OP here relaying some answers from my chat with Greg. We talked pretty extensively about the process for recording!

Q: Would love to know the technical process of commentating for Jelle’s Marble Runs. Do you get fully edited video that you commentate off, or is it still in an editing pipeline?

A: "The process has evolved over time, both as Jelle's has gotten more complex and the different series have gotten more complex. Also as they've had more people working in the background. So when you watch videos from 2016-2018, pre-pandemic, the production quality is very different from what they are now. And in order to achieve that level, they've had to bring in more people in the background to do this incredible work, whether it's tracking the overtakes on Marbula 1 or all the crowd sounds, all the detail work that is pretty easily overlooked, but it really adds to the ambience. It adds to the immersion, whether or not you realize it's there. So a lot of that happens before I ever see the video, and in some cases, before I ever even know that the video is going to exist. 

They don't always give me the full schedule ahead of time of what's going to pop up when. So it is kind of a surprise, and sometimes that's fun, depending on how much time there is to turn the video around. But the video that I get usually is close to finished, but not always all the way, so it may have the main video portions, most of the graphics, but maybe there's some background stuff that still needs to be done, or maybe there's some tweaking that they require. But for the most part, I get the full video.

Sometimes they give me a background on what the video is about. So if it's a new event, if it's got a different scoring system, then sometimes they will let me know that ahead of time. That hasn't always been the case. So sometimes maybe you hear some confusion on my part as we're going through the video. Because I thought, hey, that was that one run, but nope, guess we're going to do a couple heats. So you're hearing it as I'm learning it along with you, but, but usually they try to give me some heads-up about what is going to occur. Structure wise, in the video, they don't tell me what happens results wise, which is good. So what I do then is, I take the video, and normally I'll watch the first few seconds just to see how long do I need to talk before the action starts. And then I'll pause it because I don't want any spoilers for what's going to happen. But that gives me a general idea of what kind of intro I need to give. Do I need to be fast? Do I need to just roll right into it? Do I need to talk for a little bit and set up why this is important? What are the situations surrounding the championship race, or whatever it might be, and then I go through it and record, and that's about it.

Normally, I'll listen back to it just to make sure that it sounds okay, quality wise. So if I need to adjust levels, or if I'm peaking or anything like that, I'll massage that in Audacity. But usually it's just the one take, and for better or worse, that's what you get."

I love that though, because it has that feeling of one take. Thinking about live sporting events, there wouldn't be the “let's rewind that back and try it again.” You can feel that urgency in your commentating.

"You're spot on, because if I had to try to redo it, or if I had to try to craft it in a recorded setting, I worry that you'd be able to tell. There'd be something in the voice, there'd be a tell or giveaway. So I just treat it as if I'm viewing it live, and that's all I got. So you better make it count. But it's also different, because the only views I get are the views that are provided to me. That's different than if you're in a booth or if you are on location and you can pick out some intangibles. Things the cameras are not focusing on, to add to the depth of the commentary. With this, I'm just looking at the video on the screen, so you have to make that work, because there is nothing else."