Shownotes
Welcome to the ninth bonus episode of the Confident Live Marketing Podcast, where we’re celebrating the run-up to our 200th episode and 4th anniversary!
In this bonus episode, I re-run the interview with two amazing guests: Michelle Levitt, Marketing and Creative Director of Heil Sound, a professional audio equipment manufacturer, and Izabela Russell, the CEO of Music Radio Creative, a company specializing in audio branding.
We dive into the importance of audio branding and its role in reflecting your personality. We also discuss the technical aspects of microphones and how they can impact your voice’s authenticity.
Here are the key takeaways from our conversations:
Audio branding: How you want to be perceived and how you want people to feel when they listen to your content. Consider the intro, outro, and elements in between, along with suitable music and voice artists.
Reflecting your personality with Izabela Russell: Think about how your audio branding can reflect your personality. If you’re quirky and fun, incorporate that into your branding. If you’re more serious, choose music and voice elements that match that vibe.
Energy and authenticity: The energy you project on camera should be a slightly heightened version of your true self. Be authentic, and don’t be afraid to showcase your energy.
Microphone frequency response with Michelle Levitt: The range of frequencies a microphone can capture. Look for a small rise in the 2-5 kHz range for better articulation on the human voice.
Choosing the right microphone: The difference between microphones like the Heil PR 30 and PR 40 lies in their unique frequency responses. The PR 40 has more low-end and gives a warm, traditional broadcast sound, while the PR 30 has more mid-range presence.
Authenticity in your voice: Choose a microphone that makes you sound like yourself. When people meet you in person, they should not be surprised by how your voice sounds compared to your podcast or live show.
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The Confident Live Marketing Show
The Confident Live Marketing Show is a weekly live video show and podcast. It’s aimed at established entrepreneurs who want to level up their impact, authority and profits through the power of live video, webinars and podcasts. We’ll focus on knocking down the 3 main barriers these entrepreneurs face when creating live content - camera confidence/mindset, tech/gear and content marketing.
It’s hosted by Ian Anderson Gray. He is the founder of the Confident Live Marketing Academy and is the host of the Confident Live Marketing Podcast. He helps entrepreneurs to level up their impact, authority and profits by using live video confidently. He’s founder of Seriously Social - a blog focused on live video and social media tools. He’s an international speaker, trainer, teacher and consultant. He has a passion for making the techno-babble of live video and social media marketing easy to understand. As well as being a geek, husband, and dad to two kids, Ian is also a professional singer and lives near Manchester in the UK.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Transcripts
You are listening to the Confident Live Marketing podcast.
Speaker:Hello, Ian Gray here for the ninth bonus episode of the
Speaker:Confident Live Marketing Show.
Speaker:As we work towards episode 200 and the fourth anniversary of this podcast,
Speaker:we're delving into the archives and looking at the golden nuggets, those
Speaker:interviews that really excited me and just taking those best moments
Speaker:and giving you some of my thoughts.
Speaker:So these episodes, I'm broadcasting them live, but I pre-record them in advance.
Speaker:We're just doing, I'm just trying a few different things because sometimes I think
Speaker:we can get stuck in a rut and sometimes it's good to try different things.
Speaker:As I said last week, sometimes we can be so focused on our strategy
Speaker:that our strategy is set in stone.
Speaker:How flexible are we?
Speaker:How easily can we pivot into something new?
Speaker:So that's what I've been thinking about recently, but in today's episode, we are
Speaker:going back to I dunno whether it's basics, but today we're gonna be talking about two
Speaker:of the different pillars to this podcast.
Speaker:The first is the.
Speaker:The first one is mindset and confidence and communication in front of the camera.
Speaker:We're not gonna be talking about that today.
Speaker:I will be talking about that in one of these episodes.
Speaker:The second one is the tech and the gear, and we are gonna be talking
Speaker:about a little bit of that today.
Speaker:When it comes to microphones, because I've got Michelle Levitt
Speaker:from High Micro microphones.
Speaker:The microphone that I'm using today is the he l PR 40.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:And she is from Hele, and she's gonna talk about the differences between.
Speaker:Different microphones like the high L, PR 40 and 30.
Speaker:These are dynamic microphones, but she's also gonna talk about shotgun
Speaker:microphones, which might be something that you want to consider as well.
Speaker:I'm actually gonna be, as well as having this dynamic microphone, I'm
Speaker:gonna have a shotgun microphone as well, which is, will be out of camera,
Speaker:which is more for my video work.
Speaker:So I've got Michelle, but I've also got Isabella Russell, who is the c e o of
Speaker:Music Radio Creative, who is married to another guest who's been another guest
Speaker:on the show recently, Mike Russell.
Speaker:And Mike Russell is Mr.
Speaker:Audio.
Speaker:He's very technical.
Speaker:He talks about Adobe
Speaker:Audition a lot.
Speaker:He's also
Speaker:really knowledgeable about video, but
Speaker:his wife.
Speaker:Isabella is
Speaker:awesome and she really knows the stuff when it comes to audio
Speaker:branding.
Speaker:Isabella really helped me with the, in the
Speaker:introduction to this podcast and the
Speaker:outro, if the voiceover,
Speaker:the music, all of that, her company, music, radio, creative puts together.
Speaker:So we're gonna be talking, I'm
Speaker:gonna ask her I did ask
Speaker:her all about.
Speaker:How you can brand
Speaker:your podcast and just audio
Speaker:branding in general.
Speaker:It's not something we tend to think about
Speaker:very often.
Speaker:But let's talk to Michelle Michelle
Speaker:Levitt from Hi Sound.
Speaker:And I wanted to talk to her about what a shotgun microphone is cuz there's lots of
Speaker:different types of microphones with lapel microphone, dynamic microphones, condense
Speaker:the microphones and shotgun microphones.
Speaker:And particularly for video, I think shotgun micro.
Speaker:May or maybe something
Speaker:to consider but do you
Speaker:get the same kind of
Speaker:sounds?
Speaker:Yeah, let's
Speaker:go back to Michelle.
Speaker:So it's great that you brought up a shotgun mic because that
Speaker:brings up the tough polar
Speaker:patterns.
Speaker:A shotgun
Speaker:mic is a type of polar pattern, and a polar pattern is the area of
Speaker:which a microphone picks up audio.
Speaker:So I showed you just a second ago that the, my microphone does not
Speaker:pick up audio out here, right?
Speaker:So a shotgun mic is designed, I'm gonna use this PR 40.
Speaker:A shotgun mic is designed to pick out audio like way out
Speaker:front from the microphone.
Speaker:So it's polar pattern is essentially like a big oval, like a really skinny oval.
Speaker:And so whatever you pointed at, that's what it's gonna pick up.
Speaker:Audio, but the catches, any sound that's entering in that, almost like laser beam
Speaker:of audio is also gonna be picked up if you're shooting a movie or something
Speaker:like that where you want like the sound of a coffee cup being set down.
Speaker:Then that's a good idea because you know you're gonna get all that ambient
Speaker:sound as well, just not quite as focused as the thing you're directing.
Speaker:Yeah, there are a lot of applications where you could use a shotgun mic.
Speaker:Like the lab mic we were talking about is what's called
Speaker:an omnidirectional microphone.
Speaker:That means it's gonna pick up audio pretty much like all the way around
Speaker:the microphone, and that's to get nice, even audio if you're somebody that moves
Speaker:your face a lot while you're talking.
Speaker:And then, This microphone and the one you're using, so the one you're using
Speaker:is a cardio pattern, so it's just right here in front and the one that I'm
Speaker:using is a SuperCard, which is even a little bit tighter of a pattern, which
Speaker:is why I'm so close to my microphone.
Speaker:It's one of those things you really have to understand all these
Speaker:technical concepts to really know what kind of microphone that you need.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So do you know your, do you know your pillar patterns
Speaker:when it comes to microphones?
Speaker:A little bit technical, but really important, and I think a
Speaker:lot of people don't really think
Speaker:about this.
Speaker:To be quite
Speaker:honest, I think a lot of people just go on, does it look nice?
Speaker:And my
Speaker:microphone I really
Speaker:like it.
Speaker:It looks lovely, but you know what, it sounds great.
Speaker:Now I have the high L, PR 40 microphone, which has a cardio.
Speaker:Pile pattern.
Speaker:It means it picks up just like a heart shape, just in front of my
Speaker:microphone.
Speaker:But because
Speaker:that has to be really
Speaker:close up to me it's in order
Speaker:to pick my sound up, it's on, it's in shot.
Speaker:So if you're watching this video, you'll see the microphone bang on in shot.
Speaker:Now that's okay because I quite like that and I've got my little microphone
Speaker:flag at the top to have a bit of
Speaker:branding.
Speaker:But not everyone
Speaker:is gonna like that.
Speaker:So for you, you might prefer
Speaker:to have.
Speaker:Like a condenser
Speaker:microphone, like the
Speaker:blue yet.
Speaker:And you can
Speaker:have that further away from you.
Speaker:But the problem with that is it will pick up a lot of the background sound.
Speaker:That's why a good halfway house is a shotgun microphone.
Speaker:And that will pick up like, almost like a laser beam straight
Speaker:in front of the microphone now.
Speaker:So the adventure of that is it's out of
Speaker:shot.
Speaker:But you've gotta
Speaker:be careful because it's, if you go too far to the left or to the
Speaker:right, it's not gonna pick you up.
Speaker:If
Speaker:you start I dunno,
Speaker:you've put a coffee cup down and that's in the beam.
Speaker:It's gonna pick that
Speaker:clicking sound or whatever of the coffee
Speaker:cup.
Speaker:So you just gotta be careful about that.
Speaker:So I'd love to know from you, what type of microphone are you thinking about getting?
Speaker:Are you thinking about getting like a dynamic microphone like this, a
Speaker:condense a microphone by the way?
Speaker:Condense a
Speaker:microphones.
Speaker:You they're either
Speaker:like the Blue Yeti or you can get some really high end ones.
Speaker:And,
Speaker:They can be really good,
Speaker:but you have to have a really good treated, audio treated room for that.
Speaker:So anyway, let me know what you think.
Speaker:Okay, let's go to Isabella now and let's talk about audio branding.
Speaker:Cuz this was so interesting.
Speaker:I hadn't really thought about.
Speaker:Audio
Speaker:branding?
Speaker:I had Phil Phil Pelland on the show a few weeks
Speaker:back.
Speaker:I can't remember now, probably about a month or so back.
Speaker:And we were talking
Speaker:about branding branding in general but not audio
Speaker:branding.
Speaker:So we tend to think about branding in terms of logos
Speaker:and colors and the visual.
Speaker:But what
Speaker:about audio?
Speaker:Let's go back to
Speaker:Isab.
Speaker:So if you want to start with audio branding, and you might not be at
Speaker:the stage where you are quite ready to work with a company because
Speaker:you may just not quite yet know where you want your branding to go.
Speaker:And that's actually quite common, believe me.
Speaker:Yeah, that's actually a lot of people are at the stage where
Speaker:they know they need something.
Speaker:They're not quite sure what it should be yet and where to start.
Speaker:They don't quite want to invest in full on branding because they're like, what if
Speaker:things change in two months down the line?
Speaker:As I start broadcasting, my ideas might take a slightly different shape or
Speaker:form, so the best way to really start, if you want it to start with branding,
Speaker:which I always recommend because I think that it is important that.
Speaker:You have something like having nothing is, I don't know if
Speaker:somebody served you pancakes, but with nothing, no toppings on top.
Speaker:The pancakes might be really good, but if there's no topping, you
Speaker:felt like something is missing.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:You wonderful,
Speaker:you wonderful dish, right?
Speaker:And with lots of sprinkles and cream and maybe syrup, golden syrup on
Speaker:top and strawberries and all that.
Speaker:So this is what branding is.
Speaker:But if you wanna start somewhere, have start off.
Speaker:Finding a piece of royalty free music track that you really like, something
Speaker:that really appeals to you, maybe represents part of your character
Speaker:charisma, or just in some way feels like it represents what you do.
Speaker:And start with that.
Speaker:And then you can always shape it into more refined branding later on.
Speaker:But have that little something to start with if you wanted
Speaker:to go fully and work with us.
Speaker:So there are different ways we work, and again, it just depends on where
Speaker:you sit in terms of knowing what you want and how you want it done.
Speaker:So there are some clients who come to us and they're like, I
Speaker:know exactly what I would like.
Speaker:I would like a voiceover.
Speaker:Here is the script.
Speaker:That's what I wanted to be said.
Speaker:So let's start working from there.
Speaker:So we would jump in and make suggestions as to, okay, let's use music like that.
Speaker:Or maybe let's not use music or something.
Speaker:Some branding.
Speaker:It might be suitable to just not use music at all, and then
Speaker:we would create it from there.
Speaker:The process is very simple.
Speaker:There are some people who want to have in.
Speaker:Branding analysis.
Speaker:This is where we will go much deeper in.
Speaker:We have a set of, I believe it's 15 or 20 different branding questions.
Speaker:They really help us to understand who your audience is, who are we targeting?
Speaker:What is the product or the service that you offer, or what is your brand?
Speaker:Essentially, how you want to be perceived and how you want people
Speaker:to think about you when in general, listening in what kind of feeling.
Speaker:There should be and all of that.
Speaker:So we will do deep rounding analysis and based on that, we
Speaker:will come up with the scripts.
Speaker:We will write the scripts.
Speaker:If, say if it's a podcast, it would be intro and outro and
Speaker:some elements in between as well.
Speaker:We will come up with suggestions for what music may be suitable for this.
Speaker:What voice artist would be better placed to record it.
Speaker:So we will do a full recommendation based on your answers.
Speaker:So that's like the full pancake with all the toppings, but you can choose
Speaker:a smaller version of it if you are a little bit more certain as to what
Speaker:you would like and how you would like
Speaker:it.
Speaker:I'm getting
Speaker:hungry now.
Speaker:It is Coming
Speaker:up to lunchtime here as I record this and pan talk of
Speaker:pancakes.
Speaker:I'm a bit
Speaker:of a savory pancake guy, but enough of that.
Speaker:Have you thought about your audio branding?
Speaker:What would reflect your personality?
Speaker:And this is something it I'm actually thinking about at
Speaker:the moment as I look
Speaker:at.
Speaker:Potentially
Speaker:rebranding this podcast
Speaker:and live show.
Speaker:I've always tried to get it to reflect my
Speaker:personality.
Speaker:We use our my, my family
Speaker:and my kids
Speaker:at the end saying together
Speaker:we go
Speaker:live.
Speaker:And I quite like that.
Speaker:I want a bit
Speaker:of quirkiness, I
Speaker:want a bit of Fun as well.
Speaker:But maybe
Speaker:that's not your personality.
Speaker:Maybe you are more of kinda serious person.
Speaker:Think about the kind of music that you might use to
Speaker:reflect that and the voice
Speaker:and the energy as well.
Speaker:And actually that's a really important thing when it comes to
Speaker:the energy of your show in general.
Speaker:Although I've always been a big believer in what I call heightened
Speaker:authenticity, that you do need to put more energy into it.
Speaker:Don't be af don't be ashamed of who you are.
Speaker:So if you are full of energy, you are a very highly energetic person.
Speaker:Don't tr
Speaker:don't try and calm that down on, on camera.
Speaker:Just be you.
Speaker:And if you are quite a quiet person,
Speaker:then you might want to raise the level a little bit because on camera what tends to
Speaker:happen is for, particularly for people who
Speaker:like us, you might not think I'm low energy,
Speaker:but I'm a, I am a bit more of a chill out.
Speaker:But I do put a little bit more
Speaker:energy into the way I
Speaker:deliver in front of the camera because the camera is this energy sucking device.
Speaker:It tends to suck our energy away from us.
Speaker:So something to think about
Speaker:there.
Speaker:Anyway Yeah, that
Speaker:was
Speaker:really helpful really helpful.
Speaker:I'm glad I
Speaker:listened to
Speaker:that again and thinking
Speaker:about audio branding, that's really helping me as I move forward.
Speaker:What are your ideas on that?
Speaker:I'd love to hear
Speaker:from you.
Speaker:Let's go back
Speaker:to Michelle for the final part of that interview, and she's gonna talk
Speaker:about, this is, again, going back to more technical side of things
Speaker:between different microphones.
Speaker:We've talked about the different polar
Speaker:patterns.
Speaker:Now we're
Speaker:gonna talk about the differences between.
Speaker:These two microphones, the high PR 30 and the PR 40.
Speaker:Now I've actually got both microphones.
Speaker:My son seems to have Nick's, my PR 30, he's using that
Speaker:downstairs.
Speaker:It's a really
Speaker:nice microphone.
Speaker:However, I've always
Speaker:enjoyed my PR 40 If you are
Speaker:not, you might not be thinking about specifically about these particular
Speaker:microphones, but this conversation might help you in finding or
Speaker:picking the best microphone for you.
Speaker:I'm just trying to find the button
Speaker:here.
Speaker:There's too many videos, but here we go.
Speaker:Here's the interview.
Speaker:So in terms of for live streaming, you've got a PR 30, I've got a PR 40.
Speaker:I just, first of all, interested in your, why do you go for a PR 30
Speaker:and why would somebody go for a PR.
Speaker:So for me, when I'm doing video stuff, or especially when I'm doing
Speaker:a podcast, I want to sound just like me so that when you meet me in person
Speaker:at podcast movement or pod fest or whatever, that I don't sound off.
Speaker:So my goal always, my audio is to sound as much like myself as.
Speaker:So that, this is actually a great question, so I'm gonna throw
Speaker:in some more tech talk for you.
Speaker:So every microphone has a frequency response, and the frequency response
Speaker:is the range of frequencies that any particular microphone can capture.
Speaker:Frequency responses are tailored, and what that means is there's usually a
Speaker:little bump in the frequency of response in the two to five kilohertz range.
Speaker:So when you look at a frequency response, unlike a manufacturer's website,
Speaker:you should be looking for a little rise in the response in that area.
Speaker:It doesn't have to.
Speaker:Insane or anything, but just so long as it's not like a flat response, that
Speaker:means the microphone is going to sound very articulate on the human voice.
Speaker:That is where articulation lies in the frequency response of the human voice.
Speaker:So what happens in a microphone like the 30 versus the 40 or any of our
Speaker:other microphones, is that they all have unique frequency responses,
Speaker:and the frequency response is actually impacted by a lot of things.
Speaker:It's impacted.
Speaker:The distance of the microphone element to the end of the microphone.
Speaker:So take a mi, take a microphone like the Sure.
Speaker:SM seven B is a very popular microphone.
Speaker:It is actually the same microphone element as an SM 57, but if you look up their
Speaker:specs online, they look very different because the housing of a microphone
Speaker:can greatly change how it sounds.
Speaker:So the difference between a 30 and a 40 is that the 40 has a little more low end
Speaker:and it has a little boost in the low end.
Speaker:So it gives you that warm, traditional broadcast sound where a 30 is
Speaker:not, does not have that low end boost the same way, and it has a
Speaker:little more mid-range presence.
Speaker:So for my voice, it just sounds more like me, and that's what I'm going for
Speaker:with my audio is to just sound very
Speaker:natural.
Speaker:Isn't that fascinating?
Speaker:So yeah, that was a little bit technical.
Speaker:You're talking about frequency
Speaker:sponsors and I hope you, you stayed with Michelle there.
Speaker:But at the
Speaker:end of it, I think what I got from that is
Speaker:authenticity.
Speaker:I think so
Speaker:often we're wanting to enhance ourselves and that's
Speaker:not wrong, how happy
Speaker:are you with your own voice and.
Speaker:Do you want to have when people meet you in real
Speaker:life?
Speaker:Do they want
Speaker:to not, do you want them to be not
Speaker:surprised when they
Speaker:hear your voice?
Speaker:Cuz you sound exactly the
Speaker:same the way they hear you on the podcast.
Speaker:And that is definitely
Speaker:what I want.
Speaker:I do want
Speaker:to enhance things in terms of, I do want to get rid of noise,
Speaker:background noise and I do
Speaker:want this to be a pleasurable experience when you listen to this or watch this.
Speaker:But it's very much a personal thing.
Speaker:And so for me, the PR 40 I think sounds great.
Speaker:It doesn't,
Speaker:it, I think this makes me sound
Speaker:like me.
Speaker:But the PR
Speaker:30 I
Speaker:think sounds.
Speaker:For Michelle,
Speaker:she prefers that sound.
Speaker:It makes her sound more authentic as well.
Speaker:So do think
Speaker:about that.
Speaker:We're always and this
Speaker:is particularly the case when it comes to visual, we're always
Speaker:trying to make ourselves look
Speaker:better or, sound better,
Speaker:but.
Speaker:How much of ourselves are we wanting?
Speaker:Are we willing to put forwards?
Speaker:The authenticity side of
Speaker:things is so important.
Speaker:So I think this has been a really interesting episode.
Speaker:We've talked about branding and we've talked about how you put
Speaker:yourself across and your personality.
Speaker:And we've also
Speaker:talked about technical
Speaker:side of things when it comes to microphones, but we've also talked about
Speaker:authenticity as.
Speaker:Although we've
Speaker:been
Speaker:talking about, the marketing
Speaker:side of things with branding, that's my third pillar and we talked about
Speaker:the tech, which is my second pillar.
Speaker:There's actually a bit of mindset going on here too, so you can see
Speaker:how they all come together well outta
Speaker:time.
Speaker:Again short episodes
Speaker:as I always try and make
Speaker:these.
Speaker:Into but I will
Speaker:be back next week with another bonus edition of this podcast.
Speaker:I hope you're enjoying these.
Speaker:I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker:Please don't be shy.
Speaker:As I do think about rebooting this podcast, I'd love to hear from
Speaker:you.
Speaker:I do have
Speaker:a survey at I A G E slash survey.
Speaker:I think that's right.
Speaker:I'll have to double check that.
Speaker:Anyway, I g me slash survey, I
Speaker:hope is the URL
Speaker:for that.
Speaker:But just get in touch with me.
Speaker:My email address is ian iag me and I'd love to hear from
Speaker:you, but I think that's it.
Speaker:Yeah, that is it for this week and until next time, I encourage you to level
Speaker:up your impact, authority and profits do the power of Confident Live video.
Speaker:See you soon.
Speaker:Thanks for watching the Confident Live Marketing Show with Ian Anderson.
Speaker:Greg, make sure you subscribe at Iag me slash podcast so you can continue
Speaker:to level up your impact, authority, and profit through the power of Live video.
