7 - "That was a golden moment" - Interview with English GCSE tutor, Judith Lombardi

Lydia Newman is a young social work student in the second year of her BSC social work course. In this episode, Lydia shares her experience of being on a work placement where she gets to help the lives of young people in a learning centre.
Techie stuff: This interview used the same set up as episode 5 - two dynamic microphones plugged into a Zoom H4n. I used the 4CH mode on the Zoom which meant that it recorded the two mics on one track and also recorded using the Zoom's own internal mic. I was pleased with how the interview went; Lydia is a really good quest, speaks well and has interesting things to say. I was confident about the equipment and set up after how the recording of episode 5 had gone.
After the recording I discovered that I had a monster-amount of editing and fussing to do. For some reason - I still do not know why - both mics sounded really quiet. In episode 5 the set up did not pick up any ambient/background noise. This time - again, I do not know why - the two dynamic mics were picking up so much background noise - the chair I gave Lydia was a bit creaky and every creak was heard, in a next-door room there were two people quietly working but you can still hear them.
I tried out Levelator and Auphonic (two free software programs which help balance audio levels) on the recording. At first I was happy with the sound produced but when I listened back the next day on a different laptop I found some major sibilance at the start (loud "S" sounds). I was amazed at how painful it was to hear some of these "S" sounds. I worked on turning down the amplification on about five "S" sounds at the beginning. You will hear that my surname "Yates" now sounds a bit odd as a result. In the recording I originally say "...sunny spring day..." in the introduction but I actually cut out the word "spring" because of the amount of work trying to make it sound less deadly.
A puzzling moment in this experiment - not quite back to square one but a bit confused about using the equipment at the moment.
If you would like to comment or provide feedback on the Beds Blab podcast or are interested in being featured in a future recording, please email [email protected]. Background music: Love Chances by Makaih Beats from the Free Music Archive. This music is licenced under Attribution-Non Commercial Licence.