WEBVTT - TechStuff in the Time of Coronavirus 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:14.880 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:18.520 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.320 and I love all things tech. And today's episode is 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:27.200 a little different from our typical episodes. And that's partly 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.440 because as I'm recording this, I'm about to go on 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:32.879 vacation and I wanted to make sure I had a 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.840 new episode for you guys. But at the same time, 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:38.960 I honestly just didn't have the time to do my 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:44.159 full research dive and writing course for an episode of 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:47.320 tech Stuff. So instead I thought we'd do a peek 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.800 behind the curtain episode and I could talk about about 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:57.160 how are podcasting has changed since the time of quarantine, 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.840 like the idea of the stay at home stuff and 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:05.440 how we at I Heart and the former stuff media 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:09.280 crowd have had to pivot in order to continue to 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:14.080 make podcasts and what that actually means and and uh, 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:17.520 I think it's a pretty great story, just one example 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:21.840 of how people all over the world are adapting in 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:27.200 this time of coronavirus. And I don't mean to suggest 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:30.600 that the way we adapted is in some way, you know, 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:34.600 extraordinary compared to others, but rather just kind of give 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:38.280 an insight into how things have changed for us. But 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:40.520 to do that, you know, it wouldn't be a Tech 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:44.080 Stuff episode if I didn't dive into history. And those 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:45.679 of you who have listened to Tech Stuff for a 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.160 long time, some of this might be familiar to you. 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:51.360 I've covered it in some previous episodes of tech Stuff, 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:54.440 but that was years ago, and I want to talk 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.320 about how the show got started and what it was 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:01.760 like recording at the beginning, and then eat into its evolution, 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:07.000 into what it was like just before the coronavirus crisis happened, 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:10.240 and what it's been like since. That has been part 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:14.200 of our lives. So to begin, we go back to 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:20.480 two thousand eight. Now that year, Uh, that was when 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:24.240 I was working for How Stuff Works dot com. Technically 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:26.960 I've been in the same job since two thousand seven, 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:31.280 but the companies have changed. It's a weird kind of situation. 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:33.720 It's like sitting in a car seat and the car 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:36.240 around you keeps changing, but you've never gotten out of 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:40.120 the chair. Well, back in those days when we were 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:43.640 launching podcasts, the idea originally was that we were going 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:48.400 to have a brand extension for how Stuff works dot com. 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.720 And but by that I mean every episode was supposed 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.640 to tie back to an article on how stuff works 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:57.799 dot com. If any of you listen to stuff you 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.480 should know, and you've been listening for a long time, 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:04.040 you know that. That's how they built their episodes. They said, 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:06.160 you know, you can read more at how stuff works 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:10.079 dot com at how such and such works. Well. Tech 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:17.040 stuff was the same way. It was challenging because I 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:19.400 don't know if you guys know this, but technology changes 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:23.160 pretty darned fast. So we would have topics on the 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:26.840 website that we're about tech, but they would get out 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:29.400 of date pretty quickly. I mean, I remember doing a 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:33.480 podcast about video gaming PCs, and at that time I 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:36.800 had never even built a PC. I had worked with 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:39.320 them quite a bit, but I hadn't built one, and 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:43.120 I had not fully appreciated just how out of date 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:47.200 some of the references were. But trust me, my listeners, 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:49.920 let me know. Since then, I have gotten a little 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:53.960 more education on the subject. But we would try and 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:58.880 take these articles and then flesh out a podcast around them. 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.920 We didn't want to just repeat the article. We wanted 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:06.080 to kind of be supplemental to the article and direct 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:09.400 people back to the website. Now, what we learned in 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.760 those early days at first was that one the the 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.440 limit we had put on ourselves, which I think originally 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:20.159 was ten minute limit, was way too short. And you 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:24.000 guys know me, I can barely introduce myself in less 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.000 than seven minutes, which doesn't give you a whole lot 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:31.160 of time to cover the actual topic at hand. So 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.359 we learned quickly to expand that. Originally I think we 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:36.760 pushed it to twenty minutes, and then thirty minutes. Then 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.520 eventually we said this just needs to be as long 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:44.159 as it needs to be, and text stuff gradually averaged 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:47.960 out to around forty five to forty seven minutes per episode, 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:52.640 sometimes going much longer, sometimes a little shorter, but that's 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:57.479 about where we ended up. Well. We also didn't monetize 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:59.920 our shows at that time. There was really no way 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.839 to monetize them. Advertising on podcasts had not yet really 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.040 become a big thing, didn't have any sponsors or anything 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.400 like that, so really we were just trying to convince 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:12.839 people to come over to the website and read the articles. 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.040 But as I'm sure all of you have experienced, in 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:20.520 one way or another. That's a big request to get 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.440 somebody to stop doing what they're doing on one platform 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:28.239 or device and go to a different platform or device 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:31.000 to check something else out. Because back when we started 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:35.520 doing podcasts, it was before you really used smartphones as 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:39.040 your main method of listening to podcasts or you know, 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:43.560 smart speakers or anything like that. You typically we're downloading 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.880 podcasts to a computer and then transferring those to an 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.200 MP three player. Yeah, this is back in the ancient 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:54.920 days of two thousand eight. And with that it meant 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:56.520 that by the time you were listening to it, you 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:00.760 were listening typically unlike an iPod, and there was no 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:04.159 way to navigate to a web page on the old iPods. 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.600 This was really before you started seeing that kind of 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:09.919 support built out on the iPhone. The iPhone had just 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.479 come out the year before. As for the recording process, 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:16.200 I can tell you what that was like, because it was. 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.240 It was pretty jang ki in those early days. We 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:25.240 had an office space in an area of Atlanta called Buckhead, 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:30.400 which is a kind of a i'd say an upper 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:36.320 class area of Atlanta, a lot of expensive stores and stuff. 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:40.679 I can't stand Buckhead personally. That's just my own personal opinion, 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.120 not a big fan of that part of town. Anyway, 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.640 we had an office there and in that office actually 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:49.760 it was it was an entire floor of an office building. 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:53.760 But in that office space we had one medium sized 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.560 room kind of in the middle of our office space 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.359 that was closed off. It actually you know, had floor 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:04.120 to ceiling walls and doors and everything, and it was 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.440 an oddly shaped room. It wasn't like a perfect rectangle. 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.680 It was had weird angles to it, and we usually 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.280 used it to shoot video and stuff in there, although 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:16.320 we didn't do very much of that. This was before 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:20.320 how Stuff Works was producing very many videos. We were 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:24.520 mostly focusing on writing articles for the site, but occasionally 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:27.600 we would shoot stuff in that space. Well, that's where 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:31.400 they decided to make our little recording studio. The room 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:36.640 had this odd alcove in one corner where it was 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:38.720 like a closet, but there was no door to it, 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:41.320 so it's just an alcove and we were using it 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:43.920 for storage, and that's what we decided to turn into 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:51.160 an audio podcast recording studio. Not ideal, but we fit 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:53.840 a table in there, a small table because there wasn't 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:55.880 a whole lot of space. A couple of chairs, a 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.480 couple of microphones, a couple of headphones, and then we 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:04.080 hung a sound dampening curtain across the entrance of that 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:07.360 alcove to shut it off from the rest of the room, 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.000 and on the other side of the curtain, in the 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:15.640 actual rooms space, we had a production computer, a Mac computer, 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.720 where a producer would sit as we would record and 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.920 monitor the recording to make sure that nothing was going wrong. 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.679 And so back then, my co host and I, Chris 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.360 Pallette and I would sit down and chat into the 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:33.400 microphones and it would get recorded to this production computer. 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:38.120 And back in the day are our producer most frequently 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:43.520 was Tyler who is now an executive producer over with 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.880 I Heart. Occasionally we would get Matt Frederick, who you 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:50.720 might know from stuff they don't want you to know, uh, 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.600 And once in a blue moon, Jerry would sit in, 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:57.920 but that's only if she really had no other options, 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:01.360 because she was very important back then more so even now, 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.920 and I didn't have a whole lot of extra time 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.679 in her schedule. But occasionally she would fill in if 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:11.000 if no one else was available, And so that's how 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.160 we would record. We would sit down and do that 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:17.360 and there were very few edits. Usually we would include 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:21.280 our goofs and mistakes and we would just correct ourselves 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:26.320 within the context of the actual episode. Um, we didn't 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.520 do the beeps thing that some of us have since 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:32.480 started to do, where we indicate it within the audio form, 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:35.160 we make a beep noise because you can actually see 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:38.360 it in the wave form. Uh, you see the the 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:40.760 shape of the wave form, and says, oh, well, that's 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:42.520 clearly where something's messed up and you can go and 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.080 fix it. We just kept on going. So if you 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:47.679 listen to those early tech stuffs, you will hear that 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.040 we were using, I believe sure microphones, which we have 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:55.360 stuck with for the most part, but that that studio 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.280 space wasn't meant to be a studio space. There was 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:04.000 hardly any baffling, baffling being sort of sound absorbing foam 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.200 to help cut down on things like echo and and 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:12.599 reverb and stuff. Uh, and it just was what we had. 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:17.760 Eventually we had to move into a smaller office space 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:21.040 within the same building. We no longer had the full floor. 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:25.559 We had about maybe a third of a floor lower 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:30.040 down in the building, and that really caused pain in 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:34.160 our podcasts. We were still doing podcasting, and occasionally we're 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:38.360 even monetizing them at this point. But now we had 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:44.000 a different recording setup. Instead of being in an isolated 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:48.000 room in the center of an office space, we had 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:52.240 an actual office. It wasn't designed to be a studio 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.080 at all. It was designed to be the office of 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.520 somebody fairly important because it was a corner office with 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:04.000 windows on two wall. Now, I'm sure any of you 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:06.840 out there who have had any experience with sound recording 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:10.400 no that it is not ideal to record in a 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:15.520 room that shares a window to the outside world. There's 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:17.640 a lot of noise that can come in. We were 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:20.880 located just off of one of the many Peach Tree 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:24.720 streets in Atlanta, but in this case, it's the Peach 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.280 Tree Street, and you could often hear traffic noises and 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:32.160 occasionally a whistle as a local character known as Baton 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:36.160 Bob would march up and down the street whistling on 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:41.120 a whistle and waving at people. So, yeah, if you want, 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.040 if you want to smile, just search Baton Bob Atlanta 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:48.080 and you'll get to see the the ambassador of smiles 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:53.800 that I'm talking about. Not ideal, but that's what we 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:57.120 had to work with then, so we would record again 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:02.440 using sure microphones, using headphones, so decent hardware. We did 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:08.720 eventually end up covering all the windows with materials like 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:12.960 like foam, absorbing foam, baffling foam, which probably meant that 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:15.720 from the outside we looked like there was some sort 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:20.240 of highly disturbed individual who was occupying that particular office 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:24.160 space because the windows were blacked out from that that 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:28.200 space on both sides, and that helped cut down a 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:30.600 little bit on noise. But even to this day, if 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:33.680 you listen back to some of the podcasts that were 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:37.640 recorded during that era, you might occasionally hear traffic noises. 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:40.280 You might even hear a siren, although most of us 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:45.280 would pause our recording whenever an emergency response vehicle was 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.000 going down Peachtree Street, which happened at least three or 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:53.400 four times per recording session, so that again was not ideal. 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:57.280 But at the time we were not a podcasting company either. 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.400 Podcasting was becoming more important and it was starting to 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:05.600 generate more opportunities, both for the company as a whole 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.320 and for some of the hosts in particular, and that 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:13.720 was great, but at that point our focus was still 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:17.679 on the website. At that stage, we were working with 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:21.720 Discovery Communications that was our parent company at the time, 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:26.400 and so things were different, like we were mostly working 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:28.600 on to make sure that we were in alignment with 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.920 our parent company, and that also explains why if you 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:35.960 go back and look at those episodes, even across all 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:40.200 the stuff channels, you'll start to see things like uh 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:44.120 topics that maybe we wouldn't have chosen on our own, 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.360 but they were in alignment with what the parent company wanted. 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:52.520 The easiest example I can give of that is the 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:57.720 Shark Week themed episodes. It was easier for maybe the 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:01.400 History show to really focus on Shark Week or even 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:05.600 stuff you should know, but for tech stuff, Shark Week 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:08.600 proved to be a bit of a challenge figuring out 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:13.640 how to talk about technology with sharks beyond things like 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:16.240 it's a cage and it protects you from being bitten. 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:18.839 That got that got to be pretty complicated. I think 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.240 on our first attempt we ended up talking about Bruce, 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.440 which was the nickname for the mechanical shark that was 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.840 used during the filming of Jaws. That was the way 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:33.480 we got around it. So that for a long time 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.040 was how we recorded episodes. It was either in that 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:41.720 one alcove or it was in a corner office where 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:43.800 we were doing our best to try and isolate all 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:49.640 the outside noise. But things would change dramatically when we 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:53.840 ended up relocating from Buckhead to a different part of 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:58.120 Atlanta and neighborhood called the Old Fourth Ward, and we 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:02.000 ended up in a a space in the brand new 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:06.480 Ponce City Market. I'll explain more about that in a second, 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:19.360 but first let's take a quick break. So we ended 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:25.080 up moving across town. For one thing, we got sold off. 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:29.480 Discovery Communications sold how Stuff Works dot Com to a 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:33.920 company called Blue Cora uh and then in turn, Blue 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:38.240 Cora spun off uh info Seek along with how stuff 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:42.240 Works dot Com, and we became part of a company 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:46.000 that eventually became known as System One. And that's about 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.320 the same time that we were relocating over to Old 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:51.720 Fourth Ward into the Pont City Market space. When we 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.000 did that, it was super cool, but it was also 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:59.280 incredibly challenging. And it was challenging because we had to 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.240 set up brand new studio space in this office and 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:08.280 at the time, Pont City Market was still being built out, 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:12.200 so our office space was complete, but there were entire 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:16.160 floors of Pont City Market that we're being converted over, 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:18.680 and to understand what Pont City Market is and and 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:23.440 the enormity of that challenge takes a little more history. 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:27.040 Pont City Market started off as sort of a store 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:32.800 and distribution center for Sears in Atlanta. It was located 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:35.040 right next to railroad tracks. In fact, the tracks are 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:38.000 still there, they're no longer active tracks. And there was 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:41.120 even a section of track that split off from the 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.960 main track and became a little section just in front 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:48.800 of Pont City Market, so that a train car loaded 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:52.600 down with stuff for Sears could detach, move down this 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.960 section of track, be unloaded, and then moved back to 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.640 join up with a train. So it's a really important 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.240 building and it's enormous. It's a couple of million square 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:07.119 feet of space, as I recall, and there's like nine 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:12.280 floors of it. It's huge. But Sears left that building 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:17.399 unoccupied for a long time. The Atlanta City government had 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:20.560 a small amount of space something like ten of the building, 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:25.200 but it remained vacant, and then eventually it was bought 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.640 by a development company that decided to turn it into 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.960 office and retail and loft space. So if you want 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:37.680 an extremely expensive loft in Atlanta, you could get one 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:41.399 at Pond City Markets, outside my price range, to be honest, 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.800 but that's where our office moved to. We built out 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:51.040 two studios originally, and we eventually named them Bowie after 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:54.840 David Bowie and Eno, so they're named after musicians. We 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:59.040 would later add two more studios. Originally they were both 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.960 video studio was one was a video studio for sets 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.320 and one was a video studio for backdrops like a 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:10.919 white psych or a green screen. Uh, those became prints 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.080 and buyork. And so if you've ever watched any of 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:16.560 the How Stuff Works videos where there was like a 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:21.800 little kind of study sort of look to it, like 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:25.240 like you're sitting in a study, that was that was 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:27.719 in one of those studios. And all the old forward 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:29.879 thinking videos where I was in front of like a 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.400 white background, at least the later ones, those were shot 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.600 in the other studio, but we converted those into audio 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:42.000 studios eventually. Because Stuff Media, the podcasting arm, split off 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:45.400 from how stuff works dot com. How stuff works dot 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:50.879 Com remained with System one and the Stuff Media group 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:54.040 we split off, we stayed in the same office space. 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:57.720 In fact, we cohabitated that office space for a while 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.600 with the how Stuff Works people. They eventually moved out 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.440 and got a different space, but Stuff Media remained there 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:08.600 and we ended up getting what are called whisper rooms 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:13.480 for those audio podcast rooms. Now these are like recording 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:17.640 booths um and so it's a recording booth sitting inside 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.960 a larger room. And on the outside of the whisper rooms, 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:25.280 we've set up desks where we have the production computers. 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:29.200 Those are Mac computers where we record to those those 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:34.240 computer systems. Inside the whispering rooms, we've got tables, chairs, 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:39.200 the microphones still using sure microphones and headphones um and 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:43.520 we have uh, individual little volume controls for our our 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:47.040 headphones so that we can arrange that to our hearts content. 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:49.880 I'm slightly hard of hearing, so I turned mine up, 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:52.960 but that would blast the ears off someone like Lauren. 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:55.919 So luckily we all have our own individual controls. We 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:58.679 don't have to, you know, have one master control for 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:02.919 all the headphones. Uh. We close off those doors we 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:07.639 record our episodes. The audio goes through a mixer in 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:12.040 a couple of studios. There's actually a physical console mixer 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.479 and then a couple of studios use a virtual mixer. 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:18.800 But in either case they're doing the same general job. 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.560 That is, they allow the producer to set audio levels, 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:25.600 so if one person is just naturally louder than another, 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:29.240 you can drop their level down a little bit so 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:32.159 that way you don't have a big jump between the 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.040 loud person and the quiet person. I tend to be 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.720 a little quiet, so they boost me up a little bit, 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:41.679 so that's odd. I'm not used to being quiet. But 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:44.000 my voice gets you can hear it now. My voice 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:46.880 is getting worn out the more I talk. Of course, 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:49.200 this is the third episode of tech Stuff that I'm 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:53.919 recording today that explains that. And like the studios that 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:58.280 we had back in the Buckhead space, which were again 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:02.360 just you know, kind of a rigged studios, these we 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:04.800 ended up using a lot more phone baffling. We were 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:06.679 able to have a lot more control over the space. 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:09.800 We made sure that the windows and doors that we 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:13.520 used in those spaces kept the noise nice and isolated, 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:17.320 so you don't have a lot of bleed over. People 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:21.040 can actually chat outside the rooms, and it's not terrible 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:24.879 if they start getting into a really animated conversation that 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:28.160 can sometimes bleed over into the audio. That we are 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.439 hearing as we record, and in that case I have 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:36.200 been known to jump outside and gently suggest people take 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:42.720 their conversation elsewhere. I'm very um genteel about such things. 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:47.960 We record into Audition. That is the software we use 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:51.719 at the office. It's a Mac based and so that 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:57.240 allows people to do things like isolate microphones. Uh. And Tari, 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:01.199 when she's recording me live at the office, use this 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:04.439 audition to put little markers down. Whenever I make a 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:08.600 mistake or have a terrible sound come out of me, 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:11.480 like if I have to sniff or cough or something, 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:14.639 she can put a little time marker on the recording 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:17.960 so that later on she can very quickly navigate to 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:22.359 those markers and make those edits um. And it just 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:24.320 makes things a lot easier. That's why she likes to 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:28.640 listen live while I actually record. And then if Tari 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:31.080 has to say something to me, she has a microphone 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:34.240 on her side and can communicate to me. It doesn't 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:39.359 get sent to the audition file. It's it's not going 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:41.399 through to recording, but I can hear it in my 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:45.560 headphones and then I can respond to it. Um. So 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:49.560 that's generally how things worked at Pont City Market. Oh, 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:53.520 I should also mention, so we have Bowie, Eno, Prince 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:58.320 and York text stuff almost always recorded in Eno, at 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:01.600 least over the last couple of years. Stuff you should know, 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:06.040 records in Bowie and sometimes I would record in Bowie 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:08.960 two occasionally. If you watched back in the day when 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:12.879 I used to stream live on Twitch. Um, that was 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:16.000 when we were using the Bowie studio. And that one 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:20.240 is unique among the different studios and all the other studios. 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:25.840 The producer sits at a table or desk that's outside 0:23:25.840 --> 0:23:29.840 the actual recording studio and so they communicate over a 0:23:29.880 --> 0:23:34.879 microphone to the people inside the studio. You know, Bowie 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:37.520 rather is the only one that's different that one. Uh 0:23:37.600 --> 0:23:41.879 The producer actually sits inside the recording studio along with 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:46.439 the talent. So when Josh and Chuck were recording in 0:23:46.520 --> 0:23:50.720 the office, Jerry was also in that same room with them, 0:23:50.840 --> 0:23:53.560 so all three of them would be right there. And 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:56.400 that is the the one difference to all the other studios. 0:23:56.440 --> 0:24:00.960 They have the producer isolated from the people inside the booth. 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:04.760 And uh, I just thought that was interesting. I don't know, 0:24:05.400 --> 0:24:09.800 you know how that came about, but that's how it works. Uh. 0:24:09.840 --> 0:24:13.800 In the case of Eno, there is a big window 0:24:13.880 --> 0:24:18.359 on the side of the studio where the producer's desk is, 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:21.399 so I can look out the window and star, although 0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:25.480 usually there's a giant display that's you know, eclipsing most 0:24:25.520 --> 0:24:29.520 of her. And that's generally how it worked in the office. 0:24:29.560 --> 0:24:32.879 We would sit down inside those studios and record. The 0:24:33.000 --> 0:24:35.600 whisper rooms have a little bit more space in them 0:24:35.680 --> 0:24:39.800 than either Eno or Bowie do, and so podcasts that 0:24:39.880 --> 0:24:43.200 have more hosts in them tend to record in one 0:24:43.240 --> 0:24:46.479 of those. Like when I would go into record with 0:24:46.640 --> 0:24:50.640 Ridiculous History, Uh, it was usually in the Buyork studio 0:24:50.840 --> 0:24:57.000 for example. But that's that's how things worked pre coronavirus, 0:24:57.800 --> 0:25:02.000 and then everything would change. Oh, I should also add 0:25:02.040 --> 0:25:04.400 that was also when we started to see a more 0:25:04.480 --> 0:25:09.200 regular use of ads, when we were able to actually 0:25:10.080 --> 0:25:13.280 monetize podcasts. In fact, that's the only reason stuff Media 0:25:13.359 --> 0:25:16.159 was able to exist in the first place. We had 0:25:16.200 --> 0:25:20.560 reached a point where the podcasts could be monetized and 0:25:20.680 --> 0:25:24.520 make money that was on a level that was, you know, 0:25:25.680 --> 0:25:28.919