Creating A Foxy Listening Experience, with Audio Engineer Willard Bond
Gord and Dan sit down with Willard Bond, Strategic Coach's audio engineer, to talk about the evolution of sound design, tips for pre- and post-production, why ideas matter more than technology, and why you can't resist picturing a fox.
Show Notes:
- In the past, audio had to be produced on reel-to-reel tape, edited with a razor blade and tape.
- Dan did celebrity endorsement interviews for the advertising firm he worked with.
- The process of creating a podcast: Booking Dan and his guests, setting up the studio to make sure the tech is working, positioning Dan's microphone, and making sure the software will catch the recording—along with a backup recorder!
- Willard explains a few vocal exercises for relaxing your voice and giving it its best sound.
- Post-production tips, like making sure the volume levels are consistent across your podcast episodes.
- The internet has made the general tenor of audio recordings more conversational and less formal.
- Dan has deviated from the traditional audiobook because he finds word-for-word reading stressful and less interesting: people can tell when they're being read to and when they're actually being spoken to.
- There's something uniquely powerful about audio and the "theater of the mind" it creates.
- People will shut off poor-quality audio before they'll shut off bad video.
- Discussion of Peter Jackson's film-restored WWI documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, and the magic of adding lip-synched audio to archival video.
- With today's technology, it's easier than ever to put your ideas out there—but you still need to have ideas!
- Tech tip: Never take your listener out of the listening experience with noises, inconsistent audio, coughing, pets, etc.
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