In this episode I talk about what mix minus is and when you should use it, and how to use it for your pod cast

Welcome to podcast answers of the show where I help you start and grow your podcast answering

any podcasting questions along the way. Guys, it's been so long since I've been here. It

feels like forever, but I was away on a trip with my wife for some church related stuff.

And I just did not take any of the extra equipment with me to do podcasts. So it was a vacation

for us. So we definitely did that. We vacationed is what we did. So guys, so I've been recording

video and audio for the conference that we were at for the church. It's one of the things

that I do on the side as well, not just podcasting, but also talking with doing any sort of live

video production or recording or anything like that. So that's where I've been. And if

you want to hire me, I can record your conference too. You can contact me at podcastanswers.com/contact.

And I would love to help you out with any recording or any broadcasting that you want to do, because

again, that's something that I really just enjoy doing. So what else have I been doing?

So I recently made a reel. I talked a lot about it, about community in one of the previous

episodes of podcast answers. But I just recently made an Instagram reel talking about community

in different ways that you can build community. And so if you want to check that out, you

can go to podcastanswers.com/igcommunityreel, I G community R E E L or scan the QR code

that's on the screen right now, because that'll get you right to the reel. But I was talking

a little bit about I was talking about how to certain apps that you can use to create

communities with your podcast. And it's definitely worth a check out. So if you get a chance,

go to podcastanswers.com/igcommunityreel. And that'll talk about that's where I'm talking

about building a community, how to build a community for your show. So guys, today, we

are talking about Mix Minus, what it is, and how to use it, why would you would even need

it? So what is Mix Minus? Mix Minus is something exactly what it sounds, the Mix Minus. So

you would use it when you have a audio coming in from a computer, and you're also sending

audio back out to that computer. So for instance, if you had a guest on Zoom or Skype or any

really any video conferencing software, because you don't want the audio that's coming in

from their channel. So, you know, for instance, if I'm a guest and I'm talking, we don't

want my audio to come into the computer, or to the mixing board that's recording the

audio and then sending back out to myself. It's going to create what's called slapback.

A lot of people call it feedback or, you know, or just kind of like an echo, but it's really

called slapback. So essentially, it's me, if I was a guest talking and hearing myself

back with a slight delay, because again, what happens is you're sending, as a guest, I'm

talking and it comes into my mixer board and then back out to myself because it's that

two-way audio. And so this is Mix Minus is essentially what you're going to be using

to get rid of that. So on a traditional board, and I'm going to say traditional because a lot

of the newer boards like the Roadcaster Pro, which I'm using right now have Mix Minus built

in to it. So on a traditional board, you're going to basically send the output signal that

you're sending back to the computer that has the video software on it. You are going to

not send the main mix or everything but themselves. So how you would do that is

traditionally you would use an auxiliary channel on the board. And so each channel,

like each slider would have an auxiliary send like auxiliary one, two, three, whatever. And

on the back of your board, you plug auxiliary out into your video computer that's doing the video

chat or the audio chat or whatever. And so that's what you're sending to them. And so what you do

is you turn on each channel, you turn up the audio, you turn up the auxiliary send, except for the

channel that's coming in. So if I'm talking on channel one on my mixer board and I have my guests

audio coming into channel two, and then I have the music on channel three or whatever that it is,

on channel one, I turn up auxiliary to send out my channel one to that auxiliary mix.

I skip channel two because I don't want their audio to go back to themselves because again,

it's going to have a delay and it's going to be slap back. It's going to be hard for your

guests to talk. And then I turn it up on channel three. So that way channel three has it set up.

So that way you're getting the music back into the same thing. Now, again, that's a traditional

analog board. But when you have a digital board, well, not even a digital board because there's

a lot of digital boards that still have auxiliaries on them, but a more modern board that's set up for

something like broadcasting. And in this case, the Roadcaster Pro, the Roadcaster Duo, things along

those lines, they have Mix-Mis built in. So the Roadcaster Pro is an amazing device. If you've

not checked it out, podcastanswers.com/rcp is where I talk about how to use the Roadcaster Pro for

podcasting. And honestly, that's what I'm doing right now. I'm using the Roadcaster Pro to

podcast this episode. And so it has essentially three USB channels on it. It has three different

USB channels on it. You can bring anything into your computer, out of your computer on it. So if

you plug your computer into it, it has an input and an output. So I can, you know, on my USB one

channel, if I bring that up and I have that going to, let's say, Skype or Zoom or whatever,

that's going to bring that audio into my Roadcaster Pro. But then also, my whole mix is going to go

back out unless I turn Mix-Mis on. And that's really easy in the Roadcaster Pro. You can just click

the gear setting in the upper right hand corner, and then you're going to click outputs and then

routing. And then you can click on the USB one or whatever USB channel that you're going to be

looking to do the routing. And there's three different options in there. There's a main mix,

which is going to have everything that's on your board. It's going to have everything,

everything, every channel in it. Then there's a button that says Mix-Mis, which will allow you to

take everything except for the USB input that you're on, back out to that same,

that same thing. Again, this is because it's a bi-directional audio thing. You're doing a input

to the Roadcaster Pro as well as an output back to the computer. And so, again, if you're doing any

sort of guest chat, you're going to want this on so that way they're not hearing themselves

when you do this. Or there's also a custom button, which allows you to get a little bit more

detailed because let's say you didn't want to have another channel in there too. You can go in

and click Custom, and then you can tell it which channels you don't want on it. So let's say you

had your guest on channel one, USB one, and you had on USB two some music that you were listening

to, but you didn't want your guest to hear that. You could take both of those channels out of the

return, and your guest would never hear the music, and they would never hear themselves.

So that's how that works on the Roadcaster Pro. It's really simple and it's really easy to do.

So again, I would recommend using a Roadcaster Pro or something along the lines of that because

it is so simple to do all of the podcasting with it. So now, are there times that you wouldn't want

it on? Yes, the times that I would not want it on are if I'm not using that audio back into itself.

So for instance, if I'm playing audio from my computer, but I don't really care if it's coming

back to itself because I'm using it for a different input. It's not the same software. So let's say

a software is out using the Roadcaster Pro Chat or USB two to output music from it, but I'm not

going to actually, there's a different app on my computer that's going to be using it as an input.

Then it doesn't really matter because I want them to be able to hear that. So some other things to

consider is some, now, you know, why would you have to use this? Because some software has

echo cancellation built in like Zoom or Ecamm and a few other video communication software

has echo cancellation built right in it. Now, the way that this works is Zoom does this by knowing

the audio that it's sending out. So if you're on a Zoom call and your guest is talking,

Zoom knows exactly what the waveform is. It knows the audio that's coming out.

And so when it hears that same thing coming back to itself, it cancels it out and doesn't bring it

in. Now, why would you not want to use that? Well, echo is canceled. The echo, it doesn't have the

best sound. So audio that's using the echo cancellation doesn't necessarily have the best

sound because again, it's just trying to process what it knows. Whereas when you're using true

mix minus, you're not even sending that audio back to itself. So it doesn't have to try to

to correct the audio. It's just it doesn't have the audio to try to correct. And then your computer

also has to work harder because it has to look and know and go, okay, it has to do some processing

and some technology to cancel that audio. So that's not going to have the best sound. And

it's also going to make your computer work a lot harder. So if these are topics that confuse you,

because again, it makes minus can be confusing. And you're not even going to need it if you're just

talking and recording yourself. If you're just if you're just doing a podcast by yourself,

you probably don't need it if you're not bringing a guest in. But if you do have a guest, you are

going to need especially a remote guest. That's where you're going to have this. Someone is not

in the same room as you somewhere where you're going to have audio coming from your computer,

but audio going back to your computer is where you're going to have the need for mix minus.

And if this is confusing, I would love to help you. You can give me a email at podcast answers

dot com slash contact. And I would love to help you work through this. I do consulting one on one.

So you can hire me to do one on one consulting. I can help set up your equipment. I can help set

up the mix minus for you, get you the right equipment and just go and produce your podcast. So guys,

if that's something that you want to do again, you can contact me at podcast answers dot com slash

contact. And I would love to help you guys. If you want to join a community of like minded

podcasters, you can go to podcast answers dot com slash discord. And that's where our community is

at. That's where I'm building the community for this. This show is podcast answers that comes

like discord. You can join other like minded podcasters and and just ask each other questions.

You can find out more from people who may have been doing this longer than you. So guys, without

further ado, join us next week as we talk more information about podcasting.

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