0:00

[MUSIC]

0:05

>> How much is that? [MUSIC]

0:09

>> Welcome everybody to the Podcast Editor's Mastermind.

0:21

In this episode of Podcast Editor's Mastermind,

0:23

we're going to talk about what these words that we use mean.

0:27

But before we do that, quick second, I'm Bryan Entzminger, you can find me at toptieraudio.com, and over here is.

0:33

>> I'm Jesse McEwen, you can find me at Tansy Aster Academy.

0:37

>> I'm Jennifer Longworth at bourbonbarrelpodcasting.com.

0:41

>> In case you weren't able to guess, Daniel and Carrie were not able to join us this evening.

0:46

You can find Daniel at RothMedia.audio and Carrie is at Carrie

0:46

.land.

0:51

Today we're going to be talking about what

0:54

some of the vocabulary means that we use as editors.

0:57

This might seem like a super boring topic.

1:00

It's probably not the one that's going to get you a zillion clicks on the Googles.

1:04

But as a person that sometimes struggled with these words,

1:07

I can tell you it's incredibly valuable, not only because understanding what the words mean is important,

1:13

but also being able to explain them to prospects and

1:16

to clients in ways that they understand while not talking down to them.

1:19

That is super critical.

1:22

I'm really happy to start getting into this.

1:25

A quick hello, Steve says, "Hi, Steve.

1:27

We're glad that you were able to join us." Just another peek behind the curtain,

1:32

many of the things that we're going to be talking

1:34

about today are things that we've been asked about.

1:37

So I posted earlier in the Facebook group.

1:39

We've got a few questions or a few words to define that we got from Steve.

1:43

We got one from Daniel. Jennifer and I and Jesse have all come up with some of ours.

1:48

But if you're joining us and we say something that doesn't make sense to you,

1:52

or there's something else you've been wondering about, please ask in the chat if you're listening later to

1:57

the actual podcast episode just send us an email info@podcasteditorsmastermind.com,

2:02

because these are the boring parts that really make it all work.

2:06

So Jennifer, you actually raised this topic.

2:09

So why don't you share a little bit about what you were thinking when you said we should talk about this?

2:13

Well, you see discussions in the various Facebook groups and sometimes people,

2:19

obviously, don't understand what's being asked or maybe I confess,

2:23

I don't understand what you guys are talking about.

2:26

There was one episode of this show and I was like,

2:28

I am lost but I'm not going to admit it.

2:31

Oh, no. So I was like, hey,

2:34

why don't we do a vocab episode?

2:37

Maybe we'll just jump into it.

2:39

I've got it broken down. We've got one that's just related to or a couple that are

2:44

related to just general podcasting stuff,

2:46

then we have some audio specific stuff.

2:48

So I think I'll maybe start with the podcasting stuff and then we'll move on to audio things.

2:53

The first one is, what is an RSS feed?

2:57

So who wants to address that one? What is it?

3:00

Well, depends on who you ask.

3:02

It could stand for really simple syndication or something else,

3:07

but I go with really simple syndication.

3:09

Yeah. So from a technical standpoint,

3:11

the RSS feed is nothing but a text file that holds all the information that tells

3:16

a podcatcher or a podcast app what's available and where to get it.

3:21

That's all it is, it's just some code.

3:23

But the magic is that that's what makes podcasting possible.

3:28

That file or feed, if you will,

3:30

is what makes it so that there's no magic man in the middle that could

3:34

just decimate your show by deciding not to service it anymore.

3:37

That file is what makes open podcasting possible.

3:40

So Jesse, how do you explain an RSS feed to a client?

3:44

I don't. That's fair.

3:48

That's beautiful. It's just the way we distribute the files.

3:53

Anything beyond that, they're just going to gloss over and the reality is,

3:58

I don't really understand the nuts and bolts behind it.

4:01

I just know it's been used to syndicate everything from audio to text to video for what, 20 years now?

4:09

Have you ever had a client ask you or do they just-

4:12

Actually, I haven't. That's awesome. I've almost never had a client that didn't ask.

4:18

That's interesting. Maybe that's my fault. I'll take that. What about a podcast host?

4:25

Now, that's one that gets confusing because it doesn't necessarily-

4:28

This is one that Danielle brought up because there's the podcast host,

4:32

like the person talking, but from a technical standpoint,

4:35

when I think of a podcast host, I think of Libsyn or Blueberry or Captivate.

4:40

Do you guys ever have to talk with clients about what that is,

4:43

why it's important, how do you explain that to clients?

4:46

I refer to it as a media host and if they have any kind of confusion,

4:52

that seems to help clear it up.

4:54

That way they know we're not talking about you,

4:57

the podcast host of your own show versus where you store the show for distribution.

5:05

But you see this come up a lot in podcast help forums.

5:09

If someone will say, "Oh, I'm having this issue, blah, blah, blah."

5:12

And someone says, "Who's your host?"

5:14

And they say, "It's me, of course." And it's like, "Oh, Facepalm, that's not what I meant.

5:19

Who's your media host? Where do you store your files?"

5:21

So a lot of people apparently don't know what that means.

5:24

And then they're like, "I want Apple and Spotify." It's like, you're still not answering the question.

5:28

Do you ever have people ask you whether or not they can use their web host to host their files?

5:34

Does that ever come up? Not for me.

5:36

I haven't had anybody ask me specifically,

5:39

but I have seen that question pop up online a number of times.

5:44

I was wondering if maybe that was kind of an old-timer question,

5:46

because I used to see that a lot. I don't see it as much anymore.

5:50

I've had some people ask me, and I usually tell them from a technical standpoint,

5:53

"Yeah, it's a file. You can do that from a...

5:56

Is this going to work well for you and your audience? Absolutely not."

5:59

Because that host is not set up to deliver really big files of stuff

6:04

all at the same time when your episode drops.

6:06

So that's how I address it. Patrick, glad that you were able to join us for the super incredibly fun episode

6:13

where we talk about vocabulary.

6:15

We talked a little bit about some of the technical stuff.

6:18

I'd like to move on to audio things.

6:21

So first one comes to mind when I think about audio is decibel.

6:25

I'll let you touch this one, Jesse. From a technical standpoint, decibel, what is it?

6:30

It's just a measure of loudness.

6:32

And I understand the confusion between decibels, decibels, full-scale, luffs, RMS.

6:41

These are all different ways of measuring loudness.

6:44

That's why it gets so confusing.

6:47

That's why it's nice that we've kind of settled on luffs

6:51

as the primary way of measuring audio loudness these days.

6:56

Let's just talk about luffs, right? So decibels, you said measure of loudness.

7:00

In our world, we're not talking about speakers playing out into the world, right?

7:05

So we're not talking about decibels of truly moving air.

7:08

We're talking about versus how loud a system can be, right?

7:12

So technically decibels, full-scale measurement of digital audio.

7:18

In relation to that, luffs is similar but not the same.

7:21

So can you break that one down for us?

7:23

Essentially, a luff is supposed to generally equate to one decibel.

7:28

The difference being that luffs are meant to measure loudness more

7:33

in the way that the human ear hears it versus on a scale

7:37

the way that an RMS or decibel meter would measure it.

7:42

To answer the question I'm going to guess is coming next

7:45

or to add a little more to it, the main difference is the way we perceive bass

7:51

versus the way it's measured with like a decibel meter.

7:54

If we use a decibel meter, things are going to sound louder

7:58

or read as being louder to have more bass

8:02

because bass has more energy to it.

8:05

It's going to make the meters read louder.

8:08

Luffs try to compensate for that.

8:11

So if you have a big thumping hip-hop track,

8:15

all of that bass that's giving it all of its power

8:19

isn't going to make it sound...

8:21

It's going to make it easier to measure that

8:24

and compare it to this classical piece

8:26

so that they're the same volume the way our ears perceive them.

8:30

Okay. And since Steve said luffs take a drink, I'm going to say luffs.

8:34

So he can take a drink. Here's, and I'll ask the two of you,

8:38

how far in the weeds you want to get on this because this can get very mathy very quickly

8:43

when we start talking about decibels and luffs

8:45

and it can start to feel like high school algebra all over.

8:49

Jesse, if I'm not wrong, there's more than one time horizon

8:53

over which we measure luffs, right? So luffs is not a truly momentary measure

8:57

of any given point in time. It's measured over different time breaks.

9:01

Is that right? Yeah, it is a measurement of the entire file.

9:05

You might have like your momentary luffs reading,

9:08

but the number we're concerned with,

9:11

it's the measurement of the entire file.

9:14

And then to make things even more exciting,

9:16

if we start talking about targets, there are different targets

9:20

published by different people, right? So there's Apple Podcasts has a target

9:25

that they've suggested. Spotify has a target that they've suggested.

9:28

YouTube has a target. The Audio Engineering Society has a target.

9:31

There are all these other targets out there.

9:34

What do you share with a client as it relates to luffs,

9:37

whether you use the word luffs as Steve takes another drink or not?

9:41

I just kind of go with the Apple standard

9:44

because trying to hit negative 14 luffs,

9:48

that's difficult with dialogue.

9:50

Spotify's target is definitely designed more for music.

9:55

So I just tell them here, if you're stereo,

9:58

aim for negative 16, if you're mono, negative 19.

10:02

I think AES or one of those societies

10:07

has a slightly quieter take on what they feel

10:12

is the ideal level for dialogue,

10:14

but I can't remember specifically what that level is.

10:18

Yeah, the AES adjusted it about a year and a half ago,

10:22

and they said for dialogue, let's make it minus 18.

10:24

Let's still leave music at minus 16. I'm like, come on guys.

10:27

Like every 12 months, you're gonna change this now.

10:30

So I'm with you. I just tell people, like when I'm talking with a client,

10:34

I just say, I'm gonna make it so that it sounds at the level

10:37

where the majority of your podcast listeners

10:40

are gonna expect it to be, which is, at least for the shows I've worked on,

10:43

the Apple standard, right? I would argue along with you that 14, negative 14,

10:48

what Spotify is asking for for dialogue is crazy loud.

10:51

I can achieve it, gotta work at it, I can achieve it,

10:54

but it is crazy, crazy loud.

10:56

And so I would agree with you on that.

10:59

Jennifer, do you ever have to talk loves?

11:01

- Not with clients.

11:03

I just say, I level it all out and they say, okay.

11:06

And that's it. - So that takes us to another thing

11:10

that we hadn't really talked about, but when we talk about loudness, right,

11:13

we're talking about how loud is that overall file,

11:17

but within a file, there can be variation, right?

11:19

So there's another part of this

11:21

that I think most of us tend to forget about,

11:24

which is the loudness range.

11:27

What's the difference between the average and the quietest part, or the average

11:30

and the loudest part, if you will.

11:32

And at least at one point, there were standards for that.

11:35

I don't recall what they are anymore.

11:38

But yeah, to your point, Jennifer, if you talk about leveling it out so that it's all right,

11:42

ideally you're covering the loudness range and the loves.

11:45

And you'd have to talk about, like, my clients,

11:48

they don't care what that number is. - No, they don't care.

11:51

- If I was interviewing an editor to work for me,

11:54

I would care, because then I'm expecting them

11:57

to meet my targets and all that stuff, but yeah.

11:59

And Patrick says, "Negative things being louder

12:04

makes my head explode." Yeah, it's that whole absolute value

12:07

of a negative number thing. So bigger negative number is actually quieter,

12:13

and smaller negative number is, yeah.

12:16

We got into math way quicker than I thought we would,

12:18

so sorry about that, Patrick. - Get away from the math, Bryan, stop.

12:22

- And just to complicate things a little bit more,

12:25

negative 19 is twice as loud as negative 16.

12:30

That's why there's the difference. Negative 16, you've got a stereo file.

12:35

You've got equal energy coming from left and right.

12:38

So a monophile is half that,

12:43

and that equates to a three-left difference.

12:46

So three-lefts is twice the energy, twice the loudness.

12:51

I didn't expect to get into pan law either, but yeah, that's a good piece to remember.

12:56

So to Jesse's point, if you're working on a stereo file,

13:00

minus 16 is what I would recommend,

13:02

and minus 19 is what I would recommend for mono.

13:05

I think that's the same as Jesse. Steve says, "Fletcher-Munson curve."

13:10

I don't have a copy of that, but those of you out there wondering

13:13

what the Fletcher-Munson curve is,

13:15

it's just a measure of how we perceive

13:18

different frequencies against each other at different volume levels,

13:22

and that's part of what builds out the way they look at a LUFS measurement.

13:26

The idea is that at a certain level,

13:28

it should all sound similar.

13:31

I've got a couple more technicals on the editing side.

13:35

One is multitrack.

13:37

That was the only word, so I'm gonna start with multitrack,

13:40

and I think there's a couple directions we can go.

13:42

Jennifer, when you think of multitrack, what are you thinking?

13:45

- Well, the first thing I think, I use Adobe Audition,

13:47

so when I think multitrack, I think nondestructive editing,

13:51

because if you go into the waveform in Audition,

13:56

I think it's destructive editing, so if I wanna be nondestructive,

13:59

which isn't even a vocab word today, I'm making it one.

14:02

- Should be. So what's nondestructive editing?

14:04

- Nondestructive editing means that if I save it,

14:07

I can go back and, oh, I can still fix my changes in short.

14:12

That's the non-technical way to describe it.

14:14

Like, if you save something in waveform, you close, and you come back, oh, too bad, it's gone.

14:19

It's been destroyed. You can never get it back,

14:22

but if you're in multitrack and Audition,

14:25

and you just move things around, you can get them back.

14:29

- So you think of that in terms of Audition

14:32

and their editor, 'cause they do have a couple of different editing capabilities, right?

14:36

- Yes, that's what comes to my mind. - Jesse, when you think multitrack, what are you thinking?

14:40

- I'm thinking one of two things. I'm thinking either a multitrack DAW,

14:45

which allows you to work on multiple tracks individually,

14:48

or I think of how a roadcaster records

14:52

their multitrack files into multi-wave

14:55

or whatever they call it. Those are the two things that come up in my mind

14:59

when I hear multitrack. - I think that gets us there,

15:03

'cause we could get into this whole nuanced thing about multi-channel, multitrack, all that crazy stuff.

15:07

I think the way you're describing it, individual files for things

15:10

or individual tracks for things, absolutely perfect.

15:14

I hadn't even, Jennifer, I hadn't even thought about the whole waveform editor thing.

15:18

Patrick says that he even edits individual tracks

15:21

and multitracks because he's more comfortable there.

15:23

I'm assuming Patrick, is that an Adobe Audition thing,

15:26

you just prefer working in the waveform editor?

15:29

Steve says, "The way I would explain it to a client, a client multitrack equals layers."

15:35

I hadn't thought about it that way.

15:37

Interesting. I have to think about that one, Steve,

15:39

'cause that's an interesting way to think about it.

15:42

Patrick says, yes, he is talking about the waveform editor.

15:44

I'm really intrigued that you're more comfortable

15:47

in the waveform editor. - No, no, he said multitrack.

15:50

- Oh, I misunderstood.

15:52

Okay, it makes perfect sense. Yeah, thank you.

15:54

- And this is why I don't work with Adobe.

15:56

It just makes my head hurt. - Oh, I love Adobe.

16:00

- Everything Adobe makes my head hurt,

16:02

but I'm glad other people love it. It's just not for me.

16:06

- That's why there's more than one DAW. - It is the most popular DAW out there

16:10

when it comes to the Podcast Editors Club, which Steve Stewart leads.

16:14

So no shade on them. I don't think that way either.

16:17

I'm with you, Jesse. It kind of makes me confused.

16:19

So let's move on to some of the other audio stuff

16:22

that's maybe a little bit less on the audio technical side.

16:25

So Jesse, you actually brought this one up, reverb versus echo.

16:28

And I think there's some passion for you behind this topic.

16:32

So share what you're thinking, reverb versus echo.

16:34

- I'm sure anybody who's spent any time

16:37

on any kind of Facebook group or podcast forum sees this.

16:42

I'm getting a lot of echo on my recording.

16:44

How do I fix it? And if we're speaking a different language,

16:48

you're saying echo.

16:50

I think of echo where you hear clearly distinct

16:55

replications of the original audio.

16:58

Like you go to the Grand Canyon,

17:01

yell across and you say, echo, echo, echo.

17:04

That's not the same thing as what we hear recording

17:09

in a room. Even if you have multiple people in that room,

17:13

that's more mic bleed, that's not really echo.

17:16

And mic bleed kind of blurs that line between reverb

17:20

and just straight up mic bleed.

17:23

But what Bryan's

17:23

alluding to was I just get really worked up

17:28

when I see a company like Riverside say something like,

17:33

our magic audio removes echo from your recordings.

17:37

I just expect companies to use the proper language.

17:40

So we try to correct people.

17:43

So instead of perpetuating this misuse of the wrong word.

17:47

- Yeah, I'm with you on that,

17:50

especially a company of that size where you know,

17:52

they have to have audio engineers working for them

17:54

to help them with all of their magic that they're doing.

17:57

It's not just a bunch of coders. They've got some people there that know what they're doing.

18:01

That for me is one.

18:03

So we talked about echo. What about reverb?

18:06

Just explain reverb to us.

18:08

- It's the sound of the room. If you stand in the middle of your room and clap,

18:13

that ringing that, I don't know what else to describe it as,

18:17

but you'll hear kind of a ring or the sound lingers slightly.

18:22

That's what reverb is.

18:25

Kind of think if you go into a cave and you're talking,

18:27

or you go into your bathroom and start talking loud,

18:32

you'll hear that reverb.

18:35

That's why people love singing in the bathrooms

18:37

because they sound good because of all that natural reverb.

18:40

- I hate singing in the bathroom, but I'm with you.

18:44

Patrick says he thinks acoustics when he thinks reverb.

18:48

I think that's pretty much what you're saying, right?

18:51

The acoustics of the room that you're in.

18:54

- Yeah. - You talked about the bleed from headphones to a microphone.

18:59

I think the other side of that that we sometimes see are people that show up without headphones

19:04

to a recording session and thinking it's like a Zoom session,

19:08

which it may or may not be or something like that.

19:11

First off, would you call that echo?

19:13

Do you call that reverb or fold back something else?

19:16

What do you call that? - I would call that echo because the person talks.

19:22

You hear it out your speaker. It gets picked up by the microphone

19:26

and it'll echo it back to the other person.

19:29

That's why if someone on a call

19:31

has their echo cancellation set wrong,

19:34

you hear your voice echoed back to you.

19:37

- So let's take that a step further. And let's say that I'm in a Facebook group

19:41

and I say to you, how do I get rid of my guests echo in my recording?

19:45

What would you say? - I would just ask, what do you mean by echo?

19:50

Because I can't help without knowing

19:52

if we're talking about echo or reverb.

19:55

- 'Cause I was immediately assume they're meaning reverb

19:58

because that's what they usually mean.

20:01

- Okay. And if through that conversation, we said,

20:04

okay, I'm talking about my guests audio,

20:06

it's being picked up by the speaker.

20:09

For some reason, it seems to be echoing in the recording.

20:11

It's on my side of the track too, what's going on?

20:13

How would I fix that?

20:15

- It depends if it's, there's two different types of that kind of echo

20:19

that I've run into. You have the echo that's being picked up by the mic

20:24

and the levels are going to be quieter

20:28

than the other person's direct audio.

20:31

The other issue I've run into is people using USB mics

20:36

with headphones plugged right in. - Oh, right, yeah.

20:39

- There've been a few times where Riverside can't split that signal correctly.

20:43

So it sends the headphone feed and the microphone feed

20:46

to the same track. So your audio has everything going to the headphones

20:52

embedded into it. - Which is just a delightful edit, isn't it?

20:56

- Yeah. - Where I was headed was,

20:59

if I found out somebody was getting guest audio back in their thing, my first question would be,

21:04

are you wearing headphones? If they are, then I think we go immediately

21:07

to what you're talking about, right? How loud are your headphones?

21:11

Are you using a USB microphone or is there something

21:13

where that audio could be transmitted into the,

21:16

like I've seen some of those earbuds

21:19

where they've got the built-in microphone and you get the remote guest in that microphone

21:23

because it's literally attached.

21:25

But yeah, I was going for headphones, just wear 'em.

21:28

- What benefits do you share with clients?

21:31

First off, do you tell clients they need to wear headphones?

21:33

And if so, why? - I absolutely tell them to wear headphones.

21:38

There's lots of benefits, but one of them is,

21:42

so that the sound doesn't count, I'll have the speaker right back into the mic,

21:44

but the other one's monitoring.

21:47

- Hear yourself and then also don't pick it up.

21:49

Steve has a question. You guys wanna jump into Steve's question?

21:52

- Yeah, let's do it. - This is a great one.

21:54

He says, so we were talking about echo and reverb

21:57

and all that stuff. He says he thinks that he's been calling cross talk

22:00

incorrectly, so could we please cover that?

22:03

I have some thoughts on cross talk.

22:05

- What's cross talk? - So in my mind-

22:10

- I think it's cross talk.

22:12

- You think it's cross talk? - Are we talking about cross talk?

22:15

- Stepping on top of each other? - Yeah.

22:17

- I'm not sure what that would be called. I call that two people talking at the same time.

22:21

'Cause I don't know what the right-

22:23

- I call that cross talk. - Cross talk?

22:26

- Yeah. - Yep. - Okay, so I was thinking of cross talk in terms of

22:30

in old recording consoles where they didn't have

22:33

great separation between channels,

22:35

you would sometimes get audio from one channel being picked up by another channel.

22:39

I thought that was cross talk. Maybe I'm wrong on that.

22:42

- I think those are both valid uses of cross talk.

22:45

- Okay, I called it people talking at the same time

22:48

'cause I didn't wanna use the wrong words and I'm gonna call it cross talk.

22:51

I mean, if Patrick and Steve and Jesse and Jennifer

22:55

say it's right, then it has to be. So now I can do it.

22:58

If Daniel had been here, he could have been the dissenting opinion.

23:00

(laughing) Sorry, Daniel, you missed out.

23:04

That's a good one. Thank you, Steve, for asking.

23:06

Is that what you're calling cross talk? Is it when people step on each other while they're talking

23:10

or were you talking about it as something else?

23:12

- While we wait for his answer, going back to the headphone thing,

23:16

what I tell clients is using headphones

23:19

is the most important thing to sounding good

23:23

because you cannot fix echo cancellation.

23:26

- Totally. You can fix some reverb, right?

23:29

Or the reflections from the room. Patrick had commented about DX revive.

23:34

That's one of the tools I sometimes use. I think Jesse and I both use Super Tone Clear as well.

23:38

There are a ton of tools out there for that kind of thing.

23:42

Nothing that I've found will fix the lack of echo cancellation.

23:46

Best I've ever done is trying to cut it out manually

23:49

and that is a fool's errand. It's hours of work for terrible results.

23:53

- Patrick says that they have to have headphones or earbuds

23:56

or they make them reschedule. That's perfect.

23:58

Did I jump on top of you, Jennifer? - Yeah. - Was there something you were--

24:01

- Yeah, I was popping up Steve's.

24:03

Cross talk has two definitions like podcast host.

24:06

So yes, talking at the same time is how he defines it.

24:09

- Perfect. So Jesse, this is one that you had brought up

24:13

before we started recording, overmodulation.

24:16

Is it Riverside that sometimes uses that word in their stuff?

24:20

- I'm not sure who uses it. I just, I see it off and on.

24:24

And in strict audio terms like what we are doing,

24:28

recording and editing dialogue,

24:31

I'm not familiar with anything that's called overmodulation.

24:36

In music, you have modulation,

24:38

which is like chorus or delay effects.

24:41

But I have no clue what overmodulation is,

24:45

which means if somebody's saying that or asking about it,

24:49

I have no way of helping them. What I've found is, at least in the world of telecom,

24:55

it was if the signal exceeds what's required for 100%.

25:00

So I think that's what we would refer to as,

25:02

within the audio world, as what would lead to clipping.

25:06

It's going over that zero into a positive value.

25:09

It's now louder than 100%. That's how I would understand it.

25:13

That doesn't mean I'm right, but that's how I would think that.

25:16

Yeah, Patrick says, classical musician thinks

25:19

that modulation is a key change. It took a bit for me to get there as well,

25:22

'cause I always thought of modulation as that key change.

25:25

And I guess overmodulation is if you do two at the same time, I don't know.

25:29

I think it's when recording too hot, you get clipping,

25:32

or if you process too hard, you get that distortion.

25:35

I think that's what it is. If I'm wrong, somebody please tell me,

25:38

'cause that's how I'm gonna use it from now on until I find out I'm wrong.

25:42

Jennifer, this one was yours, engineering versus editing.

25:45

- Engineering versus editing.

25:48

- Let's go one further. - Engineering versus editing versus producing.

25:51

- Oh yeah, you added the producing, which is like, what the heck?

25:55

I mean, people come and they're like, I need a podcast producer.

25:58

I'm like, okay, what do you need someone to do for you?

26:00

Because we probably have different definitions

26:03

of these terms. But now that I have a team of editors,

26:08

I do all the engineering,

26:10

and I pass the editing off to them.

26:12

So the engineering is more like the sound quality,

26:16

whereas the editing is the content.

26:18

It's how I look at it.

26:20

- How about you, Jesse? - In my world, I look at engineering as,

26:25

it's what happens up to the end of the recording.

26:29

Once the recording's done, you move into post-production,

26:32

whether you call that editing or mixing, whatever it is.

26:37

To me, engineering is everything you do

26:41

to get a good recording. Once the recording process is done,

26:45

the engineer's job is done. You hand it off to the editor,

26:49

whoever you want to call them.

26:51

Sometimes it's the producer, sometimes it's the editor,

26:54

sometimes it's someone else.

26:57

I'm sure there's other names out there.

27:00

- For better or worse, the way I look at it, and we're probably not all gonna agree here today,

27:04

and that's okay, 'cause we're just talking about these.

27:06

As long as we can walk out and agree that Bryan was right when we're done, we're fine.

27:11

I think of the producer as the person who's responsible for the show,

27:15

that may or may not be the host,

27:17

or it may or may not be somebody that comes alongside them to help provide a content schedule,

27:21

keep track of any marketing, that kind of stuff.

27:24

That's what I think of in terms of a show producer.

27:27

When I think of editing, I think of two different kinds of editing.

27:32

One is what I'll call the story editor.

27:34

So if you've got something where you're putting together a story,

27:38

or you're going through and determining which sections of content need to come out,

27:42

or which sections need to be pulled out to be put into something,

27:45

that's what I think of in terms of a story editor potentially rearranging things

27:49

like you might do for a newscast, where you've got a person on the street

27:53

with a microphone capturing 30-second clips,

27:55

and you're gonna put all those together, or you're going out and you're capturing,

27:59

over the period of X number of months or an hour,

28:02

an interview with somebody, and then you're going to pull out 15 minutes out of that

28:06

to make that into something. I think of that as a story editor.

28:08

They're responsible for the arc of the story.

28:11

Most of what I do is the technical editing,

28:13

and most of my editing is linear. I'm starting at the beginning.

28:16

I have an interview. I cut out the distractions.

28:19

I might cut out a sentence or two here,

28:22

but I'm not changing the content. I'm not changing the story arc.

28:25

I'm not doing any of that. It's just removing distractions and mistakes.

28:30

Jesse, to your point, I don't necessarily think of engineering

28:34

as only the recording engineer side of it.

28:36

I also think of it as potentially a mix engineer.

28:40

I realize that we're not mixing a professional record here,

28:43

but that EQ, the compression, that kind of stuff,

28:45

audio repair, I tend to think of that a little bit more

28:48

in the engineering than the editing side,

28:50

but I'm not gonna die on that hill either,

28:53

and I definitely see everything on the recording side

28:55

in terms of quality audio as engineering.

28:59

Hopefully that hasn't confused everybody too much.

29:02

Steve says that he thinks of editing as cutting

29:05

and engineering as headphones.

29:08

I'm assuming making it sound good.

29:10

I hope that's what that was.

29:12

Patrick says that he doesn't feel cool enough

29:14

to call himself an engineer. I don't know, should we take a vote?

29:18

Should we let Patrick call himself an engineer? Is that okay?

29:20

All in favor say aye. - Sure. - I think so.

29:23

- The motion carries. Patrick, you can call yourself an engineer

29:26

by the authority of the three of us.

29:28

- There you go. - We have nothing.

29:30

We kind of blew through that. Is there anything we missed?

29:33

- Well, I'll just say that I joined

29:35

the Chris Curran's Podcast Engineering School

29:37

'cause I feel like that's where I'm weak on. I think I know all about editing now.

29:42

I've been doing it for eight years. I got that.

29:44

But the engineering part, a little fuzzy.

29:46

Gotta learn more. - Yeah, and you know, as I think about that,

29:51

there's definitely an element of critical listening

29:53

that comes with engineering in a way that I didn't do

29:56

when I was just editing. Jesse, you kind of came from that engineering background

30:01

in terms of working on music quite a bit.

30:03

Did you find that it changed when you started engineering or not?

30:08

- Did what change? - The way you listen.

30:11

- Yeah, the more, everything we do

30:14

when we're working with audio, we're training our ears.

30:19

So the more time we spend editing, the more time,

30:22

I mean, what I've found has helped me the most has been teaching and working with people.

30:28

Being able to listen to their stuff, teach them,

30:31

it helps you really focus on your listening skills

30:35

because you're not bothered with trying

30:37

to get this client project done so I can get onto the next one.

30:41

You're just focused on listening

30:44

and that makes a huge difference in how quickly you start to develop that ear.

30:49

Kind of to your point about the different types of engineering,

30:52

I would classify kind of the mix engineer

30:56

as part of the post-production process.

30:59

I'd make a distinction between the recording engineer

31:02

and the mixing engineer.

31:04

- That's fair, yeah. - And like you were talking about, the mix engineer,

31:09

they're going to be doing the cleanup,

31:12

doing everything kind of like Steve's making it sound good.

31:16

That's what you're doing as the mix engineer.

31:19

- So to your point, you mentioned listening differently

31:22

and when you're not focused on having to churn out client projects,

31:25

one of the things that I've noticed is it seems like my ears,

31:30

in my opinion, tend to make the most progress

31:34

when I'm trying to help develop an EQ

31:36

and compression template for somebody.

31:39

So that they've got sort of a processing baseline

31:41

to start from because that's when I really start to listen

31:44

for exactly where are those resonances

31:47

that the room or the microphone or their voice is causing.

31:50

And then how can we address those in a way that keeps their voice natural

31:54

but maybe reduces some of those things that stand out a little bit.

31:57

So I definitely see that in some of the work

32:00

that I've done as well. Another place I've seen that is

32:03

if somebody wants a little bit of help trying to treat their room, doing it long distance,

32:07

I can't walk through the room and go,

32:09

this is what I hear, this is what. So you end up with your headphones on or your speakers

32:13

listening very carefully to like five or six different

32:17

recordings that they made and going, okay,

32:19

sounds like I'm getting something here, it sounds like I'm getting something here,

32:22

tell me more about the space. Typically I'll hear, there'll be some kind of resonance,

32:27

either typically it's a multiple of like 100 or 125 hertz,

32:30

depending on the size of the room. Then you go, okay, where does that seem to be hitting

32:34

and how can we treat it? That to me has been really valuable, but it's hard work.

32:40

Do you do anything else, Jesse, to train your ears?

32:43

- Just listen to as much stuff as I can and practice.

32:49

I really can't stress enough how important

32:51

setting aside time to practice is,

32:54

even if you've been doing it for a while.

32:57

Nothing speeds up your process and helps you see new things,

33:02

like setting aside that time when you don't have

33:05

any external pressures on you.

33:07

You're not trying to get stuff done, you don't have to worry about a client, deadlines,

33:12

anything like that. You can just focus on listening and whatever skill it is

33:18

you've set aside that time to work on.

33:21

- Here's another fun one. We already kind of touched on it,

33:23

but soundproofing versus acoustic treatment.

33:27

So if I said, I need to soundproof my room,

33:29

I've got these foam wedges that I picked up from a company,

33:34

I need to stop my neighbor's lawnmower coming through,

33:37

what would you tell me? - Well, when I had my studio back in 2019,

33:43

I tried to make that distinguish. I'm like, this is a sound-treated space.

33:47

This is not a soundproof space.

33:51

There is a difference. (laughs)

33:54

- And what's the difference? - Well, sound can get through just the sound-treated space.

33:59

I mean, it can come in, but with the acoustic treatment,

34:03

it'll help with the resonances and the sound that's initiated within the room,

34:08

but it's not necessarily gonna keep out stuff

34:11

coming from the outside. - Jesse, how about you?

34:15

- I try to describe it to clients as soundproof

34:19

keeps sound from inside your room from going out

34:24

and outside sound from coming in.

34:26

Acoustic treatment, sound treatment is designed

34:29

to make the sound of your room more appealing.

34:32

It's not going to stop your dog barking

34:35

or the landscapers outside,

34:38

but it's going to make it so you don't have

34:40

a lot of those room resonances.

34:43

You see all these panels back here.

34:45

I've sound-treated my room, but I still hear all sorts of sounds.

34:49

If my cat's outside playing, banging against the door,

34:52

you're all going to hear that.

34:54

Soundproofing is a very expensive endeavor.

34:57

You basically have to build your room specifically for that,

35:01

or you're not going to get there.

35:03

- And for most podcasters, do you think soundproofing is even relevant?

35:08

- It's not necessary.

35:10

If you've got a good mic, I mean, I record people in their living rooms, wherever,

35:17

all you need is a decent dynamic mic that's positioned well,

35:22

and all of that other stuff doesn't really matter.

35:26

You might have a little reverb you have to deal with.

35:29

You might have some room resonances,

35:31

but the bass quality is still going to be there.

35:36

- I would agree with that. Steve says that soundproofing and sound treatment to him

35:40

are as different and confusing as tornado warning

35:43

and tornado watch. I would say that they definitely confused me early on.

35:49

I think, yeah, I mean, I've invested most of my time

35:52

and money in this room on the treatment, right?

35:56

Reducing the resonances, it's essentially a square room,

35:59

it's terrible for recording, so I had to treat it, right?

36:03

But it's the best room in the house for that.

36:05

Patrick says that a blanket is magic.

36:08

It definitely has been for me before I had the treatments I have.

36:11

I had a bunch of moving blankets hung up.

36:13

They were ugly, they looked terrible,

36:16

but they sounded good, and that's what I did with those.

36:20

Steve says that Jesse reminded you of terms that he uses

36:23

with clients, dynamics versus condenser mics.

36:26

I didn't even think about covering that. Do you guys wanna talk about that?

36:29

- Yeah, let's talk about that. - Let me add one more thing about the acoustic

36:34

and your question. I think that if you're doing podcasts

36:39

and you've been doing it for a while,

36:41

getting sound treatment is the best investment you can make,

36:45

but it's absolutely not necessary.

36:47

But if you're wanting to invest in getting better sound

36:51

before getting a RODECaster or a 7B,

36:55

invest that money into your sound treatment,

36:58

that will make a much bigger difference than the mic or interface that you're using.

37:03

- I would agree wholeheartedly.

37:05

I don't wanna make a blanket statement because of course there are outliers, there are exceptions.

37:10

But if somebody came to me with $1,000 and said,

37:14

should I buy a RODECaster and a 7B,

37:16

depending on the space they were in, I might say, actually, can you get a Samson Q2U

37:21

or an ATR2100X for $100 and spend the other 800 on treatment

37:26

because you'll probably get more out of that

37:29

than the fancy microphone in the RODECaster.

37:32

Just my opinion. - I'd agree. - We're agreeing with each other.

37:36

It was bound to happen eventually.

37:38

Patrick also says that he has guests put a blanket on their lap.

37:41

I hadn't thought about that. I have put a blanket on my desk.

37:45

I've hidden under a blanket. I've made a pillow fort.

37:47

I've never put a blanket on my lap. That's an interesting one.

37:50

- Patrick, I'd like to know a little bit more

37:52

about the reasoning behind that.

37:55

Are these laps affecting the acoustics?

37:58

I'm just curious on that one.

38:00

The desk, I understand.

38:02

- While Patrick's doing that, let's talk about dynamics versus condensers.

38:06

Let's put it in the context of having a conversation

38:09

with a client who is not an audio person

38:12

and telling them what's the difference and why should they care.

38:15

- I describe a condenser as,

38:17

it's basically like a magnifying glass.

38:20

You look throughout your room. It's going to magnify every imperfection

38:24

from your acoustics to sounds inside your room,

38:27

even outside the room. You might hear the dog barking across the house

38:31

because they're so sensitive.

38:34

Dynamics, people seem to think that they're sound canceling

38:39

or something like that.

38:41

They're just less sensitive. So you're still going to pick up loud sounds in your room.

38:47

If your dog's barking next to you, it's still going to pick that up,

38:50

but you're going to be able to minimize

38:54

a lot of the outside sound because it's not as sensitive.

38:58

When you get right up on the mic,

39:00

you have so much of your voice. All of the background sound is much quieter in relation.

39:06

- The one thing that I would add is generally,

39:09

I recommend dynamic microphones for people,

39:12

especially people who say, "I'm about to start my show.

39:15

What microphone should I get?" And that is the totality of the focus

39:18

they've put on the question because it's generally the safer bet.

39:23

But I also want to point out that condenser microphones can work.

39:28

I'm on one and Jesse's on one too.

39:31

The key is both of us have treated our spaces

39:34

to work for the microphones that we're using.

39:37

So if I was sitting in my kitchen right now

39:39

with this microphone, it would sound abysmal.

39:42

Actually in my kitchen, even a dynamic microphone

39:45

might sound really bad because it's hard floors, hard walls.

39:47

But that notwithstanding, this microphone would be terrible.

39:50

And so that's why I typically recommend dynamics,

39:53

even though I use a condenser. Because I spent the money we talked about

39:57

making my space work. Patrick has his answer, says, "usually the desk."

40:03

So this is in reference to a blanket on the lap.

40:05

Usually on the desk, sometimes in a lap if the desk is not possible.

40:08

And also maybe they're cold, I like that one.

40:11

And then have another host who put two or three dog toys

40:14

on the test and it makes a big difference. I'm assuming those are some kind of soft dog toys

40:18

that are absorbing sound. And I can totally see how that would work.

40:23

Did we need to hit anything more on dynamics and condensers?

40:25

I think we covered that one. - Well, I'll just give kind of an A side.

40:29

The reason I'm on a condenser mic is dynamic mics need a lot of gain.

40:35

I have a quiet voice. So using an RE20, I needed to use so much gain

40:41

that I had a ton of noise in my recordings.

40:46

So I needed a more sensitive mic.

40:48

I don't know how well it translates, but I'm still about an inch and a half away from this mic

40:53

and have a ton of gain added digitally through my interface

40:57

to have something you guys can all hear.

41:00

So I'm using that sensitivity to my advantage

41:05

so I don't have to spend as much time cleaning up my audio.

41:08

But like you said, I've spent the money

41:11

on the sound treatment.

41:13

So I have that luxury of being able to choose

41:16

between the two. - Yeah.

41:19

So we have, I think, three more to go.

41:22

And these are not audio.

41:25

These are back to podcast specific stuff,

41:27

but these are about episodes.

41:30

So the first one is cold open.

41:34

What's a cold open? Jennifer?

41:36

- You just start, jump right in.

41:40

- Okay. Jesse, what do you think of?

41:43

- First thing that pops into my mind is Saturday Night Live.

41:46

They start with a cold open. Something to get you into things.

41:52

And to me, I don't like that they've started using that term

41:56

in podcasts where a lot of times they call a cold open,

42:00

it's a clip from later in the show.

42:03

To me, that's more of a preview or something to hook you in

42:08

as opposed to a cold open. But people use terms interchangeably,

42:12

so they might be calling it a cold open

42:15

and it's a true cold open. I don't know.

42:18

- That's interesting. I had typically heard cold open in terms of those clips,

42:23

although I recognize the Saturday Night Live thing as well.

42:26

I think for me, a cold open done well is a hook.

42:31

And whether that hook is, well, I would say is a hook

42:35

that isn't the introduction to the show.

42:37

So if you're starting with, on this episode,

42:41

we're gonna talk about five things that will make you rich in 23 minutes.

42:44

I'm Bryan, stick around for the next 20 minutes.

42:47

To me, that's not a cold open. That's an introduction or a pre-introduction,

42:50

but something that's, let's call it an ex-context clip.

42:55

So as you were talking about a section from the episode

43:00

with no context setting it up,

43:02

a quote or something like that, I would think of that as a cold open.

43:06

Honestly, in many cases, I would think of that as a cold open that's done poorly.

43:11

Patrick says he calls that a teaser. I'm guessing, Patrick, you're talking about

43:15

the Saturday Night Live version of a cold open

43:17

or the little preview of the episode.

43:20

If you wanna share a little bit more about that, I'd love to hear more about your thoughts

43:23

'cause this is one that I'm not super comfortable

43:26

with myself. - I like his second comment about a cold open is no intro.

43:32

I would take that as more of the Saturday Night Live thing

43:35

or you just start the show, you don't have an intro,

43:38

you don't have the teaser hook, whatever you wanna call it.

43:41

And I think he was saying the clip, whatever,

43:45

he would call that a teaser and I like his definitions.

43:50

- Okay, tonight's episode, we almost had a cold open, right?

43:53

'Cause I forgot the music.

43:55

- Yeah, that's what it was.

43:58

- Steve says he had a client with a TV background

44:00

and she considered a cold open as the guest highlight snippet or teaser.

44:04

I can totally go with that. What about dynamic insertion?

44:09

- I'm still learning about dynamic insertion.

44:12

So I'm gonna punt.

44:14

- Jesse, do you have a perspective on it? I've got mine, but.

44:17

- I have a little bit of a perspective

44:19

and I think podcasters get too hung up

44:23

on that being something that can only be used for ads.

44:26

If you look at it from a bigger picture thing,

44:31

there's so much power to those to use it

44:33

to promote your own things, whether it's promoting previous episodes,

44:38

if you're someone who offers services,

44:41

you can use those to promote your services,

44:45

not just as a means for monetizing with advertisers.

44:49

- Yeah, so in my mind,

44:51

there's two kinds of dynamic insertion

44:55

and it doesn't have anything to do with ads necessarily.

44:58

One kind is where content can be swapped out

45:02

within an episode, but then everybody that downloads it gets the same content.

45:07

So as an example, for this show,

45:10

let's say that we, well, we have some intro music,

45:12

but let's say we wanted to be able to change out the intro

45:16

based on the season of the year that we're in.

45:18

We have one for winter, one for spring, whatever.

45:20

We could potentially, 'cause of the media hosts that we have,

45:23

we could have a pre-roll that is our intro

45:26

and we could swap that out and that would be dynamic content because we can change it.

45:30

On the other hand, there's dynamic content

45:32

that could be potentially different for every listener

45:35

and this is where programmatic ads come in,

45:38

where a media host is inserting something

45:42

for that particular listener to hear

45:45

and maybe not everybody else. So I think there's a little bit of rub between those two

45:50

and maybe I'm not 100% right. That's just how I think of it.

45:53

Dynamic content is anything that can be swapped out

45:56

without having to re-upload the episode

45:59

and dynamic content is also potentially anything

46:02

that can be swapped out for any specific download,

46:05

whether it's geographically targeted or random,

46:08

it doesn't matter, that's also dynamic.

46:11

The difference being one of them is stitched together

46:14

and then everybody has served the same file

46:16

and the other one is stitched together individually

46:18

for every person that downloads that file.

46:20

One more, this is somebody's pet peeve.

46:24

I don't remember whose it was, but what is the difference between a podcast and an episode?

46:29

I think this is the hill we're gonna die on.

46:32

So Jennifer, I just recorded a new podcast.

46:34

What did I record? (laughing)

46:39

- Well, I just started a new podcast

46:42

and when I say that, I meant like an ongoing series,

46:46

but the people who I'm talking to like,

46:49

oh, she released three podcasts today.

46:51

I'm like, episode, I released three episodes today.

46:56

- Well, the person could be really productive

46:58

and did start three new podcasts this week.

47:01

- Yeah, could be. - Well, that wasn't me.

47:05

(laughing) - Steve says that he's gonna claim that as his pet peeve.

47:09

I think it probably was, I just kind of lost track of where I was.

47:12

Steve says a podcast is a show and an episode is an individual release.

47:17

I will stand with Steve on this one. I have nothing else to add.

47:20

Jesse or Jennifer, anything else? - I'm in complete agreement with that one.

47:24

- Yay, we ended on a high note. So Jennifer, do we have a chat GPT question of the week?

47:30

'Cause that's what we're gonna do next. - Yes, yes, yes, yes.

47:33

And Patrick, you'll like this one.

47:35

If you had the ability to instantly master

47:38

any musical instrument, which one would you choose

47:42

and what kind of music would you play with it?

47:45

- Oh man, instantly master any musical instrument?

47:50

- Any musical instrument.

47:52

And what kind of music would you play with it?

47:55

- Man, you know what?

47:57

I would probably choose the pipe organ

48:01

because it is one of the most difficult instruments

48:05

in the world to play. And to be able to master that would be unbelievable.

48:10

What kind of music would I play?

48:12

Probably Smoke on the Water 'cause...

48:14

(both laughing)

48:17

What about you, Jesse?

48:20

- Guitar? Seriously, I wish I could master guitar.

48:24

My wife is the one who, she can make us sing.

48:28

I'm just the engineer. I can make pretty sounds, but I can't make it,

48:32

turn it into music.

48:34

And I'd probably play like blues or something.

48:38

- Well, the first instrument that honestly popped

48:40

in my head was the accordion and I would play Weird Al.

48:44

But realistically, it would have to be the piano

48:49

and singable music is what I would play

48:54

for people to sing along with me.

48:56

- Steve says the cowbell all the way.

48:59

Steve, we could never have enough of you in our song.

49:02

And Patrick says a theremin.

49:04

I love that. I didn't even think of the theremin.

49:07

And he says that he actually has one, but he's not doing so great with it.

49:10

And Steve says also the metronome during a marching band performance.

49:14

I should say that I do play the saxophone,

49:19

but I have far from mastered it. But if I had to choose a new one,

49:22

that's where I was coming from with that one.

49:24

Jennifer, if somebody wants to be a guest, what do they do?

49:27

- They need to contact us by going to podcasteditermastermind.com/be-a-guest.

49:32

And it takes you to a little form that you fill out

49:35

and we get the info and then we ask you to be a guest.

49:39

- And if you have any topics that you'd like us to cover,

49:42

if you'd like to be a guest on the show, you can also reach out to us using that form

49:46

and let us know or email us, info@podcasteditermastermind.com.

49:50

'Cause we would love to hear from you.

49:53

And we've got one more. Steve says that we love you, Jennifer.

49:57

- Hence the metronome comment. - Yeah, yeah.

50:00

I think that's all we got tonight. So we'll call it before I beat the dead horse

50:04

or some other cliche like that. I've been Bryan Enspinger.

50:07

You can find me at toptieraudio.com.

50:09

And this has been. - I'm Jesse McEwen, Tansy Aster Academy.

50:14

- And I'm Jennifer Longworth, bourbonbarrelpodcasting.com.

50:18

- Oh, and Jesse, we should let you do a quick plug for Tansy Aster Academy

50:22

and what you do there. 'Cause you got some good stuff going on over there.

50:25

- Tansy Aster Academy is where I help podcast editors

50:29

or podcasters, anybody who's looking for ways to improve

50:34

their editing skills, I help you with them.

50:38

- And unable to join us were Carrie

50:38

Caulfield.

50:40

You can find her at Carrie

50:40

.land and Daniel Abendroth.

50:44

You can find him at rothmedia.audio.

50:47

For those that were able to join us live, thank you, especially for your comments and your questions

50:50

and all of that stuff. And if you listen later, we're super glad to have you.

50:54

You can find us at podcasteditorsmastermind.com.

50:57

Now I'm gonna try and click the button and do the thing.

51:00

So bye. - Bye.

51:02

(upbeat music)

51:04

- How much is that? (upbeat music)

51:18

- Hey, there we go. I forgot to play the music.

51:22

(upbeat music)

51:30

[MUSIC PLAYING]