The Official CHRONORADIO Thread

Glad you liked the mention, Thomas.

As for the whole MP3 player thing: you can get decent ones (not great, but decent) for like $30 at any Wal-Mart.

 

As promised:

Nathan Butler, the man behind Star Wars Timeline GOLD, ChronoRadio, Second Strike and a bunch of other contributions to the Star Wars fan culture - and the subject of a mini portrait in last week?s column ? was kind enough to let me steal a little bit of his time in order to do a small interview and hopefully find out a little more about the ?hows? and ?whys? of what he?s doing:

We all have our own ?This is how I got into SW? tale. What?s yours?

I got into SW thanks to my mother, I think. She tells tales of taking me to see a re-release of "The Empire Strikes Back" when I was too young to remember, and I can vaguely remember having seen "Return of the Jedi" in theaters at least four times when I was about 3 years old. I think she got me into the movies and suggested the toys, then I just sort of "ran with it."

The Star Wars Timeline Gold is incredibly detailed and spans about 1,200 pages. With all the research this thing must take an awful lot of your time?

It does, but it doesn't. In the past, it took up a lot of time, but now that it went to "Gold," I generally just have to add a few things now and then, rather than catching up on tons of old materials. Still, I find I have a hard time keeping up sometimes, so I took on Matthew Periolat recently as a partner. Between two of us, I think we can keep up with new releases. At least, I hope so.

So you went from text in Star Wars Timeline Gold to speech as well on ChronoRadio. How long does it take you to put an episode of ChronoRadio together?

That really depends on the episode. If it's one that I can do off the top of my head, I can do one in a day. Usually, though, especially lately, I tend to record it in segments over the month following a new release, then spend the second month before the next release editing the show to remove a lot of "uh"s and that sort of thing. Basically it's one month of recording a little each week, and then one month of editing and "tightening up."

Can anybody do it? I mean, what kind of equipment is necessary?

Definitely. The first episode of ChronoRadio was something I recorded in Total Recorder ($30 from HighCriteria.com, I believe), and I mixed it all together in Quicktime Pro (another $30 from Apple.com). If you want to mix it much more easily or to do a lot of "tweaking" to it to make it sound better, you can pick up a program like WaveLab, and you can get something like Media Cleaner if you need to *really* compress it down, but for the casual, everyday fan, a Total Recorder and QT Pro work just fine.

Do you have any idea how many listeners each episode has?

It really varies, since I leave all of the episodes online, as sort of an archive. I think usually a new bi-monthly release, if I promote it by posting info on different message boards, tends to get between 400 and 1000 downloads before the next episode comes out. That's downloads, though, not just normal hits. I'm not certain how many hits the site is getting, but I guess if they aren't downloading, they aren't really "listeners" anyway.

For your first episode were you just broadcasting into a void hoping someone would listen in?

Sort of. I was broadcasting without any expectation of a large audience. I figured that my timeline, which gets about 1,000 downloads per release, give or take, would be the main draw to the show, so perhaps 25% or less of them would be interested. I expected maybe 100 people at most. I've been happily surprised since then, and I guess part of it is owed to how I've grown as a commentator and host, and another part is owed to some of the fun guests who have graciously taken part in the show, like Daniel Wallace, Kevin Rubio, and Chris Hanel.

Last question: Being a high school teacher and a fairly outspoken SW fan aren?t you just the most popular faculty membe

 

Sweet. When the next site update goes up, I'll put that up.

 

It's up on the site now.

 

CR #11 UPDATE:

ChronoRadio #11 is going well. It's almost done. All that's left is Rich's segment with me and it'll be finished. I may redo the intro to Fanworks segment as we get closer, but that's no big deal. That'll go quick.

There's also a chance that CR will soon be doing some crossover segments with the guys at Star Wars en Direct, now that they have an English edition. Dany and I are talking about some ideas right now.

And . . . that's about it.

 

*waits eagerly*


-Eaglet

 

Well, assuming I get the new SWT-G out this weekend and can get the segment with Rich recorded this weekend as well, I'm shooting for Oct. 1 for CR #11.

Currently debating what to do with the commentary for CR #11. Right now, it's about how fans should interact and some of the absolute b.s. actions taken by a certain TFN Fan Films staffer in response to CR #10. Debating whether to keep that or come up with a new one.

:shrug:

 

Sounds very interesting Nathan, I would love if you kept it in.

 

Heh, ya ought to have heard the original "destroy the offender" version. But now it's used as the basis for a positive discussion on checking fan ego at the door and such.

 

Perhaps there will be a Special Edition someday that features all the cut material from various episodes.

 

I heard the destroy the offender version

whooooo. glad you changed it.

 

Heh, I'm far more political than to have aired that . . . aren't I?

And, an update:

CR #11 for October is in da bag. Look for it around Oct. 1.

 

woo!

 

Alright, folks:

CHRONORADIO IS NOW TAKING SUGGESTIONS FOR FEATURE TOPICS AND SHOW THEMES FOR THE 2004 BROADCAST YEAR.

 

[raz]Out of ideas already, hmm? [/raz]

Ok seriously... how about an interview with JediTAC and a sneak peak at his website?

 

Except that TAC has dropped off the face of the earth and I think the domain's registration lapsed, etc...

Gah.

Anyway, CHRONORADIO #11 IS NOW AVAILABLE!

www.starwarsfanworks.com.

 

w00t, yay, ect.!

This is the episode with my letter in it.


-Eaglet

 

And, no rest for the wicked.

I started recording bits for CR #12 (December) tonight.

 

Wow, starting this early Nathan?

 

I usually start within a week or so of the last episode. That way I have plenty of time, and far less stress in mixing things together. This time, though, it's going to be after TUF comes out before I can record the first main segment, and I should also wait a bit on the other, so more Clone Wars materials can be out.

I have yet to set up the interviews for this one, but I'm aiming for Brien Bell and Brian Gates.

Also...

It also looks like the CR topics are now set for episodes through Oct. 2004. I'll be announcing the episode titles and the two main topics for each of those episodes in the December 2003 episode.

My thanks to all those who gave suggestions.

 

Rejoice!

November 1: ChronoRadio #11.5.

'Nuff said.

 

GAH!!!!

 

So, I guess that means I won't be appearing in the episode then?

 

And the new ChronoRadio #11.5 is NOW AVAILABLE! You can find it and other new releases at Star Wars Fanworks.

 

Alright, folks, I just did the NJO interview segment with Mike Cooper for CR #12. The episode is looking to be very good, and will probably stay somewhat streamlined to under 90 minutes (heh). I'm looking at finishing it next weekend and having it ready to go for release on Dec. 1.