Keir Studios Update May 25 2011

Presenting the name of the new Podcast

The Missing Dialogues....

Yes, I know it's not a new name, or even show, but it fits with what I want to do. The format will be similar to the previous incarnation, but it will be more focused on what is currently happening in the world, as apposed to just picking a random topic. You should all get the first episode, in this new addition of the show, sometime later this week, perhaps as early as tonight, but until then, let me give you a taste of the shows opening music.

Royalty free music for professional licensing

Update May 21, 2011

It's the end of the world.... well, it doesn't seem to be right this second, so how about an update? I have moved the Windows Machine into Keir Studios, and the Linux Box(previously known as the Keir Studios Computer), into the living room. I will be using a desktop computer, and a laptop to run the current set up for the latest Keir Studios Podcast. I was unsuccessful at getting the one machine to record both Mic and Skype at the same time, so I am using another machine to call in via Skype to record on another machine.
This latest podcast will involve myself, and Rofaxen discussing Ethics, Morals, and Behavior of humanity in relation to usually current events, though I'm sure we will stray into other categories on occasion. We have a name for it, though I'm not sure how happy I am with it at this time, and we have no album art as of yet. The plan was to work on it the last couple of weeks, but for the photo shoot that I had in mind, the weather just hasn't cooperated. There has been a test of the equipment, and a recording that shall never be aired since it was mostly dealing with getting Rofaxen's mic set up, and discussing Linux Distro's for over an hour. Please look forward to the Podcast to come out of Keir Studios next week. We will be recording Episode 1 on Wednesday, look for it shortly there after on http://keirstudios.galaxy15radio.com/. Feedback as always is welcome on here, and at the Keirstudios email address.

-Lore-

Update May 15th 2011

So I've recently tried a round about way of installing windows 7 on to this hard drive in the Keir Studios machine. It installed just fine, it just wont boot because unlike Linux, Windows isn't patient enough for it to finally see the hard drive. To install Windows in the first place I had to physically unmount the hard drive in the Keir Studios machine, and put it in another computer, and install it there. And in that machine it booted just fine, so the install was successful. However, not very useful if it wont load/boot not matter what jury rigging I would do to the Keir Computer. I think I may just wind up using Linux Mint on this computer, and not be able to do to much with it, other than a media consuming machine. No matter what is going on, the new show should start by Wednesday the 25th of May 2011. There will be some practice time in the interim next week, but due to some scheduling changes, and my co-host being on vacation that week, it can't start until he gets back. All in all I'm rather happy that the Keir Computer is able to even run properly, and as a behind the scene kind of look, all the update posts have been written and posted from it.

-Loreandlaw-

Keir Studios Update May 8th 2011

So I've gotten around to uninstalling Pulse Audio in Linux Mint 10, and just running straight ALSA. While my Blue Snowball Microphone still doesn't work, the webcam audio input is working. So it's not a USB mic issue necessarily, it possibly is the Blue Mic itself, at least in Linux, since it works fine in Windows. I even had a test call with Morpse to verify a consistent working audio output, and everything seems fine, I can even record reasonably well with the webcam mic into Audacity. Perhaps the blue mic and Linux where just not meant to be. Though I have been able to record short, perhaps a few seconds, of audio from the Blue Mic, but it will crash Audacity/audio, and I wont be able to record sound from it, even a few seconds, until I reboot the machine. So I am unsure what that is about.

 On the upside, this system that I had nearly given up on as a full time working machine seems to have come through this process better and fully functional, if in a round about way. So as I see it, there may be a show happening from Keir Studios at latest the week of the 16th of May, earliest, this week. Wish me luck!

Keir Studios Update 5/01/11

I have tried several more installs of linux, including but not limited to Crunch Bang, Ubuntu 11.04 and 10.10, and now I'm trying Linux Mint 10. Lots of sound issues with every one of these linux distros. Perhaps because everyone is using Pulse Audio now. I may have to go into a distro and strip out Pulse and install ALSA or something. It's not just the USB mic I'm using, audio sometimes refuses to even start up when I turn the machine on. Mint has the best flash install of these distros so far, and is basically an easier version of Ubuntu for the most part. Also Skype is very laggy in the audio quality as well, there are some serious issues with the newest linux release of Skype... then again it always was a bit buggy, and call quality was less than stellar. I'm close to admitting defeat for this current computer, though I have gotten it to run, which is more than I originally thought was possible. This machine may have to be retired to another room for simply browsing the web. It's a decently powerful computer, for what I need, and I'm fairly upset that I can't get it to work as an audio studio machine. I do have 3 other working computers, but 2 of them may not be up to the task of audio work. The third machine has some sort of power issue, possibly due to something with the built in video card, which when taxed with too much work, such as HD video, or even flash video, will crash the system, most times causing the computer to restart. In my mind not acceptable for doing reliable recording, since it has crashed on me several times, and I have lost hours of work at a time repeatedly. I will give myself at least a couple of more weeks on the Keir Studios machine, but if I can not find a solution, I will have to fall back on the unreliable computer, and just hope it doesn't crash on me while I record or edit... though it will.

Keir Studios Update 4/24/11

Well, using the Keir Studios computer keeps looking more and more hopeless. At least with the equipment I have. I have tried several linux distros and none of them like my USB Blue microphone. I have had luck using a normal mic plugged into the audio jack, but I'd need a preamp to get the sound loud enough, and the  quality is less than I'd like. As a bit of a last effort yesterday I tried installing Ubuntu Studio, but due to the fact that the Keir Studios computer doesn't see the DVD drive, I have to use the USB port to boot from, and install. I'm using Pendrive Linux to install the distros directly onto the USB stick, and that makes them bootable, but since it did not give me the option for Ubuntu Studio, it's not bootable. The issue with that is, I can't boot the version of the distro I need on this other computer to burn a bootable usb because the version the Keir Studios computer needs is an AMD version, and this other computer is an Intel computer. If I had perhaps a longer SATA cable I'd try to boot from the CD using the PCI Express SATA card that I installed, but if that worked, it would not make sense that the hard drive doesn't boot from that card. Perhaps I'll continue to distro hop until I find a compatible Linux distro to use, but on the upside, thanks to Morpse, I have the ability to install linux distros on the hard drive, but I still have to use a usb stick to have the /Boot folder to boot the computer with. So there has been some progress, but the sound driver issues still exist.

-Lore-

Keir Studios Update

Hello all. I know it's been a while, but I just wanted to update you about what is going on. I plan on using this site to blog about Keir Studios, not so much as putting out the podcasts. For that I'll be using http://keirstudios.galaxy15radio.com/ . But as an update as to what is going on, I'm currently in the process of getting a room set aside specifically for recording, editing, and publishing Keir Studios material. So far I've cleaned the room up, but I need to get the computer systems and audio set up properly before I go forward. While I have hosted many shows, and edited many more, I think flagship shows for Keir Studios are SIPR and the Missing Dialogues. With the help from Slothen, we have album art for SIPR, still nothing yet for Missing. I had planned on taking some time to create it here shortly, but I think getting the room in order is the first priority. Previously Missing was a group of us in a room talking about deep topics, and we shall continue to do that, but it will now have to rely more on skype because of many of my original guests have moved a decent distance away. Getting that set up in the new room might be a challenge as well, since the computer I'm currently going to have to use doesn't have a bootable hard drive, and I'll be using a live distro off of a USB stick. So I'll have to customize a linux distro to handle all that I want to do. Which isn't as hard as it might sound, but getting it set up properly might take some time. I had originally estimated that I'd be able to get all this done in three weeks time. I am currently in week 3, and I still have lots of stuff to do. But with luck I'll get everything up and running smoothly shortly. I look forward to starting up the Studios again, but I don't think I'll overwhelm myself with the quantity of shows/work like I did previously. I will probably focus on one to three shows in total.