Prepared For Big Events? Podcast Recording Advice For Getting Good Media Live

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found and rewarded in this noisy digital world, you are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works. Today, get ready to Feed. Feed your brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Hey everybody. Welcome to feed you'd brand. I'm Tom Hazard, here with my co host, Tracy. Today we're going to talk about live events. What's a live event, Tracy?

I don't remember, you know, where people go, like actual people. I forget who it was that used to just talk about going belly to belly. I don't want to be that close with anyone. Yeah, I'm not ready for that. But I love to be around people, you know, I'm an extrovert. Surprise, surprise. I mean, to all you people out there, I'm an extrovert, which means that I actually thrive off the energy of the group. Right? Lots of introverts, they get drained from that, but I'm the opposite of that. And so I miss that. You can only get energized so much. Luckily, I have two very energetic daughters who have been helping me out in the last year and a half. Right. But I'm excited for live events and we have had some scheduled and that's been really exciting. But, but all of a sudden I realized like, nothing was packed and nothing was ready and I had to like rethink my whole go to bag, which I used to just have ready to go to do interviews because sometimes I'd get called to go up to LA to do like last minute interviews, attend a celebrity event or something and do interviews there. And you just have to be ready for it. And so, you know, are you prepared for big events? So we're going to give you some podcast recording advice for getting good media lives. So we're going to talk about the recording side of it. We're, we're also going to talk about a little bit of the prep and the things you might want to bring or the things you might want to do ahead of time when you're going to go to an event and record your podcast live or even record just segments or interviews live. So sometimes I'll record segments and interviews and then compile them into an episode later. So, you know, using sound bites and bits and pieces or something to drive off of. So we're going to talk A little bit about that sort of general idea, because we got to get ready. It's totally different world. You know, everything on Zoom and everything that we've been doing, you know, recording remotely is pretty easy. And we've all got that down. And now we're going to do this in a different way again. We got to be prepared for that. So, Tom, what do we usually bring with us?

Well, equipment wise, you need to bring a good microphone. This is sort of one of my pandemic pet peeves has been we see all sorts of people now, even on television programs, being interviewed, part of guest panels, all sorts of things. They're doing it remotely from home, as they should be. And they don't have a good quality microphone. Their audio quality is horrible, and I can't stand listening to it. So, as I said, Tom's pandemic pet peeve. But bring a good microphone, okay? We always recommend having a good microphone.

Like this and like the ATR 2005.

2000 General at 2005 is the one that's a commercial one. And if any of you, you know, got a microphone from us, it's probably that there was a time during the pandemic when mics were out of stock and we had to have some alternates still. An Audio Technica cardioid dynamic microphone. The point is, these microphones are kind of directional. They're meant to really record one or two people in close proximity and not to pick up all the background noise in the room. If you've got an older microphone or even a new one, that's like a yeti or something, that's what's called a condenser microphone. Those tend to pick up way, way too much background noise.

And this is what you don't realize. You test it at home and you think this is going to sound great. And then you end up in a ballroom and with giant ceilings and the hum and buzz of noise, and it sounds terrible. So the more expensive mic, this is what Tom and I have discovered over time. The more really expensive mics you go, the worse the sound is. In a live setting like that, and there's no amount of, like, adjusting the settings on it, it's going to get it right. It's going to take you hours to figure it out. We tried it and it still doesn't get right. It's great in a sound booth. That's what it's supposed to be for. It's just not great at a live event like that. So these directional mics, that's what you Want. That's what we recommend. It's what we use here. You know, I really wish our microphone was done by now, but thanks to.

The pandemic, thanks to the chip shortage.

The chip shortage, right. We're still waiting for it. But you know, our mic was designed because of fails at big events from taking microphones and equipment and having too much together. So keep in mind that you're comfortable with your setup likely of recording to your computer. Right? That's probably where you've been comfortable with for quite some time. So you've got that comfort level of having your microphone and your computer, but you're comfortable with the distance to the mic that you usually do for your own settings. It's a different environment when all of a sudden you're covering two people. Right? So what we want to do is you can hear this, is that we have it set specially because my voice is so much louder and carries so much more than Tom's, we have the microphone set farther distance from me than it is from Tom. And we do that on purpose here because we know the dynamic of our voice. You don't always know that with the person you're going to interview. And so if you're doing the microphone to computer setup, you're using, you know, still a computer cam or even a, you know, a tripod with a camera on it, which is another optional piece of equipment you can do. But you know, no matter what you're doing, you've got to record that somewhere. Right? And you've already got your computer and it works just fine. So, you know, carrying around, getting extra devices, those things are possible and we'll talk about them in a minute. But this is the simple setup. Right, let's go for the simple thing. You've already got this going on, but choosing the distance between your microphone, test it in the space ahead of time and test it with people who talk quietly and people who talk loudly, like me and project. Because you're also going to have this situation where you're not going to be able to tell how it is because of all the sound you're going to be hearing around you. So you're not going to have a good sense of how did that sound come out. So go into the space, go in when it's busy, don't go in before nobody's there and check it out and try it out ahead of time.

Yeah, test, test, test. Can't really say that enough.

There are many ways, you know, to record, like Tracy said, simplest thing, if you can have your computer and use it the way you normally would, then by all means do that. Not everybody wants to carry around a computer to an event. So the next thing is most of us have a computer in our hand with our smartphone.

Oh, imagine that.

And I have an Apple device. So, you know, you have a USB adapter that will plug in to your phone. And if you're not going to broadcast live now, we want to talk about that today. But if you just wanted to record audio, simple voice memo app your phone. And I use an iPhone that has a voice memo app built in. Plug in the microphone with a little adapter you have to get from Apple and it will absolutely record fantastic sound. Your phone will use your USB microphone.

And they make the same thing for Samsung's and for, you know, all kinds of Android devices. There's no issue there. The big thing to do, though, is that cable that Tom was referring to. It's like, you know, it plugs into whatever your port is. Usb, C. I don't know what the Lightning, Lightning, lightning on an iPhone, like whatever that is, you know, that plugs in and the other end is the usb. But buy the one for the Apple devices. Buy the Apple one. We have discovered that the aftermarket ones get glitchy and it will cut. Your microphone might cut in and out and you won't even know that till you listen to the recording later. And in a live event, you only get one shot at the recording, especially if you're interviewing a celebrity. This is a lie. This is why we invented our microphone, because it upset me so much that that went wrong. So you only get one shot of that. And the other thing that I recommend is buying two cables and having them with you, because you may discover that they do go, they do go bad quickly or they get crimped in your bag. Things happen to them. Having an extra one of those cables, they're not that expensive, completely worth having a backup of. Doesn't take a lot of space.

Now, if you're going to go live, though, at an event, which is also not a bad thing to do, and you don't have to record an entire episode live, you could just use a portion of a live recording as a clip in a subsequent podcast episode. A lot of options there. But again, you could go live on Facebook right from your phone with the Facebook app. And again using plugging your microphone into your phone, it's going to use that good quality microphone. Now, if you're, you know, getting both of you in the frame of the camera and you're sort of holding up the camera to get both of you.

Somebody to help you or get a, you know, one of those selfie sticks, right?

But still you're going to want to be close enough to your guests that you can hold a microphone between the two of you and it'll pick you both up, right?

So now here's the thing. Holding a selfie stick, holding a microphone, like hand the microphone to your guest, hold the selfie stick, right? Don't make them hold the camera for sure. Or get somebody else, Bring somebody with you. This is what teenagers are for. Like go drag them to an event with you. Oh, look how cool. You're going to get to meet really great people and you get to be my lackey, right? Like that's what we want. Let's bring them in. And so, you know, this is the way. Because what you're going to find is that there's just an overwhelm of equipment and like you're trying to figure out how might hold my phone, you know, especially if you don't have a set up a table, a space, you're just going to the quietest corner you can find in the ballroom or you know, you're on a red carpet. This is it. And so ladies out there get dresses with pockets, skirts, whatever, pants, whatever it is, get pockets. I'm going to tell you, you always need to drop your phone somewhere, you need to put the recording device somewhere, you need the extra cable, right? All of those things, those are ess.

I'm a big fan of polo shirts with pockets.

Right, right. So you're gonna want those because this is an issue because you know, you want to be in the moment of getting to meet this person, shake their hand, doing a great interview, being attentive to them, not worrying about the equipment that you're holding, carrying and doing it. So simpler is better. And whatever way you can do that, and if you can get help, that's even better. Let them worry about everything. But you know, always double check, make sure the recordings on double check with everyone because this is a huge problem that I've had again and again. Battery backups, making sure you're fully charged, making sure you can charge in between interviews, all of that can go very, very, very wrong. And so that's a critical importance too. So making sure you've got backups for all of those things and or time built into your schedule so that you can recharge, you can charge your devices because you may find that the optimum location to record is nowhere near a plug and you know, and you've got to scope that space out and find that optimum sounding space. So, you know, this is an issue for us, Tom. We've had lots of issues finding the right space to record in sometimes at our events. Let's talk about last year's 2020s Super bowl event.

That space was super challenging, really hard. So we were doing a podcast publicity pop up event, which is what we had been doing, you know, up to that point, which at any event really nurturing and fostering the idea that, hey, there's all sorts of really great people at this event. Let's bring in some podcasters local to the area. Some wanted to travel long distance. That's great. And record a whole bunch of great people. Let everybody get a lot of great interviews recorded in a short period of time.

And it's kind of a little blitz like, because if you're a guest, you can go from one to the next to the next as, as long, especially if they're celebrity or something like that. It's really efficient in the process of it. And their PR people love it. The publicists just absolutely love it because it's really efficient. They said so and so is going to be in for two hours. They can conduct, you know, four interviews in that time period and then they go and give their speech or they give their speech and then they do two hours, whatever it is. If they've got that and you've got them, it's wonderful to be able to connect up and be able to get those kind of one on one interviews. The thing is though, is that they're typically shorter interviews. So keep that in mind. If you Normally do a 30 minute show or 30 minutes minute interview with someone, you're not going to get that. You might get 15 minutes and they will be shorter and some places they're even shorter than that.

So now, in the beginning of 2020, this was a big part of our plan for 2020, and while fortunately we still did very well in 2020 as a company, this part of our plan tanked because events absolutely stopped by mid May.

Right.

And so that's very unfortunate.

Mid March.

Mid March. I'm sorry, I said that wrong. Mid March, they stopped by mid March, so we would have done a whole lot more and we plan to do more going forward. So. But here's an example is that we had really told the event organizers, hey, we're going to be recording a bunch of podcast interviews. We need an appropriate, you know, venue, an appropriate space to record them in with carpet on the floor. And you know, smaller rooms are better than larger rooms. And of course we get there and they say, oh, we have the best place for you. And they take us to it. And it is absolutely the worst environment possible. It was like a room 50 yards long and it had a hardwood floor and all these glass windows, sound reflecting everywhere. We're like zero carpets, zero curtains.

Right. Like nothing, no furniture even in it to like even stop, you know, nothing dampening the sound in it. And then it had these two patios.

Yeah. So we said, you know what, we're going outside with this. We can't do it inside.

The ceilings were lower on the patios Now. Now you have outside sounds, but with the directional mics that we're using, you know, the way those cardio mics record, you just don't get a lot of that sound. And so because they were also sitting lower on, we put them on lounge furniture, the glass and or sort of I would call the barrier that, you know, because it's like view out into the ocean in Miami. And so, you know, the barrier that was there kept all the sound nice and in for what was being recorded. And so, yeah, you could kind of hear a little bit of wind over the top, but it wasn't. And it was certainly something that you could mostly edit out or downplay in the editing because it was pretty consistent sound.

And to the extent that you did hear white noise from the city around us, it kind of made the interview on location real. You know, it wasn't a bad thing.

Right. But it wasn't so loud that it was distracting. So we made it work. Although I have to say that then we had a bug problem and you know, there was lots of other things you just never anticipate of what goes on at live events. Luckily, everybody was so, so gracious and so wonderful. Now the best part about our podcast publicity pop ups, the potatoes ones that we do is that we bring equipment for the podcaster so that all they have to do show up and sit down and we're taking care of the recording for them. And then we're using a higher powered zoom device, which not zoom like the.

Zoom like we're using now. But that's a. Anyway, it's a physical recording device, digital audio recorder and we had separate really good HD video cameras recording video and we would just combine the audio and the video separately. But anyway, you can do things like that if you want to. That what we do at these pop up events, we plan it ahead, we bring in a lot of equipment we bring in lights that we needed. We bring in, you know, tripods and cameras. But you don't have to. You don't always have to do that if you're just wanting to be a little, you know, less formal, a little easier to deal with. I really think the modern cell phone connected to a good quality microphone is a great solution, whether you're recording audio only or recording video.

Now, I've seen some people come with, like, labs hooked to their hook to their iPhone, lavs hooked to zoom devices, the recording devices. And the things are. Is that the lav tend to not work as well as you think, because.

What Tracy's talking about is like, a lapel microphone that's called a lav mic. Those are the little things that you see people use on television and at events. So just in case.

Thank you for defining it.

I'm, like, dropping terms. What's a love?

Yeah, I'm dropping terms. And usually I'm not the one to do that. I'm usually fixing you, and I just drop that. So anyway. Yes. So those microphones tend to not work because sometimes there's not a great place to hook them. People have jewelry. Women have jewelry that interfere, and it can always be risky. I have seen people use them successfully, and I've also seen them go very bad. And so that's a risky one. But they are a lot smaller to carry around, and it seems really appealing. But I have had. If you do not test it ahead of time, you buy the wrong device. You can go very wrong in that you can't get two mics, two separated mics. And so then you end up with one that you're, like, sitting there holding between you, because the two mics don't.

Looks kind of silly. And, you know, I would rather hold a big mic like this that has my brand or, you know, has my show name that if I'm on video, hey, we're promoting our brand the whole time because you're sure not gonna have a green screen behind you, right?

And imagine if you hand that to a celebrity who's now holding your brand in their hand. It's way better than those little mics. And so that's why we prefer this model of it. But the sound on these are so much better. The laughs tend to have, like, rustling and other things that interfere in it. While they're not bad in that they don't pick up all of the environment around them, you do still hear a lot of background noise that are going on from the movement.

So microphones where you're going to record, think that through, what you're going to do with video. Are you going to go live? Are you going to just carry cameras with you? Are you going to have someone carrying camera? Are you just going to use your phone? What are you going to do with that? You know, I still prefer the whole idea of just keeping it simple. And if you can get a table and so if you can work with the organizer to get a space, I like to get a stand up table. That's my preferred. You can get a stool in case everybody's been standing all day so you can get a stool. I'm short, so even if I stood up, someone in a stool still be taller than me. But you know, so you can get stools to kind of pop yourself up there. But it gives me a stand up table, gives me the opportunity to stand up, hold the mic, step back, have my computer on the table, not be talking into the computer, be able to use my normal camera setup or a tripod on the other side of the table with a higher quality camera. And you can still do all of that relatively simply. And it gives you a place to drop things and it just gives you a little bit better setup.

These tables are very common at events. Pretty much every hotel that has an event space has this kind of standing height table, they might call it a bar height table, little round one, and usually has this fabric that stretches over it right to the base so that you don't see the pull or whatever.

And I keep that extra fabric piece, a black one, in my bag at all times. And that way if it's really awful and ugly, I can just throw that cloth over it. And you know, that doesn't take up a lot of space. And so I've got that stashed away in my suitcase. And so those things make it really simple. It's just a little bit easier. And it also creates this sort of separation between other people who might start to come crowd in while you're interviewing. You've got that table between you. And that's really helpful to the recording process, right? To create that intimacy of making sure that there aren't people crowding into you. Because what happens when you're recording with someone and if you don't have like the big amount of equipment, but if you're just recording like audio with it is people get closer to hear you. And now they're really crowding in and it's very distracting. And if they've got a publicist, the publicist is sitting there like you know, tapping their watch on you. That's exactly what happened to me and Gary Vee. We had like two minutes and I was getting taps, you know, so these kinds of things go on at the events too. And so anytime you can create a barrier and a space for yourself that says this is the recording space, then you're going to be better off. And then also you're not moving around the space. You've got this one location. So when you go find someone who you know, because you can also go to the booths or to the other areas and you know where you've got some classes and courses going on, you can go grab someone and bring them back and interview them. You now have a space to bring them back to or to send them and said meet me in that spot at 2:30. And you know that's going to be really helpful to also scheduling your time.

Now Tracy, we talked about when we do these publicity pop up events, we bring in a lot of equipment. We bring in some lights and things too. What do you recommend people do if it's, you know, a little less formal? They're trying to bring minimal equipment but they are going to record video. Should they have a small light? Is there an appropriate small light that would be of any benefit?

So some of the better cameras the, that have a light that can attach to it. And so, you know, remember when we used to have like flashes on top of them?

Yeah.

There are some of these aftermarket lights that you can buy that actually hook to the top of the video camera and then they have that sort of like, you know, that fabric shadow box kind of thing that stretches over it. They have some of those too which can diffuse the light so you're not taking it off and having like a light bulb like shining at you. You have that diffuser on it which helps angle everything. You know, the big lights. That's super simple and it's really pretty small and you can get those very easily on Amazon.

It's small, but still you're talking about using a actual real video camera. But if I'm using my cell phone with a selfie stick and I'm trying to keep my equipment minimal, I might not use a light. Would you agree?

Yeah. And just keep that in mind that your lighting is likely to be bad if you're indoors in a hotel or a ballroom. It has, it will have a yellow cast to it, a yellow green cast to the lighting in there. No matter you do. There's no like amount of cell phone settings. Even the iPhone, which is so Great. With its camera, there's still only so much you can do, you know, to get the coloring right.

Did you compliment the phone?

I did, I did.

Wow. You're a Samsung girl.

I know, I know. I don't love the phone, but they have a great camera on there. But the settings still are not controllable in just in that environment because of the way you're recording and it only works for photos, not as much for video. And that, that's something to keep in mind.

Well, so if you're going to be live streaming, you're going to have to deal with that situation. But I believe any, you know, average video editor can apply a filter to the filter after the fact and do some color correction. And if you have that kind of green cast to the image, that can be corrected after the fact. If you're going to put that out as a part of a video episode on YouTube or use a clip for social promotion.

That's why I'm not a huge fan of live streams, because you're not in control, because the timing slips at events all the time. So if you expected to go live at 1pm like we do here at with your audience and you expected to have a special guest and they're late because the event was running late and they're still on stage, you're out of luck. So we just don't want to do that and we don't want to plan that in. So I'm a fan of like recording these things and then doing that sort of live stream later, you know, by using the different restreams and the different other tools out there to stream it again as a live at that moment. So you can still do it within the same day because you may want the urgency, the excitement of being at the event, but you could just do it a couple hours later and it still gives you the flexibility to it. And if you're skilled, you can apply a filter. If you're not, you can live stream it and replace it later. That's something that we do as well. So, you know, once it's no longer alive, you've lost that sort of luster and excitement of it. You might as well just, you know, remove it from the feed and add in and add the, you know, the recorded one and edited one in later. So that works as well.

You know, I think it's a really good point you made, Tracy. At live events, all time schedules are soft.

They are not anything you really can plan around or depend on. If you do, I think you're going to set yourself up for disappointment.

Yeah, definitely. And then the last thing I kind of want to say to everyone is, like, if you act like a diva about this, about the events and about who you're going to interview and who you're not going to interview, you're going to miss out. So those that go to an event and say, okay, whoever you send my way, I'm going to interview them, you always have the right, because you're recording and not live streaming, you always have the right to not air it if it's not any good. But I have to tell you, some of the people that I thought were the worst fit for my show turn out to be some of the best interviews I've ever had. I mean, I did a whole event on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency and I had no show about that. And I thought, why am I doing this? I was just going to write one article, but I thought, I'll record all this. They could use it. You know, we'll record it all. I had some amazing interviews. You know, I got to interview Woz. I got to interview Steve Wozniak. You know, like, how was I not going to use that? So being flexible and being the go to person there who's willing to take it. So the publicists at an event have this need to make sure that their clients are seen. And the organizers of the event also have, not just for the speakers and the celebrities that are coming, but they also have it for the vendors that are there. And if you're willing to do the interviews and be really flexible about that and just, you know, and even if you can't do it, like, I just can't fit you on my schedule. But I'm going to set a time for us to interview next week. You do things like that, it will come back to you tenfold in an invitation to the next event and the next event and the next event. That is how people started begging us to do podcast publicity pop ups, was that they loved working with me at these events and they wanted me to bring more people like me. And that's how we ended up doing that. And it's worked out so well because we coach those people that show up at the events and sort of say, here's what we're trying to do for you. We're trying to get you these three people guaranteed. We can't guarantee, right? And you're going to have to be flexible about it, but we promise we're going to get you as three people that you're going to fit your show and going to be right for you.

And, Tracy, what's happened to podcasters that did have more of a diva attitude towards this sort of thing of interviewing everybody that's there and actually declined to interview people? What happened to them?

They've never been invited back, number one. Number two, their interviews were not good. The ones that they did, they waited for and did. They were very short because that person was too, too busy. And so they actually didn't get the best interview that they could. And then the flip side of that is that almost all of those ones pod faded. So they ended up having to quit their show because they weren't really in it for their audience and in it for the curiosity of the interview. And that, you know, that's a whole nother thing is like. And we'll probably have to do a separate episode on that because we're running low on time here. But, you know, a whole nother thing is how do you think on your feet to ask questions? It's different in a celebrity and the energy of an environment, you can get a little nervous there. So we'll have to talk about, you know, how I prep and how I think about those interview questions as opposed to how I do it when I'm doing zoom and, you know, or when I'm just doing a more casual podcast interview.

Yeah. Today we're talking more about the technical side, the tactical aspects of being able to conduct interviews. Well, I agree with you, Tracy. We'll have another interview talking about not the tech at all and how we create the best interview, the best recording, the best podcast episodes in these situations.

And so here's the thing, just to recap. The microphone is the most important thing. Right. It goes again and again. You have an audio show. At the end of the day, the podcast audio matters most. Making sure that you've got the best one for the right type of environment that you're going to be in, one that's not going to pick up sound everywhere, because there will be sound everywhere. Even if you think you're in a private space, somebody's going to pop in, somebody's going to walk through, there's going to be issues. So. So microphone matters most. Your camera next, especially if you're going to and think through the live stream versus recording. But the camera matters as the next most important thing. And then the lighting because of that. And we've recorded with incredible cameras. But I can still tell you the ballrooms still have bad lighting. And if you don't have good post production, it's not going to work for you. So you may. The last thing you may want to think is make sure you've got good post production. So if you've been used to just live streaming and airing it with no editing on your audio or on your video, so you may want to have backup for that. You may want to call in someone and say, I really need to just do these episodes. I need post production.

All right, well, I think that about wraps it up for today. Thank you, Tracy. That's great insight. I appreciate some of the things you had to say. You've done a lot more of these live events than me and I'm usually the guy you call in on the tech side to make sure you're hold.

The camera and get me some lunch.

I'm the guy that you yell at when things don't work out the way you want to. All right, well, anyway, so hopefully you all can be prepared and ready for your next in person event to take advantage of that and get some great recordings done while you're there.

So I can't wait to see you all at events coming up. So looking forward to it. Not quite belly to belly, but looking forward to seeing everybody one on one.

All right, thanks for listening everyone. We'll be back next time with another great episode.

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