Yes, yes, yes… I know. Yet ANOTHER pinball podcast. Myself and Ryan Wanger have joined forces to talk about pinball and many, many different things directly and indirectly related to pinball. Our first episode is up and we learned quite a bit from the experience. Our new recording studio at Comet LED world HQ has proved to be a better space and we recorded two separate sessions last night. One with and one without special guests. On a side note, the guacamole was very tasty too. Keep your eye on this facecrack page for more updates and information. https://www.facebook.com/The-Little-Kings-Pinball-Podcast-202574163508700/
Any feedback and constructive criticism is appreciated.
Our latest episode is an interview with @trent. It’s much longer than a normal episode, and gives a good range of perspectives from players of different abilities (with Trent contrasted by Deborah, who is new to competitive pinball).
We cover a lot of topics (tournaments in the 90’s was just playing a bank of 12 identical games, being a Stern distributor, buying containers of games from overseas, the gender gap in pinball) but there are a few playing gems from Trent that I had never considered like: why sometimes it’s easier to hit shots on the fly, and how the width of orbit shots is usually much wider than it appears.
It should be available from most of the places you’d normally find a podcast, or you can listen to it directly from this link:
Listening to the first episode right now. Enjoying it (assuming production quality goes up after first episode since host mics are vastly different volumes). Not sure how I feel about the comment of “the husband was obviously the one there to play pinball” but… I’ll let it go just this once. Will keep listening!
Yes, production quality going up! Started doing post processing in episodes 4 and 5, and our next episode finally correctly uses the mic setup we’ve had.
Thank you for pointing out the “husband” comment, and giving us a second chance. Going forward, I’m re-listening to all our recordings before publishing. Those are exactly the type of statements that make pinball feel like a less inclusive place, and shouldn’t be said on a podcast, nor in conversation. Hopefully our episode 5 discussion of the gender gap in pinball comes across much more positively.
If I had been more alert during the recording, would it have been better to bring it up on-air to have a discussion about it, or just delete it after the fact?
Ryan, thanks for the response- it wasn’t a big deal, just a little something I heard that made me roll
my eyes. It’s your podcast, so however you choose to handle in the future is fine. I wouldn’t have censored it personally unless it was something intended to be offensive, which it clearly wasn’t. Thanks, and looking forward to listening more! I’m a pinball podcast junkie and listen on my lunch break so I was happy to come across another one!
Was able to listen to your latest podcast driving to work today, really enjoyed it. Thanks for putting it out there. Nice blend of topics, tournament play/operating/tips/etc
I really like the format of spending most of the episode talking about game rules/strategy/techniques, and I feel like other pinball podcasts don’t spend very much time on it, but it’s really interesting and valuable to me. The most recent episode had some sound issues for me, in particular I think the base range was too strong, and to a lesser extent, the volume in general was inconsistent. I don’t know much about audio though, so this might not be the right description and I’m not sure how to fix it.
I’ll second my enjoyment on the podcast because of the detail spent on talking about specific things in pinball.
And, I also felt like the audio was… quieter? than it could have been. The coughs were sometimes louder than the actual conversation, and I really wanted to hear every word loud and clear! I had my volume up to max on my portable speaker but I was still straining sometimes to hear the podcast. This might be an easy fix by messing with the mic settings or even just talking closer to the mic, I’m not sure but I’m definitely a fan of the podcast now.
Thanks. Yeah, we’re still trying to figure out the audio quality. (Nearly every recording session has been done in a different physical space, which hasn’t helped). Kevin is the loudest cougher ever!
Re: being quiet…was that Episode 7, or earlier episodes? Because for Episode 7, I amplified it in processing before sending it out.
Some brief feedback… I listened to the interview with Trent. At 49:20, for several minutes, there are multiple interjections and Trent keeps getting interrupted time and time again. This makes it tedious to listen to the interview. It would be good to just be quiet and let Trent tell his story. Take notes while he talks, then come back and ask questions or elaborate on some point when he stops.
Several people talking and interjecting is fine in real-life conversation, but makes for a poor listening experience afterwards.
I just listened to the section you were talking about and I’m going to have to agree to disagree with you. We love Trent and since he comes to Colorado way too much and wins way too much money from our events, we have to give him some trouble as he tries to tell us stories about his Stern distributorship and farm.
Forgive us for our mischievous ways and understand that we love him enough to have active banter with him. Expect more of this once more of our interviews start getting released. It’s all in good fun and we hope that you will join us for some more shenanigans!
I wasn’t trying to suggest that you don’t like Trent or don’t respect him!
I am suggesting that, by being more disciplined, you could create a higher-quality product. For example, listen from 1:42:15 to 1:44:00. This is perfectly normal in a group conversation, but it’s not great to listen to.
I enjoyed the episode anyway. There was lots of interesting stuff in there, so thank you!
Thank you for your suggestion. We are always looking to make the LKP better and after listening to the conversation again I will seriously consider letting the guest speak their mind in their full entirety and let Ryan heckle the guests from now on.
