About the people behind spookchatter.com
You might be wondering why the picture of a network operations room is displayed above. It is because for whatever reason all of the crew come from an IT (Information Technology) background. Though we have chosen different career paths we are all knowledgeable about computers, computer security, and computer networking. "The Architect," who is behind this project has a background in network architecture and secure communications. All of the people working in the production of this audio podcast are Christians. This is because "The Architect" has asked his friends to help out with the project, and they all happen to be Christians. The guests come from various backgrounds, differing in religions, economic resources, education, place of birth, and previous access to information in their former careers in the security-intelligence fields from which they have retired.
About the technology behind spookchatter.com
We will be using a Sony PCM-D100 Field Recorder, several Roland AIRA VT-3 Voice Transformers, a Behringer X1204USB mixer, two Rode NT1 microphones, and a Linux workstation with a high-end ASUS Xonar Essence ST 24-bit 192 kHz PCI Audio Card. The shows will be recorded using a 192,000 Hz x 24-bit resolution, fully ready for distribution of the audio via FLAC files for the serious audio enthusiasts amongst our listeners. The audio will be available in three formats: 320kbps MP3, 96kHz-24bit FLAC, and 192KHz-24bit FLAC. The Linux computer being used for editing and sound mastering has 32 GB RAM, and a 4 TB hard drive dedicated to archiving and content production, including these audio podcasts. It uses an AMD processor, quad-core 3.4 GHz 64-bit technology. We use GNU/Linux Ubuntu & Xubuntu as the Linux distributions of choice. There are also some basics as well, such as mic stands, power bars with line noise filtering, cables, memory cards, and pop filters. Web hosting is done by Weebly.com, who offer great products at a low price. The show's seasons may be delivered via DVD or Flash Drives (USB sticks) depending on the requirements of the listener and type of audio files being requested. As for the software being used we have stuck with the tried and true Audacity audio editor, which is both open-source and freely licensed under the GPL (The GNU General Public License). The graphics editor is likewise free, called The GIMP, and sports many features. Other expenses include stock photography from shutterstock.com and the jingle from audiojungle.com. The stock photography costs approximately €275 EUR/$300 USD/£230 GBP and the jingle approximately €230 EUR/$250 USD/£190 GBP. The reference player, used to play back the audio to make sure the editing is at the quality it should be is a FiiO X5-II. This player boasts 256 GB of flash storage and resolution playback of up to 192kHz x 24-bit. The download option will distribute an archive file compressed using the 7-Zip software, which is compatible with all operating systems; including Linux, Mac, and Windows, amongst the top three. The back-end server (that distributes the audio archives) is to be leased from Server4you.com, a German/French/American dedicated server company with some very good specs. The software running on that system that manages the distribution is CrushFTP - the most configurable while at the same time being easy to use. Secure remote access into the server is done through RealVNC, a high quality remote administration software product. The production quality of this podcast is high, and as such is rather expensive. We're not setting out to produce a same-old-whatever product, but rather having fresh content, well-informed guests, and a quality crisp and clean listening experience.
About the Production costs:
The cost of the equipment is around €5,500 EUR/$8,000 USD/£4,500 GBP and the cost of services is around €135 EUR/$150 USD/£120 GBP per month. Licensing of the graphics and audio jingles come to around €1,100 EUR/$1,200 USD/£930 GBP. The cost of the interviews are yet to be determined, however at the price of €90 EUR/$100 USD/£80 GBP per episode the cost will run around €6,900 EUR/$7,500 USD/£5,800 GBP. The total production cost is estimated to be around €18,300 EUR/$20,000 USD/£15,500 GBP with all things considered.