The Only Good Review is a Bad Review

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:26):
Thank you, hello and welcome.
My name is Tom.
This is the Enthusiasm Project,season 13, episode 2, coming
straight to you.
Video and audio baby.
Yeah, so back, just going fullsteam ahead, right, full stream

(00:48):
ahead.
I want to.
Before we dive into today'sepisode, I definitely want to
thank everybody for listening tolast week's episode, listening
to the season premiere.
That is the longest break I'veever taken in making something
in my content creator journeyhere, like you know, many, many
months, and it was nice thatthere were people who were, you
know, asking about the podcastand wanting to come back.

(01:10):
But a big part of me was like,obviously, you know, most people
would have forgotten about it.
It was really cool to see thateither people didn't forget
about it or at least their feedpopped up in their feed again
and whether you listened to theaudio version or watch the new
video version, I really, reallyappreciate that support.
It was sort of a nerve wrackingthing to, you know, bring
something back after such abreak and I'm glad you gave me a

(01:31):
break on that and it seemedcool like both the feedback I
got from people listening toaudio only it's basically like
cool episode doesn't detract andthe feedback I got from people
on the video side of things waspretty huge.
I was kind of surprised at howmany people watched the video
thing, and we'll talk about that, and I got some cool feedback
to share with you as well.
So that is really exciting,really really appreciate that.

(01:58):
It's been fun to sort of dialin this workflow a little bit
more and sort of figure thingsout, and so today we're just
going to jump straight into it.
We're just going, if I can pushthe right button here, we're
just going to go full on in totalking about things, starting,
of course, with I don't want tobe distracting.
I need to let you know what I'musing.
So this is the mic of the weeksegment, with the chill
background beats included as anintro over here.

(02:21):
One thing I said last week andthis was an idea that somebody
else gave me is to use adifferent microphone in every
episode this season and then atthe end or after the season's
over, I guess, have people voteon which one they think sound
the best and that's just whichone they like the most.
And so that's something I'mgoing to do, and this week the

(02:44):
microphone I'm using is theShure SM4, which is a microphone
I haven't used in a while and areason for that for me not
using the 4,.
I actually really like thismicrophone.
I like the way that it sounds alot.
It's not as neutral assomething like the SM7B, but it
was really cool to see Shurecome out with a condenser
microphone, a new condensermicrophone, and it does have a
different profile.
It has a.
It almost kind of reminds me ofthe Rode NT1, where it has sort

(03:07):
of a signature sound right outof the box without any EQ or
processing.
I am running it into theRodecaster Duo, of course, and I
have just the generic condensersetting.
So if I turn that off, this isthe microphone's native sound
and if I turn the processingback on, this is what that
sounds like.
Not a major drastic difference,I don't think, but something I

(03:27):
really like.
I quite enjoy this microphone.
It sounds great.
The reason I haven't used it asmuch on streams and things is
just because I have found thatpositioning it and with the
windscreen it does kind of endup being the microphone at least
with this camera angle thatblocks my face a bit.
Not that like a face is soimportant it can't be blocked,
but sometimes people just findthat distracting when there's

(03:47):
something in front of your face.
So it's nice, you know, you canposition things off to the side
a little bit.
But this one I just I havefound that to make it sound its
best, it kind of needs to bepositioned right here and it
sort of covers up my face.
So using it for audio onlystuff has been a dream.
I love it, love the way that itsounds For this specific video
setup.
Sometimes it just sort ofblocks things and that is

(04:08):
something that sort of keeps mefrom using it as much as I might
like to, even though I reallydo think this is actually an
absolutely fantastic microphoneand I really enjoy it.
Well, we're just going to jumpinto today's topic, because I
clicked the button early.
So we have several segments,which is a fun thing that I'm

(04:29):
trying, but I always want tohave like a meaty topic.
You know, like what would the,what would the episode be titled
?
Right, and I titled this one.
The only good review is anegative review, because that is
something if you've been in theworld of YouTube reviews for
any amount of time, whetherwatching them or making them
that might be something youcatch on to is negative reviews
seem to be the thing that getthe most.
They just get the mostattention.
And it's a strange sort of sadthing where, if I'm like you

(04:51):
know I guess I shouldn't saythat because I feel like I have
evidence otherwise but if I say,hey, this water bottle is
awesome and I love it, there arepeople out there who will be
interested in that and who willreally like that.
But if I say, hey, this waterbottle sucks and you shouldn't
get it, way more people aregoing to watch that video.
Now the downside to that or Iguess the trick to that is the

(05:14):
thing I have found is that, eventhough not giving in to sort of
that negativity does slowgrowth and does it slows things,
it slows everything downbecause it's not what's popular,
it's not what gets attention.
The people that gravitatetowards that stuff are generally
probably not people I wouldreally connect with in a way,

(05:37):
whereas the fact that I am ableto share stuff that I'm
enthusiastic about in this caseit's the example of the water
bottle that's something I'mexcited about.
I want to share it with you.
Hopefully you catch myexcitement, you're onto that,
you feel that it's genuineexcitement and that brings in
sort of like it just creates apositive atmosphere and a
positive vibe and it brings inyou know what I feel are really

(05:59):
positive, excited people,because everybody I've connected
with you know like I'm juststunned at how awesome the
people are that watch my channeland listen to the podcast and
it really feels like.
It really feels like itattracts a certain kind of
person to just the whole vibe ofeverything and it's really
really rewarding.
And so I would.

(06:19):
I would take slow growth or lessgrowth or whatever, for that
specific reason to have stuffthat's more valuable rather than
like, wow, my numbers arereally high but everybody's just
a negative jerk in the comments.
But that's sort of a thing isthere's also this flip side
where people feel like and it'snot even feel like it's true

(06:39):
People are becoming a littlemore savvy in how content
creators and influencers cansort of lie and manipulate their
audiences.
And you know, companies pay forthings, whether they disclose
that, they don't disclose that,all that kind of stuff.
And so there are people who saypositive things about products
and services outside of, likesponsored segments and things

(07:01):
make it seem legitimate but itmight not actually be legitimate
, and so people are very waryabout that, whereas obviously,
if you say something negativeabout a thing, it's pretty clear
that you know you're not beingpaid by that company to say
something negative, because nocompany would pay someone to do
that.
And so I think I think there'ssome logic there, right.

(07:23):
Like, okay, you know, and youcan kind of find that, you know,
sometimes, even in paid reviews, people will have like I guess
you can't really do a paidreview, but in like a paid
showcase, people might have likea critique, but it's a pretty
like minor, almost nothingcritique, and sometimes people
feel like, well, yeah, of courseyou can't actually say how you
really feel, because you knowyou're being paid or whatever it

(07:47):
is, and so people sort ofcalibrated their I don't know
whatever their sensors to likeif this person is being critical
of something, obviously thatmeans it's an honest, it's spin
things negatively, then it getsyou a lot more attention.
And so it's this weird thing oflike I'm going to be real

(08:10):
honest and be super negativeabout stuff or be just jaded
about things, and I genuinelydislike that a lot.
I don't find that interesting,I don't find that to be honest a
lot of the time and I find thatto be.
I find that to be, in manycases, its own way of being
manipulative.
Obviously there are bad things,there are bad products, bad

(08:32):
services out there, and ifpeople want to share that or
explain that in an honest, openway, that's not a bad thing.
But the thing where, like youcan trust me because I'm saying
bad things about this, can justbe be just as manipulative as
someone who's only saying goodthings and not disclosing
they're being paid for it.
So I wanted to talk about Iwanted to kind of explore that a

(08:54):
little bit and go into what Ithink makes a good review and
the key here.
This is just my opinion.
When I'm talking about what Ithink a good review is, it's
what I think.
It's not an objective truth or,or you know, law of the
universe or anything like that.
But obviously you know thereare differences too between
reviews and showcases.
But I think honesty is probablyparamount.

(09:16):
Honesty is probably key when itcomes to a good review, and
that goes with everything fromjust disclosing it.
How you know, are you beingpaid?
Did you get the thing for free?
What is your you know?
Have you used it a lot?
Did you just open it and makethe?
You know all that kind of stuff, like what even is a review?
I guess If you're being paid bya company, I don't think you

(09:36):
can call that a review just outof like I don't know integrity
and ethics.
I guess.
An example I have is when,personally, is when Sennheiser
released the Profile microphone,which I love, that was a
sponsored video.
They like they.
It was kind of crazy.
They let me be the first videothat like announced the
microphone, like before it waseven on their website or

(09:57):
whatever.
It was kind of awesome and theygave them, they gave the
microphone to me.
It was a sponsored video, sothere's a sponsorship fee
included and I did not call thata review.
That's a product showcase,that's a first look, that's a
first impressions, that's Ithink I specifically use the
term product showcase, productspotlight, like it's not a
review, even though there'sreally nothing that would have

(10:20):
been different if it were areview.
If I went to Amazon, bought themicrophone and used it and
shared my thoughts, it wouldhonestly be the same video.
But the fact that money changedhands, that it is a sponsored
thing, like I don't know, youknow, I guess if it, I don't
know what would have happened if, like I hated the thing.
I know I've never been in thatsituation.
So I've known people who committo reviews before trying a

(10:42):
thing and then they have to makea video about a thing that they
hate because they're on like acontractual hook for it.
I've never been in thatsituation because it was always
with Sennheiser and with anysituation even remotely similar
to that, it's always been.
Let me see it.
Let me see how I feel about it.
Let me see if I like it.
If so, then we can talk aboutother things moving forward.
So once I got the microphone, Iused it and I liked it.

(11:03):
It was like, yeah, cool, Iwould love to do a paid thing
with this because it's awesomeand like I genuinely really like
it.
I still really like it.
It's still my favorite USBmicrophone.
You know, two years it's beentwo years already oh, time flies
.
That's scary.
No-transcript to use to do whatyou need to do in your workflow

(11:34):
.
That's fine.
Just let people know how you'reusing the thing.
There's nothing wrong.
You know, in the world ofcontent creating I've talked
about this a lot Companies sendyou things for free.
It's a thing that happened.
Shure sent this microphone theSM4, for free when it was
released.
I don't have to do anythingabout that, didn't have to make
a video, don't have to use it ina podcast.
I did a review because I foundthe microphone to be very

(11:55):
interesting.
I liked it.
I think it's a good microphoneand it was interesting to see
Shure, you know, who have stufflike the SM7B, who've been
focusing on more techie thingslike the MV7, mv7 Plus.
It was interesting to see themgo with just here's just a
straight solid XLR microphone,xlr condenser microphone.

(12:15):
I found that really interestingand so I wanted to make a video
about that.
For those reasons.
I feel that I can still bepretty open and honest, the same
way I would if I, if I, paidfor this microphone with my own
money.
But it is important that peopleknow the context that that I
did get it like becauseintellectually I know what it's
like to spend, you know, acouple hundred bucks on a
microphone.

(12:36):
I feel like I have a prettygood gauge of.
Even if this was sent to me,would I or would I not?
Is it, is it not worth thatamount of money?
But there is.
That is different than spendingthe money on the thing, like
there's the theory and thepractice right.
In theory, I understand that Inpractice of bank account being
debited a couple hundred bucks,that is a different thing and I

(12:56):
feel like I know I can navigatethat and walk that line pretty
well.
But it's up to me to disclosethat to other people so that
they can make that decision forthemselves how they feel about
that and whether that'ssomething they trust or not.
But that's all part of justbeing open, honest and
transparent with how you reviewthings, how you explain things
and then, of course, beinghonest in your opinion, which

(13:19):
probably does include, you know,maybe some critiques, probably
does include things that aren'tnecessarily perfect about the
product.
That is totally normal.
That's something that should beexpected.
Very few things are justabsolutely perfect, but yeah, so
honesty obviously is a big partof a good review.
I think relatability isimportant and that kind of goes
into how you use it.
I don't think that you need to.

(13:40):
You know, like I said, if youhave something that has 18
switches and buttons on it butyou use three of them, I think
that's fine.
Explain why you use those three, how those three buttons help
you, how those three switcheshelp you.
It doesn't matter that youdon't use any of the other
features.
There are people who willprobably be upset by that review
because they're going to feellike it did not give them what
they wanted, it didn't coverevery possible detail.

(14:00):
But I think, more importantlythe people who are in your same
situation because if you're inthat situation you can pretty
much guarantee someone else isas well it's going to be the
most helpful, the most useful,the most relatable review for
those specific people, comparedto just if you just try to be
all things to all people all thetime.

(14:21):
So making your stuff relatableis very important and you do
that also throughcontextualizing.
I think, both contextualizinguse cases, your experience with
it, but also where things fit,and that's something that I have
found, at least in the audiovideo niche.
People really do kind of needhelp with sometimes is
contextualizing stuff becausethere's so many products, gear

(14:44):
gets updated so often and youknow, and new versions of things
come out and markets getsaturated and it's like where
does something fit?
You know, the Rodecaster videois a good example.
That's what I'm running mycamera through right now.
That is, you know, at its coreit kind of looks like a four
input HDMI switcher which islike an ATEM Mini.

(15:05):
And then you're like, well, theRODECaster is $1,200 and the
ATEM is $300.
Why would I spend almost $1,000more on the RODECaster?
And then helping tocontextualize people explaining
that like, okay, yes, at theircore, if all you're doing is
switching between four HDMIsources, it makes no sense to

(15:26):
get the RODECaster video.
If you want to do that and youwant to build in graphics, build
in scenes, have built inextremely high quality audio
processing, all of those kindsof things that really level up
the RODECaster beyond what anATEM is capable of, that really
level up the RODECaster beyondwhat an ATEM is capable of, then
suddenly it actually becomes areally good deal for that price.

(15:49):
When you think of how you wouldhave to do all of those things
elsewhere, with separatesoftware, separate equipment,
separate everything.
So you know, helpingcontextualize stuff is really
important.
That's one of my favoritethings to do, because I feel
like stuff becomes so much moreunderstandable, so much more.
I feel like so much tension canbe, you know, eased if people
take the time to understand thecontext of things.

(16:09):
That goes way beyond productreviews, way beyond audio video
production, just life in general.
I feel like.
I feel like contextualizationis huge.
That's one of my favoritethings to do is try to
contextualize things.
I also think a good review, atleast in a lot of cases for
content creators, is goodprofessional development.
I think sometimes people cansort of fall into the trap of

(16:32):
like having such a system thatit's almost like a conveyor belt
right Like you're standing herewith your camera thing comes
over on conveyor belt.
You talk about things, set itdown new thing on conveyor belt,
talk about the new thing, andthere are certain things where
you might be an expert in that,in that field, on that topic,
where you can do that prettyaccurately and pretty actively.

(16:54):
But I really do think that youknow ongoing professional
development, as I call it, is animportant part of product
reviews and that's thatessentially comes down to using
the product and something thatgets tricky.
You know everybody's journey islike a reviewer or a content
creator is a little bitdifferent.
But something I've talked aboutin the past is, you know,
starting the channel and doingproduct reviews.

(17:16):
I'm just talking about stuffthat I have, or maybe I bought
something new that I'm reallyexcited about and I wanna share
it.
Time goes on and then you havecompanies reach out that want to
send you stuff or you know,whatever it might be.
And that's where things can geta little bit tricky, and I've
even talked about on thispodcast in the past.
I've thought about, like well,if I just don't accept anything

(17:36):
from any companies, that willmake my life simple, because
then there's just never thequestion of like oh, this was
sent to you, like all you know,like, the only stuff I talk
about is stuff that I boughtbecause I needed it.
That's going to be the simplestway to approach this completely
.
However, the reason I chose notto do that is because there
were a number of people whoactually support and care about

(18:00):
and encourage what I do and wantto know, like specifically, for
whatever reason, want to knowmy point of view on a thing.
And if you find yourself in thatsituation where there are
people like, hey, yeah, what doyou think about this?
That's probably because you didmake past reviews relatable and
contextual and it connectedwith that person in a way that

(18:21):
they've sort of calibrated toyour senses, where you know it's
like a movie critic, if I guess.
Maybe this isn't as commonanymore, maybe it is, I don't
know YouTube channel instead oflike newspaper movie critics.
But if you find, like a moviecritic, that every time they
recommend or don't recommend amovie, you find that you agree
with them.
You know, you know your tastesare kind of calibrated and if

(18:41):
they say, yeah, this movie isgreat, you should go see it, you
probably know, like, yeah, I'mgoing to like that movie.
Sort of the same thing here.
Like people calibrate theirtastes and their preferences to
you and if somebody has foundthat, like you know, if this
person says that something isgood, I tend to think it's good.
If they, you know, ignoresomething, aren't interested in
something, I'm probably notinterested in it it can be

(19:10):
incredibly helpful.
And so, in the spirit of beingas helpful as possible, taking
on, you know, taking on the ideaof reviewing stuff that I
wouldn't necessarily buy on myown, like not even that I
wouldn't want it, but maybe Ijust don't need it, right, like
I have the RODECaster video, butFeel World sent out the L4,
which I'm going to talk aboutlater today, the L4 video
switcher.
I don't need that, I have avideo switcher, I don't need
another video switcher.
But lots of people, it pops upregularly.

(19:30):
What about that Feel Worldswitcher?
What do you think about theFeel World.
How does that compare here?
It's like, okay, it's not that Ineed it, but I can offer
context.
I can actually offer some help.
I can benefit people by sharingmy thoughts and experience with
this product.
I can benefit people by sharingmy thoughts and experience with
this product and also by doingthat, I'm learning more about it
, right, I'm learning more aboutthat workflow, even something

(19:50):
like this video podcast, right.
Like the way I want to usedifferent microphones, the way I
want to use different audiomixers and video switchers and
software and applications andall the things.
I feel like that's goodprofessional development.
It's not me just in theorygoing like, yeah, I feel like
that's good professionaldevelopment.
It's not me just in theorygoing like, yeah, I think this
is a good thing.
It's getting your hands dirty,understanding how something

(20:11):
works, understanding the painpoints in the workflow or with
the product or whatever, andthen being able to speak more
honestly and openly about it.
So those are some things that Ithink really do lend themselves
to making what I would call agood review.
So the flip side to that, then,if that's what I think a good
review is, what do I think agood review is not.

(20:31):
So what do I think might make abad review?
Not that it's a bad review interms of the thing is bad, but
the review itself notnecessarily ideal.
This might kind of I don't know, this might be controversial,
so this again is just my opinion.
Spec rundowns I hate these.

(20:52):
I cannot stand when a review isjust reading the tech specs of
a product, like I can go to theproduct website, I can go to B&H
Photo and just click on specsand then read everything and and
it's going to take me twoseconds, I don't need to sit
through a 12 minute YouTubevideo about that Including specs
in reviews is very helpfulbecause I can help contextualize

(21:13):
.
I can help people understand.
Maybe you can explain somethings, but I think this thing
has happened.
It's always like you know.
You know everything starts fromthe best of intentions, right?
I'm going to look at somebodyin my niche.
I'm going to look at someonelike Gerald Undone, right, who
is very well known for beingspec heavy.
When Gerald reviews a product,he goes deep into the specs and

(21:35):
he has established a reallystrong reputation as being
someone trustworthy and someonereliable and people trust him.
I think that has beenmisinterpreted, though, and some
people see, okay, gerald goesreally in depth on tech specs.
If I want to have a good review, I need to read every tech spec

(21:56):
, and then it makes it soundcomplicated, it makes it sound
technical, and you have a copyof a copy of a copy of that and
at the end then you just havesomeone who's just like reading
the thing from the productwebsite.
That offers no additionalinformation.
What people are missing when itcomes to Gerald?
Someone like Gerald, and how heapproaches his stuff at least
as I understand it is he doesn'tjust look at the tech specs, he

(22:18):
actually does explain thosethings how this would affect
this, what this might look like,how this would affect this,
what this might look like, howthis does compare to a previous
version and then he puts them tothe test.
So if something says it'ssupposed to do something and the
specification indicates that hechecks, does it actually do
that?
If it does, he tells you.
If it doesn't, he tells you.

(22:38):
So it's not just reading thespec list, which I think it
almost gets distilled down, andpeople see someone like that and
they go oh yeah, you just allthe tech specs.
No, he's like he's reallydigging in there in a very nitty
gritty technical way, aprofessional way, and I think
that kind of gets lost intranslation and then you just
end up with people reading techspecs, which is not helpful
because you're not giving anynew information.

(22:58):
If anything, it can be harmfulbecause sometimes people leave
out you know now you're givingincomplete pictures and it's
just.
I do not think a spec rundownmakes a good review, even though
it makes it sound very, verytechnical, and that is again
just my opinion.
Specifically, I leave out lotsof tech specs in my videos.
I don't and I don't care.

(23:20):
Also is the thing which goesinto what I also think a good
review is not it's justbenchmark heavy.
This could be, you know, thiscould be something.
If you have your camera that'slike this is supposed to have
48,000 stops of dynamic range,like you know, that's that's
double check, all the crazy.
Like oh, it only has 47,000.
I know a camera doesn't havethat many stops but you know

(23:40):
like, oh, it's two stops shortof that, like I don't know,
maybe that's helpful to know.
You see this a lot withcomputers, where it's like you
know, recently the M4 series maxcame out and of course you see
all the geek bench scores wouldbe like this the M4 has a has a
score of 28,000 and the M3 had ascore of 22,000.
Okay, that that meansabsolutely nothing to me.

(24:03):
I don't know.
It's like you know, living inAmerica and then hearing people
go like this thing in Japancosts a million yen, and I'm
like I don't know what that is.
Is that like $2 million?
Is it like $10?
Like I have no context for whatthese things mean, these
benchmarks.
Okay, it looks like that newcomputer is faster because the

(24:24):
number's higher.
Is that like a big difference?
You know, whatever, in thiscase, in my example, 6,000
thingies.
Is that a big difference?
Is that a little difference?
Am I going to notice that?
Am I not going to notice that?
And that's again.
Sometimes it can feel like Imade a really good review
because I read all the specs andI ran all the benchmarks and I

(24:44):
showed people the numbers andit's very objective and it's
very factual.
But you have given noinformation.
You've given no actualinformation, whereas it's like
you know, I'll explain.
When the M1 Max came out, likethe M1 Mac Mini, I made a couple
of videos about that because itblew my mind Like I bought mine
just at Best Buy, nothing crazy.
I bought the base model, thecheapest one.
That's the computer that'srecording this right now.

(25:06):
It's four years old, maybe moreat this point, and I had a 3000
, I think a $3,200 MacBook Pro,an Intel MacBook Pro at the time
.
That was my main computer andit was just driving me crazy
because it just seemed like itwas getting slow and the fan was
so loud.
And then I bought this $600base model M1 Mac mini and it
just crushed the Intel computerand an eight gigs of Ram and,

(25:29):
like you know, I couldn't figureout how that was even possible.
And so in my videos that's whatI was trying to explain the
benchmarks.
My Intel MacBook had 32 gigs ofRam.
The M1 Mac mini had eight gigsof Ram.
You would think that the IntelMacBook would be so much better,
and that's what I was trying toexplain.
It was like, oh my gosh,especially at the time when

(25:49):
Apple just released the M1 chips.
It was like this almost causesyou to reframe how you think
about things, how you like, what32 gigs and eight gigs of RAM
actually means in thesedifferent contexts.
And it was like, instead ofjust showing, I think I did
include Geekbench scores inthere.
Just to show an example of likehere's a very expensive

(26:11):
computer with one number.
Here's a very cheap computerwith, I think, even a better
number.
But I also wanted to show whatthat meant.
So it was like okay, now let meshow you what that looks like.
Here's me running Ecamm Liveand a Zoom meeting and Final Cut
Pro and Photoshop and whateverI just.
I opened up like everyapplication on the computer and
was using them in real time withlike no lag, no dropouts, no

(26:31):
anything.
And I'm like this is thecheapest version of this
computer.
This is the first version.
That means it's the worstversion of this computer.
Anything else is going to be atleast this capable and probably
faster and probably morepowerful.
And literally just doing thething where it was.
Like here's all of theseapplications open at once.
Like that shows people muchmore than just what the geek

(26:54):
bench score, what the benchmarkshows.
Like you need to explain whatthese things mean.
You can say, like well, thiscamera, it has X number of stops
of dynamic range and here's alittle chart that kind of shows
what that means.
Okay, cool, show me like gooutside and take some video,
take some photo that shows mewhat the shadows look like, what

(27:16):
the highlights look likecompared to something with less
dynamic range.
Like, show me what thatactually means, because I don't
know.
I can read that it has allthese things on the website.
Please help me to understand itmore.
And if you're not doing that,if you're just giving benchmarks
and specs with no context, thenyou really aren't helping.

(27:36):
And another thing I think a goodreview is not is negative for
clicks and giggles, which iswhat I kind of said at the
beginning is just being negativefor the sake of being negative,
because you know thatnegativity gets more clicks,
because you know that it getsmore engagement, because all of
those things right there and andsometimes too, like people

(27:58):
really forget to contextualize,like not even just the product
for the viewer but forthemselves.
Like sometimes negative reviewsreally seem to be like here's
my impossible wishlist.
This $400 product didn't meetthat.
Here's all the ways it fails tolive up to it and why it's

(28:19):
terrible and it's like it wasnever supposed to be.
That you know.
Like that is also a thing, islike what is this thing supposed
to be?
Who is this supposed to be for?
I've been doing a lot of reviewslately on like 2.4 gigahertz
wireless systems and supposed tobe for.
I've been doing a lot ofreviews lately on like 2.4
gigahertz wireless systems and Iknow some of them have like pro

(28:40):
in the name or whatever andthey can be used professionally
You've seen them on TV orwhatever sometimes.
But realistically, when someonebuys a $200 wireless mic setup,
it's not designed for like theprofessional you know, it's not
designed for that workflow orthat thing, even if a
professional uses it that way.
So if someone shows up withlike, oh, as a professional, I
need X, y and Z because that'sthe only thing that would work

(29:01):
and this doesn't have that andthat's terrible, it's like yeah,
of course it's not for you.
Like you're telling me all thereasons that like a sports car
is a bad pickup truck, like it'snot what it's intended to be at
all.
And especially in those casesit's happened so much with tech
stuff where it's like this isgeared towards consumers.
Right, this is geared towardssomeone who wants to spend as
little money as possible, get asmuch functionality as possible

(29:24):
and have it be as usable andeasy, like frictionless, as
possible.
They don't wanna read theinstruction manuals.
They don't wanna to read theinstruction manuals.
They don't want to have to sitthere and fiddle with it for an
afternoon.
You know, like that's somethingwith the Rodecaster video is
very clear, and someone evenjust asked me in a comment the
other day.
They were like, what would yousay the learning curve is on
this?
And I was like the learningcurve is very steep, like, and
the thing I have said is like ifyou need to use this on an

(29:46):
event, give yourself at least amonth with it, like that's what
I would say for the RODECastervideo or even something like a
YoloBox.
Like give yourself significanttime to understand these things
because the learning curve issuper steep.
If you're looking at somethinglike what's the learning curve
on that Hollyland Lark wirelesssystem?
What's the learning curve onthe, you know, the DJI Mic 2 or

(30:08):
whatever you know, learningcurve is 10 minutes.
You really can't.
As long as it's charged up withbattery, you're probably going
to get something that workspretty good and then you can
fine tune and, you know, adapt alittle bit better as time goes
on.
But you know those are moreconsumer-based devices and if I
approach that through from thelens of like as like top

(30:29):
industry professional would lookat this, what's going to be
terrible, terrible, of course,it's gonna be a negative review.
And the other thing that happensis if you find yourself in the
world where you review stuffregularly, you can get jaded.
You can sort of see like here'sanother thing, here's another
thing, here's another thing, andthat can lead you into maybe
not looking at why somethingexists in the first place.

(30:50):
Is it just a cheap cash grab bya company to try to like copy
what someone else has donesuccessfully?
Are they bringing something newto the market, which I'll just
kind of talk about a little bitlater when we talk about what
I've been working on lately.
But yeah, so that's what Ithink a good review is and is
not.
And then so the next question,which, again, this is all my
opinion, my own experience.
It's not fact.

(31:12):
But the next thing is then forme why are my reviews usually
positive?
There's a lot of reasons forthis.
The first one is why would Iwaste my time with something
that sucks I think I've talkedabout this before, but, like, if
I get something and it'sterrible and I don't like using
it, and I don't want to use itand it's not fun to use and it

(31:32):
doesn't work.
Well, why am I going to, like,put all the time into making a
video about it, right, like, whyam I just going to waste?
I'm just going to torturemyself?
So I have a video that, like,about this thing that sucks,
whereas I could find somethingI'm really excited about and
that I want to use and I want tolearn more about and I want to
tell people about because Ithink it's really cool.

(31:53):
So that's kind of a thing there.
The caveat I would say to thatis if I found something that I
thought was genuinely harmful ordeceptive or misleading, so
just because something is bad, Iguess for me I shouldn't say
that if something's not reviewedon my channel, that is my bad
review, because I'm not tryingto review everything everywhere
all at once, like there are justthings that I am not interested

(32:16):
in or just don't have time for,or whatever it might be.
So just because I don't make avideo about something doesn't
mean I think that it's bad.
But that is kind of that isalso what my.
If there's something thatreally I don't know, if there's
something that just seems badbut not harmful, I'm just not
going to waste my time with it.
If there's something thatactually seemed like the thing I

(32:36):
can think of.
The one time I've made sort of anegative review this was
actually a number of years agowas for my little.
Actually.
It was for the Peak Designtravel tripod.
I made a review for the traveltripod that I bought, which was
like $120, $150.
It's a Benro travel tripod thatI bought which was like a
hundred I'll say, 120, $150.
It's a Benro travel tripod.
I bought it in 2018.
Still use it to this.
Actually, it's set up literallyright over there because I was

(32:57):
using it this morning to recorda video.
It's great, like such a gooduse of money.
It's been all over the worldwith me.
It was 150 bucks A number ofyears ago, when that peak design
travel tripod came out with areally small, lightweight one.
I think that's super cool.
Like came out with a reallysmall, lightweight one.
I think that's super cool.
Like it's a super small, superlightweight, great, compact

(33:18):
travel tripod.
Like that's really awesome.
And now, a number of yearslater, there've been different
versions and different companiesmake them and stuff.
At the time though I don't knowif you remember this or if you
saw videos at the time it wascomical.
How many videos were like.
It was almost like theinfomercial thing of like the
black and white before, likewhere the person's fumbling with
all the things in the kitchen,and then like after, and it's
like in color and now they canput the lid on their Tupperware

(33:39):
more easily.
The thing with Peak Design whichdrove me crazy was like not
that it's a bad tripod.
I don't think that at all.
I think it's very good tripod.
I think it's very expensive,especially like the original
version was like $500 orsomething for this very
lightweight tripod, verylightweight being a good thing
because it's supposed to be, butalso a bad thing because it's
not.
You know, it's probably notgoing to be your main tripod if

(34:02):
you have a lot of camera gearand stuff or you need to, you
know, support a significantamount of weight.
The thing that really drove mecrazy was every review that I
saw on it sort of followed, likefollowed the same formula, to
the point where people were evensaying the same thing about the
box.
Like wow, the box has like thiscool matte finish and this
texture.
It's like maybe everybody cameup with the same thought about

(34:25):
the box, but it was really weirdto hear people who don't
normally talk about productpackaging, talk about product
packaging and it was veryinteresting because, you know,
the tripod has little clipsinstead of twisty things on the
legs, so you can unclip it andthey all extend out and you can
do it up really quickly.
That's nice.
It's faster than having to,like you know, do the twist

(34:45):
locks on multiple tripod legsfor sure.
But it was literally like theway people were explaining like,
oh my God, I've been strugglingwith my tripod.
Like it takes me forever.
Look how long it takes me toset up my tripod.
It's like, dude, you are aprofessional videographer,
photographer, content creator,whatever I know.
You do not struggle to set upyour travel tripod.

(35:07):
It does not take that long.
This new one might be a littlequicker, it might be a little
more easy, but it's not.
It's not like oh my God, I cansee clearly now the rain is gone
, like hallelujah type situation.
It's just like it's.
It's kind of better, I guess.
Definitely not hundreds ofdollars better.
The reason I got so upset aboutthis was because this, at the

(35:29):
time, that tripod was beingpitched as like this is the
travel tripod and I felt that itwas being pitched to a lot of
people who maybe had neverbought a tripod, bought a travel
tripod, didn't know.
And now this is their firstexposure to one and they think
that in order to get somethingsmall and compact, they had to
spend like $500 or $600 on thistripod.
And they did not.

(35:50):
And I was like here is a youknow $150 tripod that is super
reliable.
It can still fold up.
Very compact, not as much asthat one, but still very compact
.
It's also because it's nottrying to be as small as
possible.
It's actually got a lot morepractical usability features.
The, the peak design at leastthe first version made a lot of

(36:10):
weird compromises with usabilitybecause it was trying to be as
compact as possible.
And you know, if you just sortof it's almost like how, like
Apple made stuff so thin that itwas like battery life was
suffering and it's like justmake the MacBooks fatter and put
the ports back in them, likeit's fine, they're still pretty
darn thin.
It's kind of like that.
Like the tripod is still prettysmall, uh's still easy to
travel with.
It's just not the same as thatone.

(36:31):
And so I the review there wasliterally like forget the peak
design hype, this is a goodtravel tripod.
It was kind of.
You know, I did say negativethings about the peak design,
the way it was being approached,but it was mainly to focus on
that.
So something like that, where Iactually thought someone was
being I don't wanna say harmed,but like misled.

(36:52):
That's a time where I would dolike a negative review.
If I just don't like somethingor I just don't think it's very
good, I just generally don'twant to waste my time with it,
because reviews do take a ton oftime and effort to make and
that is just like.
That is just sort of.
I guess that's that's a reasontoo that they're also positive.

(37:16):
It's not just like I don't wantto spend my time with that
thing, but the time it takes tolearn something.
It's.
It's kind of like I keepmentioning the feel world
because I just recorded thatvideo this morning, but like
that is a thing I had for sixmonths before I made the video
on it.
Sometimes you can get somethingand you know pretty quickly,
understand that.
You know what it is, what itdoes, how you feel about it and

(37:38):
you can make a video about it.
But sometimes you need to spendtime with stuff, like a lot of
time with things and the videostake a lot of time to make and
you need something reliable.
If this thing is like terribleand it's messing up your work,
it's just.
Why would you want to do thatto yourself?
Like, why would you want totorture yourself that way?
And I think something else areason that I have usually
positive reviews is that whenpeople come to product reviews,

(38:02):
the number of times people watchthem who already own the
product would probably surpriseyou.
I know I've done this, maybeyou have too, but people
sometimes look to confirm theirdecision to get something.
They're not looking to find theanswer and so you know, seeing
like they've already bought it,maybe they can't return it.
And now feeling bad about itisn't really going to be helpful

(38:26):
.
And so the last point is also,I I do positive reviews because
I try to be aware of people whoown the thing, like there might
be a better version.
Right, you get a microphone, youget a camera, you get whatever.
There probably is a betterversion.
But I'm trying to be aware thatyou know someone could have
gotten their Blue Yeti forChristmas felt like they got
their first professionalmicrophone.
That's not just their phone orwhatever, but like it's a real

(38:48):
mic, it's big, it's heavy, itsounds way better than
everything.
They real mic, it's big, it'sheavy, it sounds way better than
everything.
They're excited about it.
And now they're going to goonline and find a bunch of
videos where people talk aboutlike, oh, this microphone is
terrible and awful and they'regoing to feel dumb, they're
going to feel like they don'thave something that's good, or
they spent maybe if it wasn't agift, if they spent their money
on something that's not goodlike trying to let people, and
especially now cause everythingis pretty good, right, like it's

(39:10):
rare to find something thatgenuinely sucks.
Most things are pretty good.
So it's like I want people tofeel good if they've already
bought something and theyalready have that thing.
And even if I don't like, evenif I prefer something over
someone else, I try tocontextualize that and explain
why I prefer that.
Because I want the person whohas the other thing to not feel

(39:30):
like, oh, does my thing suck, ordo you think I suck because I
have this thing?
No, I think it's awesome.
I just I prefer this thing forthese reasons.
Those are kind of reasons whymy, why my reviews tend to be,
tend to be a little bit morepositive.
And again going back to theidea that, like, a review does
not have to be negative.

(39:51):
To be honest, sometimes beinghonest includes negative points.
You know and I don't know thatI've ever reviewed anything that
is perfect but even sometimes Imight find something like okay,
here's something I don't likeabout this, something I don't
like about this, but the retailprice is insanely cheap.
So, like, are those valid, youknow, are those valid comments
and that kind of stuff, likekeeping everything in context,

(40:12):
again, I think super, superimportant.
So those are kind of some of mythoughts on product reviews and
stuff.
And then now we're going to jumpin, as this chill music pops up
here, to a new segment calledTube Talk baby.
Well, tube Talk baby.
That sounds interesting.
Basically, let's talk about,like, content creator stuff.
Right, let's talk about stuffthat's happening in my world,

(40:34):
maybe stuff that's a little more.
You know, what we just talkedabout is content creator related
, but this is a little more like, what am I doing, what am I
working on, what's happening inmy world in terms of YouTube and
stuff like that?
So I want to share a few thingsthat I've been working on.
What's cooking here?
Um Different videos.
The most recent video that Ihad come out at the time I'm

(40:55):
recording this episode was myreview on the Hollyland Lark M2,
which I mentioned just a minuteago, which is that super small,
super compact wireless micsystem.
I actually happen to have itright here.
It's very inexpensive.
I think the MSRP on this islike $179, but I've never seen
it for that price and it goes onsale a lot.
But you have these super tinytransmitters so tiny I just

(41:17):
dropped the transmitter.
The transmitters are literallylike the size of a nickel, maybe
, um, maybe even smaller thanthat.
And you know they're.
They're fatter than a nickel,but they're very, very small and
they're super lightweight,which I love because you can put
them on like a light t-shirtand they don't drag the shirt
down.
And they do also come withclips so they can be
magnetically placed basicallyanywhere.

(41:37):
They also come with a clip soyou can do it on your collar
like normal.
Then you got a little receiver.
It has a really cool way ofbeing connected to your phone
with a nice little receiver,usb-c receiver to be connected
to a computer or USB-C phone aswell.
It's a lightning and USB-Creceivers, which is very, very
cool.
I think this is an awesomesetup.
For a long time, this was theonly ultra compact mic setup, so

(42:00):
it's like super affordable.
I think it sounds great, andit's something that I've seen
people who have no background inaudio be able to use and get
great results with, so that mademe really interested in it.
But then Rode and DJI came outwith their compact version of
microphones recently as well, soin that video, I tried to
explain, I tried tocontextualize.
You know, where does this fitin with those?

(42:21):
How do you want to use themdifferently?
How would you use themdifferently?
The funny thing about that video, though, is I scheduled it for
this past Thursday, the day thatit came out.
I made the video.
I think I made it right beforeChristmas.
I had the thing, I had thething for about a month, you

(42:41):
know, used it, tested it out,tried it, um, and I you know I
just bought it off Amazon.
It was on sale, so it's a gooddeal, and I I made the video, I
think, right before Christmas,and then scheduled it to be,
like the second week of the newyear was when the video came out
.
So very random, right, thisthing had been out for a long
time that was the time Ihappened to decide to buy it

(43:02):
spent several weeks using it.
Then I happened to make thevideo.
Then I happened to schedulevideo for several weeks later
and it happened to come outliterally at the same time that
they announced the new versionof this.
So it's like so this is the kindof stuff that, like I can't
like these types of situations Ifind myself in.
I had a friend in college.

(43:24):
I didn't really understand whathe meant by this, but he was
like you're just the biggestvictim of circumstance I've ever
met and to, like, a hilarious,curb your Enthusiasm degree.
Maybe there's a connectionthere.
Like.
Here's a couple examples Justlast weekend something that I'm
paranoid about Our landscapercomes to take care of our yard

(43:44):
every Saturday morning Once aweek.
Okay, we have dogs.
Dogs use a part of the yard astheir bathroom.
I never want the landscaper tofeel like it's their
responsibility.
They know that they're notresponsible for cleaning any of
that up or whatever.
So I always like take care ofthe dog business.
As my grandma used to say thedog dirt, take care of that.

(44:06):
The dog bombs make sure allthat stuff's cleaned up, usually
like Saturday morning earlybefore the gardener comes, I
like clean all that up so it'snot there, it doesn't have to
deal with it.
Like dogs get to use bathroomfor max amount of time and then
there's there's nothing therewhen he's there.
Last weekend I forgot, like Ijust forgot to clean it up
before the guy was coming and Iwent, like I went to the gym

(44:27):
instead and I was like, oh myGod, he's going to go over there
.
There's going to be all thethings there.
And I like I actually panicked.
I was like, should I go homeand clean it up?
And then I realized like it'sfine, he's been our gardener for
many, many years.
He does not think that he thatI'm telling him you need to pick
this up.
And then I had the thought oflike oh, he's going to think I'm
like it's not going to beanything like that, which is

(44:50):
true, it's totally true.
So I went to the gym, did myworkout.
I happened to come home,basically like right as I saw
his truck in front and he wasalready doing stuff.
And then I went in and I waslike, okay, I'm gonna have my
little you know protein shakeafter the gym.
And then I'm standing thereright as he happens to make eye
contact with me, standing kindof in the corner, like basically

(45:12):
, like right where the dog stuffis.
It's like it's not a big deal,like nothing happened.
But the thing I was worriedabout oh no, garner's gonna
gonna see this and, you know,judge me for it, which I know is
a silly thing but the fact that, like the time we saw each
other was I'm just standingthere doing nothing, like in the

(45:34):
kitchen, and he's standingthere like in the exact spot
where the problems were andwe're making eye contact, like I
couldn't have.
If I had been 30 secondsearlier, 30 seconds later, it
wouldn't have happened, but ithad to happen that exact, that
exact time.
Another like sorry, just goofyexamples.

(45:56):
As you might know, I'm a fan ofthe Aquabats.
They've been my favorite bandforever.
I think I've talked about this.
But Parker Jacobs, who's, youknow, done a lot of artwork for
the Aquabats.
He's, you know, he's related tothe you know members of the
band and has his own band andall kinds of stuff, and it's
just an awesome person.
I have a lot of artwork fromhim.

(46:16):
He has a, a painting or a printfrom many, many years ago.
It's called UncomfortableSidekick and it's just two
bananas like sort of lookinguncomfortable near each other.
I actually have it on my wallback here, sort of up top here.
It's just it's two bananas,it's like a stylized, almost

(46:39):
like retro, mid-century lookingcartoony thing of like these two
bananas with faces and they'reconnected and one of them
smiling and the other one looksuncomfortable, and I always
liked this.
I thought it was really fun.
It's a cool design.
Back in college, I worked atTrader Joe's making signs.
I've talked about that before.
We needed like some new producesigns or whatever, and a lot of

(46:59):
stuff we would do was out ofwood and I was like, oh, this is
such a cool, bold design, likeI literally needed to make a
banana sign.
So I made this big thing likecut out letters, have bananas,
and I thought it would be reallycool.
So I made this painting likepretty big.
I cut.
I like made it look exactlylike that, but I did it on wood.
So I cut out the wood with likea jigsaw, so it was the right
shape and it was very cool.

(47:20):
And then I painted it color.
It looks exactly right.
I actually well, this is astory, so it looked really cool.
I was like I had the thought oflike I'm putting this up in a
public thing, but like thisisn't.
I don't think Parker would care.
I don't think like we kind ofdo light copyright infringement
all the time.
You know there's put DeLoreanson things that cost 88 cents or

(47:40):
whatever you know like.
I felt like it's fine, he'llnever see it, he'll never notice
this.
We don't live in the same city,nothing whatever.
So that was in maybe like 2007,.
I made that sign In 2010,.
I quit working at Trader Joe'sand when the signs were done,

(48:01):
they would just throw them away.
So I would like keep aportfolio of my signs, and that
banana sign was going to getthrown out at one point.
So I was like, oh, I totallylike want this.
This was like a lot of work.
It took a lot of time, it tooka lot of effort.
It came out great, and so Iended up.
Then, in 2011, when I startedteaching, I put that sign in my
classroom.
Like I just put it up.
It was a wall decoration, itlooked really cool, it was a fun

(48:23):
thing for students to ask about.
Then I could explain hey, herewas a job.
This was sort of a differenttype of job, bet, you didn't
expect that that could be a jobor anything.
And then you know, and that wasit.
I, you know, went throughhowever many classrooms.
Then I switched schools, Iswitched school districts.
I put that up there.

(48:45):
Anyway, cut to 2017, 10 yearsafter I even made the sign, I
was in the situation where I wasable to have Parker Jacobs come
into my classroom and do atwo-day workshop with my
students.
It was amazing.
It's one of the coolest thingsI did in my entire teaching
career.
He gets there in the morning,I'm giving a tour of the
classroom, like hey, this is thestudio, this is all that kind
of stuff.
And literally I realize at themoment, oh my God, as he looks

(49:08):
over and goes, like hey, thatlooks familiar, what are the
odds?
The thing I was worried about10 years before would happen.
I mean, obviously, like he was,he was super, he was like
totally cool with it.
I was like, oh, that's likeawesome.
Like he took my thing and madelike a wood painting out of it,
like that's very cool.
And I explained the whole thing, but like it's just that thing
of like what are the odds ofthis happening?

(49:30):
All that to say, hollylandreleased the same released a new
version of the Lark the sameday that I released this, which
I had no idea about.
I don't know anything aboutZero ideas, complete coincidence
, complete victim ofcircumstance there, which then I
got thrown into because Icalled my video why is this mic

(49:50):
so popular?
Because that was the question Ihad, like, why does everyone
love this over other things,even like over, I would say it's
, especially for beginners.
Even more popular in the DJI,more popular on the road, why?
And so that's why I asked that.
And then people were asking thequestion oh, it's popular
because the company paid you topromote it when it just came out
.
Well, it's popular because myfeed is filled with, you know,

(50:16):
release day videos of this thing.
I'm like, oh no, I got thrownin this thing that I wasn't even
aware of or a part of, so thatwas.
That was just kind of funny.
But what's kind of neat is Ihaven't used the new version,
which is a little more compact,a little more sleek, and what
they've done basically is thereceivers, instead of just being
like this little button thathas a magnet on the back so you
can put it everywhere.
They wanted to make it evensmaller.
So you have the or thetransmitters, I should say so.
The transmitter's there andthen it has a little clip, but

(50:38):
the microphone is actually onthe clip so you can put the
bigger part of the transmitterlike behind your collar and it's
almost just like a littlelavalier microphone, even
smaller than a standard lavaliermicrophone, is what comes over
know your collar or whatever,and I think that's cool and I
really really hope that theycontinue to sell both of these,
because I actually prefer thisdesign significantly because it
doesn't have a clip.

(50:59):
It actually has the option youcan magnetically.
It comes with a magnetic clipyou can put on the back.
You can use it that way.
But I love that I can take thisand just like put it under a
shirt, a lightweight shirt,anywhere, like right now I am
attaching it to my shirt, ifyou're watching this if I can
get the magnet to go the rightway, and then it can just go
anywhere.
So if you, if you've ever triedto clip a lavalier microphone on

(51:21):
someone that doesn't have, youknow, buttons or collars or
whatever, it can be kind oftricky to find where positioning
them, and it's just not anissue with these microphones at
all.
The magnets on them aresurprisingly strong, whereas
when you have a clip now, you'relimited.
You have to only put thissomewhere that it can be clipped
, and a lot of times, too, thatmeans it's going to be right up
under somebody's neck, right ontheir collar, which does not

(51:41):
especially in the hands ofbeginners does not always give
you the best audio quality.
So being able to put thisanywhere and even be able to put
it, you know, further downtowards the middle of your chest
and whatnot can I think that'sa big reason why people have got
such good audio quality with noexperience with this system so
that was just kind of funny butalso why I actually still prefer
at least from what I know what.

(52:02):
I still prefer the originalLark M2 versus the M2S, and I
hope they, because they aredifferent enough.
I hope they just keep bothavailable and you can kind of
choose which one you like andwhich one you want to use.
That's, uh, that's at leastwhat I'm hoping there.
Uh, what else have we beenworking on?
Oh, yeah, simple podcast setup.
So this was kind of a fun one,actually.
Uh, I'm going to reach backhere into this drawer and pull

(52:24):
out the road interview pro.
Actually I'm going to.
I bought a second roadinterview pro, so this
microphone I did a video aboutthis.
I love these microphones.
This is a video I've beenworking on that is going to come
out.
This should be the video thatcomes out right after you hear
this episode.
So this comes out on a Monday.
The Thursday should be this.
The Rode Interview Pro isawesome because it's a wireless

(52:45):
mic setup.
It can pair with the Rodecasters.
It can pair with the RodeWireless Pros, rode Wireless Go
2 and 3s, like any of the newRode Wireless things that have
receivers.
These can pair to that.
But what's also cool is theyjust have built-in 32-bit float
recording, so they're justbasically audio recorders as
well.
You don't have to pair them toanything.
They have this omnidirectionalpickup pattern, which I love

(53:07):
because basically it means youdon't have to have good mic
technique.
The idea is you can put this inbetween you and somebody else
and it can pick up both yourvoices without you having to go
back and forth if you'reinterviewing someone.
That's why it's called theInterview Pro, so it's just
picking up all the sound and youjust have to put it in the
middle and it's good and it doesactually work really well for
that.
But what that also means is, ifyou move it closer away means

(53:29):
is, if you, you know, if youmove it closer away, if you move
it off axis or whatever, like,as long as it's generally near
your face, it's going to pick upgood sounding audio, and I love
that.
I love the sound quality of itand I love that it has virtually
no handling noise.
So you can move this around,you can toss it hand back and
forth, you can give it tosomebody who doesn't know how to
use a microphone, and they'regonna be able to use it really

(53:50):
well.
It doesn't really have much ofa plosive problem, but of course
you can put windscreens on itif you need to.
So it's just a really solidmicrophone, and the fact that it
can record internally means youcan just take two of these, sit
down with someone, press recordon each of them and now you
have a perfect portable podcastsetup.
There's some plosives rightthere for you, and so I want to

(54:10):
make a video about that and howto do that, how to edit the
files together, how you mightuse it for an audio version of a
podcast, how you might use itfor a video version and some
caveats, because if you are tooclose because they are
omnidirectional, you can getsome mic bleeds, sort of how to
position them so you don't havethat happen, and then how to
deal with it if it does happen.
Because I think that's just anawesome setup.

(54:31):
Whether you're doing audio orvideo podcasting, I definitely
want to take these places to notjust interview someone but to
actually you can sit down andrecord a good sounding podcast,
basically anywhere with someone,and you can, because they're
not connected to anything.
There's no, you're not limitedby any number of inputs.
So I mean, these are $250microphones I don't know what

(54:57):
your budget is, but you couldhave essentially unlimited
numbers of these and howevermany people are involved and
that's.
That's just kind of awesome.
So it was really fun.
Heather and I for New Year's wewent up to kind of a nearby
mountain town because our dogs,despite just pooping in the yard
, they also hate fireworks, andso New Year's is usually like
just chaos and just like tryingto stop dogs from panicking all

(55:18):
night long and it's exhausting.
So we went up to like the smallmountain town right in the
cabin up there, where it wasjust quiet and peaceful and
everyone got.
We got to go on hikes and havefun and the dogs were just like
sleeping super peacefully on NewYear's Eve into the new year.
It was like, wow, it's so cool.
But anyway, while we were outthere I was like, oh, it'd be
really fun.
Of course we can't just go andrelax and do nothing.

(55:39):
I should film part of a videoout there.
So Heather was my example inlike a sample podcast set up up
there which ended up being superfun and I'm excited to share
that because I think that'sgoing to be kind of a helpful
setup.
You can do that setup withanything that records audio a
phone, any audio recorder.
But I explained why Ispecifically like these
microphones.
I kind of gave you some of thatinfo here, but why I

(56:03):
specifically like the roadinterview pro for that portable
podcast setup.
Um, yeah, so my littlepresentation here got a little
messed up in terms of spacing,but another video I'm working on
is about podcast voice EQ.
Working in the world of audiopost-production is definitely
not my total area of expertiseand it can be a whole career

(56:23):
field and take years tounderstand.
But with podcast voice EQ whatI wanted to do was the same way
that this Hollyland system letssomeone who's like never used a
wireless mic setup get goodaudio pretty easily.
I was like, okay, if you'verecorded audio, what are just
three steps you can do in anyaudio editing software to help
your voice sound its best, likeit doesn't matter what software

(56:46):
you're using, it doesn't matterwhat equipment you're using.
If you know nothing about audioand you put your tracks into
any kind of software videoediting, audio editing what are
three things you can do to helpit sound its best.
And that's.
That's a simple video that I'mworking on to have come out.
I did the podcast one andbecause I've been doing a lot of
like mic and audio things Iwanted to throw.
I wanted to kind of like I liketo balance it out with some

(57:07):
video related things as well.
So in between those, I'm gonnahave the Feel World L4 switcher
video come out, which I recordedthis morning.
The Feel World is super cool.
I might as well just grab itbecause I can, and this is a
video podcast.
It's just a video switcher.
It's an HDMI four input videoswitcher technically five,

(57:30):
because you do have an SDI input, which is your fifth input.
So it doesn't.
It has a little bit of picturein picture, as a little bit of
chroma keying does not have veryit has.
You can do an audio input, butit ain't great and you can do.
You can't really do the scenesor anything like that.
So it's not like a Rodecastervideo.
It Rodecaster video.
It's not like a YoloBox.
There's no internal recording,but if you're watching the video

(57:51):
version of this you can see ithas a giant touch display on
there.
It's a 10-inch touch screen inaddition to physical buttons.
So this is a little moreexpensive.
A base model ATEM is like 300bucks.
This is $540.
But it's pretty cool.
And what's interesting about itto me is the company FeelWorld.
This is their first videoswitcher, but they've been
making video monitors for yearsand years and years and they're

(58:14):
like they're actually used in alot of high-end settings, like
they have a good reputation formaking good monitors with a lot
of features at decent prices.
And what's really cool aboutthis is seeing how they've even
though they're new to videoswitching and some of that is
pretty simple and prettyrudimentary seeing how they've
incorporated that into what isbasically like a really high
quality display and all of thesort of the quality of life

(58:37):
upgrades that come with that isreally, really fun.
So I recorded a video with thatwhere I had three cameras going
into it.
I was doing differentresolutions, you know some are
1080, some are 4K, and I evenhad my projector handy cam
running into it because they itdoes a great job at just taking
pretty much anything up to 4k 30that you throw at it and making
it work.
Even though it's only a 1080switcher, it can take 4k sources

(58:59):
, um, so it's, it's prettyawesome.
That was like uh, then thatvideo I need to edit out some
you know mistakes and some likerepetition and stuff, but the
whole video is basically I hadthe switcher running into Ecamm
and everything is just donethere, so I'm not filming extra
B-roll Like everything you'reseeing.
Every frame of the video isdone through the L4, which is

(59:21):
the same thing I try to do withmy initial RODECaster video.
I like it.
If I'm talking about thosethings, you're seeing it the
whole time.
So that's the.
Those are the things that I'vebeen working on, which is pretty
fun.
I also have some other videoswitchers, like the Ulanzi DDO2
that I'm gonna do a video on aswell.
So I'm going to kind of keepthis setup going so I can do a
similar video there.
Another thing in terms ofTubeTalk, which I mentioned last

(59:44):
week a bit, but I wanted tokind of like I've been getting
asked this and I forget, likewhere I do and don't talk about
it.
But big thing here channelsupport.
So, in terms of me as a contentcreator, patreon is now Patreon
, which I've mentioned, you know, a couple times and a little
bit last week.
But Patreon, yeah, I officiallylike there's still a thing

(01:00:07):
there.
You can join it, but you getabsolutely nothing.
It's just it's a nice way tosupport if you want, but there
are zero perks.
I do not check anything overthere.
And patreon, really, since theyrebranded, maybe about a year
ago, a little more than a yearago, they've been tricky like
you can no longer do, not that.
I did this, but a lot of peopledid this.
You could do pledges by project.

(01:00:27):
So instead of like a monthlysupport, it would be like every
time you finish things, peoplewould get you know that's what.
Then people would be charged.
So that's no, like no longer anoption.
Things got really weird with theapp, kind of through the Apple
app store there and then justsome of their stuff, that
they're like their interfacesand the way that they just got

(01:00:48):
like more confusing and morefrustrating.
And even though I wanted togrow my Patreon because it was
the off platform, it wasn'tconnected to a YouTube AdSense
account, so it felt a littlemore stable and a little more
secure.
That was getting a little morefrustrating and I was getting
really hard to get people tosign up for it.
So I appreciate everyone whodid and that does mean a lot to
me, and even everyone who stillis, because some people are like

(01:01:13):
I just like Patreon, I want tosupport you, so I'm going to do
that over there.
The thing about that is like it, it kind of capped out.
I just like could not get it togrow and it was.
It was like I the thing of likejuice isn't worth the squeeze.
So everything has been movedover to YouTube now for a while,
but now officially, as of thestart of this year, that is the
only thing that I'm checking forchannel support and channel
membership and that has beenpretty awesome so far.

(01:01:34):
So like it seems like peopleare.
It seems easier for people tosign up, at least for me, for
what I do, it seems easier togrow YouTube channel memberships
.
It was a little bit scarybecause I changed some tiers
which meant I had to likeessentially kick people out and
cancel their membership.
So I not only like shut downPatreon we're not shut it down
but a bunch of people leftPatreon because I told them what

(01:01:55):
was happening and you shouldleave Patreon if you want any
kind of perk, or people movedover to YouTube.
But then, because I switchedYouTube tiers, I basically like
canceled half or more of myYouTube members and they either
have to rejoin or join as newmembers, because on YouTube when
you close out a tier, it justcancels everybody and then you

(01:02:16):
can start a new one.
So that was a little scarybecause everything just dipped
Not that it was like huge, butwhat was there dipped really low
and now it's been building backup and it's been really really
fun.
I got to say like having access,having the ability to just
fully use all of the integratedYouTube features.
You know things like livestream, members, posts, early
video releases, all that stuff.

(01:02:36):
Like it's been great.
Um, members only live streams.
It's just so much fun.
So I I'm actually loving thatquite a bit.
Uh, what I really want to do.
My next step with that is tokind of keep going like, have as
much fun with it as possibleand see where it goes.
You know, after like the firstquarter of this year, so after
March, kind of see, like youknow, does it seem to be growing
, do people seem to like it, doI like it?

(01:02:58):
And and kind of go from there.
So that's our tube talk segment.
And now we can do a segmentthat I did not have time for
last week because we were doingso many other things, or maybe I
did, I don't remember, but I'mdoing now.
I mentioned we're gonna do it.
Somebody asked about it.
We're gonna do the gearspotlight.
Can't remember if I did thislast week or not.
This is the thinking music gearspotlight, though I want to not

(01:03:21):
just tell you like what I'musing.
You know I'm using thismicrophone, I'm using the
roadcaster, whatever, but I wantto highlight like a piece of
gear each week, or at least mostweeks, that I want to share
with you.
And this this week, gearspotlight.
I want to shine that spotlighton Ecamm Live, because that is
what I'm using mainly to makethis podcast and I think, if I
push, oh, I think what I have todo.
Actually, I have to drag thisscreen to this other monitor

(01:03:43):
here and then I should be ableto push this button and there
you go.
Now, if you're watching thevideo version, you should be
able to see my Ecamm setup.
I can kind of get rid of someof these other non-podcast
related things, so you can sortof see my whole setup here.
If you don't know about EcammLive, it's wonderful.
There's a link in thedescription that has an
affiliate thing and I got to saylike Ecamm's affiliate program

(01:04:06):
is actually one of the mosthelpful ones around.
So if you do want to use EcammLive and use that link, it
genuinely helps a ton.
But if you don't want to useEcamm Live, do not feel
obligated.
A lot of things Ecamm does arepossible to do in OBS as well.
Obs is totally free.
But I've been using Ecamm for atleast five years now, not more.

(01:04:27):
I'm a paid customer.
I love Ecamm.
You can kind of see everythingsort of modular here, so you can
the number of updates, I swearat least once or twice a week it
feels like when I open up Ecammit's like, hey, a new update.
You know, do you want to updatehere?
So basically this window iskeynote.
So this is my keynote presenterthings and then I have if

(01:04:49):
you're seeing the video version,you see my whole desktop here
and then I have this window.
Here is my keynote presentation, like what's live, but
everything else is Ecamm live.
So this is my monitor window,which I usually have over on the
prompter.
I've got overlays which I'm notreally using a lot here, but
this would be like during livestreams, where you know comments
and things would pop up.
I've got my audio mixer whereyou can mix in different stuff.

(01:05:11):
Currently I have the Rodecasterselected.
We've got scenes, so I don'thave a ton of scenes in this
show, I have just a plain blackscene.
I've got the intro, my maincamera angle, a scene that lets
me share a web browser, thekeynote and then the outro.
But I also think what's reallycool is you can go to profile

(01:05:32):
and you have all these differentprofiles.
So for different shows,different projects, different
types of streams, you can justhave different profiles and all
of this will change.
You can organize these intofolders.
We've got camera effects andstuff, so you can kind of see
like I've changed the color andchanged the way some things look
in here, which is very, verycool.
I could even you know I can, no, I can't, my scene is locked
but I can do some basic, somebasic adjustments there.

(01:05:54):
I got my zoom in crop so youknow even the shot right here,
um, my camera, my 24 millimeterlens, is this wide, but that
shot just didn't look framedright, so I cropped in a little
bit so you can frame and reframethings, um, in ways that are
really really cool andeverything's very modular.
So, especially if you're using amulti, multi monitor setup, the

(01:06:14):
fact you can push things overto different screens is really
really nice.
You have tons of settingsoptions with Ecamm so you can go
through and like really kind ofdial in all kinds of stuff.
You can stream to multipledestinations if you want to.
There's integrated zoom stuffnow, which I really wish they
had had when I was teachingonline, because now you can.

(01:06:35):
Essentially, they've always hadan interview mode where you can
have people come in as guests,which is gonna give you the
highest quality.
But Zoom also now has nativeZoom integration so you can even
bring Zoom participants in onscreen as a guest and pop up
Zoom comments and all kinds ofcool stuff like that Recording.
You can record individualtracks for both audio and video,
so you can record isolatedfiles and it will just put a

(01:06:58):
folder on your desktop witheverything in there at the end.
So it is incredibly powerfulsoftware and for how powerful it
is, how user-friendly they'vemade it Even having this demo
mode like this is a built-infeature.
The fact I can just share thething, probably because they
know people like if you likeecamm, you want to talk about it
, you want to show, show it topeople.
This is a way to show it topeople.
Um, but even doing that is likeit's super cool.

(01:07:20):
I'm recording right now, so Ican't change this, but you can
also, you know, you can set itto just be a virtual camera.
You can set it to just record.
You can set it to just record.
You can set it to just stream.
You can stream and record,stream and record to multiple
sources.
It is just wildly useful andpowerful software and I
absolutely love Ecamm Live and Imentioned this last week when I

(01:07:43):
wanted to do the video versionof this, because the RODECaster
video can do most of what Ipretty much everything I need.
I can build different scenes, Ican bring in different sources I
can overlay graphics and stuff.
That's initially what I wasgoing to use to do the video
version of the podcast.
But the thing with Ecamm is itjust let me kind of like it,
just sort of let me elevate thegraphics and the visuals a

(01:08:06):
little more than I could withthe RODECaster video, and then I
have my stream deck here thatI'm switching between scenes and
stuff with down there.
So Ecamm was something I didnot plan to use for the video
version of this podcast, as muchas I love it and have been
using it.
But it was like I kind ofrealized as much as the
Rodecaster video is capable ofdoing what I needed and I wanted
to use that, I was almost beingstubborn by like no, that's the

(01:08:29):
only thing I want to use forthis.
And it's like if I step backand I look at not only what
makes things look their bestright now but makes the workflow
easy and is probably adaptableto the future If I want to bring
in guests to do stuff like that, like just incorporating Ecamm,
so I have the Rodecaster videoand Ecamm Live together, buddies
forever.
That's what I have been, that'swhat I've been using there.

(01:08:50):
So that is my gear spotlightfor this week.
And then the last thing, thenext thing that we the last and
final thing to talk about.
I'm going to go into somelistener messages this week,
which actually there weren't aton of listener messages.
I think I have a jingle too forthis, or do I not?
I guess I don't have a listenermessages jingle, I meant to.
Oh well, listener messages, Idon't have a ton, but what's

(01:09:12):
really really cool?
So, if you want to leavemessages, you can send an email
to tom at enthusiasmprojectcom.
You can go to hi, my name istomcom, and then there's the
link to record your voice if youwant to do that.
And you can also do Buzzsproutfan mail, which is really cool.
So, right in the top of theshow notes of the audio versions

(01:09:32):
, there's a thing that says senda message to the show, and it's
just, basically, you send atext message to the show.
It's awesome.
But also something very new,something we couldn't do before
YouTube comments.
Because there's a video version, people can leave comments.
I don't know if you've heardabout this, but YouTube has a
comment section.
You should always check thecomment section of every video,
because it's never negative.
Fortunately, mine are.

(01:09:53):
I have really awesome peoplewho leave really awesome
comments, so I wanted tohighlight a few from last week's
episode.
The first one is from OnoCoffee.
Oh no, in the podcast you saidthat you had four subscribers.
Yes, when I started this, thechannel was at four subscribers.
He was looking at it three dayslater and he's the 69th
subscriber.
So silver play button on itsway.
I think we're up to theseventies or something.

(01:10:15):
Yeah, it's, it's getting there,almost getting to that like
custom URL thing at a hundredsubscribers.
That's always the fun thingabout a hundred subscribers.
And Ono was someone who says Iknow I've been a proponent of
you moving this podcast to avideo format and now that I've

(01:10:36):
scrolled through it I can seewhy you've been reticent to do
it.
All the screen elements andB-roll I get it, but it looks
great.
So that was the thing that wetalked about.
That I talked about last weekwas I didn't just want to do a
video version, I didn't justwant it to be a talking head.
There's nothing wrong with that.
I've done experimental versionsof episodes like that in the
past, where it's just I'll justturn the camera on and talk.
But it's like if I'm going tomake thumbnails, I'm going to
upload video files, I'm going todo all that.
I wanted there to be more of areason for it to be.

(01:10:58):
I'm going to turn on all theselights and do my hair and all
the things, like.
I want there to be a reason forthat, rather than just me
sitting unmoving, I guess youknow, and being able to use all
the benefits of YouTube.
And so that was why it took solong and that's why I, you know,
put all my whole workflowtogether.
But it's funny because Ono saysI have to admit I probably

(01:11:19):
won't watch the video versionmuch, but only because I do all
my podcasts listening in the carwhile commuting.
It looks great.
I think it will do well, andthat's a big thing too to keep
in mind.
When you're doing a videopodcast, which I'm fully aware
of, you add in all the visualelements, you add those things.
Very few people are sittingthere with their eyeballs glued
to the screen for an hour ormore.
They're probably listening inthe background, maybe their
screen's not even on theireyeballs aren't even on their

(01:11:40):
screen, or they're in the carand they're.
You know it's.
Even if they're using theYouTube version, they're not
actually watching things, orthey're just glancing back at
the screen every 30 seconds orminute or two or something you
know, or if I say like hey, I'mholding up something and it's
cool, you should check it out,then they'll look over and see
it, but otherwise it's kind ofbackground noise with like a

(01:12:00):
video video element if someonelooks at it.
So that is probably how mostpeople consume video podcasts.
I think that's important tokeep in mind when you're putting
the workflow together, so thatway you're not burning a bunch
of calories on something thatliterally no one will ever
notice because they're notwatching the thing the whole
time.
Next comments from Gil said lovethe episode.
I literally cried laughing at59.55.
It was unexpected and funny.
That was the question about thewebsite URL and like what does

(01:12:22):
it mean and how do you pronounceit, which was one of my
favorite questions.
Great to have you back, butmostly hearing all the listeners
and hearing their voices.
This, a great community, can'twait for the next episode.
Ironically, I don't have anyvoice messages for this episode,
but I did want to emphasize howcool that is is to be able to
to do that and, of course, eventhough the speak pipe link is
only for audio.

(01:12:42):
You can always email me a videoclip if you want and I can
incorporate that because there'sa video version so we could see
and hear you if you want, whichwould be kind of cool.
And a lot of people last weekright before last week, had said
like, yeah, bringing in othersdoing interviews and stuff, even
if it's not an officialinterview, having a video clip
of someone you know try to keepthem.
Don't send me like a 10 minuteclip or anything, but you know,

(01:13:03):
keep it like a minute, a minuteand a half max, and then it'd be
fun to incorporate that intothe show.
I think that'd be prettyawesome.
And last comment for this weekfrom Internet Doggo who oops, I
clicked the wrong thing.
There is an account calledInternet Doggo that pops up on
channels and live streams and Igot to say I love them so much.
It just brings me so much joyto see that name and that

(01:13:26):
channel profile Plus.
They're just a genuinely kind,awesome person.
It's just, it's one of thosethings.
It's just a day brightener,right?
Any chance you can make aseparate podcast on Spotify for
the video version?
This was an interestingquestion because Spotify has
video and my initial answer wasno, because I honestly don't
100% know how that works.

(01:13:46):
I do all of my regular podcasthosting with Buzzsprout and I
don't know, like, if I have toget a Spotify account and then I
don't know if that would messup the RSS feed, or now I have
to upload to Buzzsprout andYouTube and Spotify.
It's just the workflow seemed alittle bit clunky, so it's not
something that I'm interested indoing right now.
I kind of want to go with thevideo version.
I really want to embraceYouTube, because that is my main

(01:14:09):
thing, although brace YouTube,because that is that is my main
thing, although, like I don'twant, you know, I don't want to
never say never, because it'ssomething I also don't know much
about.
So maybe I'd be interested toeven hear some feedback or some
thoughts about that, how itworks.
If I have, you know, especiallylike imagine a season or two
from now I have many, manyepisodes of video versions of
podcasts, would it make sensethen to just like, why not also
put those on Spotify?

(01:14:29):
I don't know if peopleobviously people are listening
to or watching video podcasts onSpotify, so that's something
that actually maybe even need alittle more help and a little
more feedback with.
But that kind of brings us tothe end of episode number two
over here.
Hope you enjoyed it Again.
If you have any thoughts, anyfeedback, feel free to send
those my way, whether it'sthrough an email, through the

(01:14:50):
speak pipe link, through fanmail, carrier, pigeon smoke
signal, whatever.
I really appreciate all thekindness, all the support.
I really just I know I say thata lot, but I am so proud of
proud's not even the right wordbecause it's not about me, but

(01:15:11):
it's like I.
It makes me proud to think ofall the awesome people that come
together around like thispodcast and around the YouTube
channel, and even as the personlike, yeah, I made the podcast,
I made the YouTube channel.
That doesn't really matter ifnobody's also there, right, it's
like I'm hosting a party, butif no one shows up, does it
really matter that you'rehosting the party?
Like the guests kind of makethe party, and the same is true

(01:15:32):
here.
So I just hope you know howmuch I appreciate that.
Hope you enjoyed this, whetheryou listen to it, whether you
watch it.
Hope you have a safe, happy,healthy, fun rest of your week

(01:16:01):
and I'll see you next time.

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