I just had the pleasure of being The Creator Club with Josh to discuss audio for creators. I highly recommend checking it if you want to hear me walk through what you need to know about audio and talks about his own creating skills in audio.
If you want to subscribe to The Creator Club to hear Josh chat with a bunch of other creators, make sure to subscribe at: https://anchor.fm/thecreatorsclub
Big thank to josh for having me on the show!
On Valentine’s day I was fortunate enough to spend some time with the absolute LEGEND Chris Curran on Podcasters’ Lounge for about an hour. If you don’t know who Chris Curran is, he’s the host of The Podcast Engineering Show, and he runs The Podcast Engineering School!
On this lounge, I hung out with Chris while we waited for some attendees from Podcast Movement Evolutions to come by and share some updates. Two folks were able to stop by and share some updates; Dan Hughley from The Johnny Podcast Podcast and Focusrite, and Todd Cochrane from The New Media Show and Blubrry.
The main announcement was that there is a new awards ceremony titled “Golden Mics”, run by The Podcast Academy. The Academy is made up of publishers and producers such as Spotify, NPR, PRX, Sony Music Entertainment and Wondery. The general consensus is that this can be good, as long as they are open to feedback from the podcast community, and it’s used to advocate for the medium as a whole. We’ll have to wait and see. Regardless, I had a lot of fun chatting with Chris, Dan, and Todd. Thanks for having me!
I’ve been using sweetwater for ages especially to purchase higher end gear. Because of that, as soon as they sent me an e-mail asking to share some tips to improve your podcast quality, I jumped on the opportunity. I don’t want to give the whole blog post away, but you can check the entire post which contains 7 Pro Tips For a Better Sounding Podcast.
I want to issue a sincere thank you to sweetwater for asking me to share a tip for this blog post. I think there are some great and practical tips on here to help you improve your sound quality for your podcast.
YEAH OH YEAH! I was just on another episode of the Podcast Engineering Show hosted by the infamous, amazing, talented, and absolute Mad Lad, Chris Curran. I was honored that Chris asked me back on the show since this is one of my all time favorite podcasts that goes right to the top of my queue as soon as it’s released.
On this episode we walk through my current audio rig since I have upgraded a lot since the last time I was on the show in 2017 (Episode 77 from 21 Dec 2017), as well as my production work flow and we have a bunch of fun along the way as is standard for the PES!
If you want to subscribe to Chris’ show you can do so here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-podcast-engineering-show/id1079525975?mt=2&ls=1
Or you can check Chris’ Blog Post here: https://podcastengineeringschool.com/bandrew-scott-of-the-bandrew-says-podcast-and-podcastage-pes-164
EPISODE 164 - 9 JAN 2020
Back in 2018 I was in a voice chat in the Podcastage Discord with a few folks, and we got talking about older recording technology and how 4-track cassette recorders were all the rage back in the day. When I was younger and playing in bands, I had always wanted one of these devices to record “high quality” demos, but we could never afford one. In this voice chat we came up with the silly idea that I should buy one of those 4-track recorders and record an episode of the podcast to it.
Fast forward a few weeks and a used Tascam Ministudio Porta02 was in my hands. It went unused for a few months until episode 150 of the Bandrew Says Podcast, where I recorded the entire thing directly to my computer as well as through the Porta02. I edited two versions of the podcast, an official episode that sounds pretty normal, and a lost cassette edition with a VHS filter over the video and a never before seen introduction that was exclusive to that version of the show.
While I was preparing for the podcast, I was filming the setup and a walkthrough of the process with the intention of making a video for Podcastage titled “Recording a Podcast to Tape”. At the end of the week I had almost the entire thing completed except for an outro.
You may be confused now because it is now 2020, and this was recorded in 2018. That’s correct. I completely forgot that I did this and just stumbled across the video project which was still incomplete. I thought that it was a pretty fun video so I went ahead and filmed the outro and published as the first video in 2020 on the podcastage channel. I hope you enjoy this experiment as much as I do. Is it good sounding. No. But it’s recorded with an important piece of technology especially for anyone who was in a band in the late 90’s early 00’s, and it was a dream come true to finally be able to record on one of these devices.
Official Podcast Episode Recorded to Computer
The Lost Cassette Edition of the Podcast
Wow! Could 2019 get any crazier!? I was just listening to The School of Podcasting year end show, which is always the “My Favorite Podcast of the Year” episode, where listeners send in audio recordings discussing their favorite show. Then near the end of the show THE Dave Jackson himself named my show his favorite of the year! WHAT!?
What a crazy and awesome way to tie a neat little bow on 2019! I am honored that I was selected out of all the shows Dave listens to, and flattered to be included in this years 2019 roundup! Appreya Dave! And also, congratulations on 700 episodes!
If you’re a podcaster looking to improve, I highly recommend check out Dave’s show as theirs a crazy amount of knowledge being shared there. If you are interested and you would like to check out the full episode or subscribe to Dave’s show you can do so by checking out this link: https://schoolofpodcasting.com/my-favorite-podcast-is-2019-edition/
2019 has come to an end, and although it was a year with plenty of downs and difficulties, as well as a complete lack of completing goals, I think it was a very successful year. We hit 100,000 subscribers on the Podcastage YouTube Channel, I launched Podcastage.com, and Sunshine & Powercuts and Tourette’s Podcast joined the Geeks Rising podcast network!
For 2020 I have a few goals set, and almost none of them are analytics based (there is one), because I don’t want to focus on growing subscribers or followers, because I think that can lead to causing the content to suffer. Here are the goals I have:
Release 52 videos on Podcastage
Get caught up on gear reviews that I have had sitting around for a year+
Launch a series focused on preamp reviews
Do at least 6 versus series
Create more personality driven content as opposed to item driven content
Do a quarterly Geeks Rising podcast which is a roundtable with different GR members
Have one post on this website per month
Keep developing podcastage.com, and grow it to 1,000 unique viewers per day.
I think all of these goals are very attainable, and I think it will ultimately lead to higher quality content that is more enjoyable for an audience as well as more enjoyable for me.
I also want to share a thought around goals. You should never feel discouraged, or self loathing, or overly disappointed for not hitting a goal because in most cases it’s an arbitrary goal that you’ve set for yourself. Instead of beating yourself up, ask “what can I learn from this?” or “was this goal unreasonable to begin with?” or “how can I adjust this make it more valuable for me?”
I would love to hear from you in the comments what your goals are for 2020 and what your plans are to reach those goals. Thank you all so much for an amazing 2019. I know that 2020 will only be better and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for all of us.
Bo Beats, otherwise known as Bob Eats, is a great YouTuber who focuses on Synth. He has an annual Best Synths and Music Gear video that he does, and this year he asked me to be a part of it. In my portion, I selected two guitar pedals as it’s some of the only music gear I’ve bought this year other than a guitar, and I wanted my selections to be more affordable than a completely new instrument.
I chose the TC Electronic Ditto Looper and the Friedman Dirty Shirley Pedal. I selected the Looper because it is a super easy way to get a scratch rhythm track down and come up with a melody before you forget it. I picked the Dirty Shirley because it saved me from buying a completely new amp because the tones you can get out of it are insane and versatile from overdrive to full on metal.
I hope you enjoy the whole video from Bo, and I highly recommend you subscribe to his YouTube Channel, because it’s AMAZING. Thank you SO much for including me in this year’s video Bo, I appreciate all that you do!
At the beginning of 2019, I was burned out and bummed. I had a scare with noise complaints due to my 5 minutes of guitar playing for microphone tests per week. At that moment I was ready to quit making videos because I felt so defeated.
I then did research for a few weeks and located an isolation cab. This allows you to plug your guitar head into the isolation cab and mic up the speaker inside the cabinet. It then attenuates the sound from the speaker inside the cab by -29dB. This allowed me to continue with guitar tests for my reviews. It removed that cloud hanging over my head and reinvigorated me.
With the decreased pressure, I then started to really try and put more of my own personality into my videos by goofing off, and making terrible jokes. With this new approach, it has inevitably led to a lot of cringe moments, and i figured what better way to celebrate the year than by compiling some of the cringiest moments from the year. I had a lot of fun making this and think I’ll be doing this every year going forward assuming I have sufficient cringy moments every year.
I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed making it.
Recently, my friend Ross Brand (Live Stream Universe) asked me to submit my predictions for Live Streaming / Digital Media in 2020. He also compiled 159 other peoples predictions for 2020, and I highly recommend you check it out; I will link the article below. However, I wanted to elaborate on my prediction.
There’s no denying that 2019 was a rocky year for content creators. There has been an increased push to censor unpopular opinions, there have been advertiser boycotts, there have been campaigns to get certain creators deplatformed, and there has been an increased amount of regulation against popular social media sites. Therefore, my prediction is that creators will begin to develop websites that they own and control to post their content to.
I do not believe that these creators will stop posting everywhere else, but rather that they will cross post their content on YouTube and their website, or on Twitter and their website, all while informing their audience that this hub that they own exists. For example: “Here’s my review of product X. If you want even more information on it check out www.podcastage.com”.
The reason I think that this is important is because there seems to be an increased push to deplatform people that certain groups disagree with, and there’s no telling if tomorrow you will be the target of a campaign to get you kicked off twitter or youtube (if you’re not controversial, it is highly unlikely, but there’s always the possibility). But there’s also the increase in regulation on social media platforms which can place a corporation in a very difficult operational or financial position. We don’t know if these platforms that we are building our audiences on will continue to exist tomorrow. If we only develop a following on platform X, but platform X shuts down tomorrow, we’re completely out of luck, and all that hard work will have been in vain. Think of all the people who built massive followings and careers on MySpace. Who do you remember from that Era? Jeffree Star is the only person I can think of.
So my advice is to create a website that you own and control. Then next time someone asks you where they can find what you work on, direct them to your own domain as opposed to your youtube channel or your twitter handle. On your domain definitely have links to your social media accounts, but also host the content on your own website (with supplemental information if you want an added incentive for people to check it out).
Read all 160 Predictions: https://livestreamuniverse.com/160-predictions-for-live-streaming-and-digital-media-in-2020/
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