Ridehax Podcast (was :Endless Sphere Podcast / Ebike Nerdcast)

[GCinDC]

...we did have some fun making that..

I've been wanting to transcribe some, but it's hard finding the time. (I wonder if there's an app to do it?) Luke had some outstanding quotes. Here's one of Knoxie's:

I actually find the ebikes more fun than the motorbikes, and I know it's weird but I just find it more fun. The EV Grin, you that initial grin that you get when you twist the throttle and there's no noise and it's not costing you and you're not insured, you're not taxed, you're out of the loop completely, that really puts a big smile on your face, doesn't it?

...Luke mentioned last week about racing in his Civic - there's something about seeing guys on expensive bikes and cyclists and stuff and just pulling past them with absolutely no effort that just is so satisfying, and I know we kind of go like hunting... it used to be a favorite hobby of mine to go and do that. I was the cruelest guy. I tell you this, right. This is terrible, but what I would do... rather than overtake and blow by people, you know whiz passed them, cause they would know what you're up to, rather than do that, the funnest, the best thing to do is sit behind them and start coughing and whistling and stuff and saying hey can I get passed or you know gesturing to them. And they speed up cause then they think, look that guy's upright in a mountain bike this should be no problem. Because you can just keep pushing them and it's more fun doing that than overtaking them and that kind of spoils it, cause they know what you're up to once you've overtook. I used to do that a lot, just chase guys for like 5 to 10 miles and sit right up behind them and then peel off and they'd think you were super-human...

Hilarious. Next, I'll try to do the story about the other guy who humiated you, with the comment: "That looks heavy" :lol:

 

[knoxie]

Ha Ha

Thanks for that Greg! think that's the first time that I have ever been transcribed! he he...it was a hoot for sure I think one of your quotes that made me laugh when questioned about safety was to say " Sure.. I am all about safety!" ha ha brilliant you should post that above one of your highlight videos! ha ha.

Again on the quality I think it was Skype clipping us? my audio sounded great through my monitors and of Course Troy was fine as he was recording it direct...if you want spanking quality you could run Skype then all record your own audio at the same time with your computer, most operating systems include some kind of basic audio recording application, then it would be a simple job of uploading them to dropbox which has a 2GB limit for free which is easy enough for us all to dump the quality overdubs, you could then splice them with simple audio edit software.

Still its great to listen to anyway and Troy has done a great job again so big big thanks to him for doing it, I cant wait for the spring/summer now so I can get out and have more e-bike shenanigans to talk about!

Knoxie

 

[grindz145]

Ha Ha

Thanks for that Greg! think that's the first time that I have ever been transcribed! he he...it was a hoot for sure I think one of your quotes that made me laugh when questioned about safety was to say " Sure.. I am all about safety!" ha ha brilliant you should post that above one of your highlight videos! ha ha.

Again on the quality I think it was Skype clipping us? my audio sounded great through my monitors and of Course Troy was fine as he was recording it direct...if you want spanking quality you could run Skype then all record your own audio at the same time with your computer, most operating systems include some kind of basic audio recording application, then it would be a simple job of uploading them to dropbox which has a 2GB limit for free which is easy enough for us all to dump the quality overdubs, you could then splice them with simple audio edit software.

Still its great to listen to anyway and Troy has done a great job again so big big thanks to him for doing it, I cant wait for the spring/summer now so I can get out and have more e-bike shenanigans to talk about!

Knoxie

Unfortunately I had to clip it to bump my audio up to where it was suppose to be. I probably could have found a slightly lower happy medium but I had had enough screwing around with the normalizer settings. I had my mic gain on the lowest setting instead of the middle where it was suppose to be

 

[amberwolf]

I dunno if Skype can use VST plugins (or any other type), but if you can install a Compressor (or Compander) plugin then it will help much more than a normalization process does. All normalization can do is raise *all* the audio coming in to a specific level. Compression will quieten the loud parts and raise the quiet parts, so that they are more equal, and then (usually) be able to raise the whole thing to some specific level, as well. It's probably the most common audio processing done when recording vocals or drums for music.

Or do what Knoxie suggests, recording it separately, and I'd recommend using Audacity which will use VST and other plugins and can do the compression for you.

There also things that can pipe audio around from program to program in the computer, so that it can be first processed by Audacity (or whatever) and then fed into Skype. This introduces delay, though, usually of about 100ms or more, depending on the system's speed and such.

 

[knoxie]

skype cant use VST plugins sadly however Troy has explained his audio was low so he had to up all of our audio to hear himself, its funny some soundcards let you record what you hear and some dont maybe for copyright issues and the like, my soundblaster audigy lets you record what you hear and any other input at the same time and adjust the level of each one.

Be interesting to try it out although the other podcasts do sound fine, my audio had longer to travel through :wink:

 

[beast775]

just listened to the podcast,was very interesting.for me its good to hear the members that ive known through endlessphere for years.cant wait for more.

 

[grindz145]

Thanks for the info AW. My goal is to be able to just output the audio with as little editing as possible, though I have been recording my audio separately as well. I didn't think the clipping was that untolerable, but I really am striving for good quality audio.

When we have a team of 50 working on the nerdcast, I plan on upgrading to state of the art audio and video, as well as live streaming, blogging, and leveraging our organic syngergies....

Ill go with the backup recording again this week that way I can fix just about anything that goes wrong.

Still have the second half of the recording which Ill release soon as well!

and tonights guest is.....Hyena!!

 

[grindz145]

Episode 7 is live, Part 2 with Knoxie:
http://troyrank.com/2011/02/27/episode-7/

Episode 8 was recorded last night with Hyena, I plan to post that a little later in the week.

Enjoy!

 

[knoxie]

Hey Troy

Thanks for posting it up! loved it!! just finished listening to it, audio was fine this time no problems, thanks again for taking time out to do it, looking forward to hearing many more! looking forward to hearing Hyena on there as well, he makes some special videos!!

 

[amberwolf]

Thanks for the info AW. My goal is to be able to just output the audio with as little editing as possible, though I have been recording my audio separately as well. I didn't think the clipping was that untolerable, but I really am striving for good quality audio.

Well, for the best quality wihtout clipping, using the compressor will get you that, making all voices about even volume all the way thru the entire recording, as long as they arent' talking over each other (and even a little bit of that). So if you can just dump the audio file into whatever editor you like to use, and use whatever compressor it has (or a VST plugin if it'll take them, and there are winamp plugins for that too). THen just save as a new file (in case it turns out ot not be what you wanted or a glitch happens, so you can go back to the original), and upload.

If possible, do the original recording as WAV instead of any lossy compressed format like MP3, because it'll cause less artifacts if you keep it all uncompressed until the last step before uploading.

If you don't want to do any of the audio compression and stuff, then if you can put an MP3 of the original recording up where I can download it, I can use SONAR and the various compression plugins there to find the best settings for it, and then re-upload a copy to you (if you have a place I can drop it to, as I dont' have a place I can up it to for anything that big).

 

[Alan B]

Nice job! Almost need a protocol to keep from "doubling".

Like to hear more about the history of the various companies in the ebike business.

 

[Hyena]

I just listened to the first half of part 2 with Knoxie this morning on my commute
Oncoming pedestrians on a bike path that I slowed down for were probably wondering what I was laughing about at one point :lol:

It was cool to hear about your long history with ebikes Knoxie, I didn't realise you'd been doing it for that long. I've only been in the ebike scene for the last few years but I wish I had found out about it earlier. I would have loved one back at high school or uni instead of the crappy old car I had at the time.

Oh, and I'll let credit for the DB26 plug for balancing slide Greg

 

[knoxie]

:lol: :lol:

Ahh right Hyena the DB was your idea? well hats off to you anyway :lol: yes been on the scene a long old while! I have been checking your videos as well amazing stuff, the last one you did off road is right up there with my favourite ebiking videos so far, that shot you did looking back at yourself is the coolest!! simply brill! looking forward to hearing your podcast too.

Knoxie

 

[Hyena]

Ahh right Hyena the DB was your idea? well hats off to you anyway :lol:

I thiiiiiiink so, but I'm not fussed either way - it ain't a cure for cancer!
I actually tried computer hard drive IDE plugs and at first, which have a similar pin count but then moved to the DBs as I could use larger wires to handle more current. Both I had laying around so it was just a matter of using what was immediately available but the DB 'blanks' are easier to make and solder from scratch. I stopped worrying all together on subsequent newer generation lipo packs as I found they never got out of balance anyway!

Glad you liked the videos, thanks
I was actually just testing that mount and decided I may as well have a decent ride while I was at it :wink:
I'm also planning to make a large 'scorpian tail' type mount too that I'm hoping will give a cool semi-aerial 3rd person type view. Getting it to be stable enough might be an issue though. I've also toyed with the idea of towing a bunch of helium balloons hoving behind and holding up the camera too :lol:

 

[knoxie]

ha ha brilliant!! yes the gopro cams are amazing, really great quality not seen much high FPS ebike stuff with one yet! your new camera rig might be a prime time to try it? I think the multiple camera angle thing really works, anything that differs from the norm is great!! I would love a gopro for sure...they seem pretty good and steady too, my cheap cams were bad off road, my old canon ixus was pretty steady though, you cant beat the wide screen fish eye HD look of the go pro though. 8)

Yes my packs stay well in balance too and like you I dont worry about them at all these days, i am still monitoring them but they never have any issues I also never run them that low anyway! yes keep the videos coming!! great to watch full screen on the TV!

Knoxie

 

[GCinDC]

did i get the idea from you, hyena? i can't remember. anyway i certainly take no credit! i remember floating it past methods since he was helping me at the time, and he just said not to use the crimp ones since they flop around. i was surprised no one else seemed to be using them, so figured they were amateurish. now i'm tempted to do an avatar of them. :lol:

 

[grindz145]

Hyena's episode is Live: http://troyrank.com/2011/03/05/episode-8/

So good!

 

[AussieJester]

Hyena's episode is Live: http://troyrank.com/2011/03/05/episode-8/

So good!

Excellent episode guys, i thought of a way we could fairly easily do
a multi person video 'cast' one way at least, using WebcamXP for when Jay heads over my way in April, shall have a play with it and see how well it
works.

KiM

p.s LoL @ Hyena (hyena 1000watt e-bike; 5000watt illegal hyena e-bikes) not knowing supplier of '200watt stickers (AussieJester legal 200 watt e-cruiser; AussiJester 200 watt e-bike)cheers for the sticker BTW Jay

 

[jonescg]

Will Hyena be over here on the 1st of April? I'm scheduled to have the RG on the racetrack by this stage, so all and sundry invited!

 

[AussieJester]

Will Hyena be over here on the 1st of April? I'm scheduled to have the RG on the racetrack by this stage, so all and sundry invited!

He will be up at my place on the 5th IIRC ChriS we are having bar-b-q and drinks Matt.P and Timma2500 will be here also more than welcome to come by also mate Will give you more details when closer to the date, im like 10 minutes from the airport so Jays crashing my place his last night in town so we can get him well hammered hehe.


KiM

 

[GCinDC]

Oh, man, that sounds like fun. Couple of spycams in that group too, eh? Maybe your sunglasses cam, Jay? Maybe some show and tell at the beginning, before it gets silly. :lol:

Great podcast, guys. Apart from my voice which sounds like a broken plastic fender flapping in high wind. A proper mic could help a bit I think... Ambrose gently suggested one but I didn't know it was so bad.

Hyena & Matt are fantastic! Thanks, that was fun!

PS. Troy, you could add links to Matt's build/vid on your episode 8 page...

 

[Hyena]

Hey, you've got a chick doing the intro now - where'd an ebike nerd find one of those ?

Thanks for having me on guys, it was cool.

Great podcast, guys. Apart from my voice which sounds like a broken plastic fender flapping in high wind.

I didnt think it was too bad, apart from the silly American accent

A proper mic could help a bit

Hah! Wanna see what I was 'broadcasting' with ?
I had a quick scrounge around on the morning we did the cast and put together this:



That's an old microphone that I'm pretty sure is from an 8 bit sound blaster clipped to a chop stick that is duct taped to my headphones. :lol:
And I didn't even have to use any paperclips

My assortment of cheap cameras died Greg, I'm down to just the gopro, my SLR and good 3CCD HD camcorder. I'll be taking the gopro to Perth but I'm not sure the world is ready to see Aussie Jesters mug in 1080p :

 

[amberwolf]

That's an old microphone that I'm pretty sure is from an 8 bit sound blaster clipped to a chop stick that is duct taped to my headphones. :lol:

That's pretty similar to what I used to use, except that I can't find the actual mic anymore for some reason. I have a pair of ear-enclosing Optimus (Radioshack) headphones with a Reveal electret mic on it's "boom" desktop base zip tied to one side, so I can have the boom adjustable and rotateable up out of the way. This is what it looks like minus the boom:

 

[karma]

am i seeing things or did a shower of sparks and plasma fly off the rear of the bike in your fast ebike commuting video at 1.09/5.21

 

[Hyena]

haha yeah a little. I didnt see the little plasma ball the first time around! It was a wiring short in one of the wires coming off my main pack. I had it jerry rigged on an old pack I was testing and it jarred loose with the rough surface. When your pack is capable of delivering over 250 amps a shorted 24ga wire very quickly disintegrates!