And it's Thursday, so that means we're going to talk about podcasting. Won't that be fun? Well, one of the things I want to talk about before we get into the podcasting is my cell phone. Do you know how many calls I get a day that are people trying to sell me something?
Oh, hi, everyone. By the way, I'm Michael Kroos. This is The Daily Grateful. And on Thursdays, we talk about podcasting, and I'm going to complain about sales calls on my telephone.
I'm getting to the point now in my life where I don't want a telephone. Is that wrong of me? I mean, you know, you're driving down the road, phone rings. Is it somebody important?
I don't know. We're strange as Americans. We think, you know, we believe in telephones, and we believe that when the telephone rings, you should answer it. Less now that we have caller ID and everything else, but you always had to answer the phone.
And I'm, since I'm old, I'm that way now also. But I'm just, so, I mean, do I want to answer the phone? What? I said, do I want to answer the phone?
No. I know. Especially when it's people trying to sell me, oh, let's see, what are they trying to sell me? Final expense insurance, that's one of them.
Health insurance, just everything. Anyway, let's get on to podcasting. And today, what I want to talk about is the audio on your podcast. I am talking to you right now on a pretty expensive, dynamic microphone.
And I am following the rules of engagement with this microphone. The microphone is going via an XLR cord into the Rodecaster Duo, which is a really spiffy-ass audio interface. And it has all kinds of stuff that I don't even know how to use yet, but I'm working on it. That's what I'm going to be doing this weekend.
But, you know, it's got audio compression. It's got all kinds of stuff. But it's neat, and a good microphone is good. But what's more important than all of that, even if you have a cheap microphone, what I'm going to teach you now is more important than all of that, and that is microphone technique.
Right now, because this is a dynamic microphone, I am about, oh, I don't know, three to four fingers away from the front of the microphone. I have the microphone at a little bit of an angle to where I'm not speaking directly into it. I'm speaking through the side of it, and my voice sounds pretty good, considering I've been dealing with all this pollen. The voice is slowly coming back.
But that's what's good. Now, here's what a lot of people do. A lot of people sit back in the chair back here, and you can notice a difference. Not a significant difference, but a big enough difference.
And that's not good. So then I come back up here where I belong, and that's good. And some people just kind of move around the room, and then they go over here, and it's not sounding good at all. But then they come back, and, you know, you have to concentrate on microphone technique.
I was watching a TikTok today. There is a TikTok star. I guess you could call her. Her name is Jessica Kent.
And I like her. She's an ex-convict, and she talks about the real stuff of all of, you know, being a prisoner. Gosh, I'm glad it was her and not me. Well, that wasn't nice.
But, I mean, you know, I could not even imagine that. And, you know, I used to work in a jail. I was a horticulture teacher at a jail. So I've been in all kinds of rooms at a jail.
But I got to leave whenever I wanted to. Those people are stuck in there. Anyway, she now does TikTok and a podcast. And I see her doing a podcast, or a TikTok, and her audio is terrible.
And she's got a Shure SM7B microphone. It's a $400 microphone. It's a good microphone. But it was very lousy microphone technique, because the microphone was a foot away from her, and it was off to the side.
And it sounded terrible. So I just left her a little message on there. I said, really good microphone. Really bad microphone technique.
You know, work on your audio, because bad audio on a video will make people stop watching it. You know what she admitted to me? You want to know what she admitted to me? She came back.
The microphone wasn't even on. It was there for show. Okay. But if you're making videos or you're making audio, you want to make sure that you have good microphone technique.
Even if you have a really nice microphone like I've got right here, and I love this microphone. Or if you have a less expensive microphone, like the one on the floor, which is a Samsung Q2U. I said, I believe it. Or QU2.
I forget. But it's a $65 microphone. I can plug that into here right now, and I can tell you, I can make it sound really good, primarily by using good microphone technique. So no matter what you're working with, good microphone technique is very, very important.
So that's all I got today on How to Do a Podcast. We'll be back tomorrow to talk about Friday stuff. Have a good one, everybody.