<h3>SUMMARY</h3>
<p>In this episode, the HPR_AudioBookClub discusses City Of Masks by Mike Reeves-Mc-Millian</p>
<p>It's available from Scribl <a href="https://scribl.com/books/PC439/city-of-masks/">https://scribl.com/books/PC439/city-of-masks/</a></p>
<p>It is also available as a paperback or an ebook. https://www.amazon.com/City-Of-Masks-Mike-Reeves-Mcmillan/dp/0473122138</p>
<h3>Non-Spoiler Thoughts</h3>
<p> Pokey loved this AudioBook! It's one of his all time favorites. It ranks up there with Lester Del Ray's Badge of Infamy</p>
<h3>BEVERAGE REVIEWS</h3>
<p>As usual, the HPR_AudioBookClub took some time to review the beverages that each of us were drinking during the episode</p>
<ul>
<li>Thaj: No liquids.....can't pee......send help!</li>
<li>x1101: <a href="https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/147/38470/">Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale</a></li>
<li>pokey: Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Stout <a href="https://www.kentuckyale.com/kentucky-bourbon-barrel-stout">https://www.kentuckyale.com/kentucky-bourbon-barrel-stout</a></li>
<li>Mike Reeves-Mcmillan: Water. Tasty Shire water.</li>
<li>Semioticrobotic: Tea</li>
</ul>
<h3>Things We Talked About</h3>
<p>https://gplus.to/mikerm  will link to everything else. It's also where I hang out the most. I  post samples of whatever I'm working on at the moment on G+ most  Saturdays, as part of the #saturdayscenes group.
<br/>
https://csidemedia.com/gryphonclerks is my blog. There's a signup link for the mailing list in the sidebar, or the direct link is: 
<br/>
https://eepurl.com/vB-t5
<br/>
There's  some member-only content for mailing list members, and I'm planning to  release another piece of content for them soon (a 12,000-word novelette  in my Gryphon Clerks setting).</p>
<p>Mike's G+ Page: https://gplus.to/mikerm </p>
<h3>OUR NEXT AUDIOBOOK</h3>
<p><strong><a href='https://scribl.com/books/PDB66/matcher-rules'>Matcher Rules</a></strong> by Mary Holland</p>
<h3>NEXT RECORDING</h3>
<p>Our next book club recording will be 2015/02/10T23:00:00+00:00. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Times">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Times</a>. If you'd like a Google calendar invite, or if you'd like to be on the HPR_AudioBookClub mailing list, please get in contact with us on  the HPR mailing list 'hpr at hackerpublicradio dot org'</p>
<h3>FURTHER RECOMMENDATIONS</h3>
<h3>Other mostly unrelated points</h3>
<p>Port knocking: https://www.portknocking.org/ </p>
<p>Cask of Amontillado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cask_of_Amontillado </p>
<p>NetSplits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netsplit </p>
<p>Valerian Root https://www.subzin.com/quotes/M145312bbc/Fight+Club/Chew+some+Valerian+root+and+get+more+exercise </p>
<h3>FEEDBACK</h3>
<p>Thank you very much for listening to this episode of the HPR_AudioBookClub. We had a great time recording this show, and we hope you enjoyed it as well. We also hope you'll consider joining us next time. Please  leave a few words in the episode's comment section.
 <br/>As always; remember to visit the HPR contribution page HPR could really use your help right now.</p>
<p><a href="https://hackerpublicradio.org/contribute.php">https://hackerpublicradio.org/contribute.php</a></p>
<p>Sincerely,
 <br/>The HPR_AudioBookClub</p>
<p>P.S. Some people really like finding mistakes. For their enjoyment, we always include a few.</p>
<h3>OUR AUDIO</h3>
<p>This episode was processed using Audacity <a href="https://audacity.sourceforge.net/">https://audacity.sourceforge.net/</a>. We've been making small adjustments to our audio mix each month in order to get the best possible sound. It's been especially  challenging getting all of our voices relatively level, because  everyone has  their   own unique setup. Mumble is great for bringing us  all together, and for recording, but it's not good at making  everyone's voice the  same  volume.  We're pretty happy with the way  this month's show turned  out, so we'd like to share our editing  process and settings with you  and our  future  selves (who, of course,  will have forgotten all this  by  then).</p>
<p>Mumble uses a sample rate of 48kHz, but HPR requires a sample rate of   44.1kHz   so the first step in our audio process is to resample the  file  at   44.1kHz. Resampling can take a long time if you don't have  a  powerful   computer, and sometimes even if you do. If you record late  at  night,   like we do, you may want to start the task before you go  to  bed, and   save it first thing in the morning, so that the file is  ready  to go the   next time you are.</p>
<p>Next we use the "Compressor" effect with the following settings:</P>
 <ul>
  <li>Threshold: -30db</li>
  <li>Noise Floor: -50db</li>
  <li>Ratio: 3:1</li>
  <li>Attack Time: 0.2sec</li>
  <li>Decay Time: 1.0 sec</li>
  <li>"Make-up Gain for 0db after compressing" and "compress based on peaks" were both left un-checked.</li>
 </ul>
<p>After compressing the audio we cut any pre-show and post-show chatter from     the file and save them in a separate file for possible use as  outtakes  after the closing music.</p>
<p>At this point we listen back to the whole file and we work on the shownotes. This is when we can cut out anything that needs to be cut, and we can also make sure that we put any links in the shownotes that were talked about during the recording of the show. We finish the shownotes before exporting the .aup file to .FLAC so that we can paste a copy of the shownotes into the audio file's metadata. We use the "Truncate Silence" effect with its default settings to minimize the silence between people speaking. When used with its default (or at least reasonable) settings, Truncate Silence is extremely effective and satisfying. It makes everyone sound smarter, it makes the file shorter without destroying actual content, and it makes a conversations sound as easy and fluid during playback as it was while it was recorded. It can be even more effective if you can train yourself to remain silent instead of saying "uuuuummmm." Just remember to ONLY pass the file through Truncate Silence ONCE. If you pass it through a second time, or if you set it too aggressively your audio may sound sped up and choppy.</p>
<p>At this point we add new, empty audio tracks into which we paste the intro, outro and possibly outtakes, and we rename each track accordingly.</p>
<p>We adjust the Gain so that the VU meter in Audacity hovers around -12db while people are speaking, and we try to keep the peaks under -6db, and we adjust the Gain on each of the new tracks so that all volumes are similar, and more importantly comfortable. Once this is done we can "Mix and Render" all of our tracks into a single track for export to the .FLAC file which is uploaded to the HPR FTP server.</p>
<p>Remember to save often when using Audacity. We like to save after each of these steps. Audacity has a reputation for being "crashy" but if you remember save after every major transform, you will wonder how it ever got that reputation.</p>
