PES 079: Chris Updates, 2017 Reflections and 2018 Plans

The Podcast Engineering Show

Note: This is not a standard TPES episode - this is me sharing lots of cool info. Here's what we covered:

End of year purchases:

• iMac Pro
• MixPre6
• Pistol grip for my AT8035 shotgun mic
• Ralph M. Rivera purchased Bose QuietComfort 35 II headphones - bluetooth sounds great - very comfortable and light - can use them to talk on the phone too - $350

Configuration of the iMac Pro:

• 3.0GHz 10-core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz
• 64GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC memory
• 2TB SSD
• Radeon Pro Vega 56 with 8GB of HBM2 memory

My plans for the iMacPro:

• Have one production space instead of a recording table and a mixing desk.
• Live streaming with video and several participants.
• Green screen.
• Webinars and screen captures.
• Move all plugins from current production computer to the new one.
• Sennheiser MKH416 would be nice.

PES 2017 reflections:

• First 2 semesters of PES went extremely well.
• PM17 was good but working a booth made it a blur.
• As always, some clients came and went.

2018 plans:

• Podcast Movement - not sure if I’ll be doing the Microphone Test-Drive Booth again.
• Four Podcast Engineering School semesters starting Jan.9, Apr. 3, Jun. 26 and Sep. 18
• Podfudge!

My upcoming PechaKucha talk at Podfest:

• Title: EQ - What You Need to Know about Equalization
• Description: Learn the fundamentals of why, what and how to use EQ. Hear examples of good and bad audio.
• Audio examples: Too much low end, too much high end harshness, harsh esses, phone sound, road noise with uncompressed voice getting lost in it at times, too much reverb, huge dynamic range raw and then compressed

How I processed Hardcore History episodes for my road trip:

• Why? Prius is a light car with more than average road noise.
• Batching in RX 6 and Sound Forge Pro
• Saved to mono first (to half the processing time for all subsequent steps), then leveling and loudness. - created awful sounding MP3’s.
• Should have done everything in RX 6 first, exported as a WAV, then opened in Sound Forge Pro and saved as a mono MP3.

Podcasters’ Society: A truly awesome community

Experience with the Pause Your Life podcast:

• Producer always worked in mono only and converted all music to mono.
• Suggestion: You should always leave stereo music stereo because it doesn't hurt anything and you can always render to mono.
• Fixing a harshly EQ’d voice - Fabfilter MB multiband compressor in the 3-10k range

Thanks for listening!

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