Graham Brown: Welcome to The Age of Audio of 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 change makers in the world of audio that's podcast, radio, and social audio converging with big data to create engaging and authentic content for a new generation of listeners.
Hi rock. Before we get going, tell me how an accounting major ends up working for a podcast company. How does that work out?
Rock Felder: Yeah, it is a little strange. I know that's not the typical path for an accountant, but I think it's just I've just really been passionate about podcasting ever since I heard my first podcast, I caught the bug pretty quickly. I was just like, oh wow, there's this amazing content out there that Starts and stops whenever I want to. I don't have to like to tune in at a certain time or miss out on it. It's on my schedule. I think I really liked that. But then also the ability to go deep on a certain topic that wasn't necessarily available or accessible by the general mediums, whether it's TV or radio or anything like that. So, and I think I just have a passion for learning and podcasts and helped me rediscover that curiosity and that passion just for a bunch of different topics that, as much more curious as like in grammar school and then like in high school and college, I think I got a little bit more into just hanging out with friends and stuff like that, being a knucklehead. But when I got re-introduced to or when I got introduced to podcasting, that reintroduced me to like my passion for learning. And then my friend, Zach, who is my co-founder and the CEO of squad cast, approached me and proposed this idea that has now become squad cast. It was really easy for me to get excited about because I already had this foundation of a love and passion and ambition for podcasting as a listener and so I thought it was inevitable for the medium and the industry too, to just only grow and become more mainstream and popular. We did,we started the journey back in 2016 and even then, podcasting has come such a long way because, back then, like when I told folks I was working on this company, that's going to help podcasters record their shows remotely. They were like, well, what's the podcast? And I'm just like, you have this on your phone, like it's right there for you and you would love it. So we've come a long way. So I'm happy about that. But yeah, I just think it's, I think as my accounting job, it was a great job for me to get introduced to the business world and build up my business acumen and really get some confidence in that, we're working in like a corporate setting, but I also got exposed to these different founders and entrepreneurs and executives that made me feel like, well, maybe I can do this too. And so when Zach approached me about that opportunity and that it was the right fit for something that I was really passionate about, it just, it felt like the right thing to do. And it was also more of eliminating what if from my, from the equation, like I had always wondered, what would it be like to start something from the ground up, be a part of founding a company and stuff. And even if it crashed and burned, at least I would know well, Hey, at least I know what if the answer to what if now? So, it just, luckily it's working out better than that and no crashing and burning thus far.
Graham Brown: It's doing great. And I mentioned, even in 2016. It must've been tough, hard, like you were saying that people didn't know what podcasting really was. They're aware of it, but it wasn't really a thing for them. I was talking to Todd from blueberry. He's like he was telling me that he set up blueberry in 2005, 2006. So you can imagine like the conversations you had, but 10 years earlier. You got to have some kind of either a little bit of a thick skin or self-belief or stubbornness to think about, or even build a business around that. So what was it for you? Why did you jump in at 2016 when you know, there are many other options, what was it about what audio for you?
Rock Felder: Accounting firm job was going well. It looked like a great path to having a successful career by all accounts, but I just really felt like something was missing and so little did I know though that Zach was having his own personal journey and so he really stumbled on this problem of remote recording, specifically for creating a podcast on his own. He wanted to create a podcast with a bunch of our friends that were distributed all around California and when they tried to create this podcast remotely, they just ran into a bunch of struggles. It was really difficult and there was a lot of uncertainty with ensuring the sound quality of the recording that they were getting, using all the best practices and options that were available at the time and nothing was good. It wasn't very fun for them.
Graham Brown: So what was available at the time, what was the landscape back then? 2016.
Rock Felder: Yeah. So, as far as I could tell it was all over the place, but I would say the, probably the most common way that folks would record remotely was using Skype and then they would have to use some other ad-on to record the actual, like audio Skype. Yeah, exactly. And so like for some people that worked, but then for a lot of people, we noticed that it didn't and it was full of this uncertainty and anxiety and with podcasters, like a lot of their credibility is wrapped up in, in the show, right? Like the quality of how they sound, but also the experience that they're giving their guests when their guest is joining them on a show. So we really saw an opportunity to provide a professional virtual studio experience where you don't have to worry about the reliability of the platform. You can always trust that you're going to have the best sound quality possible because that's another thing that Skype wasn't focused on. And now most folks I would say are recording remotely on zoom and zoom is a great tool, but again, it's very similar to Skype where they're not really optimizing for the audio quality they're not optimizing for creators. They're just, not built for that purpose and that's fine, but that was our opportunity is to build something that's specifically for podcasters and content creators, where they can connect with anyone in the world and have this virtual studio experience where it's tailor made for them and and it's all about the audio quality. Like us, we felt as the medium continued to develop and become more mainstream that listener's tastes and expectations for sound quality. We're only going to become in higher demand. And so, recording on Skype and expecting your guests to accept subpar audio quality like it's a tall ask. Our ears are very sensitive and so hearing that kind of Skypey sound or hearing someone sound way out of level with the podcast hosts, we felt was really disruptive. You're the creator's message. And also it hurts the quality, the credibility of everyone, including the guests and a lot of the times these guests are interviewed on podcasts because they have a lot of knowledge and experience and expertise in certain topics. So to get that message muddied and not taken seriously, just because they didn't sound good, we felt like we could really change the game and really help podcasters and their guests look and sound their best.

Graham Brown:
Tell me about your quality, because there still are a lot of people who record a podcast off the laptop speaker and for them that's okay. That, or they just don't know. So what's all that about why, if you're an audio guy you're an audio guy. I'm an audio guy. I get disturbed by the sound of a refrigerator in the next room. For example, I have to have everything perfect, but the average person still doesn't seem to be aware of what great audio sounds like. Is that going to change? Are you noticing changes? What's going on from your side?
Rock Felder: Absolutely. Yeah, we are seeing changes. I think we're just stuck in this interesting point in time where there's a lot of folks that, like you're saying, don't really appreciate the audio quality like you and I do, but I do think that's changing because more and more folks are listening to podcasts. They are seeing like really professionally made stuff and I think a lot of it also starts with, podcasters coming into the space, thinking that I think one of the disservices, a lot of us folks in the podcasting industry might've done was, promoting podcasting for being like accessible or a low barrier to entry. And I think when folks heard that, they thought, oh, it's easy. All I got to do is just talk. And it's well, no, there are low barriers than some other types of mediums, right? To get into TV that's probably, there's more barriers than starting a podcast. I'll give you that. But that doesn't mean that you can kind of put out a less professional product or that quality and professionalism are not going to be in demand or rise to the top and so I think that's what's happening is that the quality is rising to the top and so now that's becoming more and more common regular indie podcasters to take their quality a lot more seriously. So one of the things, when we were first developing and building squad casts and getting building up the awareness for squad cast was a lot of people were recording through the internal computer microphone and it's not that those microphones are necessarily bad it's that you have to talk awkwardly into the computer to have the proper mic technique where it will sound good. And you probably know this, but like this even happens with folks using microphones that if you don't have proper mic technique, the microphone's not going to be able to sound help you sound as great as you can and so that's really from what we from our research show that okay the laptop mics they're not bad. It's just the way for you to have a natural free flowing conversation. You have to speak directly into it and that takes away from the eye contact of you. And it's just an awkward way to talk to your computer I guess. You're like talking to the keyboard more so than actually focused on having a conversation with somebody. Another thing that used to be a huge topic of discussion for us at squad cast was like really educating and informing our guests and the hosts on why they should wear headphones that it wasn't really obvious to people that like headphones would impact the quality of their podcast or their conversation and I get it like, I've only learned a bunch of this audio stuff since coming into the podcast space. Like I said, I was a big time listener and believer in the media, but now that I am a podcaster and much more acclimated to the, the ins and outs of audio, like I have a higher level of appreciation. I get why it wasn't obvious to folks, or it's not obvious at first how headphones impact the quality and can actually help your podcast sound better cause you're, it reduces the amount of echo or reverb that can happen. But a lot of times people were like, didn't, they didn't get it. It just was over their head. But now based on, and we track this, we like to have a lot of data on what equipment podcasters are using and we are seeing that in the last couple of years more and more people are wearing headphones and not recording straight into their computer mic. They're using equipment like microphones. So I do think it's changing as people's understanding of recording audio and especially remotely, this is a new thing, I think for a lot of people. So there's been a lot of education and I think everybody in the podcasting space one way or another does see themselves as an educator because it's really important to get people into podcasting. And we love everybody that comes and joins and starts off, but it's another thing to keep them podcasting and sometimes that's the harder job is not to start the podcast, but keep it going. And so I think we all see ourselves playing a role in educating folks on how we can attract them to podcasting but then again, keep on podcasting. And one of the ways is just to, at least for us, is to reinforce. You know how they can really set them in their guests up for success, recording a conversation remotely and that it's not that hard to sound good remotely. It does, but it does take work and it does take a few best practices and that's been one of our goals ever since we realized that Hey, education's a must in this space. Everybody's new, a lot of podcasters aren't audio folks. They come to podcasting to share their message, which is oftentimes, different than just like audio or podcast related. It's just the vehicle that they use to build their audience, to build their influence. So, and that's why squad cast exists to really take care of all the heavy lifting when it comes to connecting with the guests and recording them remotely and ensuring that you sound the best possible because the content is hard enough to make as a podcast or that's the real job is coming up with ideas that's super engaging, releasing it on a regular schedule. That's your job as a content creator and squad cast. Is there just to make sure that you have a vehicle to record and connect with people remotely.
Graham Brown: That's a great app. I'm curious about the insights that you've gotten from your data and your research and you mentioned a lot of things which most people are unaware of obviously, the headphone part that people are only really learned that is essential. And even from a monitor perspective, if you're a musician, you wonder why you see these musicians wearing these sort of like little, it looks like a hearing aid on the stage or they have these monitor amps facing back to them is because they can actually hear themselves that's one part of it as well. And also you mentioned things like Mike technique. You look at, for example, someone like Howard stern, Where, he speaks into the microphone. He's got an amazing voice, but that's been practiced over 20 years. That's his brand. That's his call sign literally, but people didn't realize there's a mic technique or such a thing exists you see when people, we do a lot of corporate podcasts, their first sort of interaction with microphones to sit like a mirror away from it because they think it's going to pick it up because in normal human speech it's very active. One of the reasons we don't hear reverb, for example, in human speech is because our brain actively filters it out. In the same way, the eye is only focusing on a little bit of the focal area and making the rest up right. The year does the same. And that's why when you put a reverb on tape, so to speak, you can actually hear this thing because you don't have that sort of 3d interpretation of the room going on. So all these kinds of things, people don't know, and you don't need a degree in audio engineering right ? But you can learn some basics. What kind of insights did you pick up from your data on your research? That well, there's wow moments about how you thought you needed to build squad cast but also how things were changing ?
Rock Felder: The headphones one is it's hard to beat that one was like, really? I don't know if disappointing is the right word, but when we first started measuring that or tracking that metric and brand reports on it, it was like, I think 60% of the recordings on squad cast were recorded with, through the internal microphone and no headphones were born.
And I think it's gone down to 40%, maybe 30. It's certainly less than 50 though. So, thankfully folks are using equipment because I think it's obvious again why the microphone would help with your quality, but it's not as obvious that the headphones will. And I think there's plenty of podcasters that you can watch YouTube clips on, or they post their podcasts to YouTube and they're not wearing headphones. So they're not necessarily the best example for people. So that one was hard to beat. I think also one that's come up and depending on your position on this, a lot of people in podcasting are not big fans of the blue Yeti microphone and I see you got one there behind you, and it's a beautiful microphone. We use them too, but that was a trophy
Graham Brown: That's old school.
Rock Felder: Cool. It's a beautiful trophy just as it is a beautiful mic, but it's not the best microphone for podcasting. It is in the right setting, right? But for the most part, we like to recommend dynamic microphones versus a condenser microphone, which the blue Yeti is. But I don't necessarily think it's a bad microphone, but a lot of people in podcasting, like they're very anti blue Yeti. So when they saw that, it was one of the most popular microphones, according to our data folks.
Graham Brown: It was the first real decent quality USB mic. I think that was the thing. And then, it looks like a microphone as well. That's the other thing.
Rock Felder: It does. And it's distributed everywhere. Like you can go to regular stores and find it. You may not be able to find your audio Technica microphones that easy. So I think there's, they've done a great job of distribution. A lot of the YouTube streamers, they all use Blue Yeti's. So I think it's very recognizable. And so I think they've done a good job of that, but I think those are the two ones that brought up the most discussion whether internally or externally. So yeah, those are the two ones that are fun and. At least they're using microphones, so it's hard to be upset.
Graham Brown: What would you see? People, I rode, for example, at doing some really interesting stuff, aren't they've brought out that online mixing studio now, which has come out and they seem to be they're Australian company. You wouldn't see that sort of innovation coming from down under all due respect to my friends, that, people like sure, American brand and Zoomer or a Japanese brand you tend to think come from those countries, but they seem to be doing really interesting stuff. What do you think about that in terms of where the tech side of the hardware side of microphones and mix as a guide?
Rock Felder: Yeah, I don't have any rode devices. I believe some of our team members do just for testing purposes cause they, totally, are doing some really neat things and Australia has really embraced podcasting. I think at least according to our data, I think they're like the number three country and I think that's actually consistent with podcasting in general that they're pretty high up there as far as folks that are creating content and the listening side, I think is there's a lot of demand for a lot of people listening in Australia as well. But yeah, no rode is definitely, we're not slipping on them at all. They're definitely a very popular device when it comes to the professional podcasters, people that are willing and able to pay hundreds of dollars for their equipment. And it's a great device and yeah, what they're doing with the kind of merging of some software with their hardware is very interesting. And something we're keeping an eye on because we know a lot of folks are using rode casters in addition or, road devices in addition to recording on squad casts.
Graham Brown: Yeah, we got both. We use the rode caster to take on the rode. Yeah, no pun intended, but also the MGX, the Yamaha's here as well. The old space. But they run like, 24 7, those things, they won't break, hopefully touch wood, but those are pretty robust, but oldest, I don't know where they're from. They're from the nineties. I think these guys, but they sound good. Yeah. They work great with these shore mics as well cause the pre-amps are pretty strong. I'm going away from the tech a little bit to what's happened in the last year. Obviously being in remote recording before remote was a thing for people, especially in the last 18 months was a great, calling the market for you guys and then we've seen in the last four months, especially a real surge in interest in social media we've got clubhouse, we've got Twitter spaces, you've got LinkedIn gearing up to do something. And then you've got, you've got players like discord that have been around forever and making money with teen gamers on the horizon as well. How does this fit into what you're doing? What are your thoughts on this market? Because it seems to be, from my perspective, a lot of people seem to see it as competition for podcasts whereas I say it for some people yeah because they'll always chase the shiny object. However, it's like radio and music, these two co-existed for a long time together. What was your take on this? How do you see all this fitting together?
Rock Felder: Yeah, I think it's really exciting and a great time to be in audio regardless. So I think it's awesome. I don't think that they're necessarily direct competitors. I think their competition in the sense that everything is competition, that's taken away people's attention from listening or creating podcasts or whatever. But I do think that social audio is very different. So one of the things that I love about podcasting is that it's on my time as a listener, whereas clubhouse there's some cool stuff going on there, but it's on clubhouses time or whoever's the participants in a clubhouse meeting it's on their time and there's some advantages to going live where you can you know, as soon as something happens, you can create a club on clubhouse or Twitter spaces or whatever, and just start talking and reach people immediately. But I also think there's a place for podcasting where it's not immediate. There is some post-production involved and you can really put a much more professional polish on it. One of the better ways that I think that they can co-exist is one of our friends in the podcast space, Harry Duran, he's the host of podcast junkies. He views it as like an on-ramp to podcasting that if you think that you are interested in having a podcast or being someone who talks to some degree for maybe not a living, but just something that you do start clubhouse and see how you feel about talking around people and the way you are able to express your thoughts and kind of audience build that way. He views it more as like training wheels, which I think that's a good analogy and, I do think there's space for them to coexist. I think the fact that people are really embracing and seeing the power of audio, something that I think you and I have seen for many years now pre pandemic, right? I'm optimistic that this is going to lead to a good place and end up benefiting creators in general. So you can have easy options to do something live and create a room on, wherever it's going to be it seems like there's going to be a lot of clubhouse lookalikes pretty soon. But I absolutely think that doesn't mean that podcasting is going away. I do think there is something really special about on-demand content that is produced and edited and much more professional than that something on clubhouse.
Graham Brown: It's a win-win. The biggest clubhouse room is a 16 Z. Isn't that true? So, and I think they're actually using it as a direct feed and on-ramp into the podcast itself.
Rock Felder: Exactly.
Graham Brown: What do you listen to out of interest on the podcast side? What's on your playlist?
Rock Felder: Yeah, so I, I used to be a lot more interesting with my podcast selection, to be honest. I like a lot of like hardcore history by Dan Carlin that's is probably like the favourite one of all time, just it's incredible stuff and really shows that you can make a podcast, whatever you want. There's no rules. I think he's the one of the best examples that he doesn't release on a regular schedule. There are three to six hour episodes, and he's a great example of how you can make the show, whatever you want. There's no rules to this these days though. I listened to a lot more Podcast to help me get better at running squad cast so, whether it's like leadership or entrepreneurial advice or guidance or related to that, but I also listened to a lot of podcasts on podcasting so Harry is the host of podcast junkies, which is talking to other podcasters. Zach and I, we have our own show called "Between Two Mikes "where we interview podcasters that are really pushing the medium forward and really doing some things that are, we think are really exciting and we want to highlight, so I listened to a lot of pod podcasts on podcasting, whether it's like on industry, like industry trends and news and topics, or if it's about people just talking about like a different ways to grow an audience or build an audience, like all that kind of stuff. Like I'm really trying to be a good resource for our customers that when they do reach out and ask for advice, whether it's on, growing their show or how to get, how to monetize, like all the usual stuff that comes up, like I want to be a good resource for them to not just start podcasting, but again, continue to grow their show and stay in podcasting.
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. The age of audio.com.