Graham Brown: Welcome to The Age of Audio, my name’s Graham Brown from the award-winning podcast agency Pikkal & Co. The Age of Audio is a series of conversations with thought leaders and changemakers in the world of audio. Podcasts, Radio and Social Audio converging with big data to create engaging and authentic content for a new generation of listeners.
You're a drummer, musician, jazz. What's your background? How did you get your start in audio?
Michael: Yeah, like you said, as a musician, I started really, really early in elementary school with drums. I took drum lessons in music school. After that, I started my own bands. Like we did start with rock and punk rock bands in high school. And after that I really was like, "Yeah, I want to do this as a job, get into music and audio sound." And so music was the first thing. So I started chest drums after I prepared a lot for that, because it's not so easy to get into universities. Space is limited. And so you have to prepare yourself really good. I did that. I studied that for a few years. And since that I’m making my living or a little bit of it as a musician and always recording my own bands. And so I started with this whole sound process and audio recording, and then I said, “Yeah, it would be nice. I'm interested in this and I want to do something.” So I started with sound design. Started that at university and here I am now doing both of that.
Graham Brown: That's great, [inaudible]. What does a sound designer hear that most people don't?
Michael: All sounds. I think it's all stuff that is going on. So really focusing on [inaudible] If you're watching a film, now this whole sound design, it's just happening, including with music, everybody is really focused on that. And they already know how this sound world is created with these films. It's like a normal thing now, but it's a lot of work behind it and in like films or it's also for audio only stuff. It's really like you have to do a lot more than it sounds like in the real world because you have to just over do everything so that it sounds appropriate, that really people get the whole story of that. And like for a sound designer it’s really focused on the layers and every detail. So that you get this whole sound package.
Graham Brown: Have you ever worked on a project where you've done something very, very small, but spent weeks and weeks and months just getting it right. And that just shows you really are a sound designer. Here's an example of that.
Michael: That's true. Maybe not months, maybe being for a film here. But if you take a small video for social media, like we are doing a lot now in our studio, if you focus just on one sound, you can go for weeks and layer stuff and try every effect you have or try everything your DAW has for you. But I think it's also important to give yourself a limit that you don't overdo it because if it's just in a project and they have to finish it, then it has to be done also in time.
Graham Brown: You'll never be satisfied. I was seeing a lot of people getting into podcasting now and the great thing about podcasting is anybody can do it. You don't need to be qualified. You don't need a lot of equipment either to get into it. You can obviously get started very cheap. Doing cheap and obviously doing good aren't necessarily the same things, but we're seeing a lot of podcasts. We listen to podcasts where the audio is pretty poor. That seems to be the case. I don't think a lot of people really know what good audio sounds and this is the issue, isn't it? It's a 1998 website. People don't know what websites can be until you show it to them. And it's the same with audio. Isn't it? If you think about what a lot of podcasts have done, maybe they're using a phone, maybe using earbuds, maybe laptop speakers. And when you see that set up, given limited budgets, if somebody was doing it themselves, what are the easy wins to get that sound up to a minimum level without hiring a sound designer? What would you do? What are the quick fixes?
Michael: Quick fixes are if you're thinking of a microphone, there are a lot of or are coming more and more USB microphones that are working really well. So I think that's a good start, just not using your laptop, a microphone or your buds. So I think this is a really easy set up. You just plug in and it's working. You use headphones, it's good for the start. And then you have a room that is not too bad and not too much reverb. I think that's a good, really good start. But yeah, like I said, it can go really beyond that. If you're just thinking of, like you said, these old websites, but since when radio is at this quality level, we have it now. And I think you can also learn a lot from radio because of the quality. They have studios and everything, but this broadcast voice, this is really, I'm always going for that.
Graham Brown: Why is that important?
Michael: You understand everywhere. Do you have your speaker listening really close to you? Not too much reverb or like no reverb. So your ears don't get tired that easily when you're listening a lot. So I think this is really important for me.
Graham Brown: Yeah. You look at the production of radio and for example, let's take - how it's done as a host and listen to his voice as a radio host. That runs for multiple processes. He's got a great radio voice, which has actually changed over the years. That's trained and now it's processed, but there's a reason for that. Isn't there? That is deep. It's got a feeling, and like you say, I like the idea about ears being tired because listening is a very active process, isn't it? You have to listen. And you think about reverbs that exist everywhere in real life. The reason we don't hear it; "hear it" is because we filter it, our brains actively reducing it. But when you put it on a recording, it doesn't know how to filter it as well. So it has to work harder to process this information effectively. And so it's not as engaging. It takes work and it feels distant and cold as opposed to like really close to your ear.
Michael: Totally. That's it. I think that's really it because you don't get a lot of stuff going around and can really focus on the voice. And like you said, it's like when you really have this professional voice, when you're talking like that, it's trained and that serves a really big part, I think, for speaking. But for podcast recording, I think it's not necessary that everybody has that because it's this authenticity that it's really you, when you're speaking you don’t have to be trained all the way. But I don't know. It sounds to me, I'm always really happy when I hear somebody speak that is really trained, they know how to do it.
Graham Brown: Is there a science behind it? I hear audio engineers talking about not just voice, but sound like a warm sound. What exactly do they mean when they say a warm sound?
Michael: Yeah, it's a good question. If you have a deeper voice, then it's even better. If you're going closer to the microphone and then you have this deeper sound. I don't know what's the secret behind it, but…
Graham Brown: Interesting. I'd like somebody to define it scientifically. What is a warm sound? Because you hear that in music don't you? People talk about warm sounds. It must scientifically have certain wavelengths.
Michael: Totally true. Yeah. And I think it's not something that you can just do with, after recording with each layer. So you have to really, if you think of an old guitar amp or so. This vintage sound, you cannot do that exactly just by queuing or any stuff. So you really need the instrument to record with that. So it's the same with voice. If the recording results, when you first start to record. So podcasting, it's the voice, if that is good, then it's a really good start. So we don't have to probably process that much, queue it much. Just do a little bit. And then it's fine.
Graham Brown: You talked about radio and if you think about the production in radio, who do you think as a benchmark, produces great radio in terms of not just content, but the actual quality of the sound, the style. Who inspires you in that space that you think we can learn from in the world of podcasting?.
Michael: I think every country probably has their radio stations. They've been in business a long time and really doing great stuff. Here in Austria, it's called Österreich. So Austria one and they are doing a lot of music shows with classical music, but also going into jazz and experimental music. So they really have a large program and they are also doing these audio dramas and audio books themselves. They have a studio in Vienna and also a recording room, with everything you can imagine, just need for an audio drama to record this full sound. So these sounds produced after it's like also like you're using in film. You're doing the sound design in real life with real life objects that it sounds like something that is happening in film or on the radio. You don't see it, but like steps going on or a telephone, or it doesn't matter, and they really have this. They are doing really nice stuff. And I didn't know that for just, I found out a few years ago that they are also broadcasting in 5.1, which is like surround sound and they have a lot of that in their program because they were specialized in that too. And so I really liked it because not everybody knows that everybody consumes it like this, but they really take the effort and produce it like that. So that is nice. And I don't know, like also there is a lot of BBC stuff. They're really doing, it's really high quality and great shows and also experimenting with, like I said before, Austria one with 5.1, but BBC does it with 3D sound design. So like [inaudible] stuff or other format so that you're like can listen in on the headphones since you're like in the sound scene. So this is something I really like
Graham Brown: Real audio geek stuff. Love it. I was listening to some of that BBC stuff recently and you can go to BBC sound, for example, it has some great docu series. And they were doing, there was one that was about 40 minutes on Chernobyl in Russia, you know, you can react to a documentary about that was really interesting. It was done as an NPR style, you would take like 20 or more audio sources and you would mix them up and you would have interviews, voiceovers. It was interesting that they were inside the reactor or in a similar kind of scene. But when I listen to that, I'm wondering, they're talking to people, are they recreating those sounds? Because there's a sound of a siren and footsteps. And I wonder if that would be too hard to capture live. What do you think? Do you think people actually recreate those sounds like later on? How does that actually work? Because I'm thinking, not that it's a problem. It's just curious, like how much work goes into it. You don't even notice, right?
Michael: That's totally true. I think like in all the dramas, it's mostly produced afterwards. So if I'm switching back to film again, because somebody can probably imagine that I can record the scene, catch it on camera and also record audio on that. But most of the time, it's not that big a sound, like you said, if we are recording outside it's wind or doesn't matter what, you don't get these footsteps that good on your microphones. So you have to recreate it. And I think with audio drama, it's the same. So a lot of stuff is done afterwards. So really creating this whole sound scene with every sound you need. And is it the footsteps or a siren that is far away or even close to you. It doesn't matter. So yeah, I think it's a lot of effort going into that.
Graham Brown: It's believability though, right? That's the point, right.
Michael: Yeah. Good point. Is that a good sound? You don't hear good sound design. It's if you just listened to that, like you told this story then it's just, you're in the scene. You don't think your [inaudible] So you just get the whole package. So you're just not focusing on the real sound design but just the sounds [inaudible]. So I think that's a really good sound design if don't recognize it.
Graham Brown: But if it wasn't there, you would recognize it. If it was silent, it would feel strange. In fact, it is more important than video because you can listen to audio without video. I can't listen to video without audio. That's like surveillance cameras, right? Just looks really weird.
Michael: And I think it's also like that if you're watching something and the quality is spared, you just accept it more than if audio's really bad, because I know that there is saying that - Sound is the first thing that you recognize when you're born.
Graham Brown: …when you're born, right? You think about it like you and I learned a language before we can read through sound. You think about how important it is to human emotion and relationships as well. We say, I don't know what it is in German. I wonder if it's similar, but in English we say, for example, you say to your wife or your partner, “You're not listening to me.” It's a strong statement. We don't say you're not looking at me. It means like you're not being heard. You're not being valued. You feel hurt because of somebody. What do you say in German? Is it a similar translation?
Michael: It has a similar translation. It's really translated, like you said. And so you're just listening in and not listening to me. That's exactly the same thing.
Graham Brown: It’s the complaint, isn't it? Like you're being a poor husband. But even like in business we say - listen to customers. The voice of the customers. This is what people talk about now and how important that is to relationships. I'm sure somebody out there and neuro psychologists can tell us why audio and the brain are interconnected strongly with relationships and emotion, right? But how important that is, if you think about music as well, thousands of years we've been making music it's not going away. Do you remember when they said digital was going to kill music, how wrong they were?
Michael: Yeah. I think it's getting easier to produce music nowadays. It doesn't always have to be that good. I think in my opinion, if it is just putting some samples, layering some samples, then it's also music, just not composing it. You're just producing it in some way. It can be good but yeah. The whole process is getting easier. But I think yeah, I don't know, 50 years ago you really had to be able to play your instrument and to record it, you could not [inaudible] up stuff that easy. But I really like this, that it's getting that easy because nowadays you just need a laptop and you can produce an album when you're on tour.
Graham Brown: It's already democratized, isn't it? I wonder if you look at podcasts, if there's a similar analogy. You take music, for example, like you say, 50 years ago, you had to play, you had to be really good because you had to hire a studio and studios cost money, and you had to hire an audio engineer and you needed an ANR guy to pick you for the label and the label could only have so many albums that they could push and the record store had physically shelf space, right? These are the albums. So it was very limited and now, anybody can do it, but then that changes the dynamic. Doesn't it? That is the same with podcasts. Now anybody can do it. So if it's easy to produce, the challenge now is promotion, right? Same with music. It's like anybody can produce an album now. How do you get it out there? If you look at what's happened to music in the last 20 years and digital, and now think about where we are going with podcasts? What does that mean in something like I'm a podcaster. I want to blow up my podcast. My challenges now are not producing it. My challenges are being heard. If I was to look at the music industry, what could I have learned from that history?
Michael: Yeah, I think it's good question. Maybe a little bit different, because like with podcasting, you just have it digital. You just have it on your platforms and if you can compare that with a few years ago or decades ago, it wasn't that easy to, like with all these platforms we have now Spotify, Apple Podcasts and so, getting more and more Google podcasts. It doesn't matter. It's really getting the podcast on your phone. This is really, really easy to use now. Decades ago, you had to put your RSS feed somewhere in, and it's really complicated. So really more technical stuff. And I think with music, it was a different journey because like you had this vinyl and on CD and before even getting digital. So you nowadays have it all on these platforms, too like Spotify and iTunes and not exactly sure, what can be learned of that? Because I think if you put your music on these platforms, you don't get that much money either with every click.
Graham Brown: It's performance though, right? The money isn't live, isn't it? With musicians, merchandise - That's where the money is, right? Almost the music itself is [inaudible]. It doesn't make any money almost unless you're a big artist and you own all your catalog.
Michael: Yeah. Totally. If you're a small musician or a music group, then you don't get that much money out of these platforms.
Graham Brown: Interesting. Who in the podcast space is really doing interesting stuff for you? Who do you look at and think, wow, they're really pushing the envelope, they're doing interesting stuff sound wise, content wise?
Michael: I'm learning every day, about new podcasts and agencies and studios, but I really like this storytelling stuff nowadays. It’s really sometimes great produced and you need a lot of time and people and everything. So it's not that easy, but like I said before, you can record it on the phone or somewhere else. So if you have this podcast with sound design and music and like a voice that is just guiding you through it, it's really professionally recorded. And there are some interviews in between, or it doesn't matter if it's recorded just with a phone. Then I really liked that difference, because then if the whole podcast is just recorded on phone and you would say, "Ah, it's sounding, I don't really like it. It's not this warm sound" and but if it's just small portions inside, then it's really this difference between the sounds that really catches me somehow. So I really liked these productions.
Graham Brown: Variety. That's the importance. Who did you listen to recently?
Michael: Can't remember the name now, but it was a German production. And they did like an audio drama somehow with 3D sound. So like a story about an a mass murder in some city in Germany. And they just created this audio drama around it. The whole series was like 10 episodes. And this really, really caught me because it was really in the scene.
Graham Brown: 3D murder. Screams coming out from all angles.
Michael: Yeah, I know they were in a drain tunnel or so, so this was really like…
Graham Brown: You can imagine the sound. It's funny when you say something like that, like if I said to you, somebody walking across pebbles or gravel, or somebody bouncing a ball on the wall immediately, you can hear that sound in your head. Isn't that crazy? Seen straight away, somebody's cutting vegetables in the kitchen, immediately you can visualize it, even though it's a sound. So it shows you the power to evoke memories and the senses.
Michael: And like I said, I think with food probably if you hear this sound effect, it's coming along with, doesn't matter what you're doing in the kitchen, then you probably could also smell it in some way, you have these memories, not just sound wise, you see it, you smell it. And this I think is great because all your senses just catch on your senses.
Graham Brown: Whether it was Pavlov’s, right? Wasn't it Pavlov's dogs? The ringing.
Michael: Yeah.
Graham Brown: We know better which is dogs, ringing bells. The sound of bacon.
Michael: It’d be like the sound of rain. If you're not seeing the picture [inaudible] cooking bacon and you just see a picture of what's raining outside, then it's okay. It's the rain
Graham Brown: You've been listening to The Age of Audio with me, Graham Brown from the award-winning podcast agency Pikkal & Co. To get access to all the audio conversations and book content for the age of audio, go to www.theageofaudio.com. One more time - theageofaudio.com