Sound Out Media

Don’t get me wrong .. I love having my own desktop production rig in my own home. I just love it that we don’t have to go into studios to do all of our work.

But there are some times when I WANT to go into the studio. Call me spoiled .. I worked at CBC Radio for a lot of years back in the days when technicians did all the pushing of buttons and the rest of us just talked. I worked both sides of the board, as tech and as a producer/writer/broadcaster.

And I miss those days when all I had to concentrate on was my content. I loved the sound of my voice in the close-to-perfection acoustics of the studio. And above all, studio time was a special time to focus on my piece and nothing else. When I have guests to interview, I can give them my individed attention, which always makes for a better rapport.

I’m looking forward to getting back into the studio again. Not all the time .. but here are some examples of the kinds of things I want to go into the studio for:

a) when I am voicing a commentary or a longer piece. It’s a performance. My mindset is much different when I’m in the studio. And for longer pieces, I think the listener has less tolerance for technical glitches. Not consciously, of course. But the longer the piece, the more you have to do to hold the listener. Those popped P’s just don’t cut it ..

b) when I want to do a whole batch of interviews — what I’m going to do is book a whole day and then invite my guests to come in. It looks very professional and a lot of people never get a chance to get into a recording studio. So it’s a buzz for them too. And above all, I can book more people in because I don’t have to set up mikes and doublecheck recordings. Nice to have staff.

c) when I’m working with a musician to come up with themes and stingers. Yes, I could do it with my stereo mike in my own apartment. Until the phone rings. Or something else happens to distract me. And the sound in the studio is better.

d) When I want to treat myself. It’s a change of pace from working at home all the time. I meet new people, and my focus is on my work alone. And I also take myself out for lunch, sometimes with the talent or guests I am working with for the day. It’s a field trip out of the office .. and a tax-deductible one at that.

Studio time doesn’t have to be expensive .. there are lots of studios out there at different price ranges. And you’re not just paying for the studio time .. you’re also getting Technical Staff.

I just finished the first cut of a soundtrack for an audio slideshow.

It’s now going to the Eye guys to add the visuals. Even though I won’t be doing the photos and slides, I learned a lot about composing where the sound doesn’t have to carry the whole story.

I’m a radio person and used to relying entirely on my words and sounds. This is a different process .. I don’t have to say everything. I also have to leave room for the visuals to convey the message too so that the pictures aren’t just eye candy.

What I realized is that it’s a dance between the visuals and the sound. Sometimes you want the interview clips and voices to be more prominent, other times you want people to focus on what they see.

It’s hard to describe .. best way to explain it is that you want to make your photos more impressionistic when the words are spoken. That way, your audience will focus on the words. When you are going for maximum dramatic impact with your photos, put them over music or ambient sound. Don’t bombard your viewers with too much stimuli at once.

I’ll let you know when the production is posted. It will be interesting to see what the visual editors do with it.

My favourite home broadcast booth was my walk-in linen closet. It had a light, lots of pillows and blankets to make the acoustics nice and soft. And then, I moved.

My next house was on a busy city street with trucks roaring by. The only closet was in the bathroom at the front of the house. My recordings were frequently interrupted by the oncoming rumble of loud traffic coming off the access from Hamilton Mountain. (I was on the main transit route for Big Steel — My voicers were frequently interrupted by my assistant yelling “Truck!”)

So why did I need a broadcast booth? My rooms were large with 12 foot ceilings. Very boomy. What I ended up doing was making a tent out of quilts in the middle of the room. Which wasn’t ideal either because I had to crouch under it. Not good for the breathing or the energy level.

I just found a partial solution .. check out the Harlan Hogan Portabooth ..

Not a perfect solution because I need something I can stand in .. and I don’t get the fun of making homemade tents just like when I was five .. but it looks like a good alternative to start with until I get the Studio of My Dreams ..

Podcasting and Beyond
An Introduction to Multimedia on the Internet
May 23 10 am - 4 pm
Hamilton Ontario

One of the easiest ways to get started in multimedia production is by doing a podcast. It’s a great way to get comfortable with the technology, develop interview and voicing skills and putting together a production from start to finish.

Podcasting and Beyond is a one day workshop to introduce you to the basics of podcast productions. We’ll focus mostly on audio, and also on how to create simple visual and sound productions such as slideshows with easy soundtracks. We’ll also talk about getting good sound for video .. because everybody knows what it’s like to look at pictures without hearing what the person on the screen is saying.

This hands-on, day long workshop will focus on:

* simple audio production techniques – recording and editing
* turning your idea into a story, interview or feature
* combining pictures with still photos (audio slideshows)
* getting good sound from your video camera
* getting your production out to the world via social media

Date: Saturday, May 23, 2009
10 am – 4 pm

Location: Community Centre for Media Arts, 3 Rebecca Street, Hamilton Ontario

Cost: $85.00
enrollment limited to 10 people

Workshop Presenter: Victoria Fenner

Victoria is a podcaster, radio producer, journalist and composer. She has worked in radio and television broadcasting for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in various capacities – on air writer/broadcaster, production technician and producer, and with community media organizations in both Canada and the United States. Victoria is also a practicing artist working in creative sound and documentary production who is recognized by the Canada Council for the Arts and The Ontario Arts Council. Her company, Sound Out Media, produces multimedia for the internet and provides training for organizations and people who want to explore emerging opportunities to produce and distribute their audio and video works.

Her new podcast The Roaming Ear can be heard on the Rabble Podcast Network – www.rabble.ca/podcasts

My newest podcast is now up and running at The Rabble Podcast Network.

This is one I’m doing mostly for fun .. I have thousands of sounds that I’ve recorded and I want to get them out there.  

The premise of the show is this — everybody travels with a camera.  But what if you travel with a microphone too?  That’s what I do, and this is what I bring back.

On the first show — These are a Few of My Favourite Sounds — little sound snippets I’ve picked up over the years.   Strange little electronic chirps from Chinatown San Francisco; fisherpeople hauling in their nets from the Arabian Sea in Kerala, India; a hot buggy night with square dancing in the Appalachian Mountains; and a cold September day on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.

You can find it here:  The Roaming Ear - let me know what you think!

I’m doing housework today .. a task I don’t enjoy but it’s made easier because I do my podcast listening at same time. (You can tell how much I’ve been listening by how clean my place is.  Or not.)

Right now I’m listening to podcasts from a major interactive conference that I didn’t go to.  So really great that I can listen.  Good casts.  Content wise.

You can hear a “but” coming, right?  Sure enough .. here are the problems.

a) distorted voice. Questions from the audience weren’t distorted.  The main voice was.  So my best guess is that she’s talking way too close to the mike. (

b) We didn’t need to know that her powerpoint presentation screwed up.  No editorial content there.  A very easy edit.  Flows much better if it wasn’t there.

c) Reference to an email address on the screen.  We can’t see it.  Superflous content.

Now, here are the solutions to make this a better listening experience.

a) Choose a mike that is more forgiving of bad mike placement.  And give your speaker a couple of tips on how close to be.  You can do it tactfully .. explain that every mike is different, and this is how to make it sound better for them.

b) Cut out things that don’t need to be there (powerpoint and computer screwups and expressions of frustration; coughs; “the washrooms are to the left”; “lunch is at 12:30″.  And big pauses — last year this organization posted a podcast with questions from the audience .. the questions weren’t miked and the 45 seconds of dead air at a time was left in)

c) If there is important visual information, do a version which includes the slides and pictures and the sound.  You can post it as a Quicktime or Flash movie. (I still encourage you to edit the audio .. you can retime the slides fairly easily .. tedious but not difficult)

A final tip: If your sound tech is taking a feed from the board, make sure s/he pays attention to the feed to your recorder too .. not just the house sound.

Better yet, hire a podcast producer to monitor the feed, stay in touch with the event organizers, edit and package (add music and intros after the fact)  and make sure everything sounds and looks great.

I’m up here in our nation’s capital for meetings in my capacity as President of The Community Radio Fund of Canada.

The Fund is new, and something which the Community Radio Sector in Canada has needed ever since community radio began back in the late 1970’s.   In preparation for a meeting with the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission tomorrow, I have been having meetings about the question … so how do we generate more funds for community radio?

I’ve been involved in community radio since the very early days .. we have seen changes in the communications industry many times in years past, but nothing like we are experiencing now.

As I write, one major TV network is on the verge of bankruptcy.  Another one is saying “here, we’re giving you back a couple of licenses.  We aren’t even going to try to sell them”.  Newspapers in the States are going down.

Radio is hanging on, but as I’m writing, I am listening to a station from the States on the internet.  (Oh, okay, I feel guilty .. there’s no radio in my room but I can listen to CKCU on the internet.  Or CFMU from back home in Hamilton for that matter).  I still love radio, still think that local radio in particular is relevant.  But the internet and Ipods are changing all of that.

In my meeting this morning, I asked the question of another radio colleague “what do we want our Fund to be doing in five years?”.  We quickly came to the conclusion that we don’t even know what radio will look like in five years.  So far, we are only funding licensed radio stations.  But radio is already so much more than that .. we can no longer be defined by our transmission technology.

It’s making my head spin .. the CRTC is now looking at internet regulation.  And the Copyright Board is trying to figure out what the Copyright laws and compensation schedules should look like.  The Canadian Television Fund is being merged with the New Media Fund.  TV is not just TV anymore. Traditional media no longer has a license to print money.  Radio is still being radio, but for how long?

It’s not business as usual.  What a difference even five months makes now … all of this in an industry where technology and the ensuing social change used to move so slowly ..

I recorded a keynote address yesterday, which I am turning into a podcast (I’ll post the details once the client posts it .. it was a great, great talk on the psychology of 20-somethings.  Heard many talks on this subject but this one was a cut above)

I was working with a sound engineer who was running the audio.  Great sound, great microphones.  And the engineer has been in the recording biz for years.  A pleasure to work with.

The speaker was miked with a lapel microphone.   This wasn’t his idea .. the MC came over to us and casually said it’s a small room, so the speaker’s not going to use a mike (this was an experienced speaker who had given permission for me to be recorded.  I guess he must have forgotten .. this sometimes happens.  He was fine when we reminded him there would be no podcast without a mike).

So the engineer outfitted with a lovely mike (wireless, Shure, in the $2200 range).   I was listening through headphones .. good sound .. occasionally the speaker brushed the mike with his arm (yuck .. ugly scraping sound).  And at one point Bill the engineer, turned to me and said “his lapel mike is pointing at the audience, not his mouth”.

Yes, it was.  The mike shifted on the speaker’s V-neck sweater. The question then becomes, does this matter?  My decision was no.  The sound was still very clear.  Very good, actually.  A bit more hollow but there was nothing I could do about it either.   If he had accidentally turned off the mike or it slipped under his sweater and the sound was really compromised, I would have gone to the client and said “we need to get in there and fix it.  Or scrap the podcast”.  But it wasn’t like that.  The ugly scraping sounds could be fixed in the computer.  It only happened five times in half an hour. And the average pair of ears are not going to listen and say “his mike placement has changed”.

This is the challenge in the new internet world .. we have all heard and seen productions that are pretty hard on the ears and eyes.   So we want to make sure that we know what good technical quality is, and how to get it.

On the other hand, the new production environment is not about controlled, high budget studio environments.  What I am seeing right now is a huge gulf between the traditional production companies who are used to top tools and  tens of thousands of dollars to work with in high end studios. The sound of this speaker wasn’t as perfect as Bill the engineer would have liked.  But it was still very good.  And by and large, I am noticing that the people still working in traditional media, don’t understand how producing for a TV station is different than producing for a website or an Itunes download.

On the other end of the spectrum are the new entrants into the production stream.  They know the internet like the back of their hand but just don’t have the production experience that the traditional producers have.  So sometimes they don’t have the well-developed ears and eyes to differentiate between good, not so good and sometimes downright bad.  Or the experience with different grades of equipment so they know which camera or mike to use. (Not to say that a person can’t be very good if they haven’t been doing this for years .. I have worked with some very good people with good production sense. The difference is that they’re constantly learning .. they’re not just saying what they know right now is all they need to know)

That’s why it’s important to work with someone with a foot in both camps.  Excellent producers who are constantly developing knowledge of the new internet environment and how it affects your production and distribution.

We’re rare .. but we’re out there.

I’ve been asked by the Knowledge Media Design Institute at University of Toronto to write a few paragraphs about the best sessions at Podcamp 2009.

In a few days these sessions will be up on-line, so you can experience them yourself even if you couldn’t be there.

Too many to choose from,  but here is my top four:

Building Relationships with Word of Mouth and PR Practitioners While Maintaining Credibility with Your Audience – with two bloggers, two major PR agencies - Did you know that some of the big PR agencies are spending time and money courting bloggers?  Just like they court reporters in Trad Media? with Anita Clarke, David Jones, Eden Spodek and Matthew Stradiotto, and Keith McArthur.

Heresy, Hipocrisy, and Sin - the things you need to do to make money as a media creator, or how to better serve a business. -with Chris Brogan, the cofounder of the very first Podcamp in Boston.  Everybody was raving about his presentation .. wish I could have been in two places.  Instead, I was at:

Social Media Monitoring and Analysis - Dave Fleet - also excellent - a whistle-stop tour through finding, measuring and analyzing and taking action through social media tools - which was also excellent.  Social Media measurement is becoming more and more important, and many sessions this year were devoted to this tricky subject.  Dave is one of the founders of the Toronto Podcamp and is one of the Canadian visionaries in Social Media.

Fostering Creativity - How passion, creativity, and a little hard work can take an idea from conception to execution - Michael Mistretta — people in the hallways told me that this was the BIG SURPRISE at Podcamp.  Michael is only 16 years old and this was his first public presentation.  So many people were impressed by the depth of his ideas .. one of the surprising things is that he (at 16) was telling us (a lot of 35+’s) not to live our entire life on the computer.  This, at a time when so many stories in the Trad media are about kids who don’t have a non-computer life ..

So hard to pick just three.  But we also learned that blog posts shouldn’t be too long.  So I’ll end there.  Overall impressions — Podcamps are changing .. a few years ago, it was all about podcasting with a big emphasis on production techniques.  Now we’re focussing more and more on Social Media, and how we are getting our content out there.

I spent a lot of time this year going to workshops about the numbers … how to find out who’s coming to your site,  techniques so that you show up at the top of Google searches. And Twitter.  Barely a whisper last year, Twitter is now mainstream … (Facebook was the Big Buzz last year).

If you missed Toronto Podcamp, there are Podcamps in several different cities.  Next one is in Nashville (March 7th).  Also coming up — Atlanta, Salt Lake City, San Antonio. And closer to home, London Ontario (April 25)

The best free advice you’re going to get anywhere ..

Just wanted to make a correction to my previous comment about Podcamp — the one where I said “you can be in one room and watch what’s going on in another”

Scratch that — no watching videos at Podcamp on-line.  It sucks up too much bandwidth.   If you’re wondering what’s going on in the next room, you have to find out the old fashioned way.  Walk over to the next room.

Or watch it later. Sessions will be recorded and preserved for eternity on the Podcamp website.

Gotta start making the trek to Toronto …this will be some bunch of fun! The high point of the Toronto Social Media Season.  See you there.

(don’t forget, I’m on at 11:15)