Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from com
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: and today we're gonna do another behind the scenes here
Speaker 1: at how stuff works. And of course, since this is
Speaker 1: tech stuff, we're going to be looking at a technical
Speaker 1: aspect of it. And to that end, I brought in
Speaker 1: our super producer, Extraordinar Noel. I Knowel, Jonathan, Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. Yeah. Normally you are on the other side
Speaker 1: of a window in our our podcast to you, where
Speaker 1: a very fancy microphone hovers above your head, sort of
Speaker 1: like looking into a terrarium or something. Yeah, and you're
Speaker 1: wearing at least one set of headphones, if not to uh.
Speaker 1: And while I lost my earbud, so lately I've been
Speaker 1: having two full sets of headphones on at once and
Speaker 1: it looks kind of insane to people walking by. Is
Speaker 1: a little crazy. And and while an episode recording within
Speaker 1: these walls, you are typically also editing another episode at
Speaker 1: the same time. It's true. So before we get too
Speaker 1: far into this, let our listeners know which shows do
Speaker 1: you edit and produce? Sure, so I do text stuff
Speaker 1: your other show Forward Thinking. I do stuff you missed
Speaker 1: in history class. I do stuff to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: I do stuff they don't want you to know, and
Speaker 1: I do car stuff. Am I missing anything? I think
Speaker 1: that's everything? So so really, stuff you should know is
Speaker 1: the only one. Excuse me, stuff Mom never told you
Speaker 1: as well. So stuff you should know is like the
Speaker 1: only one you don't do, the only one I don't do.
Speaker 1: So so Jerry the Wonder Producer handle stuff you should know.
Speaker 1: Nole handles everything I do. Guest on Stuff you should
Speaker 1: know when Jerry's out though, And that's true, I've gotten
Speaker 1: some very kind shoutouts from the Stuff you should Know Army.
Speaker 1: They they are They are nothing if not passionate. You know,
Speaker 1: they really appreciate the work that goes into these shows,
Speaker 1: as does the tech stuff. Audience were really appreciative of that. So, uh,
Speaker 1: why don't you walk us through what it's like to
Speaker 1: produce an episode on your your side of because I've
Speaker 1: talked extensively a couple of times about what it takes
Speaker 1: on my side to create an episode. So, whether it's
Speaker 1: a tech stuff or stuff Mom never told you or whatever,
Speaker 1: what are the steps that are involved? I mean, we
Speaker 1: recently got some pretty great new digs are in our
Speaker 1: new office at Pont City Market, which you know involves
Speaker 1: for me a much more soundproof environment. We have like
Speaker 1: an actual studio space that's treated for sound um, both
Speaker 1: with acoustic tiles and also like in the construction they
Speaker 1: actually put in some sound dampening material. UM. So there
Speaker 1: is a window installed, and I'm on the other side
Speaker 1: of the window with a talkback mike, so I can
Speaker 1: communicate with the folks that are doing the show. Um
Speaker 1: case we need to stop or talk about anything. But
Speaker 1: the most basic show involves more or less just recording
Speaker 1: everyone and then I record through UM several SM seven
Speaker 1: B sure microphones, which are actually the very popular for
Speaker 1: using in like studio work for recording bands. Michael Jackson
Speaker 1: used them exclusively on Thriller. It's like a really clean,
Speaker 1: great mike for recording close up and for getting kind
Speaker 1: of like a really intimate sound. Um. It's what they
Speaker 1: call it dynamic microphone, whereas a condenser microphone picks things
Speaker 1: up much farther away. With the dynamic mic you tend
Speaker 1: to cut down on a lot of room noise and
Speaker 1: it's just a lot more of a direct kind of
Speaker 1: intimate sound. So radio in general tend to use dynamic
Speaker 1: mix in the SM seven is one of the most
Speaker 1: popular ones. So, yeah, the dynamic mics, and I've talked
Speaker 1: about this before and tech stuff as well. It's the
Speaker 1: type where if you get off track of a mic
Speaker 1: from too far off in either direction, uh, it no
Speaker 1: longer picks up your your voice as well. And so
Speaker 1: so if you ever hear like a dramatic drop in
Speaker 1: someone's volume in a podcast, well, first of all, that
Speaker 1: rarely happens because we usually will catch it beforehand. But secondly,
Speaker 1: if it does happen, it's generally because a person who's
Speaker 1: talking has somehow like leaned too far over or as
Speaker 1: otherwise they're no longer addressing the mic directly. Condenser mike's
Speaker 1: pick up things from all over. Like you were saying,
Speaker 1: I had um for a long time. I was using
Speaker 1: a condenser mike at home for whenever I had to
Speaker 1: record stuff at home. And I remember at the time
Speaker 1: my dogs, if they were running across the floor, you
Speaker 1: could hear their their nails, their their claws clear. There
Speaker 1: are things like the air conditioning, just like room tone
Speaker 1: is amplified significantly, so with these dynamics, you know, as
Speaker 1: long as you're kind of up close to the mic,
Speaker 1: you're not going to get as much of that. And
Speaker 1: then there's also processing that I do after the fact
Speaker 1: that kind of cuts down some of that. But right, so,
Speaker 1: so what are you recording into? What? What is what
Speaker 1: other equipment are you using the sides of the microphones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we just got a kind of a new setup since
Speaker 1: we moved into this new space, which is great. So
Speaker 1: all the mics are fed through like a cable snake,
Speaker 1: which is basically just like kind of a thicker cable
Speaker 1: that can incorporate several microphone lines into one and so
Speaker 1: that goes through the wall and then it feeds into
Speaker 1: an APPA g UM quartet, which is a four input
Speaker 1: UM what they call an audio interface UM a sound
Speaker 1: interface by the company APAGE, which has been around for
Speaker 1: a long time and is really known for having excellent
Speaker 1: analog to digital converters because that that's what's going on
Speaker 1: when you're taking an analog signal from a mic and
Speaker 1: then you're plugging it into one of these devices and
Speaker 1: recording and digitally, it behooves you to have a really
Speaker 1: good conversion so that you're not losing anything in the process. UM.
Speaker 1: Then that is going into we use Adobe Audition, which
Speaker 1: is just a part of the Adobe Creative Suite UM
Speaker 1: to record and UM. Every every channel of audio goes
Speaker 1: on its own independent track. So if we have a
Speaker 1: show like Foward Thinking, where there are three hosts, there
Speaker 1: are times where the levels may need to be adjusted
Speaker 1: independently of one another. So having them on their own
Speaker 1: separate track makes that possible, whereas if it was all
Speaker 1: recorded in one thing, then it would all be kind
Speaker 1: of mixed and you would not be able to actually
Speaker 1: make it. Ustman. It also means if one of us
Speaker 1: is making like some weird noise that we don't realize,
Speaker 1: you could actually mute that on that track. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: And speaking of weird noises, one of the things that
Speaker 1: we're gonna treat you guys to a little bit later
Speaker 1: is something that Noel has creatively done with some of
Speaker 1: the myriad of weird noises that have been produced into
Speaker 1: these microphones, uh normally unconsciously. And uh, well we'll get
Speaker 1: to that a little bit later. All right. So the
Speaker 1: the microphones you've talked about, you've talked about the the processing,
Speaker 1: the conversion of that from analog to digital, uh, and
Speaker 1: using Adobe. So once something is recorded, What is your
Speaker 1: next step? UM, So I don't actually edit the shows
Speaker 1: on the machine, the computer that I record them on.
Speaker 1: So I actually, um have a Dropbox account that I use,
Speaker 1: and so I take all of the files, the individual files,
Speaker 1: and then I export them to my drop box and
Speaker 1: then I can access that on my my laptop that
Speaker 1: I use, so I can edit when I'm in the
Speaker 1: officer them out and I bring them back into another
Speaker 1: another instance of Adobe. But I use several um what
Speaker 1: they call audio plug ins on each track to kind
Speaker 1: of process and bring up the levels and normalize the
Speaker 1: levels so that no one's louder significantly louder than anybody else,
Speaker 1: and use what's called compression to kind of you set
Speaker 1: basically a compressor. You you set a threshold and you say, I,
Speaker 1: once the audio reaches this level, I want it to
Speaker 1: be reduced a little bit. So that kind of is
Speaker 1: a good way of like making sure everything is sort
Speaker 1: of operating on the same volume so that something doesn't
Speaker 1: just pop out all of a sudden and as much
Speaker 1: louder than something else. So you kind of have an
Speaker 1: instance of these compressors on every track, and you set
Speaker 1: a threshold, which is like the maximum volume, and once
Speaker 1: the audio reaches that level, it kind of like gently,
Speaker 1: you know, tones it down a little bit, so that
Speaker 1: like you kind of have an understanding of what the
Speaker 1: maximum is for everybody, right, yeah, so, uh that is
Speaker 1: really important with things like a speech like lots of
Speaker 1: lots of uh spoken word type stuff where you have
Speaker 1: multiple users. Obviously, with music, it's one of those things
Speaker 1: that you try to to use in limited amounts because
Speaker 1: you don't want to. You don't want to. One of
Speaker 1: the things compression does is it reduces the distance between
Speaker 1: the softest and loudest moments. And and the more you compress,
Speaker 1: the more uh, the more say everything gets. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: sort of this thing music, which I mean I also
Speaker 1: produced a lot of my own music um as well. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's what they call the loudness wars. So like if
Speaker 1: you opened up an audio track and like put it
Speaker 1: into Adobe audition where you can actually see it as
Speaker 1: a wave form, nine times out of ten you're gonna
Speaker 1: see you know, a wave form typically has a peak
Speaker 1: and a valley, so like a maximum volume and a
Speaker 1: minimum volume. But with modern music these days, you kind
Speaker 1: of tend to see it all is a big giant
Speaker 1: block because they've compressed it so much that there is
Speaker 1: no dynamics, so there's hardly any difference between the quietest
Speaker 1: parts and the loudest parts. With speech, it's more of
Speaker 1: like a like a band aid. You're kind of just
Speaker 1: using it to sort of like make sure nothing is
Speaker 1: unpleasant for someone who's listening to it on on different system.
Speaker 1: So it's like now, all of a sudden, someone screaming
Speaker 1: in their ear. With music, it's obviously a different, different problem, right,
Speaker 1: So so with those wave forms when you're looking at that,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming, because I've noticed this with a lot of
Speaker 1: audio engineers, that you can look at a wave form
Speaker 1: and kind of get an idea of what was an
Speaker 1: intentional noise versus something that someone's just done accidentally without
Speaker 1: even having listened to it. Yet. I imagine that happens
Speaker 1: fairly frequently, like particularly for small things. I know that
Speaker 1: I work on a podcast outside of work, and often
Speaker 1: I will be looking at the wave form and one
Speaker 1: of the first things I want to do is take
Speaker 1: out any annoying little things that would be distracting in
Speaker 1: the middle of someone talking um and like someone clicking
Speaker 1: on keys or something. And I can almost always tell
Speaker 1: immediately just by the size of the little blip in
Speaker 1: the way form that like, Yeah, I think I just
Speaker 1: need to get rid of that. I don't even need
Speaker 1: to listen to it, because one, I already know it's
Speaker 1: to be this this noise, and too it kind of
Speaker 1: creeps me out. So I'm just gonna take that out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like a lot of times, like a click
Speaker 1: or like a like a somebody slamming their fist down
Speaker 1: on a table or something, it just looks different visually
Speaker 1: than like a natural speech pattern would look. So like
Speaker 1: us we call it kind of like a spike, so
Speaker 1: like sort of like a momentary spike in the wave form,
Speaker 1: which kind of just looks like a straight line, whereas
Speaker 1: you know, a natural pattern of speech where someone's talking
Speaker 1: and not really stopping, it looks a lot more rounded
Speaker 1: and kind of like you know, you can definitely tell
Speaker 1: the difference between the two for sure. Well, then let
Speaker 1: me ask you this, Uh do you have anything set
Speaker 1: so that uh, like, are there any threshold set for
Speaker 1: for for noise where anything below a certain amount just
Speaker 1: doesn't even get picked up? Yeah, that's that's called that's
Speaker 1: called a noise gate um, and it can be tricky,
Speaker 1: and I don't use it on everything, but on forward
Speaker 1: thinking where there's three mics, it just tends to um
Speaker 1: introduce this potential to introduce a lot more noise because
Speaker 1: you've got three open mics and people talking, there's there
Speaker 1: tends to be bleed on the other mics with what
Speaker 1: they call it when you hear the you know, the
Speaker 1: indirect sound of someone talking on one of the nearby mics,
Speaker 1: on a mic that's not being used. And once you
Speaker 1: start getting a lot of that, you start getting issues
Speaker 1: with phase where you start things kind of start to
Speaker 1: sound a little swishy and weird kind of. So when
Speaker 1: you use a noise gate, you set a threshold on
Speaker 1: the low end um whereas the compression you set it
Speaker 1: more on the high end. So when something falls below
Speaker 1: a certain threshold, it just kills the channel, it kills
Speaker 1: the audio. But there's different like um little adjustments you
Speaker 1: can do so it's not jarring. There's like an attack
Speaker 1: and a release. So like, for example, you wouldn't want
Speaker 1: the noise gate to kick in when I just get
Speaker 1: a little bit quieter. You would want to and even
Speaker 1: if it did, you would want it to do so
Speaker 1: kind of gently and not just be like super jarring
Speaker 1: and like make everything just dead silent. So there's different
Speaker 1: little parameters that you can mess with the kind of
Speaker 1: make it a little more natural. So when you are
Speaker 1: in the editing mode, uh, typically I assume this involves
Speaker 1: you not just listening for when we mess up and
Speaker 1: go back and do something again. So you have to
Speaker 1: there's there's an art to clipping out anything where where
Speaker 1: we've made a mistake and we've gone back. Not that
Speaker 1: I do that on tech stuff, but I've heard and
Speaker 1: some of the other podcasts that happens occasionally where uh,
Speaker 1: you have to go and take that part out and
Speaker 1: then you have to essentially have the bit that came
Speaker 1: right before and the bit that came after mesh togethers. So,
Speaker 1: so tell me about that process. Is it Is it easy?
Speaker 1: Is it is it? Does the software do a lot
Speaker 1: of the work? Is there any massaging you have to do?
Speaker 1: It really doesn't do any of the work. Like what
Speaker 1: I do is so I'm looking at like what's called
Speaker 1: a multitrack view where you have you know, Jonathan's track here,
Speaker 1: Lawrence track underneath that, and then Joe's track there, and
Speaker 1: they're all lined up and so you can see when
Speaker 1: one person is talking and when another person starts, etcetera. UM,
Speaker 1: So what you have to do is you end up
Speaker 1: making like if I'm going to cut out a mistake
Speaker 1: or even just like a cough for like a sound
Speaker 1: that happens. Maybe you are saying something and you kind
Speaker 1: of pause, and then maybe you didn't pick up with
Speaker 1: the very beginning of what you were saying. You just
Speaker 1: kind of like pick up with what you would have
Speaker 1: said next. So what I end up doing is I'll
Speaker 1: make a mark where I want the beginning of the
Speaker 1: edit to be. This isn't the software, it's just like
Speaker 1: a digital kind of a locator. So you make a
Speaker 1: little point and it shows it to you, so you
Speaker 1: can go back to that and be exactly on that spot.
Speaker 1: And then I'll make another mark for the end, and
Speaker 1: then you just cut out what's in between those. But
Speaker 1: what I end up having to do is like if
Speaker 1: there's a sound like an S sound or a c
Speaker 1: H sound that starts it, to make it more natural,
Speaker 1: I'll try to keep the original starting sound and then
Speaker 1: edit that into the pick up. Whereas you might have
Speaker 1: made that S or c H sound again, I'll use
Speaker 1: the original one and then kind of like cross fade
Speaker 1: just slightly, which means you take the two bits and
Speaker 1: you combine them together, but you make it where the
Speaker 1: beginning of one fades into the next one, so there's
Speaker 1: no like audio artifact or glitch sound or anything. So
Speaker 1: so there's a possibility that if you've listened to enough
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works episodes, you've heard a word where the
Speaker 1: beginning pronunciation of that word happened minutes before before the
Speaker 1: rest of that word is spoken. And it sounds weird,
Speaker 1: but it really does kind of make it a little
Speaker 1: more naturally because it's like, you know, folks that do
Speaker 1: these shows and How Stuff Works, they do so many shows,
Speaker 1: and it's like I try to do anything that I can.
Speaker 1: They do so much research, anything that I can to
Speaker 1: make them not have to repeat themselves too much, you know,
Speaker 1: so rather than like have people go back and say
Speaker 1: a whole paragraph for a whole sentence again, I try
Speaker 1: to just let it ride and do what I can
Speaker 1: to kind of like join it together and make it work.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's there's it just didn't
Speaker 1: doesn't line up, and I will maybe have to ask
Speaker 1: someone to come in and give me another word or
Speaker 1: something right. But typically people don't make too many mistakes.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's some shows are different than others,
Speaker 1: like tech stuff. I mean, very few edits in tech stuff,
Speaker 1: most of it that's been that's been sort of the
Speaker 1: history of tech stuff. In fact, way back in the day,
Speaker 1: when Chris and I were doing shows, very often the
Speaker 1: show that went up was unedited in the sense that
Speaker 1: nothing we we never stopped went back and fixed things.
Speaker 1: If we misstated something or mispronounced something, we corrected it
Speaker 1: within the context of the show and kept going. But
Speaker 1: the longer that we've done these, the more of those
Speaker 1: little bits that we've gone back and fixed. It's funny
Speaker 1: because having being in the position I'm in where I
Speaker 1: have guest hosts all the time, I get the chance
Speaker 1: to see every the way people deal with that. Right.
Speaker 1: Some people are just like, I'm sorry, hang on a second,
Speaker 1: and then they'll go back into it. Some people will
Speaker 1: actually market with a beep. Uh. One person in particular,
Speaker 1: Mr Mr Mr Ben Bolan, he is like religious about
Speaker 1: that too. He'll forget to do it and then he'll
Speaker 1: stop himself and go back and do the beep. And
Speaker 1: I think that is a legacy stuff. You know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Josh does it too. Josh doesn't too. Um yeah, because
Speaker 1: I've I've had Josh in the studio before and he's
Speaker 1: done a beep before. Uh Me, I don't make mistakes,
Speaker 1: so I just keep going, Well, it's fun too, because
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's actually really helpful because the
Speaker 1: beep not only does it jar you out of your
Speaker 1: editing stupor where you're like, Okay, here's the thing that
Speaker 1: I need to listen to, it also visually shows up,
Speaker 1: like we were talking about earlier, as something that's like
Speaker 1: sort of an anomaly. You start to recognize the beat
Speaker 1: because it's usually quiet just before and and then there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of quiet after it. So you've got
Speaker 1: this little isolated word and you know, oh there's there's something. Uh,
Speaker 1: let me go check on the recording real quickly, sure
Speaker 1: this is this is real time, real time checking. Nol's
Speaker 1: probably gonna be cutting all this out, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to just keep on whispering because he's actually checking to
Speaker 1: make sure it's recording, and I'm guessing it is. Are
Speaker 1: you good? Probably keep that that that's that just shows
Speaker 1: you know, like, like, well, is the thing is that
Speaker 1: we don't have anyone sitting on the other side of
Speaker 1: the window right now because you're in here. So so
Speaker 1: we're kind of stuck this way and we could have
Speaker 1: probably asked somebody, but everybody is super slams Friday. Yeah
Speaker 1: it's a Friday too. Yeah on Friday. You don't want
Speaker 1: to ask anyone to do any extra work, right, It's
Speaker 1: it's tough enough that we're here. So uh, let me
Speaker 1: ask you this, out of all the ones that you do,
Speaker 1: uh Like, uh, I don't want to call anyone out,
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to ask you whose shows need
Speaker 1: the most edits? But is it generally the same across
Speaker 1: the boarder? Are some of them a little more heavy
Speaker 1: than others? You know? It kind of averages out, I think,
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's definitely a few shows that involve a
Speaker 1: little bit more massaging, you know, because like I said,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of research that goes into
Speaker 1: this stuff, and you just can't really expect people to
Speaker 1: get it perfectly the first time. And these aren't people
Speaker 1: aren't like reading scripts either. They're right, they've got note
Speaker 1: that they've made and bullet points and stuff. So it's
Speaker 1: really easy to like realize that you could have said
Speaker 1: something a little bit better because and and and like
Speaker 1: the medium allows that, like you know, you're not you're
Speaker 1: not live streaming, so you're not held to it, So
Speaker 1: why not make it the best that it can be?
Speaker 1: And I don't think there's anything dishonest about that. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think so either. I think ultimately we're trying
Speaker 1: to create and entertaining an informative podcasts and in that effort,
Speaker 1: I think it's perfectly cromulent that we take those measures
Speaker 1: when you use that word, yeah, well, I you know.
Speaker 1: And again, it's one of those things where I don't
Speaker 1: have any problem with that. Whenever I work with anybody
Speaker 1: who does it in that way, it's actually kind of
Speaker 1: interesting to think, Oh, I have an opportunity to try
Speaker 1: and get my point across more succinctly, which is my
Speaker 1: biggest problem. I'm a wordy guy. Uh And clearly that's
Speaker 1: another issue I can because by being wordy you over
Speaker 1: complicate things. Case in point, right now, all right, so
Speaker 1: we've gotten through the point. You've you've gone through, you've
Speaker 1: done the edits, you've sage some stuff, you've removed any
Speaker 1: extraneous noises you've you've taken out any mistakes at that point,
Speaker 1: typically do you do anything else before you send it
Speaker 1: on for for the various hosts to QA and episode. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean in the same way that I have these
Speaker 1: plug ins on the individual tracks, I also have a
Speaker 1: with a mastering I guess you could call it a
Speaker 1: plug in on the main bus, which is the master tracks.
Speaker 1: So it's like you've got these individual tracks and they're
Speaker 1: all feeding into another like final master volume. So it's
Speaker 1: the equivalent of like the one knob on your stereo.
Speaker 1: You're turning that all the way down. It's turning down
Speaker 1: everything that's coming in, whether it's coming through your CD
Speaker 1: or your you know, phono jack or whatever. So that's
Speaker 1: like a master volume master fader in like audio terms.
Speaker 1: And so what I have on that is an equalizer,
Speaker 1: which is you know, it divides um the sound up
Speaker 1: into different frequencies, and I kind of do what's called
Speaker 1: a high pass, which is where you take um a
Speaker 1: It's like a filter that's sort of cuts out some
Speaker 1: of the low low low frequencies up to a certain threshold,
Speaker 1: and like a lot of times that's where a lot
Speaker 1: of the noise lives. So to kind of like do
Speaker 1: that to the final mix. It just sort of gives
Speaker 1: you a little bit of a cleaner, you know, sound
Speaker 1: with without anything that you're not gonna hear anyway. We're
Speaker 1: not doing like drum and bass music or like you know,
Speaker 1: anything with like super poundy low base. So there's no
Speaker 1: point in even having it in there because it just
Speaker 1: kind of muddles things up, especially people listening to it
Speaker 1: on earbuds and on different different devices in their car
Speaker 1: and things like that. And then I'll have like what's
Speaker 1: called up it's called a sonic maximizer, which is sort
Speaker 1: of like a compressor, but it's a little different. But again,
Speaker 1: you set a threshold and it's sort of like raises
Speaker 1: the minimum volume of everything up to a certain point,
Speaker 1: and if the maximum volume exceeds the threshold that you set,
Speaker 1: it kind of brings it down. So it really is
Speaker 1: like a compressor, but it's I've always been a little
Speaker 1: uncertain about what the difference is because it certainly operates
Speaker 1: like a compressor. But it's called the sonic maximizer, and
Speaker 1: it's something that you would put like on a final
Speaker 1: product for like a song, if you were making it
Speaker 1: so that it kind of like gets as loud as
Speaker 1: it can be without being too loud or too quiet, right,
Speaker 1: And at that point, uh, you typically send us a
Speaker 1: notice us being the various hosts where you have stored
Speaker 1: the the now edited file and give us the opportunity
Speaker 1: to listen to it to make sure there's nothing else
Speaker 1: on there that we might want to have addressed, Like
Speaker 1: maybe there's a point that someone made and we don't
Speaker 1: feel very strongly about it, or maybe once in a
Speaker 1: while we'll have one of those moments where we start
Speaker 1: a sentence, go back and start again, and we have
Speaker 1: to say, oh, well, we just need to get this
Speaker 1: one little bit chopped out. Yeah. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I added so many shows, and I, like you say,
Speaker 1: I definitely multitask a lot. And you know I and
Speaker 1: I often edit these shows at double speed just so
Speaker 1: that I can like grind my way through as many
Speaker 1: of them as I possibly can. And you know, if
Speaker 1: if something is said and then said again really fast
Speaker 1: without like leaving a pause where it kind of like
Speaker 1: you know, make you realize, okay, this needs to come out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely miss things from time to time. But that's
Speaker 1: why we have this q A process and it's always
Speaker 1: been in place before I was even here, because, like
Speaker 1: I said, it's just such a volume of stuff that
Speaker 1: we do. Yeah, and it's you know, it's one of
Speaker 1: those things that's good for all all parts. I mean,
Speaker 1: like you said, you're doing so much. Like so, how
Speaker 1: many uh, on a typical day when you are recording episodes?
Speaker 1: How many different shows are you recording? Usually? Is it
Speaker 1: to the max? No? Like, so record shows Tuesday through Thursday,
Speaker 1: and then we do pick ups kind of on Friday,
Speaker 1: we're doing right, some somebody missed something, and so we
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays I'll do too. On Wednesday's I do too,
Speaker 1: and on Thursday's I do three. And those are those
Speaker 1: are shows within those shows you typically and multiple episodes
Speaker 1: were great? Yeah, two to three Yeah, because tech stuff
Speaker 1: we tend to record too. Sometimes I'll do three if
Speaker 1: I'm feeling mesochistic. And all of our shows except for
Speaker 1: um stuff, they don't want you to know because it's
Speaker 1: sort of paired with the video show that both of
Speaker 1: the hosts are pretty deeply involved with. They only do
Speaker 1: one episode a week, with everybody else does two episodes
Speaker 1: a week. So not only are you recording all these
Speaker 1: but you're also having to listen to them, edit them,
Speaker 1: and then publish them. Um. One thing we haven't really
Speaker 1: talked about that is, you know, I mean I love
Speaker 1: all the shows, and I you know, there's a certain
Speaker 1: tedium that goes into like editing all this stuff. So
Speaker 1: sometimes I need things to kind of break the tedium,
Speaker 1: which is usually comes in the form of like doing
Speaker 1: kind of custom music cues for different shows or like uh,
Speaker 1: like sound effects or like fully kind of work and
Speaker 1: things like that. And so it doesn't happen all the time,
Speaker 1: but when it does, I tend to really like, you know,
Speaker 1: have a good time with it. Yeah, And that's one
Speaker 1: of those things that you know, we used to do
Speaker 1: that fairly frequently on tech stuff. We had a couple
Speaker 1: of different things that we'd like to do, Like back
Speaker 1: in the day when I would yell out listener mail,
Speaker 1: we had a whole sound effect of a classon But
Speaker 1: you know, these were things that were gathered, non produced, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And whereas you're talking about actually creating things, not just
Speaker 1: curating but actually making them. You know, you're you're a
Speaker 1: musician and an audio engineer, so you tend to make
Speaker 1: these things. I have resisted the temptation to to pepper
Speaker 1: the episodes with such things. But yeah, it's something I'm
Speaker 1: certainly interested in having a little more soundscaping in the
Speaker 1: episodes when when it's warranted, when we've had some fun,
Speaker 1: you know, me and you doing some of these more
Speaker 1: soundscaped episodes. Again, a lot of it has to do
Speaker 1: with just like bandwidth of like what are you capable
Speaker 1: of producing in a week with all the shows that
Speaker 1: you do, all the shows that I do. But like,
Speaker 1: so far we've done two for tech stuff. We've done
Speaker 1: the SMR episode with Heather Feather, which you know was
Speaker 1: a little bit lighter on the sound design, but it
Speaker 1: was a lot of just pulling clips off YouTube and
Speaker 1: kind of like sewing it all together with like a
Speaker 1: narration and then the interview bits, which is really fun.
Speaker 1: But then my favorite one, which is obviously um a
Speaker 1: little heavier on this stuff, is the Negative Land episode
Speaker 1: where we kind of produced it more like a almost
Speaker 1: like a radio ad piece or like an NPR style,
Speaker 1: you know, that really has a kind of a rhythm
Speaker 1: and a flow to it, right, you know, a combination
Speaker 1: of sound effects and music clips and interview clips with
Speaker 1: with Mark Hustler, from Negative Land and a lot of
Speaker 1: his music that all of which he owns and gave us,
Speaker 1: you know, full exclusive rights to use, which is can
Speaker 1: be a problem as well because we obviously have to
Speaker 1: get permission to share stuff. You can't just really nearly
Speaker 1: take whatever we want. Yeah, there's some podcasts out there
Speaker 1: that kind of fly under the radar and they do
Speaker 1: this stuff. But the bigger you get, the more you
Speaker 1: have to be cognizant of that so much so that
Speaker 1: that even when you're you know, we like to be
Speaker 1: extra cautious just to avoid any problems, Like we don't
Speaker 1: want to have an experience where we have to take
Speaker 1: something down. For one thing, it's the Internet. Once it
Speaker 1: goes up, you know, it lives there some so it's
Speaker 1: going to be living someplace forever. Um. So we we
Speaker 1: tend to be very careful about that. And it's it's
Speaker 1: awesome having you know, we have several people in the
Speaker 1: in the office who are musically inclined. They are musicians
Speaker 1: of of some sort or another, and many of them
Speaker 1: write music. So having that kind of opportunity to lean
Speaker 1: on folks and say, you know, I realized this is
Speaker 1: asking a lot, but if we could you know, start
Speaker 1: making something custom for us that is is unique, um,
Speaker 1: as opposed to going out and finding something would that
Speaker 1: be possible? So uh, I would say, don't be surprised
Speaker 1: if a certain show's theme song changes eventually, because we've
Speaker 1: talked about it, um. But I mean, it's obviously a
Speaker 1: matter of time and and and energy as well. But
Speaker 1: one of the things I wanted to mention, um, apart
Speaker 1: from your work here and also that you're a musician,
Speaker 1: is the fact that I alluded to it earlier, you
Speaker 1: found very interesting uses for some of the more quirky
Speaker 1: noises that have popped up in the past. And I
Speaker 1: remember you had a look of intense glee on your
Speaker 1: face when you were first playing for me a track
Speaker 1: that was sort of a percussive track that was comply
Speaker 1: made up of various mouth sounds and other noises that
Speaker 1: you had pulled from episodes, from all the stuff you
Speaker 1: edit and had produced into a music track. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I gotta break up the tediums somehow, so keep myself entertained. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I basically like every time, you know, I don't always
Speaker 1: do it, but you know, if there's like a odd
Speaker 1: vocal tick or like a like a click like kind
Speaker 1: of like a kind of sound which happens when people
Speaker 1: are catching their breath or swallowing or things like that.
Speaker 1: And again, like these mics, people are right up on them.
Speaker 1: So these sounds are really in your face, very like
Speaker 1: clear and from Yeah, probably something that unless you unless
Speaker 1: that's your a s m R trigger, you probably don't
Speaker 1: want to hear it, yeah, exactly. But like from a
Speaker 1: music production standpoint and like us like sampling and like
Speaker 1: electronic music is what I kind of like have been
Speaker 1: into lately. Um, these sounds are so high fi like
Speaker 1: on their own if you just isolate them and you
Speaker 1: don't even think about what the sources like you there
Speaker 1: have been times where someone will bang on the table
Speaker 1: or someone will you know, clear their throat or make
Speaker 1: like one of these little vocal ticks and when you
Speaker 1: when you when I'm editing them before I delete it,
Speaker 1: I will literally highlight it and then export it into
Speaker 1: a folder that I keep on Dropbox that I call blips.
Speaker 1: And it's just I've got like probably sixty or seventy
Speaker 1: files in there now, all of which range in length
Speaker 1: from one second to you know, maybe ten seconds. For
Speaker 1: like an interesting loop that I might make of like
Speaker 1: a good throat clear or something, and then I take
Speaker 1: it into I use Ableton Live, which is a little
Speaker 1: bit more of an in depth program than audition. It's
Speaker 1: more made for like looping and making electronic music and stuff.
Speaker 1: And so I'll bring all these sounds in and put
Speaker 1: them like on a drum machine, uh patch or whatever
Speaker 1: where I can trigger them on like a MIDI keyboard,
Speaker 1: and then I like, so, you know, instead of there
Speaker 1: being a snare sound, it might be someone clearing their throat,
Speaker 1: or instead of a kick drum sound, it might be
Speaker 1: that banging on the table. And then you can actually
Speaker 1: go in and shape them and repitch them and flip
Speaker 1: them backwards. You can do anything you can imagine with them.
Speaker 1: And um, so this is kind of what what was
Speaker 1: created with that. Well, how about we listen to a
Speaker 1: really quick uh comparison. I would like to hear, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of that that early track that you played for
Speaker 1: me way back on me and Lauren and Joe, because
Speaker 1: it was at a forward thinking recording where you played
Speaker 1: it and it might have even been and was that
Speaker 1: the old office? I think, yeah, But why don't we
Speaker 1: listen to that? And then let's listen to something that
Speaker 1: where you've you've gone even a step further and kind
Speaker 1: of made sort of, uh, like a full fully fledged
Speaker 1: song out of something. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So the first
Speaker 1: one there was, like you said, just sort of when
Speaker 1: I was experimenting with this and this kind of like
Speaker 1: you know, finding different uses for these sounds, because again
Speaker 1: I wasn't trying to make it sound gross or like
Speaker 1: off putting or anything. I literally just was fascinated by
Speaker 1: how cool these sounds could be on their own, and
Speaker 1: then especially when you combine ten or fifteen of them
Speaker 1: and like have them occupied different like rhythmic spaces or whatever.
Speaker 1: But then the second one was a little bump bumper.
Speaker 1: You guys that forward thinking asked me to make where
Speaker 1: you know, you're always saying we'll see this technology in
Speaker 1: twenty to forty years and say it so much that
Speaker 1: it was like, we need a little little theme. So,
Speaker 1: you know, the vocal there is me just talking into
Speaker 1: my computer speakers, and then I made it into like
Speaker 1: a vocode or patch on en ableton. But all of
Speaker 1: the percussion sounds are those mouth sound but again I
Speaker 1: don't feel like they come off that way. I feel
Speaker 1: like it just sounds like kind of like an interesting
Speaker 1: you know, polyrhythmic texture of like writ of sound, rather
Speaker 1: than like, oh, this is a jokey kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I don't think that. That's not what I'm intending to
Speaker 1: do at all, but it comes across as I'm sure
Speaker 1: most people would wonder, like, well, how did he how
Speaker 1: did he make that noise? Like how how did that sound? Well?
Speaker 1: How is that created? And uh, you know it goes.
Speaker 1: It harkens back to our discussion with Hustler over a
Speaker 1: negative land, this idea of found sounds and finding new
Speaker 1: ways to uh to incorporate interesting sounds in into a
Speaker 1: new work of art. Very similar to that, and uh
Speaker 1: and kind of I would I would call it like
Speaker 1: a descendant of that same sort of thing, except instead
Speaker 1: of going for full phrases or even full words, you're
Speaker 1: finding individual elements of sound and putting them together. It's
Speaker 1: much more micro and like what I'm what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: Because I continue to do this, I'm basically developing like
Speaker 1: a palette of these sounds. And it's the more I
Speaker 1: mess with it, you know, I don't try to get
Speaker 1: like a bunch of the same kind of sounds. But
Speaker 1: if something pops out at me and then I'll grab
Speaker 1: it and put it in my folder and then like
Speaker 1: add it to my my sound banks or whatever. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of fun. And you know, this is
Speaker 1: one of the rare job where I can like do
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff and you know, have a real
Speaker 1: job where I edit podcasts and you know, get to
Speaker 1: come on and talk on podcasts and make music for
Speaker 1: him and also get to do this fun kind of
Speaker 1: nerdy stuff on the side. So so pretty lucky. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the fact that you've the fact that you've covered so
Speaker 1: many and and granted, I'm sure a lot of the
Speaker 1: time when you're editing what you're specifically listening out for
Speaker 1: our our obvious mistakes, but assuming that, I assume that
Speaker 1: at least occasionally you can actually have a moment to
Speaker 1: enjoy what what the various podcasts are talking about. Are
Speaker 1: there any particular subjects that podcasts have covered that you
Speaker 1: found really interesting and learned a lot? I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like I learned stuff all the time. Um, It's
Speaker 1: it's just one of these things where it's just so much.
Speaker 1: It's just like this wealth of information, especially when you
Speaker 1: break it out into the different shows and the different
Speaker 1: brands that we do. Um, I think stuff that stuff
Speaker 1: I've never told you always really really interesting topics, and um,
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, everything that tech stuff covers
Speaker 1: is always really great and gives me kind of like
Speaker 1: a new appreciation for something that maybe I haven't heard of,
Speaker 1: like a new technology, like the power wall, for example.
Speaker 1: That's really well, that was on fourth thing. That was
Speaker 1: fourth Thingking, Yeah, the same same sort of thing. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: very much like the forward thinking and tech stuff I've argued,
Speaker 1: and quite a bit, especially the podcasts, are are very
Speaker 1: closely related. Forward Thinking obviously in many ways has a
Speaker 1: broader scope because it's anything that's that's future oriented. But
Speaker 1: it's just cool to like pull an item out of
Speaker 1: the news that I'm like interested in, and I you know,
Speaker 1: it's so easy, especially when I'm working on a computer
Speaker 1: all day, to like see headlines on Facebook or whatever
Speaker 1: and then like you know, oh, I'm gonna bookmark that
Speaker 1: maybe I'll read the article eventually, and then I never do,
Speaker 1: but sometimes I don't because I'm already getting this in depth,
Speaker 1: you know, like version and of this headline from so
Speaker 1: many of the podcasts that I added, So you know,
Speaker 1: it's pretty pretty interesting, and then occasionally our podcast will
Speaker 1: all gravitate towards a similar topic. Over over a certain
Speaker 1: span of time, you get to hear the same sort
Speaker 1: of stuff from different perspectives. Actually, today's forward thinking is
Speaker 1: on the M Drive and today's stuff they Don't Want
Speaker 1: you to Know is also on the M Drive And
Speaker 1: I edited both of those, um like in the last
Speaker 1: couple of days. So it's kind of interesting to hear
Speaker 1: two different sides of it, and a kind of conspiracy
Speaker 1: angle in one from more of the pure texts, Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly does this thing work? And if so, how and
Speaker 1: why doesn't anyone agree on that? Yeah? Uh, In that case,
Speaker 1: it was because the M Drive was in the news,
Speaker 1: and that's what prompted both of those shows too record.
Speaker 1: But that's you know, it's really kind of it is
Speaker 1: funny when that happens. We've also had that happened with
Speaker 1: other stuff like asteroid mining and a couple of other topics,
Speaker 1: where all the different shows, or at least three or
Speaker 1: four of the shows would all kind of cover it
Speaker 1: within the same couple of months. So people listen to
Speaker 1: all the house stuff work shows, they just they probably
Speaker 1: just thought we're all pitching the same ideas in our
Speaker 1: big room. We are all working very independently of each
Speaker 1: other for our various shows. Um, so let me ask
Speaker 1: you this, Uh, you know, do you have any plans
Speaker 1: for any of the shows that are going Like I
Speaker 1: know that you've worked very closely with me to try
Speaker 1: and come up with interesting ways to keep tech stuff relevant,
Speaker 1: to keep finding new fun ways to produce the show.
Speaker 1: Because obviously I I have the only show right now
Speaker 1: there's a single host show. Um, have you worked with
Speaker 1: all the other shows in similar to a similar extent?
Speaker 1: I mean it really just depends. Like sometimes the format
Speaker 1: just really works because I mean a lot of our
Speaker 1: shows are just sort of a traditional it's like a
Speaker 1: couple of people sitting down and having a conversation. It's
Speaker 1: almost like extraneous to like get too crazy with any
Speaker 1: kind of like sound effects and bumper cues and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But then when you when you're doing more
Speaker 1: of a solo show, there are opportunities where you're like
Speaker 1: bringing an interview subjects where it's fun to kind of
Speaker 1: like bring in different sound and bring in different clips
Speaker 1: and kind of add a little more context beyond just
Speaker 1: a conversation. But these shows have been around for so
Speaker 1: long that there's this like legacy involved of like you know,
Speaker 1: just like let's just have this sit down, no nonsense
Speaker 1: conversation about a topic and let's just like you know,
Speaker 1: unpack it. And so sometimes it's just adding too much,
Speaker 1: too many bells and whistles to it. It It was almost
Speaker 1: almost takes away from the kind of like thing that
Speaker 1: people are used to. And I think that's fine. But
Speaker 1: then there are certain shows that we are talking about
Speaker 1: kind of expanding and doing more of like a news
Speaker 1: almost like an audio magazine kind of version of and
Speaker 1: don't want to give anything away, but like you know,
Speaker 1: not but keeping keep an air out then because that
Speaker 1: sounds really exciting. And uh, also, since you mentioned the
Speaker 1: fact that occasionally I do interviews, I think it might
Speaker 1: be cool to explain to people how things are different
Speaker 1: if we have a remote person recording with us, and
Speaker 1: you know, I've done uh interviews with like Tom Merritt
Speaker 1: or with Heather Feather that sort of stuff, So explain
Speaker 1: how that's a little bit different. Yeah, I mean ideally
Speaker 1: in those situations, um, you do what's called a tape
Speaker 1: sink that's sort of like a news term and what
Speaker 1: that refers to is is like, Okay, so you're on
Speaker 1: your end and maybe you're talking to this person via Skype,
Speaker 1: maybe you're talking to them on the phone. We actually
Speaker 1: have a phone system where you can pipe in phone
Speaker 1: audio to the headphone system here and then whatever Jonathan
Speaker 1: says and Mike goes down the phone line to the
Speaker 1: person that's listening. So I am recording Jonathan's voice on
Speaker 1: this end and getting kind of a crappy sounding phone
Speaker 1: version of the person on the other hand. But ideally
Speaker 1: what they would do is record their end in a
Speaker 1: higher quality set up with a microphone and like they're
Speaker 1: a digital recorder or a computer, and a lot of
Speaker 1: the folks that Jonathan works with our podcasters and so
Speaker 1: they kind of tend to have a little set up
Speaker 1: at home. So what they'll do is they'll record their end.
Speaker 1: I'll record Jonathan's end, and then after the session wraps,
Speaker 1: they will send Jonathan Ormy the higher quality audio file
Speaker 1: and then I will take it into audition and just
Speaker 1: sync up the too. So a lot of times I
Speaker 1: just have to do that by ear um, just kind
Speaker 1: of like move the audio into place until I can
Speaker 1: tell that the timing is right. Um. Sometimes we'll do
Speaker 1: a sync thing where we have them have both sides
Speaker 1: to do a clap or something like that, and then
Speaker 1: you can line up that that sharp line the clap
Speaker 1: makes and then you know that's where it starts, which
Speaker 1: is a technique they use. And you know, doing sound
Speaker 1: sync for for film and video production, sure, where you
Speaker 1: have the clapboard and you say what the scene is,
Speaker 1: you do the clap that allows the uh, the editors
Speaker 1: to match up the the audio track with the video track. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've had to do that many times. And I'll tend
Speaker 1: to record whatever the phone or Skype audio is as
Speaker 1: well in case, for whatever reason, the main recording on
Speaker 1: the guests and doesn't work, which we have had happened,
Speaker 1: and then we'll revert back to using the guype audio
Speaker 1: or the phone audio and it's not as great, but
Speaker 1: it still is fine most of the time, you know.
Speaker 1: So now we all know that occasionally technology g goes
Speaker 1: a straight and uh. And it's particularly difficult if you
Speaker 1: are editing one show on one machine and recording a
Speaker 1: show on another machine, uh, to notice if something has
Speaker 1: gone wrong? Have there been I know the answer to this,
Speaker 1: at least for my case. Have there been any cases
Speaker 1: where UH an episode has either like there's been a
Speaker 1: corrupt file or for some reason the things stopped recording
Speaker 1: what happens? Then, yeah, there was, I mean there was
Speaker 1: one occasion I know you're referring to, were like maybe
Speaker 1: like a twelve thirteen minutes of an episode one of
Speaker 1: the mics wasn't recording for four thinking. And that's the
Speaker 1: situation that's pretty specific to that show, because again it's
Speaker 1: like three different mics, and sometimes most of our shows
Speaker 1: we just have the tist have the two mics, And
Speaker 1: so I think what was happened. What happened was one
Speaker 1: the third mic was set to the same input as
Speaker 1: one of the other two mics, and I didn't catch
Speaker 1: it until about ten minutes into the recording. And that's
Speaker 1: obviously my dada. Well yeah, but and and but we
Speaker 1: as podcasters make mistakes too. I'm not trying to call
Speaker 1: you out, no, no, no no, I think I think a
Speaker 1: more interesting example is UM. In our old office, we
Speaker 1: had an issue where we shared a space with UM
Speaker 1: an ad uh AD Agency or add UM department from
Speaker 1: a large multinational UM let's say, UH television network content
Speaker 1: content providers. Sure, and so they were on one side
Speaker 1: of the office and we were on the other side
Speaker 1: of the office. And for whatever reason, the thermostat for
Speaker 1: the audio studio in this kind of makeshift call center
Speaker 1: space that we were crammed into for a while, UM,
Speaker 1: was in somebody's office on the other side of the space,
Speaker 1: and we didn't we didn't have control over it, and
Speaker 1: so what was happening. And it took forever for them
Speaker 1: to even realize this was happening. And and your desk
Speaker 1: was in that particular studient. It was just in that studio.
Speaker 1: So I was just in there all the time. UM.
Speaker 1: So it would get really really hot and really really nasty. UM.
Speaker 1: And it one point the computer that we were recording
Speaker 1: on in there got so hot that it shut itself
Speaker 1: down mid at the very end of a session, and
Speaker 1: the file didn't write whatever data it needed to write
Speaker 1: to the end of that recording to make a complete
Speaker 1: file a package that you can like read on a computer.
Speaker 1: So um, with the help of one of the smartest
Speaker 1: people I know, Casey Pegram, who is a videographer for
Speaker 1: us stuff you should know and brain stuff and what
Speaker 1: the stuff, and it's just an overall genius of a dude. Um.
Speaker 1: He's also he's also taken many of the production photos
Speaker 1: for a lot of our shows. Yeah, really talented, very
Speaker 1: very cool guy. I'm very talented. He figured out how
Speaker 1: to like convert this file into like hex, like you
Speaker 1: take a hex editor, which actually like parses the file
Speaker 1: into visual data, which like if you looked at it
Speaker 1: will make your head spin. It's like if you let's say,
Speaker 1: he took an audio file and dropped it into like
Speaker 1: a word a word processor. That's this is the kind
Speaker 1: of stuff you'd get where it's like, oh, these crazy
Speaker 1: exs and squares and and they're just staring the matrix,
Speaker 1: staring into the matrix. And he figured out like that
Speaker 1: there was this line of code that like was missing
Speaker 1: from the end of the file. That is what it
Speaker 1: needed to like actually like be readable by you know,
Speaker 1: the software that we use. And he figured out some
Speaker 1: program that like kind of reparted the file and added
Speaker 1: that back in and we were able to save it
Speaker 1: after this like disastrous you know shut down from overheating computer. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so once in a while, we you know, technical issues happen. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's rare, it's really really rare. And once in a while,
Speaker 1: there'll be a mistake either. I mean, you know, we
Speaker 1: podcasters have made them. We've I've had to come in
Speaker 1: and re record a segment when we realized that something
Speaker 1: we had said was not um not accurate, or was
Speaker 1: a misrepresentation lot we had. Essentially, what it boils down
Speaker 1: to is, more often than not, it stems from a
Speaker 1: misunderstanding where we think we've got to handle on something,
Speaker 1: and then the more we think about, the more we realize,
Speaker 1: you know, I had assumed something that turns out not
Speaker 1: to be true. So more often than not, I've had
Speaker 1: to rerecord something because of something we podcasters have done.
Speaker 1: It's pretty rare when I have to, Or you'll get
Speaker 1: the q A back in and listening to it with
Speaker 1: a little bit of distance from having done the research
Speaker 1: and having like had to grind it out and come
Speaker 1: right in and record it, you start to realize that
Speaker 1: doesn't sound quite right, and then you kind of like
Speaker 1: go back and check yourself and then oh, and then
Speaker 1: you have to figure out how many times did I
Speaker 1: say this thing? No, there was, yeah, there was one
Speaker 1: point where I remember, and it may have even been
Speaker 1: the one where we had to re record because of
Speaker 1: Joe's mike. But there was one where we realized that
Speaker 1: we didn't want to have to record the whole show again.
Speaker 1: What we wanted to do was record the first half
Speaker 1: of the show and leave the second half alone, because
Speaker 1: it is a lot of work for everybody to come
Speaker 1: in and do the show once, to have to do
Speaker 1: it twice is it's it's tough, right, It's just it.
Speaker 1: It starts to hit on your psyche, right. And I
Speaker 1: remember that we sat down and we were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: did we make any jokes in the second half that
Speaker 1: we have to set up in the first half because
Speaker 1: we do so many callbacks, right, And I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: that was an episode where we were thinking, all right,
Speaker 1: what was the joke we made in the second half
Speaker 1: where we're going to have to make sure that we
Speaker 1: have the building blocks for that joke in the first half.
Speaker 1: And there's nothing that will kill a joke faster than
Speaker 1: having to recreate it. Yeah, because it was it was
Speaker 1: something that happened organically. We don't write our jokes down
Speaker 1: most of the time. We don't write our jokes down.
Speaker 1: Once a while, our notes will have a joke in
Speaker 1: it and we're like, okay, this is too good to
Speaker 1: not say we gotta we gotta add it. Um, most
Speaker 1: of the time we don't have our jokes written down.
Speaker 1: We just end up spontaneously coming up with it. So
Speaker 1: having to recreate spontaneity in a in a in a
Speaker 1: controlled and planned way is it just does not feel
Speaker 1: right when you're doing what. Yeah, but the cool thing
Speaker 1: Nol is that with your work most I don't think
Speaker 1: people would be able to tell, you know, it's only
Speaker 1: the people who have gone through it that are even
Speaker 1: able to realize it. I try and try to do
Speaker 1: a great job. So Yeah, there's a ton of different
Speaker 1: shows you can listen to that that have Noel's work
Speaker 1: on them. And obviously we're going to continue working on
Speaker 1: new ways to soundscape at and some stuff. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: come up with a couple of other little clever um
Speaker 1: motifs or whatever things that I'm really looking forward to. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it will be dependent upon Noel's spare time, of which
Speaker 1: there is precious little. But speaking of spare time, before
Speaker 1: we before we wrap up, I just wanted to say, Um,
Speaker 1: you were part of a fun little spare time curricular
Speaker 1: thing that that I did with some of the other
Speaker 1: podcasters here. That's totally How Stuff Works related. But it
Speaker 1: was like a lovecraft Ian radio horror drama. And Jonathan
Speaker 1: got to play a little part. Yeah. It was about
Speaker 1: a waiter who tries to serve some drinks and that's
Speaker 1: the whole, the whole thing that two lines I knew. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's an example of like, Okay, so I've got
Speaker 1: all this stuff that I do for work and then
Speaker 1: to like add in another audio project that involved me
Speaker 1: staying up like from like ten pm to like eight
Speaker 1: am on a Sunday to like knock this thing out.
Speaker 1: And I'm super proud of it. And you know, did
Speaker 1: Ben right that wrote it? And Ben wrote it and
Speaker 1: and it started a lot of the people from How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works doing various roles and honestly, like it was something.
Speaker 1: When I heard about it, I thought, oh, it's a
Speaker 1: shame that didn't know about that earlier. That would have
Speaker 1: been fun to be part of that. And then at
Speaker 1: the last minute, I think someone fell through and you
Speaker 1: needed a person to just record a couple of lines.
Speaker 1: I was happy to jump in. Now you have to
Speaker 1: know to like I mean, it was like a deadline
Speaker 1: was approaching. We were just trying to knock this thing
Speaker 1: on everyone even to get it done. It was such
Speaker 1: a stretch for everyone. But I'm not going to name
Speaker 1: drop it too hard. But check out the Atlanta Fringe
Speaker 1: Festival audio components if you guys, they're interested, and you
Speaker 1: can probably figure out which one it is. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: radio drama is one of those things that has a
Speaker 1: special place in my heart. For the long time I was.
Speaker 1: I was a member of the board of the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Radio Theater Company, and I also wrote several pieces and
Speaker 1: performed in several pieces of theirs. So actually, if you go,
Speaker 1: this is a non how stuff works podcast plug. But
Speaker 1: if you go and check out the A r t
Speaker 1: C podcast, that's the Atlanta Radio Theater Company podcast. They
Speaker 1: collect a bunch of their various live performances, uh, and
Speaker 1: they put it out as a podcast. And if you listen,
Speaker 1: if you do a search for my name, you'll see
Speaker 1: that I've done quite a few with them way back
Speaker 1: in the day. I haven't recorded with them for a
Speaker 1: few years now, but some of the stuff I've written
Speaker 1: also shows up there. So yeah, it's pretty pretty funny,
Speaker 1: weird and goofy stuff. So a lot of science fiction,
Speaker 1: fantacy and horror for those guys. Uh and well and
Speaker 1: also you you are you? How many bands do you
Speaker 1: play in right now? Are just one? Or is it
Speaker 1: to um play? Both of them are kind of based
Speaker 1: out of Atlanta and at Georgia. One of us called
Speaker 1: Brothers and the other one is called blue Blood and
Speaker 1: we're actually doing our record release show tonight in Atlanta
Speaker 1: at the earl Um. It's by the time you hear this,
Speaker 1: it is too late, but it would have been you
Speaker 1: would have you would have loved to have been. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's awesome, you know, and I love the fact
Speaker 1: that we can kind of get a glimpse into some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that the folks here at how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works are doing outside of their jobs, because you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it speaks to the sort of people who
Speaker 1: work here that many of us are working in a
Speaker 1: very creative industry and either we are creative in the
Speaker 1: sense that we're the ones writing and then maybe talking
Speaker 1: about whatever content, or we're editing and shaping that content
Speaker 1: producing it as well, because there is I think there
Speaker 1: are very specific duties for an editor versus a producer,
Speaker 1: and you have to do both and a publisher, so
Speaker 1: there's multiple ones there. Uh, you know the fact that
Speaker 1: we all have this as our jobs and then many
Speaker 1: of us outside of work continue to do that stuff
Speaker 1: in other ways. I think it says a lot about
Speaker 1: the type of people who work here, which is pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: And uh and I mean pretty much everybody you've ever
Speaker 1: heard on a podcast it falls into that category somewhere.
Speaker 1: So uh nol, thank you so much for staying down
Speaker 1: and talking with us. Do you have any any for
Speaker 1: people who are maybe trying to go out there and
Speaker 1: do a podcast, you know they're working with whatever software?
Speaker 1: Maybe it's Audacity because it's it's a free piece of software. Man,
Speaker 1: It's it's it's it's easy because there's so many really
Speaker 1: inexpensive little audio interfaces you can get. Or even if
Speaker 1: you just have a computer that has like an eighth
Speaker 1: inch microphone jack, you can get a pretty decent minke
Speaker 1: and just get like a transformer with a turnaround cable.
Speaker 1: It'll turn your XLR into like the right plug to
Speaker 1: go into your laptop. But I mean, if you look online,
Speaker 1: there are so many like between maybe fifty two seventy
Speaker 1: five dollar audio interfaces that will take an XLR microphone connection,
Speaker 1: which is what you know, higher pro mis use um.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, I mean, a garage band works great.
Speaker 1: A lot of Mark Marin uses garage band to record.
Speaker 1: The WTF podcast is one of the most popular podcasts
Speaker 1: on iTunes and tons of people use it. And there's
Speaker 1: even like a podcast exporting option where you can do
Speaker 1: all the metadata for the MP three and all that stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: And then, like you said, Audacity is great. It's totally free,
Speaker 1: it works fantastic, and it's just there's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: pretty much wide open. You know, you just just you
Speaker 1: can get a decent microphone for maybe less than a
Speaker 1: hundred bucks and then you know, just get started. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there are a ton of hosting sites out there too.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously we have the benefit of working with
Speaker 1: a major company, but SoundCloud, I mean you can just
Speaker 1: put your all your stuff on SoundCloud. You can do
Speaker 1: it there. Anybody can contribute something to iTunes. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's tons of like sledgling podcasts on iTunes. I do
Speaker 1: uh I use I personally use libs in for one
Speaker 1: of my podcasts as a hosting service, but you could
Speaker 1: also use things like archive Done Work. They have a
Speaker 1: hosting service that's free. So there are a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of different places out there if you want
Speaker 1: to try your hand at this kind of thing, and uh,
Speaker 1: and kind of get an idea of what what Noel
Speaker 1: goes through whenever he has to has to fix a podcast.
Speaker 1: I've I've gotten obsessed when I do mine. I have
Speaker 1: to have to learn to let go because I get
Speaker 1: obsessed with things like sure, let me take out all
Speaker 1: the us. I mean, just just one last thing. The
Speaker 1: podcasting landscape in general is so wide open right now
Speaker 1: because I mean, obviously there's a lot of established brands
Speaker 1: and stuff that people may know about, but in general,
Speaker 1: people the idea of podcasting is that there's just something
Speaker 1: for everybody. So it's like, you know, while it may
Speaker 1: seem like oversaturated, there's always room for some new way
Speaker 1: to do something or some new way to talk about something.
Speaker 1: And a big part of what turns people onto podcasts
Speaker 1: that they can just find random things and just have
Speaker 1: a good time exploring and finding new things. So I
Speaker 1: would never be discouraged by like, oh, there's too much
Speaker 1: stuff out there. It's always I would always encourage people.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I would say, think about something you are
Speaker 1: really excited about. Really passionate about, and you'd love to
Speaker 1: talk about this stuff, whatever that might be. It doesn't
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what the subject is, but you just really
Speaker 1: like talking about You could have endless conversations that should
Speaker 1: be your podcast subject, because chances are there are other
Speaker 1: people out there in the world who are just as
Speaker 1: passionate as you are and will find that podcast interesting.
Speaker 1: The danger, I would say, is trying to figure out
Speaker 1: where the demand is and then trying to create a
Speaker 1: podcast to meet that demand, because unless it's something you're
Speaker 1: already interested in, it turns into real hard work, real fast.
Speaker 1: So no, thank you again, And guys, if you have
Speaker 1: any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, whether it
Speaker 1: is another guest that I should have on the show,
Speaker 1: a guest host who should sit here and talk with
Speaker 1: me about something technical, or a subject itself, let me know,
Speaker 1: Send me an email that addresses tech Stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, or drop me a line on Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: or Tumblr. The handle at all three of those is
Speaker 1: tech Stuff h s W. And I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon for more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics at how stuff works dot com.