You are listening to the Confident Live Marketing podcast.

Hello, Ian Gray here for the ninth bonus episode of the

Confident Live Marketing Show.

As we work towards episode 200 and the fourth anniversary of this podcast,

we're delving into the archives and looking at the golden nuggets, those

interviews that really excited me and just taking those best moments

and giving you some of my thoughts.

So these episodes, I'm broadcasting them live, but I pre-record them in advance.

We're just doing, I'm just trying a few different things because sometimes I think

we can get stuck in a rut and sometimes it's good to try different things.

As I said last week, sometimes we can be so focused on our strategy

that our strategy is set in stone.

How flexible are we?

How easily can we pivot into something new?

So that's what I've been thinking about recently, but in today's episode, we are

going back to I dunno whether it's basics, but today we're gonna be talking about two

of the different pillars to this podcast.

The first is the.

The first one is mindset and confidence and communication in front of the camera.

We're not gonna be talking about that today.

I will be talking about that in one of these episodes.

The second one is the tech and the gear, and we are gonna be talking

about a little bit of that today.

When it comes to microphones, because I've got Michelle Levitt

from High Micro microphones.

The microphone that I'm using today is the he l PR 40.

I love it.

And she is from Hele, and she's gonna talk about the differences between.

Different microphones like the high L, PR 40 and 30.

These are dynamic microphones, but she's also gonna talk about shotgun

microphones, which might be something that you want to consider as well.

I'm actually gonna be, as well as having this dynamic microphone, I'm

gonna have a shotgun microphone as well, which is, will be out of camera,

which is more for my video work.

So I've got Michelle, but I've also got Isabella Russell, who is the c e o of

Music Radio Creative, who is married to another guest who's been another guest

on the show recently, Mike Russell.

And Mike Russell is Mr.

Audio.

He's very technical.

He talks about Adobe

Audition a lot.

He's also

really knowledgeable about video, but

his wife.

Isabella is

awesome and she really knows the stuff when it comes to audio

branding.

Isabella really helped me with the, in the

introduction to this podcast and the

outro, if the voiceover,

the music, all of that, her company, music, radio, creative puts together.

So we're gonna be talking, I'm

gonna ask her I did ask

her all about.

How you can brand

your podcast and just audio

branding in general.

It's not something we tend to think about

very often.

But let's talk to Michelle Michelle

Levitt from Hi Sound.

And I wanted to talk to her about what a shotgun microphone is cuz there's lots of

different types of microphones with lapel microphone, dynamic microphones, condense

the microphones and shotgun microphones.

And particularly for video, I think shotgun micro.

May or maybe something

to consider but do you

get the same kind of

sounds?

Yeah, let's

go back to Michelle.

So it's great that you brought up a shotgun mic because that

brings up the tough polar

patterns.

A shotgun

mic is a type of polar pattern, and a polar pattern is the area of

which a microphone picks up audio.

So I showed you just a second ago that the, my microphone does not

pick up audio out here, right?

So a shotgun mic is designed, I'm gonna use this PR 40.

A shotgun mic is designed to pick out audio like way out

front from the microphone.

So it's polar pattern is essentially like a big oval, like a really skinny oval.

And so whatever you pointed at, that's what it's gonna pick up.

Audio, but the catches, any sound that's entering in that, almost like laser beam

of audio is also gonna be picked up if you're shooting a movie or something

like that where you want like the sound of a coffee cup being set down.

Then that's a good idea because you know you're gonna get all that ambient

sound as well, just not quite as focused as the thing you're directing.

Yeah, there are a lot of applications where you could use a shotgun mic.

Like the lab mic we were talking about is what's called

an omnidirectional microphone.

That means it's gonna pick up audio pretty much like all the way around

the microphone, and that's to get nice, even audio if you're somebody that moves

your face a lot while you're talking.

And then, This microphone and the one you're using, so the one you're using

is a cardio pattern, so it's just right here in front and the one that I'm

using is a SuperCard, which is even a little bit tighter of a pattern, which

is why I'm so close to my microphone.

It's one of those things you really have to understand all these

technical concepts to really know what kind of microphone that you need.

Yeah.

So do you know your, do you know your pillar patterns

when it comes to microphones?

A little bit technical, but really important, and I think a

lot of people don't really think

about this.

To be quite

honest, I think a lot of people just go on, does it look nice?

And my

microphone I really

like it.

It looks lovely, but you know what, it sounds great.

Now I have the high L, PR 40 microphone, which has a cardio.

Pile pattern.

It means it picks up just like a heart shape, just in front of my

microphone.

But because

that has to be really

close up to me it's in order

to pick my sound up, it's on, it's in shot.

So if you're watching this video, you'll see the microphone bang on in shot.

Now that's okay because I quite like that and I've got my little microphone

flag at the top to have a bit of

branding.

But not everyone

is gonna like that.

So for you, you might prefer

to have.

Like a condenser

microphone, like the

blue yet.

And you can

have that further away from you.

But the problem with that is it will pick up a lot of the background sound.

That's why a good halfway house is a shotgun microphone.

And that will pick up like, almost like a laser beam straight

in front of the microphone now.

So the adventure of that is it's out of

shot.

But you've gotta

be careful because it's, if you go too far to the left or to the

right, it's not gonna pick you up.

If

you start I dunno,

you've put a coffee cup down and that's in the beam.

It's gonna pick that

clicking sound or whatever of the coffee

cup.

So you just gotta be careful about that.

So I'd love to know from you, what type of microphone are you thinking about getting?

Are you thinking about getting like a dynamic microphone like this, a

condense a microphone by the way?

Condense a

microphones.

You they're either

like the Blue Yeti or you can get some really high end ones.

And,

They can be really good,

but you have to have a really good treated, audio treated room for that.

So anyway, let me know what you think.

Okay, let's go to Isabella now and let's talk about audio branding.

Cuz this was so interesting.

I hadn't really thought about.

Audio

branding?

I had Phil Phil Pelland on the show a few weeks

back.

I can't remember now, probably about a month or so back.

And we were talking

about branding branding in general but not audio

branding.

So we tend to think about branding in terms of logos

and colors and the visual.

But what

about audio?

Let's go back to

Isab.

So if you want to start with audio branding, and you might not be at

the stage where you are quite ready to work with a company because

you may just not quite yet know where you want your branding to go.

And that's actually quite common, believe me.

Yeah, that's actually a lot of people are at the stage where

they know they need something.

They're not quite sure what it should be yet and where to start.

They don't quite want to invest in full on branding because they're like, what if

things change in two months down the line?

As I start broadcasting, my ideas might take a slightly different shape or

form, so the best way to really start, if you want it to start with branding,

which I always recommend because I think that it is important that.

You have something like having nothing is, I don't know if

somebody served you pancakes, but with nothing, no toppings on top.

The pancakes might be really good, but if there's no topping, you

felt like something is missing.

Thanks.

You wonderful,

you wonderful dish, right?

And with lots of sprinkles and cream and maybe syrup, golden syrup on

top and strawberries and all that.

So this is what branding is.

But if you wanna start somewhere, have start off.

Finding a piece of royalty free music track that you really like, something

that really appeals to you, maybe represents part of your character

charisma, or just in some way feels like it represents what you do.

And start with that.

And then you can always shape it into more refined branding later on.

But have that little something to start with if you wanted

to go fully and work with us.

So there are different ways we work, and again, it just depends on where

you sit in terms of knowing what you want and how you want it done.

So there are some clients who come to us and they're like, I

know exactly what I would like.

I would like a voiceover.

Here is the script.

That's what I wanted to be said.

So let's start working from there.

So we would jump in and make suggestions as to, okay, let's use music like that.

Or maybe let's not use music or something.

Some branding.

It might be suitable to just not use music at all, and then

we would create it from there.

The process is very simple.

There are some people who want to have in.

Branding analysis.

This is where we will go much deeper in.

We have a set of, I believe it's 15 or 20 different branding questions.

They really help us to understand who your audience is, who are we targeting?

What is the product or the service that you offer, or what is your brand?

Essentially, how you want to be perceived and how you want people

to think about you when in general, listening in what kind of feeling.

There should be and all of that.

So we will do deep rounding analysis and based on that, we

will come up with the scripts.

We will write the scripts.

If, say if it's a podcast, it would be intro and outro and

some elements in between as well.

We will come up with suggestions for what music may be suitable for this.

What voice artist would be better placed to record it.

So we will do a full recommendation based on your answers.

So that's like the full pancake with all the toppings, but you can choose

a smaller version of it if you are a little bit more certain as to what

you would like and how you would like

it.

I'm getting

hungry now.

It is Coming

up to lunchtime here as I record this and pan talk of

pancakes.

I'm a bit

of a savory pancake guy, but enough of that.

Have you thought about your audio branding?

What would reflect your personality?

And this is something it I'm actually thinking about at

the moment as I look

at.

Potentially

rebranding this podcast

and live show.

I've always tried to get it to reflect my

personality.

We use our my, my family

and my kids

at the end saying together

we go

live.

And I quite like that.

I want a bit

of quirkiness, I

want a bit of Fun as well.

But maybe

that's not your personality.

Maybe you are more of kinda serious person.

Think about the kind of music that you might use to

reflect that and the voice

and the energy as well.

And actually that's a really important thing when it comes to

the energy of your show in general.

Although I've always been a big believer in what I call heightened

authenticity, that you do need to put more energy into it.

Don't be af don't be ashamed of who you are.

So if you are full of energy, you are a very highly energetic person.

Don't tr

don't try and calm that down on, on camera.

Just be you.

And if you are quite a quiet person,

then you might want to raise the level a little bit because on camera what tends to

happen is for, particularly for people who

like us, you might not think I'm low energy,

but I'm a, I am a bit more of a chill out.

But I do put a little bit more

energy into the way I

deliver in front of the camera because the camera is this energy sucking device.

It tends to suck our energy away from us.

So something to think about

there.

Anyway Yeah, that

was

really helpful really helpful.

I'm glad I

listened to

that again and thinking

about audio branding, that's really helping me as I move forward.

What are your ideas on that?

I'd love to hear

from you.

Let's go back

to Michelle for the final part of that interview, and she's gonna talk

about, this is, again, going back to more technical side of things

between different microphones.

We've talked about the different polar

patterns.

Now we're

gonna talk about the differences between.

These two microphones, the high PR 30 and the PR 40.

Now I've actually got both microphones.

My son seems to have Nick's, my PR 30, he's using that

downstairs.

It's a really

nice microphone.

However, I've always

enjoyed my PR 40 If you are

not, you might not be thinking about specifically about these particular

microphones, but this conversation might help you in finding or

picking the best microphone for you.

I'm just trying to find the button

here.

There's too many videos, but here we go.

Here's the interview.

So in terms of for live streaming, you've got a PR 30, I've got a PR 40.

I just, first of all, interested in your, why do you go for a PR 30

and why would somebody go for a PR.

So for me, when I'm doing video stuff, or especially when I'm doing

a podcast, I want to sound just like me so that when you meet me in person

at podcast movement or pod fest or whatever, that I don't sound off.

So my goal always, my audio is to sound as much like myself as.

So that, this is actually a great question, so I'm gonna throw

in some more tech talk for you.

So every microphone has a frequency response, and the frequency response

is the range of frequencies that any particular microphone can capture.

Frequency responses are tailored, and what that means is there's usually a

little bump in the frequency of response in the two to five kilohertz range.

So when you look at a frequency response, unlike a manufacturer's website,

you should be looking for a little rise in the response in that area.

It doesn't have to.

Insane or anything, but just so long as it's not like a flat response, that

means the microphone is going to sound very articulate on the human voice.

That is where articulation lies in the frequency response of the human voice.

So what happens in a microphone like the 30 versus the 40 or any of our

other microphones, is that they all have unique frequency responses,

and the frequency response is actually impacted by a lot of things.

It's impacted.

The distance of the microphone element to the end of the microphone.

So take a mi, take a microphone like the Sure.

SM seven B is a very popular microphone.

It is actually the same microphone element as an SM 57, but if you look up their

specs online, they look very different because the housing of a microphone

can greatly change how it sounds.

So the difference between a 30 and a 40 is that the 40 has a little more low end

and it has a little boost in the low end.

So it gives you that warm, traditional broadcast sound where a 30 is

not, does not have that low end boost the same way, and it has a

little more mid-range presence.

So for my voice, it just sounds more like me, and that's what I'm going for

with my audio is to just sound very

natural.

Isn't that fascinating?

So yeah, that was a little bit technical.

You're talking about frequency

sponsors and I hope you, you stayed with Michelle there.

But at the

end of it, I think what I got from that is

authenticity.

I think so

often we're wanting to enhance ourselves and that's

not wrong, how happy

are you with your own voice and.

Do you want to have when people meet you in real

life?

Do they want

to not, do you want them to be not

surprised when they

hear your voice?

Cuz you sound exactly the

same the way they hear you on the podcast.

And that is definitely

what I want.

I do want

to enhance things in terms of, I do want to get rid of noise,

background noise and I do

want this to be a pleasurable experience when you listen to this or watch this.

But it's very much a personal thing.

And so for me, the PR 40 I think sounds great.

It doesn't,

it, I think this makes me sound

like me.

But the PR

30 I

think sounds.

For Michelle,

she prefers that sound.

It makes her sound more authentic as well.

So do think

about that.

We're always and this

is particularly the case when it comes to visual, we're always

trying to make ourselves look

better or, sound better,

but.

How much of ourselves are we wanting?

Are we willing to put forwards?

The authenticity side of

things is so important.

So I think this has been a really interesting episode.

We've talked about branding and we've talked about how you put

yourself across and your personality.

And we've also

talked about technical

side of things when it comes to microphones, but we've also talked about

authenticity as.

Although we've

been

talking about, the marketing

side of things with branding, that's my third pillar and we talked about

the tech, which is my second pillar.

There's actually a bit of mindset going on here too, so you can see

how they all come together well outta

time.

Again short episodes

as I always try and make

these.

Into but I will

be back next week with another bonus edition of this podcast.

I hope you're enjoying these.

I'd love to hear from you.

Please don't be shy.

As I do think about rebooting this podcast, I'd love to hear from

you.

I do have

a survey at I A G E slash survey.

I think that's right.

I'll have to double check that.

Anyway, I g me slash survey, I

hope is the URL

for that.

But just get in touch with me.

My email address is ian iag me and I'd love to hear from

you, but I think that's it.

Yeah, that is it for this week and until next time, I encourage you to level

up your impact, authority and profits do the power of Confident Live video.

See you soon.

Thanks for watching the Confident Live Marketing Show with Ian Anderson.

Greg, make sure you subscribe at Iag me slash podcast so you can continue

to level up your impact, authority, and profit through the power of Live video.