers,
    Stace

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  07/28  at  04:34 AM

  4. I listened for about 20 mins, but found that I kept “phasing out” and then some keyword would wake me up and remind me to switch my brain back on. 

    Using this technique might make it easier to add timecodes to a podcast.  However, for general listening I’m not in favour of it, and I don’t believe I would take-in as much of the show.

    Posted by Martyn Davies  on  07/31  at  05:15 AM

  5. Guys:

    Better, yes, but I still don’t think I’m prepared to listen to a full episode at this speed.  And the sped-up ticking clock ... yikes!

    The good news: your one-minute news segments actually last one minute at this speed. Ha!  Just a little dig.  Keep up the great work.

    Posted by Bryan Person, New Comm Road Podcast  on  07/31  at  06:58 AM

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