First of all, I must say thanks to those of you who have come here, downloaded the e-book, given me feedback, asked me questions, and generally helped my fledgling ittybiz feel welcomed and loved.
Today, I was #followfriday-ed by the lovely and talented Sonia Simone (of Remarkable Communication, Copyblogger, and Marketing for Nice People fame). Here’s what she said:
I had the wonderful opportunity to help Sonia out with some audio recording difficulties she was having. I was happy to have been of help to her.
Needless to say, all of the wonderful kindnesses and encouragement has placed a foolish grin right across my face.
And Now, A Question
I want this blog to be a useful resource for all of you (and for anyone you know who needs help with the quality of their audio products and/or podcasts. In order to make sure I’m getting off on the right foot, I need a bit of help from all of you.
What is it you want to know? What will help you most – right now?
Do you want gear tips?
Do you want to know how to fix a bad room?
Do you want to know how to create content you’re recording that works better for your listeners?
How can I most help you right now through this blog?
Of course, on the Products and Services page, you can hire me to assist you in a one-on-one way. And oftentimes, that’s really helpful if you’re stuck, or you’ve tried things and those things haven’t worked (or haven’t worked as well as you’d hoped). But I want to make sure this blog is a helpful place too.
What do you want to know?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi. Since you’re asking, I was wondering if you have any thoughts / advice on musical intros. I want to get my podcast into shape for Podiobooks and a lot of them have a little bit of music at the beginning.
This give me the Fear. Where would I find music with permission to use for this purpose? How do I not sound cheesy? How long should it be, etc.
The second question is the one I worry about the most ;o)
Christy, thanks for the e-book. It’s a great introduction to getting better sound. Would like to see a blog with specific gear suggestions for recording good audio on our computers. What’s the most cost-effective headset to use? Where can we find one? Which A/D converter works well without spending a bundle? How do you hook everything up? There are so many questions…
Hi Steve and welcome! All good questions. We’ll get there. Promise.
Christy, I’m speaking for a whole bunch of people I don’t know, which is just about always a bad idea but I’ll throw caution to the wind anyways.
I think the majority content producers out there (me included) just want to be able to produce decent content that engages and captivates their audience.
Unless the techie stuff is your game, most of us just want to get our product or message out and the better looking or better sounding, the better (I really can write better that this). So yes, debating mp3 bit rates can be fun, but just help us produce quality stuff, that makes us look and sound good at our game.
P.S. I just bought a Blue Snowball, any tips on getting the most out of it, it’s sitting on my desk looking all pretty.
P.P.S You’re already doing a great job.
Hi Phil! Thanks for speaking up on behalf of the group.
What you say – just wanting to produce good content that sounds good – is how I want to help. Yes, I can totally geek out with the best of them, but I know that most people don’t give a rat’s patootie about the signal-to-noise ratio of this mic versus that mic.
You just want things to work. Correctly. The first time.
That’s what I’m trying to do here. To trick out your content-producing ability without subsuming you in a sea of technobabble. I guess I’m kind of a sound-geek-translator.
Re: your Blue Snowball. Well, I am personally not a fan of the Blue USB mics. Now Blue’s pro mics are amazing for the right applications. So I’m not dissing the brand; just the USB line. (Actually, I’m not dissing the USB mics; I just think you can do better for the money.) But you have it, so if you want it to do something other than look pretty it’s time to use it.
Have you played with it at all yet? If not, give it a go. You’ll notice that it’s quite sensitive, and you need to make sure your mouth-to-mic positioning is right (try to stay slightly above the mic; this cuts down on sibilance and plosives). Experiment to find the place where your normal speaking voice is captured well by the instrument. Make sure you know where in your computer’s software to adjust the gain (input volume). You don’t want to overdrive the signal, because it will distort. It’s a condenser mic, so never ever under any circumstances shout into it. You will physically damage the mic if you do this.
Let me know how it sounds once you’ve played a bit.
Thanks for them tips Christy, much appreciated
I’ll have a bit of play and let you know.
P.S. Here a tip for you. Install the ‘Subscribe to Comments’ plugin on this blog. It allows commenters to recieve email updates when you or other people leave comments, which is handy because you don’t need to remember to check back for a response.