Episode 370:Live Stream Update With Ross Brand

 Hey, everybody, Rob Cairns. And today I’m here with my good friend Mr. Ross Brand, livestreaming Expert. How are you today?

Ross, I’m good. How are you?

Not bad. It’s good to have you back. It’s been a while. We were just saying before we went to record. We haven’t chatted in a while. I think part of our problem is we’re both busy and we get sidetracked cause we’re both fanatic sports fans. Kind of a little bit so.

Yeah. So I mean, I figure in the pre show we talk about it a little bit of sports and then? Here we are. Once we’ll have our conversation. Uh, you know, on video and on audio. So thanks for for inviting me on. It’s always great to be on with you. I always have a. Great time.

Yeah, it is. And I always enjoy talking to you because I think I’ve told you this over the years. I learned, even though I’ve done it a while, I’ve I’ve learned. I always learned. So it’s always a pleasure, Ross. And thank you for your time. Much appreciate it.

Thank you.

So let’s jump into one thing. The last couple of years you’ve done a book and you’re working on the new one.

Aren’t you? Volume four will be come. Out end of the year, early January.

Yeah. And I would say for anybody in the live stream game, watch for it, it’s always my go to book. It’s it’s interesting. Ross does the book of predictions, whereas people contribute to the book and it’s always a good read. I usually get both the hardcover or the soft cover actually. And the e-book just cause it’s easier to take the ebook on the iPad with me if I want to reference it. But if the soft cover I like to read in bed, so watch for Ross’s new book when it comes out and get it. Because it’s probably the most comprehensive live stream. Book I’ve ever read.

And thank you, Robert. I appreciate that.

I’m not. No, I appreciate. You doing it? It’s one of those things I I watch for and I I I enjoy. So it’s a good Rick. What I want to jump into in live streaming and we’re kind of watching the live stream universe. And the podcast universe and we, you and I have talked about this over the. Years, they’re kind of merging. Yeah, and how important even on a podcast like we’re doing right now is actually doing a video component. Does it matter? Does it not matter? Stats I’m reading right now says video matters, even if it’s two people talking. What’s your thoughts on that?

Well, I I think by doing video number one it it makes you fit in better into what YouTube is all about and whether. YouTube video podcasts are technically podcast based on the is it does it go through a whole independent host, then an RSS feed and all that semantics aside, right, most people who are doing a video talk show interview show like we’re doing right now. Call it these days, a podcast, and many of the people who consume it are consuming it on YouTube. So when I advise people that I work with is just turn your camera on when you’re recording your podcast. You don’t have to live stream it. You don’t have to publish the entire. Yeah, but at least be able to have video clips that you can then share on social, on Instagram on, you know, YouTube shorts. Uh and and that maybe you take a 5 minute clip or three minute clip that answers a specific question. People might be searching for. And you make that into a unique YouTube video. Of course, you can also upload the entire episode and you can classify it as a podcast on YouTube, and it has its own podcast playlist. It’s basically a video playlist that you add a square photo and a square cover in. And you label it a podcast, so why not give yourself those opportunities to be found? Discovery on YouTube and the shelf life of content on YouTube is good. It’s discovery isn’t always great in the podcast apps. So you’re giving yourself another place to be seen to be found and. If I’m watching. As I often do and I’m sure other people do, if I’m watching YouTube for video podcasts and and and video shows on YouTube, most of the time I’m watching what you would call a video podcast. But when I find that come across a podcast that’s audio only. I I go, I’ll save that for later, right? Because I’m. I’m sitting looking at a TV, and so I I don’t want to look at a a static screen or an audiogram. And that’s kind of. Why I I say record that video and put the video with whatever you put up. Like you said, it doesn’t have to be fancy, it can literally be two talking head images. You and your guest or you and your Co host or just you one image. If it’s a solo show, but people like to watch when they’re. When they’re looking at A at a computer monitor or they’re looking at a TV screen, they like to watch and they like to look at people and they like to see how you’re doing what you’re doing. And then of course still release it as an audio podcast, because then people can take it with them offline and you know, they don’t have to be looking at the screen. They don’t have to deal with bandwidth issues and all that. So I think there’s a place for both audio and and video right now. And they’re kind of converging anyway.

Yeah, I. I would. I would.

Agree with you. It’s funny. I, as you know, I used to do this podcast as an audio only and how I got around it on YouTube is I just saw the audio up there and the minute I switched to. Doing the video using Stream Mart, which you’ve used many time and streamer makes it so easy to be fair. Believe it or not, my podcast listens went up by 50% overnight and and it’s that says a lot. I mean it’s not just the audio we all know in the podcast. Base Apple Podcast is probably #1 right? Pretty well no on the Android side. The pocket cast, which is owned by automatic, the same company that owns WordPress, that’s probably.

Right, right.

One of the most used cross-platform apps and then YouTube and it’s interesting what’s going on over at Google because they’ve actually shut down. Google Podcasts are in the process of shutting it down, and I’m not so sure Google knows what they want to do in this space. I mean, they’ve made a mess over. Social apps and past, and I think we might be going down, that you’re laughing at me. But it’s true and.

Yeah. No, no. I’m laughing because it is true, but I do think they know what they want to do. It’s part of this push with video podcasting on YouTube. I think what they want to do is get you to. Listen or watch podcasts on YouTube Music.

Yep, I think that’s the way it’s going and we’re seeing some changes with Spotify and some of their streaming and what they’re doing and a lot of that’s in around analytics. To be fair, I mean, they’re making big changes. We all know Spotify in the podcast space bought anchor a couple of years ago where it says where I released the audio. So all you. Podcasters can say to. Me. Why do you use a free? Podcast host the same reason you all use YouTube folks. It’s where it’s where the community is right? And and it’s what works for you. But I think we have some changes coming now. The other dirty little secret why I like my stuff on YouTube is I think, you know, I’ve had an ongoing issue with Facebook. Right. Anytime I post my business domain on Facebook, it just hates me. And says you violated community standards. Go away. And I’m like, OK, So what I typically do on Facebook and Instagram is I post the YouTube version of the podcast. And that gets around this whole. Mess. There you go.

And do you do you do a blog post for your podcasts?

I do.

And do you are you embedding the YouTube video as well as the OK, so.

I am bad with YouTube video at the top which is the change I’ve made. I used to embed. The audio player but. Now I embed the YouTube video at the top. And then down at the bottom I have all the typical podcast links that you can point to the audio version if you if you want to go.

Right, right. So that’s that’s a great way to do it and now you’re not relying on. Whether or not Facebook wants to send you off platform for anything you can, you can send people directly to that that website that web web page either through an e-mail link or through a link on another plate.

Form no and the other thing I do is I still do show notes and I I’m really bad with them. I have to admit I do AI show notes because we all know the future of this kind of stuff is AI and what’s going on in that space and what I’ll do is I I do what I call soft edit. So there’s a name that’s spelled wrong. Our website is spelt wrong, I’m gonna fix. It but. The other stuff, no, I’m I’m not doing. It it just it goes up.

So you’re basically publishing the transcript but cleaning up the the names. As you should know. So yeah.

And then on the YouTube version, I usually give three or four version three or four quick points on what’s in the podcast. Right. Right. So that’s kind of going. Is there any other sites that are emerging for streaming today that we don’t know about or that are making an?

Impact. Well, I I think I I think rumble is certainly attracting big names. The big names, I think it’s still got a little ways to go on the technical side in terms of being a very easy to use platform I think. If if apps like stream yard decide to integrate so it’s you don’t have to do the RTMP and you don’t have to get a separate key each time, I think you’ll see more people multi streaming to rumble, but it also I think it depends on what your content is and whether you want to be. Part of that ecosystem or not, but I think it’s a promising platform that needs to be recognized as as an option with beyond YouTube for for live streaming and creating a channel. I I think it’s. It’s always interesting what’s really going on with LinkedIn live. Is that still in beta? Do you still have to apply? Are they making any other changes? I I find that that’s still an adventure for me. I don’t love the whole create an event on LinkedIn thing rather than just either. Going live in the moment or just creating a post because. A lot of times the I’m not promoting way in advance like what I’m sending to LinkedIn. The the main place I’m promoting will be the live stream on YouTube and everything else is sort of the simulcast if that makes sense. So by creating this event, I don’t like having this sort of empty thing sitting up there where it’s like. My show and and then maybe I tagged the guest and then there’s nothing else going on there because I’m not going to actively bombard everybody for every single show that I do in order to get people to like and. And click, going and whatever on it. So you have these all these sort of empty event things sitting up there and it it look could look to the average person like ohh he holds events and nobody comes so so that is an impediment to me to doing scheduled live streams. On on LinkedIn and it doesn’t always connect. There’s still issues and I I wish I knew what their their road map is and maybe it’s out there, but I’m sort of confused because in 99 it was. Is in beta and it was apply only and I don’t know where it is. It is right now.

I I don’t know either, and one of my biggest frustrations with things in life is I can’t live stream to a group and that just drives me my so I, as many people know, I think you know I Co manage.

Right, right.

One of the biggest. Had one of the things you and I talked about several months ago was us having issues live trying to get a live stream feed into that group director and we you just can’t do it and they still haven’t fixed that. And I mean I get they don’t want everybody doing it, but if you’re Co managing a group of 10,000 people and what’s even worse. It’s a group I can’t manage. Is a LinkedIn sanctioned group. LinkedIn set the group. Up and they still get through it.

Right, right. Yeah.

So that. That just strikes me insane. It’s like, come on, guys, you.

Know another platform we should mention is kick.

Ah yes.

Which which is a I I guess they call it a gamers platform. I don’t think there’s a lot of talk content on there. There is some how to you know with grab people doing graphic design or video production and things like that. But for the most part it’s a gaming platform, so. It’s worth noting because gaming live gaming is live streaming. But I don’t think that it’s a place right now that if you’re a business owner or an entrepreneur or creator of, you know, talk type content that it’s necessarily a platform you need to be focused on at the moment. But it’s certainly one with potential. And a lot of times what the gamers do first can turn into something that the rest of the live streaming world can take advantage of or learn from or integrate into their own platforms, or sign up and become a part of.

I’m I mean the. Biggest gaming platform out there for streaming is probably Twitch right now. I would think right. Still like I think it’s like.

Yeah, and a. Lot of the gamers and Twitch people who who do, who are part of that, whose primary audience or one of their primary audiences, is on Twitch. We’ll do talk. Content but it it’s more of the sort of just chatting. They’re hanging out for hours. And again there was a push to get pod video, podcasts, podcasts on Twitch. But I don’t know. How well the average weekly show or you know short, shorter form Daily Show would do versus being a gaming personality or gaming channel and then adding some fun talk with it and. And so like I say I, I’m focused more on YouTube right now. And then I I multi stream to X slash Twitter and the other day I tried actually uploading an edited version of a full video showed. Did uh there as well and that could be an answer for YouTube too. Again, live stream to I mean for LinkedIn live stream to YouTube. Maybe cut it up into segments and upload to LinkedIn as as well, not everything has to be live or streamed as though we’re live sometimes. The upload may be. The way of distributing to certain platforms that will get you better results.

Yeah. So true in 2023, do we have to do more short form content? Do we gotta keep doing long form content? Do we gotta do a mixture of both? What? What’s your gut feeling?

So this is a highly contentious debated issue because.

I know.

Yeah, exactly. That’s why you asked the question, because I would say at the beginning of 2023 and particularly during 2021 and 2022. The thinking was you have to do YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, tick Tocks, Facebook reels, some combination of those uh platforms in order to grow your business or your YouTube channel or whatever it is your your goals are online to get people to watch your show or listen to your podcast. I think what we’re finding is. People are are binging on shorts and reels and things like that, and they’re enjoying that content for what it is. The question is, does it really drive a much traffic to long form or when you’re when a person’s in a short their real mindset? They’re basically a mindset of hit me with three seconds of something funny, and I’ll Click to or I’ll Click to the next one and I I just like YouTube stopped linking from your short form. Your your short form vertical your YouTube. Parts to your full length of videos. Now that may change. They may come up with another system to connect the two, but so the answer is it depends I guess. Does it work for you or does it? Not, I do think if you’re a live stream or a podcaster, you can’t rely on everybody going to the. Episode and watching or listening to the actual episode. If you have a presence on different social media platforms, you should be putting up content that represents that’s related to your show. That is part of your shows, branding and. And to capture attention that you’re doing something of significance in your industry for people who may never go and watch the show. So whether that’s a vertical 32nd video or it’s a 5 minute clip or it’s a 45 second clip or it’s a screen shot or it’s a summary. Or it’s a carousel of images from your show or carousel of images that represent what you talked about in a summer. I think you have to put up some content that either promotes or recaps or highlights or gets attention. And and be willing to live with the fact that people will watch that. Look at that, listen to that content and that may be where their idea of your show comes from, whether or not they actually click through to go see your show. So I think we need to put. Vertical back in that shorts and such back in that toolkit with all the other ways we would promote something rather than saying this is what? You must do. And then let it come down to how do those perform compared to other things? Am I good at making them? Do I enjoy making them? Do I have the time to make them? What’s more important is making sure you have some content if you’re trying to promote and grow your live stream audience having some content. And that content again also works on the branding so.

Yeah, I I would agree. With that, and it’s funny you. There’s a word you highlight. I want to kind of pull it out and say make the time to do and what most people forget is and you and I know this because we’ve been booked, been doing this well is it’s easy to set up a live stream and say, OK, I want to go live. I’m gonna go to Facebook. I’m gonna go to Twitter.

Right.

You streamer to be done, but the problem is you and I never just do that. We actually produce it and package it. So I know like even with this podcast I had a I had a header. I’ll do I’ll do an intro for my guest which is a quick 32nd, but it’s still gonna be added. I’ll add I’ll add a footer. I’ll add a I have a professional intro I add to the front end. I’ll add stuff and by the time I’m done and that’s doing a soft edit on transcripts, I’m three to four hours every episode. I do, no matter how I slice and dice it. So the point of making is that time factor. Is a big deal because you can decide and I do mind most of it myself. So you know, I like to do it, but it’s still it’s time consuming and people. It’s not just about going live and just doing. It right, Russ?

I mean, it’s time or money or both, right? Either you’re doing it yourself, which is time. You’re paying somebody else to do it for you, which is money and still involve some time because you want to guide how it turns out, and they may not be expert at all aspects of it, even if they’re helping you with one or more aspects of it. I mean the the other. The other thing you can do is you can say, you know growing an audience or branding my show on other platforms or taking advantage of the fact that I have this content content out there to brand myself on other platforms isn’t the. Priority. I’m going to go live. I’m going to enjoy the conversations I have with my guests. I’m going to enjoy the interactivity with my audience. I’m going to enjoy creating content. And an hour show is an hour of content and basically maybe I’ll optimize it a little bit on YouTube or wherever I stream to. Maybe I’ll share it in a weekly e-mail, but I’m not touching it after that and guess what? I’m not. Looking to grow a huge audience. What I’m looking to do is have some good content out there, build relationships with my existing audience, build relationships with the guests and. And you know, it’s sort of like your online portfolio. Let it rank to the extent that it ranks in search and when somebody’s looking, tell me what you think of live streaming, Robert or whatever. Hey, let me send you a link to this episode that I did of my my show with Ross. So let me send you this. This linked to an episode that I did about podcasting with this other person or. I think you you you have to decide after doing all these things for a while. Why are you doing it and is it paying? What are the results? Am I getting any better results for my business for my brand for growing if I do all these extra things? Or not. Now I assume much like myself. You probably do these things at least in part because you feel like it’s doing the job. It’s part of what doing a show. Fires I you care about your legacy at the end of the day. You wanna have? A list of however many episodes you’ve done and you want people to go there and find something that gives them the complete package. It’s like releasing an album without an album cover back in the. When people did records, you know the the album cover the sleeve, the liner notes, it’s all part of. It’s all part of the packaging and so this is all part of the packaging, but it doesn’t have to be and you have to decide how much you want to do, how much you can afford to do, how much time you have and is it giving you any results. And I think there’s nothing wrong with going back to the days when live stream started where you know people would just hop on and go live. And do what they do and not necessarily have to catalog and characterize and compile everything that they had done.

Now I I wholeheartedly agree with you on that one. Yeah, it’s so true. And it’s funny because by the time this airs. Believe it or not, this will be in the lower 370 range, so. You know I’ve. Yeah, I looked at that the other day. I started. I think I’ve told the story, but I’ll tell it again. I started podcasting live streaming. I started before I started podcasting because I was doing events and you and I have talked about how we used to do. BMX events off a webcam and stuff, and then I started podcasting because. Industry and do and if you had asked me 4 1/2 years ago or five years ago if I ever thought I was. Gonna go over. 300 episodes, I would have said you’re crazy. I never and and it’s just growing and and and a lot of it’s about the legacy. A lot of it’s about helping people in the community. I mean, I think you and I both like to help people by. Nature like that’s part.

Right.

Of it and and and a lot of it is to generate. Like crispy lying and I don’t do ads like I I do an ad in the podcast, but it’s a self profess that right? So I I have, I have no friends. I’ve had people.

Right.

Creative control I want and that’s one reason why I don’t play that game. But the other thing is I think, and I agree with you, I think there’s still good market for people jumping on and saying, you know, let’s just go live, but also think consistency matters. So if you’re going to do that, do it every week, do it every two weeks, do it. Just be consistent. I think that’s just as important, right, Russ?

Well, I I think, yeah. And I think what happens is when you have 300 something episodes and you’ve done show notes and you’ve done a graphic and you’ve done. A blog post for everyone. It’s awfully hard to take something away and pull back. Maybe you can find ways to do it quicker. I know some people will drop the blog post or they’ll just post it with the video and a sentence or two, but it gets hard once you’ve established the standard. And it’s also your brand, so it’s like. Maybe the only episode somebody ever goes to see is Episode 274, right? So when they go see 274, you want them to see the same package as if they want to see episode one or episode 300 something you want them to see you your brand is, hey, I’m a professional. Here’s my show. I’ve got a player.

I don’t.

In there I’ve got an in bed. I’ve got some links. I’ve got a a post of some sort. It’s it visually. It looks good, so I think we end up doing some of this for ourselves and for. Or not losing out on an opportunity because somebody found something that was less than the level of the bar of professionalism that we’ve set for ourselves. Consistency is important for two reasons. One, if you’re getting started or trying to grow, you know, being able to say my shows. Name is this. I’m on this day at this time. Come back and continue drilling that in and in and then again and again again is is eventually going to get some people to make it a destination and come back to watch you. The the other thing is without some sort of consistency whether. Consistency of when you go live or I release my episodes On this date or whatever it is. I I think what happens is it becomes easy to let a week go and when when you see if you let a week go and it wasn’t the end of the world, two weeks go and three weeks go and next thing you know.

Right, Joe?

You’re you’re. Yeah. Yeah. You’re you’re not getting it done anymore. And so consistency has that fact too. Is is. It’s often easier to wake up and go. This is record day or this is live day rather than it is to go. I could do this ending day. Why am I doing it today?

And I think the whole key to if you’re gonna record is I know a couple people turn the light streams over pretty quick. And I think, you know, I turn mine over a couple weeks after and I do that on purpose because I like to batch record and. I like to batch head. And I think that makes my life easier. So I’ll actually sit down on a Saturday where I’ve got nothing going on and I’ll edit for podcasts, but then I’m at it at for a month.

That, I mean, that’s a great workflow. I I I’ve heard other people talk about that. They have a record day. They literally may set up 3-4 or five interviews or 345 recording sessions in one day and then they’re done for the month. I’ve never gotten to doing that part of it is. The show that I’m doing most consistently right now is a panel show in which we discuss topics that are. Trending that are in the news and and what have you. The more Evergreen your show is, the more Evergreen your topics are, the more leeway you have to wait. And so if I’m doing a show that’s sort of news based, then it’s it’s very hard for me to batch record because you you sort of even when.

I I love.

And when you’re live streaming, even the the day that something happened, like, let’s say we go live every Thursday, we go live every Thursday, 1:30 PM Eastern, right? If if something happens on Friday. It’s not as interesting a story unless it’s a huge story necessarily. For the following Thursday. Then, if it’s something similar, newsworthy level happens on a Wednesday or a Thursday morning time recency is a factor in what’s.

OK.

Newsworthy. And what’s of interest to an audience? So if you’re doing a weekly show even within the week, there’s consideration of what topic you do and so forth. If you’re doing Evergreen topics, then by all means. Batch make it easy for yourself, particularly if you’re not going live, and then also if you record there is the option on YouTube where you could set a specific time and every week you upload and schedule it to premiere at that time and then take advantage of the live chat features. Without having to deliver a brand new episode from scratch at that time, so you can get your community to gather around your premiere and create that live experience in the chat without actually having to. Go through all the things that it takes to go live in the middle of. A working day.

One that one of The Dirty little secrets. I’ll share that I do is I never mention the episode number in the show. I never mention the episode number. Any intro, and you might say ohh that’s bad rob, there’s a reason for it. If I have something newsworthy and I decide I don’t do it very often, but I decide I need to preempt something. I just changed the episode number on the on the file name and the uploads and everything else and I don’t have to go re edit my show. I’m done, I just drop it in and away I go.

Yeah, that’s been something that I’ve had to learn along the way, not so much because I’m batching, but because there’s things in the past that I may have live streamed or recorded. That I either didn’t make into a podcast or I forgot to make into a podcast, or occasionally there’s something you have to pull out of your feed and I don’t have to go back and remember all that stuff. I mean, you you have that experience in the 80s or 90s of episodes and it’s a nightmare. You certainly once you get into 3 digit. It’s it’s easier just to add the number to your podcast hosts notes or whatever, because then you could always go in and change that number if you needed to. But I mean I I’ve even miscounted. And you?

So so.

Know you could. Do all sorts of things you know you can intend to. Say have a multi interview episode and then you go you know each one would be better as its own podcast or go back and have to break something out of it. So I. And the the ability to go back and back date and do things changes all that. If I come across an episode from 2016, I don’t want that to be at the top of my feed. I want it to be in my feed for. Whom the one person who might one day look for it. But I do not want that to have a date. Of 2023 I like to date my stuff even after I publish an episode. I’ll make sure that the date. Like I I will put the actual date and time as the time that it was live streamed. If it’s a recording of a live stream. So I I haven’t done that for every episode. Going back all the way, but I’ve done it for a lot of them and I I really enjoy having that that information.

OK.

You know, I could add it to the show notes, but I just like having that, you know, this was done in chronologic, you know, reverse chronological order, like a resume or, you know.

Get that? Yeah.

An IMDb site or something like that.

With that, so we’ve talked a lot about mechanics in live streaming, podcasting that what’s changed in the hardware side in the last year. Any big microphone changes or any big? DAC box changes or anything like that? Or is it basically status quo?

I mean I I think the the computers are having have better webcams than they used to. The laptops and computers. So if you’re starting out and you don’t have a webcam or you’re thinking. I want to get my feet wet and then get a DSLR. You you’re not in under so much urgency to go out and get yourself a webcam right away. You know, an external webcam. Ma’am, so that you have passable level video, I I also think that there’s a lot of audio options that are changing certainly. Road wasn’t the first to introduce this, but they definitely kind of popularized and made it a thing in the. In the creation space where you have these microphones that you know are wireless, mobile, you you attach them one to your camera or one to your interface and one to your yourself and and essentially you can record wirelessly. And in many situations and get high quality audio, so I think. The idea that to get studio sound now you have to have a studio microphone is moving more and more away from that, and I think we’re going to find that that there’s solutions coming along that you know you’re going to put a little something a little box in the middle of the table and.

I agree.

It it it, it’ll pick up everybody from different directions and it’ll probably align the audio, you know to level it and process it while you’re talking and and so this whole microphone headphone look may not be necessary, particularly when when things are recorded. In person, but for now I I I still say stay with the basics, have a decent enough camera that you know some lighting so that it looks good and then you know whatever money you have left over, really you put it into audio because you can get further on a small spend with audio than you can on on video and audio. Still the most important part. Of your live stream from a technical sense, because we’re doing talking head for the most part. And so it’s what we have to say. Where the value is more than the visual, not the visual doesn’t matter, but it it’s still an audio medium live streaming. It’s a talk show. It’s a conversation the videos, the the scroll stopper, but the audio is what keeps people listening and coming back and watching and so forth.

You know, I would agree. With it, it’s funny you mentioned Rd. with the wireless mics and I have a set by the way, they’re they’re phenomenal and that’s, you know, a good word for it. But really, when I think back, I think Sennheiser was doing it before Rhodes. Sennheiser used to have a stick mic and one of the things that you could buy was a wireless kit. We could take that MIC and and throw it. We used to do it even with BMX stuff like 1518 years ago, we’d throw the Sennheiser on the other side and then throw the wireless receiver into a MacBook and then you were getting wireless right out of the Sennheiser mic and they.

Right, right.

Even had a. Yeah, a little dongle that you could plug into an. Audio board so. And the advantage of that was you could get. Sound right from the board and that to me was a game changer back then.

And you could live stream with that then, right?

Of course, yeah, you just.

Really it’s pro quality audio at at that point. Can you live stream with the road with the road mics?

I have not tried it yet.

Yeah. So, yeah, I’m. I’m not that familiar with them other than to see that they’re just ubiquitous. They’re everywhere.

I just got home. Yeah, I just got them loads an Australian company and they’re a bit of an innovator. I mean they they make amazing mics even I don’t use one on my desk. But for smartphones and recording video, they make amazing mikes for that. And I I wouldn’t even hesitate to to recommend them. And they’re in all price ranges and I think their cheapest one starts at about 80 or $90.00. Canadian. And then depending on what you want, they go up like exponentially, you know.

You know the other thing.

When you went up.

Yeah, I’m just gonna say the other thing that’s changing, I think is there are now more and more consumer priced audio interfaces that have more than enough gain to power the sure SM 7B or other gain hungry dynamic mics. And so the need for. Something that adds clean game to it to boost it isn’t necessary anymore. The company that focused right they they came out with the vote caster, which is relatively affordable. Audio interface that’s geared towards podcasters and streamers and has more than enough gain. The power of Mike like this and now you’re seeing a lot of other. There are other companies and more affordable, affordable solutions, not more affordable than necessarily the vote caster, but more affordable than like the road Caster 2 or the mix 3 three or something like that. You don’t have to have a cloud lifter or other type of. Preamp boost there in order to use gain hungry dynamic mic and that means that when you use a mic like this it’s both more affordable. There’s less on your desk. Up and you benefit from these low output mics ability to reject noise so you don’t even know if I’m typing on my keyboard or if my fans on or or something like that because it it it rejects noise from right in front of the microphone if I even move back a little bit. You can tell that how much quieter it gets, let alone going going off, you know, going off access altogether.

And for those and. For those who don’t know, like I use a, I use a mic that’s XLR to the mixer, and then the the mixer is also a digital interface into the laptop. Where I think a lot of streamers sell themselves short is they don’t get laptops with enough memory in them, and I think that or or they go to an older laptop that doesn’t have an SSD, a solid-state drive in it. I think those are the two biggies. So I I know you’re a Mac. Right. If I recall right.

Yeah, I’m using a I’m using the base level Mac mini.

And then.

I had always used laptops. I’d always, you know, use the MacBook Pro with a larger screen and. This is I. I went for a budget solution that’s really quite powerful and this only has 8 gigs of RAM but and if I had it to do again I would have done the upgrade to 16. But even with eight gigs of RAM on the new you know M1M2 chips it’s it’s. Your ram goes a long way. I guess you could say in a non-technical way to put it.

I’ve gone to a Windows laptop that’s believe it or not, got 32 gigs of RAM and it’s not for the streaming side, it’s for the editing side. I mean editing. The RAM makes a big difference, especially when you start to use stuff like Davinci Resolve and I I am such the da Vinci fan I switched to da Vinci. Ohh probably four or five years ago for video editing and what most people don’t know is it’s free for the base version. And they give you in the free version. I sat down at a conference with the gentleman who did. Sports fork. Here’s our sports tie again, Ross and. We did sports work for sports net and we got talking about da Vinci and he and I said to him, do I do I spend the 500 bucks and buy the Pro cause I would have. And he said don’t do it. He told me not the the pro told me. He said 99% of what you’re going to use. He’s in that free version. So yes.

What did you use before da Vinci?

Now I’m on the PC side Adobe premiere or Coral Visual Studio, depending on whether.

So I’ve been using I I’ve been using screen flow a lot and I’ve had a lot of good results with it, but I I wanted to try Davinci Resolve and I just felt lost when I downloaded it. I just felt like wow, I might never get this. I even even Final Cut Pro and I’ve used I movie.

I just.

Before I got screen flow, I I did a trial of Final Cut Pro and even that I felt I wasn’t there yet. I needed I needed time. Although everybody says it’s easy and I certainly could at least.

Get lost.

Do a finished product on it, but I I have to figure out if I move to the next level in in video editing, what’s the one that I’m going to pick that that’s most comfortable with? The the thing about the Adobe, although I’ve heard, you know, people swear by premier and and whatever it’s expensive. I mean, it’s a recurring fee and it mounts up over time and the amounts and intensity of video editing. What I do probably isn’t. It makes that unnecessary, right? So.

I actually got out of Adobe for everything. So on the photo side I use affinity photo for a long time and for video I’m out so I am 100% out of the Adobe ecosystem. It’s getting interesting because two things I want to mention is we both you and I have talked about stream yard and you’re a stream nerd lover. I’m a stream nerd lover with stream art does save as us putting in all those RTP keys in I I think you and I have talked in past about how I used to use OBSO. Then that that’s like RTP set up city and streamer just kind of makes all the connections to the point that somebody non-technical can set it up. And then what I see coming is the impact of AI. It’s really hard to have this conversation without mentioning AI in it. Does that scare you? Do you like it? Do you hate it or are you? Kind of indifferent.

All the above, the idea that I could have a much better transcript or captions running along for people who can’t turn their volume on or you know, need assistance. That’s wonderful. And if that continues to get better, that’s.

OK.

It’s a form of AI. And that that would be wonderful ways to edit faster. The ability to edit text and get auto transcripts. Again, it’s all helpful to people. I still find that doing less editing or dropping it into screen flow, making a couple of cuts. And running it through and boasting it is still faster for me than getting into the weeds of cleaning up a transcript and then doing text editing. But when I do need to go through and do a lot of editing, I do find that that that a valuable thing to. Have so the question is really the threat the and possibilities are. When does an AI bot version of one of us? Do the show. When do we say when do we say for this week’s podcast? I want to talk. I want my bot to talk about you.

It’s not.

Know please talk about the advantages of uploading a video versus live streaming to YouTube. And the bot just you know, goes the ChatGPT and ask that question, gets a list of talking points Pro and con and looks like me sounds like me. It’s got my voice and now knows how to even my intonations. And and and now knows how to deliver that 25 minute talk. As a fully formed podcast or live stream video or YouTube uploaded video looking sounding exactly like I would sound doing it using the actual content from a chat CPT search and and then. Eventually I I don’t know how far afield this is, but eventually it’s gonna be able to characterize our experiences and things. So the the biggest problem with it right now is it’s very general. A lot of times the output that. You get, but eventually it’s going to learn from listening to my stories on shows like this, specifics of how I’ve integrated. Different types of video or made different types of content, and then it’s got those specifics to pull on. So at some point, I don’t know if we’ll be able to. Tell the difference.

Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s a scary, but an interesting time to say the least. I don’t think it’s gonna. Eliminate people like you and I doing live streaming and podcasts. Because AI is very. To the point, it’s like if you ask for a, it gives you a. If you ask for B, it gives you B, and I think we still need people to think and formulate answers as we go. So I I don’t think it will go that way, but I think it’s a tool. And it’s all about how you use the tool versus it taking over the world, so to speak.

You’re right. I think that the the the person who comes on and and sort of delivers the talking points, the predictable answers, the answer that they have given for 5-10 years on every podcast they’ve been on, that person can be more easily replaced. But the, you know and and and you could say. Perhaps I give very long answers sometimes because I’m, but I’m genuinely thinking about your question in the moment rather. Then you know, regurgitating a script and so that is the difference is, I’m giving you, you’re getting answers from me. You may not have heard before because I’m think taking every question and processing it through. Where are we now? What are my more recent experiences? What did I read recently? You know, there’s a whole lot of stuff going on under the surface. This it’s not looking at a database from 2002 and beyond and going what can I pull that answers this question?

I think of some of the text conversations you and I have and I’ll throw something at you and you know I read this, what do you? Right. And you do the same in the web dev realm and it’s interesting because trends have changed from five years ago. They’ve trained from six months ago from three months ago. It’s just.

Right.

Right Solutely incredible that we can do what we do and build studios in our house and do this. Stuff and we’re not in an expense. Of location many of us, and we’re all you know. And then and and I look at the stuff coming out and it’s just absolutely amazing. So Ross as always thank you for your time. What I would do is encourage anybody to go for Ross on their Amazon. So when this book comes out, you know, because I guarantee you. It will be a good read and. I, as I say, I get mine on paperback in the Kindle. Cause kindle. I can search. So if I’m up with the client and I think, ohh I should mention. That I do. Which book is that? Is that the last one?

This is the second book I know. I don’t have the third one in front of me, but I figured since you’re mentioning it, I’ll hold it up so people can see the cover.

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. And and I always say to us, it’s one of the treats in my early year, I get to read it. It’s always an easy read. He uses usually 100 experts to help collaborate and give him some info. What I tell you is if you get one of Ross’s books, follow all those people on YouTube. In that book? No, I’m serious. I’m.

No, definitely.

ISure, livestreaminguniverse.com livestreamuniverse.com still on Twitter ex. And you can also tweet at me or send me a message. Eye raw spread, so I like iPod or whatever I and then Ross Brand so that that’s my Twitter.

Thank you. Thanks so much. Ross, you have an amazing day, my friend, and be well.

Thank you. Thanks so much. This was a. Lot of fun.