Guest Instructions and Tips

If you're reading this, you've probably been invited to guest on an episode of GitMinutes!

These are some things you can do on your end to increase the audio quality of our episode.

Wear headphones/earplugs

Use headphones for listening (to me). This will avoid echo-effects.

Use a decent microphone

It doesn't have to be fancy. Your phone's headset is probably not a good choice. Use a good headset, or a proper external microphone. If it costs more than 30$, it's probably OK. If you don't have a good one, maybe you can borrow of a friend or colleague?

Basic mike technique

You want the sound of your voice to get into the microphone as much as possible, but not the air from your mouth. Get close to the mike, but don’t speak into it.

Turn down the microphone gain (volume control) as long as I can still hear you. Then it will pick up less noise from your environment.

Never touch the microphone, avoid knocking into the cable or the table on which the mike stands.

Your local recording

You have to make a local recording using software, for example Audacity (free, all platforms) or Garageband. Please try it out in advance to see how it works, especially if it records the right microphone.

After we are done, export the recording as FLAC (although I can probably handle any format), and send it to me via filemail.com, Dropbox, SkyDrive or similar.

Skype

If you haven't got me on Skype already, just add me right away. My username is tfnico.

We'll try to keep video on, but might have to turn it off if audio quality suffers.

Please turn off Skype's automatic microphone adjustment (somewhere under Audio Settings). This will make it easier for me to remove noise, etc. in post-processing.

If possible, use a wired connection, not wireless. This increases Skype's stability.

Avoid parallel streaming, downloading and other things that could chug your bandwidth.

Reduce distractions

Turn off notification/sound on devices, let your room-mates/family/pets know you should not be disturbed the following hour.