Month: December 2020

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podcast

485- Understanding compression in Podcasting with Audacity

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we reflect on a recent episode of the buzzsprout.com/blog that is titled: “How to use the compressor in Audacity.”

Now, for some of the newer or aspiring podcasters, this is quite a brief lesson in what compression is, and how it is done with Audacity — and some suggested settings for better audio with that program.

The author of this blog post delivers this as a tutorial (and at the end of the post, there is a list of links with more audio tutorials, for your benefit).

This post has quite a few details, and it is a good reference for those podcasters that want to know about the compressor in Audacity.

Some of those sections covered are:

  • What is compression and how to apply it (a 6:00 minute video);
  • When should you use audio compression?
  • Applying the Audacity compressor effect;
    • the graph
    • the settings
    • the threshold
    • the noise floor
    • the ratio
    • the attack time and release time; and
    • make-up gain;
    • compression based on peaks; and
    • limiter effect.
  • Avoiding over-compressing; and finally,
  • Previewing the compressor settings for audio.

Now, a lot of podcasters may feel that they do not need to deal with compressor settings, but this brief tutorial is great for a general understanding of some elements that can help your audio episodes become better quality. And you don’t have to be a genius or tech whiz to understand them. This tutorial in buzzsprout.com/blog does give VALUE in an understanding of better audio quality possibilities with Audacity.

We hope that you go through the tutorial and video, so that you can understand better the compressor in Audacity, and then you can decide for yourself if you want to use that effect for improving your audio episode quality.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2020, Matrix Solutions Corporation . All rights reserved.

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Uncategorized

463- BONUS- Addressing the Aspiration Gap in Podcasting

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss how podcasters can address what is called by Todd Henry in his book, Louder than Words, the ASPIRATION GAP. This theme is critical for Podcasters and Entrepreneurs who want to go beyond their own Peter Principle of stagnation and possible irrelevance as a master content creator and small business owner.

For us, the theme of constant learning (either from experience, education or training or perpetual acquisition and further development of skills) is lifelong.

In his book (and also his bookcast from 2016), Todd explains the four aspects of addressing the Aspiration Gap:

  • DISCOVERY – taking action and obtaining the basic skills or entering the environment of small business;
  • EMULATION – developing a proficiency with your craft and expression to gain mastery (usually by emulating others and their success);
  • DIVERGENCE – taking small risks with acquired skills with your launch pad of your mastery, so you can “carve out your own place which is unique”;
  • CRISIS – the phase where you feel stuck or stagnant, and where you have to decide whether you will settle into safety and comfort, or you can intentionally return to DISCOVERY to obtain new skills of mastery (although uncomfortable because you have to learn NEWER SKILLS).

As Todd states, you have to go through these phases multiple times if you wish to grow — not only to get to the next level, but to go BEYOND THE NEXT LEVEL in your mastery.

For podcasters, this is the constant learning curve; for the entrepreneur, this is the perpetual learning of marketing and selling skills as well as getting feedback and acting upon that feedback to improve your situation.

So, if you want to become a master, you need to listen to Todd when he quotes a professional drummer when the latter said “what is a master but a master student?”

Thus, if you want to become a master entrepreneur with the mastery of success, you have to address the Aspiration Gap and become perpetually better. For the podcaster, this Gap is critical because the rate of improvement and change of technology will force the content creator to improve and become the eternal “master student.”

As difficult as this may appear, and as stressful and hard as it can be for the professional, you have to decide if you wish to address this aspiration gap — because we all want to be better in our craft or our business.

And we wish you all the success in becoming a master of all 4 phases of the Aspiration Gap and reaching success.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2020, Matrix Solutions Corporation and Todd Henry. All rights reserved.

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podcast

462- Principles for world-class level promotion of Podcasts

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss a recent post by Ben Krueger of cashflowpodcasting.com titled “8 Podcasting principles to make your show world class” by Marc Guberti.

In this post, the theme of being “world class” is proposed. Now, as arrogant and nebulous as this sounds, a world-class podcast is very subjective at this time, because who is determining what a world-class podcast should be and how is this class defined?

In fact, this post has no visible details, but merely a series of links to the sections of the content, among which are the following:

Here are the key links from the episode:

Cashflow Podcasting

The Podcast Principles

 

Marc’s Links

5 Day Podcast Launch Mini Course

From $0 To $100K+ With Content Marketing

Schedule a free strategy call

 

Marc’s books

YouTube Decoded

Podcast Domination

Content Marketing Secrets

The Wealthy Author

Now, for this podcaster, I was totally annoyed by the series of pop-ups by Marc with the questions of “Do you want to grow….?” and such questions that left a very bitter taste in my mouth. I felt that such a very RUDE and ANNOYING pop-up storm would likely ruin my thoughts about his content — and it did from the start.
I tried to look at the “Podcast Principles” section, and I found that I could not “connect” with the web pages that should have delivered content. Instead, I saw that this was a key “sales job” that kept hitting the reader over the head time and time again. And after this, it was a struggle for me to finish the reading of this post.

So I had to go to the next sections of the post, which were:

  • Coming up with the right idea;
  • Podcast launch checklist; and
  • Launching your podcast.

And the image of Marc with his “Breakthrough success” baseball-type cap is featured at the end, as the article and post becomes nothing more than a glorified sales-page throughout for his five-day launch mini-course.

The final section of info dealing with the topic “From $0 to $100K with your content” as depicted in his “content marketing plaza” page is nothing more than a long squeeze-page with the 8 principles:

  • Content creation hacks
  • Content marketing hacks
  • Social media marketing hacks
  • Product creation hacks
  • Funnel hacks
  • Relationship creating hacks
  • Conversion hacks, and
  • Outsourcing hacks

Now, for this podcaster, I only saw the titles of min-courses in the squeeze page that I just described. And, of course, you cannot see the quality of the content from his post, because each of these “hacks” requires the reader to purchase the mini-courses from the squeeze page. And with the $197.00 USD price tag for this “training,” this was the biggest turn-off for someone who wanted to see the VALUE of what was being promoted and how it could help me (the podcaster) , rather than just be given a sign-up-sales-page from the very first reading. Unfortunately, the reasons and the sentence or two descriptors were cliches that did not fulfill my expectations.

And so I closed the links and chose to place this into the category of “sales” pages without showing the value of the product. To me, having been involved with sales for over 33 years, this was something I would not ever recommend to another podcaster, let alone investigate any more on my own.

However, if you wish to investigate this more on your own to see if you can find any value in this promotion, then I do wish you well. In fact, the only reason that I looked at this “ad” was because of the name of Ben Krueger. But I venture to say that, for myself, I can never reclaim the five minutes of investigation time from looking into these links.

In any matter, I would like to thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2020, Matrix Solutions Corporation and Ben Krueger and Marc Guberti. All rights reserved.

Categories
podcast

461- Live podcast interviews face-to-face

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we discuss the contents of a recent article from thepodcasthost.com.

The name of this article is “How to Record Face-to-Face Podcast Interviews: The Full Guide.”

As the beginning of this article states: “In a world saturated with electronic media, face-to-face, in-person communication is more important than ever.”

How right that is, and how important that is. Especially when the world right now is dominated by the radical left and the media, where the mandate to stay at home and NOT to meet with others is due to the restriction that the left wingers desire, so that no one could discuss politics or have ideas or rational debate and discussion. Why? With the fearmongering caused by the media and the hype of contagion of a Plan-demic, the radical left only wants you to be exposed to a quarantined environment where the only news and discussion you will hear would be from your television, where the media would be spinning its narrative and giving you propaganda that they desire, so that you can be used and abused in an election year as mind-controlled slaves (you may want to see the documentary titled “The Social Dilemma” to see how closely our world today resembles that of the George Orwell world in his novel “1984.”

So now, it is most important to create content when you and your guest (or co-host) may be IN PERSON and debating or discussing the key topics of importance — and you can then prove the “plan-demic” for the hoax and hype that it is.

So, if you wish to really get good content, you should plan on face-to-face interviews or podcast audio episodes with a guest. This can include scheduled episodes with topics to have your interviewee or guest in your “studio” (where ever that may be), or perhaps in a trade show where you may be interviewing a guest in an exhibit area, or a conference room or ballroom, or a “roundtable” discussion,  etc.; or you may be interviewing someone in your studio or in that individual’s studio (e.g., Joe Rogan Experience podcast show).

Now, this article pronounces that they have the “Full Guide” to the face-to-face interviews. I applaud them for the topic and idea, but I am always skeptical of any one person or group saying that they have the “complete” anything.

So, if you want to research what this article is saying, here is a short list of the topics covered with appropriate links to the full details and the examples given:

  1. How to Record Face-to-Face Podcast Interviews: The Full Guide
  2. Zoom H5 Vs Zoom H6 as a Digital Recorder: Which to Choose?
  3. Shure SM58 Review | The Apocalypse Survival Mic
  4. The In-Person Podcast Interview Equipment Setup Guide
  5. Full Audio or Podcast Interview Equipment Shopping List

Now, for myself as a podcaster, I have always preferred the live, in-person, face-to-face interview. And I have last conducted one of these at the recent Podcast Movement – Evolutions conference in February of 2020 in Los Angeles, California, with many podcasters — e.g., Gordon Firemark, Dave Jackson, Todd Cochrane, Rob Greenlee, etc. This conference was the last time that this organization held an inbound, in-person event where people would come in from out-of-town, stay at a hotel and meet in separate rooms for presentations, panel discussions and keynotes where everyone could actually meet others and interview each other face-to-face.

However, when I saw the detail from this “Full” Guide, I was rather disappointed because all that was mentioned was the equipment — especially microphones. As for myself, I chose to attend the PM Evolutions conference with only a Zoom Q3 video and audio recorder built in one compact device. This battery-powered unit served me well and delivered the results that I wanted for allowing me to create a final, finished mp3 with great audio after post-production. And although this unit is dated after several years, it is the function and result that it delivers more important than the most recent Zoom products.

Also, there are some steps and processes and procedures that a podcaster should be aware of before conducting a face-to-face interview (either at your “studio” or on the street or outdoors or at a live conference, etc.). I would have hoped that these processes would have received some mention other than just the microphones.

However, if you plan on doing face-to-face interviews, it is suggested that this overview may be the first that you can examine for planning good interviews with your guest or co-host. Then you should also see about how to prepare your interview, how to plan your post-production, and how to use good mic techniques to get the best audio. I myself do plan to provide some of these in a future episode of The Podcast Reporter — but after I attend the NEXT in-person podcast conference where I can then use my own practical application as examples of recording face-to-face.

So, if you wish to create content with face-to-face interviews, I wish you success in preparing your equipment, as well as preparing your content and workflow for creating great value for your listeners.

Thank you for your attention.

Copyright (c) 2020, Matrix Solutions Corporation and thepodcasthost.com. All rights reserved.