Good morning. Good morning and welcome to Mike Stewart dot live. I hope folks are having a good holiday season this year in 2020. The craziest year I can remember in my life. But any right here it is another episode of Mike Stewart dot live. And today I want to talk about audio and things that I’m doing with audio and microphones for 2020 people are getting in their seats. Take a look. See here we got. There’s my good buddy, Dr. Bill Lampton How you doing? Bill ready to hear some advice from, you know, no need to change on the snowball, but we’re going to talk about the different microphones available. Any questions, comments, you can put them in the comments area, and I will add them and address to them after I go through what I prepared for you guys today. So anyway, um, number one, um, here’s what the the presentation is called. It’s called microphones and audio editing and sweetening overview primer for 2020. And, number one, I want to talk to you about what I started getting interested in audio as a kid, obviously, my hero was the Beatles and all those great recordings. And in fact, here’s some pictures. You know, when I started reading, recording magazines and studying about audio back in the 70s, and the 80s. I’d see these pictures of the Beatles and they were all around this big big microphone called. And I found that it was called a Neumann u 47. And in fact, I learned that that was a microphone that was built in Germany was invented back in the 30s and 40s. By Telefunken, and of course, all those great Frank Sinatra records, you can see there’s a picture of Frank Sinatra. More importantly, you know, what was it about this microphone? Why did they use such a large microphone to do the vocals? Well, we all learned early on that large diaphragm tube microphones and condenser microphones, those are the type of microphones they were the best for recording the human voice. And of course, you can see that’s, you know, who my mentors were using. So, you know, I thought, well, I’m gonna, I want to try to get me one of these, you 40 sevens? Well, as you can see, I just recently looked at this is a USD u 47 $17,000. It’s for sale right now today, you 47 vintage Newman, like the ones that Beatles use. And like the ones Frank Sinatra used,

I thought, well,

seven, you know, and they, you can get them for around $5,000, four to $5,000. And evidently, because this is a vintage old, original. It commands a higher price is a little out of my comfort zone of paying that kind of money for a microphone, I said, There’s got to be another way of using microphones. That’s not that expensive. So let’s talk about the different microphones that are available today in the different technologies that you can use, you know, well, here’s one of the things mics are better today, and they’re cheaper today. These are some of my favorite microphones that are what are called USB microphones. And you know, one of the tried and true microphones that I’m speaking over right now is the USB. I mean, the Audio Technica 2020 that’s it on the left there. And then the Yeti snowballs, Yeti snowballs, make all kinds of microphones, those are fine microphones and their USB microphones. Microphone I recently bought is called the road NT Mini. That’s it right there in the middle. And I am really blown away 99 bucks. That’s the microphone I bought to put in my computer bag to take with me. So if I need to do any computer audio, or live streaming or anything that I need to do, I have that portable microphone. So if you’ve not bought a microphone, I am blown away with the quality of the NT rode our od e mini that’s the one in the middle. And then a lot of folks a lot of people are using what are called XLR microphones. And the reason I’ve got that up there is you can see the cables down there at the bottom that have the three pins. I’ll put my mouse over here. You can see right there, those for those of you watching the video and if you’re listening to the podcast, an XLR connector is not USB. You have to have a mixer to plug into your computer or any kind of device but these are traditional the Way microphones were built, you know, for years and years using the three pin XLR connector. And that is a Shure microphone, and it’s a great one. And in fact, I’m going to buy one of those, I still have an audio technica 2020. That’s what I’m talking on right now. If I was to pull up my video right here, you can see, you can see that. Let me see if I bring it over here. I can’t say there it is. That’s the microphone I’m talking on right now. And it is still a great, great microphone. So we’ve kind of talked about microphones, that little blue box there that is what’s the Shure microphone needs what’s called a preamp booster. And so in other words, XLR for most applications is really a more advanced level, you can do just fine with either the 8020 USB, any of the Yeti, like the snowball blue or the Yeti like that one. And now this new NTR, rode for 2021. That’s one I was pretty impressed with. Now computer software is it’s soft, it’s free, and it’s cheap. A lot of folks love audacity, audacity works on a Mac or on a PC. There’s a zillion tutorials for audacity on the internet. You can do amazing work with audacity, I’m not a fan of it. Because I started with on PC with Sony software, audio studio, they’re now up to version 14. And then of course, if you’re on a Mac GarageBand comes on all Macs for free and GarageBand is amazing software. So if you’re on Mac GarageBand or audacity are both great resources, they’re both free. Um, when it comes to audio on a PC, I am going to be demoing and showing you audio studio. I’m still using audio studio because I’ve been using it for years. There’s nothing I can’t do with audio studio. And that’s the software’s I recommend. These are the basic audio skills that you’ve got to master. Number one, you need to get the good microphone working with your computer. And then you need to know how to hit the record button. And then we’re going to talk about marking mistakes. And the ways I used to do it before software got more advanced, and then going to talk about normalization.

And then the format to save audio for the internet which is especially what I call the podcast resolution which is 44.1 which is the resolution or the quality 16 bit 128 bits per second 16 bit is there’s there’s higher bit rates. 16 bit is perfect for podcasts and internet audio. And 128 is what’s called the stream, right that’s the internet connection you need to have for this audio to string. So I’m gonna pull up my camera right now I’m gonna stop showing. And this is what we used to call a clicker we used to use this before software with market. fact this is from my old web design company here you can see sound pages.com. And what this thing would do would make a click. And that’s how we used to mark mistakes. And let me go ahead and share my screen on Sound Forge. Here we go or audio studio. This is what I’m used to using. And I’m going to do these basic demos of how you mark an edit in an audio editing program. And pretty much all of the same audio programs work exactly the same way. So for instance, right up here in the corner, I have a record button, all programs is going to do that. And let me show you hit record. And one of the things that you can do, you know, you should have some sort of level meters. These right here, green going up and down, are letting me know that my microphone is working. And when I hit the record button right here, this red button, it will start recording. So let me show you how you start recording. I am now recording audio for a podcast. I’m now recording audio for a video voiceover I’m now recording narration that’s going to be an audiobook any oops, I made a mistake. I did a click that marked it. I did a thumb snap that marked it. And then on my keyboard I can hit the letter M for Mark. That’s what software added years later. Now let’s close this or stop it. You can see there, that right there was the clicker. And that right there was my thumb snap. And then down there on the end that the letter one is the software marking. So the whole purpose of making marks is that when you make a mistake, you, you do what’s called a pickup. So in other words, I knew the mistake was here, because I marked it. And then I know that right, here’s where the pickup is. So if I highlight the mistake, and I go to edit, and I cut it out, that takes out the mistakes. And if I made a mistake, I can undo it and bring it back. That’s called non destructive editing. And then until I save the file with my edits, so one of the things I always used to teach people do is the first thing you want to do is save your file in a folder, so you make a folder for your project. So let’s go here and do this now. Audio project, whatever you name it. And I go in here, and I save whatever the name of this file is, this is demo podcast on edited. So in other words, I want to save an unedited, 128. mp3. That’s what I want to say, you could save it as what’s called a WAV or an AI file at high resolution. But you don’t need to, you’re just taking up a lot of hard drive space. So if you save everything at mp3 128, CD quality, whatever your program is, save it now you’ve got an unedited version. Now, if you make a mistake on your edits, you can always get it back. That’s the reason I always did it that way. So I look at my marks, I don’t even have to remember where the marks of where the mistakes are. Because I mark them with my either a clicker, my thumb snap, or some sort of software annotation. And then when I cut out my problem, problems. And let’s say that that was another mistake right there. I cut it out. Now I’ve you know, let’s say I want to take out that blank space there a highlight the blank space, and I cut it out or I can delete it, clear it whatever I want to. And now I say that, again as a 128. And I call it

as something like Final x or final edit whatever I want to name it. So now I’ve got both things. Now one of the processes that I do with my audio is I do a process called normalize. And what normalize most all programs will do this, it enables you to get it as loud as possible. See if I don’t know if you could tell it, but the undo it here, you see your watch those blobs of blue, get bigger. And normalizing just gives you a little bit more volume. There’s other processes, but that’s the main thing that you want to be able to do is do you know edit out what’s bad, what’s left is good. Basically, your markers let you know where the bad things are, you might want to preview and then by playing them, you can hit play and make sure it’s right thing. And then you can either cut it. If you made a mistake, you can undo it and get it back. That’s called non destructive editing, like I said, so let me let me get out of this. I’m back here. Again, like I said, there was my silly little clicker. That’s what we used to use back in the 90s when digital audio was first was first, you know invented and they wasn’t software to be able to market. And then we’ll go back over here. Let me share some more of my slides. Because I got a little bit more here. So just to review, this is what we went over. record sound pretty easy. Mark the mistakes, a thumb snap, make go ahead and bring my camera up here to where you can see me when I do this thumb snap, I just get my fingers up here. I can mark a mistake like that. In other words, hello, I made a mistake. And you do what’s called a pickup normalize and then save it as a 44.1 16 bit 128 audio file.

Now

I’m going to go over here to my slides again, and we got a few more things we want to talk about. When it comes to sweetening, this is a little bit more of an advanced strategy and this requires something like I multitrack program Audio studio is a limited multitrack program. Now in Audacity, and in GarageBand, those are multitrack programs. But I was a Sony fan. And so I learned acid Pro. And now you can get acid music maker for about 49 bucks, and it’s perfect if you’re PC based. But what the only difference between sweetening means that you’re taking mp3 or WAV files or AI files that you’ve recorded, and you’re assembling them into a final mix of layers. And you can adjust the volume levels, you can bring in sound effects, you can bring in commercials and jingles. You know, it’s one of the things that I’ve been doing with my podcast is, you know, I edit those in. But you know, one of the things that I love is recording interviews. And I use join stream yard to record Jay interviews. Because when somebody is hooked up to stream yard cloud system, the very system I’m using right now, I can get a high quality mp3 between two people. And then I can bring it into either asset pro or sound audio studio and edit it. And then of course, a lot of internet marketers have Camtasia you should own Camtasia if you’re an internet marketer, my gosh, there’s so many things that you can do with Camtasia. And Camtasia is an amazing multitrack sweetening mixing program. It has just like it has multiple video tracks, you can have multiple audio tracks and adjust the levels, edit out and assemble a program. So this is a good place to talk about, you know the use of jingles. But why should you own a good microphone? Why should you learn to use these softwares? Well, number one, these are the skills that I think are needed for any business. A great microphone is so affordable today. The rode podcaster the Rode anti Audio Technica when I started you know we were looking at those 1000 Studio microphones that were just out of reach for us they didn’t make those kind of microphones for computers back in the day but now they do and what can you do with a great microphone? Well, you can do a podcast a live stream like I’m doing right now. YouTube and Facebook video content product creation Camtasia recordings, audio and video commercials. Coaching I do one on one coaching with my microphone, go to meetings zoom Skype. And then of course I do one on one networking meetings to build business so owning a good microphone it’s there’s no excuse for not owning a good microphone anymore. We’re gonna go to the comments now and see if there are any questions this is a great time for you to be sure to put in your questions. All I’ve got so many good friends here. Here’s my good buddy Jeff herring so glad you’re here and my good buddy Carlin bunting all the way out there from Grand canyon.com still using his a 20 tt at 2020 USB. And folks, the world famous Chuck boozer Gee, Chuck, it’s so good that you’re hope you’re doing well. Hope you’re staying safe. Just outdated itself. Sweet. I love that. My buddy up and wonderful. north of the border in Canada, Michael, Chris, good to see you here. My pest control, buddy. Hi, Michael. Good morning. You use the Rode podcaster and Adobe Audition all great programs all It doesn’t matter. Nobody at the bank says what equipment did you use? And let’s see if there’s any questions any Carlin says still use at your recommendation most modern gets simply edited and video and Camtasia now. Yeah, sure. I mean, back when I started, there was a there was only so many things you could use. But now there’s so many great options. And folks, here is a internet marketing legend, Kurt. So good to see you here, man. Good to see you again, brother. Hey, let’s catch up soon. And there’s one of the most precious ladies in the world. That’s my daughter, Lindsay and Lindsay, what’s the platform for podcasts? WordPress, and we’re going to be working on that. You’ve got the microphone, hopefully got the computer, maybe you can make those things happen.

And

thank you, Nina. Yeah, this is all about making content and building an audience. In fact, every time I do these things, I see more people showing up live which is so much fun to have this kind of interactivity. Tom says he has no question. Well, I know Tom, a lot of this is basic stuff for you. But there’s a lot of folks out there that may still be struggling with what microphones are cool. You know what software is good, you know, what are the basics and and of course, here’s Mikey says, I’ve been using the Blue Snowball, amazing microphone. In fact, I had a Blue Snowball and I gave it to my good friend, recording legend Wayne moss as a Christmas present. And that’s why I replaced my Blue Snowball with I thought, well, I’m gonna try out this nti anti road, and I love it. It’s been great. So

thank you. That’s my my darling daughter. I’ll call you later. So we, uh, let’s see here. It’s great to know that audio video training originally CPU is still foundation. Well, you know, one of the things Carlin is the principles of editing, mixing and sweetening. You know, they haven’t changed since the invention of movies. I mean, the masters of movie soundtracks from the i was i was watching a movie on Netflix just recently. And when I watch this movie about comedies, forget the name, it’s not Matt Martin. Anyway, it’s the guy who wrote Citizen Kane, for George, for Oh, my goodness, I’m having a senior moment here. Orson Welles or some wells had this particular writer and they were just talking about all the soundtrack and all the sound mixing stuff that they did. Back in the 30s. Back, you know, back, you gotta remember, movies were silent until about 1923 24. Somewhere in there. The first sound movie was the jazz singer with Al Jolson. And then of course, Steamboat Willie was a Walt Disney audio, movie. And so mixing of sound and Orson Welles. Thank you, Kurt. Golly, I can’t believe how the older I get, I think my hard drive is just running out of space here. But any rate, um, or some whales? So we’re getting some questions here. Um, Michael says, Do you recommend for podcast hosting, I use anchor FM. Ah, I like putting my audio up in my WordPress website. And I put my media files on Amazon s3 Cloud. That’s my preference. A lot of people use Lipson, a lot of people use pod bean, a lot of people use. What’s the other one? pod bean? There’s blueberry hosting Lipson. There’s a lot of there’s a lot of good ones out there. But as long you know, the only reason I don’t want to put it on anchor FM is I’m not sure if it allows you to use a WordPress blog with it. And that’s what I’m a big proponent of so anchor anchor may be great, I just have my way of doing it. And I’m, it works for me. And at the end of the day, build an audience. And and of course, whatever system you go with, you know, it’s hard to move it and what I like about by putting it on Amazon s3 and using WordPress, if I had to move it to a different system, I wouldn’t lose all my content. And I don’t know what the terms of service are with with anchor so I’m not not so sure about if there’s any issues with privacy, Maggie says concern about privacy issues. I don’t know of any that. All I know is that when I keep a secure WordPress website, and I put my files securely up on Amazon s3, everything works the way I know it’s do it. So it’s kind of like, you know, what’s the best microphone? What’s the best camera? What’s the best pod? podcast? hosting service. If it works, and it’s affordable. That’s all it matters. Okay, and somebody says they’re using captivate, which, quite honestly, I’ll investigate it. I don’t know. Mikey says anchor is great. They make it easy to Well, that’s good to know. So folks, you know what, pick whatever is best for you. So let’s see if we got any other questions here. Um, you know, we are brought to you today by Mike Stewart everything club, but we got a deal going on at audio claws. And thank you for that great recommendation. Is there any other questions that have anybody has here because we’re getting close up to the half hour point. It’s so great to see so many of my old friends. Kurt, give me a call sometime. I’d love to catch up to what you’re doing these days. Good to see you Maggie, Michael. Um, I’ve got to remember that this does become my podcast, so I got to make sure it’s not too visual. I tried to describe everything in an auditory format. Um, hope everybody’s staying safe. I hope Everybody is getting used to going virtual. And of course, I just wanted to have a little bit of an update that, you know, one of the things about what doesn’t get old, what doesn’t get outdated, is good content never gets outdated, good microphones last a lifetime.

And then more importantly, software changes, software gets better computers get faster. You know, one of the things about software’s and technology, they’re constantly getting faster, better. And of course, whatever was good six months ago is now outdated. But the good news is, is content marketing is I don’t think we’ll ever get old. Because content marketing started with Gutenberg and the printing press. And so content marketing will always be there. Good sounding audio is always going to have a place. In fact, when I listen to old movies that were made, you know, go back and listen to the Wizard of Oz, that movie was made in 1939. You can hear the dialogue, you can hear the sound effects, you can the music and the vocals, everything is you know, it’s amazing. We’ve been getting good professional quality audio, because of good microphones and good audio processing and recording techniques. Since you know, almost 300 years. So, you know, good audio starts with a good microphone, and good strategies and good techniques. And that’s what I wanted to cover today. Um, more importantly, um, let’s see, I’ve got one question here says, I need a good lapel mic for my phone and some blogging, any recommendations? You know, I have seen several Bluetooth, cell phone lapel mics, and I haven’t tested them. There’s a couple out there, they’re different prices. And maybe I’ll do a show on lapel mics. Because I’m, I don’t do a lot of out in the field recording. Because Because of COVID. I don’t go out in the field that much. So, but that that would be a good idea for a show. So bill says thank you, I love all these great comments. It’s very supportive the to get the support from you guys. And you know, submit your questions to me by email, there’s at Mike store dot live, there is a question submission, suggestions for things that you want me to cover in the future. And you know, anything like that. So if that’s a, it looks like nobody has any burning questions. So I appreciate you to another one of our sponsors, I want to remind you, we’re brought to you by domains, you control.com and dot live secrets at domains you control. I highly recommend that if you’re going to do a podcast that you get a dot live URL. In fact, this show is streaming at Mike Stewart dot live if you don’t own your dot live URL, you know, be sure to consider to go to domains you control and own that dot live. And of course, if you want to call me and reach out to me, I publicly put out my phone number 770-826-3662 love to talk to you. And I’m going to end with what Maggie says. Merry Christmas to you and to all of yours. And thanks for watching this episode of Mike Stewart dot live