# [[MFP27 - “Make Sure the Floor is There” with Ben Smith]] Transcript This transcription was completed on March 4, 2026 with the application MacWhisper on macOS. This was done automatically, without human input during the transcription process. The transcription used the Parakeet v3 model. My hope is that by offering this transcription – however accurate it may be done by a machine learning/AI – will help you, the listener. I’d love to offer full, proper transcription some day, but that is not feasible at this time. Thank you for listening and reading. I hope you enjoy the show and that this document was helpful. Enjoy. --- Hello everybody and welcome to the Max Frequency Podcast. *00:00* And people were like, Oh, it's so nice you named a beer after your son. *00:00* He's like, I've got all this equipment. *00:00* And it actually is what we started out doing, like DJing high school dances and, you know, old people birthday parties and stuff like that. *00:00* You know, we had steady girlfriends or we you know, we were in college or we were like trying to get jobs or whatever. *00:00* I'm tired of this. *00:00* If you're comfortable with saying, yeah, I've tried Casper Mattress, I've been sleeping on one for five years, and it's the best thing I've ever had. *00:00* And I can't tell you why. *00:00* I'm not on enough shows to really make it matter, but I should probably try a little harder, but I also probably should just get like a a rug and some wall coverings too. *00:00* So I looked in Dallas and in Austin and kind of ran into a similar issue there with spacing, with the sizing. *00:00* Yeah, so he can like look through it and memorize it and then he just goes off memory. *00:00* It's perfect. *00:00* So it's like look at me, I'm so cool, I can smoke, you can't it was a t I was a terrible person. *00:00* You're more of the nitty-gritty, you know, like where the bodies are buried and different things that you did and things like that. *00:00* Yeah, I guess it's hard to put those situ those things into practice, but if I really were to examine it, I could definitely see some areas where *00:00* a size. *00:00* Yeah. *00:00* Yeah is that by bringing all that audio up to a inconceivable level and then pulling that limiter back down, it brings everybody back down to the same *00:00* Yes. *00:00* Yes. *00:00* Cog is on all sorts of podcasts and he works in a professional setting and you know Dustin, Chris, and Colin are all podcasting all the s like really the content of the show *00:00* That's just a joke, but yeah. *00:00* I'm gonna go. *00:00* Pretty much with Lilimo, it's, you know, the production team, the development team, which is majority Barry, but of course we have some contractors who do uh you know anything from art to music to writing, stuff like that. *00:00* Hey, thanks for having me, Max. *00:00* Okay. *00:00* And for some reason I waited for three weeks after the second season started airing to start watching it. *00:00* It does make sense. *00:00* And I don't know why, I think it's more just like a tradition for me now. *00:00* Yeah. *00:00* But we can pretend like I named the beer after my son. *00:00* I didn't get first name, but I did get middle name. *00:00* What happened with all that, if you don't mind me asking? *00:00* And I was like, oh. *00:00* recently and we talked about our greatest fears. *00:00* 'Cause all those old buildings that we were on an old, you know, historic Main Street. *00:00* So down a Bud Light in the pack of Marlboroughs or anything. *00:00* a brewery again and as we explored that further and everything we just kind of came to the decision that the market wasn't right the way that the the craft beer was trending uh wasn't right *00:00* of Yeah, yeah. *00:00* But we just had a poker night and we were someone stopped at a cigar shop, had them pre-cut. *00:00* Did one of your jobs for four years. *00:00* Yeah, but I've never only had one job. *00:00* for things that people did before me. *00:00* I can't put them into words, but you learn you just learn different strategies for handling people. *00:00* I grew in areas I was already familiar with and understood things differently. *00:00* They are learning. *00:00* It was still new. *00:00* uh not much but some money making and then dustin had me had me go to PAX with him one year he just wanted to go so we went so we had just become friends before that recently *00:00* So they invited me and like I had never met them and my parents just let me go. *00:00* But it's cool to see the inception and at least try and follow the trail all the way through. *00:00* It wasn't checked Twitter or here's what's leaking. *00:00* And that grows and changes. *00:00* It's just yeah, there's a lot of editing you're right. *00:00* Like I just happened to find it in my files and I was like pulled it up and I was like, wow. *00:00* Uh it's not edited for ums and ahs and for for like spaces. *00:00* And it's now like if you save a draft, it gets it's it's a whole mess over there at Patreon. *00:00* Yeah. *00:00* So I'm curious more, what's that is that truly the process? *00:00* It used to make a lot less sense, those dynamic ads, and now I think it makes a little more sense. *00:00* It's nuts. *00:00* than just your microphone being on. *00:00* is just a platform kind of like Libson or Anchor or any of those. *00:00* everything so yeah you see that in the the free feed version of sacred symbols that says like last stamp media or something and studio seventy one *00:00* We surprisingly, you know, we didn't want political ads on there. *00:00* I know this too from with with from from LSM. *00:00* sleep number bed from nineteen ninety seven, then you know, that's up to you, I suppose. *00:00* Is that simply just because familiarity with video editing and that just translates down to audio because it's the same interface just without footage above it? *00:00* I'm fine. *00:00* And I actually just made a video on my YouTube channel of how I edit a podcast. *00:00* Well I know how to do all this. *00:00* And I'm like over here, even though I think I have a pretty deep voice, I'm kind of like, oh man, I'm gonna feel kind of wimpy here. *00:00* Yeah. *00:00* It's certainly a uh a struggle to finding when you get into a new space figuring out exactly what works. *00:00* Uh we should do we should do a tell Colin we're gonna do a live show and he has to be there. *00:00* He's like, okay. *00:00* on the south side of town that nobody ever talks about, but that's really cool. *00:00* Do you know that from analytic data? *00:00* And so it was really hard to find the right size. *00:00* I started calling and and just found that the prices in Vegas were specifically for that time of year way higher than what I thought was smart. *00:00* So yeah, finally found a venue that would work and basically from there I mean it just goes like you know communicate with the venue, get dates, communicate that with the the team, confirm a date that everybody can make it. *00:00* There's a lot to it. *00:00* But they filmed it and Dustin edited it and that's up for five dollar patrons right now. *00:00* Hey, we're gonna have a person standing here while other people sit here and we need that to be lit and it could be in this color scheme *00:00* You generally don't have to do that. *00:00* a full schematic of all of their sound and everything and show me exactly what they have and so like I can kind of go through there and pick out what we want to use and how we want lights to be. *00:00* And then telling them, you know, how many mics are involved, giving them a rough schedule of when those mics are going to be used, when they should all be on, when none of them should be on, when a one in the crowd is going to be on, that kind of thing. *00:00* We did like a s we do like a sound check. *00:00* These people talk and then we're gonna have a video at some point. *00:00* Yeah. *00:00* Other than the fact that I need to put together all the presentations and PowerPoints and stuff like that, the content of the show is not something I have to handle. *00:00* Okay, I'm gonna tell you the order of when people are talking, but what you talk about and how you do it is not any of my concern at this point. *00:00* Sometimes I think that's better because there have has been at least two instances of me being like, this might not be good to say. *00:00* So I assume him saying, I want to go to Europe means you've at least done some initial research on that. *00:00* But now no that we definitely have started I've started looking at places specifically in London because that's like if we're gonna go over, that's the place to play, right? *00:00* Yeah, there's a lot of hurdles that go into it, but we're we're working for it. *00:00* I think Dustin and I are gonna get together and get the get the pay-per-view and watch it. *00:00* Yeah. *00:00* You know, we need to get a trailer uploaded, that kind of stuff. *00:00* Sure. *00:00* I knew that all all that information like a month before it hit, you know, the the news cycle. *00:00* uh Princess and the Frog redo of of um oh my gosh, Splash Mountain or the Tron Tron roller coaster here in in Disney World. *00:00* And so those things obviously are public and and happening right now, but you know, when they announce new stuff, I'm like, ah, I knew about that a year ago. *00:00* And so act something new can actually be announced and I didn't know about it in some way, shape, or form. *00:00* Yeah, they they'll come after me eventually. *00:00* You know, I've been one I've been making in various forms and at various times content about video games. *00:00* the journalism degree to doing the sho to ultimately doing the show. *00:00* And it f dawned on me that I really needed to just have my own space, my own thing to pour into, not be dictated by *00:00* Here's the SEO trends we need to be chasing right now of you know, here's the Diablo 4 beta, how to blah blah blah blah blah. *00:00* Here's all the legendary animals. *00:00* Can the people find you online? *00:00* I probably should figure that out at some point, but Ben is handsome YT. *00:00* Where we bounce back and forth between a series exploring its evolution, design, and legacy. *00:00* You can follow me on Twitter if you want, at Max Roberts143, but all I do there now these days is just tweet when work goes up. *00:00* And you decide to come on the show. *00:00* your work and whatnot. *00:00* those quick couple bursts in order for me to like get into it and then I'm anticipatory, you know. *00:00* And then they get you hooked to come back for the next seven to four weeks, however long it is. *00:00* I have only seen uh gifts and tweets and stuff from the, you know, the HBO account and the succession account. *00:00* I think it's actually still is a Patreon exclusive. *00:00* Patreon exclusive. *00:00* Uh it wasn't like we were destitute. *00:00* In order to uh put that fire out, they had to, I mean, uh thousands and t like tens of thousands of gallons of water got onto our place. *00:00* Wh which there was no good timing for COVID, obviously, but you know what I mean. *00:00* I know many people in that same situation. *00:00* And part of the way I won't get into all the intricacies, but part of the way we were able to have the cigar bar, we you know, if we of course we had cigars, there was a smoking lounge, um, more of an you know, uh I don't want to sound uppity, but a higher class smoking lounge. *00:00* also brewing. *00:00* I was like, I can smoke now. *00:00* Actually at New Year's Eve some friends brought some cigars. *00:00* way or form. *00:00* So they all look to me and we didn't have the tools. *00:00* What I like to think is some is pretty knowledgeable about the subjects, but at the same time, like I'm not uh I'm not going to turn up my nose as someone who isn't because I'm, you know, it's just not my think right now, I guess. *00:00* Which has been a surprisingly useful resource in the past couple of episodes, but like you seem to have done a lot of different stuff. *00:00* Yeah. *00:00* So just because you want to change something, uh doesn't mean it could happen. *00:00* It's nuts, man. *00:00* And then actually a few months later you join Lilimo, which Colin owns h half 49%, half of I think it's like forty nine, yeah. *00:00* a brewery, cigar bar, speakeasy type whole deal. *00:00* And people were like, yeah, we want you. *00:00* I don't want to do this anymore, basically. *00:00* You know, I used to run like the soundboard at church and things like that, but as far as anything like actually for uh an income, that would certainly be the beginning of it. *00:00* 12, 13 years old, I guess like a tiny middle schooler. *00:00* It's not like we were gigantic, but at the time there was almost nobody doing it. *00:00* give them other benefits, free games, all that kind of stuff. *00:00* Probably in about 2016 or 17. *00:00* but also just a way for, you know, us to talk like we felt like it was a product that was needed out there too. *00:00* And we went to Pax East and then he was like, Why don't we just like do this, do this? *00:00* I don't know when that actually happened. *00:00* uh did a big Super Smash Bros. *00:00* But looking at Peter's history and then my own lining it up and it's like, well, I started doing YouTube videos about Smash Brothers and then I did a Nintendo podcast with some friends, like spread out. *00:00* talking about games publicly online and my big inspiration was a podcast at the time, Show Me Your News. *00:00* My one friend, uh, was an only child and they were going on a cruise and his parents wanted him to have a friend on the c *00:00* And we stopped doing it right around the time and it was mostly about history, so we approached everything from a pretty non-political bias standpoint. *00:00* Imagine how long it took just for everyone to learn who the president was. *00:00* News used to disseminate and now I just talked to someone about that with video game news and like it used to just be a magazine show up at your door once a month and that's how you knew what was coming out. *00:00* At least that's what Collins says, and I believe it listening to the show. *00:00* with the audio, people have actually a couple people have told me like they went and listened to the audio and the video at the same time and were like, holy cow, this is a different show of one to the other. *00:00* Yeah, I know. *00:00* Yeah, so I primarily I bring everything into to Premiere and I run a bunch of filters on them, put some gates in, uh, etc. *00:00* And I just don't like it because it feels creepy. *00:00* The host does read the ad and it could be for whatever hot internet underwear or mattress is the thing right now. *00:00* And so it's it's Colin or Dustin or or whoever your host is is telling you, go buy this thing. *00:00* You know, we're gonna insert an ad for whatever their local college is and over, you know, because or like whatever their local supermarket chain or what you know, whatever, because they could just tell their region they were in *00:00* I'm interested most likely in the product. *00:00* a daycare center, like you're not a daycare, because that would actually make sense with kids, but you know, a college that is for brand new high school students or whatever. *00:00* But I'm also of the opinion like people are like, oh, I don't want them having my data. *00:00* They know everything about me. *00:00* Megaphone, which is actually just within the last year, owned by Spotify. *00:00* to call them. *00:00* Right. *00:00* Hey, we've got X amount of shows with X amount of impressions or with Y amount of impressions, and we'd love to get your show on them. *00:00* But if you pay X times two, we'll have the host read it, which the data proves that you know the click-through rate on that is gonna be this many times higher. *00:00* When we signed up on that network, they basically gave us a document and said, mark off the subjects that you do not want advertising about. *00:00* It's just a matter of if you hear an ad that isn't being read by the host, there's a potential that they just, you know, it's a it's a cheaper ad campaign. *00:00* Then everything else is pretty much free game for them. *00:00* Are you cool with it? *00:00* A decision that you know you get to make. *00:00* my ears or some person in California's ears or Texas or Maine, whatever. *00:00* control and everything. *00:00* uh a YouTube video recently and said Ubisoft, which is how I've always said it. *00:00* I don't want to do this because we don't want to take money from publishers. *00:00* I don't know how to say that and it just works for me. *00:00* It's worked for me. *00:00* Closer. *00:00* Yeah, I don't think it's particularly appealing aesthetically for sure. *00:00* And so there are also many tools in there for audio that are very good. *00:00* I find I don't use odd I use audition for one thing and one thing only, and that's a match loudness. *00:00* uh after effects to premiere to final cut and that's where I've settled. *00:00* So I do get that familiarity. *00:00* But I did hear gates for sure. *00:00* is in Premiere and it's actually the the Gayton compressor uh that I mostly use. *00:00* fill the earspace more than someone else's and make it feel louder even though the level the actual volume level is the same *00:00* The room I was in before was very good for sound. *00:00* It's the other people that we have on as guest that can totally change a show. *00:00* I don't know how they do it, man. *00:00* And I'm like, I I'm sure you can hear it a little echoey. *00:00* What will start out is a concrete blank slate and I'm so worried about the acoustics. *00:00* But I don't know, seven plus, seven to ten people, if not more, merchandise, venue, flight, like all this stuff. *00:00* Uh Dustin and I we worked a little more closely on that one because of um just because it was in our town uh and went and planned, you know, the whole thing and *00:00* Had the show here and then after that I said, okay, Colin, uh, I want to do more of these. *00:00* Yeah, I you asked how it how it happened. *00:00* Yeah. *00:00* Yeah, that's that's one of the main hurdles, honestly, for good and bad, I think, because like you said, when you're familiar with an area, you know, like, oh, there's that little theater down *00:00* And once I started looking at Vegas for the timeline that we wanted, it just wasn't going to be feasible because one, either everywhere was already booked up for the for that time period. *00:00* Since it's my job and like if I'm if we're not doing it, I feel like I'm getting paid for something I'm not doing, obviously. *00:00* I don't care if we make money, I just don't want to lose money. *00:00* And so yeah, we have some analytics that show us general areas of the country people are in. *00:00* Yeah. *00:00* lighting and microphones and what the setup's gonna be and yeah, you know, w how the the green room's gonna be set up, whatever. *00:00* Figure out. *00:00* And it's not like I actually have to go through and tell them like, okay, well, can left can four. *00:00* uh but they do need to have a little bit of of organization behind them. *00:00* And then, you know, you start to run over that with them before the show actually starts, like in a kind of a soundcheck situation. *00:00* That kind of thing. *00:00* This happens. *00:00* Evening with last stands are keynotes essentially of a presentation, and people are up there and they have jokes and the surprise is A for the audience. *00:00* We don't prepare for that. *00:00* And he doesn't read off of it, but in you know in the Google slide or PowerPoint, you actually can like put in presenter notes. *00:00* But pretty much I just need to get everything set up and then kind of give them a runoff show and maybe occasionally need to keep things on track time-wise. *00:00* Right. *00:00* interfere or give feedback. *00:00* And then they've changed it and then I have to be able to roll with those punches. *00:00* I think that would be awesome, you know, to go to London, but at the time he started talking about it, we hadn't done any real research on it. *00:00* It's just uh there's a lot more details to consider. *00:00* Well, you know, you could just throw a show together here in two weeks for Chris's boxing debut. *00:00* I try to look into it. *00:00* forms than you're used to, so you gotta go convert it. *00:00* Will my will my cell phone work? *00:00* And then it was he was fighting Froggy Fresh at the time. *00:00* Do all sorts of stuff. *00:00* Uh 75 people there or are a thousand people gonna try to buy tickets? *00:00* Lily Mo is much different than an associate producer at Naughty Dog or something like that. *00:00* They kind of work with their pace and then Barry lets me know when things need to be handled. *00:00* and they're all a little bit different to work with and some of them you communicate exclusively through email and other ones you do everything and never hope to talk to a person. *00:00* putting out a ton of games, you know, we're not a big publisher or something. *00:00* those things are easy to like have to relearn. *00:00* to have that perspective be like, I wonder what everyone's gonna say when this is finally announced. *00:00* You know, there are projects that have probably definitely been nipped and tucked since I've left because money, budget, whatever. *00:00* Are they worried about the technical writer? *00:00* or works at a different, you know, theme park or design firm or whatever, probably a bit more keeping eyes on things to protect copyright and all sorts of stuff. *00:00* 'Cause Disney controls it all. *00:00* sometimes with much more frequency than others, but I've always just I've been interested in not only talking about games, but also the actual development of games. *00:00* But I don't love, I don't dislike it either, but I don't love the production work on the back end of video games. *00:00* not an artist and I don't know how to code, like writing would probably be my thing, which is something I've had some experience with in the past. *00:00* Because you know how that is. *00:00* But at a point I just kind of hit burnout and was doing like three or four different shows at a time and writing for sites that just *00:00* Part of my memories of that game are just like chasing gold animals on a map. *00:00* my own show. *00:00* Right. *00:00* Big in the YouTube space, be like, you gotta get up to three. *00:00* is on Twitter. *00:00* And right now I'm playing five and four remake at the same time, and that is an interesting, interesting comparison. *00:00* to stay in touch with what I'm doing. *00:00* And he was like, oh yeah, no, Ben, Ben does all of this. *00:00* You could make that argument, but in the current timeline. *00:00* And then I've just been waiting for season four. *00:00* My oldest son is uh his name is Egan, and we also named a beer at uh which we'll get into talking about all that stuff, Egan's Irish Stout. *00:00* probably knows you as the f the mayor or former mayor of Butler, Pennsylvania. *00:00* over here to the east side and just talked about becoming the mayor of Butler. *00:00* the brewery and the cigar bar are are closed, unfortunately. *00:00* But you you're you're into it. *00:00* I I am someone who has always been whatever I'm into, I'm into it full force. *00:00* I don't know. *00:00* Yeah. *00:00* And even then I was doing freelance stuff on the side. *00:00* And most of the things I think I learned from being mayor were things about human nature and the nature of public service and stuff like that. *00:00* But they don't really sink in until you like are actively doing them or seeing them in in theory, I guess, or in practice as as opposed to just theory. *00:00* you know, for lack of a better way to say it, reach across the aisle and get things done. *00:00* you know, grown at your age. *00:00* You sound like a guy I've I knew in middle school. *00:00* Editing podcast. *00:00* That same sort of thing. *00:00* Hobby to I'm gonna a side hustle I'm gonna start making money, which ultimately leads to one of your jobs. *00:00* Yeah, it kind of went from there. *00:00* Yeah. *00:00* And of course before that I used uh I used Audacity, but that's so far in the distant past. *00:00* If that's the way someone speaks or if it's for comedic effect, that's gonna stay. *00:00* It just depends on the the most important thing is to make it sound natural. *00:00* Uh and that's you know rendering the shows, doing all the timestamps, uh typing those up is pretty time consuming for the shows that have them. *00:00* Which is something that you guys use over at LSM. *00:00* Use whatever information they can get from us, generally IP address or something, and start plopping in relevant ads. *00:00* That they're able to scrape a lot more info. *00:00* The creepy miss aside, and yes, they do just have all of our information. *00:00* To me, I think the part, and this is a this is a max thing, it's when I get ads that aren't spoken by the hosts. *00:00* Yeah, and I think a lot of that, I totally understand that for sure. *00:00* Colin, Chris, and Dustin. *00:00* So I don't know their exact process. *00:00* And how much they want to spend because obviously a host red ad costs more. *00:00* higher amount back as the the podcast producer, as the uh the host of the show, and you also get a higher return as the advertiser. *00:00* Do you is there any say back on the creator of even though you're partnering with an ad seller, is there any say on that end? *00:00* And one time specifically, Collins talked about this publicly, but there was an ad for a documentary series that Ubisoft, or Ubisoft depends on, I I did a video recently. *00:00* Yeah, I generally, just as far as the footage thing, I generally when I'm just editing audio, make the the audio full screen, and I'm only looking at that anyway, so it's it's it almost feels like you're not even in Premiere sometimes, but *00:00* Is that even though audition is meant for audio, I feel like the tool set in Premiere is more conducive to what I need to do for this specific show. *00:00* It's interesting because all the tool sets that are in there for video are also in there for audio because they know that if you want to have a good video, you need good audio generally. *00:00* Once I got out of the mindset that oh premieres for video, therefore I can't do audio in it. *00:00* Then share that with people. *00:00* one thing that you've come up with or downloaded somewhere that you just apply across the track? *00:00* to fix a couple things. *00:00* tile room with no furniture and so it's like this echo madness. *00:00* figure out how it works first acoustically. *00:00* hotels and all that stuff. *00:00* Different part of Texas where talked about the most overrated video. *00:00* I guess it fell into your lap or you were assigned this job and what that whole process is like before we get to the actual more technical side of a live show. *00:00* We'd always talk about like, oh, it'd be so cool to do a for if Colin would do another live show. *00:00* Planning something out of state, it's I assume you're not traveling to Houston to like check out venues. *00:00* We started out, uh, we pitched the idea of going to Vegas. *00:00* Honestly, since all of LSM lives on well, Chris did, but he doesn't anymore. *00:00* a place that would be good. *00:00* And um also see feedback on posts when we say where we want to go and you know you get you see a lot of feedback. *00:00* Within a community it doesn't necessarily have to be a minority of people. *00:00* put a deposit down on the venue, start working with their production manager to plan out, you know, a timing and *00:00* Geico and got an agent and said, I would like to pay you money for this. *00:00* Talk to me about the production side, coordinating with the production people over at whatever venue it is. *00:00* And then I know there isn't an audio version of this particular show, but you know, it's all gotta sound good. *00:00* you're also hiring professionals that are oftentimes either full-time at the venue or they're union employees who work there full-time, you know, part of a union, whatever. *00:00* The two venues I booked so far, they give me like a full engineering schematic of their lighting rig. *00:00* people who that's their living is that you don't have to babysit them and be like, I think the gain needs to be a little higher and the base is too high. *00:00* How many mics make sense, but like when they should be on? *00:00* can if they know their equipment can do that stuff on the fly. *00:00* This person is going to be speaking. *00:00* one person is going to talk about. *00:00* If I'm asked for feedback or something like that about something, then I'm certainly happy to give that feedback before or after the show. *00:00* evolution, I suppose, of this type of planning of a live event. *00:00* Oh, what about this one thing? *00:00* Well the first thing I'll say is that I've told Colin too is I would really like for Colin to not tell people where we're going next before we have it figured out. *00:00* Sometimes you may be reading, not in London or England necessarily, but you may be reading a different language or they're measuring things in different *00:00* I will be totally honest and say at the m at on uh what's today? *00:00* International shows. *00:00* the normal, uh will that be feasible or not? *00:00* condensed over there. *00:00* Blanking on the other person's name who owns it was what's his name? *00:00* of Lily Mo. *00:00* since it's such a small team and it's Barry's team and he's the lead, like it's a it's his pace, uh basically. *00:00* company plans of attractions being planned out years in advance. *00:00* perspective on the industry for sure and seeing some of those things come through the back end of like the PlayStation Network. *00:00* Disney for better or worse to actually like go and listen to former employees side projects or something like that. *00:00* Um I took pictures of that. *00:00* being the mayor of the town and you gain new perspective or insight on things like you knew beforehand, but then you actually did them. *00:00* Curious how that applies here to video games. *00:00* work for a company that does so weekly quite extensively. *00:00* It's really hard because with producing content for video games for so long, and by producing I mean like actually being the content, making the content, as opposed to just uh editing it. *00:00* It is difficult sometimes to feel like uh I don't have a lot of creativity because if I were doing like audio documentaries or something like that, then being able to *00:00* But that that's one like that's one of the reasons that I I stream and I do YouTube, both just as a hobby, but because I need to have that little bit of creative outlet. *00:00* hobbies on the side to do the things that you really want to do and you don't have the opportunity to do professionally. *00:00* Right. *00:00* This year, I've already surpassed that and like we'll definitely double, if not triple that. *00:00* the in a in a significant way, then sure I'll increase. *00:00* Yeah, I think it's really important to be able to have it's it's awesome to do what you love as your career and as your job, but I think that it's just as important to have things that are only for you. *00:00* Yeah, I totally same page, Ben. *00:00* that he needs me, the better, really for me. *00:00* I think because that show I don't know if that show was ever on free feeds, was it? *00:00* And then of course, you know, things were going well, everything was looking good. *00:00* As good as we could have hoped, I guess, at the time. *00:00* The uh the the real estate wasn't good still because of you know how everything changed with the economy. *00:00* Very diverse skill set, it seems. *00:00* Right. *00:00* Patience is something I had to learn uh a little bit more, I think. *00:00* I'm used to things move at my pace because I I can dictate that pace. *00:00* Like within my first year in office and now over a year out of office, they're just starting to come to fruition. *00:00* On the job side, every job I've gotten is through some sort of relationship ultimately. *00:00* So stubborn. *00:00* Again, that feels like so long ago, but in the scheme of podcasting. *00:00* And that actually became way bigger than I expected. *00:00* Yeah, I think you're probably right. *00:00* This was maybe it's more common today, actually. *00:00* We met at the airport in Louisiana, you know? *00:00* stop and say um and then continue and other times people say um I don't know and like you know you can't you can't cut that out so sometimes those stay in there sometimes they don't *00:00* Export them, upload them, send them off to uh for Dustin to upload to Patreon. *00:00* And that gets sent off to the people who handle those ads for us. *00:00* If you if you want. *00:00* And it didn't seem like there was as much data there. *00:00* It's mostly through Spotify because they seem to be buying up all the ad companies and all the uh podcast distribution platforms. *00:00* They've honed that in and in some respects I think that's better because I might actually listen to the ad rather than skip through it if I'm totally not interested in it. *00:00* One is that the people that sell the ads, you know, so for instance, we w all of our shows are hosted by *00:00* Because when I go to a show, there's a relationship that develops between you, the listener, and the host. *00:00* Okay. *00:00* And so automatically, like if you are a podcast and you want to be more, you know, you're you're a podcast that wants to be educational. *00:00* Well, I know from my experience with a very similar setup through megaphone and everything, just not through Studio 71, from my history podcast and another network I was part of at one point that *00:00* And we'll respond and say, well, we haven't received the product, so we'll give an endorsement, but not a personal endorsement. *00:00* pretty much all the control in the world. *00:00* In my brain. *00:00* I know audition as well. *00:00* their specific intonation, I suppose. *00:00* loudness. *00:00* Like, not that Maddie doesn't, but Cog's voice is like very deep and very Yes. *00:00* Most of the shows I do, it's my s chapter select is my other show, and I do that with Logan. *00:00* Yeah. *00:00* Stupid neat. *00:00* Sound you you plan, coordinate the trips to live shows and make sure everyone gets there. *00:00* I wanted to ask what that whole process is like. *00:00* Dust and I had been had been um fans of Colin for a long time before we ever met him or started working for him, but *00:00* A couple of years ago, actually before Dustin may have just started working for Colin. *00:00* more money than we would have even made from selling tickets to rent the place out, which I understand the reasons, but I won't bash them online or you know publicly. *00:00* Uh then um I said, okay, well, I still want to go to Texas because I know that a large portion of our audience is in Texas. *00:00* Insurance, because you know you're you know you you need to have re event insurance required for many venues and most venues, any good venue, you need to have event insurance. *00:00* You could, I suppose, if you want to do that. *00:00* Many times in my life for many years at a time. *00:00* I love that. *00:00* Mm-hmm. *00:00* comes across a little differently than you think it's coming across. *00:00* When we when we were going to Vegas, or when I said I want to go to Vegas, I was like, I want to go to Vegas, but I don't want to tell anybody yet. *00:00* a publicly announced opponent, but he will have somewhere to fight. *00:00* The more I'm on the back end of the games, the more I'm realizing like I don't necessarily like the product I like the productions work on podcasts and stuff. *00:00* A little bit more creative, but I also don't know that that's actually something I want to do. *00:00* I had no passion for the site or what we were doing. *00:00* Part of me will never be able to separate Red Dead, bringing my PS4 on a Christmas trip, and just hunting like a legendary cougar in the hotel room because it had to get up and I had to do it. *00:00* You edit every show on Last Dam Media. *00:00* specifically with succession. *00:00* But I someone I got into it I guess last a year or two ago. *00:00* And there's more reasons than just HBO. *00:00* It just didn't seem smart to try to uh, I don't know, recoup all that old stuff. *00:00* The short the long story medium. *00:00* I don't know if it's just my personality or the style of city that it is, or if it's I I don't know what it is, but for me it's like um *00:00* I help handle which roads get paved, man. *00:00* And and then real life, friends, people, the person you interact with at the grocery store, it's all relationships to dynamics and understanding *00:00* And my buddy was like, hey, I've got all this equipment. *00:00* and of and then eventually uh moved into more slightly more like club oriented things and then we kind of got to the point where we didn't want to do it anymore because we were both like *00:00* I think the first podcast I ever edited or was on was in 2009. *00:00* And eventually he ended up getting a job at another gaming company. *00:00* And then I started doing some like freelance uh podcast editing just because *00:00* And we did that episode because technically it was history, like a couple weeks afterwards. *00:00* for uh for editing and I know that that's mostly a a video software obviously but for me it works well I used to use audition *00:00* I just edit the show. *00:00* It's changed a little bit over the years. *00:00* gets an ad spot on the show, or is there a we this is a terrible example because they host they sponsor every podcast known to man. *00:00* Back to editing. *00:00* to clean up all sorts of stuff. *00:00* And I use an auto gate, a compressor, and then a limiter. *00:00* has more professional equipment or just better than, you know, your earbuds, that's generally not too bad. *00:00* And so we talked about, you know, how we could make that work. *00:00* Or two, the places were too big. *00:00* Yeah. *00:00* give them some cues, a rough outline or a very detailed outline if you're me of the show. *00:00* You know, Maddie wa he wasn't at the last event, but the fact that he constantly is talking to the public and making videos and *00:00* We've been preparing for this for so long and you know people have paid to come out and like it's more of uh we gotta get this done right, or is does that excitement that I'm feeling, does that something you feel as well? *00:00* the projectors in a different format than I thought it was gonna be or something you know something silly like that. *00:00* consider besides people having their passports not be expired. *00:00* When you're looking at a place, I'm in Pennsylvania, I'm looking at a place in Texas, figuring it out is figuring out where is even more difficult overseas because *00:00* Everything is as foolproof as it can be. *00:00* In every conceivable way possible, I guess. *00:00* Go when it dawned on me listening to Podcast Beyond when I was a Kmart stock boy. *00:00* So my plan for Monday, I actually have it planned out that Monday I'm going to sit down and watch the first three episodes. *00:00* Yeah, like w within weeks of when we were supposed to sign a lease. *00:00* Now that I'm not actively engaged in that business, like it's not I still like to smoke cigars, I still like to drink good beer, but it's not something that I'm interested in. *00:00* for these four years and how you maybe have brought that into uh other areas of your life, particularly left stand media, but I mean, I'm sure being I would think being the mayor impacted *00:00* And um I guess, you know, I've always been someone who I think all of my jobs I've ever had, with i the exception of like one in the country club when I was in high school, I've been some sort of manager or overseer. *00:00* It it's much different in small town politics than of course we see on the national stage. *00:00* how to get along with people and work with people is I probably the most important thing I would one of one of the most important things I'll say to have a skill in. *00:00* Especially back in the, you know, the the early days of elections in the country when everything traveled by, you know, horse and buggy. *00:00* I love editing. *00:00* The back ends always there's always criticism for a back end of anything. *00:00* for one person to read it and then you to put it on all of their shows. *00:00* and the specifics of the audio, I will use actually use um Isotope, RX7. *00:00* So I don't know how I got there, but yes, I use the dynamics effect in Premiere for the majority of what I do, and then I just you know raise and lower the volume here and there if I need to if somebody dips out or there's some background noise. *00:00* And then isotope for things like mouth clicks and whatnot. *00:00* Should everything continue to go well. *00:00* Was last year? *00:00* Middle of the country, I suppose. *00:00* and give it to them to uh to tell them, you know, about where I want the the lights to be. *00:00* You know, Cog's presentation, for instance, on this on this last one. *00:00* But if it's just a a slide with a picture on it, I have no idea what he's gonna say. *00:00* So it's a high energy thing for me and sometimes I'm like, why isn't everybody else as concerned as I am? *00:00* our our is our audience from Germany and Africa and where like wherever else little pockets of our audience are they gonna come? *00:00* Before before we wrap everything up, I wanted to ask about your other production job, which has nothing-well, I won't say nothing. *00:00* But you're also an associate producer over at Lillymo, which as we mentioned earlier, Colin owns a sizable chunk of. *00:00* Uh so you know, working with Steam and Nintendo and Xbox and PlayStation, like all of them have vastly different storefronts. *00:00* And here it is. *00:00* inject like my own flavor, I guess you could say, into a show is much easier than just editing words that someone says. *00:00* Yeah. *00:00* Again, the side the side hustle is is my YouTube channel. *00:00* I love it. *00:00* The other, I don't know, facts, attributes, businesses that you've run, things you've done, I think a lot of especially the last stand community in particular. *00:00* Totally destroys your insides. *00:00* all or other areas of your life, not just the city of Butler. *00:00* the mayor interview, you were doing you were editing another podcast. *00:00* from shows about the elec election process or previous elections, the Electoral College, which imagine if that show was still going on today, that would probably *00:00* Yeah, so they put their a little bit of their branding on it, but it's very unintrusive. *00:00* giving up your or lack of better terms, just like your right to whatever they're gonna start popping in *00:00* I think the reason I I chose premiere over audition or I generally choose it over audition. *00:00* Audition may have very well updated some things since then and is better now. *00:00* If I if I if my record is straight. *00:00* They need to be told how you want lighting. *00:00* How do you plan for more spontaneous doesn't feel right, but like natural moments? *00:00* Um I think that's Or is that just we trust the crew on the fly to be good. *00:00* I'm fueled by busyness and anxiety. *00:00* I spent months, you know, planning these things and everybody else is thinking about their presentation, whatever, but then they get there and they're like *00:00* Part of it at least. *00:00* And you tell me where I'm wrong, but a company you've partnered with some sort of production or advertising company, and they just *00:00* We pitched we like kind of came up with a rough plan, went out and I went out and you know scoped out a bunch of places and found out what things would cost and everything and pitched it to him. *00:00* I said basically, I don't think Vegas is going to work this year. *00:00* And it never is. *00:00* And just um yeah, just making sure everything is uh is as coherent as it can be. *00:00* So many other new things to try. *00:00* And that's the thing, like with the with the YouTube channel, like I'm my goal for myself is to do one video a week. *00:00* Okay. *00:00* I would it's funny because that doesn't feel like it should be that long ago when I look at like the date. *00:00* 2007, 2008, somewhere in there, and I think about that and think about how long ago that really was. *00:00* Uh I don't know how to say it really. *00:00* Right. *00:00* And Premiere has its set of bugs, of course, but it's uh it's in my opinion the best editor, the best DAW, as most people as many people call it, out there. *00:00* There's an energy to that. *00:00* Are you you're going? *00:00* Since that interview with Colin, you're no longer the mayor of Butler. *00:00* Gotta keep just gotta be doing things. *00:00* I feel like I didn't learn anything new. *00:00* And we that we did other we started other projects at that time too. *00:00* It's funny because if you um the the uh the video version obviously has you know some kind of edits and it gets things thrown together, but it's not edited for content, you know *00:00* The pr the studio that owns the the rights to sell ads on the show is called Studio seventy one. *00:00* Well, I know at the very least I'm gonna need carpet. *00:00* 705. *00:00* Yeah. *00:00* I I'm not gonna go out of my way to sink into it now because I like have other focuses. *00:00* And apply the, you know, I have specific settings already like mapped out for the gate and the compressor. *00:00* So yeah, it's um basically that's I mean it just kind of came down to well I know we have a lot of people in Texas and also it's easy to get to Texas from almost everywhere, so let's do it there. *00:00* Um maybe excitement is the right word, and maybe it's not, I'm not sure. *00:00* So then we still have the cigar bar. *00:01* I will I'll go I'll be at a get together and someone's like, I just talked about this this beer the other day and now I'm getting ads for it, but that means Facebook's listening. *00:01* That's it's interesting to hear that and think about the process. *00:01* But for the most part, yeah, we do it we do a sound check briefly and just get everybody mic'd up and everything to make sure that everything's working correctly and then um *00:01* Yeah, I get everything in advance and put it together. *00:01* I mean that's kind of the whole point of the name of this show, the Max Frequency Podcast. *00:01* I mean Apple TV plus specifically, I know other services do it too, but news shows in particular, they generally drop the first three episodes. *00:01* So we just decided that at the points we were at in our lives and you know we had gotten what we wanted out of it and didn't really want to construct an entire new business. *00:01* Yeah. *00:01* Doesn't blow people's ears out. *00:01* Yeah. *00:01* I don't have almost any creative outlet in my professional stuff, which is why I, again, for the nine millionth time in my life, um have extra hobbies that I turn into work somehow. *00:01* But then there's also the I got to play this game early or that game early and right. *00:01* I post everything that I do there, but then Smith2588 is me there. *00:01* My wife's a middle school teacher, so I hear about the children. *00:01* Do you feel cool with like that level of do you I guess first, do you get a say in who buys ads or is it a blanket whoever Studio 71 says yes to? *00:01* I've never had ads on any of my show, and it's not because I don't want to make money. *00:01* I don't know that it works for everybody, but it does for me. *00:01* And some people are like, well, you know, for instance, on on our other show, Defining Duke, people are like, Cog sometimes sounds louder than Maddie. *00:01* I'm happy to dive into any specific piece of it if you want, or just to say like it's pretty much anything that could possibly be involved with the show. *00:01* But that's just I mean, that's fine. *00:01* It's pretty It's kind of interesting because we know we have a large European audience, but we also know Europe isn't one city. *00:01* Not just for finances, although that certainly helps, but just because like I like to be I like to be busy. *00:01* Hopefully they're growing. *00:01* Why don't we do something with it? *00:01* People knew they were supposed to have a podcast, but they didn't know what that was. *00:01* But I'd definitely be overprepared. *00:01* So thank you all for listening. *00:01* You should check it out. *00:01* She's like, are you okay? *00:01* It's a wizardry, but it sounded good to me and I was like, holy smokes, this makes it so much better for everyone else. *00:01* And then you get to see the media react to it a month after you've already had time to process the information. *00:01* This is the coolest th I've always thought smoking was v visually cool, like just the sight of it. *00:01* This is here's crossfades, here's levels, all the stuff's right here. *00:01* I don't know how they do it. *00:01* So that's how that kind of it it kind of like fell in my lap and also it kinda had to prove ourselves to do it. *00:01* I mean, nothing's ever going to be the way. *00:01* As far as geographically speaking, you can get right people from all over coming to one spot. *00:01* I appreciate it. *00:01* That's nuts. *00:01* And I've I was like, I shouldn't be the most experienced one here because we have a buddy who's in like real estate, another guy's construction, fishing, just very more masculine kind of energy. *00:01* I can see it. *00:01* So I do hope that's helpful. *00:01* Yeah. *00:01* Well one of the nice things about not doing these DIY is that generally when you're renting out one of these spaces, you know that *00:01* If you were doing like a Broadway show or something, you would you'd want to do that and have your own people. *00:01* It seems like some dramatic, I don't know. *00:01* It's just I can't help myself. *00:01* Used to do like camera work and stuff at the church, and I still do that actually today. *00:01* So I'm curious about how you edit shows because Sacred Symbols is no slouch. *00:01* And so the idea of not having that over something wakes me out a little bit as the creator side of things. *00:01* And when I say we don't prepare, I don't mean like we literally show up not knowing what we're doing. *00:01* Because I mean while I would like to do that a little more, that's not my role. *00:01* Duality feels like the wrong word, but like having one foot in and one foot out of the publishing production side of things and the reporting covering video games side. *00:01* For example, my experience with Red Dead Redemption 2 was actually getting to play the story on my own pace because I ended up having to do all the side stuff of *00:01* Really every job and r every interaction that we have is all about relationship in the end. *00:01* Yes. *00:01* We've heard you're the best like wedding DJ or whatever. *00:01* Yeah. *00:01* You don't only just edit shows at LSM or host or or do anything like that. *00:01* This happens. *00:01* It's it's their thing. *00:01* Will Uber work? *00:01* So I was curious how publishing or associate producing video games is different than podcast. *00:01* Of course, last end media. *00:01* So I'm super thankful for you taking some time out of your day to talk to me about the work. *00:01* I wanted to ask you how you're feeling about succession season four here, because oh man, I'm in love. *00:01* So I mean I still have it because occasionally I'll get a file that I need to somehow manipulate in there, but for the most part I can do everything I need to do in Adobe products, but *00:01* And you can sign off yes or no. *00:01* I just know that it does. *00:01* Is that what it is? *00:01* And then once we did find a couple places that were the right size, and I'm using we here. *00:01* Oh, that's right, because you're close. *00:01* See what kind of response you get, I would imagine. *00:01* Thank you all so much for listening and until next time, adios *00:01* I don't I don't know when there was a shift. *00:01* I mean I take out any kind of pauses. *00:01* The internet has all the information about me that they need to have. *00:01* Like they actually can't and don't do that, but that and then you try to explain it and they just their eyes glaze over and they're like, they're listening. *00:01* And if there is an ad that comes through, even if you don't read it that you don't want on your show, you can still turn it down. *00:01* Yeah, I gotcha. *00:01* Every I I started after the first season and watched the whole thing and then I was like, oh I gotta watch the next season *00:02* I've been editing shows I've been on, honestly, for most of the time. *00:02* And that's always the way it's going to be, I think. *00:02* And that was uh it was good and bad because like it was a lot of good experience. *00:02* Brawl celebration episode. *00:02* I use isotope as well. *00:02* And Mike 1, 2, and 5 are on. *00:02* And I'm like, yeah, I've already got that worked out. *00:02* She's sure of Irish descent. *00:02* So, you know, eight only two people have been like, is that because of succession? *00:02* Yeah. *00:02* Like this is maybe I and I kind of actually have two jobs right now, I guess, technically, but I'm the kind of person who's always needed more than one thing to do. *00:02* I was like, what do you want to do? *00:02* And I just, when I switched from using audition to using Premiere, I was like, this immediately feels better. *00:02* And my office is about to move from office slash nursery to an a detached garage with air conditioning. *00:02* Yeah. *00:02* Of course. *00:02* I listen to it. *00:02* It's pretty cool. *00:02* I don't know when that turned in from this to that. *00:02* Well well, it also probably would be easier to like actually see and communicate with these people too. *00:02* But when I hear someone else, it totally throws me out of the zone I was just in with the show. *00:02* We tried to go to Vegas, which is a little further west, but couldn't do that. *00:02* Maybe that's all a lie. *00:02* And just listening to how it goes is exciting to me. *00:02* That's fine. *00:02* Mm-hmm. *00:02* Pivoting, pivoting around, whatever life throws at you. *00:02* I was very tiny, so that was me. *00:02* And even if you're not listening directly on Spotify, they still have a decent idea who like the makeup of who's listening to the show. *00:02* And like I said, we've we've rejected, and I say we, but that hasn't been my decision, but LSM has rejected ads before because we didn't want to promote the content. *00:02* I mean it I know Premiere and obviously there's always things you're gonna learn and and they change things all the time, but *00:02* Yeah. *00:02* I don't you asked me something else though and I don't remember what it was. *00:02* Like I handle all of that and organizing, getting that information to myself and then to the different platforms. *00:02* And then uh, you know, right as soon as we were coming out of that, they let us reopen. *00:02* Sorry I interrupted you. *00:02* You were the mayor of Butler, like we talked about. *00:02* Well hopefully. *00:02* Of it. *00:02* And so there was just this big show in all um I'm sorry, not Austin, Houston. *00:02* Sure. *00:02* Uh and then booking all the, you know, flights and hotels and everything like that. *00:02* So like I spent so much time just hunting a legendary cougar, a legendary moose. *00:02* That's that's one of those problems with the old like main streets is that one if one building catches fire, the whole block is usually gone. *00:02* That's the only thing I use it for. *00:02* And then of course, yeah, like you said, people making sure everybody has their passports. *00:02* And uh their time zone, they're five hours ahead. *00:02* Yeah. *00:02* I'm like, actually, I named the beer and my son after a pub in Lascaner, Ireland, that I visited in 2011 and fell in love with. *00:02* I was like, yeah, surprisingly. *00:02* But so as far as uh my setup, I use um I use Premiere predominantly. *00:02* Are so those tools I assume are built into Premiere. *00:02* I don't know. *00:02* But during your tenure as mayor, you join LSM. *00:02* Yeah. *00:02* I have talked to them in a different capacity previously, and I know a little bit of some things and some I don't, but basically they're going out and saying to these, you know, multi-billion dollar companies *00:02* Yeah. *00:02* Witchcraft over there. *00:02* Is that how you target it in this kind of western area? *00:02* Where basically it's just to make sure that nobody's voice is gonna boom too loud or anything. *00:02* Here's a a pre-prepared video that we need to have the volume already know where the volume already needs to be for that. *00:02* Like traveling's easier now than it's ever been internationally, but at the same time, many people haven't extensively traveled overseas, so they don't know what to expect, and just trying to make sure that *00:02* And I mentioned that mine was like my house burning down. *00:02* Where did where did that all start with you? *00:02* When dynamic ads first came around, at least when I was first involved with them as a podcaster, not an editor or anything like that. *00:02* Yes. *00:02* Thank you for coming on the show with me, Dustin. *00:02* Gotta fill your time with something probably productive, more helpful to society. *00:02* I've always had at least two or three jobs, it feels like it. *00:02* We we stopped doing it just because um of scheduling stuff. *00:02* Because I also do streaming and I do do some YouTube stuff and I'm like, I just want it to sound good, but I don't want to rush and spend a bunch of money I don't need to spend until I know what I need. *00:02* So that's another little uh little intricacy of it. *00:02* Sure. *00:02* Yeah, so we just to go back a little further, we started the brewery, uh we actually it opened in 2015, and then in 2000 early 2018, we opened the cigar bar, which was just a couple doors down. *00:02* But I've always thought it was cool. *00:02* It's crazy, man. *00:02* Like there are things that we will get ads for and the advertiser will say, you know, here's the here's the basic outline, whatever. *00:02* Yes. *00:02* And I think that's very much a personal preference thing because I know other people who were like, I could never do that. *00:02* And the person will probably be like, cool, I got it. *00:02* I'm feeling it. *00:02* You know, I've planned enough things in my life to know that you make plans just for them to be changed. *00:02* Yeah. *00:02* And they will know if you tell. *00:02* You gotta get up to three. *00:02* You and me. *00:02* So you you've you know at one point you're the the mayor, associate producer at two companies, and you own *00:02* Back in, you know, the early early to late two or mid to late two thousands *00:02* That was uh twenty one. *00:02* Or it was Vegas, so they were also like either 10,000-person venues or 150 in a little basement underneath a casino kind of thing. *00:02* I can say that. *00:02* I need to do that. *00:02* We've talked about it the whole show. *00:02* Like Yeah, yeah, yeah. *00:03* And then I woke up one Saturday morning and my wife was like, hey, uh, and she she said I won't say the name of the business. *00:03* So that happened and you know, we made it through. *00:03* Like it's it's a passion of yours. *00:03* He's like, let's DJ. *00:03* I it is more common today. *00:03* I'm curious though, you mentioned you you put gates in and I don't know actually if you said compression. *00:03* It's his company. *00:03* It sounds exciting to me as if I was gonna plan these types of things. *00:03* Probably not as much, but an a former imagineer leaves and maybe starts a podcast. *00:03* And you know, you've helped release some video games out into the to the world, but you also still talk about games on a regular basis and *00:03* If you'd like, you can find my work over at maxfrequency. *00:03* I'm your host, Max Roberts, and joining me this time the handsome one, Ben Smith. *00:03* But it's this interview where you're at. *00:03* And to a degree inauthentic. *00:03* It just it just didn't work anymore all of a sudden. *00:03* And you know, you know those little places like that, but when you're far away, you just have to rely on what the internet and maybe a couple locals say. *00:03* It's like a totally different thing. *00:03* But like right now, this is for me. *00:03* But one way to describe just how much I love the show is when I heard the name Siobhan, I was like, wow, that's a really great name. *00:03* I like that. *00:03* I guess that actually is ancient history in the scheme of podcasting. *00:03* It's so powerful. *00:03* So I'm just you know, there's two in the east coast, one down south. *00:03* And then sometimes they need to be able to roll with my punches because I need to change things because *00:03* I am close. *00:03* And I was like, I remember Froggy Fresh. *00:03* Okay, cool. *00:03* And over time, I feel like whatever I'm I'm sure *00:03* I'm like, you have a Gmail account? *00:03* That totally is how I would want to do something. *00:03* So but for the most part, I whatever their presentations are, as long as I can get them to present on the screen correctly, I don't *00:03* Yeah. *00:03* I just started it in January. *00:03* Yeah. *00:03* And that's where I started. *00:03* What you know, it's easy. *00:03* Cool. *00:03* Uh a lot of those policies and things change from month to month and year to year. *00:03* I don't think it's available and free feeds anywhere. *00:03* You weren't stuck in some lease on a property. *00:03* I was surprised that I was the only one in the group out that had smoked a cigar in any shape or *00:03* I um yeah, my my my issue is some people look at it, they're like, You've had so many jobs, and I'm like *00:03* I mean some I've seen some of them just like at school functions and they're taller than me. *00:03* Like the dude just was bearded. *00:03* We didn't want things for, you know, adult intimate products. *00:03* And then the limiter, of course, to bring that all back down. *00:03* And eventually we kind of came to the decision of, well, let's do it here, a here meeting where he and I live in Butler. *00:03* And I'm like, I want to know exactly what's happening. *00:03* I don't know. *00:03* And so I'm still excited to see him and other people on the card. *00:03* So anything you listen to on Last Name Media, Ben Ben heard it first, edited it off. *00:03* So it was like kind of good timing and bad timing at the same time. *00:03* I think we use like a kitchen knife to cut off the edge. *00:03* Cause we used to like have little garage bands and stuff and uh he had all sorts of equipment and *00:03* Yeah, I couldn't. *00:03* But coming up learning video editors from Windows Movie Maker to *00:03* It could be a a very maybe one in Texas is louder. *00:03* Uh and giving people all the information and then hoping that they read that information. *00:03* So I'm what is that like for you? *00:03* Same page. *00:03* In the current timeline, he needed you. *00:03* Yeah, it's it doesn't look nice to me. *00:03* And even with that, I think he's also like, well, as long as we don't lose too much money. *00:03* Yeah. *00:03* So it should be fun. *00:03* Barry Barry Johnson. *00:03* Sure. *00:03* That's a good That's so funny. *00:03* Yeah, exactly. *00:03* And quite honestly, as a consumer, something I don't enjoy at all. *00:03* That's just our personal stance. *00:03* I just snagged RX10 because they had some stupid sale. *00:03* Yeah. *00:03* He can do whatever he wants. *00:03* And I'm like, I don't want to do three. *00:03* When I started asking him questions about live production and the audio editing side of things. *00:03* Quite frankly, I mean he wouldn't ness I mean he could, but necessarily wouldn't have his job without you. *00:03* No, I just I'm looking at the picture and yeah, they're all it's these brick buildings just slap next to each other. *00:03* I'm like, okay. *00:03* But the the appropriate pauses, um, mouth clicks, weird sounds, excessive ums or ahs, sometimes people will *00:03* The rest of it I just find it ugly. *00:03* Just A finding venues, coordinating, I don't know how many different people were there, I'm as far as the crew. *00:03* I took pictures of the hotel with no one in it. *00:03* There's some heritage and some name meaning stuff that fits, but I just like Siobhan. *00:03* Not short, but medium. *00:03* It's just like this crazy thing. *00:03* This, you know, like I'm much more over-prepare uh kind of person for that kind of stuff because I've been the sound guy. *00:03* Tampa's only a few hours away. *00:03* So like that's another aspect of that just being in a a different place *00:03* But don't worry Disney. *00:03* Like that's just I think if I had to choose something in video games production, I would probably choose more creative than anything else. *00:03* So I really enjoy all the things I do professionally, but I think everybody, including me, needs those *00:03* They're all connected. *00:03* I don't, you know, I'm not I'm not here focused on uh on gun control or something like that. *00:03* He and I did. *00:03* So I'm just I'm curious what you use, how you edit it, what that time commitment, that process is like for you. *00:03* Whereas it used to be like, well, I'm for example, I'm 40 and they're advertising me a *00:03* So generally I'll fill out like a schematic, which is just a fancy way of saying a diagram where I draw some circles on it. *00:03* But like so that when I see us I'm like w what what the heck is this slide? *00:03* So are he when you're preparing all of this, are you are the jokes hitting with you? *00:03* I like it. *00:03* So when I turned 18, I was like, this is great. *00:04* I mean, and and some of the things I can't even talk about, but there are things I put into place *00:04* Is that where this audio, you know, production kind of work began? *00:04* Uh it's like an invite-only thing. *00:04* I don't know if they do event insurance. *00:04* Some kind of internal issues, yeah, it seems like. *00:04* Five jobs at once. *00:04* Uh I kept the site alive for a little while, ended up selling it, paying off part of the you know, uh well, we sold the domain name. *00:04* And I was like, all right, he's already been doing a podcast. *00:04* Yeah, from there I guess I guess that's the predominant editing thing, but I'm happy to get more into nitty-gritty. *00:04* Unless they want you to endorse it, which again the advertiser is paying more for. *00:04* You're using Premiere, a thing that I think actually my friend Peter Spajia uses, at least as far as people I'm familiar with. *00:04* And the room I'm in now, like the floor's still just it's it's a nice wood floor, but it's just I don't have a carpet down. *00:04* And so then like D twenty three rolls around and Disney goes, Oh, we're gonna do *00:04* Right. *00:04* And it warps it to a degree. *00:04* Yeah. *00:04* Because I like hate I've always hated the thought. *00:04* We're like, oh, okay. *00:04* No, 2015, my b my cousin and I started a podcast uh about election history. *00:04* And how fast that's all changed too. *00:04* And so I've just been using the the simple d-reverb in Premiere, but I should *00:04* It was almost in Austin. *00:04* I say we, I don't, I don't remember who it was. *00:04* Colin has openly said that he wants to go to Europe in some capacity. *00:04* I w I was kinda curious about that. *00:04* But I did all the the you know the editing for that. *00:04* Cause it just turned fifteen, which feels a very long ago. *00:04* Just you give them the file and then they pop it in, or is there more to the back end of getting these ads to fit into the show? *00:04* And most of the time, yeah, I think people are going to be fine with that. *00:04* I don't know, but I've been using Premiere for years now to edit audio specifically and it just *00:04* And when that dawned on me and I started working at outlets, you know, freelance and then other stuff. *00:04* I've a shawful friend. *00:04* Right. *00:04* But this was back in in 2008. *00:04* But as for LSM at least, and me personally on other ventures I've had, um, I'm not gonna personally endorse anything. *00:04* And I got a couple comments that were like, is it Ubisoft or Ubisoft? *00:04* But I don't always use that. *00:04* Like people would love it. *00:04* Like that kind of my brain was like, their mics are on all the time. *00:04* Right. *00:04* Right. *00:04* If it doesn't sound natural taking it out, leave it in. *00:04* I let's ads. *00:04* But they go out and they actually go out and buy the ads. *00:04* I guess I won't say what the game was because there may be you want to go check it out later, but let's say Cog's presentation, he picks a game and I get to see his slides. *00:04* So that kind of leads me, I guess, to the next. *00:04* Season five is going on right now. *00:04* I I very much like the week to week rollout of shows. *00:04* And I'm like, I don't know how I don't know. *00:04* And so we were in the space pretty big. *00:04* So it was like it was a way for me to to get in there and do something I knew how to do and enjoyed and still make a little money, obviously. *00:04* Right. *00:04* They're great in some respects, and in other respects, I'm like, come on guys, you're you're the biggest deal in the world right now. *00:04* Yeah. *00:04* Especially the advertising, and when you dig into just how they figure it out *00:04* I think a lot of that comes down to well, there's a few things. *00:04* Yeah. *00:04* Let me look somewhere else. *00:04* No, that's true. *00:04* So for me, it's much more of a I need to get all of this perfect before we get there so that when we get there. *00:04* And there's that great episode of Fireside Chats with Colin. *00:04* Like across the whole country, up and down, east and west eventually. *00:04* So he can say something quieter than I would, and it sounds louder because it's full and it's it's masculine and it's you know *00:04* They would figure out a way to do it. *00:04* I was just like, but as the editor, you could just remove that. *00:04* Or you're like, when's this thing getting announced? *00:04* And so I would just I I took like a break for a little bit. *00:04* Maybe not. *00:04* But yeah, so that was one thing is just understanding that process a little better. *00:04* I've had a Gmail account since I was like in seventh grade or something. *00:04* Yeah. *00:04* And not specifically, like they do the the two professional venues. *00:04* It sounds it sounds exciting quite frankly. *00:04* And um and we'd like to do another show in the States this year as well, but that's very dependent upon the timing of the of the Europe show. *00:04* Like, how will that go? *00:04* Barry Johnson. *00:04* But you also ran a brewery slash cigar bar, speakeasy. *00:04* It's like I feel like today you would never ever do that. *00:04* There's so much we talked about that apparently we thought was true at the time that we now know like a little more background to it. *00:04* I couldn't, but that's mostly because *00:04* I go from the raw files all the way to the finished product. *00:04* And so actually Isotope did say did fix some like reverb on one particular track that *00:04* About a year ago. *00:04* Right. *00:04* It's just I've never had anything big enough, I suppose. *00:04* Once I got out of that mindset, I was like, oh wow, this is perfect for me. *00:04* Yeah. *00:04* I want to take the production outside of the house, your new office with your higher ceilings and wood floors. *00:04* But all of us lived on the East Coast. *00:04* Very happy with it so far, but I'm Ben as handsome. *00:04* We were looking at expansion, and then COVID hit, of course. *00:04* It was a bit more of a mature experience. *00:04* So that was also taking us away from that. *00:04* Yeah, it's right. *00:04* So like they were cool with that. *00:04* Yeah. *00:04* Just the what's the process? *00:04* And meanwhile, they're like making preparations because they think it's not worked out. *00:04* I won't share my secrets, too many of them. *00:04* And I think with that, that that'll wrap it up. *00:04* Obviously if you want a business, right? *00:04* And I'm just like, how do they not understand? *00:04* But then sometimes it's just someone I've never heard before in my life and it pulls me out. *00:04* Yeah. *00:04* But where else? *00:04* It sounds like you're at Colin's house out on the West Coast before he moved back. *00:05* And I think people could go listen to the Colin one and in your more your mailbag recently that you did another Patreon exclusive. *00:05* And then, you know, Studio 71 might say, okay, great, we'll do that. *00:05* I just know there's a slide with a picture on it. *00:05* You know, you could Yeah, yeah. *00:05* You stuck to the one-term plan. *00:05* You know, the floors are rotten, the walls were wa rotten by the but from the water. *00:05* Long story medium. *00:05* Not that I'm an impatient person, but just that *00:05* Um compromise is important, obviously, although *00:05* I you're LinkedIn once again. *00:05* And so we just kept escalating our price until it got to the point where we felt it was ridiculous for what we were charging. *00:05* I'm not any pauses, obviously if there's *00:05* And our I don't know our ad people, I don't I don't really know what *00:05* I'm gonna need something. *00:05* I mean like whatever somebody says, they say. *00:05* That that wasn't a real example. *00:05* So by the time because I work at night, by the time I'm getting up, they're almost done with work by the day. *00:05* The sixth of April. *00:05* Because then it's a job. *00:05* And I always thought that would translate to my business, but for some reason it didn't. *00:05* I'm more curious about the lessons that you learned being the mayor. *00:05* I was I was uh I had a a full beard by the time I was like thirteen, so I understand. *00:05* It's it's pretty fun to see where people get into it. *00:05* And um I just feel like the audition flow for me was *00:05* I totally get the the familiarity and the comfort of just *00:05* And then to get to California, it was going to be even more money and less time. *00:05* And then of course, just like I'm in, we we have like 5,000 people in our Discord. *00:05* Especially for a show like ours. *00:05* Yeah, that's 100% true. *00:05* I think generally a pr a producer would kind of dictate that schedule, but *00:05* I think it's so fascinating to hear people's stories. *00:05* Always. *00:05* It would be great. *00:05* And he's like, Oh yeah, I do too. *00:05* And it being, you know, across the pond from us, I'm sure there's more dynamics that you have to *00:05* Is it what it what can you tell me about dabbling in, you know, international venue research? *00:05* Yeah, well it should it should be a lot of fun. *00:05* I have other things that I do for money and for other people. *00:05* For sure. *00:05* Sure. *00:05* And I'm talking full, full beard, five o'clock shadow kinda I was like, holy cow, man. *00:05* Sure. *00:05* All it's missing is pictures moving across the screen. *00:05* Uh it's a little both. *00:05* Like it so like there's certain people's voices who are just going to *00:05* And everything's more *00:05* Like my workload is quite different, I would imagine, and the types of things I do are much different uh than that. *00:05* And you know, it's just but it feels good because there's no pressure and I get to do what I want. *00:05* Actually, probably not. *00:05* And if I've made a commitment to do something, I'm going to be into it and I'm very interested. *00:05* Yeah. *00:05* Like I just don't want to look at it for however many hours. *00:05* And I was like very eager to to quote fix this space as soon as possible. *00:05* It was. *00:05* Almost exactly a year ago. *00:05* It's slow, progressive, you know, bundle your car, home, and event insurance. *00:05* He's like, yeah, yeah. *00:05* Right. *00:05* That's just silly to me. *00:05* There was Handsome Phantom. *00:05* I don't even remember how the setup looks, honestly. *00:05* I used to do it on Patreon, but Patreon changed some things. *00:05* So it I'd want to protect privacy, but at the same time, I know that it's kind of an illusion uh at this point. *00:05* So I use logic to edit my shows. *00:05* Did you are these custom made for say Colin has a gate, Chris has a gate, or is it just one *00:05* Like he has to be there because he like he's the reason people would come, but also we want we want to do it. *00:05* I would think it is easy when you live in the town to like scope out venues, get prices, but when you're *00:05* I'm curious about actually sounding good in the space for the people that are there. *00:05* So I totally get it. *00:05* I've never I've actually never had just one job. *00:05* I'm I love that stuff. *00:05* And so Logan, I know his setup, I know what he's doing, so like there's consistency with both of us. *00:05* It's confounder and majority owner. *00:05* Uh it's interesting because I would imagine an associate producer at *00:05* And we're in the back like thinking, this is not a like this is not something we thought would ever happen. *00:05* So interesting perspective for sure. *00:05* What where can the people find you in your work? *00:05* Anyway, I think I was in either either late high school or early college. *00:05* But for the most part, it's like our shows aren't complicated. *00:05* But me, I like 7 o'clock. *00:05* Our customers were good. *00:05* I went out and bought some like swish or sweets, like grapefruit. *00:05* You've worked at colleges and you know, the brewery and all that sort of stuff. *00:05* Oh yeah. *00:05* And I kind of wanted to use this all to pivot into your production work, being a producer. *00:05* And especially with the at the pace we go. *00:05* Yeah. *00:05* I'm I'm gonna fill it with as much soft stuff as possible. *00:05* You're more looking online, talking to people. *00:05* Let's go to Texas. *00:05* Whether it was through Geico or they like went through a third party and then charged a little bit of a you know, whatever. *00:05* I need to be pointing uh ninety degrees and no, I don't *00:05* So I I try to afford other people that same opportunity. *00:05* So we're hoping to go there. *00:05* So it's fun to *00:05* That was fun. *00:05* net. *00:05* But I had a few nice cigars and *00:05* Whether that's someone I know really well or someone I I don't *00:05* That's the weird thing. *00:05* Just like you would see on a Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, what have you. *00:05* But with that said, I agree. *00:05* So they they bought them a couple years maybe a year, two years ago. *00:05* So generally I will boost everyone's audio up way higher than I want it to be. *00:05* You also, based off what Colin says and having Dustin on *00:05* And to be honest, when Chris said he was boxing in Creator Clash, I was like, oh, that sounds cool. *00:05* It's podcasting at my frequency. *00:05* There you go. *00:05* I had Dustin on the show, I think, a couple episodes ago by the time this one comes out. *00:05* And so I did this whole deep dive with the host of that show, Peter. *00:05* So and then you my history from there would go on to other stuff and freelance writing. *00:05* Yes. *00:05* And meanwhile, you're sleeping on a, you know, uh *00:05* You know, it so there's a lot of unknowns there, but it's exciting unknowns to me. *00:05* You know, separate things. *00:05* I'm not I don't think so. *00:06* Yeah. *00:06* And we just kept saying, like any time somebody would call us we'd be like, Oh well actually the price is this, which was, you know, twice as much as we used to charge because we didn't really want to do it. *00:06* And that's like publicly on the listing *00:06* And I just I match loudness on all whoever's on the show's tracks just so we're all *00:06* And then one day, I don't remember how it came up or whatever, but one of us said to the other, *00:06* So I don't know. *00:06* I like it. *00:06* So I jumped on with them and then together we worked and and you know we built that site up and the podcast and then um *00:06* For the most part though, the majority of the filters and everything that are applied *00:06* Isotope I generally use just as like a a pass-through on mostly *00:06* Yeah, I mean we're working with people here who are on multiple podcasts a week and some of them it's their literal profession. *00:06* It'll be great. *00:06* So pretty much just when uh when things are coming to storefronts, when things are gonna need to be put on sale, when things *00:06* But yeah, it's it's an interesting *00:06* That's that's crazy. *00:06* I think with video games I want to be *00:06* But before we dive into to all of that and *00:06* I was wondering, there's COVID. *00:06* So I'm into it very much and I'm *00:06* And I listened to it a couple weeks or a couple months ago. *00:06* Right. *00:06* So I yeah, that's the the basics is like you have *00:06* And when I have someone like you or Dustin, someone who's more *00:06* And then like ten minutes later, he's like, I think we want to go to Vegas next. *00:06* It's fun. *00:06* Yeah. *00:06* And then my new venture. *00:06* I know of someone who did sign a lease for an office space and then COVID hit and they couldn't even go in. *00:06* I just understood the things I already knew better. *00:06* My parents were letting me talk with strangers online and do a show with them. *00:06* It d I've always liked control over my shows and that's probably more a I'm an oldest child and I always like to have the *00:06* Uh it's on it's like the effect that's called dynamics, I think. *00:06* And what that does is it it's basically doing the same thing as the match loudness. *00:06* Once once I once I scoped them out. *00:06* Uh organizing international travel is always a little bit more difficult. *00:06* Like when they were coming out with game trials. *00:06* Resident Evil. *00:06* And I don't mean that to sound like manipulative, but you know, just how to work with people and how to *00:06* At least with the people we have our ads through. *00:06* And then moving on to ticketing and getting that set up with the venue and getting an announcement out. *00:06* Seems much easier, is my understanding. *00:06* Meanwhile they canned it two years ago and you didn't know about it. *00:06* And I don't know how useful that information is to pe I guess people care because they pursue it, but *00:06* Oh yeah. *00:06* Like do we just play in iTunes playlist or something? *00:06* Uh you get a higher *00:06* Do you f I know you're not the boss of LSM. *00:06* And I don't know that there was anything wrong with audition. *00:06* Okay. *00:06* It's easier for us to do shows here, but we know that people want us to come other parts of the country. *00:06* And obviously that's just the loud people, and I don't mean that to auditory, just those the loud people are talking. *00:06* Like they that's their job. *00:06* And yeah, I overprepare probably. *00:06* It's interesting because my since 2008-2009 *00:06* You can listen to my other show, Chapter Select, the seasonal podcast. *00:06* So you have not seen a single thing then? *00:06* It helped put me through college, helped pay for, you know, my wife's engagement ring, like stuff like that. *00:06* My buddy and I started that same buddy that I did the DJing with, we started a podcast and then ultimately a website. *00:06* The idea was pitched to go to Vegas *00:06* And I can only imagine being in there. *00:06* So Chris at this particular day of recording doesn't have *00:06* Nice. *00:06* But so it's just interesting seeing what I like and don't like. *00:06* So Yeah, I don't know. *00:06* But, you know, in a position like that you are kind of bound to the pace of other people or just, you know, the legalities of things. *00:06* And of course, of you know, sometimes that means other people get credit for them and you don't. *00:06* Uh people ask me, like, what do you think about this giant national issue? *00:06* Or like an informational endorsement, but not a person, because you know, it's it's all about what you're comfortable with. *00:06* It's gonna be a fun journey to figure that to figure that out. *00:06* A full engineering schematic of all their controls. *00:06* So how do you plan for, you know, the actual spontaneity of it? *00:06* That's uh what ten ten days or so? *00:06* And I was like, oh my gosh, people get paid to talk about video games. *00:06* Yeah. *00:06* There will be links to all this in the show notes. *00:06* And so we and the building owners kind of came to a mutual decision just that we weren't gonna do it. *00:06* So that, you know, that also became uh *00:06* It's like, this is the plan. *00:06* Yeah. *00:06* They were loyal. *00:06* You seem to have had a lot of I was browsing your LinkedIn *00:06* Yeah. *00:06* And then still once we get there, they're going to go up and adjust them and everything on the catwalk. *00:06* And there's stuff that I still know about that isn't out yet. *00:06* So maxfrequency. *00:06* Okay. *00:06* I'm glad I didn't say anything specific. *00:06* I think you are probably correct, and I'm sure I could extrapolate some things, but but I will say that it is hard *00:06* Like i I know my history, but you're asking me questions that's making me think like, hmm. *00:06* Mm-hmm. *00:06* And then our um our free feeds that like it's a separate audio file that has different things tacked onto it for advertising. *00:06* Now sometimes *00:06* And for example, Sacred Symbols, I'm there for *00:06* Yeah, the process of doing it. *00:06* And he will put those in for his own sake, but he doesn't actually use them during the show. *00:06* That was just a a speculation. *00:06* And that's again, like where there's a will, there's a way. *00:06* And sometimes much more in-depth than others. *00:06* And if I can do more than that, that's great. *00:06* It was I think season three had ended because I was able to watch all three. *00:06* And as of the end of the year, we wouldn't have a license and we couldn't operate for a certain amount of time without *00:06* It's you start dabbling in things you find interesting. *00:06* Again, a musical or you know something more crazy, they might need to get a little more toned in. *00:06* To just think about and explore new audience potential and venues and places and *00:06* Yeah, I uh I remember turning eighteen. *00:06* I mean we've all been there, right? *00:06* That's cool. *00:06* And eventually, I mean, we continued to do that kind of stuff. *00:06* And then most recently Houston. *00:06* And I don't think I was working for Colin yet. *00:06* But for the most part, like that's the benefit of working with *00:06* I do not have a venue lined up, but I have a few that I'm actively talking to. *00:06* If it starts actually being a job, if it starts actually benefiting me financially *00:06* And it sounds like *00:07* Like or not buy the ads, sell the ads. *00:07* And you can, you know. *00:07* But like I've had some guests just come in with headphones and they're in a big *00:07* I was like, okay, let me do it and pay me. *00:07* Vegas, Texas type stuff? *00:07* So pretty much it's just like *00:07* Now, unfortunately, Froggy has been removed from the card for *00:07* But I am slightly bummed that it's not Froggery Fresh because I really wanted Chris to win that one. *00:07* I mean, that's the funny thing though, is that I wouldn't put it past *00:07* I totally I'm totally feeling what you're saying. *00:07* I'll go into audition to do some things sometimes, but *00:07* Yeah. *00:07* Austin's hopping right now. *00:07* And just everything that goes along with booking a venue and doing a show. *00:07* For me, it's more of a *00:07* So you maybe learned a bit more. *00:07* But now that I have my own space *00:07* And then by that point I had three in a row and I was like, the next season when the season three came out, I was like, I'm gonna do that again. *00:07* Yeah, I mean I *00:07* Yeah. *00:07* And whereas other people, like Chris, for instance. *00:07* Probably to a degree. *00:07* The Star Wars Hotel. *00:07* We actually had Dustin Furman on that for Resident Evil 4, the original. *00:07* I'm like, yeah, yeah it is. *00:07* Um *00:07* They supported us. *00:07* I've really I think probably till I started working at Disney a couple of years ago. *00:07* Volongo Live? *00:07* Like other projects together. *00:07* So you g you've been doing shows and podcast production and stuff before. *00:07* We'd been doing it. *00:07* It's like four hour podcast, meticulously edited. *00:07* Um, we didn't want, you know, just you can choose those things that you don't want because you know it will alienate your audience. *00:07* So sometimes depending on the the person *00:07* My goal is to make money and help the company and stuff like that. *00:07* Dude. *00:07* Let's use that as our as a segue into here. *00:07* And then we had a couple months that were, you know, just still not the best they could be, but they were *00:07* If we had a week to do it, then sure, but you know, overnight it's not really feasible. *00:07* It's very creepy. *00:07* Everyone started with Audacity. *00:07* I think Colin has said publicly, we're hoping to go there this year. *00:07* I'm excited about it. *00:07* Yeah. *00:07* That's everything that I have for you today. *00:07* Doesn't make any sense, but it's what I'm doing. *00:07* Last day meeting. *00:07* He and I did the show a couple times a week and just a way for us to hang out because we weren't close. *00:07* True. *00:07* Ads in particular. *00:07* Um but you know, uh the idea of just *00:07* And for some people's voices, I have to change the gate slightly depending on *00:07* And I'm like, oh yeah, because they literally just have to walk out on stage and talk. *00:07* So you have to give them enough information that they know what's going on, but not so much that they just zone out and don't read it. *00:07* Because I used to work guides and so like you were inundated with Google Trends and *00:07* I was on an episode of Constellation. *00:07* I'm not sure. *00:07* And that's kind of my philosophy is if it doesn't, you know, if I can make it sound natural without it, then I will. *00:07* And *00:07* Yeah. *00:07* I'm not looking for the scoop here of when or where. *00:07* Disney does all sorts of stuff. *00:07* I think it's still important and I think it's still necessary. *00:07* That makes sense. *00:07* But obviously I know that *00:07* They look like full adults. *00:07* And we ended up, you know, actually hiring a staff and we were able to occasionally pay them and *00:07* I love hearing people's stories and how they they get into things and learn and and grow because *00:07* I'm like, I don't know, but it doesn't matter. *00:07* So um *00:07* You know, like it's very much like it's not a moneymaker, but my goal *00:07* I like to hear it because *00:07* Yeah. *00:07* It's just sound. *00:07* The cost wasn't too bad except for one particular venue that wanted *00:07* They do that. *00:07* Yes. *00:07* And *00:07* I'm like, that's because Cog has a man's voice. *00:07* I might have to check that out because so I recently for the last few months I moved to a new place and *00:07* Like a joke could really hit and maybe it the or someone goes off script, possibly. *00:07* So I have done a uh as good of a job as I can avoiding spoilers *00:07* I've just always loved this process. *00:07* I'm curious how. *00:07* But the hardest part, honestly, the the most exciting part is that *00:07* And I'm like, I plan, I like figured that out two months ago. *00:07* Uh maybe. *00:07* And I'm *00:07* Probably the best place to start is um *00:07* I don't remember my exact tag name. *00:07* I I mean I I I like that in some sense. *00:08* It was a struggle, obviously, but *00:08* And I'm that's I guess the part I don't like the most about it. *00:08* Doesn't mean they're cheap, just means it wasn't what they opted for. *00:08* And that made it actually affordable to just buy like the standard, but I use isotope. *00:08* They it's always two and then I drop the older one and replace it with another one. *00:08* I recently *00:08* Not from a advertisement perspective, more from a *00:08* This this works great. *00:08* What's the process like? *00:08* So true facts. *00:08* And part of the way we were keep the able to keep that operating was by using the same license as the brewery. *00:08* We did it for a few years, had a few hundred episodes. *00:08* I don't know. *00:08* Everyone's gotta look good on stage. *00:08* For the most part, a good sound person. *00:08* So you knew the whole presentation beforehand. *00:08* That *00:08* Ben, welcome to the show. *00:08* But I was just like at at peace with it. *00:08* But they they're 12. *00:08* But I think, if I recall correctly, at the time of *00:08* So but it's good to hear. *00:08* Just it's so different. *00:08* And so like. *00:08* So you can check out that show. *00:08* Sure. *00:08* I don't know a lot about it, but I know enough. *00:08* You so there's been a few. *00:08* It's a royal one. *00:08* Right. *00:08* Is that what it feels like? *00:08* net is the best place. *00:08* I I was reading some local butler news that a fire burned next door and caused some damage. *00:08* Sure. *00:08* I'm just gonna keep saying LSM *00:08* Cause that's what got me into *00:08* It's like, imagine how long it took for everybody to get their facts straight then *00:08* This is a nuts, man. *00:08* Back to podcasting. *00:08* Yeah. *00:08* So again, it was just kind of a *00:08* Here's the the schedule of how the whole show's gonna go. *00:08* And some of them have ticket systems and so like it's just figuring out what they all want. *00:08* Yeah. *00:08* Fortunately this one wasn't, it was able to be stopped, but so we just um we decided to keep going with the cigar bar. *00:08* Oh yeah. *00:08* And *00:08* Those are the ones that I'm more likely, I think, to skip. *00:08* And then they will generally approach you and say, We have an ad for this. *00:08* Right. *00:08* Right. *00:08* Like why is this picture on there? *00:08* It's *00:08* But that was probably *00:08* It's just that once I found Premier to be *00:08* Whenever they say it, they say it. *00:08* That's something I've dealt with so yeah. *00:08* Yeah. *00:08* Yeah. *00:08* I think *00:08* And I think *00:08* Yeah, it is. *00:08* I think *00:08* I'm like, all right, whatever. *00:08* And so that company a lot of times can say, okay, well, we'll pay this rate *00:08* Yeah. *00:08* Like I could go in there and be like, okay, we're gonna have *00:08* I'm like *00:08* Oh that's true 'cause that 'cause now I'm out of the circle, so I've *00:08* You can check Ben's work out there on YouTube, on Twitter, and of course *00:08* And so he got us in touch. *00:08* I really think. *00:08* I mean you guys DJed weddings, possibly. *00:08* But we stopped doing it within a year after the twenty sixteen election. *00:08* Like for example, my election podcast. *00:08* Right. *00:08* I want to do this because I want to do it. *00:08* I wanted to ask about dynamic ad insertion. *00:08* I don't know. *00:08* But anyway, megaphone *00:08* Okay. *00:08* I don't remember what time period that originally was. *00:08* Or something like that. *00:08* Well I it does it's not that big of a deal. *00:08* I don't understand that at all. *00:08* We were like, well, we like this more than that now, but that makes more money. *00:08* I still have some original Audacity files and tried opening them and it was like, oh, how did we use this? *00:08* Is that why you use it? *00:08* I'm I'm getting ready to move. *00:08* Because Dustin said you guys hired uh another crew to film it. *00:08* And then my understanding is the other members don't know what *00:08* That reminds me of when I was working at Disney. *00:08* Yeah, that I *00:09* At least you do everything you can to make sure everyone gets there on time and in the same space. *00:09* Yeah, yeah, you know. *00:09* The trip stuff sounds really exciting from just uh *00:09* Yeah. *00:09* But I'm not shooting for that. *00:09* Uh so it was just like, well, our lease was gonna be up in a couple months, and we were looking at expansion, but *00:09* So that was kind of a fun process to examine my own the way I do things. *00:09* That you you talking about like *00:09* We'll go. *00:09* I'm going. *00:09* So it's like, well we want let's say we do a show in London. *00:09* Are we gonna end up with *00:09* I'm *00:09* Last year, I think there were five episodes. *00:09* They had to cut open the roof to let *00:09* But *00:09* Right. *00:09* It could involve audio. *00:09* And it's I think it's things I conceptually understood. *00:09* You know, like that's you know it's just a much different. *00:09* And *00:09* It's just I don't have to go do another program for it. *00:09* And *00:09* That'd be awesome. *00:09* Well we *00:09* I I've booked venues before for other things, but for LSM specifically. *00:09* So I suppose, I suppose that's *00:09* Yeah. *00:09* That's good to hear at least. *00:09* And not to say that we like Colin has said before, like *00:09* Yeah. *00:09* Yeah. *00:09* And because I'm not like in it every day. *00:09* At least that at least if I'm getting an ad and it's somewhat honed to me *00:09* I mean, we would always talk about stuff and he knew I mean I was interested in the *00:09* Well, everything's bigger there, so it makes sense they'd also be louder. *00:09* Just that they have some credentials, that they've done this before. *00:09* But *00:09* So *00:09* I don't remember how that all worked. *00:09* Yeah. *00:09* Totally with you there. *00:09* Anyway, they they were funding this documentary series and Colin was like *00:09* Um sometimes. *00:09* Or is it more the *00:09* Yes. *00:09* It from doing this, what we're doing right now. *00:09* So there are a lot more things involved when you talked earlier about how like *00:09* Oh, it's in Tampa again. *00:09* I was like, I'm so cool. *00:09* You're *00:09* Sure. *00:09* I'm like *00:09* Same thing just for your ears. *00:09* I, you know, communicate with people there and hear and see the things they're they're talking about. *00:09* I get it. *00:09* It's probably I mean, it's public knowledge, but the business next door is on fire. *00:09* It was fine. *00:09* Any *00:09* I don't yeah, yeah. *00:09* You can think whatever you want, I suppose. *00:09* You know, like this this *00:09* Thank you so much, Ben, for joining me on the show. *00:09* Crazy how *00:09* And he was like, Yeah, do it. *00:09* And then you can use that to plan future *00:09* And so that's cool. *00:09* And *00:09* And that's fine because I'm sure I got credit or punishment. *00:09* So like I think part of it is the br the actual advertiser *00:09* So I think people recognize that. *00:09* Somebody has to do it. *00:09* That's just what happens. *00:09* Which is cool. *00:09* What what's your deal? *00:10* But you should definitely try the isotope uh look at the thing. *00:10* I'll tell you I can tell you offline sometimes *00:10* But for the most part I'm like *00:10* So is there's like rehearsal of any kind? *00:10* You're in a new place, in a new city. *00:10* Oh gosh. *00:10* How do I do that? *00:10* And then I was making YouTube videos at *00:10* I gotcha. *00:10* So everything takes a little longer. *00:10* I'm shooting for one video a week. *00:10* I'm *00:10* Yeah. *00:10* And then with *00:10* Cause I *00:10* And I tried to actually convince my wife to let us name our daughter Siobhan. *00:10* And *00:10* I'm like, actually no, it's far more scientific and creepy. *00:10* Yeah. *00:10* But as far as the actual content of the show, *00:10* I'm just curious *00:10* I my uh *00:10* Yeah. *00:10* Yeah. *00:10* Yeah. *00:10* What is what is that like? *00:10* With Chris at least I know. *00:10* But like we don't want a Squarespace ad at all on LS. *00:10* I don't have my sound paneling up, my ceiling's higher than it used to be *00:10* I'm not sure. *00:10* I've that's something I've always been interested in. *00:10* Me too. *00:10* Okay. *00:10* They're learning. *00:10* I like binging in another sense, but with this show I feel like I need that little *00:10* It's *00:10* So I'm gonna go from carpet and all of this to *00:10* There was the Butler one. *00:10* Um *00:10* Yeah. *00:10* I always wait. *00:10* You became the mayor. *00:10* I was like, I was never this *00:10* Like I met *00:10* I'm waiting for my knowledge to actually lapse. *00:10* I'll probably be sworn to secrecy forever for by the mouse. *00:10* What are you eating? *00:10* But anyway, it it benefited us in a financial way, in some way. *00:10* I'm sure they could do it. *00:10* Like indexing. *00:10* It's more just a joke, but I'm like *00:10* That's really neat. *00:10* We kind of talked about it at the top of the show with your *00:10* Like that set me on the career path to *00:10* And um so the business next like it was a total loss and *00:10* Um *00:10* And I had this edgy phase because I'm older than most of my friends. *00:10* I'm not I don't know all the legalities there, but he owns *00:10* Right. *00:10* Because I've *00:10* So *00:10* So *00:10* Somebody has to set it up. *00:10* Okay. *00:10* But at the same time, I was like, I don't *00:10* Not to say one's necessarily like it's just depending on what you like, right? *00:10* We need a personal endorsement. *00:10* And so I was just trying to think of like *00:10* And then, you know, having to book *00:10* I have a feeling if you called *00:10* Yeah. *00:10* Now with that said, I'm *00:10* I wanted to kind of touch on some of the *00:10* And I totally understand what you're saying there because *00:10* And then we just decided, like, okay, we can't *00:11* That I guess this will be another calling question ultimately, but *00:11* And I was like, no, I should like *00:11* I have to make sure that the floor is there. *00:11* It's fine. *00:11* If if my if my research is accurate, the correct *00:11* But *00:11* So *00:11* Very clean, very just matter-of-fact. *00:11* But for the most part, it's just like *00:11* You let the talent do the job. *00:11* So yeah, that's that's what happened there. *00:11* It was very much like. *00:11* But that's *00:11* Once I found a few places that that would work *00:11* I have too not with this particular situation but *00:11* Um yeah, so it's *00:11* Yeah. *00:11* Right. *00:11* Yeah. *00:11* So *00:11* So *00:11* But like for instance *00:11* And I've had a couple people who are buddies of mine who are *00:11* End recording. *00:11* I was just like, how am I the only one here? *00:11* Most of them it's their profession. *00:11* So like yeah, there is some sense in which I know and the jokes are hitting, but *00:11* It was *00:11* And uh yeah, it's *00:11* So *00:11* And *00:11* And as a technical writer, I'd be privy to *00:11* They're growing. *00:11* What how did you pivot from *00:11* Just on that alone. *00:11* We're good *00:11* I included one with Colin. *00:11* Because it felt nice having those couple episodes *00:11* It wasn't just like you come in and *00:11* So *00:11* Vocal minority *00:11* Anybody who sells insurance can probably *00:11* There's all sorts of stuff. *00:11* So yeah, but that's probably *00:11* So it's it's a long process for sure. *00:11* It just depends on what Barry needs at the time. *00:11* What kind of eggs are you eating? *00:12* They actually even let me *00:12* And *00:12* And *00:12* Yep. *00:12* Um and I feel like *00:12* Yes. *00:12* And so for the most part, like *00:12* Uh where *00:12* Like it that's always been a bridge of transition. *00:12* And then *00:12* I think for *00:12* And *00:12* Uh so that's a hard balance for me sometimes. *00:12* And that's *00:12* And *00:12* It's *00:12* You can't be *00:12* Virginia, Richmond, right? *00:12* So we needed to open *00:13* That's the *00:13* I can't imagine like *00:13* And then because we're not *00:13* Sure. *00:13* I forget the company's name. *00:13* And so *00:13* So *00:13* But I just think *00:13* That's probably true. *00:13* But *00:13* I know the these *00:13* It's pretty *00:13* And *00:13* I mean *00:13* Right. *00:14* What *00:14*