Ep 38- Alex Picard – Post audio and some technical stuff V2.txt
English (US)
01:00:02.640 — 01:00:09.000 · Speaker 1
Welcome Alex Picard. Alex is being an audio forever since I’ve known you.
01:00:09.040 — 01:00:14.640 · Speaker 2
Since I was born. So, like 20, 20, 30 years? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Something like that. No, I’m wearing it. Well.
01:00:15.760 — 01:00:22.040 · Speaker 1
So Alex and I met in the mall days. Yeah. Doing big, shiny floor shows.
01:00:22.080 — 01:00:22.880 · Speaker 2
Yes. Yeah.
01:00:22.920 — 01:00:25.960 · Speaker 1
Alex is a audio post professional.
01:00:26.000 — 01:00:26.680 · Speaker 2
Post professional.
01:00:26.720 — 01:00:27.200 · Speaker 1
How would you call.
01:00:27.200 — 01:00:37.120 · Speaker 2
Yourself normally a sound engineer or final mix operator? Depends on what people. Okay. Yeah, because I don’t actually like engineer things. I just engineer sound, but I generally sound engineer. Yeah.
01:00:37.160 — 01:00:44.600 · Speaker 1
Okay, great. So, Alex, today I want to know if I give you some cell phone audio. Can you make me sound better?
01:00:44.640 — 01:01:04.070 · Speaker 2
I could try, yes, but I will not be able to make you sound as good as if you were, like, on a proper mic with proper equipment. But there are little plug ins and stuff that you can try and use. Um, AI can help a little bit. There’s a lot of new plugins that those are coming up with. Um, but other than that, cellphone audio is generally not a go to.
01:01:04.110 — 01:01:04.470 · Speaker 1
No no.
01:01:04.870 — 01:01:05.230 · Speaker 2
No no.
01:01:05.230 — 01:01:11.230 · Speaker 1
No. Why is it important to have good audio on your audio visual material?
01:01:11.270 — 01:01:45.230 · Speaker 2
Because it just sounds better. It looks more professional. It sounds more professional. It’s, you know, as soon as you have, like, cell phone audio coming over a professional, um, YouTube channel or whatever, you just kind of I think you also disengage a little bit. You’re like, why couldn’t they have just done that better quite easily than have just gone with the cell phone audio, you know?
No, no, cell phones are getting a lot better. But still you’re going to have that degraded sound because obviously your sound, the size of your phone’s memory and everything they take into account. So yeah, it’s just more professional. You know, if you want your company to look professional, then. Yeah.
Rather do that.
01:01:45.270 — 01:01:46.470 · Speaker 1
Yeah. Rather get it done.
01:01:46.470 — 01:01:47.110 · Speaker 2
Well yeah.
01:01:47.430 — 01:02:00.620 · Speaker 1
So what else besides the microphone. Right. Affects the audio. Say I want to do my own podcast in my business, one of the things I have to think about other than spending money on equipment.
01:02:00.900 — 01:02:30.860 · Speaker 2
Um, well, your environment is very important. So, um, what the worst is, is if you have, like, a very hard reflection room, you know, like, you you hear all that reverb just coming straight back onto that mic and it can be cleared up, but it’ll never sound as good as if it was done properly from the beginning.
So even like after the whole well, in lockdowns and everything, uh, voiceovers had to still carry on with their work and some of them would have like a walk in wardrobe and they’d use that because it just dampens the sound a lot better. So obviously, if you’re doing a podcast, you can’t exactly be in.
01:02:30.860 — 01:02:32.780 · Speaker 3
Your your dream wardrobe.
01:02:32.820 — 01:02:50.540 · Speaker 2
But yeah, so like if you’ve got a carpeted area, curtains, you know, you want to dampen that sound as much as possible just to have a clearer audio onto the microphone, especially if you have put in many into a good microphone, good system. Then you just want everything from the get go just to sound. It’s best that it can be up until its final product.
01:02:50.540 — 01:03:01.840 · Speaker 1
So okay, so we we do all of that. We make sure we’ve got curtains in our boardroom. Yeah, we buy a decent microphone, which I think is also another topic for another day.
01:03:01.880 — 01:03:03.480 · Speaker 3
Probably, but you start and.
01:03:03.480 — 01:03:03.800 · Speaker 1
End on.
01:03:03.800 — 01:03:05.240 · Speaker 3
Microphones. Yeah.
01:03:05.280 — 01:03:09.240 · Speaker 1
Um, and then it goes to someone to edit it all.
01:03:09.280 — 01:03:09.720 · Speaker 3
Mhm.
01:03:09.800 — 01:03:11.000 · Speaker 1
Now that’s where you.
01:03:11.000 — 01:03:11.320 · Speaker 3
You.
01:03:11.560 — 01:03:15.480 · Speaker 1
Kind of come in. Why do I need an audio specialist in post.
01:03:15.760 — 01:04:27.230 · Speaker 2
Um, to make it sound pretty. No, no I mean um, so obviously, you know, if it goes into editing editor puts everything in place and say, no, there are multiple microphones and say no, there is noise outside air con noise or whatever. Um, that comes to me after edit and then you’ve got also so you clean up all the audio problems in the background or whatever, and then there’s EQ, compression, stuff like that, just to make the voices sound cleaner, maybe fuller, or maybe if there’s too much low in, for example, you can take that out, add a bit of high end just so it stands out a little bit more, especially if you have got like music and stuff like that in the background, that you can actually make the voices stick out without it, actually.
Like, how can I put it like shouting at you if I can put it that way. But generally there’s always going to be some sort of noise on recordings of any sort. Um, especially if there’s like pops from people speaking too close to a microphone, mouse noise, that’s a big thing. That’s just the natural thing that happens with everybody.
Um, so that sort of stuff like even, you know, people just talk and they naturally make that sort of noise. You can at least reduce it or clean it up a bit so it doesn’t stand out as much. So it sounds more natural to the viewer at the end of the day.
01:04:27.390 — 01:04:27.830 · Speaker 3
So it’s.
01:04:27.870 — 01:04:34.390 · Speaker 1
Actually, I think you hit it on the nose just to make that unnatural recording sound more natural, as if you’re in the.
01:04:34.390 — 01:04:34.630 · Speaker 3
Room.
01:04:34.670 — 01:04:36.470 · Speaker 2
Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah.
01:04:36.510 — 01:04:55.830 · Speaker 1
So and how do you determine how loud to make something? I mean, if you’ve got music versus voice and, you know, sometimes you go to you watching YouTube, it really drives me nuts and you watching some content. And then the ad comes out and blasts you in the ears, you know. How do you balance all that.
01:04:55.830 — 01:04:56.070 · Speaker 3
Out.
01:04:56.110 — 01:05:15.100 · Speaker 2
So that. Well, it was always done on Decibels, normal DB measurements and everything on meters and that. And then pretty much in the 90s, there was kind of like the loudness wars and those whose ad could be louder than the next ad, so it would send out more on TV. And then you probably noticed if you were watching a movie and then the ad would come out as well.
01:05:15.140 — 01:05:15.900 · Speaker 3
A lot louder.
01:05:16.060 — 01:05:32.860 · Speaker 2
So then in the 20 tens, I think the late 90s, early 2000, actually, they came up with the European Broadcasting Union and they came up with a new kind of meter that everyone has to adhere to. So it’s worldwide. Um, America has to use it. We use it. And that and that’s called loves.
01:05:33.060 — 01:05:34.660 · Speaker 3
Loves, loves. Yes.
01:05:34.700 — 01:06:44.850 · Speaker 2
And it’s just loudness unit, full spectrum. I don’t know why it’s called that but it is. And so like I say now for social media streaming, stuff like that, you should be mixing at what they say. -14 laughs. So if you have your meter open in ProTools, that’s what I use or whatever door you’re using a digital audio workstation, then you want to mix to -14 majority of the time.
So it’s also like they’ll be taking your lowest point and the highest point of your mix, and that must be pretty much in that spectrum. Um, two. Maintain that for what you said. Now, when you’re watching YouTube and somebody uploaded a video and it’s really soft, and then you put your volume up and then an ad does pop up, and then the ad is actually mixed to the correct level.
So that whole system is meant to get everyone to adhere to that. And then for TV it’s the same thing. So they also started doing so. You’d be watching MTV and they’ve got the compression on the movie and it’s super loud. And then you go to an ad and it could be even louder or whatever, you know. So then they do the same thing with a just a different level.
It’s a bit softer, but it’s also it’s just to kind of maintain that you don’t have that ridiculous peak. Yeah, that jump all of a sudden when you’re watching something, you know, especially if it’s like late at night or something.
01:06:44.890 — 01:06:47.170 · Speaker 3
Oh my God, it sounds, it’s.
01:06:47.170 — 01:06:49.250 · Speaker 1
It sounds hell of a complicated is it.
01:06:49.250 — 01:06:49.970 · Speaker 3
In practice.
01:06:50.010 — 01:07:53.280 · Speaker 2
It’s not I think once you understand it and once you get everything right. So like, you want to get your. I always start with my voices first. Make sure all the dialog or people talking to us all at the same level. It all sounds nice. Then I’ll start to add the music and then if there’s like sound design or whatever, then I’ll add that underneath and just make sure that everything’s sitting nicely together.
You know, you shouldn’t actually notice a mix, if you know what I mean. You should be able to listen to it and just feel it’s natural. So that does come. Obviously with years of doing it and you know, you hear something back and you’re like, oh, that wasn’t good. And then you figure out how to fix it or whatever.
So yeah, I mean there are certain rules that you can just kind of go according to, um, it’s like some of the AI videos where it’s also you can hear it’s a terrible AI voice, and then they’ve got music in the background and you can tell it’s all just computerized because the music is like down here. And then all of a sudden it shoots up when there’s a gap and stuff like that.
So that’s little things like if you are doing your own mixes, even if it’s just in an editing program, it’s just little things like that of just smoothing, you know. So same with like final, final mix. It’s just to make sure that that’s all sitting nicely in a, in one bed. If I can put it that way, you know.
01:07:53.320 — 01:08:00.070 · Speaker 1
So let’s talk about the AI in the room for a moment. How do you feel about the AI? Um, in audio specifically.
01:08:00.110 — 01:08:00.470 · Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:08:00.510 — 01:08:40.990 · Speaker 2
Um, look, it can be very useful. Um, I, you know, if you need to fix something small, you can. Um, sometimes when there’s something like send off a mixing, um, a short or an advert or something, and I feel like, oh, maybe there could be a little kid in the background making a noise or whatever or saying something.
Then I can maybe sometimes go to AI and say, create this in a sound like this. Then I don’t have to go get a sound effect or whatever, so sometimes it can work. Um, it does do crazy things. Like it can actually make sound effects for you. Now, so one of the ones I use like type in a whole bunch of stuff and it’ll give you like four different sound effects that you can try and use.
It can even make songs for me on there. I was like looking for a sound effect and then wrote a whole song for me.
01:08:40.990 — 01:08:43.150 · Speaker 3
I was like, no, no, no, I don’t want a whole song.
01:08:43.550 — 01:09:59.920 · Speaker 2
Um, so it can be useful if you look at the in terms of plugins in your software, those are generally AI already, but it’s just been it’s been built by somebody codes and everything. Now I see I was looking at my emails the other day, and they’ve even got an AI plugin that you can download for that same purpose of creating sound effects.
That’s yours, unique, and nobody else will ever have that kind of thing. But then on the other hand, it does mess up a whole industry. I feel, you know, it’s like you’ve Foley. Yeah. Foley. I mean, so there’s the one software called Kratos. And what they do is they go out on field recordings, taps, footsteps, whatever.
And then you get a whole panel on your computer where you can assign what sort of sound effect you want. So if it’s wind with leaves, wind with bird or whatever, birds or whatever, but that’s still at least real sound that you’re manipulating. Whereas with these other AIS, we know when you hear a YouTube video and the person speaks like as if you know they it’s not a human being, it’s an AI that doesn’t actually understand intonation.
Beginning and ending of sentences. And I find myself is that you disengage completely. So it might be a very interesting video about 17th century London. I don’t know, but as you listening to the voice, it’s just becomes it’s like you can hear it’s not a real human being.
01:09:59.960 — 01:10:02.160 · Speaker 3
Yeah. You know, it gets super monotonous.
01:10:02.200 — 01:10:02.520 · Speaker 2
Yes.
01:10:02.520 — 01:10:02.920 · Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:10:02.960 — 01:10:04.360 · Speaker 1
It just doesn’t have the.
01:10:04.520 — 01:10:05.800 · Speaker 2
The actual person.
01:10:05.840 — 01:10:10.960 · Speaker 1
Yeah. It’s almost like we can pick up that it’s not a real person. Because a real person can’t be that perfect.
01:10:11.000 — 01:10:32.720 · Speaker 2
No. Exactly. Yeah. And I mean, even though if you’re in a recording and you retake and you redo stuff, or you go back and listen and, you know, you feel like that wasn’t the right way of saying the sentence, you’ll still be able to tell it to human being. I suppose it’s kind of like when you use fonts on a computer and people try to make it like a handwriting, but you can see it’s not that person’s actual handwriting.
I suppose it’s like that in a way that you know it’s not real.
01:10:32.760 — 01:10:47.280 · Speaker 1
Okay, so Alex, I’ve been dying to ask you as an audio professional. What do you think about Adrien Brody using? Well, not himself, but his team using AI to affect his voice, and then him winning the Oscar for best actor?
01:10:47.440 — 01:10:51.800 · Speaker 2
Yeah, no, I don’t I don’t think that’s that’s that’s cheating. I would say.
01:10:51.840 — 01:10:52.680 · Speaker 3
Like, sorry.
01:10:52.720 — 01:11:03.870 · Speaker 2
But I mean, Adrien Brody is a great actor, and I feel like that’s why they have language specialists on movies, sets, TV series is so that you can get that right. Um, yeah, I wouldn’t.
01:11:03.910 — 01:11:07.430 · Speaker 3
I wouldn’t have gotten for that like, rather just just just.
01:11:07.430 — 01:11:13.550 · Speaker 2
Get the guys to get it right. Um, which I’ll probably take longer, but using AI to do that. Yeah. It’s it’s.
01:11:13.590 — 01:11:13.750 · Speaker 3
Like.
01:11:14.150 — 01:11:21.630 · Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s like having an AI of him in the movie. Then it’s physically, you know, acting physically as an AI, but it’s not him. You know, it’s the same thing.
01:11:21.630 — 01:11:22.110 · Speaker 3
So.
01:11:22.230 — 01:11:29.750 · Speaker 1
Slippery slope. Right. Where, where where does it end? So now should we tweak his facial expressions exactly. To nail the tear in there?
01:11:29.790 — 01:11:30.630 · Speaker 3
Exactly. Yeah.
01:11:30.630 — 01:11:39.390 · Speaker 2
He didn’t get his eyebrows just right. Yeah. So that’s where I’m like, no, that’s. And if it’s come out and that’s what happened, then you know, it’s what do you.
01:11:39.790 — 01:11:40.030 · Speaker 3
What.
01:11:40.030 — 01:11:47.310 · Speaker 2
Are you doing then. Then you’re not actually an actor. I mean, I know he’s phenomenal and I think that’s just one thing. But yeah, you’ve got to keep your.
01:11:47.350 — 01:11:47.750 · Speaker 3
Do you think.
01:11:47.750 — 01:11:54.910 · Speaker 1
It’s different between cinema. And if I was doing a TVC, is it more acceptable in the TVC?
01:11:55.950 — 01:11:57.510 · Speaker 2
Probably because I don’t know if.
01:11:57.510 — 01:11:57.870 · Speaker 3
People.
01:11:57.870 — 01:12:31.540 · Speaker 2
Worldwide will be seeing the TVC, but I would still say it’s it’s not exactly, you know. Also, again, your voiceover artist isn’t the correct voiceover artist. You know, if they couldn’t nail what you wanted from them with the direction in the room, even if it has to take a few hours, then you’re not. You’re not actually.
Um, how can I say you’re not producing the TVC correctly then? If I can put it that way. So it has to come from the person that you choose your actor voice artist and from the director and obviously what the client wants. So that whole process, I think for a whole movie with probably a huge budget, I think there was just a little.
01:12:31.580 — 01:12:35.660 · Speaker 3
Bit of that’s not cool. Not like not.
01:12:35.660 — 01:12:38.060 · Speaker 1
No not that. Yeah.
01:12:38.100 — 01:12:39.780 · Speaker 3
Not okay. Not okay.
01:12:40.980 — 01:12:41.300 · Speaker 3
All right.
01:12:41.300 — 01:12:50.420 · Speaker 1
So so let’s let’s just talk about sound design as a whole, you know, so we’ve given you great audio what we’ve recorded on set.
01:12:50.460 — 01:12:51.020 · Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:12:51.220 — 01:12:53.300 · Speaker 1
Um, we don’t give you everything all the time.
01:12:53.340 — 01:12:56.180 · Speaker 3
No, that’s not possible. Also sometimes.
01:12:56.220 — 01:12:58.650 · Speaker 1
So you actually add a noise sometimes.
01:12:58.690 — 01:12:59.530 · Speaker 3
Yes. Yeah.
01:12:59.530 — 01:13:01.610 · Speaker 1
So you’ve just told us you have to clean everything up?
01:13:01.650 — 01:13:02.290 · Speaker 3
Yes.
01:13:02.570 — 01:13:06.330 · Speaker 1
Why on earth do you add noise into a mix.
01:13:06.570 — 01:13:55.290 · Speaker 2
To make the scene look real or sound real? Look real. So sane are like, okay, we know, like in America, they have these huge lots and sets of, you know, it’s New York City or whatever. So that’ll probably be very clean audio in any case. And then that engineer would have to layer with cars and birds and whatever they need to put in their traffic and that.
So yeah, same with here. You don’t always get the opportunity to have a nice stage or uh, block of a street or whatever where you can try and get the cleanest audio. So then you have to clean all of that up. Because also, the unfortunate thing is when you start to amplify voices and EQ them and everything, you might start bringing out other frequencies that can become very irritating.
So even if there is natural birds, you might amplify that and then you don’t have control over it because it’s in the voice. So you have to clean all of that, clean all of that out.
01:13:55.330 — 01:13:57.250 · Speaker 1
Or have a half hearted edit.
01:13:57.290 — 01:13:59.440 · Speaker 3
Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
01:13:59.480 — 01:14:03.880 · Speaker 2
I haven’t had many of those. Then sometimes you just add it in for.
01:14:03.880 — 01:14:04.920 · Speaker 3
The joke of it.
01:14:05.480 — 01:15:16.020 · Speaker 2
Um, so then. Yeah. So you get this nice clean audio. The voices sound great and everything, but now you have to put it in the situation. So say, now, if you were sitting in the park having a picnic and there’s other families around and there’s a bit of water with ducks, you’ve got to start layering all of that in.
So you’ve got to start like with your basics of whatever you want. So they normally call that buzz. So it’s just those buzz tracks that you’ll start layering up. So you start feeling like those people are actually sitting in that environment and they’re not just sitting in a cold room, pretty much is what it would sound like.
So yeah. And then you want to add that to say, now if somebody rides bike past with a bicycle, you want that sort of sound effect to happen. Um, all the little subtleties. And like I said, you want to make sure it doesn’t stand out if you don’t notice it. And that’s that’s your job is done kind of thing. So that’s also why you have to place the people in that environment.
So it could be in an office. It could be in the bathroom where then you have to work with reverb so it could sound nice and clean. And then you put that in a bathroom scenario and it’s going to be like, why does he sound like there’s no reverberation off the walls? So little things like that where you have to either take away reverb or you have to add reverb, you know, like in a bathroom, you maybe have a dripping off the toilet tank.
Little things like that, you know. So yeah, it’s just to get it to sound like if you were in that situation in real life.
01:15:16.060 — 01:15:16.860 · Speaker 3
Um, so.
01:15:16.900 — 01:15:19.340 · Speaker 1
Again, create the illusion, make it as natural as.
01:15:19.340 — 01:15:19.620 · Speaker 3
Possible.
01:15:19.660 — 01:15:20.180 · Speaker 2
Pretty much.
01:15:20.220 — 01:15:20.780 · Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:15:20.820 — 01:15:23.500 · Speaker 1
Um, and that’s probably why AI also irritates everybody. Because.
01:15:23.780 — 01:15:24.100 · Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:15:24.140 — 01:15:25.340 · Speaker 1
Doesn’t really sound like that.
01:15:25.380 — 01:15:25.540 · Speaker 3
No.
01:15:25.540 — 01:16:13.170 · Speaker 2
And the weirdest thing is, like, I’ve worked on, um, pictures for clients, and they’re like, we’ve just used AI for now just to get it going. And then you get these weird sound effects that AI actually does make, and you’re like, it actually made the footsteps, but then it made some random noise somewhere else.
You know what I mean? So it’s it’s weird how it’s also learning all of that. But then again, AI wouldn’t be able to understand that it’s like AI in a robot. It doesn’t have to teach it, like how to hold an egg without it breaking. You know, it’s little things like that. It can’t actually understand that because it hasn’t got the the consciousness, if I can put it that way.
And you know, we’re here and we see everything around us all the time. So we pick up on that. You know, it’s like I was thinking, now, if you do like a green screen film, something green screen, you’re going to be in a quiet room. So you’re going to have to I mean, look at 300. I mean, that was all green screen and.
01:16:13.170 — 01:16:13.450 · Speaker 3
That’s.
01:16:13.450 — 01:16:14.210 · Speaker 1
Showing your age.
01:16:14.210 — 01:16:16.210 · Speaker 3
Now. Yeah. You know.
01:16:16.850 — 01:17:06.640 · Speaker 2
Um, so yeah, I mean it’s still a phenomenal movie, I think, the way it was made. But then that movie feels like you’re there because of that sound design, you know? I mean, it’s even like half of the, like, Star Wars and that, that they’re made more recent while the first three episodes and then the later ones, a lot of green screen, but you had to still make it sound like you’re in the ship or you’re outside with a lightsaber or whatever, you know?
So yeah, sound is a lot of putting everything to make it sound like you’re really there. You know? It must. You mustn’t feel like you you’re picking up on it. You know, it’s like ADR, you know, when you record later on for when maybe there was noise or the artist was sick or something. And I can always hear it.
I mean, it’s so hard to get that right that I can always pick up on it when it’s been rerecorded audio. And then they put it onto the original audio. So it’s like that as well. You can pick it up even if you’re not completely aware of it.
01:17:06.640 — 01:17:08.280 · Speaker 3
So yeah.
01:17:08.600 — 01:17:10.720 · Speaker 1
Okay. So what do you love about your job?
01:17:10.760 — 01:17:20.040 · Speaker 2
I thought I’d enjoy sound because of the music side, but then getting into actually creating sounds and you can create whatever you want pretty much to a scene, you know? That’s actually really.
01:17:20.040 — 01:17:20.560 · Speaker 3
Fun.
01:17:20.600 — 01:17:22.000 · Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s the creative part of it.
01:17:22.040 — 01:17:22.240 · Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:17:22.240 — 01:18:03.150 · Speaker 2
You get to be creative and, you know, client can tell you. Whoa. You know, hold back on that or take that out, or rather add this and you learn from that and you get to explore more. Especially when they give you the freedom. That’s really nice. Yeah. So, you know, I mixed a short for a client of mine, and it’s a personal project of hers.
And she was like, I’m looking forward to what you do. And I literally just had her voice and some background sounds that, that she didn’t even want to use. And I just filled up the rest. And she was so happy because she just said, do what you do. And I was like, that’s the best is when they say, just do what you do and I trust you kind of thing.
And then you, you, you actually get a better product at the end of the day. Then I’m going now remember this and remember that. And some clients still tell me now remember, you must just do this, this and this.
01:18:03.150 — 01:18:05.030 · Speaker 3
And I’m like, okay, thank you.
01:18:05.870 — 01:18:08.630 · Speaker 2
So yeah, the creativity I would say at the end of the day. Yeah.
01:18:08.670 — 01:18:08.910 · Speaker 3
Okay.
01:18:08.910 — 01:18:24.150 · Speaker 1
So to bring it back to podcasters, if you were giving a young person who’s starting up a podcast or even a big brand, um, what’s the advice you’d give them about going about their audio? What should they really consider before starting?
01:18:24.310 — 01:19:10.740 · Speaker 2
Well, obviously, you want to look at your costs of the equipment that you’re going to get. So you don’t always have to spend a ton of money on microphones. You get some very decent microphones that don’t break the bank. So I would always say go to a reliable store, which works with specifically post-production type of, um, equipment and that.
Or you can always obviously if you know somebody that can give you advice on it, but also don’t spend too much on your microphone, but don’t spend too little. I know people get these little USB microphones that you just plug straight into your USB port on your computer, and I don’t think that’s going to be giving you the best quality.
You might as well just use like, your walk and talk kind of thing, you know? Yeah. So yeah, I would say definitely look at your costs beforehand. Depending on you, just look at how much you want to spend on your microphone. Good cable because you can’t have a bad cable because then you’re going to have issues down the line.
01:19:10.780 — 01:19:12.460 · Speaker 3
So make sure it’s yeah, good cable.
01:19:12.500 — 01:19:44.020 · Speaker 2
Make sure that’s good. Like here you’ve got the mic stand set up. Always very nice. You don’t have to faff. You don’t I mean you could do lapel when you’ve got the lapel mic on. That can cause more issues. Obviously if people are moving or something goes wrong on that. Um, so yeah, I would look at that from the beginning.
Obviously we said your environment, make sure it’s not super reverberant. It sounds maybe like when you’re in your lounge and everything sounds cozy, I would say it’s a good way to put it. Um, yeah. Mic stand. You also don’t have to spend a fortune. Um, I see some people just use those little, uh. What’s it EJ microphones or DJ?
01:19:44.140 — 01:19:45.420 · Speaker 3
What are they, DJs?
01:19:45.460 — 01:19:46.820 · Speaker 2
DJI sorry, I don’t work.
01:19:46.820 — 01:19:50.620 · Speaker 3
With those microphones. So I’m like, look, it’s one of those little baby ones. Yeah.
01:19:51.260 — 01:19:56.700 · Speaker 2
And they just use that even if they’re interviewing people on the street. So but then be aware that.
01:19:56.770 — 01:19:58.490 · Speaker 3
Thing is going to be, um.
01:19:58.650 — 01:20:39.650 · Speaker 2
Uh, noise handling noise on the microphone. You might drop it. You might damage it or something. So little things like that. And then obviously what you’re recording too. So you might have everything great from the beginning. But then make sure even if you’ve got a laptop, you want your audio interface.
So it could be anything from a Focusrite which is a very good brand. I’ve got a PreSonus I two just two ins, speakers out, whatever works like a bomb. It’s a good product and just make sure that that’s really good. And then that goes into your computer which must be able to handle the audio quality using. So also you don’t want to be recording at a low bitrate.
So you don’t want to be going like, you know, you know like zoom microphones as well. You can go into MP3 mode. I’ve done that by.
01:20:39.650 — 01:20:41.850 · Speaker 3
Accident and that just sounds terrible.
01:20:41.850 — 01:21:43.230 · Speaker 2
So always make sure your quality is like 44.1 um, 16 but you can always go higher than that. But then that’s going to take more space. So the software is also really important. So you can get a lot of free software, a lot of the very good, um, Companies out there. So like Pro Tools, which is through avid, you get logic, you get Cubase, all of those sort of companies.
But then you can also get GarageBand, which is automatically on Mac, and people use that to record to. So as long as you’ve got something good to record to, you’re fine, you know, and then obviously you’ve just got to learn how to edit all of that, which technically is the easiest part. I would say getting it in and then cutting it to what you want it to sound like.
One of the very important parts is don’t record your microphone too hot, so don’t put your gain up too high. Um, you can always take your levels up later. First, test that your levels are sitting at a nice not too soft that you’re picking up. You know, when you boost everything, it’s going to sound terrible.
So recorded a nice level that you can feel like this sounds like a solid level because you can always after that, you can.
01:21:43.310 — 01:21:43.790 · Speaker 3
Boost it.
01:21:43.830 — 01:21:55.790 · Speaker 2
Boost to take it down, even if it clips a little bit from that, that putting it too high, you can reduce that a little bit. There are plugins that can bring that down and make it sound good, but you don’t want to have just like a square.
01:21:56.030 — 01:21:57.660 · Speaker 3
On your on your.
01:21:57.660 — 01:22:08.700 · Speaker 2
Your screen. That’s that’s not going to work. So I would say rather go softer than louder because then you can at least if you do speak louder or laugh or something, you’ve got that space that’s not going to cause distortion. And that’s so.
01:22:09.060 — 01:22:09.340 · Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:22:09.380 — 01:22:10.660 · Speaker 1
So basically good.
01:22:10.660 — 01:22:11.060 · Speaker 3
Mike.
01:22:11.100 — 01:22:17.340 · Speaker 1
Yeah. Good cable. Yeah. Good stand. Decent interface. Enough hard drive space.
01:22:17.380 — 01:22:17.900 · Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:22:17.940 — 01:22:19.220 · Speaker 1
Figure out the software.
01:22:19.260 — 01:22:19.820 · Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:22:19.860 — 01:22:26.580 · Speaker 1
Then learn how to edit it. And by the time you’ve done all that, I think you could just phone Alex and ask her.
01:22:26.580 — 01:22:27.660 · Speaker 3
If she could please.
01:22:28.380 — 01:22:30.220 · Speaker 1
Sort out the audio that I recorded.
01:22:30.220 — 01:22:30.900 · Speaker 3
In my bedroom.
01:22:31.260 — 01:22:31.940 · Speaker 2
Just send it to.
01:22:31.940 — 01:22:32.500 · Speaker 3
Me, and I’ll.
01:22:33.060 — 01:22:34.580 · Speaker 1
And I think that’s why you exist.
01:22:34.620 — 01:22:35.500 · Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah. That is.
01:22:35.700 — 01:22:45.140 · Speaker 1
And I think people underestimate sometimes, um, what it takes to produce something that looks good. Sounds good. Yeah. Um, and that’s why we’re here. Alex, thank you so much for joining me.
01:22:45.140 — 01:22:45.660 · Speaker 3
Thank you very.
01:22:45.660 — 01:22:50.940 · Speaker 1
Much. And if you guys want to know more about audio, let us know what you want to know about your comments and we’ll see you next time.
01:22:51.180 — 01:22:51.620 · Speaker 4
Hey.
