Episode 15: Double Trouble
Lois and Jimmy follow a trail of murder that could lead to ancient riches- or to their own deaths. Except that Lois has less than a minute of screen time and Jimmy is simply stuffed in a closet, DEATH is a bit exaggerated. As Clark makes small talk with the military and German scientise, while Madame Charpentier is a man in drag.
*New and Improved*
Re-recored
MP3 quality
Better synced
Comments
I remember watching a few reruns of this Superman TV show when I was a kid, so I thought I'd try this iRiff. I downloaded a .zip archive which included a README.txt file and a Superman_13.mp3 file. The thing is, the MP3 file was really an OGG-formated audio file, not an MP3. And the README file is for the program named Audacity. Not terribly useful! ___p___
I converted the OGG-formatted file to something I could play, and it was a iRiff for "Double Trouble". There's still an occasional technical-problem with the track, as sometimes you can hear the mike click in-and-out (very loudly!), sometimes he gets too close to the mike which causes audio problems (let's just say you can hear his "P"s and "T"s very clearly). His sync-ing method is to occasionally say some line from the show in the exact same voice he uses for riffing, which does not work out very well. ___p___
Too many of his riff-lines are delivered in a completely flat voice, which kinda flattens out the humor in them. Some of the lines are funny, although the flat delivery ruins them. Almost all of the riffs are direct comments on the movie (with few cross-references to other movies or pop culture trivia). This is an okay first-effort at making an iRiff track, but there's lots of room for improvement. And "Adventures of Superman" TV show seems like it would a good target for riffing. ___p___
Apologies if this seems like a negative review, as I'm sure OdDie spent a fair amount of time working on this. But there are so many people writing iRiff tracks now, that the competition keeps raising the bar for how much work it takes to do a really good riff track.
I would like to personally thank you for purchasing my debut iRiff. I realize that there was a few technical problems and my voice was fairly flat daring the episode. But with experience and time I can work those things out, hopefully. If your were mildly amused, I am currently working on doing The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Thanks again OdDie.
This iRiff was done for the DVD version of this TV episode, which I don't own. To try it out, I bought the single "Double Trouble" episode from iTunes (episode 15). As luck would have it, iTunes has the episode listed wrong, and I ended up with a different episode ("Treasure of the Incas", episode 14)! I figured I was in for $2.75, I might as well try another $2. I also bought the episode which the iTunes store lists as "Mystery in Wax" (episode 16), and this turned out to be the "Double Trouble" episode that matches this riff. ___p___
Once I had the right episode, I had some problems getting it sync-ed up with this iRiff track, but then OdDie didn't claim that it would work with the iTunes episode. Also, I have had problems keeping some other iRiffs in sync with TV episodes from the iTunes store, so I don't think that's a problem which should be blamed on this riff track. ___p___
I've reported the incorrect listing to the iTunes store, so hopefully they'll fix that pretty soon.
best of luck with future iRiff tracks. There are a number of good lines here, you just need to sound more like you're having fun while delivering them! :-) The track was entertaining enough that it was worth the 75 cents, and the iTunes store did give me a refund for *their* error in listing the episode, so it's worked out fine for me.
In reviewing some of my earlier iRiff purchases, I noticed that OdDie said he had re-recorded this track. I went through the "My Files" section (under the "My Account" menu), and didn't notice anything new. I then remembered that the way the download site works, I wouldn't see a newly-added file to some previous purchase, so I tried purchasing this again. ___p___
Indeed, there are now two files available for download to anyone who buys this track. The older one ("The_Adventures_of_Superman_1952.zip") is the OGG-formatted version, while the newer one (just plain "Superman.zip") is the re-recorded version. The new version is in MP3 format, and it is a complete re-recording of the whole track. Most of the riff-lines are the same, but the technical details on the recording are handled much better. Most of the mike-clicks are gone, the volume is more uniform throughout the track, and his voice is also a bit more lively on this take than on the original one. There's still room for improvement. I considered the original riff track as something of a 3-stars effort, but I'd say the re-recorded version is more like 4-stars.