In Episode 8 of On the Mic with Ad Results Media, Lindsay Boyd takes our listeners on her personal journey as a podcaster and voice over actor as we launch our newest series: Why Sound Matters. In this introductory episode, listeners will have the opportunity to experience the differences in sound quality produced by various microphone setups and their surroundings.
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Podcast Transcript
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Have you ever fallen in love with a Podcast only to go back to their first episode, that sounds like this, A car or whatever. It's not going to eat your food. We would like From conducting interviews on the fly to recording in studio, a quality microphone in an understanding of your surroundings are the basic points that any creative needs to learn before launching into their own Podcast. In today's episode, we will be introducing our listeners to the difference in sound quality, as experienced during my personal journey, as a Podcast are in voiceover actor as part one of our newest series, Why Sound Matters? So let's get started. That's the great thing about stamps.com. They grow with you as much as I had a clinic weight to get it back to my sleep number bed.
(49s):
I love my third love bras. They're hands down the most comfortable bras I've ever owned. I love making blue apron. I love it. It's my me time. It was 2015. When I started exploring voiceover acting in Podcasting, I had just started working in Audio Advertising while continuing to pursue theater direction on the side. I was familiar with Podcasting, but it wasn't until I discovered the horror storytelling Podcast, the no sleep Podcast that I really set up and started paying attention to what was out there at the time. Most podcasts followed a similar talk radio theme hosts would banter back and forth about their personal lives or explore various news topics or discuss TV and movies, but storytelling lingered on the periphery.
(1m 34s):
The more I learned and discovered, however, the more I took note of how my career in Audio Advertising and passion projects and theater could be connected. I knew that I had to start my own podcast. I bought a small voice recorder online and launched what I thought would be an easy side project, a podcast with friends covering various steak nights around Houston. Something we all loved. We're pretty invested in and assumed would be low effort. Needless to say the Podcast flopped, not only did I embark on this project with little preparation and zero research, but my Sound was horrible. The most preparation that I had put into this with scheduling out which state night restaurants we would visit and our Episode drop dates. I had no real understanding of the differences in microphone quality, and I was totally unfamiliar with the notion of dynamic and condenser microphones, the terms omnidirectional and uni directional weren't remotely part in my vocabulary.
(2m 25s):
This lack of preparation on my part lead to a premiere episode that featured the clear voice of two of our hosts. The muffled voices have the other three and a cacophony of sounds from passing cars, servers, taking orders in early evening. Karaoke. I've learned a lot since that first experience over the years, I've not only had the privilege of lending my voice to various storytelling podcasts, but I have also had the opportunity to meet and learn from other creatives in the space in one of the topics that we usually find ourselves on is Sound. It's funny now to look back on where you got your start a few weeks after we decided to give up on the steak night Podcast, I, myself recording a 30 minute long peace for the whispers in the night podcast on a blue snowball in my bedroom, my floors were stone tile and I had 12 foot vaulted ceilings.
(3m 9s):
Not only was my set up and adequate for the project, but my surroundings were all wrong. The final results were tinny sounding and hollow with an underlying hum from both my air conditioner and the snowball's own self-knowing, the snowball was attractive to me for several reasons. It's incredibly affordable. It's easy to set up by plugging directly into your computer's USB and it sports or a retro design that looks great in Instagram pictures. However it lacks any additional Audio outputs or inputs as well as additional lines for a headphone monitoring, all points that I would later learn were more important than I initially thought the snowball. However, wasn't the only thing working against me in the beginning. My lack of pop filter stone echo in floors and high ceilings played a huge part in my overall Sound as well through trial and error and hours of research.
(3m 53s):
I finally found a recording set up that worked for me. I was also able to use my personal experiences and industry knowledge to build out the first Ad Results Media studio that we not only used to produce this podcast, but that we use for client ads as well since taking the time to step back and invest in the right equipment and surroundings. I have personally voiced 11 Podcast episodes, one short film and produced numerous commercial ads throughout everything. My number one piece of advice to aspiring podcasters and voiceover actors is to research and invest in your equipment and surroundings. If you are interested in launching your own podcast or voiceover side hustle, please stay tuned. As we venture into our newest series, Sound Matters where we will explore the various elements of Sound ranging from equipment and environment to editing and sound mixing.
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If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe for updates on future episodes and leave us a comment with your feedback, questions, or ideas for future segments. If you would like more info on Ad Results Media and what we do, please visit our website at Ad Results. Media dot com. This podcast was written by Lindsay Boyd with sound mixing and editing by Freddie Trey hope. This podcast is an Ad Results, Media production.
