Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [WAVES CRASHING]

00:00:03 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:06 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 200.

00:00:18 ◼   ► This is our podcasting extravaganza.

00:00:20 ◼   ► And you know what, Jason Snell?

00:00:22 ◼   ► We can now ring in.

00:00:24 ◼   ► We can hear the waves.

00:00:25 ◼   ► We can hear the oceans.

00:00:26 ◼   ► Because it is the Summer of Fun!

00:00:31 ◼   ► Summer of Fun is back and it's bigger than ever.

00:00:34 ◼   ► Boy oh boy have we got a huge Summer of Fun plan for you this year.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Have we measured how big the summer is versus last year?

00:00:41 ◼   ► And are we sure that it's gonna be bigger this year?

00:00:43 ◼   ► I think it's gonna be bigger.

00:00:44 ◼   ► It is bigger in its planning and execution.

00:00:48 ◼   ► This is true. Not necessarily in length.

00:00:50 ◼   ► We have been planning the Summer of Fun for months now.

00:00:53 ◼   ► It's also big milestone-wise.

00:00:54 ◼   ► It is.

00:00:55 ◼   ► as many people out there may know, you're gonna get married this week.

00:01:00 ◼   ► Yep. Yep. But nobody wants to hear about that, Myke. What's the smell?

00:01:06 ◼   ► #SnailTalkQuestion comes from Kyle and Kyle wants to know, "For your various projects,

00:01:14 ◼   ► is there a specific time that you aim for when publishing?"

00:01:18 ◼   ► Oh, this is an interesting question. So I'll tell you first, back in the day when we were

00:01:25 ◼   ► at IDG when we were publishing lots of stuff at IDG.

00:01:29 ◼   ► We often posted things at like 11 in the morning Pacific,

00:01:35 ◼   ► which is like two in the afternoon.

00:01:37 ◼   ► And we did that largely because

00:01:40 ◼   ► that was when peak traffic was.

00:01:42 ◼   ► Like for whatever reason, 11 a.m. Pacific to Eastern

00:01:45 ◼   ► was like peak traffic time,

00:01:47 ◼   ► every single day of the week, during the week, weekdays.

00:01:50 ◼   ► And so what you wanted to do was post web stories

00:01:52 ◼   ► like in the morning or up to that point,

00:01:55 ◼   ► but what you didn't want to do is post them later because what would happen is the people

00:01:58 ◼   ► on the East Coast would go away and they wouldn't see your stories. So the last thing you want

00:02:02 ◼   ► to do is post a really great story at three in the afternoon Pacific on a Friday, right?

00:02:07 ◼   ► No, nobody's. That's when bad things happen. You post stories then because companies release

00:02:13 ◼   ► news about terrible things that they want nobody to notice because it's on a Friday

00:02:16 ◼   ► evening. That's a real thing. The Friday evening news dump is a real thing that happens. So

00:02:21 ◼   ► For podcasting though, it's funny,

00:02:22 ◼   ► and I'm curious what you think about this too, Myke.

00:02:25 ◼   ► I'm not sure that specifically when you post it

00:02:30 ◼   ► is super important.

00:02:33 ◼   ► The only ones that I think about it are timely shows.

00:02:38 ◼   ► When I was doing "Clockwise,"

00:02:39 ◼   ► I would hear from a couple of people

00:02:42 ◼   ► that it was their regular commute home podcast

00:02:45 ◼   ► on Wednesdays.

00:02:46 ◼   ► And so if we were late

00:02:49 ◼   ► and they kind of missed their commute home,

00:02:52 ◼   ► they were sad about that.

00:02:53 ◼   ► And that was a podcast that we usually could get up,

00:02:55 ◼   ► I could get up at like 10, 10 30 in the morning,

00:02:57 ◼   ► Pacific, which means it was on everybody's podcast players

00:03:00 ◼   ► in the East Coast when they were going home.

00:03:02 ◼   ► But that's more about training people

00:03:05 ◼   ► about when your podcast gets released

00:03:06 ◼   ► than like the actual time of it.

00:03:09 ◼   ► So I don't know, do you think that there's like

00:03:12 ◼   ► a golden time to release a podcast?

00:03:14 ◼   ► - Not like a specific time every time.

00:03:17 ◼   ► So like, for example, if we are launching a new show, we tend to do that even

00:03:22 ◼   ► between 10 and 12 a.m.

00:03:24 ◼   ► So 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

00:03:26 ◼   ► Eastern Time, because that we find to be like a golden hour of time where most of the

00:03:33 ◼   ► markets you're trying to get to will be awake and paying attention.

00:03:36 ◼   ► Right. So, you know, you'll get Europe because it's still kind of late afternoon.

00:03:40 ◼   ► San Francisco and like California and all the West Coast are just waking up.

00:03:44 ◼   ► Waking up.

00:03:45 ◼   ► and the East Coast is kind of like getting on with their day.

00:03:47 ◼   ► So you have a chance of like getting to people that way.

00:03:50 ◼   ► That's our belief. It's worked for us so far.

00:03:51 ◼   ► It's just a good time.

00:03:52 ◼   ► I don't want to release things at weird times for everybody.

00:03:55 ◼   ► So we do it at a mostly convenient time for most people.

00:03:59 ◼   ► But when it comes to like each individual episode,

00:04:01 ◼   ► like every episode of Upgrade, for example,

00:04:03 ◼   ► I don't think that there is a like specifically

00:04:08 ◼   ► for any show a really good or bad time.

00:04:12 ◼   ► I think that, you know, people build these shows into their lives mostly in a certain

00:04:19 ◼   ► way, I think.

00:04:20 ◼   ► So my feeling is just, you pick your time and you stay consistent with it.

00:04:24 ◼   ► That's the key, right?

00:04:25 ◼   ► That's all that matters.

00:04:26 ◼   ► Which is funny because we are going to talk a lot about podcasting after we talk a little

00:04:29 ◼   ► bit about this podcast reaching 200 episodes, but I think that is one of the keys.

00:04:33 ◼   ► We'll just, you know, spoil it for later, which is consistency is the important thing.

00:04:38 ◼   ► Like I said about the people who built clockwise into their Wednesday afternoon drive.

00:04:42 ◼   ► home. Like the point was we released it at a certain time every time and they integrated

00:04:47 ◼   ► it into their lives at that time. And you know you could choose what you want to do

00:04:52 ◼   ► but consistency I think is important. The only other examples I've got are for stories

00:04:59 ◼   ► like on six colors and things like that sometimes you've got an embargo sometimes a story has

00:05:03 ◼   ► to go but 4 a.m. or 6 a.m. or 9 a.m. and you wait. Occasionally it'll be really late in

00:05:08 ◼   ► the day and I'll be working on kind of a big story like a product review or something and

00:05:12 ◼   ► And I will show it to people. You get those links every now and then, where I'm like,

00:05:16 ◼   ► "Oh, here's this review that I'm going to put out tomorrow." And I decide I want to

00:05:19 ◼   ► kind of sleep on it. I want to let people read it, see if they've got any issues, if

00:05:23 ◼   ► they think there's something stupid that I said or there's a mistake. And because I figure

00:05:27 ◼   ► like launching again a big story late in the day is probably a bad idea, so I do go for

00:05:33 ◼   ► morning.

00:05:34 ◼   ► Also, my incomparable default—like, my podcasting defaults in general, there are two things.

00:05:39 ◼   ► I either do it in the morning, like I do it like nine often, eight or nine a.m. Pacific,

00:05:46 ◼   ► is when I will, if a show is done and I just need to put it out, I will often do it then

00:05:52 ◼   ► because then I'm awake, I can promote it socially.

00:05:55 ◼   ► Oftentimes with these podcasts, we have the ability to sort of set them to release later

00:06:02 ◼   ► and so you do that and I often set eight or nine a.m. as the time.

00:06:07 ◼   ► The only other timing that I usually do for podcasts is if it's a podcast we're posting

00:06:11 ◼   ► same day, it's literally you edit it and then you post it and it's immediate.

00:06:17 ◼   ► And that happens a lot.

00:06:18 ◼   ► That is by and large what I do with the vast majority of my shows is they are edited and

00:06:25 ◼   ► published from the moment that they end.

00:06:28 ◼   ► So the time varies, but it's relatively the same.

00:06:33 ◼   ► If you were paying attention, I bet upgrade is posted around the same time every week.

00:06:37 ◼   ► Yeah, if you went back and looked at the timestamps, you would find—and that's a function of

00:06:40 ◼   ► us recording it at the same time every week. It's not a release time, it's all based

00:06:45 ◼   ► on the fact that we record it. Download is the same way. I actually give myself a little

00:06:48 ◼   ► time after we record before I start editing, because I mostly—it's like, I can't

00:06:52 ◼   ► bear to edit this right away, I'm going to walk away for an hour or two. But I bet you

00:06:56 ◼   ► that it is largely posted at the same time. Even the incomparable, which gets recorded

00:07:01 ◼   ► because it's a panel show all sorts of different days, all sorts of different times, but I

00:07:06 ◼   ► have a specific time that I edit it every week, and that's why you usually see it on

00:07:11 ◼   ► a Saturday sort of midday Pacific. Sometimes not if I've got other stuff going on on the

00:07:16 ◼   ► Saturday, but that's usually when I do it, and it's entirely a function of that I get

00:07:22 ◼   ► up in the morning a little bit later on a Saturday, wander into my office, and edit

00:07:27 ◼   ► the podcast and then it comes out and I can move on with the rest of my Saturday sort

00:07:31 ◼   ► of late morning or midday.

00:07:33 ◼   ► So that was a fantastic question for this episode sent by Kyle.

00:07:36 ◼   ► If you would like to send in a question for a future episode, you can just send out a

00:07:41 ◼   ► tweet with the hashtag SnellTalk and we'll pick it up.

00:07:45 ◼   ► So yeah, as we mentioned, it is episode 200 and today's episode is all about podcasting.

00:07:50 ◼   ► We decided we wanted to do a podcasting special and considering we decided on that topic and

00:07:55 ◼   ► And it's episode 200. Please allow us, dear listener, to be a little bit meta and talk

00:08:01 ◼   ► about our show for a few minutes. So I figured that, you know, I would expect that there

00:08:06 ◼   ► are a lot of people that have been listening since the beginning, but not everyone. I mean,

00:08:10 ◼   ► I know that's the case because of the way that our numbers have grown over time. So

00:08:14 ◼   ► I kind of figured it might be worth rehashing a little bit and almost as if we were rebooting

00:08:20 ◼   ► the show with what our origin story was. So like, how did Upgrade come to be? And I want

00:08:26 ◼   ► to hear it from you really, because you are the impetus of why the show exists. Like,

00:08:32 ◼   ► I didn't pitch Jason Snell, you didn't pitch me, but it came from you.

00:08:37 ◼   ► Yeah, so when I was at IDG, I felt very strongly that the people who worked at IDG who were

00:08:45 ◼   ► being paid to be writers and experts on tech stuff, that they should be doing podcasts

00:08:57 ◼   ► for IDG. And the problem with that was that IDG was a company devoted to selling web ads,

00:09:04 ◼   ► basically. And so while we did podcasts, they were never really a priority, and they also

00:09:09 ◼   ► were never really a money generator, which is why they were never a priority. So we ended

00:09:13 ◼   ► up in this weird situation where, I mean, the one that everybody who was around then

00:09:18 ◼   ► remembers is Lex Friedman, who ended up doing a podcast called "Unprofessional" with Dave

00:09:23 ◼   ► Whiskus for a while, and the whole idea there was literally baked into the premise was "Lex

00:09:28 ◼   ► can't do a tech podcast." So this is a show that's about everything but what Lex can't

00:09:34 ◼   ► talk about or he'll be fired, which was not really true, but that was the idea, is, you

00:09:39 ◼   ► know, we're we're we're we own your tech savvy and knowledge as a publishing company. And

00:09:45 ◼   ► so you know, we wanted to keep it separate now. I've thought about that a lot and and

00:09:50 ◼   ► you know, I think there's a really strong argument to be made now that that was a dumb

00:09:55 ◼   ► policy because the company was never gonna do it. I think I was just hoping that I could

00:09:59 ◼   ► drag that the company into believing that podcasting was a thing but the reality is

00:10:04 ◼   ► like it's a big publishing company even a network as successful as something like relay

00:10:09 ◼   ► to them would seem like a chump change, right?

00:10:13 ◼   ► 'Cause they wanna make million dollar deals

00:10:15 ◼   ► and things like that, right?

00:10:16 ◼   ► And so it's one of these cases where

00:10:18 ◼   ► even though there's a perfectly great business

00:10:21 ◼   ► to be made there,

00:10:23 ◼   ► that company was not ever going to focus on it.

00:10:26 ◼   ► So for whatever reason, what that meant was

00:10:28 ◼   ► that with Chris Breen doing the Macworld podcast

00:10:31 ◼   ► and we started, that's the origin of Clockwise

00:10:34 ◼   ► is that I wanted to do another podcast.

00:10:36 ◼   ► And so Dan and I just started doing Clockwise

00:10:39 ◼   ► under their auspices.

00:10:41 ◼   ► And we never, you know, I watched as people

00:10:45 ◼   ► who are kinda like me, were doing these podcasts

00:10:49 ◼   ► on their own and having great success.

00:10:51 ◼   ► And I kept saying to myself, well, if I leave here,

00:10:52 ◼   ► I wanna do that.

00:10:53 ◼   ► I wanna do something like Hypercritical

00:10:55 ◼   ► or the talk show or whatever, right?

00:10:57 ◼   ► I wanted to do a show like that.

00:10:59 ◼   ► And so when I realized that I would be leaving IDG,

00:11:02 ◼   ► I had that moment where I thought,

00:11:03 ◼   ► okay, well, I wanna do a podcast, damn it.

00:11:05 ◼   ► now is the time I'm gonna do that podcast.

00:11:07 ◼   ► And I thought, well, I want it to be,

00:11:09 ◼   ► my initial thought was I want it to be like,

00:11:13 ◼   ► hypercritical and build and analyze and like that model.

00:11:19 ◼   ► Dan Benjamin is a person who is like,

00:11:23 ◼   ► representing the audience and guiding a conversation.

00:11:26 ◼   ► And there's the other person who is the tech writer,

00:11:30 ◼   ► media personality kind of person,

00:11:33 ◼   ► who it's sort of their show,

00:11:34 ◼   ► but then there's another person there who makes it work.

00:11:37 ◼   ► 'Cause I really believe that's the trick

00:11:40 ◼   ► of this kind of format is that you've got that,

00:11:42 ◼   ► you build a relationship and you have the back and forth.

00:11:45 ◼   ► And I think it's good.

00:11:48 ◼   ► So full credit to, I mean,

00:11:49 ◼   ► Dan and John being a great inspiration with "Hypercritical,"

00:11:53 ◼   ► which is a show that I absolutely loved.

00:11:55 ◼   ► And Dan and John Gruber, it's two Dan and Johns.

00:11:59 ◼   ► Well, yeah, right, with the original talk show.

00:12:01 ◼   ► So that idea of a show.

00:12:04 ◼   ► And you guys had launched Relay FM

00:12:06 ◼   ► and I had been listening to you guys do the prompt

00:12:10 ◼   ► on five by five.

00:12:12 ◼   ► And I was listening,

00:12:13 ◼   ► I think I was listening to an early episode

00:12:15 ◼   ► while I was driving back from product briefing

00:12:18 ◼   ► at Infinite Loop and I took a picture of like the prompt

00:12:20 ◼   ► on my radio, on my car dashboard

00:12:23 ◼   ► as I was driving on Infinite Loop,

00:12:24 ◼   ► which led to the whole riff about me-

00:12:26 ◼   ► - And then you became power sliding Jason Stone.

00:12:27 ◼   ► - Me power sliding around Infinite Loop

00:12:29 ◼   ► and across the Golden Gate Bridge and all of that. And you and I had done some podcasts

00:12:33 ◼   ► together and I talked to Steven at least once sitting in for you, I believe, on your old

00:12:40 ◼   ► podcast. So there was a bunch of connections there and as somebody who appreciated the

00:12:44 ◼   ► work that you guys were doing and had just watched Relay get launched, I thought that's

00:12:51 ◼   ► where I want to be. And so I contacted you, I believe, although it might have been you

00:12:55 ◼   ► and Steven, but at some point it was you and Steven, at some point it might have been just

00:12:59 ◼   ► you. And I told you something that I literally told nobody else except for my family, which

00:13:06 ◼   ► was I'm leaving IDG in a month and I want to start a podcast and I want it to be with

00:13:10 ◼   ► you. And so I brought it to you and I pitched you and said, let's do a podcast, you and

00:13:16 ◼   ► me. And to my great relief, you said, yeah, let's do that.

00:13:21 ◼   ► I didn't react that way. I mean, I don't remember what I said, but to put it into context a little bit,

00:13:27 ◼   ► I think relay FM was a week old when you got in contact with this idea.

00:13:32 ◼   ► Probably.

00:13:32 ◼   ► So it, well, I mean, part of the reason that I know this is, um, when you announced that you were leaving IDG,

00:13:42 ◼   ► I was at my granddad's funeral and that was only a couple of weeks after our company had launched.

00:13:51 ◼   ► So like it was like a whole there was like so much going on in my life at that moment.

00:13:56 ◼   ► But to have I mean we were it was about I would be surprised if we were around for more than a

00:14:02 ◼   ► week when you when you kind of reached out because of the way the timelines work. And it was there

00:14:08 ◼   ► was honestly that was one of the greatest things that happened to us starting out because it was a

00:14:14 ◼   ► validation of what we were doing. You know, we had just started this thing and we were trying to make

00:14:19 ◼   ► it a real deal, me and Steven. And then, you know, if you imagine, right, you've got this

00:14:24 ◼   ► this network and at the time it was it was me and Federico and Steven and we also had Brad and we

00:14:32 ◼   ► had Casey Liss, right, so we would do an analog to Pan Addict. I was doing my interview show and we

00:14:37 ◼   ► were doing what was the revival of the prompt which is connected and me and Federico were doing

00:14:43 ◼   ► our first video game show on Relay FM to give a cool virtual. They were our five shows

00:14:48 ◼   ► and then you came in and were like, "Oh, by the way, I want to bring Clockwise over and I want to start a show with you."

00:14:53 ◼   ► So these were like two shows and I mean we were working it out and we knew how big a deal this was gonna be for us.

00:15:00 ◼   ► It was just like such a no-brainer at the time and we were like, it was amazing. Like that the way

00:15:06 ◼   ► the timeline of all of that worked out was just so

00:15:09 ◼   ► unbelievable for us at a time that was so important and I still to this day

00:15:15 ◼   ► Say that one of the reasons that I'm sitting here right now is because of upgrade

00:15:20 ◼   ► Because in our community, you know like in the mostly Apple focus technology community

00:15:27 ◼   ► Your validation of relay FM that early on I think really helped a lot of people pay attention to us

00:15:35 ◼   ► Because so early on in the company

00:15:40 ◼   ► It's you know, you you had you could have gone anywhere and done this you could have done it on your own

00:15:45 ◼   ► You have so many options, right?

00:15:48 ◼   ► Lex Friedman still gives me trouble every now and then for not contacting him and saying, you know, hey

00:15:53 ◼   ► Maybe I could anchor a tech

00:15:55 ◼   ► Attack podcast for for mid-roll. He every now and he's like why didn't you I mean it's it's good-natured

00:16:01 ◼   ► But he's like you didn't even talk to me Jason exactly could have done like how the talk show is, right?

00:16:06 ◼   ► Like the talk show is just on Daring Fireball and you are obviously starting in Six Colors.

00:16:10 ◼   ► Yeah, but that's part of the point is that I didn't want to, I felt like I didn't want

00:16:15 ◼   ► to mix the media like that, right?

00:16:18 ◼   ► And also I didn't have, Six Colors was going to be new, so launching a podcast on a place

00:16:23 ◼   ► that didn't exist before is not the same as launching it inside like Daring Fireball,

00:16:27 ◼   ► whereas having a podcast network, because that's to this show's credit that we got to

00:16:31 ◼   ► be we had to launch it not out in the void, but as a part of this growing collection at

00:16:37 ◼   ► Relay. So I hope that it helped both. I see your point, though. Like if I provided some

00:16:42 ◼   ► validation by like, well, there's this new thing called Relay FM. We'll see what it's

00:16:45 ◼   ► going to do. And one of the first things that it does is I exit IDG and say I'm bringing

00:16:50 ◼   ► my podcast with me and starting a new podcast at Relay. At the very least, that gave Relay

00:16:54 ◼   ► a little momentum. And that's great because that was part of what I wanted to do.

00:16:58 ◼   ► Because I think, you know, we had all of our launch stuff and people were excited and there

00:17:02 ◼   ► was a bit of buzz about it. And then as soon as that starts to die down, we get this, you

00:17:06 ◼   ► know. So I think it really helped us out very early on. The timing was kind of, kind of,

00:17:10 ◼   ► and we've had a couple of moments like this over the history of our company. But this

00:17:15 ◼   ► was the first one.

00:17:16 ◼   ► When you added Grey and Merlin and John.

00:17:18 ◼   ► And John Siracusa.

00:17:19 ◼   ► That was a great moment.

00:17:20 ◼   ► You know, reconciling the differences in Cortex in one day. That was, that was really fun

00:17:23 ◼   ► too.

00:17:24 ◼   ► Those are test shows though, Myke. Limited run, only about 10 episodes.

00:17:25 ◼   ► summer pilots, who knows if they're gonna stick around.

00:17:28 ◼   ► - The other weird thing I wanted to mention

00:17:30 ◼   ► that people may not remember,

00:17:31 ◼   ► which is how the show started, which is,

00:17:34 ◼   ► we all agreed in email and stuff

00:17:36 ◼   ► to like start this sort of mid month.

00:17:39 ◼   ► And then what happened was there was an Apple event,

00:17:44 ◼   ► which was literally my last full day on the job,

00:17:47 ◼   ► September 9th when they announced the new iPhone

00:17:50 ◼   ► and the Apple watch, right?

00:17:51 ◼   ► and I was doing, there was that day,

00:17:56 ◼   ► the next day everybody got laid off and I left.

00:17:59 ◼   ► And the day after that I flew to Portland for XOXO,

00:18:02 ◼   ► which was super weird.

00:18:03 ◼   ► And then I came back and launched Six Colors

00:18:06 ◼   ► like the day I came back, which was the 16th.

00:18:09 ◼   ► - We have the timeline now, right?

00:18:10 ◼   ► So September 9th, we launched Relay FM on August 18th.

00:18:15 ◼   ► So it was just three weeks after our company

00:18:18 ◼   ► that upgrade began.

00:18:20 ◼   ► - Right, and I was emailing with you in August about it too.

00:18:22 ◼   ► So yeah, that was the, it happened really fast,

00:18:27 ◼   ► but it happened faster than we expected

00:18:29 ◼   ► because at some point I said to you

00:18:31 ◼   ► after I had gotten my product briefing,

00:18:33 ◼   ► 'cause that's one of the funny moments about that is that

00:18:36 ◼   ► I knew that I was leaving the next day

00:18:40 ◼   ► and I got, for the first time in a couple of years,

00:18:42 ◼   ► I got the advance briefing for the iPhone.

00:18:44 ◼   ► I got handed an iPhone and said,

00:18:46 ◼   ► this is under embargo until next Tuesday.

00:18:49 ◼   ► And I actually said to the PR person

00:18:51 ◼   ► who I worked with for a very long time,

00:18:53 ◼   ► who is no longer at Apple, I said to her,

00:18:55 ◼   ► "I got something to tell you."

00:18:57 ◼   ► She's like, "No, no, no, no, no."

00:18:59 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Yeah, this is,"

00:19:00 ◼   ► I said, "Tomorrow's my last day,

00:19:01 ◼   ► but we'll take care of this."

00:19:04 ◼   ► So I ended up in this really weird situation

00:19:06 ◼   ► where Apple doesn't give products to companies,

00:19:09 ◼   ► they give products to people.

00:19:10 ◼   ► And so I had this moment of like,

00:19:11 ◼   ► "Well, you gave this to me to review for Macworld,

00:19:14 ◼   ► but I don't work at Macworld anymore,

00:19:17 ◼   ► so what am I gonna do?"

00:19:19 ◼   ► and I ended up making a deal with the people

00:19:22 ◼   ► who stayed at IDG, and I said, "I'll tell you what,

00:19:25 ◼   ► I'm gonna give you this review for free

00:19:27 ◼   ► in exchange for plugging my site."

00:19:29 ◼   ► And they said, "Sure, that's great."

00:19:31 ◼   ► And it turns out, because I was barred for several months

00:19:33 ◼   ► from being paid by them.

00:19:35 ◼   ► We had, you know, I had a severance agreement,

00:19:38 ◼   ► and I had to truly be severed for a while.

00:19:41 ◼   ► And then my column that I write every week

00:19:43 ◼   ► started the day that I was out of that severance agreement.

00:19:48 ◼   ► Like, 'cause I talked to John--

00:19:48 ◼   ► - They always wanted to be in the snail zone.

00:19:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, I talked to John Phillips, he's like,

00:19:52 ◼   ► "Yeah, we want you to do a weekly column

00:19:53 ◼   ► and you can start it on February 18th,"

00:19:55 ◼   ► or whatever it was.

00:19:56 ◼   ► I'm like, "All right, let's do it."

00:19:57 ◼   ► And then, and we've done it ever since.

00:19:59 ◼   ► So that was the horse trading for that one.

00:20:01 ◼   ► But then I, then I email you and I say,

00:20:03 ◼   ► "Okay, I got the iPhone.

00:20:05 ◼   ► We should do an episode of upgrade about the iPhone

00:20:09 ◼   ► to drop as episode one,"

00:20:13 ◼   ► which we weren't intending to do.

00:20:15 ◼   ► Originally, it was just gonna be,

00:20:15 ◼   ► we'd do an intro episode when I was back

00:20:17 ◼   ► and you were back and we were gonna all make it work.

00:20:19 ◼   ► - And then I was going to Italy.

00:20:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I was in Portland, right?

00:20:23 ◼   ► I was headed to Portland and also trying to launch

00:20:25 ◼   ► my new website in this whole, it was bananas.

00:20:28 ◼   ► So I believe we recorded it like before I went to Portland

00:20:33 ◼   ► after I'd had the phone for it for part of a day or a day.

00:20:36 ◼   ► And we talked about the iPhone and then we timed that

00:20:39 ◼   ► to drop at the embargo time so that all of a sudden

00:20:44 ◼   ► my review dropped, Six Colors is launched

00:20:46 ◼   ► because I launched Six Colors with a link to my review

00:20:49 ◼   ► on Macworld and a reporter's notebook

00:20:51 ◼   ► with more iPhone stuff.

00:20:52 ◼   ► 'Cause I figured, this is why I didn't take a break

00:20:55 ◼   ► after leaving my job, it's iPhone, it's the most important

00:20:58 ◼   ► and most talked about product of the year.

00:21:01 ◼   ► There's never gonna be a better time to launch my site,

00:21:04 ◼   ► even though it's ridiculous 'cause I'm launching it

00:21:06 ◼   ► several days after I leave my old job.

00:21:09 ◼   ► And then upgrade number one also launched at the same time.

00:21:11 ◼   ► So it was this kind of triple whammy of stuff that happened.

00:21:15 ◼   ► is a it was you know in hindsight I told people this it was not anything I would

00:21:21 ◼   ► choose to do but given the circumstances they were all exactly the right things

00:21:25 ◼   ► to do there was nothing better than saying hey not only do I have a new

00:21:29 ◼   ► podcast but I have my you know I will talk exclusively about my review that

00:21:35 ◼   ► was under embargo where I'm one of a handful of people or you know a dozen

00:21:38 ◼   ► people or whatever to get one and it's on that podcast like that was too too

00:21:43 ◼   ► good to pass up but it was just bananas because of our travel schedules and all

00:21:50 ◼   ► the other timing and that so that's how so upgrade number one is really weird

00:21:54 ◼   ► because it's like a pre-taped episode and we don't really know what it's gonna

00:21:57 ◼   ► be I think I edited it I think oh yeah it's a whole thing and yet it's got the

00:22:03 ◼   ► theme music and everything so obviously I had Chris Breen working in the

00:22:06 ◼   ► background on getting me a theme song. I'd never heard the music. Right you heard it on the

00:22:10 ◼   ► The first time I ever heard the theme music for our show was when the episode was published.

00:22:15 ◼   ► Not how we usually launch a podcast, but we had to do it.

00:22:19 ◼   ► There were extenuating circumstances, and it started a tradition that we have on this

00:22:23 ◼   ► show, which has happened a number of times, that I don't know of any other podcast in

00:22:29 ◼   ► our space that does this, which is embargoed product release episodes.

00:22:36 ◼   ► We did it with connected one time when Federico got the 12.9 inch iPad.

00:22:41 ◼   ► But we do that on upgrade.

00:22:43 ◼   ► You have access to products from time to time and if you do we will record an episode in

00:22:48 ◼   ► secret and publish it.

00:22:51 ◼   ► One of the things I remain very proud about this show is that we do that and we're able

00:22:55 ◼   ► to do that because for reasons I'm kind of unsure about nobody else does it.

00:23:00 ◼   ► Everybody has podcasts now but they make YouTube videos, they write articles but they never

00:23:06 ◼   ► have these embargo things.

00:23:11 ◼   ► I wouldn't say never, but it's much more rare than you would think. And the other aspect

00:23:16 ◼   ► of it too is even outside of embargo, we have with this show tried to make it a little bit

00:23:20 ◼   ► more about seeing if we can hit an Apple product event especially right after it happens, which

00:23:29 ◼   ► is something that we strive to do even if we have to move the recording date a little

00:23:32 ◼   ► bit and that leads to a little inconsistency in our recording time sometimes, but I would

00:23:37 ◼   ► much rather tell people about the Apple event that I just attended on a Tuesday evening

00:23:43 ◼   ► rather than wait until Monday rolled around again to do it because...

00:23:46 ◼   ► We like to be first. It's something that we consider to be important.

00:23:50 ◼   ► And while consistency in podcasting is important, I think the great advantage of podcasting

00:23:54 ◼   ► is you can drop an episode whenever you want. And so we make that effort. So I don't think

00:24:00 ◼   ► That was all part of our, I mean,

00:24:02 ◼   ► we didn't really have a game plan when we got started.

00:24:04 ◼   ► We had this idea that it would be kind of,

00:24:06 ◼   ► we'd have some topics and we'd chat,

00:24:08 ◼   ► and then all of a sudden it was,

00:24:09 ◼   ► it's a product review embargo

00:24:11 ◼   ► and all of this other stuff going on.

00:24:13 ◼   ► So we've kind of made our way.

00:24:15 ◼   ► And 200 episodes later,

00:24:17 ◼   ► it's different from what we originally intended,

00:24:21 ◼   ► but that's gonna happen anytime you do something,

00:24:23 ◼   ► is that it's gonna evolve over time,

00:24:26 ◼   ► and in this case, over almost four years.

00:24:27 ◼   ► - I did wanna talk just before we take a break.

00:24:30 ◼   ► I did want to talk about just a touch on the way the show has changed from my

00:24:34 ◼   ► from the way that I approach it, from my opinion of how the show is.

00:24:38 ◼   ► I saw somebody describe this recently about a lot of the shows that I do.

00:24:43 ◼   ► And it also applies to the shows that you were mentioning before,

00:24:46 ◼   ► like the five by five shows of having an expert and an enthusiast.

00:24:50 ◼   ► And I always play the enthusiast role in these types of shows, you know,

00:24:54 ◼   ► like with you, with Gray and, you know, like on remaster with Shaheed,

00:24:59 ◼   ► who is like an expert, right? Like he's a developer.

00:25:01 ◼   ► Like, and I've always enjoyed playing that role as kind of being the voice of the

00:25:06 ◼   ► audience. And,

00:25:07 ◼   ► and mostly because I tend not to have as much experience as the other person,

00:25:11 ◼   ► you know, the pen addict is another great example as my cohost.

00:25:15 ◼   ► And when this show started, it was 100% that it was, uh,

00:25:19 ◼   ► I am going to get the opinions out of Jason, right?

00:25:22 ◼   ► Like Jason's going to have the opinions and I'm going to talk about them.

00:25:26 ◼   ► And part of it for me and why I felt pretty comfortable, um,

00:25:29 ◼   ► doing that is I didn't feel comfortable enough to be able to stand toe to toe with Jason

00:25:36 ◼   ► Snell and give my opinions about what Apple's doing because I just didn't really feel like

00:25:41 ◼   ► I had the credibility, you know, to be able to do that, to be like, no, Jason, I think

00:25:47 ◼   ► you're wrong. I think they're going to do this. Right. Like it's like, how can I argue

00:25:50 ◼   ► with that experience? But over the multiple, the many years that we've been doing a show

00:25:56 ◼   ► together. My opinions have changed and now I feel like the show still has a lot of that

00:26:02 ◼   ► but it's different in that I will debate with you and give my own opinions.

00:26:06 ◼   ► I agree, we might even draft things from time to time.

00:26:08 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly, the draft is a great one but I just feel like now I am much more confident

00:26:13 ◼   ► in my own opinions than I was previously and that again has come with experience because

00:26:17 ◼   ► I've been doing this for like eight years and I've been doing this show for like four

00:26:22 ◼   ► years. Like I feel like at this point I kind of have something to say.

00:26:26 ◼   ► Well exactly and we also build a rapport over time right? Like at the beginning

00:26:29 ◼   ► where it was it was that model I mean we all remember who listened to

00:26:33 ◼   ► Hypercritical that there were episodes where John would go start going on a

00:26:37 ◼   ► rant and it was unclear whether Dan was still in the room. He may have gone to the

00:26:43 ◼   ► bathroom maybe making himself a sandwich you know and that was part of the format

00:26:46 ◼   ► and it was it was fine because Dan's role there was not to share the spotlight

00:26:51 ◼   ► with Jon so much as to kind of prod Jon and steer the show like where it needed to go.

00:26:59 ◼   ► And that's a logical starting point. But over time, I think with any show, it's going to

00:27:05 ◼   ► evolve and the relationship between the people. And so you're right, like your experience

00:27:10 ◼   ► grows, your confidence grows, our rapport grows, and the show becomes something different.

00:27:16 ◼   ► And you know, and I think that's I think it absolutely has evolved and I think that's

00:27:21 ◼   ► good. We should also say one of the rules that we decided at some point along the way

00:27:24 ◼   ► is that I was going to be on every episode. So we do have these guest episodes, we're

00:27:28 ◼   ► gonna have another one in a couple of weeks. So that is one thing like, like, yeah, it

00:27:34 ◼   ► is still it, you know, hashtag Snell talk, right? So that there's that aspect.

00:27:39 ◼   ► The show remains anchored around you. And I'm always happy to do that. Like, we serve

00:27:45 ◼   ► our own roles. So like for example I put the document together but you're

00:27:49 ◼   ► generating a lot of the content that I'm building from right like and you know

00:27:53 ◼   ► and and as well like this it's just a difference in our styles which we're

00:27:56 ◼   ► gonna get to in a little bit about the way that we put shows together but and

00:28:00 ◼   ► I'm always and I'm always happy to have that the upgrade is anchored around you

00:28:04 ◼   ► because I have other places you do that's that's exactly it and that's

00:28:09 ◼   ► that's one of the one of the things that we have to keep in mind is that some

00:28:13 ◼   ► people, it's tricky, right? Some people listen to the show and listen to

00:28:16 ◼   ► Connected and listen to other stuff we do and other people don't. And so you

00:28:21 ◼   ► don't want to not cover something but at the same time, I mean this is why we do

00:28:25 ◼   ► follow out, and at the same time you also want to give the, let the show be the

00:28:30 ◼   ► show it's going to be. And, you know, Connected you are going to be

00:28:33 ◼   ► participating with those other two guys in a different way than the way we do it.

00:28:37 ◼   ► But the way we've done it has evolved over time, which I'm happy about because

00:28:40 ◼   ► I am happy to just sit and talk. I mean, that makes your edit really easy when you edit the show.

00:28:45 ◼   ► When I just sit and talk for six minutes about some topic and you're like, again,

00:28:50 ◼   ► you may be making a sandwich, the old Dan Benjamin sandwich. So that happens sometimes,

00:28:56 ◼   ► but other times it doesn't. And over time, I think it's evolved that way. And I think it's good.

00:29:00 ◼   ► But that's natural because one of the things I wanted from the beginning was I wanted to have

00:29:04 ◼   ► a show that had that kind of rapport and it takes a little bit of time, but I really like those

00:29:09 ◼   ► shows. And to be honest, because the Macworld podcast was very much an anthology, and even

00:29:15 ◼   ► The Incomparable is very much an anthology. I'm on almost every episode, but the panel

00:29:19 ◼   ► circulates. And I really wanted to do a show with follow-up. A show where from week to

00:29:26 ◼   ► week it was the same people, and they had that shared experience. Because I always felt

00:29:30 ◼   ► like those were the strongest bonds you could make with a podcast. Is if you had the people

00:29:35 ◼   ► who were the same every week and the format was the same more or less every week. And

00:29:39 ◼   ► ironically, even though I believed that, none of the podcasts I did were that. So I wanted

00:29:45 ◼   ► to do that and that's what it is.

00:29:46 ◼   ► It is kind of funny, like, if you remember way back in the beginning, so much of our

00:29:52 ◼   ► show was follow-up. You were like wild for it.

00:29:55 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:29:56 ◼   ► Right? Like, you were so excited about it.

00:29:57 ◼   ► It's like catnip.

00:29:58 ◼   ► We did way too much. And now, you may or may not have noticed, listener, we barely do it.

00:30:03 ◼   ► I mean, there has to be a really good reason for us to do follow up now.

00:30:07 ◼   ► We have to say something spectacularly dumb for that to happen, but it does.

00:30:12 ◼   ► It's all it happens.

00:30:13 ◼   ► A story must have had to have changed significantly.

00:30:16 ◼   ► And the reason for that is because, again, you obviously have noticed this, Upgrades

00:30:20 ◼   ► kind of moved into a different format, which is segment based.

00:30:23 ◼   ► We are a very segment heavy show.

00:30:25 ◼   ► And that's just because over time, that has kind of been the path that we have fallen

00:30:30 ◼   ► into.

00:30:31 ◼   ► We both really enjoy that because it allows us to talk about a bunch of different things

00:30:35 ◼   ► and the advent stuff like chapters and things like that has really helped make that kind

00:30:40 ◼   ► of a better format for us.

00:30:42 ◼   ► But we've done more than enough navel gazing.

00:30:44 ◼   ► Nobody wants to hear any more about this, Myke.

00:30:47 ◼   ► I don't think so.

00:30:48 ◼   ► I mean, I could continue talking about it all day, but we should actually go on and

00:30:52 ◼   ► do what people have been asking for, which is to actually give them some tips and some

00:30:56 ◼   ► advice about how we produce podcasts and how they can learn from them.

00:31:00 ◼   ► But before we do, let's take a break and thank our first sponsor of this week's episode,

00:31:04 ◼   ► and that is the fine folk over at Pingdom.

00:31:07 ◼   ► They are the company who offer uptime monitoring and web performance management.

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00:31:19 ◼   ► how would you know?

00:31:21 ◼   ► Would you want to find out because somebody sends you an email?

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00:31:32 ◼   ► your website, they will contact you.

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00:31:38 ◼   ► You can get a push notification, you can get text messages, you can have them email you

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00:32:31 ◼   ► So let's start out when we're going to give our little podcasting masterclass here today

00:32:37 ◼   ► by talking about the thing everybody wants to know because everybody needs it.

00:32:41 ◼   ► Let's talk about our gear.

00:32:43 ◼   ► Now it is worth noting that we are going to talk about what we use, then we're going to

00:32:48 ◼   ► talk about what we recommend.

00:32:50 ◼   ► If you don't have a podcast or you're just starting out, you've been doing it for a little

00:32:54 ◼   ► Pay no attention to what we're saying about what we use,

00:32:57 ◼   ► other than the fact that we're telling you what we think about these products.

00:33:00 ◼   ► Because these are products that me and Jason now own

00:33:03 ◼   ► after having done this for multiple years.

00:33:05 ◼   ► They are significant steps up from what we're going to talk about in a few minutes,

00:33:09 ◼   ► which is going to be what we recommend for somebody who's starting out

00:33:12 ◼   ► or is pretty early on in their process.

00:33:15 ◼   ► Honestly, personally, I would say that you probably shouldn't really own

00:33:20 ◼   ► basically any of the stuff that we're going to talk about

00:33:22 ◼   ► unless your podcast is making you some money of some kind

00:33:25 ◼   ► from somehow.

00:33:26 ◼   ► - The fact is there is something,

00:33:27 ◼   ► and I think partially it's aspirational,

00:33:29 ◼   ► and I think partially it's people who are enthusiastic

00:33:31 ◼   ► about technology, like to hear about gear

00:33:33 ◼   ► and what people are using.

00:33:34 ◼   ► Like every time I take a picture of my desk, right,

00:33:37 ◼   ► everybody's like, "Oh, what's that?"

00:33:38 ◼   ► - Everyone wants to know.

00:33:39 ◼   ► - I can't tell you how many people have asked me

00:33:41 ◼   ► how many people have asked me about the arm

00:33:43 ◼   ► that my iMac is on.

00:33:44 ◼   ► Like, "Ooh, what's that?"

00:33:45 ◼   ► And it's like, literally the answer is

00:33:47 ◼   ► it came with the desk,

00:33:48 ◼   ► but I have figured out what model it is,

00:33:50 ◼   ► and I send that to people.

00:33:51 ◼   ► So people want to know even if they're not actually going to buy that stuff and that's

00:33:56 ◼   ► fine so we'll do it.

00:33:57 ◼   ► So let's start with the most important thing which is the microphone.

00:34:03 ◼   ► So I use a microphone called the Neumann KMS 105.

00:34:08 ◼   ► This microphone was recommended to me by the microphone angel/devil that is Marco Amand

00:34:16 ◼   ► to the point that I arrived in Marco's house at one time and he sat me down in front of

00:34:21 ◼   ► of his computer and he put headphones on my head and he said speak into this. 20

00:34:25 ◼   ► minutes later I had ordered all new equipment because the Neumann KMS 105 is

00:34:31 ◼   ► the one thing I don't like about this microphone is it looks like a singer's

00:34:36 ◼   ► microphone and it doesn't look like a podcasting microphone because it just

00:34:40 ◼   ► looks like a regular microphone and I wished it looked slightly different I

00:34:43 ◼   ► don't know why but that that really bothered me initially. It looks like it

00:34:47 ◼   ► looks like you should be on stage singing because that's kind of what it's

00:34:50 ◼   ► made for instead of it being like you're in a radio booth somewhere.

00:34:54 ◼   ► Right.

00:34:55 ◼   ► And the two things, I don't know enough about this microphone to explain what's good about

00:35:00 ◼   ► it. I will put in the show notes a link to Marco's microphone mega review guide so you

00:35:05 ◼   ► can get an idea of from somebody who knows what they're talking about with this stuff

00:35:09 ◼   ► because I don't know any of the terms for this stuff. But I can tell you the two reasons

00:35:14 ◼   ► I love this microphone and the two reasons that I use it. One is it does a very, very

00:35:19 ◼   ► good job of not picking up background noise. I have to be really in front of this microphone

00:35:27 ◼   ► to talk into it. What I'm going to do right now is I'm going to move my head slightly

00:35:31 ◼   ► to the left. I'm not going to take it further away, I'm just going to move it to the left.

00:35:36 ◼   ► So now I'm talking like this. The only difference is I've just moved my head slightly. And you

00:35:40 ◼   ► can hear a huge difference in the microphone because it does a very very good job of picking

00:35:44 ◼   ► up just what's in front of it and does a good job of not hearing the rest. And there are

00:35:48 ◼   ► There are terms for this but I'm not going to bore you with those terms because also

00:35:51 ◼   ► I get them confused and I'll get them wrong.

00:35:54 ◼   ► The other thing, and the main reason that I love this microphone and the reason that

00:35:57 ◼   ► as soon as I used it I wanted to buy it, it does a better job than any microphone I've

00:36:03 ◼   ► ever used of giving me what I consider to be an accurate representation of my voice.

00:36:10 ◼   ► When I use the Neumann and I hear it in my head and I'm listening to it later, it sounds

00:36:16 ◼   ► to me like the voice that I know and that's why I like it. I spend so much time listening

00:36:23 ◼   ► to my own voice. I want it to sound normal and with the with this Neumann microphone

00:36:29 ◼   ► it does. So I get the the experience and the feeling of oh that's my voice which is important

00:36:34 ◼   ► to me.

00:36:35 ◼   ► It's good. I know you love it. It is number two in Marco's rankings mostly because even

00:36:40 ◼   ► though it sounds better than the number one pick it's many more times expensive than the

00:36:45 ◼   ► Yeah, and I recommend, I completely understand why Marco ranked to where he did because like him,

00:36:52 ◼   ► I believe it is better, but the amount of money more than the Shure Beta 78A, it is not that

00:37:00 ◼   ► amount of money more for most people. It's only worth that money if you're in the situation that

00:37:04 ◼   ► we are where it's like, I have a business that is this, I can spend money on equipment and I get

00:37:11 ◼   ► a marginal, like, better difference, right? And that's what I feel like. So I feel like it gives

00:37:18 ◼   ► me just enough. It gives me just what I'm looking for. And I'm, because I spend so much time looking

00:37:23 ◼   ► into it and this microphone will, if I take care of it, last me probably 10 years, it was worth

00:37:27 ◼   ► the investment for me. So mine is the Shure SM7B, which is also a pricey mic, although not as pricey

00:37:35 ◼   ► as yours, and ranked 16th in Marco's survey, which I find funny.

00:37:42 ◼   ► The bottom line is I think it sounds good with my voice, and I don't have—Marco says

00:37:47 ◼   ► it unforgivingly picks up any room echo or background noise.

00:37:50 ◼   ► I haven't really found that to be the case.

00:37:52 ◼   ► That said, my office does not have a whole lot of echo.

00:37:57 ◼   ► It is sort of accidentally pretty well soundproofed and pretty well echo-proofed.

00:38:02 ◼   ► approved. Just again, I don't have any foam up there, but I've got curtains and

00:38:05 ◼   ► I've got insulation in the ceiling that's actually stapled in in these

00:38:09 ◼   ► sheets. So it's a really not very reflective thing. And I've got a bunch of

00:38:16 ◼   ► stuff on the walls and carpet on the floor and it's just it's not. But I find

00:38:20 ◼   ► it my favorite thing about the SM7B is that it is, unlike yours, a studio

00:38:26 ◼   ► microphone. It comes with its own mount, so it mounts on a boom arm. It's

00:38:33 ◼   ► got its own mount, it's got its own, including the hardware of where you plug

00:38:37 ◼   ► in the XLR cable. It has built-in internal kind of bump protection, shock

00:38:44 ◼   ► mounting, and it's got like a windscreen plus internally plus the

00:38:50 ◼   ► external windscreen that you can put on. And I like it a lot and I've gotten

00:38:56 ◼   ► really used to having it and I can get very close to the microphone and

00:39:01 ◼   ► that's usually what I do when I'm speaking on it is my nose is often

00:39:05 ◼   ► touching the microphone, or at least the foam outside of it when I'm talking.

00:39:09 ◼   ► I'm that close to it. And yeah, so it's good. If I had to do it all over again,

00:39:15 ◼   ► I might just buy one of the Shure Betas because they're cheaper and they do

00:39:19 ◼   ► sound very good. The reason that I don't, and I have a Shure Beta 58, I don't have

00:39:25 ◼   ► the one that Marco likes a little bit better, but I have the 58A and it's a

00:39:29 ◼   ► good microphone. But like yours, it's a handheld microphone, which means if I do

00:39:32 ◼   ► that, I've got to put a shock mount and a windscreen and I have to

00:39:39 ◼   ► add all these other things to turn an on-stage singer microphone into a

00:39:44 ◼   ► studio microphone. And the thing I like about the SM7B is it's already got all

00:39:49 ◼   ► that and it's a very clean kind of thing. It's just right here. And

00:39:52 ◼   ► And since I bought it, I use it and I like it.

00:39:55 ◼   ► So I have no desire to change it,

00:39:58 ◼   ► even though I think that sure, I could probably,

00:40:00 ◼   ► sure, I could probably have saved money

00:40:03 ◼   ► by buying some other kind of a setup.

00:40:05 ◼   ► But I'm okay with it 'cause I think it sounds good.

00:40:07 ◼   ► And I like how it looks and that I don't have to fiddle.

00:40:10 ◼   ► I always was like having like,

00:40:12 ◼   ► if the shock mount is weird or the windscreen falls off

00:40:16 ◼   ► or things like that that I was messing with.

00:40:18 ◼   ► And with this thing, there's nothing to mess with.

00:40:19 ◼   ► It's just right here on the end of the arm

00:40:21 ◼   ► and I can slide it away and it's super convenient.

00:40:23 ◼   ► - So we both use the same USB interface.

00:40:26 ◼   ► So this is, so both microphones that we own

00:40:29 ◼   ► are XLR microphones.

00:40:31 ◼   ► So they need a box in between the microphone

00:40:34 ◼   ► and the computer to plug it in.

00:40:36 ◼   ► They are analog signals that need to be converted

00:40:38 ◼   ► into a digital signal.

00:40:40 ◼   ► So we both have a product called the USB Pre 2

00:40:44 ◼   ► by a company called Sound Devices

00:40:47 ◼   ► as our chosen USB interface.

00:40:50 ◼   ► can you explain why we both use this?

00:40:52 ◼   ► - Marco? - Yeah.

00:40:54 ◼   ► It's the same deal.

00:40:55 ◼   ► He had done the research for us.

00:40:58 ◼   ► - No, I mean, there are reasons.

00:41:00 ◼   ► It's built like a tank.

00:41:00 ◼   ► It doesn't require any special software.

00:41:02 ◼   ► It's got like dip switches and buttons on it.

00:41:04 ◼   ► So there's this feeling like

00:41:05 ◼   ► it's probably gonna last a long time.

00:41:07 ◼   ► It's a hard like metal shell.

00:41:09 ◼   ► It's made so that you can take it on the road as a musician

00:41:12 ◼   ► or anything like that and have it be in a case

00:41:16 ◼   ► and moved around and bashed and things like that

00:41:18 ◼   ► and it'll still work well.

00:41:20 ◼   ► Also, it is going to, for microphones that don't output

00:41:24 ◼   ► as much gain, like the one that I use,

00:41:29 ◼   ► you need one that's more powerful

00:41:32 ◼   ► and that is not gonna just make everything hissy.

00:41:34 ◼   ► And so that's actually one of the knocks against the mic

00:41:37 ◼   ► I'm using is that it really requires

00:41:39 ◼   ► a more expensive audio interface like that.

00:41:41 ◼   ► I did a story on Six Colors about cheap audio interfaces.

00:41:44 ◼   ► I feel like, and we'll get to this in a minute,

00:41:46 ◼   ► but I feel like if you start with podcasting,

00:41:48 ◼   ► you should buy a USB microphone. If you decide to get a little deeper, there's a much greater

00:41:53 ◼   ► selection of these XLR microphones, but at that point, the USB is not in the microphone

00:41:58 ◼   ► anymore, which means you need a box that connects the microphone via the microphone plug, the

00:42:03 ◼   ► XLR, and then connects the computer via a USB cable, and is the one that's mediating

00:42:08 ◼   ► between the two. And there are a bunch of boxes for under $100 that are fine, or that

00:42:16 ◼   ► are under $200 for sure, but a lot of them are around $100. And those are the ones that

00:42:21 ◼   ► you should buy probably if you go into an XLR microphone, not the $800 box that we bought.

00:42:28 ◼   ► But that said, it's great. But it is great and it knows it and that's why it's so expensive.

00:42:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have a recommendation and a little bit for one that I actually think is better

00:42:40 ◼   ► for most people, but we'll get to that in a moment. We talk about our headphones. I

00:42:45 ◼   ► the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro. Why do I use those? Because Marco I'm gonna put them on my head. I

00:42:50 ◼   ► mean I told you this was going to be a thing. Oh boy. My entire, from what I'm speaking to,

00:42:56 ◼   ► to what goes into my computer, I bought it all at the same time. Because I basically sat down

00:43:02 ◼   ► in front of Marco's setup and I was like this is perfect, like this is exactly what I need.

00:43:07 ◼   ► And I'd been kind of like flirting with buying some new stuff for a while and then this was it.

00:43:11 ◼   ► and I like over the ear headphones, that is my,

00:43:15 ◼   ► that's what I feel more comfortable with

00:43:18 ◼   ► when I'm recording, I like the kind of,

00:43:20 ◼   ► not like, it's not sound, you know,

00:43:22 ◼   ► it's not like sound isolation in like the,

00:43:25 ◼   ► it's not doing any noise canceling or anything,

00:43:27 ◼   ► but I like that it just keeps things close

00:43:29 ◼   ► and what I hear the most very clearly is my own voice.

00:43:33 ◼   ► I don't like earphones that go in my ears,

00:43:37 ◼   ► I find that to be very uncomfortable.

00:43:40 ◼   ► me and Jason are in the exact reverse with this. So I like over the ears and the Beyerdynamic

00:43:45 ◼   ► are, for me, I find them to be extremely comfortable over long periods of time which is important

00:43:52 ◼   ► to me. I was using the Sony MDR750s before this which I know a lot of people use and

00:43:58 ◼   ► like but over multiple hours they would start to actually hurt my ears because they kind

00:44:03 ◼   ► of rested on them a little bit but these Beyerdynamic ones, the cups are very large and they go

00:44:08 ◼   ► go all the way around my ears, it's actually resting on my head, and I find that to be

00:44:12 ◼   ► way more comfortable.

00:44:13 ◼   ► Yeah, I hate headphones.

00:44:15 ◼   ► That's the bottom line, is it makes my ears all sweaty, and I feel the pressure on my

00:44:24 ◼   ► head, and I don't like them.

00:44:25 ◼   ► I don't like them, I've tried different kinds, I've never liked them, I've used them from

00:44:30 ◼   ► time to time, I don't like them.

00:44:32 ◼   ► Let's just be clear.

00:44:33 ◼   ► I first tried canal phones, basically, in-ear monitors,

00:44:39 ◼   ► and was ruined forever, essentially.

00:44:43 ◼   ► And for many years now, I've had custom --

00:44:47 ◼   ► they're like silicone.

00:44:48 ◼   ► Instead of the little rubber tips that go on

00:44:50 ◼   ► that you pop on and off of a lot of these kind of headphones

00:44:54 ◼   ► that go in your ears, mine are silicone,

00:44:56 ◼   ► and they're from a mold of my ears,

00:44:58 ◼   ► so they're the exact shape of my ears.

00:45:01 ◼   ► And so I put that on and then I put that in and it's completely isolating

00:45:05 ◼   ► to the point where it's dangerous if you're walking around outside because

00:45:08 ◼   ► you literally can't hear anything

00:45:10 ◼   ► and

00:45:11 ◼   ► except what's going through your headphones.

00:45:14 ◼   ► So right now at my desk here, I have Ultimate Ears Super

00:45:19 ◼   ► Fi 5 Pro

00:45:20 ◼   ► in-ear monitors. These have been discontinued, but I still have them and

00:45:25 ◼   ► they still work. So that's what I'm using. The best equivalent now is

00:45:28 ◼   ► probably the Ultimate Ears 900's

00:45:30 ◼   ► which they still sell. Ultimate Ears is one of these companies that got bought

00:45:34 ◼   ► out by Logitech and Logitech hollowed it out from the inside to create a consumer

00:45:39 ◼   ► product brand just like they did with the Squeezebox that I loved back in the

00:45:42 ◼   ► day. So, Ultimate Ears... - Man, Logitech just... they break everything you like. - They do.

00:45:46 ◼   ► So, Ultimate Ears... if you go to ultimateears.com you'll get a flashy ad for a

00:45:51 ◼   ► bunch of little Bluetooth speakers that they are calling Ultimate Ears. That's

00:45:55 ◼   ► the branding. Fortunately, they apparently recognized that they were also making a

00:46:00 ◼   ► lot of money selling headphones to musicians because that's the primary

00:46:04 ◼   ► audience that ultimate ears had sort of a consumer brand but also had a high end

00:46:08 ◼   ► for musicians brand and if you go to pro.ultimateears.com it'll actually show

00:46:13 ◼   ► you the headphones they do still exist at Logitech hasn't killed them yet and

00:46:17 ◼   ► the 900s there are kind of like it where they want to make they want to take your

00:46:21 ◼   ► your ear molds and make like custom monitors where the the whole shape of

00:46:26 ◼   ► the product is actually custom I don't like those as much because they're like

00:46:29 ◼   ► a hard, they're almost like a hard plastic, and they're not, for me, they're

00:46:33 ◼   ► not nearly as comfortable as the silicone ones that I've got, so, which

00:46:38 ◼   ► have more flex in them. But it works for them, and that's great, but the 900s are

00:46:44 ◼   ► kind of like that, and if these die, I might get those. I also have a separate

00:46:48 ◼   ► set of these custom earphone sleeves that are, that work with etymotic

00:46:51 ◼   ► headphones, and I have a set of those attached to my other set of, because the

00:46:58 ◼   ► the shape of the opening is different, right? So they're not interchangeable, but I got

00:47:03 ◼   ► a set that matched the size of etymotic headphones, and those are the ones that I use as wired

00:47:09 ◼   ► headphones on an airplane or something like that, or mowing the lawn, and they're really

00:47:14 ◼   ► great at blocking out all the noise. And so, yeah, and those are from ACS, and we'll put

00:47:20 ◼   ► a link in the show notes. There's, acscustom.com actually has a whole custom earphone sleeves

00:47:24 ◼   ► thing where you go, again, you have to go to like an audiologist basically and have

00:47:29 ◼   ► them make molds of your ears, which is a weird process. They put foam in your ears, and then

00:47:34 ◼   ► you have to sit there and it sounds really weird for a few minutes, and then they pull

00:47:37 ◼   ► them out and they send them out. And then they, I think they 3D scan them and then they

00:47:42 ◼   ► can generate, because when I bought my second set, they just had a file of the scan of my

00:47:50 ◼   ► ears and they just made a new set for me with a different opening shape for the

00:47:54 ◼   ► etymotics. So I love them. They're pricey. They're not for everybody, although I

00:47:59 ◼   ► will say that I like them so much more than I liked it when I was using the

00:48:05 ◼   ► little kind of one-size-fits-all or you know two sizes fits all in-ear and I get

00:48:10 ◼   ► when people say they don't like you in-ear headphones because they're

00:48:13 ◼   ► uncomfortable because they can be uncomfortable over a long period of time

00:48:16 ◼   ► it's absolutely true and if you're not using customs like I am they're totally

00:48:22 ◼   ► more uncomfortable because they're not the right shape so I get it but for me I

00:48:27 ◼   ► would never ever ever use anything else I love them I use a headphone amp and

00:48:36 ◼   ► not everybody needs one of these with the USB pre 2 but for some reason for me

00:48:40 ◼   ► when I try and plug headphones in I get a lot of interference no matter what

00:48:44 ◼   ► headphones I use, I don't know what the situation is there. I know it's not just a me thing

00:48:49 ◼   ► though, I know some other people that have it, but I know a bunch of people like you

00:48:52 ◼   ► who just use the USB pre 2. And I use by the unfortunately named Sheet company is how I

00:48:58 ◼   ► will say it, I use their Magni product which is just like a very simple headphone amp but

00:49:04 ◼   ► it does a really good job of cleaning up the audio signal that comes from the USB pre 2

00:49:08 ◼   ► me. And I use a boom arm, so my microphone is connected to an arm which can be articulated

00:49:15 ◼   ► so I can move it up and down and around and it's connected to my desk. It keeps the desk

00:49:19 ◼   ► free as well so I don't have a stand on the desk. Mine is made by a company called K&M.

00:49:25 ◼   ► The actual product is just a name as a list of numbers, so you'll find a link in the show

00:49:29 ◼   ► notes because it won't help you.

00:49:30 ◼   ► Yeah, so mine is the Heil PL2T. Very exciting in that it is a boom arm that you can stick

00:49:36 ◼   ► a microphone on and it's clamped to the side of my desk which means that when I'm done with a podcast

00:49:41 ◼   ► I can push the microphone away and it goes away and then it's not in my face. What I like about my

00:49:47 ◼   ► boom arm which I didn't have for my previous one it actually has an integrated XLR cable in it

00:49:53 ◼   ► so I don't need to do any kind of cable wrapping or anything like that. The XLR cable is built

00:49:58 ◼   ► into the boom arm itself I really like that. Yeah that's nice mine is not like that but mine is

00:50:04 ◼   ► it's got a little trench in the in the middle of the arm where you run the cable and then you snap

00:50:12 ◼   ► a little plastic thing on top. This is what I upgraded from. So it's fine, it does it and the

00:50:18 ◼   ► cable doesn't get in the way. Mine broke though, so like my higher one broke and so I needed to

00:50:24 ◼   ► change it and I went with the K&M one because I'm going to have a little upgrade. So Jason,

00:50:28 ◼   ► What do we actually recommend that people buy? You mentioned USB as a good starting point.

00:50:35 ◼   ► Yeah, there are lots of good USB microphones out there. I wrote a piece that was on Six Colors

00:50:41 ◼   ► called "A Podcast Studio for Under $100" because I was trying to figure out a way to get podcast

00:50:48 ◼   ► recommendations out there and have it be a reasonable price. And the microphone that I've

00:50:53 ◼   ► I've been recommending to people lately is the Audio Technica ATR2100 USB. For ages,

00:51:02 ◼   ► I was recommending the Blue Yeti. And I used a Blue Yeti for a long time.

00:51:08 ◼   ► So did I. Many years. Yeah, but what I've been convinced of now,

00:51:12 ◼   ► because many of the people who, you know, I edit podcasts that they're on, the problem

00:51:17 ◼   ► is that the Yeti is not great at rejecting room noise and echo. It's not. It's neat looking,

00:51:25 ◼   ► it's sturdy, but it is actually very heavy and very large. Those are not necessarily

00:51:33 ◼   ► assets, and they do break too. I wouldn't say that they're super reliable, but they

00:51:38 ◼   ► have a hardware mute button, which is their best feature. I love that about it. But they're

00:51:42 ◼   ► not really great if you're in an echoey environment. And the fact is that I could use one for a

00:51:46 ◼   ► a long time because I wasn't in echoey environments

00:51:49 ◼   ► with lots of background noise.

00:51:50 ◼   ► And so I got away with it in a way

00:51:54 ◼   ► that I think a lot of people can't.

00:51:55 ◼   ► So I'm generally recommending the Audio-Technica ATR 2100 USB

00:52:00 ◼   ► which is a weird microphone.

00:52:03 ◼   ► It looks like a handheld microphone.

00:52:05 ◼   ► As we record this, it's actually down to $64.

00:52:10 ◼   ► Sometimes I think the list is 79.

00:52:12 ◼   ► It varies on places like Amazon in the US.

00:52:15 ◼   ► I think in the UK it's more expensive.

00:52:17 ◼   ► There's some weird distributor thing

00:52:18 ◼   ► where they crank up the price on it.

00:52:21 ◼   ► But it, so it sounds good.

00:52:23 ◼   ► It's much better keeping out echo and background noise.

00:52:26 ◼   ► It is, it's got some unique features that I like about it.

00:52:30 ◼   ► It is a USB microphone

00:52:31 ◼   ► that is shaped like a handheld microphone.

00:52:33 ◼   ► So there's a headphone port on the bottom

00:52:35 ◼   ► and a volume slider and a USB mini, I think,

00:52:39 ◼   ► mini USB port on the bottom of the microphone.

00:52:42 ◼   ► so you can plug it in to your computer directly.

00:52:46 ◼   ► It also has an XLR port on it,

00:52:48 ◼   ► so if you're in a situation where you actually need

00:52:51 ◼   ► to use a USB interface box with a microphone,

00:52:54 ◼   ► you can plug it in to the USB interface box.

00:52:58 ◼   ► It makes it versatile.

00:52:59 ◼   ► It's one of the ways that I can get away

00:53:00 ◼   ► with recording a podcast on an iPad or an iPhone

00:53:05 ◼   ► is that both of them work at the same time.

00:53:08 ◼   ► So if I bring in an audio recorder attached via XLR,

00:53:11 ◼   ► I can record my microphone while it's attached

00:53:14 ◼   ► to an iOS device, which is a neat trick.

00:53:18 ◼   ► It is an edge case, but it is a neat trick

00:53:21 ◼   ► and it's a pretty good deal.

00:53:22 ◼   ► So that's the one that I'm recommending right now

00:53:26 ◼   ► is the ATR2100 USB.

00:53:28 ◼   ► There are other options.

00:53:30 ◼   ► There are a lot of good options,

00:53:31 ◼   ► but I think given the price and the versatility

00:53:35 ◼   ► and the size that this is probably the best option.

00:53:40 ◼   ► And while it doesn't have a mute button,

00:53:42 ◼   ► it has an on/off switch that works as a mute button,

00:53:45 ◼   ► basically, when you're using it.

00:53:46 ◼   ► If you flip the switch off, then nobody can hear you.

00:53:50 ◼   ► And then you flip the switch on and you come back.

00:53:52 ◼   ► - So that is a really great recommendation

00:53:54 ◼   ► for if you're starting out.

00:53:56 ◼   ► It's a really great recommendation

00:53:58 ◼   ► for if you're looking for a USB microphone,

00:54:00 ◼   ► which you should be when you're starting out.

00:54:01 ◼   ► But when you're ready to make a jump up,

00:54:04 ◼   ► I wanna make a recommendation for a microphone

00:54:07 ◼   ► that I really like a lot.

00:54:08 ◼   ► is the Shure Beta 58A.

00:54:11 ◼   ► It's like the baby cousin of the 87A,

00:54:14 ◼   ► which is an excellent microphone, but is more expensive.

00:54:19 ◼   ► The 58A, these are what we use whenever we do live stuff,

00:54:23 ◼   ► because they're about $150, so they're not cheap,

00:54:27 ◼   ► but they're nowhere near the price

00:54:28 ◼   ► of our typical microphones.

00:54:30 ◼   ► So if one got broken or something like that,

00:54:32 ◼   ► it wouldn't be the end of the world.

00:54:34 ◼   ► And it also makes it easier for us to really

00:54:36 ◼   ► found to own like four of them or whatever that Steven will bring around

00:54:39 ◼   ► in a lovely Pelican case. I think I've got four there's also a knockoff that's

00:54:43 ◼   ► the Pyle and those cost like 20 bucks mm-hmm and I've got two of those and they

00:54:50 ◼   ► sound really good if they they they're knockoffs which means I don't know they

00:54:54 ◼   ► might you they might be of variable quality and they might break. My

00:54:58 ◼   ► expectation is those those microphones are made in the same factory worthy. I

00:55:03 ◼   ► I think, yeah, I suspect that they're the same product and that there is a company that

00:55:08 ◼   ► when at night when they're not making Shure betas, they're making the Pyle PDM, whatever

00:55:13 ◼   ► it is.

00:55:14 ◼   ► We'll put a link in the show notes, but I have those two and those are those are super

00:55:17 ◼   ► cheap and I have four real Shure beta 58As and then I have a couple of those Pyle mics,

00:55:23 ◼   ► but honestly, they all work and they're all really good and it's not as expensive as the

00:55:28 ◼   ► better Shure beta mic that Marco likes, but they're very good.

00:55:32 ◼   ► a little bit pricey, but it is a good microphone. And if I was doing really good step up. Yeah,

00:55:38 ◼   ► it is the step up pick now with the sure beta 58 a which you and I own and really owns.

00:55:44 ◼   ► We have many of these in our collections. You do need a USB interface and I will point

00:55:49 ◼   ► out another story that I wrote on six colors, which is a review. I did of low cost USB audio

00:55:53 ◼   ► interfaces actually went on Amazon and ordered like eight USB audio interfaces or something

00:55:57 ◼   ► and reviewed them all and kept some and sent some back. And there are a few that I can

00:56:02 ◼   ► and you may want to recommend one too, I don't know.

00:56:04 ◼   ► But the ones that I like the best,

00:56:06 ◼   ► Tastam makes one that's called the 2x2.

00:56:08 ◼   ► It's got inputs for two.

00:56:09 ◼   ► - I use that.

00:56:10 ◼   ► I have one of those, I use it and it's great.

00:56:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, and most microphones will work with it just fine.

00:56:16 ◼   ► It is often available for 120 bucks.

00:56:20 ◼   ► Right now, as we record, it's 150 bucks,

00:56:22 ◼   ► but you can watch the prices there.

00:56:24 ◼   ► They also make a 1x2, which is $99 generally.

00:56:29 ◼   ► and I didn't review it, but it's probably quite similar.

00:56:32 ◼   ► My only issue there is you lose some flexibility.

00:56:36 ◼   ► One of the nice things about XLR

00:56:38 ◼   ► is if you get a two-microphone box,

00:56:41 ◼   ► it means you can get two microphones

00:56:44 ◼   ► and do two-person podcasts or interviews or things,

00:56:47 ◼   ► and that's awfully nice,

00:56:48 ◼   ► but you could get a one-microphone box if you wanted.

00:56:51 ◼   ► I also liked the Presonus Audio Box,

00:56:54 ◼   ► which is usually more expensive than the other options,

00:56:57 ◼   ► which kind of knocks it down. Although it's $140 right now when I look at it.

00:57:02 ◼   ► And the Macchionics Blackjack 2x2, which is often cheaper, when I reviewed it, it

00:57:09 ◼   ► was $100, but now it's $200. So these all go kind of up and down, and

00:57:12 ◼   ► they're all pretty good. They all have different, like, hardware layouts. Like, a

00:57:16 ◼   ► couple of them are very, sort of, all the controls are on the front. The Macchionics

00:57:20 ◼   ► Blackjack is more like a mixer, so it's got a bunch of knobs. You plug the

00:57:25 ◼   ► microphones into the back and then it's got a bunch of knobs kind of at an

00:57:28 ◼   ► angle it's just a different kind of thing so people can look at that article

00:57:31 ◼   ► those three were all pretty good the focus right scarlets I've heard people

00:57:35 ◼   ► like I tested them and I thought they were really bad and had like

00:57:39 ◼   ► interference problems and stuff but but anyway there are microphones you can you

00:57:45 ◼   ► shop around and maybe you wait a little bit you can probably find a microphone

00:57:48 ◼   ► for or a USB box for around a hundred bucks maybe a little bit more and then

00:57:54 ◼   ► And that's what you plug the Shure beta into.

00:57:56 ◼   ► - So I wanna make a recommendation for a product,

00:57:59 ◼   ► which is, again, it's up on that scale a little bit.

00:58:01 ◼   ► You'd be going a little bit higher.

00:58:03 ◼   ► It's kind of around the $400 range,

00:58:07 ◼   ► which is the Zoom H6, which is a field recorder.

00:58:12 ◼   ► The reason I recommend Zoom,

00:58:14 ◼   ► the Zoom's versatility is what makes it so amazing.

00:58:16 ◼   ► - It's amazing.

00:58:17 ◼   ► - You can use this thing, I mean, with a H6,

00:58:20 ◼   ► you can get, how many XLR inputs you got in the H6?

00:58:23 ◼   ► - You get four, right?

00:58:24 ◼   ► - You get four plus that you can buy an adapter

00:58:26 ◼   ► that makes it six.

00:58:27 ◼   ► - So that's kind of why it's called the six.

00:58:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, it's weird though,

00:58:30 ◼   ► because the way they do it is you can record six tracks,

00:58:33 ◼   ► but by default, it's sort of like you can have four XLRs,

00:58:36 ◼   ► and then there's a little microphone attachment on the front

00:58:39 ◼   ► that has like a left and right microphone.

00:58:40 ◼   ► And the idea there is that that's your six tracks,

00:58:42 ◼   ► but you can pop that off and they sell a two XLR add-on,

00:58:46 ◼   ► and then you've got six.

00:58:47 ◼   ► They also make an H4, which is the same deal.

00:58:51 ◼   ► It's fewer inputs, but it does that very soon.

00:58:54 ◼   ► - Which might be a good idea.

00:58:55 ◼   ► - And it's a great product.

00:58:56 ◼   ► And I was gonna mention this too.

00:58:58 ◼   ► It's funny that you put it in here

00:58:59 ◼   ► 'cause it is one of those things where it is a weird product

00:59:02 ◼   ► and it gets overlooked

00:59:04 ◼   ► when you're talking about USB interfaces

00:59:05 ◼   ► because it's a portable recorder, right?

00:59:07 ◼   ► Which I wanna recommend as a portable recorder.

00:59:11 ◼   ► Like if you go around in your recording podcasts,

00:59:14 ◼   ► getting one of these Zoom recorders,

00:59:16 ◼   ► they record on an SD card and they have XLR inputs.

00:59:19 ◼   ► so you just plug in, or a microphone,

00:59:22 ◼   ► they also come with their own microphone

00:59:23 ◼   ► that you can just put in somebody's face.

00:59:25 ◼   ► And this is what radio reporters use and all of that.

00:59:27 ◼   ► But if you're doing live shows,

00:59:28 ◼   ► or if you're just interviewing people out in the world,

00:59:31 ◼   ► you bring your microphones,

00:59:32 ◼   ► your XLR microphone that you use for podcasting,

00:59:35 ◼   ► you bring it with you, and maybe you've got a spare as well.

00:59:37 ◼   ► And you can do an interview anywhere,

00:59:41 ◼   ► and the battery life is really good,

00:59:43 ◼   ► and you can store a whole lot of audio

00:59:45 ◼   ► on one of those little SD cards.

00:59:47 ◼   ► But I think the reason you mentioned it, Myke,

00:59:49 ◼   ► is that if you plug it in to your computer via USB,

00:59:53 ◼   ► guess what, it becomes a USB audio interface.

00:59:55 ◼   ► - Yep, so you can record to it via SD card,

00:59:59 ◼   ► you can record with it via USB,

01:00:02 ◼   ► you can record with it on battery power,

01:00:04 ◼   ► you can record with it plugged in.

01:00:06 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:00:07 ◼   ► - It is, its versatility is incredible.

01:00:10 ◼   ► And you know, this might be,

01:00:12 ◼   ► if you're buying an XLR microphone,

01:00:15 ◼   ► I really recommend taking a serious look at this,

01:00:17 ◼   ► because the Zoom's versatility means

01:00:20 ◼   ► you only need to buy one product

01:00:22 ◼   ► and that product might last you

01:00:23 ◼   ► in any situation you wanna be in.

01:00:26 ◼   ► Like I own a Zoom and we own,

01:00:29 ◼   ► I own one and Steven owns one as well,

01:00:31 ◼   ► because if I'm traveling anywhere to do any type of show,

01:00:34 ◼   ► it's always recorded on the Zoom

01:00:36 ◼   ► because I know the Zoom is gonna get it right

01:00:38 ◼   ► every single time.

01:00:40 ◼   ► Those things are amazing.

01:00:42 ◼   ► - We're laptop running software

01:00:44 ◼   ► that's recording and all that,

01:00:45 ◼   ► like the software could record wrong,

01:00:46 ◼   ► the inputs could be wrong.

01:00:47 ◼   ► When you have a dedicated recorder,

01:00:50 ◼   ► all of the fear really goes away

01:00:53 ◼   ► as long as it's got power or battery.

01:00:55 ◼   ► It just, it's not a problem.

01:00:58 ◼   ► And the only thing is, I will say it is,

01:01:02 ◼   ► it's a little bit weird in that like when you plug it in

01:01:05 ◼   ► to use it as an interface,

01:01:05 ◼   ► you kind of, you still have to like turn it on and say,

01:01:07 ◼   ► please put this in USB audio mode and all of that.

01:01:10 ◼   ► So it's more fiddly than a regular-

01:01:12 ◼   ► - It's a little set up every time.

01:01:13 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Yeah.

01:01:14 ◼   ► - But it is super versatile.

01:01:16 ◼   ► The H6, again, is one of those things that like,

01:01:19 ◼   ► I bought an H4, which is a lot cheaper, it's 200.

01:01:24 ◼   ► And I really liked it.

01:01:25 ◼   ► And then I realized I was doing podcasts

01:01:27 ◼   ► with six people or more,

01:01:29 ◼   ► and that they made one that I could record six microphones,

01:01:32 ◼   ► and I bought more microphones, and I bought the H6,

01:01:34 ◼   ► and I sold off the H4, because the H6 is about 350 bucks.

01:01:38 ◼   ► It's not cheap, but it is so versatile.

01:01:40 ◼   ► And if you ever expect to leave your room

01:01:44 ◼   ► and record podcasts out in the world

01:01:46 ◼   ► or go on trips and talk to people.

01:01:48 ◼   ► Like it is a spectacular piece of technology.

01:01:52 ◼   ► And I remember, I was telling Stephen Hackett this

01:01:54 ◼   ► not too long ago,

01:01:55 ◼   ► I remember the first Compact Flash based recorder

01:01:57 ◼   ► that we got at Macworld.

01:01:59 ◼   ► It took like, I wanna say, I don't think it was,

01:02:02 ◼   ► maybe it was four double A's, four double A batteries.

01:02:06 ◼   ► And you could record for about 40 minutes

01:02:08 ◼   ► and then the batteries were dead.

01:02:10 ◼   ► And the Compact Flash card could hold, you know,

01:02:13 ◼   ► a couple hours, and that was it.

01:02:15 ◼   ► Today, with these Zoom recorders,

01:02:17 ◼   ► if you put four AA batteries in these things,

01:02:19 ◼   ► they'll go for like 12, 15, 20 hours.

01:02:22 ◼   ► I don't know, it's a long time, a very long time.

01:02:25 ◼   ► And those SD cards will hold days of audio.

01:02:31 ◼   ► So you can literally just keep recording things

01:02:33 ◼   ► and never erase it, and it would be a long time

01:02:35 ◼   ► before the card filled up.

01:02:36 ◼   ► So it's pretty amazing how the tech has advanced

01:02:40 ◼   ► on audio recording stuff.

01:02:41 ◼   ► and it's worth keeping in mind, especially if you're not recording podcasts on Skype

01:02:47 ◼   ► but you're just doing things in person with people, you don't even need a computer setup

01:02:51 ◼   ► then. You need microphones and a recorder. And do it that way.

01:02:55 ◼   ► Alright, let's quickly blast through the software, because I feel like I have less to say on

01:02:59 ◼   ► the software because it's too complicated to get into in detail. We both use Logic Pro

01:03:07 ◼   ► 10 for our editing. I think we have both used GarageBand, GarageBand, that's what you should

01:03:12 ◼   ► start with, but it gets to a certain point if you're dealing with lots of tracks, so you've got

01:03:16 ◼   ► lots of little clips that you want to put in that you need something that has a bit more versatility,

01:03:21 ◼   ► a little bit more reliability, and that's when Logic steps in. But there is a huge learning curve

01:03:26 ◼   ► for Logic. I recommend finding a company that has a course on it and taking a look at those courses

01:03:35 ◼   ► to try and help understand how to use it because it is difficult because it's not made for

01:03:38 ◼   ► podcasting it's made for music creation so you kind of have to bend it to your will a little bit

01:03:43 ◼   ► but it is great. We both use audio hijack from Rogomiba as a way to record our audio coming in

01:03:52 ◼   ► right now both me and Jason will be doing this where we are recording our local track and

01:03:57 ◼   ► recording the skype track independently so we have those for backups and we have them in case

01:04:02 ◼   ► we need them. And I think, I know I do, I believe that you do, I use two different pieces

01:04:08 ◼   ► of software to record my voice whenever I'm recording so I have another backup. And for

01:04:14 ◼   ► me Audio Hijack is my backup but the recording that I will use comes from Ecamm Core Recorder

01:04:20 ◼   ► for Skype. This is like the software that's been around forever. It will just record Skype

01:04:25 ◼   ► calls for you, it has some little tools to help you export the audio into loads of different

01:04:28 ◼   ► formats and it's rock solid for me and I love Ecamm.

01:04:32 ◼   ► For me, Call Recorder is basically my backup, because a lot of times I'm recording in, like,

01:04:38 ◼   ► Call Recorder records lossy, and it generally doesn't matter, or I have it set to lossy,

01:04:44 ◼   ► but I'm recording like a WAV, just a completely lossless file on Audio Hijack.

01:04:48 ◼   ► But either way, I have two, and the reason is that, you know, one is none and two is

01:04:52 ◼   ► one, basically.

01:04:53 ◼   ► Things fail.

01:04:54 ◼   ► I've been bitten by a hard crash, where even though it was recording my audio to disk the

01:05:00 ◼   ► whole time the file was still unrecoverable. That's a QuickTime format problem that a call

01:05:05 ◼   ► recorder has. Whereas if you're writing out a WAV or an AIFF to disk, it's just the raw

01:05:11 ◼   ► audio data and it can be recovered after a hard crash. So we do that and we record each

01:05:15 ◼   ► other on the Skype, coming from Skype as well on a separate track because what if one of

01:05:20 ◼   ► us forgot to press record or loses their file in some way? You've got a backup and backups

01:05:26 ◼   ► are really important to podcasting because mistakes happen.

01:05:32 ◼   ► Even the most—we just recently did a Total Party Kill episode where one of the most experienced

01:05:38 ◼   ► podcasters and podcast editors, Erika Ensign, her computer crashed, or her Audacity—because

01:05:47 ◼   ► she uses a PC—she was recording on Audacity and it crashed. And they've got a crash recovery

01:05:53 ◼   ► feature, so she opens it up and says, "Would you like to recover the file?" And she says,

01:05:56 ◼   ► and nothing happened. And so she lost her entire audio track. So that episode, those

01:06:02 ◼   ► series of episodes, she's cut in from the backup because we had a backup of her over

01:06:07 ◼   ► the internet and that's what we used. So, you know, belt and suspenders.

01:06:12 ◼   ► - Yep. And also as the audio editor, you use the Skype track to help line up with the track

01:06:19 ◼   ► from the other person as well. - Right. Timing is very important. So you

01:06:21 ◼   ► use that to line up when everybody's talking, especially if you've got many people talking.

01:06:25 ◼   ► I also use very frequently another application from Rogue Amoeba called Fission.

01:06:30 ◼   ► Fission, I use it for two different things.

01:06:33 ◼   ► One, it is an incredibly fast and efficient file format converter.

01:06:37 ◼   ► So sometimes someone might send me an MP4 and I need a WAV so I can do the editing that

01:06:42 ◼   ► I want to do and the way that I want to do it and Fission does a very good job of that.

01:06:46 ◼   ► It also is, it will also allow you to edit MP3 files without re-encoding them.

01:06:53 ◼   ► if you want to edit an mp3 file an application will encode it into something else and then

01:06:57 ◼   ► encode it back into mp3. So it's like a lossless mp3 editing application. So sometimes I've

01:07:03 ◼   ► had this where like maybe there was a bit of silence at the end of a file and I don't

01:07:06 ◼   ► want to open up logic and edit it and bounce it again or something like that. So I can

01:07:10 ◼   ► just open up Fission, chop it out, save it, and it's done. And so I really like it for

01:07:14 ◼   ► those two features.

01:07:15 ◼   ► That Fission is how Myke at the movies over on the incomparable happens. Literally I take

01:07:20 ◼   ► the mp3 of upgrade or analog and strip out the rest of the show and leave the mic of

01:07:26 ◼   ► the movie segment and that way I'm not re-encoding the mp3 or anything like that I'm just pulling

01:07:31 ◼   ► out the stuff that is not the mic of the movies and then I resave it with new art which it

01:07:35 ◼   ► supports mp3 art and all of that and yeah yeah rogue amoeba has got a lot of great stuff

01:07:42 ◼   ► and they do have a bundle too if you want to get a bunch of this stuff including ferrago

01:07:47 ◼   ► which is their soundboard app that's new and Loopback, which is a great utility.

01:07:53 ◼   ► Which is witchcraft. Yeah, that lets you create sort of like virtual

01:07:56 ◼   ► inputs and outputs and route sound between different apps in different ways. It's kind

01:08:02 ◼   ► of hard to describe it. It's a feature that probably should be built into the OS, but

01:08:06 ◼   ► it's not. And so, Rogomiba built it, and it's great.

01:08:09 ◼   ► Yeah, it's wild that you can't do a better job with this stuff on Mac OS.

01:08:13 ◼   ► I don't, yeah. Yeah.

01:08:14 ◼   ► Rogamiva had to come in and fix it. I use Adobe Audition. I use Adobe Audition for sound, like

01:08:24 ◼   ► volume level matching. He has a great tool for this to match loudness is what it's called.

01:08:29 ◼   ► So I will just drop all my tracks in there and I match it to the same level so everybody's

01:08:34 ◼   ► audio is the same. I use this feature instead of compressors. This is just a thing that I do

01:08:41 ◼   ► and it works fantastically. It's an extremely expensive audio processing and leveling utility

01:08:47 ◼   ► that you're using because most people will just edit their entire podcast in Audition. I know a

01:08:51 ◼   ► bunch of people who do that. It's also very good for that. I don't because I've optimized myself,

01:08:57 ◼   ► I feel like, with Logic to the point where I can't imagine that I would become faster. I can't bend

01:09:02 ◼   ► my brain. I cannot bend my brain around compressors. I've never really understood them and it doesn't

01:09:07 ◼   ► no matter how many times I try and learn,

01:09:08 ◼   ► I just can't seem to get what I want.

01:09:11 ◼   ► This allows me to do it very quickly.

01:09:13 ◼   ► It saves me time every single time I'm at an issue.

01:09:16 ◼   ► - I have a hard time with compressors too.

01:09:18 ◼   ► And if there's a podcasting expert out there

01:09:20 ◼   ► who wants to send in a great resource

01:09:22 ◼   ► that simplifies how compressors work,

01:09:24 ◼   ► I'd love to hear it

01:09:25 ◼   ► because I have struggled with them a lot.

01:09:28 ◼   ► I will say the compressor that I'm using now is not,

01:09:33 ◼   ► I think a particularly good piece of software

01:09:35 ◼   ► in that it seems really inefficient.

01:09:37 ◼   ► It crashes on iOS for me, but I am using it a lot

01:09:41 ◼   ► and it's called CorfPresser,

01:09:43 ◼   ► which is a super weird name for a product from Clefgränd,

01:09:47 ◼   ► which is a company in Sweden.

01:09:49 ◼   ► What's good about it is that its interface is like a tube.

01:09:54 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:09:55 ◼   ► It's really simple.

01:09:56 ◼   ► Basically, you have an input, compression,

01:09:59 ◼   ► and an output level, and you just,

01:10:02 ◼   ► you make those bigger or smaller, and that's it.

01:10:04 ◼   ► And that has been very useful to me in being like getting the sound I want,

01:10:10 ◼   ► which, because a compressor basically is another way to make, it makes, it can make

01:10:15 ◼   ► loud sounds and quiet sounds sound closer to each other. It reduces the

01:10:20 ◼   ► dynamic range, and that's a way to match levels from people that is

01:10:25 ◼   ► different from using Audition, which is what what Myke uses. So I'm using

01:10:29 ◼   ► Core Presser a little bit now to do it, but that's one thing that I want to

01:10:34 ◼   ► I want to be better at and do better kind of audio magic.

01:10:37 ◼   ► Because the last thing you want is for a loud person

01:10:38 ◼   ► and a quiet person in a podcast.

01:10:40 ◼   ► You want them all to sound the same level.

01:10:42 ◼   ► Oh, and I should mention Forecast by Marco Arment,

01:10:44 ◼   ► who starred in a lot of these things here.

01:10:46 ◼   ► He built Forecast and it's actually publicly available.

01:10:48 ◼   ► And I think we both use that to encode MP3s and tag them

01:10:52 ◼   ► and do our chapter markers.

01:10:53 ◼   ► We mark, in Logic, we actually mark set markers

01:10:57 ◼   ► and then you export the file as a WAV,

01:10:59 ◼   ► which I like to do anyway,

01:11:01 ◼   ► because that gives me an uncompressed master file

01:11:04 ◼   ► that I can save of like, this is the master of the podcast,

01:11:07 ◼   ► and then I can encode MP3s off of that.

01:11:09 ◼   ► And I use forecast to do that.

01:11:10 ◼   ► It picks up those markers,

01:11:12 ◼   ► makes them into MP3 chapter markers,

01:11:14 ◼   ► automatically knows that this file is called the incomparable

01:11:16 ◼   ► and puts the incomparable name on it

01:11:17 ◼   ► and puts the art in it and all of that,

01:11:19 ◼   ► which is very convenient.

01:11:20 ◼   ► So that's a great app.

01:11:21 ◼   ► And it uses the eight cores on my iMac Pro

01:11:24 ◼   ► to crank that thing out in no time.

01:11:27 ◼   ► I also use Marco's command line utility sidetrack

01:11:30 ◼   ► to line up all my files.

01:11:33 ◼   ► it's not available publicly.

01:11:35 ◼   ► I hope one day he releases it publicly.

01:11:37 ◼   ► I'd like a UI on it too, but...

01:11:39 ◼   ► - I have a UI.

01:11:40 ◼   ► - We've talked about like getting another developer

01:11:43 ◼   ► to secretly write a UI to the secret product.

01:11:45 ◼   ► I hope it gets released sometime, but...

01:11:47 ◼   ► And the other thing that I use is a bunch of things.

01:11:50 ◼   ► A lot of them started with the stuff

01:11:52 ◼   ► that Marco handed me actually,

01:11:53 ◼   ► but it's a lot of shell scripts,

01:11:55 ◼   ► which seems super nerdy.

01:11:56 ◼   ► And I'm gonna make it nerdier by saying

01:11:58 ◼   ► that I actually wrap them,

01:12:00 ◼   ► shell scripts or Apple scripts,

01:12:02 ◼   ► around an automator plugin.

01:12:04 ◼   ► So now it's super nerdy, but here's the,

01:12:06 ◼   ► the end result is that when I want to convert a file

01:12:09 ◼   ► into a WAV, I just select it in a finder

01:12:12 ◼   ► and do like command shift W or command option W,

01:12:15 ◼   ► and it makes a WAV of that file.

01:12:17 ◼   ► And what it's doing is these are automator,

01:12:20 ◼   ► they're services plugins.

01:12:22 ◼   ► So they're plugins for the finder that run a script.

01:12:25 ◼   ► And I've got a bunch of them.

01:12:26 ◼   ► I've got one that does sidetrack.

01:12:27 ◼   ► I've got one that generates WAVs.

01:12:29 ◼   ► I've got one that extracts track one

01:12:31 ◼   ► from a call recorder dot MOV file and outputs it as a wave so that you're getting—because

01:12:36 ◼   ► call recorder will have two tracks, the person talking and the other side of the call. I

01:12:41 ◼   ► only want the first track usually, so I've got a script that does that. And it's generally

01:12:45 ◼   ► using FFmpeg in the command line to do that, and FFmpeg will talk to LAME if it needs to

01:12:49 ◼   ► encode it as an MP3. Also, when I'm sending files off to a third-party editor, to somebody

01:12:55 ◼   ► like Jim Metzendorf or Erica Ensign or Steven Schapansky, who are people who edit podcasts

01:12:59 ◼   ► for me. I don't want to send them giant WAV files, so I have a finder script that

01:13:05 ◼   ► basically uses ffmpeg and lame to generate a high bitrate mp3, which is a

01:13:11 ◼   ► much smaller file, and then I just instead of encoding them manually, I just

01:13:16 ◼   ► use that script and it does it in the background in the finder, and then I drag

01:13:19 ◼   ► those files into Dropbox and they get the files. So there's a bunch of stuff

01:13:23 ◼   ► that is, you know, it's super nerdy but at the same time it's incredibly useful. I

01:13:28 ◼   ► I just had to set it up myself because,

01:13:30 ◼   ► fortunately, the Finder lets you do that,

01:13:32 ◼   ► lets you have these kind of like automation plugins

01:13:35 ◼   ► that in the end just feel like features of the Finder

01:13:38 ◼   ► that I wrote, I guess,

01:13:41 ◼   ► but it was worth the little bit of effort

01:13:44 ◼   ► to figure out what the command should be

01:13:46 ◼   ► in order to get the result,

01:13:48 ◼   ► which is that it saves me a lot of time

01:13:50 ◼   ► in processing files in the Finder.

01:13:52 ◼   ► And speaking of which, before we go,

01:13:54 ◼   ► I wanted to talk,

01:13:55 ◼   ► this wasn't even in our outline originally,

01:13:56 ◼   ► but I think it's worth at least talking about briefly

01:13:59 ◼   ► how we do our workflow.

01:14:00 ◼   ► Like how does the show get made

01:14:02 ◼   ► when two shows love each other very much?

01:14:04 ◼   ► How does the show get made?

01:14:05 ◼   ► And it has to do with like files,

01:14:11 ◼   ► especially this big audio file.

01:14:12 ◼   ► So for me, I'll go first here.

01:14:15 ◼   ► For me, I get the recordings from whoever I'm doing

01:14:18 ◼   ► and then I will convert them all to WAV.

01:14:22 ◼   ► I will use sidetrack on them to get them to align.

01:14:25 ◼   ► I'll use iZotope RX6, which is a product we didn't mention,

01:14:29 ◼   ► which is like magic audio processor.

01:14:33 ◼   ► There are a bunch of versions,

01:14:34 ◼   ► some of which are very expensive

01:14:35 ◼   ► and some of which are cheap.

01:14:36 ◼   ► I use their spectral denoise plugin

01:14:38 ◼   ► to remove background noise from everybody's tracks

01:14:41 ◼   ► if people are in loud environments

01:14:42 ◼   ► with air conditioners or heaters

01:14:44 ◼   ► or water heaters or whatever.

01:14:46 ◼   ► Removes hums, I can actually remove room echo

01:14:49 ◼   ► with their de-reverb plugin, which is amazing.

01:14:52 ◼   ► And so I use that to process those files too.

01:14:55 ◼   ► and then I get them all into Logic.

01:14:56 ◼   ► And the other thing I'll say is I have a full,

01:14:58 ◼   ► I have a zip file for each of my podcasts that I edit.

01:15:00 ◼   ► This is the one that CGP Grey discovered that I did this

01:15:03 ◼   ► and he was like, "That's a great idea."

01:15:05 ◼   ► And I think he does this now.

01:15:06 ◼   ► I basically made a generic project for each of my podcasts

01:15:09 ◼   ► that's got like the files where they need to be,

01:15:11 ◼   ► the music, the music's in the Logic project.

01:15:13 ◼   ► And then I just quit out of that generic file template

01:15:17 ◼   ► and I zip that folder

01:15:19 ◼   ► and I keep it as a template zip on my desktop.

01:15:23 ◼   ► So I'll double click on Incomparable

01:15:25 ◼   ► and it'll open an incomparable folder,

01:15:28 ◼   ► and then I'll drag the files in there,

01:15:30 ◼   ► sync them, denoise them, and all of that.

01:15:32 ◼   ► And if I'm editing it right away,

01:15:34 ◼   ► I'll edit it right away and then file it on my Drobo

01:15:37 ◼   ► in a folder for whatever podcast it is.

01:15:42 ◼   ► If I'm not editing it right away,

01:15:43 ◼   ► I have a different folder that's called Works in Progress,

01:15:45 ◼   ► and it goes in there, and that gets backed up

01:15:49 ◼   ► and all of that, so that I've got access to that stuff.

01:15:53 ◼   ► And it's also kind of like a reminder to me

01:15:55 ◼   ► that these are still in process.

01:15:57 ◼   ► These are still not, these are still pending.

01:15:59 ◼   ► And then for my really timely podcasts,

01:16:01 ◼   ► I have a, on my server, I have a Hazel script that fires

01:16:05 ◼   ► that will delete projects after some period of time.

01:16:10 ◼   ► So like, if I'm doing a, like download, I edit.

01:16:15 ◼   ► After two months, the download projects get thrown away

01:16:17 ◼   ► because I don't need all the master tracks

01:16:19 ◼   ► for a timely news-based podcast.

01:16:22 ◼   ► whereas the incomparable I keep forever.

01:16:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't really have a ton to say on this.

01:16:26 ◼   ► I don't have anything smart going on, right?

01:16:28 ◼   ► Like I have a similar thing with you

01:16:29 ◼   ► where I have Hazel dumping out the projects.

01:16:31 ◼   ► - How long do you keep your projects?

01:16:33 ◼   ► - Like a couple of months.

01:16:35 ◼   ► I don't remember the exact amount of time,

01:16:36 ◼   ► but not even that.

01:16:37 ◼   ► You know, the only logic files that I keep are Cortex

01:16:41 ◼   ► and they're just stored in Dropbox.

01:16:43 ◼   ► - All right.

01:16:44 ◼   ► - Because we actually pass the show backwards and forwards

01:16:47 ◼   ► in Dropbox during our project editing.

01:16:50 ◼   ► So they're already there.

01:16:52 ◼   ► So it's just a case of selective syncing them away

01:16:55 ◼   ► from our machines, which we do.

01:16:57 ◼   ► I actually have a folder that I put past projects into

01:17:00 ◼   ► on the Dropbox website, and then they just disappear

01:17:02 ◼   ► from both mine and Greg's machines

01:17:03 ◼   ► 'cause we selective synced that folder away.

01:17:05 ◼   ► - That makes sense.

01:17:06 ◼   ► - And because I have a terabyte of Dropbox space,

01:17:09 ◼   ► which I'm never gonna use, it will just serve as a place

01:17:12 ◼   ► to store our files for the time being,

01:17:14 ◼   ► and then I have backblaze pointed at that, right?

01:17:17 ◼   ► So it's backing that up.

01:17:18 ◼   ► But for basically every single one of my shows that I'm editing, I don't really need to keep

01:17:23 ◼   ► the logic files for them, honestly.

01:17:25 ◼   ► They never need re-editing or anything like that because they're by and large weekly news-based

01:17:32 ◼   ► shows.

01:17:33 ◼   ► If I ever need a clip from them, I'll just grab a clip from the MP3.

01:17:35 ◼   ► It's going to be absolutely fine.

01:17:37 ◼   ► So I don't really have anything like, I don't have a server, I haven't got all this stuff

01:17:41 ◼   ► because by and large, every show that I edit is published as soon as it can possibly be.

01:17:48 ◼   ► So like there isn't a case of like banking stuff or whatever.

01:17:50 ◼   ► But if I ever do have to bank anything for a trip, I just put it in Dropbox.

01:17:54 ◼   ► So it's accessible everywhere and it's backed up and it's versioned on Dropbox and all that

01:17:59 ◼   ► kind of stuff.

01:18:00 ◼   ► It works well for me.

01:18:01 ◼   ► Sounds good.

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01:20:29 ◼   ► Should we talk about money? Money, money, money. Yeah, let's do, yeah, baby, let's talk about,

01:20:34 ◼   ► yeah, sure, why not? We should. Because this is something I think like we have to talk about the

01:20:39 ◼   ► practicalities of monetization. I think that that is an important thing to talk about. And as we

01:20:42 ◼   ► know, monetization is what happens when a wizard appears and taps his magic wand and turns a person

01:20:47 ◼   ► into a bag of money. So there are many ways, there are a handful of ways that you can make money

01:20:56 ◼   ► doing a podcast. But before I talk about any of my opinions on any of these things,

01:21:00 ◼   ► let me talk to you about the realness of this for a second. If you are starting out a show or you're

01:21:06 ◼   ► early on in a show, please don't do that podcast just for the idea that you're going to make money

01:21:10 ◼   ► or that you want to make money. Because the thing is, this might feel like a small industry,

01:21:17 ◼   ► but it's not. It wasn't five years ago and it's certainly not now. There is and there will always

01:21:24 ◼   ► be more people looking to get sponsors on their shows than there will be sponsors, because

01:21:29 ◼   ► those things just grow at the same time. Yes, there are more companies sponsoring now, but

01:21:33 ◼   ► there are more shows with vaster audiences with larger requirements for budgets and stuff.

01:21:38 ◼   ► So the economy of our industry has remained mostly the same, even though things are boosting.

01:21:44 ◼   ► You know, like you're seeing numbers like, "Oh, this amount of hundreds of millions

01:21:48 ◼   ► spent every year but it's working in scale as it has been for the last few years. So

01:21:55 ◼   ► all of this is to say it's really hard to get a sponsor on your show and it's really

01:22:00 ◼   ► hard to get those relationships, keep those relationships and make it something that's

01:22:04 ◼   ► worthwhile for you. So please don't assume that just by starting a podcast you'll make

01:22:10 ◼   ► it big and you're going to make money. One thing we're not going to talk about today

01:22:15 ◼   ► is how to grow audiences.

01:22:16 ◼   ► And the reason for that is, who knows?

01:22:19 ◼   ► It's really hard.

01:22:20 ◼   ► And I have no real tips for you.

01:22:22 ◼   ► The tip that I'll give, which is the same

01:22:24 ◼   ► that I'll always give, which no one ever wants to hear,

01:22:26 ◼   ► is keep doing it.

01:22:27 ◼   ► Keep showing up and keep doing it.

01:22:29 ◼   ► Because you'll learn and you'll get better over time,

01:22:32 ◼   ► and the better you get, the more likely you'll be.

01:22:34 ◼   ► And honestly, one of the things is most people give up.

01:22:37 ◼   ► So if you keep going, you have a better chance,

01:22:39 ◼   ► your odds increase, 'cause most people give up.

01:22:41 ◼   ► So if you just don't give up, that's how I did it.

01:22:44 ◼   ► I was recording shows for many years and no one cared.

01:22:47 ◼   ► I just didn't give up.

01:22:48 ◼   ► - And it's not a guarantee that not giving up

01:22:50 ◼   ► will make you able to make a living doing podcasting.

01:22:54 ◼   ► There's no guarantee there.

01:22:55 ◼   ► - It won't make any money.

01:22:56 ◼   ► - But if you don't give up, you at least,

01:22:59 ◼   ► you can't win if you don't play, right?

01:23:01 ◼   ► And it's so true that so many times,

01:23:04 ◼   ► we see these announcements about like,

01:23:06 ◼   ► "I'm doing this podcast, I'm doing this podcast."

01:23:07 ◼   ► And the fact is most of the time, it doesn't stick.

01:23:10 ◼   ► It just doesn't stick.

01:23:12 ◼   ► So being consistent, part of being consistent,

01:23:15 ◼   ► we always say be consistent, is to keep doing it.

01:23:18 ◼   ► Like every week, same time, keep going.

01:23:21 ◼   ► - So when, when shall I get sponsors?

01:23:23 ◼   ► This is the thing that people ask me all the time.

01:23:25 ◼   ► When, when shall I get sponsors?

01:23:27 ◼   ► Like first question, you know,

01:23:30 ◼   ► how long should your show be around for?

01:23:31 ◼   ► I think that you should have a show,

01:23:34 ◼   ► have a little bit of a history before you try

01:23:36 ◼   ► and grab some sponsors in,

01:23:38 ◼   ► even if you've got lots of downloads, you know,

01:23:40 ◼   ► people say, how many downloads should you have?

01:23:42 ◼   ► I mean this number changes a lot.

01:23:44 ◼   ► I mean I find that to try and go in cold to a company now

01:23:48 ◼   ► of any kind of size, you're probably looking

01:23:50 ◼   ► at the 15 to 20,000 downloads per episode.

01:23:53 ◼   ► This is, you can get sponsorship on shows

01:23:57 ◼   ► that are smaller than that,

01:23:59 ◼   ► but if you're going in on your own,

01:24:01 ◼   ► and that's, you know, you have just have this one show

01:24:03 ◼   ► and it has that amount of money,

01:24:05 ◼   ► at those amounts of downloads, you know,

01:24:06 ◼   ► that's gonna make people turn their head.

01:24:08 ◼   ► If you go in and say I have 8,000 downloads,

01:24:10 ◼   ► which is an incredible number to have,

01:24:12 ◼   ► but it's hard for a sponsor to just to commit

01:24:15 ◼   ► the time required for the return

01:24:17 ◼   ► that they would get on that one.

01:24:18 ◼   ► You need to have a larger audience to go in

01:24:21 ◼   ► and do this kind of thing on your own.

01:24:22 ◼   ► Even if you have those numbers,

01:24:24 ◼   ► and again, those numbers are not hard and fast,

01:24:26 ◼   ► that's just from my personal experience

01:24:28 ◼   ► of doing this stuff for the last five years or whatever

01:24:33 ◼   ► at a serious scale.

01:24:35 ◼   ► When regards to how long your show should be around,

01:24:38 ◼   ► think that it's important that it is likely that you will have established a relationship

01:24:44 ◼   ► with your listeners. And this can take a little bit of time. That time varies, show to show.

01:24:48 ◼   ► The reason I say this is because my personal theory is that people only support shows with

01:24:55 ◼   ► coupon codes and stuff like that, support the sponsors of shows that they like, of shows

01:25:00 ◼   ► that they think fondly about. And that comes with having a relationship with the listener

01:25:04 ◼   ► and that usually comes with a thing over time. You'll notice as a podcast listener, you hear

01:25:10 ◼   ► similar sponsors on many shows. So when it comes to you buying your product from Acme

01:25:18 ◼   ► sponsor, you will probably enter the promo code of the show that you film most fondly

01:25:22 ◼   ► for. So I think it's important that you have given time for your show to really build a

01:25:28 ◼   ► relationship with the audience before you try and pursue this route.

01:25:32 ◼   ► But yeah, the downloads thing, it's difficult.

01:25:35 ◼   ► It changes a lot.

01:25:36 ◼   ► It can be less, it can be more.

01:25:38 ◼   ► It really depends on the companies that you're going to.

01:25:41 ◼   ► It can be difficult.

01:25:42 ◼   ► - Well, and the scale, as podcasting has grown,

01:25:44 ◼   ► the scale has changed too.

01:25:45 ◼   ► Like there was a podcast ad company

01:25:48 ◼   ► that I worked with for a long time.

01:25:50 ◼   ► And when I started with them, like they were saying,

01:25:55 ◼   ► they wanted shows in the 20,000 and up range

01:25:57 ◼   ► or 25,000 and up range for listeners.

01:26:00 ◼   ► And now I feel like they're only really focused on shows

01:26:05 ◼   ► that are 75, 100,000 and up from there

01:26:10 ◼   ► because there's money to be made there

01:26:12 ◼   ► and there are now podcasts that are that large.

01:26:14 ◼   ► And so, 'cause I hear this from people too,

01:26:17 ◼   ► I'm like, "Oh, my podcast, I'm gonna start it.

01:26:20 ◼   ► And when can I make money?"

01:26:21 ◼   ► And first off, like you said,

01:26:22 ◼   ► it's probably not the right approach to make something

01:26:26 ◼   ► about something you love and be excited about it

01:26:28 ◼   ► is probably the way you should start.

01:26:31 ◼   ► And then beyond that, it is a challenge.

01:26:34 ◼   ► You do it for a few months and you think,

01:26:37 ◼   ► well, look, I've got 3,000 downloads,

01:26:38 ◼   ► so now I should be able to bring in the money.

01:26:40 ◼   ► And it's like, probably not.

01:26:43 ◼   ► It takes time and it takes a lot of audience growth,

01:26:45 ◼   ► unless you've got a super niche topic

01:26:47 ◼   ► where there are advertisers falling over themselves

01:26:51 ◼   ► to reach those people, those plumbers or whatever it is,

01:26:54 ◼   ► very specific, unless it's that,

01:26:57 ◼   ► then that's not gonna be good enough either.

01:26:59 ◼   ► So it's hard.

01:27:01 ◼   ► - So this is, you know, then people say to me,

01:27:04 ◼   ► shall I be part of a network?

01:27:05 ◼   ► And being part of a network can help

01:27:07 ◼   ► because networks have an overall larger reach

01:27:10 ◼   ► than single shows, right?

01:27:12 ◼   ► So you can take 10 shows that have 10,000 downloads

01:27:16 ◼   ► and you have 100,000 and you can spread it across

01:27:19 ◼   ► and that can help kind of the buying power

01:27:21 ◼   ► or the selling power, but it's not 100% necessary.

01:27:25 ◼   ► Networks cannot guarantee you any growth.

01:27:27 ◼   ► They mostly will not guarantee you any money, right?

01:27:30 ◼   ► Like you're mostly still in the same situation

01:27:33 ◼   ► and being part of a network,

01:27:34 ◼   ► you will gain some things and you'll lose some things.

01:27:37 ◼   ► And depending on who you're working with,

01:27:38 ◼   ► depending on how you are as a person,

01:27:40 ◼   ► this is not a hard and fast rule.

01:27:42 ◼   ► Also being a part of a network, an established network,

01:27:46 ◼   ► is not an easy thing.

01:27:47 ◼   ► I can guarantee to you every single podcast network

01:27:49 ◼   ► that exists gets more pitches than they can process.

01:27:53 ◼   ► And a lot of these are just people that are, I believe,

01:27:57 ◼   ► straight up just Googling the term podcast network

01:27:59 ◼   ► and sending an email to all of them

01:28:01 ◼   ► because I get those pitches.

01:28:02 ◼   ► I get pitches from people that I know of

01:28:05 ◼   ► that have no idea who Real AFM is.

01:28:07 ◼   ► We also get a lot of pitches.

01:28:09 ◼   ► If you're ever gonna pitch a podcast network,

01:28:12 ◼   ► have a show that already exists first.

01:28:14 ◼   ► - Right.

01:28:15 ◼   ► - Prove that you can do this without the requirement

01:28:20 ◼   ► of being part of the network.

01:28:21 ◼   ► That is my advice to you aspiring podcasters.

01:28:25 ◼   ► Don't pitch and just be like, "I wanna make this show.

01:28:28 ◼   ► Can you help me make this show?"

01:28:29 ◼   ► Because I don't think really,

01:28:31 ◼   ► unless you have a very large existing audience

01:28:34 ◼   ► of your own in some other avenue,

01:28:35 ◼   ► I don't think any podcast network

01:28:37 ◼   ► can necessarily find that to be appealing.

01:28:40 ◼   ► What you need to do is to show, I have an idea,

01:28:43 ◼   ► I can execute on the idea and I'm reliable.

01:28:45 ◼   ► And then also, you know, we always ask for demos as well.

01:28:51 ◼   ► That's the thing that I always ask for,

01:28:52 ◼   ► 'cause I want to know what the show's gonna be like

01:28:54 ◼   ► before we would ever even begin to consider

01:28:57 ◼   ► adding a show to our roster.

01:28:59 ◼   ► And we ask for demos from friends.

01:29:02 ◼   ► Like if Jason came to me tomorrow

01:29:03 ◼   ► and said I have an idea for a new show,

01:29:05 ◼   ► I would ask him to make a demo of it.

01:29:07 ◼   ► Because that's just how we work now,

01:29:09 ◼   ► because we want to make sure

01:29:10 ◼   ► that the show has the right sound to it.

01:29:12 ◼   ► We did that with Download,

01:29:14 ◼   ► and Download had one of the co-founders of the network on it.

01:29:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, we did that with Liftoff too.

01:29:18 ◼   ► "Lift Off" was a B-side that was basically the pilot

01:29:22 ◼   ► for "Lift Off," and that's how that happened too.

01:29:25 ◼   ► But yeah, there was an unaired episode of "Download"

01:29:27 ◼   ► that was done about three months before "Download" launched

01:29:29 ◼   ► that's got, I think, Yasmin and Christina Warren on it.

01:29:33 ◼   ► And that was our proof of concept,

01:29:38 ◼   ► not only to show that here's what the show would be to relay

01:29:43 ◼   ► but also for us to have that moment of like,

01:29:45 ◼   ► what do we want to do here? Is this right? And it was very useful to do that. Clockwise,

01:29:51 ◼   ► we did two.

01:29:52 ◼   ► It also helped you combat episode one disease, which is a thing that many podcasts suffer

01:29:57 ◼   ► from, which is where the first 45 minutes of the first episode of your show is introducing

01:30:01 ◼   ► what the show is. And there's like all that awkwardness and stuff like that. And so trying

01:30:05 ◼   ► to iron some of that out before episode one is also a good thing for you.

01:30:10 ◼   ► The other way to make money is crowdfunding. I don't really have a lot of experience with

01:30:15 ◼   ► I know patreon can be successful but honestly seems like it is as hard as it is with podcast sponsorship

01:30:22 ◼   ► To be successful, but the difference is you can make a little money on patreon way easier than you can make a little money

01:30:29 ◼   ► with sponsorship

01:30:31 ◼   ► Because a show that has 500 listeners could get 10 of those people to kick in five dollars every month

01:30:37 ◼   ► And you've made a little bit of money so that can be a good thing to do

01:30:40 ◼   ► We roll our own of a membership system with member for the incomparable does the same

01:30:44 ◼   ► I only recommend rolling your own when you're a scale already that exists. You may as well

01:30:50 ◼   ► just use something like Patreon. And of course Kickstarter is an option, but that kind of

01:30:55 ◼   ► only really works if you're coming from something first where you can have an audience of people

01:31:00 ◼   ► that you can point to the Kickstarter campaign.

01:31:02 ◼   ► So I've got a little experience with this, which is to say, I think for small podcasts

01:31:07 ◼   ► that have small but fervent audiences that crowd funding or member, you know, direct

01:31:13 ◼   ► support in some form is the way to go. Because when you look at what in the ad business they

01:31:19 ◼   ► call CPMs, which is the cost per thousand, so if you've got a 5,000 person podcast, then

01:31:25 ◼   ► it's like how many dollars for that 5,000? So if you've got a $10 CPM per thousand, that's

01:31:32 ◼   ► a $50 ad that you're running on your podcast. Whoo, we're making $50 a week now. That's

01:31:38 ◼   ► not nothing. It's also not a lot. That's beer money, basically. And what I realized with

01:31:43 ◼   ► a lot of the incomparable podcasts, like Total Party Kill and Game Show are good examples

01:31:46 ◼   ► of that. We don't have huge audiences, but they're really enthusiastic. And so we did

01:31:51 ◼   ► a membership system, and I will tell you, those podcasts make way more money from direct

01:31:55 ◼   ► support from people who listen than they were ever going to make from ads. Plus, it allowed

01:32:01 ◼   ► me to sort of like get us phased out of the ad business because occasionally we'd have

01:32:05 ◼   ► our schedules get all messed up because, "Oh, an ad came in this week. We have to drop an

01:32:08 ◼   ► episode this week and I've got to insert this ad into it and it's for 70 bucks or

01:32:13 ◼   ► something like that. It's just like it wasn't it was totally not worth it. It

01:32:16 ◼   ► made the show worse and there was an audience that was really enthusiastic

01:32:20 ◼   ► about it who was willing to give money to support it. So I do think that that is

01:32:25 ◼   ► if you again don't jump the gun here but if you build up an enthusiastic audience

01:32:30 ◼   ► and it doesn't turn into a huge hit this stuff I think is a way better source

01:32:35 ◼   ► than kind of like holding out for a very cheap, crappy ad because, you know, ads in podcasting

01:32:42 ◼   ► are great. We have them here. It's what pays our salaries. But for small podcasts, it's

01:32:47 ◼   ► not always the right approach.

01:32:48 ◼   ► No, and you're completely right. Don't launch episode one with your Patreon campaign.

01:32:53 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, exactly. And if it's a Kickstarter, it's the same idea, right? Like, have something

01:32:57 ◼   ► established already that you've proven and have a proven audience for if it's a new season

01:33:04 ◼   ► of your podcast via Kickstarter. Have something to go first that people can bank on and they

01:33:09 ◼   ► trust you and they're enthusiastic about what you're doing and then they're going to give

01:33:12 ◼   ► you money.

01:33:13 ◼   ► Let's go to our #askupgradequestions. We have got lots of these. We've been getting lots

01:33:18 ◼   ► of these for quite some time since we started talking about this stuff. So let's start trying

01:33:24 ◼   ► to knock through some of these. First question comes from Steve. I'd love to hear about how

01:33:28 ◼   ► you structure your podcast and share notes as you're recording. Can I take this one?

01:33:32 ◼   ► Because this is something I care about a lot. Preparation, I believe, is one of, if not

01:33:42 ◼   ► the most important thing into making a good podcast. No matter what type of show you do,

01:33:48 ◼   ► I believe some form of preparation is imperative to it. So for all the shows that I do, by

01:33:56 ◼   ► and large, I have outlines. And these outlines detail all of the topics we're going to talk

01:34:01 ◼   ► about and I also write a lot of my notes in. Some of them are written as I'm gonna say

01:34:07 ◼   ► them. Like that line and I also write a lot of my notes in, I just read that from the

01:34:12 ◼   ► outline because I wrote it earlier today. Because there are some things where it's like

01:34:16 ◼   ► I know I want to say something in a specific way and it will help me talk about it and

01:34:20 ◼   ► it will give me prompts to then kind of talk a bit more extemporaneously. I put all of

01:34:25 ◼   ► that stuff in because I believe that the show, then the shows that I do, are more than just

01:34:30 ◼   ► the time I'm sitting in front of them. It's like all of the time that I spend thinking

01:34:34 ◼   ► about the show I want to have all of my thoughts and notes detailed out so I'm able to go over

01:34:38 ◼   ► them in my head before the show so I'm writing them all out it means I'm more likely to remember

01:34:43 ◼   ► them and it also means I can refer to them when I need to and I can keep track of what

01:34:47 ◼   ► we're doing, I can keep track of where we are in the show, what we have left, I can

01:34:51 ◼   ► estimate time, it helps me make sure that I can cover everything that I need and that

01:34:56 ◼   ► That kind of heavy outlining I think is important for the types of shows that I mostly do which

01:35:01 ◼   ► are information based and news informed in a lot of instances, topic based, that kind

01:35:06 ◼   ► of thing.

01:35:07 ◼   ► You know there are some shows where like you want to have the entire thing written out

01:35:11 ◼   ► beforehand because it's a performance more than the conversation.

01:35:15 ◼   ► And there are some shows where you might just want to have five bullet points of things

01:35:18 ◼   ► you want to talk about.

01:35:19 ◼   ► But preparing for a show, making sure that you know kind of what are the things you want

01:35:23 ◼   ► to talk about.

01:35:25 ◼   ► some room to go off into the weeds where you need to and to allow you to think on

01:35:29 ◼   ► your feet where you want to but I believe that preparation is so important

01:35:33 ◼   ► because people are giving you their time they are saying I'm gonna press play on

01:35:37 ◼   ► this thing and I want to be entertained. Respect them by having done some work

01:35:42 ◼   ► beforehand to make sure that you feel that before you sit down in front of the

01:35:45 ◼   ► microphone that you've done everything you can to make sure that your show is

01:35:49 ◼   ► gonna be as good as it can be. So for this show and for many shows we have a

01:35:53 ◼   ► a Google Doc that is completed before the show begins. We're both in there changing

01:35:58 ◼   ► and amending things on the fly. I've been moving stuff around and we do that quite a

01:36:02 ◼   ► lot. Jason's writing me little messages in the Google Doc right now. Google Docs is the

01:36:06 ◼   ► best for this because their collaboration features are... nobody is even close to them

01:36:12 ◼   ► in being able to do this. I cannot record without a Doc now. I love it. It works for

01:36:18 ◼   ► me so well. I think it's very important to have something like this.

01:36:21 ◼   ► Yeah, with download, we have a rundown that we actually share with our guests, which is

01:36:28 ◼   ► a Google Sheet that's got links to the stories we're going to talk about, which is cribbed

01:36:32 ◼   ► from how Lee LaPorte does all of his shows where there's a giant document. The difference

01:36:36 ◼   ► is that we will trim it down to like three stories, whereas the Twit Sheet has like 80

01:36:41 ◼   ► stories in it, and then they just sort of feel their way. We pick beforehand and we

01:36:45 ◼   ► limit it to three or four stories.

01:36:47 ◼   ► And then we actually have a script that we work on

01:36:52 ◼   ► that is more of what I'm gonna say

01:36:54 ◼   ► to introduce each of the segments,

01:36:56 ◼   ► and that changes from week to week.

01:36:57 ◼   ► And we go back and forth with that,

01:36:58 ◼   ► Steven and I, we're both working on that.

01:37:00 ◼   ► So there's prep.

01:37:01 ◼   ► I mean, I don't prep for the incomparable this way,

01:37:05 ◼   ► 'cause with the incomparable,

01:37:06 ◼   ► a lot of the prep is literally watching the movie

01:37:08 ◼   ► or reading the book.

01:37:10 ◼   ► And I will take notes sometimes when I'm watching a movie,

01:37:13 ◼   ► and I'll think in advance about sort of like the ways

01:37:15 ◼   ► I want it to go, but I kind of want it to be

01:37:17 ◼   ► a free flowing conversation.

01:37:18 ◼   ► But for something like "Lift Off" or "Free Agents"

01:37:21 ◼   ► or any of the other podcasts that I've done,

01:37:24 ◼   ► there's a document, it's generally a shared Google doc

01:37:27 ◼   ► that has everything in it that we're gonna discuss.

01:37:30 ◼   ► And again, it's not a script,

01:37:31 ◼   ► we're not reading words off a script when we do it,

01:37:33 ◼   ► but we are making sure that there are points we wanna hit

01:37:37 ◼   ► and that we cover them,

01:37:39 ◼   ► and then we know when to move along to the next thing.

01:37:41 ◼   ► So Chris asked about podcast hosting services, which we use, any tips that we have,

01:37:47 ◼   ► preferably without a huge investment. I'll tell you podcast hosting is cheaper than you think it

01:37:53 ◼   ► is. This was one of the things that was really surprising to me. Podcast hosting, I mean,

01:38:00 ◼   ► you can get it for dollars a month, like very small amounts of money and still get pretty good

01:38:09 ◼   ► good service, it's pretty good bang for your buck. And there are a few different companies

01:38:12 ◼   ► out there and I kind of wanted to just give a real brief overview of the ones that exist.

01:38:17 ◼   ► So like for example Libsyn is the company that I mostly use for all of our show hosting.

01:38:24 ◼   ► They have a plan that starts at $5 a month you know and then they go all the way up to

01:38:29 ◼   ► $75 they have a bunch of different plans. I would say their $20 a month plan is the

01:38:34 ◼   ► best plan, it gets you lots of statistics and for a show that's publishing weekly you

01:38:39 ◼   ► you get 400 megabytes a month that you can upload.

01:38:42 ◼   ► And that does a really good job for us.

01:38:44 ◼   ► Libsyn are rock solid.

01:38:46 ◼   ► They have been around for as long as podcasting has existed.

01:38:50 ◼   ► Their statistics are industry acknowledged.

01:38:53 ◼   ► They've gone through some changes recently.

01:38:55 ◼   ► So they could have been a little bit better communicated,

01:38:57 ◼   ► but that's just an ax I have to grind.

01:39:00 ◼   ► But they're making their system even more accurate

01:39:03 ◼   ► to a standard that's been created.

01:39:04 ◼   ► There's like a body that's come together

01:39:06 ◼   ► to try and help companies align their statistics

01:39:10 ◼   ► because statistics measuring is very difficult in podcasts

01:39:14 ◼   ► because it's one of the things that makes the industry great

01:39:17 ◼   ► that like there's no data that is widely available.

01:39:20 ◼   ► It's just kind of like measuring pings

01:39:22 ◼   ► to a file and a feed, right?

01:39:23 ◼   ► It can be really difficult to accurately measure.

01:39:25 ◼   ► And now a bunch of companies are coming together

01:39:28 ◼   ► to try and create an industry accepted standard.

01:39:30 ◼   ► Libsyn's design of their system is very bad.

01:39:35 ◼   ► that like their visual design and their UI

01:39:38 ◼   ► is not nice to look at.

01:39:41 ◼   ► I know lots of people, including Jason,

01:39:44 ◼   ► who uses Libsyn's FTP uploading

01:39:47 ◼   ► so he does not have to deal with this system.

01:39:49 ◼   ► It could do with some love in a lot of areas, I think.

01:39:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's not perfect, but it's a good deal.

01:39:56 ◼   ► And the other thing is they provide

01:39:58 ◼   ► a blog-style interface at Libsyn,

01:40:03 ◼   ► which means if you don't wanna set up

01:40:05 ◼   ► your own website for your podcast, you don't have to. You can use their blog and point

01:40:09 ◼   ► people at that, and it'll have a list of your episodes with show notes and all of that.

01:40:13 ◼   ► But you can also not use their blog system and have your own site somewhere. And like

01:40:19 ◼   ► Relay and The Incomparable, like we have shows at Libsyn, but we have Relay.fm and TheIncomparable.com.

01:40:27 ◼   ► And so you can do that too. I have a friend who does a Libsyn hosted podcast and they

01:40:30 ◼   ► have a WordPress site for it. And that works fine. They can do it that way too. And you

01:40:34 ◼   ► can use their RSS feed or you cannot use their RSS feed if you want. So you can kind

01:40:39 ◼   ► of pick and choose. But they do offer, it is full service, like they will give you a

01:40:42 ◼   ► website and an RSS feed for your podcast that will go to iTunes and all of that and hosting

01:40:47 ◼   ► the files all in one package for a pretty good deal. So yeah, that's why we use them.

01:40:51 ◼   ► David: My recommendation is if you have a website of your own and you need someone to

01:40:55 ◼   ► host the file for you and you're going to generate your own RSS feed that people subscribe

01:40:59 ◼   ► to then Libsyn should be who you use. If you want to have a company also provide the website

01:41:04 ◼   ► in RSS for you I recommend using Simplecast because their design overall is way better

01:41:11 ◼   ► looking it's way more modern, they have really good looking web pages and the websites that

01:41:17 ◼   ► it generates are much much nicer, they do a great job here. Their system is simpler

01:41:22 ◼   ► hence the name but has most of what you want it has good statistics and stuff like that

01:41:26 ◼   ► but it's not as powerful and as tried and true as Libsyn but their overall design chops

01:41:32 ◼   ► are way better. They're also fairly priced. I will recommend or I will suggest I will

01:41:39 ◼   ► highlight Anker here. Anker have been a sponsor of relay.fm so I'm going to mention that up

01:41:43 ◼   ► front but we put our money where our mouth is. We host subnet which is Stephen Hackett's

01:41:48 ◼   ► daily tech news show that's hosted with Anker. They have free unlimited storage right now.

01:41:56 ◼   ► I don't really know completely what their monetisation scheme will end up being but

01:42:00 ◼   ► right now they are free. They have analytics, they have free tools, their iPhone apps are

01:42:05 ◼   ► very good and they have great distribution. They will distribute you to Spotify and smart

01:42:09 ◼   ► speakers and stuff like that. But Anker are more new in this space and they're kind of

01:42:15 ◼   ► building out tools and the podcast hosting goes along with that. As I say, I have used

01:42:21 ◼   ► all of these and I think that they all have their merits and that they all have areas

01:42:26 ◼   ► where they could improve. I think that really it just comes down to your preferences, what

01:42:31 ◼   ► you're looking for. Do you want nice design? Do you want to pay nothing? Do you want people

01:42:37 ◼   ► with a lot of experience? I think we've stacked up how these companies work and you should

01:42:43 ◼   ► choose what you want based upon your priorities.

01:42:45 ◼   ► Steve McLaughlin And I should say, if you've got a server,

01:42:50 ◼   ► which a lot of people do have, I mean it's not like everybody's got a server, but people

01:42:55 ◼   ► listening to this show, you may have a server with, again, a sometimes sponsor,

01:42:59 ◼   ► Linode is a good example, but there are a bunch out there where you may be paying

01:43:03 ◼   ► to have a Linux server somewhere in the cloud. You may have a lot of network

01:43:08 ◼   ► transfer that you get every month that you're not using, and yes, you could host

01:43:13 ◼   ► your files yourself. If your podcast becomes wildly popular, that will

01:43:18 ◼   ► become a problem quickly, but for small podcasts, if you've got that space, that

01:43:25 ◼   ► that disk space and network transfer space free

01:43:28 ◼   ► on an existing server that you control, you could do that.

01:43:30 ◼   ► That's actually what a lot of the shows

01:43:32 ◼   ► on the "Incomparable" are doing,

01:43:34 ◼   ► and that's actually kind of how the "Incomparable" started,

01:43:36 ◼   ► is that my friend Greg Noss had a Linode server

01:43:40 ◼   ► with a bunch of extra transfer,

01:43:41 ◼   ► and we were, for a little while,

01:43:44 ◼   ► able to serve everything off of that.

01:43:46 ◼   ► Eventually, we moved, and now a bunch of shows --

01:43:48 ◼   ► the bigger shows are on Libsyn,

01:43:49 ◼   ► but the smaller stuff is still on the Linode.

01:43:52 ◼   ► You have to build your own RSS feed,

01:43:54 ◼   ► but if you use WordPress, you can set up a WordPress blog

01:43:56 ◼   ► with, like, the PodPress plugin, I think,

01:43:58 ◼   ► and then you just kind of put in where the file is,

01:44:00 ◼   ► and it generates RSS.

01:44:02 ◼   ► So there are lots of ways to do it.

01:44:04 ◼   ► But I wanted to throw that out there,

01:44:05 ◼   ► that you may not even have to pay anybody

01:44:07 ◼   ► to serve your files for you

01:44:09 ◼   ► if you're somebody who's already got a file server

01:44:11 ◼   ► on the Internet that's got enough bandwidth

01:44:13 ◼   ► and transfer time in order to serve those files.

01:44:18 ◼   ► So something out there for people

01:44:19 ◼   ► who might be nerdy enough to have their own server.

01:44:22 ◼   ► All right, so next up, we have a question from Jonathan.

01:44:25 ◼   ► Jonathan wants to know, how do you optimize a podcast

01:44:27 ◼   ► for different podcast apps like show notes?

01:44:29 ◼   ► Links are supported in Overcast,

01:44:30 ◼   ► but not in Apple podcasts, for example.

01:44:33 ◼   ► I don't see this as our responsibility.

01:44:36 ◼   ► We publish things to the accepted standards

01:44:40 ◼   ► of the RSS feeds for podcasts,

01:44:43 ◼   ► and then it's up to the podcast apps

01:44:45 ◼   ► to how they want to interpret that.

01:44:46 ◼   ► We have an RSS feed of all of our links in,

01:44:49 ◼   ► and all third-party players show it well,

01:44:51 ◼   ► but it seems like some apps from large companies,

01:44:55 ◼   ► they don't wanna do that.

01:44:56 ◼   ► I don't understand why.

01:44:57 ◼   ► I think it's because most large shows

01:45:00 ◼   ► don't have detailed show notes like we do.

01:45:02 ◼   ► That this is, show notes are a very like,

01:45:06 ◼   ► the ye olde podcast mentality, right?

01:45:11 ◼   ► So you'll get a lot of third party apps using them

01:45:14 ◼   ► because they're made by wonderful tech nerds

01:45:16 ◼   ► who've been around for a long time.

01:45:19 ◼   ► but a lot of larger apps, larger companies,

01:45:22 ◼   ► this is not just that this isn't a thing on their radar

01:45:24 ◼   ► because a lot of the shows that they're looking to target

01:45:27 ◼   ► mostly just don't really do this

01:45:29 ◼   ► other than just like a description.

01:45:31 ◼   ► So I don't do anything specific.

01:45:33 ◼   ► We make sure that they look good and that they work.

01:45:36 ◼   ► After that, we set it and forget it.

01:45:38 ◼   ► And that we publish our shows in the same way

01:45:42 ◼   ► with the notes as we will always do in our RSS feeds

01:45:45 ◼   ► and then how they're displayed

01:45:46 ◼   ► is kind of up to the app developer.

01:45:48 ◼   ► I mean, it's literally HTML,

01:45:49 ◼   ► so we're literally putting hyperlinks in there,

01:45:51 ◼   ► and Apple Podcasts chooses not to render them.

01:45:54 ◼   ► They discard them, and that's their --

01:45:56 ◼   ► - Used to. - I don't know.

01:45:57 ◼   ► That's -- but it's not -- you know, if --

01:46:00 ◼   ► I'll put it this way.

01:46:01 ◼   ► If somebody came to me and said, "Oh, actually,

01:46:03 ◼   ► I figured it out.

01:46:04 ◼   ► If you change your feed here,

01:46:05 ◼   ► and then they will also show up in Apple Podcasts,"

01:46:08 ◼   ► of course we would do that,

01:46:09 ◼   ► but there is a limit to what we're able to support technically,

01:46:13 ◼   ► and it's up to the app developer.

01:46:14 ◼   ► And so they made a change, and that's just how it is.

01:46:16 ◼   ► And, you know, that's, but you do react.

01:46:20 ◼   ► Like, I mean, chapters is a good example

01:46:22 ◼   ► where more apps had chapter support

01:46:25 ◼   ► and we were more motivated to put chapters in.

01:46:27 ◼   ► You can go back to the upgrade archive

01:46:29 ◼   ► and find the episodes where we say

01:46:30 ◼   ► we're never gonna do chapters.

01:46:32 ◼   ► And now the episodes have chapters

01:46:33 ◼   ► and that's 'cause the tools have improved

01:46:35 ◼   ► and the coverage among our listenership has improved

01:46:37 ◼   ► in terms of who's using apps with chapters in them.

01:46:40 ◼   ► But at the same time, you know,

01:46:41 ◼   ► like Apple podcast doesn't support it.

01:46:43 ◼   ► So, oh well, like it's just not in there.

01:46:46 ◼   ► and we move on.

01:46:47 ◼   ► There's only so much we can do.

01:46:49 ◼   ► - Rob wants to know if we have opinions of services

01:46:51 ◼   ► like Cast or Zencastr.

01:46:54 ◼   ► Rob's starting a podcast with a couple of friends

01:46:56 ◼   ► and wanted to sound better than Skype.

01:46:58 ◼   ► What do you think?

01:46:59 ◼   ► - I've got two things here.

01:46:59 ◼   ► First off, Skype is in large part just a transport medium.

01:47:04 ◼   ► You could literally record a podcast with your friends

01:47:06 ◼   ► on a conference call on your iPhones

01:47:08 ◼   ► because ideally what the people are gonna hear at the end

01:47:13 ◼   ► is a recording from everybody's microphone locally.

01:47:17 ◼   ► That's how we make these podcasts.

01:47:19 ◼   ► Is that it's everybody,

01:47:20 ◼   ► it sounds like everybody's in the same room

01:47:22 ◼   ► because we're literally recording ourselves in our rooms

01:47:25 ◼   ► and then putting those together.

01:47:26 ◼   ► And the use of technology so that we can hear each other

01:47:30 ◼   ► and react to one another is just ideally,

01:47:33 ◼   ► just like a phone call.

01:47:36 ◼   ► And you don't use that audio at all.

01:47:38 ◼   ► Now, sometimes that happens

01:47:40 ◼   ► and that's why you've got a backup recording

01:47:42 ◼   ► like we said earlier.

01:47:43 ◼   ► So Skype is not really ideally relevant here.

01:47:47 ◼   ► You just need to pick something that works for you.

01:47:49 ◼   ► And it could be the phone, it could be Skype,

01:47:50 ◼   ► it could be Discord, it could be Slack,

01:47:52 ◼   ► it could be FaceTime,

01:47:54 ◼   ► it could be whatever you want it to be, a Google Hangout.

01:47:57 ◼   ► But ideally you'd record your own microphone locally

01:47:59 ◼   ► and use those as the source

01:48:00 ◼   ► and then just record your kind of conversation

01:48:02 ◼   ► as a backup ideally.

01:48:04 ◼   ► Cast and Zencastr are apps that work in Chrome.

01:48:07 ◼   ► They don't work in Safari for various reasons

01:48:09 ◼   ► involving standards that Safari still doesn't support

01:48:12 ◼   ► even though they sort of do, but they sort of don't,

01:48:14 ◼   ► not enough of these apps to use them,

01:48:16 ◼   ► but you can download Chrome and use them.

01:48:18 ◼   ► And what they do is they provide a audio

01:48:23 ◼   ► so you can have that conversation.

01:48:27 ◼   ► And they use the browser to record your local audio for you

01:48:31 ◼   ► and automatically upload it to the server.

01:48:33 ◼   ► So I use Cast every week for TV Talk Machine

01:48:36 ◼   ► because Tim Goodman is never going to record

01:48:39 ◼   ► his own microphone successfully and save it

01:48:42 ◼   ► and send me the file in a timely fashion.

01:48:45 ◼   ► It's never gonna happen.

01:48:46 ◼   ► Like, I know it, he knows it, it's just,

01:48:48 ◼   ► it's never gonna happen.

01:48:49 ◼   ► So for the first few episodes,

01:48:52 ◼   ► it was just a Skype recording.

01:48:53 ◼   ► And then I started using Cast and like, it works great.

01:48:56 ◼   ► It records him locally on his computer

01:48:59 ◼   ► and uploads the file in the background to me.

01:49:01 ◼   ► And Zencastr does the same thing.

01:49:03 ◼   ► I'd actually say, if you wanna try this

01:49:04 ◼   ► and you've only got one or two people,

01:49:06 ◼   ► I think there's a free tier for Zencastr

01:49:08 ◼   ► where you can have two or three people on a conversation.

01:49:10 ◼   ► It's worth doing.

01:49:11 ◼   ► Above that, you gotta pay, and on Cast, you gotta pay.

01:49:14 ◼   ► So you can look into it.

01:49:15 ◼   ► But I think they're great if everybody's got a computer

01:49:19 ◼   ► with Chrome on it.

01:49:21 ◼   ► I will say, the more people you get, the worse it gets.

01:49:25 ◼   ► 'Cause as much as we complain about Skype,

01:49:27 ◼   ► the thing about Skype is Skype is a service

01:49:29 ◼   ► that's built to be resilient.

01:49:31 ◼   ► It does a lot of things.

01:49:32 ◼   ► You send your files up,

01:49:34 ◼   ► and then Skype is sending a mixed-down version

01:49:36 ◼   ► of the audio of the whole call just to you.

01:49:40 ◼   ► Whereas something that's using a browser,

01:49:42 ◼   ► everybody's downloading a bunch

01:49:43 ◼   ► of different audio streams separately,

01:49:46 ◼   ► which is more bandwidth intensive.

01:49:49 ◼   ► So if you've got five or six people on the call,

01:49:51 ◼   ► things start to fall apart really fast,

01:49:53 ◼   ► especially if somebody's got a bad connection.

01:49:56 ◼   ► Also, Skype does a lot of processing.

01:49:58 ◼   ► They take out background noise,

01:49:59 ◼   ► they level the audio volumes of everybody.

01:50:02 ◼   ► So when I talk to Tim on Cast,

01:50:04 ◼   ► I can hear he's quiet and I can hear a lot of background noise that I never hear when

01:50:09 ◼   ► I talk to him on Skype. Now it's there on the recording and I have to take care of it,

01:50:13 ◼   ► but Skype can actually be a more pleasant conversation if you've got a large group of

01:50:16 ◼   ► people because it's trying very hard to make it audible behind the scenes. So the short

01:50:22 ◼   ► version is…

01:50:23 ◼   ► - Please try your best to not use the Skype call, right?

01:50:25 ◼   ► - Exactly.

01:50:26 ◼   ► - Like as to what you released to the world.

01:50:27 ◼   ► - You should never do that. It should be a backup. But sometimes it happens. Sometimes

01:50:32 ◼   ► have somebody who has to call in on an iPhone or something, it's like they can't

01:50:34 ◼   ► record on their iPhone. So we'll make it work, but it's not ideal. So I would say

01:50:38 ◼   ► if you've got people who are tech savvy enough to record their own microphone

01:50:41 ◼   ► and put it in a Dropbox file or something like that afterward, you don't

01:50:45 ◼   ► have to use Cast or Zencastr, you can just use Skype, because the end

01:50:48 ◼   ► result is not going to be--or Discord or whatever--because you're not going to use

01:50:52 ◼   ► that audio. You're going to use the audio that you record yourself. If they're less

01:50:57 ◼   ► technical and you're worried about it, I would say, "Yeah, use Cast or Zencastr

01:51:01 ◼   ► because you're gonna get their audio file without them doing anything, which is brilliant, right?

01:51:07 ◼   ► With these limitations that doesn't sound as good and you can't have a lot of people on the call,

01:51:11 ◼   ► I would say you should still probably use something like AudioHijack to record both yourself

01:51:16 ◼   ► and them just in case something happens, because that's happened to me with TVTM where I've had a

01:51:21 ◼   ► browser crash and the file got lost, but I was using AudioHijack as my backup and so I still

01:51:28 ◼   ► had it. So that is, you should always do the belts and suspenders thing, but I think those

01:51:34 ◼   ► apps are great, and I especially think they're great if you've got guests or co-hosts who

01:51:39 ◼   ► are less technical and you know they're just not going to do all the steps that you need.

01:51:43 ◼   ► If you've got guests a lot, I think it's totally worth it. Like, that's the best thing ever.

01:51:47 ◼   ► You've got a new guest every week, rather than trying to walk them through how to record,

01:51:51 ◼   ► you can do that. I recommend podcastguestguide.com, which Antony Johnston put together. It's got

01:51:57 ◼   ► step-by-step instructions about how to get your guest to record their audio and then

01:52:01 ◼   ► send it to you. It's great, but if you have a low confidence in your guest being able

01:52:07 ◼   ► to do that, in these browsers they literally just click a link and suddenly you're talking

01:52:12 ◼   ► and you press a button and suddenly everything is getting recorded and uploaded to the server

01:52:17 ◼   ► of the service that you're using. It's brilliant. So those are your options. You've got lots

01:52:22 ◼   ► of options.

01:52:23 ◼   ► break we're going into the home stretch. Jason, Corey asked that you have spoken

01:52:28 ◼   ► about using Ferrite a bunch for portable podcasts on iOS but it seems that it's

01:52:34 ◼   ► still impossible to podcast using iOS only. Are you still using Ferrite and do

01:52:39 ◼   ► you have any tips on portable podcasting? I'm still using Ferrite. I love Ferrite.

01:52:43 ◼   ► It is the best deal, it is the best value in audio editing and especially podcast

01:52:49 ◼   ► editing that exists. I actually had a friend say "alright I'm getting

01:52:51 ◼   ► frustrated with Audacity or GarageBand. I've had a few people say this, "What do

01:52:59 ◼   ► you think about where I go from here?" And it's like, "Wow, there's Logic, which costs

01:53:02 ◼   ► a lot of money, and Audition costs a lot of money." And I said, "Well, do you have a