It's time for the Season 12 Q&A episode!
🎙This week's mic:
•"Mystery Mic" 😱
•The Mystery Mic was running through the Rodecaster Duo on the NT1 preset.
•Send a voice, text, or video message to be included in a future episode!
tom@enthusiasmproject.com or use the audio submission button at himynameistom.com!
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🎯Support the Show
https://patreon.com/tombuck
https://buymeacoffee.com/tombuck
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📲 Connect!
•All My Podcasts: https://himynameistom.com/podcasts
•YouTube: www.youtube.com/tombuck
S12E5 | Series Episode 169
Affiliate links mean I earn a commission from qualifying purchases. This helps support the show at no additional cost to you.
Podcast Artwork by Kevin Ramirez
Original theme music written by Patrick Boberg and performed by Mike Alvarez
It's time for the Season 12 Q&A episode!
🎙This week's mic:
•"Mystery Mic" 😱
•The Mystery Mic was running through the Rodecaster Duo on the NT1 preset.
•Send a voice, text, or video message to be included in a future episode!
tom@enthusiasmproject.com or use the audio submission button at himynameistom.com!
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
🎯Support the Show
https://patreon.com/tombuck
https://buymeacoffee.com/tombuck
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
📲 Connect!
•All My Podcasts: https://himynameistom.com/podcasts
•YouTube: www.youtube.com/tombuck
S12E5 | Series Episode 169
Affiliate links mean I earn a commission from qualifying purchases. This helps support the show at no additional cost to you.
Podcast Artwork by Kevin Ramirez
Original theme music written by Patrick Boberg and performed by Mike Alvarez
Thank you.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome. My name is Tom. This is the Enthusiasm Project, season 12, episode 5. And it's alive at the halfway point.
Speaker 2:We are halfway through this season, and that means it's time for this season's Q&A episode. So I've got lots of Q's, I've got lots of A's. Put those A's in those Q's. Put those, matt. We're going to answer some questions. That's what we're going to do today. So thank you in advance to everyone who sent in questions. I always appreciate that. We have a mix of stuff from Instagram, youtube and a couple of voice submissions as well, which is awesome. I always love Q&A episodes because they I never know what direction it's going to take when I ask for questions, you know, it just kind of goes, kind of goes wherever, although everything's fairly on topic this time, which is very cool. So that's one thing. That's going to be our main topic today.
Speaker 2:Before we get into that, though, a few things. We're going to do a gear rundown. As usual, I am recording again into the RODECaster Duo, because that is at my desk setup, which we'll be talking a little bit more about today. So, rodecaster Duo, I am using the NT1 preset with a little bit of adjustments on my part, so let's see if I go in here and I turn off processing. This is me now with no processing whatsoever, and this is me with a little bit of processing, so you can hear that there.
Speaker 2:And the microphone I'm using is the mystery mic, the same one that I used a couple episodes ago. That I can't I still can't tell you what it is, which is crazy. Soon soon I should be able to tell you what it is because, if you don't know, there's a big event happening in next month in Las Vegas where a lot of companies tend to release things and, from what I understand, this mystery mic will be revealed in and around that time. But I'm not 100% sure that I can't. That can't be a coincidence, I think it is.
Speaker 2:So anyway, this is the mystery mic, can't really? All I can tell you is it's an XLR mic. So there's that there and I quite like it and it can do some really cool things, which is interesting, because typically an XLR mic, can you know, it can sound good but there's not a lot of features built in, because typically mics with lots of features and capabilities tend to be USB mics, because they sort of need different circuitry, power, programming, support, all that. This is the USB mic. No, or sorry, this is just an XLR mic, no USB option, and it can do a lot of cool things, which I kind of talked about last time I used it. I don't want to give too much away, but one thing that's really cool right now, as I'm talking, I am moving very close and very far away from the microphone. I'm sort of like over here on the side of the microphone.
Speaker 2:I'm really changing the distance to my voice and what you might notice is that the gain, the level, shouldn't really be changing. There's qualities. If I go way back here and I'm pretty far away from the microphone now, you hear, you know, the room reverb. I did this kind of last time. But if if you're not listening to the quality and you're listening to just the level, I'm back here, you know, several feet away from the microphone, slowly getting closer, closer, closer, closer, till I'm almost touching the microphone, the gain didn't change. The microphone adapted accordingly to me being in different locations, which is crazy. Like that's a pretty crazy thing to do, not because I would want to record from really far away, but because if I'm near the microphone and I maybe you know, like right now I'm sort of leaning back just a little, I'm getting close to the microphone. I'm kind of going on one side of the microphone. I'm doing all of those things you might do while using a microphone, even as someone who's well-trained on microphone technique. Maybe you're streaming and so you need to like lean over and check a screen over here or reach a keyboard or do something. You're kind of moving. You can't see me but I'm moving all around the microphone or you're somebody, you're working with somebody who's not particularly trained how to use microphones, and so they unintentionally keep getting closer and further away from the microphone. That's something that used to happen to me a lot when I was producing podcasts for other people at school districts, where it's like the people on the podcast have zero training with like any kind of media stuff. That's not their job or interest at all, and so they would come in and we would do mic checks and everybody you know everyone sits down when it's time for a mic check. If somebody's never used a microphone, they'll get really close and they'll say like okay, here's me talking. You know, usually I would just say like tell me what you had for breakfast, or recite the alphabet or something, and they would go A, b, c, d, e, f, g and then they'd lean back and we'd start the episode and they would start talking from the further back position and not the one that they lean forward to do the mic check-in. It's sort of like this weird thing. So in those cases a microphone like this, where it's going to keep the gain level the same, even if you move further and closer, it can't change the way sound works. So if I get really far away it can't change the laws of physics, like sound waves bouncing off of things and causing reverb. The microphone doesn't have the ability to fix those, but it does have the ability to keep the gain level even, which takes a little pressure off of me or whoever might be behind it from needing to have perfect mic technique and mic positioning. So this is the mystery mic. I don't want to give too much away Everything I said. It will be very obvious which microphone it is when it is announced and it can do even more than that. It can do some really cool stuff. But save a little bit for after it's officially released, which hopefully will be around the time of NAB next month taking place. From what is it? April 13th through 17th, around those dates in Las Vegas Talked about this last week.
Speaker 2:Heather and I are going. It's our first time. I've always wanted to go Super excited for NAB and there is a promo code. This is not a sponsored thing. This is not a Tom Gets Affiliate kickback money or anything. This is literally just. You can get a free pass if you want to use the promo code. If you want to go to NAB. You can go to NAB show.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, my microphone. I'm going to leave that in because that was really funny, but I'm going to pause really quick. That was not the mic's fault, oh boy, that was. I'm still using the newer boom arm and I was trying the end of it. That is sort of like. The video about this will come out this week, so you'll see it a couple days. I like this arm. That's the first time that's ever happened, but I was trying to raise up sort of the articulating pneumatic part at the end and the whole part just sort of lifted out. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, maybe something needs to be tightened over there a little bit. That has never happened before, but I bet it sounded funny.
Speaker 2:What I was saying was you can go to nabshowcom, you can sign up to be an attendee, and if you want to just go like have access to kind of the main meat and potatoes of NAB that would be the exhibition hall you can get an exhibition pass. It's usually $160 or $170. But if you use promo code TOM24, it is $0. It is absolutely free, free, 99, best price in town. And then if you want to add other stuff, they have classes, they have special events. If you want to add those things to your ticket, you can. I don't have a discount code for those.
Speaker 2:But if you just want to get into NAB and be able to go through the convention center, check out the booths, talk to some companies and all that cool stuff, ask questions directly. I know, like you know, rhodes is going to have a everybody's going to have a booth. But I know Rhodes is going to have a booth. Ryan from Rhodes will be there, who I got to meet in person a month or two ago, which was awesome, and you know it's a cool chance to just sort of meet people that you might know. Like that's, I don't get started. If I saw Brad Pitt, I'd be like that's cool, it's Brad Pitt. But then Ryan from Road walks in and like, oh my God, you know total starstruckness, because you know I spend a lot more time with people like that or people on YouTube than I do with, like a Hollywood celebrity, not in person but on screen. You know like I feel like I've spent more hours with them, even though they might not be aware of that. That sounds weird.
Speaker 2:But all of the different companies, different representatives for different companies so you can check out what people, what companies are working on. You can ask questions, heck. You can offer some feedback and some criticism. You can get answers directly from companies instead of through third parties or random YouTubers like myself. So, anyway, nabshowcom, you can use promo code TOM24 to get a free exhibition pass. And again, that's not like there's no secret kickbacks or anything for me, it's just a code they were nice enough to give me, which is pretty sweet. That, I think, is all of the housekeeping before we dive into the Q&A stuff. So let's do that.
Speaker 2:I want to start with the voice submissions, because I have two people who are nice enough to submit those and it's easy for me to get sidetracked and I forget they're like on my desktop, ready to be played, and then I forget to play them. So I don't want to do that. I want to make sure we play these. First one is from Hassan, who has sent in things a bit before, and he is an absolutely awesome guy, and he did let me know in his email that he recorded this with the Lewitt LCT 440 Pure into the Rodecaster Pro 2 using the NT1 preset. So as we listen to this, that's what you're going to hear Take it away, hasan. I can never click the button right. There we go, here we go.
Speaker 3:Hey Tom, first time caller, long time listener. I have a couple of questions. First is how do you manage your time? I'm talking about from the perspective of the YouTube production process. When it comes to YouTube, how do you spend your, how do you schedule your time and how do you? That includes like do you shoot at night? Do you outline in the evening, record the next day, space it out so that you have different parts of the video being recorded on different days?
Speaker 3:Do you have something in like set in stone in calendar? My second question is do you use any? What kind of productivity tools and apps do you use? I think you mentioned multiple times that you use Apple Notes for your outlines, but are there other apps like your to-do? What's your to-do list app? Or, when it comes to calendar again, do you use Google Calendar? Because I know in Google Calendar you can create tasks and then you can check them off. So I was just curious of what kind of productivity tools that you use to manage your time, but more from the perspective of YouTube production process.
Speaker 2:Thanks, all right. Thanks again, hassan, for the message. I appreciate it very, very much. There's a two-part question really.
Speaker 2:So the productivity side of things I am the I'm. I am the least interesting person in the world when it comes to that. You kind of nailed it. Uh, the notes app is my main productivity tool. So we're talking about tools, uh, the notes as my main thing. That's where I outline videos, that's usually where I do my to-do lists. Um, yeah, that's that's kind of my main thing.
Speaker 2:It's like the most basic, simple thing. But but you know, if you're someone like me, you have an iPhone and a MacBook and an iPad and an Apple Watch. Everything just comes together really nice and I love that it is so simple. Sometimes it sort of feels like I wish there was maybe some more features here. You know it could do something a little bit better, but most of the stuff I do is relatively simple and basic and outlining, and the notes app has worked great for many years.
Speaker 2:I just haven't changed it Calendar. I do just use the Apple calendar, the default one. Heather uses Google calendar. It seems like she has a little more features, a little more organization and but I just don't want to change everything. The Apple ones worked fine for me, except like a year ago.
Speaker 2:This thing happened where whenever Heather would invite me to something so if it was like you know, take the dogs to the vet next Tuesday at 9am, and I would accept the invitation not only would I get an email alert when it was time to do that, but I would get like 86 email alerts. It was insane. It happened. Any event, that I was like invited to, that I accepted. I would get and I'm not even exaggerating somewhere between 80 and 100 separate emails and I don't know why, and eventually I forget how. I had to like dig through and re-add all my accounts or something. It was the most frustrating thing. But there we go, and those are kind of the two main things there.
Speaker 2:As far as like time management, actual production goes, that's definitely changed over the years, especially over the past three years, since YouTube has become my full-time thing versus part-time. When it was part-time which is probably the case for most people it was very different. I was filming a lot of stuff on afternoons and evenings. A lot of stuff on afternoons and evenings, a lot of stuff on weekends. It was sort of like any time I was home from work, I was filming or editing something for YouTube.
Speaker 2:Obviously, that kind of changed when the full-time job went away and YouTube became the full-time job and something that I had talked about three years ago when I made that transition was the biggest question I got at the time was oh cool, are you going to do more videos? Are you going to do like, two videos a week, three videos a week? And my answer was no. I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to just burn through all my ideas, all my energy, all everything and make you know essentially my like stress overload. Goldfish just expands to take up whatever space it is given, you know. So it's like oh, you had, you were so stressed out and you had so little time because of your full-time job and YouTube. You got rid of the full-time job. Well, just make YouTube expand to take up the same amount of time. It was like no, I want to have time to step away from stuff and be a person and rest and have other experiences. That will help make the YouTube stuff better and more interesting. And you know time to work on things, and so it's been. It's sort of interesting because I was thinking about this yesterday, like yesterday, I was thinking you know, if I really wanted to, I could make so many more videos than I do, and I think that could be fun once in a while, like last week, I did two videos in a week.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I'll do a live stream or, you know, I'll do extra podcasts or something, but typically it's one video a week, one podcast a week on the couple's table, live stream week. That's kind of the main stuff that is made every week, and sometimes Heather and I will work on client projects. I just started am starting a new client thing, which is pretty exciting. I could probably mention it. It's not really a secret, but I'm going to be working with Buzzsprout, who is the company that I host my podcast through, to make some videos for their YouTube channel, some like podcasting related videos, because I've loved them forever. The people who run Buzzsprout are just amazing and some of the coolest, nicest people around and they've been into podcasting for gosh like pretty much since the beginning and they're just such an awesome company and they sort of asked for some help with their YouTube channel. So I'm going to be making some videos for them and see how that goes. So maybe you'll see some of those pop up. You talk about the. I'm super excited about that though.
Speaker 2:So sometimes I have projects like that that I'll be working on, which don't show up on my channel or anything, but will show up somewhere else or be for something else. I typically have like since I upload, since my videos are published on Thursdays, even though I have like a backlog of a couple of videos scheduled in advance. I like to you know, like if I have four videos scheduled and then Thursday rolls around, it's almost like by Wednesday night I like to have five videos scheduled, so that Thursday one goes out and then there's still four again, and so it's like publish another one by before the next Thursday. That's kind of. My goal is to make a video by the end of the day on Wednesday, which usually means the pre-production stuff like outlining and planning. I do a lot Like sometimes it'll just be like out on the couch at night or wherever, like I do that kind of constantly, and then once I have something outlined or scripted in a way, that's like ready to go, then I've started setting up the production side of things on a different day from filming.
Speaker 2:It used to be like I got to go make a video. Let me set everything up, record all that and like, try to do everything in a day and I don't do that anymore, which I'm fortunate enough to have the time now to not have to do it that way. So I usually set everything up on one day, test everything out, get all the audio going, all that kind of stuff. If I'm playing with lighting especially now that my studio is a little differently I'm sort of relearning every angle, every shot and there's more options too. So it's like really experimenting with stuff.
Speaker 2:I set up all that stuff, test everything out, so that way the next day can just be a filming day where I can, you know, get ready, show up, and I don't have to think about like, where's the camera going to go? Am I using the right lens? What about my audio? Is this working? Like all of those technical problems have been taken care of and I can focus specifically on communicating. Whatever it is I need to communicate, and then usually I will just film talking head stuff one day, and then usually I get a rough cut going pretty much the same day and then I take my rough cut, turn it into a more polished rough cut, so it's almost like a finished video.
Speaker 2:This is for like a standard type video. It's almost like a finished video. So there's the main angle, there's, you know, usually I have my secondary camera. Sometimes there's screen recordings, sometimes there's things that crop in and crop out but there's no B roll yet. It's just that stuff. And then as I'm going through that, it's like the video is kind of done, Like the audio is polished, the cuts are done, I know how long it's going to be.
Speaker 2:Then I can go through and just sort of mark what B roll I need and then I can go and film that exact specific b-roll. And I really like that process because even then the files literally on the memory card are usually in order, like because I go chronologically through the timeline. Just put a mark here. Oh, I need you know I mentioned, if I'm you talking about, a microphone and I mentioned some cool button on the front of it. Get a shot of the button of the microphone. Oh, here's the intro of the video. Like, get, like, get you know, a wide shot with a couple of microphones or something like that, like. And then when I go through the files afterwards they're just kind of in that order Usually, unless I'm switching locations or doing some kind of like big setup that needs to be torn down to do another big setup. Then I'll do like everything in those locations or setups at once. But what I like about that is there's no more wasted time with B-roll.
Speaker 2:What I used to do was like film a talking head part and then usually right after just start filming B-roll and just kind of like guessing. Like, especially if it's a product review, which is a lot of stuff that I do it's like I would just kind of guess, like I need a ton of beauty shots, any cool things that could work for a thumbnail, I need, you know, just film every angle of the thing, and usually there would be enough. But it's kind of like I wasn't 100% sure and sometimes I would know. I remember in the video I talked about this, so I need to show, you know, kind of know what I need to show. But a lot of it was sort of spray and pray, like hope that I got what I needed and if not, I don't know, because it's a pain in the butt to have to reshoot later. So the way I do it now, by getting the rough cut done, then marking the B roll, I feel is a lot more efficient because then it lets me know exactly what I need to film, get the B roll done, add that in and then after that is all the stuff, that's like the captions and the uploading and the thumbnail making. Sometimes I'll make the thumbnail after the rough cut around then too. But yeah, that's kind of the process.
Speaker 2:So generally a typical video, you know, if you count like the pre-production day where I finalized the outline, set everything up, then a day of filming and rough cut, another day of like, rough cut and editing, and maybe another day like three to four days maybe, to make a video from start to finish, unless it's something crazy, like you know, some of those like the XL1 video I made or something along those lines. That's kind of typically the workflow. That was a very long answer to the question, but I hope it kind of gave you some insight. The big takeaway there is that it really has changed, going from part-time to full-time and it kind of that also wasn't a change overnight Like it.
Speaker 2:I was still doing the almost trying to like film everything I need to film in one day for a long time, to like maybe a year ago, and then it was. I kind of had to learn to like take a break and maybe even do a rough cut, come back the next day and keep editing the next day and keep editing and it. I feel like it helped make everything better, because I wasn't. Sometimes you're kind of like in the zone editing and you feel like you're kind of done but you're like you're tired and you're ready to wrap it up, but you sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel so you just kind of push through to get there and even if you get there, that's cool but maybe it's not as good as it could have been. Like maybe you find yourself taking a few shortcuts or deciding not to add something in that you would have added in otherwise, whereas if you come back the next day or even a couple of days later, like rested and refreshed and excited to work on the thing, then it's easier to want to take the extra time to do those extra touches.
Speaker 2:And you know I have found that the videos have, I feel, have gotten better since I started doing that. So thanks again, hassan, for the question. I really appreciate it. Next question is from Steve Martin, who was here, I think last season's Q&A as well. Steve sent an audio submission, so I'm going to try to push the button correctly this time. Take it away, steve.
Speaker 1:Hey, tom, hope you're well. I've not sent anything in for a while so I thought I should change that and, being a Q&A episode, I thought it was the perfect time. So I am recording this into my Samsung Q9U, into the Rodecaster Pro 2 on the SM7B setting, and actually I find that this needs a bit more of a gain boost than I thought it would do. So I've actually got it on 65 dB at the moment moment. I don't know if that's good, bad, but it seems to work. Um, not at all related to my question.
Speaker 1:My question is about sound design for videos on my youtube channel, my photography journey, which is teaching people about nikon cameras and the basics of photography, kind of starting from the very beginning and going through, like what does this button do, what is aperture and things like that. But I had a comment on one of my videos recently about sound design and they suggested that I should do more of it. So so if I'm looking at a camera, then adding clicking of buttons and that kind of thing, having a bit more depth to the sound, maybe I don't know if this is something that you do and if it is, how do you do it? Where do you draw the line between being over the top with your sound design? Um, and they were talking about the use of B roll and things like that as well, which is something that I've used a bit, but it's mainly me talking to camera and I just wanted your opinion on that really mainly, mainly the sound design. So that's my question.
Speaker 2:All righty. Thank you so much, steve. I appreciate it. I like that everyone is now, without being prompted, just letting us know what they're recording on. It's super cool, it's really helpful.
Speaker 2:I will say, though, I did notice 65 dB on the Q9U is a lot more than I would expect on that microphone, and here on the Duo I had to boost it quite a bit to bring up the level. So the audio file that you sent in was a little quieter, but that's confusing to me. I'm wondering if there's something in the recording. 65 should be more than enough for the Q9U. Yeah, so I'm curious there. It sounded great though, like the sound quality is awesome. I'm just curious about that level. It's one of those things where it's like I'm sure there's just like one little switch or button or setting somewhere that's messing everything up, because that's typically what I do, but it still sounded fantastic. Just letting you know that on my end I had to boost it a little bit more.
Speaker 2:But let's talk about sound design though. No-transcript, and that's cool. Footsteps are awesome. But the mistake I would notice people make is like here's a video that just has sort of like kind of okay sounding dialogue and very obvious footsteps everywhere all the time that sometimes even don't even match like right, you see someone walking, like someone walks, stops, takes a few more steps, walks, and you know a 10th grader might just take a sound effect of footsteps and just layer it under that and so it doesn't really sync up Like the person stops and you still hear footsteps walking and stuff. And it's like taking the time to. Really, when sound design is done right and I'm sure like a pro film sound designer could maybe attest to this in a different way when it's done right you completely don't notice it. It's something that just goes totally over your head. Even in a. Let's go back to the world of YouTube, then, and you're talking about, like Nikon cameras and reviews and things like that the sound design still, when it's done well, will kind of be unnoticed. It will just sort of someone might not say I like that video because of the sound design, but they'll just know that after they watched the video they enjoyed it maybe more than they expected or more than another video they watched, and they might not even realize that that is because of the sound design, but it is because of the sound design and that's the level you want to take that to is sort of up to you and it kind of depends.
Speaker 2:So some of the things I was thinking was, you know, keeping in mind that the best sound design is unnoticed. So if you're doing a, you know, a tutorial on a Nikon camera and you want to show the camera, you don't want to be so distracting that every time that your hands move or a button clicks it's like it's like a hacker is, you know, like typing something on a on a keyboard or something crazy. But there is, it is kind of interesting. I wonder if it was kind of like a subtle, polished thing there's almost leaning into like an ASMR quality for like a camera review, if it would sort of add this texture that people like would end up enjoying but not even realizing what it is or why they enjoy it. Like there's, um, there's some painting videos I used to watch that I knew the sound design was added after you'd watch them and do like a watercolor painting or something. But they would totally, totally add in like the sounds of the brush strokes or the brush, like getting in the water and the paints and and it like it made the whole thing so much more enjoyable and satisfying with the sound, even though I don't know if it was totally necessary to do it. Maybe the reviews, maybe it could be something like that if you add sound design and it could also just be fun. Like it could be a really fun creative project.
Speaker 2:But the caveats that popped into my head also is you don't want it to become distracting and you also you don't just want to become distracting in terms of the content. Like you know, there's so many strange loud button clicks. You also don't want it to be misleading. Like if you press a button on an icon camera and you add in a button click sound, is it going to make people think that that button makes a loud clicky sound Because that could affect their buying decision. Right, like if someone needs to film weddings or something, they're like oh this camera has these like loud clicky buttons. I can't be changing those settings like during a wedding ceremony, not realizing that like that's just something that was added in for sound effects. So you know kind of what I mean. Like you don't want it to be distracting and you also, if you're doing a review type thing, you also don't want it to give the wrong impression of the product.
Speaker 2:And also I would say the other warning would be you don't want it to be distracting in terms of like actually dragging out your production process, because if you're making, you know, a tutorial or review or whatever it might be, that is helpful to your audience and it could come out today, but instead it's going to come out in three days because you have to torture yourself, adding in all of the sound design. I don't know that would be worth it, because I feel like the info, the basic core info that they want, is still going to be there. The basic core info that they want is still going to be there. And now you're, if it's something you feel like you have to do, you might not enjoy the process as much, something you want to do. If you want to drag that out, you want to spend more time on it, then it could increase your enjoyment of it. But if it just becomes another task, another thing, you're like, oh, I gotta do this before the video is done, then it could decrease your enjoyment of producing videos. So now the videos are like taking longer to come out and you're not enjoying them as much and it might not actually enhance the benefit to the viewer. So those are just warnings. That's not my opinions or anything.
Speaker 2:I think the cool thing to do honestly would be to try it out. Like, make a video wherever one kind of lends itself and just focus on sound design in that video. You'll learn a lot. You'll learn so much by doing it. See how you like the video, see if anyone notices, see if anyone appreciates it. And again, noticing might not mean that they say, wow, the sound design is really good. Maybe the person who left the comment to you might notice it, but everybody else might not pay attention to it. But you might get comments like I really enjoyed this video. I don't know what you did in this video, but I liked it so much more. Like you might get those kinds of things where people are just telling you they like the video more than you're used to hearing and that might tell you that it's having a positive impact. So I think it's a fun thing to experiment with at least once or twice. See how you feel about it, see how your audience feels about it and then go from there. But it's definitely. Sound design is definitely something that's underrated, for sure. All right, let's jump over to Instagram.
Speaker 2:I do have, I have, a number of questions here, but I also I don't know what was like the full moon or something in the water. I got a lot of the same basic question multiple times so I sort of took some of them and just combined like multiple replies into one question. So I'm gonna go through some individual ones here just to kind of address those. So the first one comes from Dan Van Ball, and Dan asks or says I'm in love with the bright blue Rode XLR cables but I can't find matching TRS quarter inch speaker cables. So I've been using the Rode XLR cables since they came out last year. They're awesome. Rode does a great job at making things bright and colorful. I love them.
Speaker 2:I think they're good price, but they are XLR, they're not quarter inch cables. My impulse here was just to say like, well, just use an adapter, use an XLR to quarter inch adapter, and then you're good. But that can also be really clunky and, depending on what you're, adapters can sometimes be expensive and clunky and unreliable. Like I have not had the best luck going from XLR to quarter inch or whatever. So I feel like if you need a quarter inch cable, that's the way to go. Unfortunately, as far as I know, rode doesn't make them.
Speaker 2:But I do have two solutions for you that I've been using for guitars and stuff for years One brand which you might know, but it's a brand called Pig Hog, I don't know. They have all kinds of cable options, both like traditional, like I don't know if it's rubber or whatever cables are made out of, but also like braided cables, and then so you can get different colors, different materials. And then also Fender makes really cool cables. They're not as bright and saturated, necessarily, as Rhodes are, but Fender has a lot of cool. I think that's like the classic series. It's almost like they made cables in the same colors as some of their classic guitar finishes. And I do think Ernie Ball has some more like wacky quarter inch cables that are like bright orange, and maybe they have a crazy bright blue or something too. So that's where I would look if you want a good quarter inch cable, if that's the kind of thing that would suit your need, that would be a good one here. The next one. Okay, so the next one I'm going to combine, like the next, like three questions into one.
Speaker 2:A lot of people asked if I miss teaching. Someone said, like did you miss teaching? How do you feel about not being in the classroom. Do you miss your old high school job? Well, somebody said, do you miss your high school job? I'm currently part of the broadcast and broadcast program. Yes and no, I was just thinking about this earlier. Again, I guess we're all on the same wavelength. I miss teaching, but I don't miss being a teacher and the difference is subtle but important and maybe you know the philosophical thing of like a teacher is one who teaches. You are still a teacher, okay, but I mean, like the career teacher, it's a hard job, right, like it's a very stressful job. It's very difficult.
Speaker 2:The way I always describe is it felt like I was just swimming upstream to try to do the thing I wanted to do, which was teach, to share my knowledge and passion about a subject with students, help them improve, learn more, get better, grow into, you know, young adult, like better young adults and better people and the best version of themselves they could be. That was my favorite thing to do, but that was like you had to fight such an upstream uphill battle to do that. It was like I'd almost do that for free and my salary went to all of the other crap, like all of this, the school politics and the meetings and the useless. You know the useless professional development and the just. I can't even I've kind of blocked some of it out, honestly, because it's just, it's such a mess. You know the part where you just want to just teach students stuff is so it's such a small part of the job. You know the part where you just want to just teach students stuff is so it's such a small part of the job and obviously that's completely backwards and it shouldn't be that way, but that's just, that's just kind of how it is. So I don't miss that, because that was stressful and exhausting and frustrating and demoralizing.
Speaker 2:But I do miss the, the teaching part, like the getting to work with students on really cool stuff. I was obviously lucky that you know the teaching part, like the getting to work with students on really cool stuff. I was obviously lucky that you know the subject matter was something I was passionate about and I found it. I don't know if it was that it lent itself to helping other people to feel passionate or it was the kind of thing that, like my excitement for it, made other people more excited about it, or both, but that was. That was pretty cool. But I feel, like you know, the same could be true for, like an English teacher who's actually into teaching English and not just someone they roped into it. Like you know, when you really are into the thing that you're trying to share, people, people can pick up on that and they want to be a part of it.
Speaker 2:I am hoping I'm trying to work together to plan something out with one of the local school districts for next school year to do a podcasting like I don't know what you'd call it, almost like an after-school program. It's the kind of thing that I used to bring in people to do with my students and now I can be on the other side of that, which is very cool because you get to be hired on as like a it's like a visiting instructor, but you're kind of going through a teacher so like. So there's, say, like a production teacher of some kind. They put together an afterschool program and then they bring in somebody with you know, specific experience, skillset, curriculum to help students kind of go through this thing. So what it's looking like it would be now would be like a couple days a week, which is really only a couple hours a week, running students through podcasting.
Speaker 2:So the basics of you know everything from the writing. You know pre-production, recording, all that and the production side of things, basic equipment. A lot of after-school programs like this have budgets so they can get you know at least some basic equipment going, figuring out what the goal is at the end. We're dealing with middle and high school students here, so you know I don't know how much of their stuff can be published publicly from this program, but at least giving them the skill set that if they wanted to go, hey, create a Buzzsprout account and publish your podcast, they could. That would be cool and at least give them something to walk away with that they actually did create, and maybe even a workflow as well.
Speaker 2:And the thing that I'm excited about is I would get to come in and get paid to just teach. I'm not a staff member, I'm an outside instructor. The teacher that I'd be like, whose students I'd be working with, is the one that has to go to staff meetings and take attendance and do grades and everything I just have to teach. The thing that I'm excited about and it's not a ton of time, which is awesome, and it's it's a thing where it's an afterschool elective, so the students you're working with are only students who want to be there, because they choose to be, because they're interested in it. So that would be kind of fun. I think that could help scratch an itch, like the itch to teach that I've had since leaving the classroom. A bit All right.
Speaker 2:Next question this is from Kyle McKenna says how do you stay looking so damn good? From Kyle McKenna says how do you stay looking so damn good? Lots of Vaseline on the lens. Hd is tough. It's so funny because I feel I don't.
Speaker 2:I realized I don't have a perception of myself and I don't know if other people are like this too. I was never someone who, like, wanted to be in front of the camera. That was a thing of necessity when I started making YouTube videos, because someone had to be in front of the camera and I could just make more videos if that was me. But now it's like I've heard people who are even in like their 70s and 80s say that like, mentally and emotionally they still feel like, you know, when they were teenagers or early 20s. But then they look in the mirror and they're like who's that person? I feel like I have a perception of myself, but I don't know what that is, to the rest of the world, and I feel like you know, seven years doing YouTube now, plus like heading towards middle age, you can see the aging process happen and it's weird and I don't know how to feel. But I don't know. I'm going to take that as a compliment, I'm just gonna say thank you and I don't know that's what we're gonna go with there.
Speaker 2:Joshie 989 asks can you still turn your passion, slash, hobby into a career in 2024 through social media, youtube, et cetera? My impulse is to say yes, these platforms, well, these platforms aren't going anywhere. Youtube is a big platform that, for a lot of reasons, um has a little bit more stability than the other ones do. It's all very turbulent and unpredictable, but youtube's a good one. Social media and like the platforms, might change and shift and morph and mold, but the idea of user generated content, sharing content, building an audience online, having your own voice, no matter where you are in the world, those things aren't changing. It's the like how do you be heard in a world where a lot of people are? Also you know, how does your voice stand out in a crowd of many, many other people? And it's a little tricky because it's like I have my channel so I feel like I'm doing that now, but I started it seven years ago. Things are very, very different then, so I don't know like I don't know how relevant any advice I have would be if you were just starting from zero now.
Speaker 2:The thing I would say that I don't think has changed is if you start it with the intention that it's going to be your career and it's going to make you money, that's almost setting yourself up for failure. Even if that's something that you kind of want in the back of your head, that can't be the driving factor, because it's just not going to happen for a long time, if it ever does happen. And the thing that's going to help you keep going to the point where something like that would even have the chance of happening is your pure passion and your pure enthusiasm for it. If you're, if you want to make videos that nobody is watching because you love making videos, and then you get one or two comments on those videos and it means the world to you. And then you find that you have a couple of people who seem to be watching all your videos and that means the world to you, and then it kind of slowly grows over time, slowly but surely, and then you eventually kind of become a voice in whatever space that you're a part of, and you know like it takes a lot of time, but yes, I do think it is still possible. And going back to some stuff lots of people have talked about, like the, it's almost like the great retirement of YouTube this year, where a bunch of people like quit or scaled back or whatever it might be, and Heather and I were talking about this being just like that's as this industry and this job and this career grows and matures, people are going to wind down their careers just like they would in any other field. But what that also means is for anyone who's thinking of like is it too late to start out? The answer is no, because it's almost like there's another generation of, there's one generation that's phasing out, which it opens up the door for another generation to step in and bring new ideas, new perspectives and new voices to it. So, yes, I do think it's possible. The specifics of the hows if I knew that, if I could answer that question, this is how you do this full time I think I would. I'd be a very wealthy man, but I don't. I don't have those answers, but yes, I do still think it is possible.
Speaker 2:Sammy Superstar asks what is your favorite lens for Sony cameras? This is a conflicting one too. Now the lens that I've used the most by far on my Sony cameras is my 24 millimeter 1.4 G Master. I love the image quality of that lens. I love the super fast, super silent auto-focusing of that lens. I love the super fast, super silent auto-focusing of that lens and I love that it also now and with the a7S III recent firmware update focus breathing compensation on it's been on my FX3 for a while Now it's also on my a7S III, so it's like it's such a phenomenal lens.
Speaker 2:The reason I'm conflicted, as you might know, is I've had issues with mine. Mine has lived in a studio basically its whole life, like it has not been abused. It is nothing's $1,500 lens that I bought when I got my Sony camera three years ago. It has spent 99% of its life in a studio environment, never been dropped or anything like that, and the focus is kind of crapping out on it, like the focus motor just like kind of randomly dies and it like you can't. You can't manually focus, you can't autofocus. It's very strange and I've sent it to Sony twice now. And this is where I'm sort of conflicted because Sony, like to me, this is a defect, like the lens. It's been like a year that it's been doing this weird thing, kind of off and on. It's very intermittent, but it makes the lens unreliable. It's not something that I would really trust to take anywhere because I don't know if the focus is gonna randomly stop working when I really need it to. So that's very frustrating.
Speaker 2:The service I got from Sony they really, I mean they like Sherlock Holmes. They try to find, deduce every problem that could be happening, diagnose everything, talk to me about it, keep me updated. So like in terms of service in that regard, like the people who got the lens and were put in charge of trying to figure out what the problem was, it's like an A plus 10 out of 10. They were amazing. But it was also they were doing that because Sony as a company was trying to bend themselves into a pretzel to just like avoid replacing the lens, like just replace the defective lens, like let this all be done. Because now I'm at a point where it's like I'm a little frustrated, like when I bought that lens I really liked it. But if you go back and watch my review on it, I do say like the one thing that kind of surprised me is the build quality, and maybe I just need to change my perception of what it means for a lens to have good build quality.
Speaker 2:I was used to Canon lenses. Canon lenses, especially get to the L series. They're built like tanks, like they are phenomenal lenses. I still prefer Canon lenses over Sony lenses all day, every day. I just prefer Sony cameras over Canon cameras. So it doesn't work. But I was kind of thinking okay, this is a new camera ecosystem, yes, this lens, I spent $1,500 on it and it feels very lightweight and plasticky. But hey, I'll take it for what it is. Well, okay, I've never had one of my Canon lenses randomly stop working ever and this one suddenly has a problem. And and this is very anecdotal but everybody else I know who has a G Master lens that is not the 70-200. I had Sony 70-200 at my previous teaching job. It worked great. Everyone I know who owns that lens. It has worked great. But the other G Masters, especially the 16-35, everyone I know who has one, which isn't a ton of people, it's a handful of people. They've all had focusing problems and a few people with the 24 and the 35 had the same problem I have. So for me that's like it's really conflicting, because I love this lens, I love the performance of this lens. The focus breathing compensation has become a really like invaluable tool.
Speaker 2:I don't know that, like I don't know what to do. I kind of just want, if I had to replace the lens right now, which I feel like I'm going to have to, I don't want to spend another $1,300 or $1,400 on the same lens because that's so unsatisfying. Plus, then it's like, well, is this new expensive lens just going to break and I'm not going to get any support from the company when that happens. So the lens I would get would be the updated Sigma 24 1.4, which is pretty much the same as the Sony in every way, except it's like almost half the price, a little more than half the price, but it doesn't have focus breathing compensation. So it's like, ah, I'd lose this thing I really love, but I have a more reliable lens at a lower price. So anyway, that's kind of my tangent there, but it's been interesting because it's like I have no need to replace my cameras now.
Speaker 2:I really love my Sony cameras. Like they just do such a good job and even going through like Canon's current camera lineup. While they're great and the results you get from them are phenomenal, there's just things about them where there's nothing there that really works for me. You get from them are phenomenal. There's just things about them where there's nothing there that really works for me, but in a couple of years, if I need to upgrade my camera right now, it's like, well, if I don't, sony's not doing anything to keep me like as a customer let's put it that way Like, like they're. They're not winning me over, making me feel like you will be taken care of. Once you've invested 10s of 1000s of dollars into our product ecosystem, we're definitely going to take care of you. I don't have that feeling at all. I have the feeling of like our stuff might crap out on you and then you just have to buy it again. Cool. So yeah, I don't know. It puts a bad taste in my mouth, all that to say.
Speaker 2:My impulse is to say it's the 24 millimeter lens, but I have now such a conflicted relationship with it. There are a couple other ones, though, specifically a lens that I really love that I think is absolutely underrated is the Tamron 20-40 f2.8. I love this lens. This is the lens that I use. I use it a lot in the studio for B-roll. Sometimes you get for a B camera because 20 millimeters is so wide on a full frame camera, but it's also the lens Anytime I take a camera out anywhere.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's the best, especially when you you factor in that you can use like super 35 crop mode on a full frame camera Cause, then it it's not just a 40 millimeter lens, it goes up I don't know what it ends up being 65, 70-ish millimeters, something like that. You get a little more reach out of it and that's such a useful focal length. I know 16 to 35 is there. 16 is a little wider, 35 is not quite as narrow, but 20 to 40 for me on full frame has been so insanely practical. That lens is like six or $700. So it's built just as well as the GM lenses are, which I'm saying that as a good thing, because it's so much cheaper than those are.
Speaker 2:I haven't had any issues with this one at all. The autofocus is every bit as good as the Sony and I know Sony also, like, owns part of Tamron. So if you kind of look at Tamron's lens lineup and Sony's lens lineup and you realize, like why they don't make overlapping focal lengths and lenses in a lot of cases, and then you realize like Sony owns part of Tamron. It all kind of the puzzle pieces all kind of fit together there. But that lens and it's an F2.8. So it's pretty decent. In low light it's capable of getting some cool background blur at times. You know a 20 miller 20 millimeter 2.8 shot, it's awesome. And it's so small and compact and lightweight that it is a great lens to take with you places because it just it doesn't take up any space and it doesn't add a lot of weight to stuff. And I just feel like tamron announced that lens.
Speaker 2:I was on the pre-order list immediately. Like I was waiting for months till it was like available for order and then I ordered it right away. I made a video about it. I feel like I don't hear anybody talking about this lens. I feel like it's sort of like meh, like people just kind of overlooked it. It's like the next option is like a 16 to 35. And in the Sony world that's the 16 to 35 G master. Like $2,000 for another 2.8 lens. This is like six or $700. And it's almost the same in some ways, I think. I think I have found it more useful to be able to to go further to 40 millimeters than wider to 16. Having previously owned a 16 to 35 as well.
Speaker 2:Okay, that was lens talk, lens chat. There we go. A couple more questions. Oh, here's two that are sort of the same. So this is Peter Lindgren asked what's the difference between the previous office setup and the new one, and then James Watts Films asked how are you finding the separation of the edit desk with the filming desk? So kind of similar-ish questions there. I don't want to go through the whole thing of, like, the studio rebuild because that was basically the whole last episode. Go listen to that. Go watch the Patreon channel supporter video if you want to see some of it in action, but I can give sort of some updates now.
Speaker 2:That's been a little longer and I've been able to use this and it is phenomenal. So, like right now, I'm setting up to film, actually, a Buzzsprout video. To do that, I want it to look like one of my videos, but I don't want it to look 100% like one of my videos. I want to incorporate a little more of Buzzsprout's branding, which is a lot of green. I maybe want to use an angle that's not like so typically, tom, but it's still like obviously it's me in the same space so I'm able to move my rolling desk around, find a cool angle I can incorporate maybe a little bit more of like the guitar wall, since that's something that sometimes that sends mixed signals on my videos Cause people like this isn't a music channel, why is half the frame just instruments and stuff? But for this situation it actually makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:So it's like I've been able to sort of dial in this one setup, that um, that I can use for a client thing, and even brand it a little bit differently, very subtly, but a little bit differently, and then I could just switch things around and go back to my own setup like almost instantly. And to do that was so easy because it was literally like oh, I need to move the camera here, let me roll it over. I need to move my desk, let me roll it over. Oh, there's stuff in the background, let me just roll that out of the frame. My desk, let me roll it over. Oh, there's stuff in the background, let me just roll that out of the frame. I didn't once knock anything over, I didn't bump anything into anything.
Speaker 2:The versatility and the space and like the freedom of movement is just, oh, it's absolutely unreal. I've never experienced this in my own personal studio, ever, and so it's. I can't even tell you how much I love it. It's great. And then to go back to like the thing I did, which was splitting the filming and work desk because that was kind of my problem before was like they were one and for some people that might work. So just because I split mine off doesn't mean that's the thing to do. Like I didn't discover the way to do it, I just discovered a way to do it. Oh, but it's been so nice Like sitting here at my work desk right now.
Speaker 2:It's so easy, like everything, because everything is designed for me to work comfortably, ergonomically, efficiently. There is still a setup that it can work on camera, but that's kind of secondary to me being able to get my work done, because it's not going to be used for that as much and that's not the purpose of it here, whereas it was sort of the other way around before. It's like this needs to look good on camera and then if you can like somehow manage to get work done, which is very uncomfortable, even little things like anytime I'm editing I use headphones. I'm wearing headphones right now I always edit videos with headphones. I don't have studio monitors. I don't really like working with studio monitors and they're expensive and I just don't want or have any so and they take up a lot of space.
Speaker 2:So I just have like a little computer speaker thing that I've used forever. It's mainly just for like watching videos, listening to podcasts, playing music while I'm filming, like whatever it might be. It's just I'm not doing like work through that speaker, I'm just listening to stuff through it. It just needs to sound listenable. Like you know, it's better than just a phone speaker or something.
Speaker 2:But it's a small little speaker.
Speaker 2:It doesn't look great on my desk.
Speaker 2:So previously I sort of had it on this little like shelf thing under my desk, which is fine and I know putting a speaker under a desk is not going to give you the best sound quality but it meant that every time I needed to turn on I kind of had to like lean and then like like contort my arm into this S shape to reach over and push the button and turn the speaker on, and it also has an auto power off thing.
Speaker 2:So if it didn't play sound for like an hour it would turn off, and it's like it was one of those things where every time I needed the speaker on, it wasn't that it was that hard, but there was a little part of me that just sort of felt like like it's just a little annoyance, a little bit of like oh geez, like you know I don't know how to describe those things it's like if you have a I don't know a drawer in your kitchen that's just not organized well, and every time you open it you just get a little annoyed that you kind of have to like reach back to grab this one thing, and then eventually you realize like can I just put that one thing in the front, and then it eliminates that pain point.
Speaker 2:Now I can just have my little speaker on top of my desk because it doesn't matter, because it's not a thing that's going to be on camera and whenever I need to turn on I can just reach over without having to like contort myself, push the button, speakers turned on, done. There's those little quality of upgrades times 100, like quality of life upgrades times 100 throughout the whole setup, where everything just feels so much better and easier to use and easier to work with. And that has been, it's just been so nice. And then the versatility of the filming desk being able to do whatever. So right now I have it set up to do a video about podcasting. So that means on it I have my Mackie DLZ Creator XS, a boom arm and the SM7B, because that's the gear that I'm gonna use for filming and that's all that's on the desk. So in the video you're just gonna see that gear and microphone on the desk. That's it. It doesn't have to, like you know. Like prior to that, if I was, you know, filming something, say, I needed to use the dlz creator but my computer set up to use the roadcaster. It was a lot of like reconnecting stuff on unrouting cables, unmanaging cables, then putting them back. And now it's not the case because my desk just has the roadcaster duo. That's just there. I never have to touch anything. Nothing has to be moved, unplugged, switched ever, and I can just do a different thing over here. It has worked. It has just worked so good. I just can't even tell you how much better the workflow is. It's awesome. I tried my best to tell you. That's about as good as I can go.
Speaker 2:I've got two questions left. They're both Elgato related, so we Elgato answer them. The first one is kind of going back to lenses. What is the best lens? Oh, this was one. Sorry, this is a combined question. I got this. I got versions of this question like six times no-transcript. You're going to see the teleprompter in it and I my 24 millimeter lens is fine. So 24 millimeters on full frame, totally fine. That's what I've been using the whole time. 20 millimeters is where you start to kind of get that, so to see the edges a little bit. So on full frame I wouldn't go wider than 24 millimeters On a crop sensor camera. That's about 16 millimeters. And I say that because I know a lot of people have the Sigma 16 millimeter F1.4 lens, especially paired with something like a ZV-E10. And that's about as wide as you could go. But the flip side of that, because there's also people who want to use GoPros, who want to use phones, who want to use webcams.
Speaker 2:If you have a camera that's a little too wide or using a lens that's a little too wide, you can always just crop in. Because somebody sent me a whole thing saying that they were thinking of buying a brand new lens because they had I forget what lens they had, but it was too wide, and so they didn't want to see the edge of the prompter. And should they spend now like hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a new lens just for the prompter? And I told them don't do that, don't spend hundreds of dollars if that's all it's going to be done, used for. Instead, just use your lens that is too wide and then in your editing software, if you're recording, you can do this in final cut resolve. If you're streaming, you can do this in ecam or obs or any application you can just crop in so we don't see the, the black frame, and then the problem is solved. So if the only lens you have is one that is too wide to use with a prompter without seeing the edges of it, don't worry, just crop in after you film, or even while you're streaming or filming or whatever, and everything will be totally fine. So that's a quick little life hack that I think some people were overlooking, because they got the prompter, they put their lens on it and it was suddenly like, oh my gosh, my lens doesn't work and lenses are expensive, and it's a crazy thing.
Speaker 2:And the last question, going back to low profile arms, is an Elgato question. I recently made a video about the Elgato low profile arm. I got it when it first came out. This is Tom talking, not the question. By the way, I got it when the arm first came out and I liked it a lot, but it had some issues. Over the past couple of years people have been kind of telling me like, hey, the arm has been updated, things have been changed. Elgato themselves even left a comment on a video saying like, oh, just let you know, we did update this, that and the other thing. So I bought a new one recently to see what the changes were and there were things that were different. They basically fixed all of my complaints. So I recently made a video that was like it's called. They fixed everything.
Speaker 2:You know, elgato low profile arm re-review, something along those lines, and I think I was a little. I think it's a combination of. I was unclear about something in the video, combined with what people sort of expect when they see videos like this, cause I got versions of this question a lot, which is how do I know, how do I get the new version of the Elgato low profile arm? I'm only seeing the original version for sale and I think so the version I have, this updated version. I think it's been the way that it is for like a year. It's not new.
Speaker 2:Elgato has just been making little iterative changes to the boom arm since they released it, which is really cool, based on customer and community feedback, and hopefully they'll continue to keep doing that. But I think, because I made this whole like re-review video, I think people thought that it's like there is a new version of the boom arm, cause somebody even said I know you're a reviewer, so you get this stuff early, but when's it going to be available for everyone else? And I'm like this was available like a year ago. It's not, I just bought it off Amazon, like it's not nothing special going on there as far as I'm involved with, and so I want to be clear Elgato, at the time I'm recording this, has not released a version two of the Elgato low profile arm.
Speaker 2:They've just made changes to the design in a couple of years since it was released and now they fix a lot of things. So unless you're buying from some strange place that's got really, really old stock, if you go to amazon, if you go to bnh, if you go to like any you know trustworthy retailer that moves a lot of merchandise, they're only going to have the new, current versions of things and so it might not say that it's not going to say you know, 2024 update. Even some of the product photos might look a little out of date. You might look at it and go like wait, there's not the, the knob isn't where it's supposed to be or whatever. These are the only versions of the arms that they make currently, so it's the one that you will get if you order it. You know you can always protect yourself by making sure you're ordering from somewhere that has a good return policy. So just in case you do get an old version somehow, you can just send it back and return it. But yeah, if you just go to Amazon, type in Elgato low profile arm, the listing that pops up is the one, is the only one, available. It's not a new version. It's not going to say it's a new version. There's only ever been one version, at least according to the listings, even though there have been different iterations of this one version.
Speaker 2:I guess, if that kind of makes sense, so that's all the questions. Hey, that's perfect. That was like right on time in terms of keeping this episode at about an hour. So thanks to everyone who sent in questions. Of course, as I said, as I have said many times, you do not have to wait until Q&A episode. You can send a question anytime, tom, at EnthusiasmProjectcom or HiMyNameIsTomcom, and just scroll down to record your SpeakPipe message. That's the app that records everything there. You can do that at any time.
Speaker 2:Next week, episode six is going to be the community episode.
Speaker 2:That's something I started doing last season, where it's a little more like less creator based and more personal based, sort of you know what I maybe Heather has also been up to, what we've been working on, maybe stuff we've been watching, playing, doing, you know, like lives outside of YouTube and content creation, sort of some chat and updates about that stuff is what's coming your way next week and we've still got time.
Speaker 2:Nab is two weeks away, so I'm trying to think of. Yeah, I'm recording this on Saturday for listening to it on Monday when it's released, so you still got time to register for NAB. If you want to go to Las Vegas any of the dates between April 13th and 17th, you can go to nabshowcom, sign up as an attendee and you can get an exhibition pass for free if you use promo code TOM24. So there you go. Thanks so much for listening, I hope. Thanks again for all the questions. I hope they were interesting to listen to and I also hope that you have a safe, happy, healthy, fun rest of your week and I'll see you next time I'm out.