Technically Working - Tales of Boom Arms, Hybrid Events, and Babyface Pros
Transcript
Michael: [0:00] Hello, Demasi. It even plays a little noise. Oh, no, that was my download finish noise. It said Demasi, and then I played the download finish noise because I'm downloading recordings from yesterday.
Damashe: [0:13] Oh, right. So I should be on the right microphone.
Michael: [0:20] I can hear you just fine. I think you're on the right microphone.
Damashe: [0:23] Yep. Alright let me do an autogain real quick though.
Michael: [0:30] While he's doing autogain, something I think I should record unless he wants to and he'll let us know is how to delete files because these longer invention files obviously took a lot of storage. It's really simple, I was overcomplicating the process. So what you can do is, you know how to get to the recordings in Zoom right?
[0:55] Yeah, wait, I'll zoom on the web, no, no, no zoom in on Mac OS. Oh, yeah, yeah, and so when you get to the recordings and you get to that table, if you select one, so for example, I'm I chose the afternoon session from yesterday and I hit the share button in the bottom right corner. So I just did VO end and then that took me to the page where I can just hit download. It reminds me that it's going to download separate files, which is fine with me. I should check the checkbox so it doesn't do that. But on this page, you can also hit delete recording one and then move to trash. Instead of having to mess with that really not so pleasant table on the Mac to delete your recordings, you can go to the recordings you actually want to delete and zoom on the Mac. And so now if I go down, I'm going to go down to the 21st. Here's one that does personal meeting room. All I have to do is hit the share button that opens it in Safari. I can delete or download or download and delete.
[2:02] Which means that there could be a keyboard maestro script set up that when you highlight a zoom meeting in Safari or in zoom, you can have keyboard maestro trigger that share link and then trigger the download link. So you can do something like command option D in zoom. Downloads. A record, a cloud recording. Huh? I'm going to have to play with that. Remind me about that next week to Marcy because. And we are recording by the way.
Damashe: [2:38] I got to fix my microphone. All right, there we go. So for the first time since I bought it, I moved my road. PSA 1 plus well, whatever it is Boomarm like where it was located on the desk Gotcha, did you move it to continue your adventure of a low-profile boom arm? Sort of I kind of wanted to I did some desk rearranging a Little bit. So now if I'm recording and I need to be on video I can do the low profile kind of arm This really kind of works as a low-profile in a lot of ways like I would not buy a cheaper one I don't think I wouldn't buy one unless I I was buying something that was Designed out of the box which may give me some more flexibility than this one does but it works But I can set the camera Directly where it needs to be and get that situated and I can slide the laptop off to the left So it's out of the way and use the Bluetooth keyboard and that way I'm not clipping the side of the MacBook Air with the boom arm, and I'm also not just trying to randomly scoot it over a little bit to give me enough room to do what I'm trying to do with the arm, and then it's just piling up on more stuff. So basically I just cleaned up my desk, essentially, and moved the arm.
Michael: [4:07] Basically you did what I think I just almost told Mallory I needed to do in not so many words, because, yeah, it's a mess.
Damashe: [4:16] Although it very quickly gets to be a mess. I got a stack of phones over here on the right side of the desk. So there is a Google Pixel 5, a blind shell. Another phone. and another phone. I don't even know if we can talk about this phone.
Michael: [4:38] It'd be nice if we could get some communication, right? Yeah, I haven't asked that. I haven't asked that specific question. So I'll send an email with this episode and we'll leave this part in because it would be nice to know if we can talk about it.
Damashe: [4:52] Yeah, I did ask that question. I work, you know, can I say what can I say? I haven't gotten a response but that was, you know, several months ago and you know, I haven't followed up honestly. So, some of that could be on me.
Michael: [5:03] Chat GPT is going to help me follow up because it's one of those things that I've put off because I don't actually want to write the email, but we've talked about that. So I'm going to go give Mac GPT my thoughts. And I mean, we can talk about our thoughts if you want, and then we can use Whisper, speaking of which.
Damashe: [5:20] Oh, that I did mean to set up because I did not set up a backup recording.
Michael: [5:24] Ah, yeah.
Damashe: [5:27] And because I'm recording a podcast, my fingers automatically type command space A-H, not what I wanted, Mac Whisperer.
Michael: [5:35] We need to talk about your audio hijack setup. So I've got a couple of things on my list. I'm sure you have a few things and yeah, I'm gonna set up a to-doist project so we can do these follow-up things because neither of us, to the best of my knowledge, has come up with a way to set up things to follow up with. And until I go back and edit, I already forgot what I have to follow up with next week.
Damashe: [5:56] Yeah, so I had this thought this morning. I was like, we still haven't set up like a place to do show notes, but.
[6:05] Being fully transparent with the audience. This is the way that we're currently working so like it it will change at some point because it will become a Frustration or it will become an irritation that we need to solve But right now what we're doing works because we we we will so behind the scenes for people Listening oftentimes what will happen is earlier in the week me and Mike will say Oh one of us will say to the other that we're gonna talk about this thing on the show on when we record on Friday or whenever we end up recording we're actually recording this on a Sunday and sometimes that works sometimes that does not because other things happen that we didn't want to have a conversation about for example one of the topics we're going to cover today is Michael's adventure streaming the board meeting for ACB of Oregon right well that that was the thing that we did came up earlier in the week that Mike was like I want to talk about this after I go through it or whatever so purpose of the Right, he's done a thing we're gonna talk about it kick around some ideas and hopefully get some feedback from you all if you have any But there are several times where I've said, oh we'll talk about this on a show on a Friday And when we get to recording, it's not that we forgot is That something else has come up that has taken precedence over that and that is how that's the reason we don't actually have a show No, it's documented this point at least from my perspective. That's the reason we don't have one is because we kind of just.
[7:28] We always Know we have things to discuss But then we'll often as happened last week start off with one conversation and then it leads somewhere else and we you know After the end of the show like oh, yeah I meant to talk about this thing or I was gonna say that thing But the conversation got so good about whatever we were talking about the hey just didn't happen.
[7:49] All right, so while Michael is helping out Mallory, I am setting up Mac Whisper to record my microphone and record the Zoom. Nope, not Zoom, Chrome. So we're going to see if this works. I tried this with Zoom the other day and it did not pick up any audio from Zoom at all, but I could have done something weird with my Zoom output also and not realized it. So we're going to see how this goes. All right, so we're currently recording in Mac Whisperer, and we'll see if we get a pretty decent transcript out of this. Hopefully we will. And just for some potential content to fill in here, where there's Michael, he's back.
Michael: [8:30] Yep. But potential content.
Damashe: [8:35] Did we talk about this camera that I bought?
Michael: [8:42] You mentioned you bought it.
Damashe: [8:44] The 360 camera?
Michael: [8:44] Yeah, I don't think we actually talked about it. You mentioned you bought it for to to take pictures and to do stuff to capture memories with the kids. And I think it was literally a 30 second mention.
Damashe: [8:57] Well, it's going back.
Michael: [8:58] Gotcha.
Damashe: [9:00] Yeah. Well. And the reason being so for you know, a little bit more information behind that. So what I picked up was the Insta 360, X3 Which is a 360 camera. It looked much different than I expected it to look is basically like a flat Device with a touchscreen a couple of buttons on the side of it Looks kind of like an iPod I think would be the closest thing that I can think of to kind of like one of the smaller iPods from back in the day so it has a little touchscreen on it and then at the very at the top of it on each side is a lens that is capturing like 380 degrees So so, you know wide lens so that gives you the 360 view It does have an app for iOS I think it also has more for Android but I don't have an Android phone That I'm messing with at the moment But anyway has an app for the iPhone. It's somewhat accessible the problem with this particular camera at least with the one that we have and I'm sending it back because it's It's just it's a lot more cumbersome for her to use and I think it should be But the major issue that a major region the primary reason that I am sending it back is because it gets Extraordinarily hot when using it.
Michael: [10:24] Oh That's not good Do you think it's have you looked it up and is that a known issue or is that an issue with that particular unit?
Damashe: [10:33] Do you think I think it may be an issue with this particular unit? Because when she was watching YouTube videos on how to use it and things like that that this never came up. And I told her, I said, well, that may be a reason that it's gonna end up going back anyway. It's because it gets too hot. Because I remember a, I believe it was a Sony camera from a couple of years ago. That people were really really loving in it ended, you know video Picture taking space or whatever, but their main complaint about it was just been several years ago. It was uh, I Think it was the first 4k kind of handheld portable Dealer you could take with you for like vloggers if that's still a word that people use Somebody's listening. What is a vlogger?
Michael: [11:24] That is The next word that had to be used after blogger when people started started video.
Damashe: [11:30] Yep blame vine But that camera got real hot and we shut down The one I'm talking about the old older camera and it may have not have been a Sony I'm not trying to brush merch money Sony, but it was one of those popular brands It wasn't a no-name brand that you never heard of until some random dude on a podcast was talking about it So it was either like a Canon or Sony or something like that. She did not see anything about people complaining about that with this particular camera. So I think it's just a specific unit. But the other thing that I did not realize when purchasing it is that it came from a third-party seller. And I'm not here to besmirch third-party sellers on Amazon because sometimes I sell things on Amazon. But this company insta 360 that makes the cameras Did say that you should only buy it now, of course, they're gonna say this but one one potential issue here is that this was a refurbished or a Repurposed camera from this third-party seller that they're selling is new on Amazon because that does happen And it was exceptionally it was an exceptional good exceptionally good deal when I bought it Which is the reason I picked it up because it came so the camera typically retails at around $479 $499.
[12:54] I Picked up a bundle with the camera two batteries because I'm still not sure if you just buy it direct from the company if it comes with a battery or not, so I had two batteries here a Fast charger for the batteries that you just plop the batteries in and recharge the battery So are you using one you could be charging up another?
[13:14] A invisible selfie stick Which you the camera has a regular 3 8 inch Screw on the bottom so you can mount it on any typical tripod or whatever like that But it came with this selfie stick that you could use to hold it up And the reason they call it an invisible selfie stick is for something there are certain Selfie sticks that are designed or the manufacturer is known so that when you're doing a 360 video wise capturing that full view, it will erase the selfie stick from the video or the picture. So it doesn't show up as a thing that you have to actually crop out or edit out. So came with all that and it was like 520. Didn't realize it was a third-party seller so that makes me wonder if this camera is is a hell of a deal I'm gonna buy it but at any rate it gets too hot so it's going back and it's also a little difficult to use too much of the interface for me as a screen reader user relies on touching the screen on the device versus being able to control all functionality with the application that's on it. So it's not something that I'm interested in replacing at the moment either.
Michael: [14:37] And then having Mallory at home makes it difficult. So you may hear her talking and then me suddenly mute. And I like how you just kept talking because you're like, Oh, Michael's got to answer her because you know, that's, that's how it goes. I assume you heard her ask, why do the games download so slow? And so I had to tell her that it's because we're on on Wi-Fi right now and not hardwired. I did not hear her say that, but I just opened my mouth and didn't even have to say anything, but I did hear you mute.
Damashe: [15:04] So I kept talking. Cause I was like, okay, he's probably answering Mallory. Yeah.
Michael: [15:09] Yeah. So, um, I set up a to-do list project. It's called technically working and I have one of those already. Do we.
Damashe: [15:21] So My boom arm just on a quick side note we'll come back to that project, but just because I Don't want to buy a new boomer and I've been trying not to So you have this same boomer so I want to know if this happens to you And is this just the way that it works or is it something that I should be trying to make a warranty claim about? So, you know, there's this little circular bar that goes straight through that's the you know that has the end of it where you screw your mic, hold her onto it, all of that, right? Mine is constantly like kind of in free motion.
Michael: [15:57] You're talking about this on the very end of the boom arm, right? With those two big.
Damashe: [16:02] So you got the, you got the, the big little, so that little piece that comes out of the end of the boom arm that first goes into that, that big round piece. And then you got the other piece above that. And then you got the end of it where you're going to attach your microphone clip, right?
Michael: [16:17] So that little bar that goes through the middle right there, that comes out of the bottom of the the circular piece there and goes through those two pieces in the middle, and it kind of allows you to you can't ever tighten it down yeah like it doesn't it's just free movement sounds like you're missing a washer or something because yeah i would i would reach out to them and see if they can help you figure out what's going on okay yeah because you're not having that problem no i can tighten mine down as tight as i want to get it so my mic's always where where I think it is. Now, can I always remember where my mic is? Not necessarily, but that's a different issue.
Damashe: [16:54] Man, imagine how I feel sometimes when I come in here now, because I just changed the room, the desk yesterday. So like, I come in here and it's like, wait, where's the mic? I'm just waving my hand around.
Michael: [17:03] Where is it? Where is it?
Damashe: [17:04] Where is it? But yeah, so like, if I want to adjust the microphone and like swivel this up so I can put it at a different angle, I'm sorry, because I'm doing it while I'm talking. And then I tighten this part back down so you can't swivel that middle part around. That little bar that holds the microphone is just like now my microphone is at a sideways angle. Which is really weird.
Michael: [17:25] Probably missing a washer. I know a bar, that bar that goes in that hole right there, right?
Damashe: [17:29] Yep.
Michael: [17:31] Yeah, you should be able to tighten that down and it should be, you should, yeah. There shouldn't be any issues with that.
Damashe: [17:38] Okay, so missing a washer. I will see if I can do something about that. I did take this end piece apart at some point I don't know why I did it, but I did it.
Michael: [17:49] No, I did it too, and that's the only reason I know what you're missing, so. See, you gotta think about, there are reasons that my brain does what it does sometimes. Todoist projects, I did not see one. That's why I created a technically working one.
Damashe: [18:04] Do you have one? We maybe didn't have one. I thought we did.
Michael: [18:09] It is very possible I deleted it because I did go through that process where I went and deleted all my projects That's possible, too It's also possible that we just didn't have one And we should have So what I did is I made one section I need to figure sections out with two I need to Me and todoist need to become reacquainted.
Damashe: [18:32] Um, but I have a section called follow-up Well one one positive About to do is at the moment at least is our Federico Vatici has recently switched back to using to do is and he's making shortcuts Yes, so involving GPT. Oh I missed that part.
Michael: [18:51] Well, he's not necessarily making shortcuts for to do is involving GPT, but he's working with SG PT and doing to do us and Probably doing shortcuts.
Damashe: [19:04] So this is gonna be a good thing for me though Yeah, he was back on to do us. I was like, all right, that means I don't have to Sit here and figure some of this stuff out.
Michael: [19:12] Yes, and my thought here sir is if we do put a list of ideas in here to follow up and Then we check those ideas off.
Damashe: [19:23] We use an automation tool that adds that to an Google Sheet or Something to help populate the show notes If that makes sense, I don't know how because I'm thinking of Let me give you let me give you a different approach to what I think you're wanting to do But I'm taking Google Sheets out of this because other than calendar right now, like I'm really not liking Google I mean YouTube is still YouTube, but you know anyway, so What I would try to do in this actually ties into something else I was thinking about with gravity forms on that that staff dashboard that I'm working on With the license keys, right So one thing that I considered doing there that could tie into this is if we check off a task and to do list That sends an API call to a gravity form on your own pay that will create a draft post that has whatever the things are that we checked off is like bullet points and then all you have to do is go wait but then that kind of breaks the whole import process doesn't it? well.
[20:37] We should or we can have it send you an email though instead of creating a post have it just send you an email so all you have to do is copy and paste into uh pinecast yeah that would work did you look at this gravity forms with um gpt yet i have not that is going to go up on the staff dashboard site though because that could even just create the show notes and then i wouldn't have to copy and paste and figure out a way to automate getting that into Pinecast.
Michael: [21:09] I'm sure he has some sort of API.
Damashe: [21:11] I have not seen one yet. I haven't looked recently either, but the last time I looked, I did not find any sort of API.
Michael: [21:19] Have we asked him? Cause I have not, I have not asked him because it could, it may not be public.
Damashe: [21:26] That, that is a thing.
Michael: [21:27] So there could be some interesting automation and then that could set Podcast networks apart from other things, but we will, we'll talk about that far down the road, hopefully not too far down the road because, we have fun stuff coming up.
Damashe: [21:45] Yep. So we have a to-do list project, so we'll start putting our follow-up items there, or ideas that come in, and maybe even we'll figure out a way to wire it up so that people can submit feedback or whatnot, and have that just populated to do it so we can have it go to a feedback section in the project. These are all ideas that we will have to follow up on.
Michael: [22:17] So the first thing that I'm going to put in follow up is this is technically working eight. Is that right? I believe so. Um, yeah, we'll have to go back and look. And that's what I wanted to put in there is have you listened to any of the older content to see what we haven't followed up on? Because that's something neither of us did with the DM series and I can't wait to get GPT four because I just want to feed chat. Maybe I, maybe that should be a, a, huh? Maybe that should be a problem to be solved with auto GPT is use auto GPT, which means I'd actually have to get it set up to go and scrape the DM series. Have it run that. I believe it will use, I believe you can use whisper and have it process the audio because it's auto, so it'll do it in the background and then have it run that transcript through GPT to get a summary of it and just get an overall summary. What did we talk about in the DM series over 100 episodes?
Damashe: [23:19] We are on technically working number 8.
Michael: [23:24] Well, yeah, so one of the things somebody's keeping track.
Damashe: [23:31] Apparently, do not ask me, because I don't know.
Michael: [23:33] It was that launch bar episode that we threw in there that threw everything off. I think I don't remember if the next episode I went to three or if I stayed with two, so I could be wrong with that. But if we went back and listened to any of our own content, we would know. And I know people are listening to the content in a minute. As soon as I put this card away, I will pull up some numbers and let people know, like I'll be fully transparent because I'm not hiding it, but the thing is, is people are listening, but they're obviously not telling their friends. So what are we not doing right?
Damashe: [24:09] We're not asking them to tell their friends, hey, if you're listening and you'd like to show, and I assume you do because you're listening, tell a friend.
Michael: [24:16] Yeah. And you keep coming back because the numbers are the same and I was going to be super smooth and go give you those numbers right away. And then I realized I wasn't even signed in. And I think I have two FA on this. So we'll see if I can get these numbers. And if I can't, then Demasi will add it to the follow-up when I invite him to the project.
Damashe: [24:34] So you did the board meeting for ACB of Oregon over the weekend and you live streamed that. So you had some things you wanted to go over there. Yeah, so...
Michael: [24:53] ACB of Oregon holds their board meeting in the place that they're going to have their angle convention at least once prior to that angle convention. And I did get these numbers. We'll talk about that after I intro this, the angle convention will be at the mill casino in Coos Bay for 2023 and 2024. So of course, me being the tech person, people say, say, well, Carrie, I should say, I said, Hey, Michael, will you do this? And I said, of course, cause I don't say no, and maybe I should start saying no more often, but I'm glad I did this time. So what we did is we made it possible. So two of our board members could join via zoom and all of our, uh, ACB affiliate members in Oregon or elsewhere, if they wanted to could join via zoom as well, we did not live stream it to a YouTube or clubhouse or anything like that. but it was a hybrid situation. We did that for Friday and Saturday and I took the Vocaster, which is a pretty versatile piece of equipment.
[26:03] And maybe I should look at the Vocaster too because I could have seen some additional benefits to that. But I took that, the Mac mini and this iClever wireless keyboard to the Mill Casino. The mill casino. And I also took the sure beta 87 a with a 10 foot, I think XLR cable, uh, two notes on that in my to-go bag. That was great. I should look into a vocaster two possibly, or, um, something because I really liked the small form factor of the vocaster. And it just slid right into a bag. I also need to pick up one to three more XLR cables, uh, of differing links, because there could have been some opportunities where.
[26:50] Having a longer XLR cable could have been pretty helpful. And what we did is we used the equipment that the hotel had to provide on-site video. And then we did not use their microphones, but we did use their speakers because I couldn't figure out how to get the audio from the hotel microphones back into Zoom. And Mallory did some research and found out that we needed a, we think we need a streaming capture card which it looks like has two HDMI's but I need to figure out how to either combine both of those HDMI's into a single female HDMI that can receive the HDMI cable from the hotel and then see if their system would process both in and out to audio or another thing that we were thinking about because I do do have the Soundcraft still. And I forgot about that. Well, I didn't forget about it. I just don't, I don't think about it. Cause it's out of sight, out of mind for say, you know, not, not upfront. Uh, but I can send audio to seven different sources with that. And there is an eighth inch line in on the connector that the HDMI cable plugs into at the hotel. Now... Sorry.
Damashe: [28:12] One thing that occurs to me here, too, is maybe that if you get a capture card that you could plug directly into their system, bypassing like a little because I'm thinking a little box that he plugged in is probably just a type of capture card or something like maybe you can make that direct connection and not have to go into the thing, the little box that he put out on the floor, because you have a box that will connect to their system. So that's one question to ask the, are, you know, the guy there, uh, taking the, the, the soundcraft, like I was thinking about pulling my soundcraft out last night, you were to do some stuff. And I'm like, man, but it's so big.
Michael: [28:50] It is. It is. I would like to find some, I need to, I don't want to buy it right now because I have some other things I need to take care of, but at some point I want to get that board that Steven has the road podcaster too, I think is what it is. Cause it sounds like with some setup or with some sighted assistance. And I'm, I we're at the stage in life where if I'm doing any sort of live streaming, I'll always have sighted assistance because I'll always have my phone, which means I'll always have be my eyes or IRA. So something that may not be fully accessible could be made accessible with the use of one of those tools. So it sounds like that might have solved some problems or might give me some interesting audio routing. So I'm gonna look into that as well. And if it's smaller than the Soundcraft, then I'd prefer to carry that around. That's what I really liked about the Vocaster, is it just slipped right into a bag.
Damashe: [29:47] Yeah, the other idea too is making some use of, just depending on how, you know, what options are, is making use of loopback and some of the different routing and maybe going up to the Vocaster too. because I think you have one loop back.
[30:03] No, I have to are you up to I have to yeah So the only thing you're missing right now then is just that second channel and Bluetooth at this point Which I wouldn't deploy Bluetooth in that scenario But that is one possibility or just maybe a small form-factor Mixer yeah Recommendations I need to go look at I need to actually sit down with that list and explore and and maybe see what of that equipment I may, like, will help. Yeah, yeah, you should share that list with me too, because I've been thinking about that too. So this is interesting to me because I didn't, one, know that you were gonna do the live stream thing at first. So that was cool. And it brought some other ideas of ways to solve this with software because I do think you like to, So thinking about it from my perspective, like I have a laptop that I'm gonna travel with. Michael's currently carrying a Mac mini with him, which is, the reason that is a thing is because of reasons that that's a thing, but that's a thing at the moment. I do think that at some point, Michael will go back to a laptop.
Michael: [31:21] I don't know, man, I will tell you this was, it was nice to just plug in the box. And when we needed to move, so one of the issues we ran into was the cable wasn't long enough to reach to the end of the table. So all we had to do was move the vote caster or move the Mac mini if we had to, and it would make it all the way to the other end of, well, I guess the end of the room, and so that was kind of nice. A laptop is good. My thing with a laptop though, and what I'm realizing about traveling with a Mac mini and moving it around because I'm moving it around probably more than I should is I don't have a screen to worry about breaking and that's always been a concern of mine is if I go to close it quickly because I'm on the go and I need to pack stuff up and get going I don't have to worry about a you know a cord being left in there and then something snapping that's never happened to me but I also but that is a concern been concerned about it one thing I will tell you if you're ever in a streaming scenario that I learned is set up a streaming account.
[32:20] And the reason I say that is your everyday notifications from Hazel not being connected or me, maestro, not being able to connect Dropbox or text expander opening up. You don't think about those. At least I don't, you might, but I don't often think about them because I just go through and I close the ones that are in my way. And for example, parallels toolbox had a screen in the middle of the screen that kept asking if I wanted to turn on presentation mode, voiceover would not see that screen no matter what I did. I think it was one of those untitled screens that you get when you switch to the screen switcher or, uh, you know, which one I'm talking about. View application picker.
Damashe: [33:02] Yep.
Michael: [33:04] Yep. And, uh, so what I ended up doing because Mallory, I, I, you know, I, disadvantage. I did not pack a mouse. If you listen back to what I packed with, a mouse was not one of those things. Next time I will because she had to go steal a mouse off of someone else's desk so she could click things. But before she got back, I'm like, huh, I wonder if VOCR would pick it up. And it did. And I did VOCR and I clicked the button and had it figured out before she had gotten back but um yeah so so pack a mouse and set up your own or set up a streaming profile that doesn't have any of these apps so you don't get all these notifications or you don't forget to go into do not disturb on your phone so you know you're getting your other notifications as well because sighted people see those and they are very distracting when you have a big screen that people are looking at everyone else on the zoom window also thanks to mallory if you go into a view and you switch the view to gallery view, and then you set it to full screen. It's a, it makes it a lot easier for people to, to engage with the zoom aspect. And that's things that I wouldn't have thought about because I would have just left the zoom window open and no participants up or anything like that. And just let zoom do its thing. So, uh, in that view process, item chooser is amazing. VOI just type in VO and it brings up an accessible menu window.
Damashe: [34:24] Yeah, I don't choose has become one of my favorite things and a another shout out for VLCR because it's just been an amazing piece of kit to use on the Mac tip with VLCR though and you may get there but I forgot.
Michael: [34:41] I clicked the button like 20 times, but I thought it was still there because I didn't hit escape to clear out of the yeah, that is one thing to that is a good tip for people Listen, yes, I have encountered that before and learned from that.
Damashe: [34:55] But yes, when you're using VOCR, when you activate something to you have to run VOCR again to get the updated results of what you have just done.
Michael: [35:05] Yes.
Damashe: [35:06] Otherwise, you're you're clicking something that's not there.
Michael: [35:09] And it makes sense when you think about what VOCR does, but you don't think at least I sometimes don't think about it. So, yeah, because all VOCR is doing is doing a screenshot.
Damashe: [35:20] Yep, basically it's doing a screenshot and reading out the text to you and allowing you to navigate in that Coordinated space so that when you do activate a thing it does actually work I I had that when I was installing Windows 11 this time on the in parallels where I forgot So I'm sitting here like why is this this this license screen not going away? Uh-huh. Oh, yeah. Oh run VOCR again Yeah, oh look at there. It's installing Windows right now, right? Good it.
Michael: [35:49] Yeah, and I always thought that anyways, so that's, that was my adventure. I'm going to get some names and some equipment, reach back out to their it people now that I know exactly what, like, not exactly what I'm working with, but what they have, cause we are going to be in a different room side note. I did get to check out some Lutron light buttons and didn't play too much with them, but they really have me thinking. So DeMossi is going to send me some stuff that he's been playing with. Um, and that was our weekend adventure. Um, software, interesting to bring that up because I was thinking, you know, if we can get this to a point where we can get these hybrid meetings working for people, streaming those meetings to multiple destinations is the easy part, which I think is kind of interesting, at least on the map with things like ECAM live or loopback, you can get the live video streams or the live streams, with audio to multiple destinations?
Damashe: [36:47] So a couple of things occur to me software-wise. So hardware is going to be a necessity. You know, so figuring out what a good capture card solution would be where you can plug in, you know, multiple HDMI. So you can send audio in and pull audio out or send video and audio back and forth, figuring that part out. And I think, you know, checking in with Office Hours be a good... Good approach here because that's what they do but that's what you're talking about with a lot of stuff and again You know Like I said typically from my experience of watching office hours when somebody asked that kind of equipment question You're gonna get a range of options You know, you'll get the You know, let's take webcam for or microphones.
[37:31] For example, like one of the microphones has been heavily recommended recently there is the The one that Marty has not that not the ten eyes it is sure they're mv7 or mv7 whichever one it is It's a n or m and I can't tell but that microphone right like they're really liking that microphone like You know a lot of people send that out when they're sending out Gear to someone that's going to be appearing on a stream or in a podcast that they that they manage or something So that works But I also heard about you know some more expensive microphones obviously, but I've also heard about a couple of cheaper ones I don't remember the names of any of them Somebody even used to Samsung go Mike which I had about man.
[38:16] I had one of those like 10 years ago Ended up ditching it for the snowball back then because it's not about it sound a little bit better to me But apparently if you get right up on the Samsung go microphone, it sounds pretty decent So you tend to get a range of options because you have a entire panel of people Answering a question or providing their their feedback or expertise or whatever. So it's not just like oh, well, here's a Because you're getting feedback from people who are using this equipment in production. You will get information as to in this type of scenario this is good but if you're doing something on that level you know you want to step it up a little bit so I do think that it would be a good resource for this kind of thing.
[39:05] As far a software though. So obviously there's loopback.
[39:10] For a lot of stuff I Was looking so I was browsing around the Mac menu last night doing some cleanup and stuff like that And I realized that I had still had zoom iso installed Now zoom iso is not cheap I don't know what the current pricing is but I believe for what I would want is 45 bucks a month or at least that was the the estimated price before they came out of beta.
[39:41] What Zoom ISO does for people listening, and also to refresh Michael's memory, because he may have forgotten, but especially for people listening, Zoom ISO is software that was developed by a company outside of Zoom, and Zoom recently purchased them, like sometime last year, they bought them. But this company created the ability using Zoom's API, so it was all done over Zoom's API, to pull out separate video and audio sources so that you can map those somewhere else. So an example of how this could be used using Michael's recent adventure this weekend is if they wanted to use the camera for the people that were at the event, Michael could have that go in as a source into Zoom as well as the people who were joining via Zoom that were also on camera. And I'm assuming just the two board members that were joining by zone But all the people that were talking and visible on the screen for the well in this situation No, because we weren't using webinar.
Michael: [40:41] We were just using zoom meeting for a convention.
Damashe: [40:44] Yes, that will be the case Now going back to Michael's mention of e cam live With zoom ISO you could so two things number one zoom I saw the reason I'm super interested in it and And play with it for a while is because it allows you to pull out separate audio sources for each person that's in the meeting I think there may be a limit to how many people you can pull out, but let's you pull out 64 or something I think.
[41:10] So you pull out individual audio streams for each person which means you can then send that audio where you want it to go whether it's just recording each person on their own track and Reaper or You know sending that audio through clean feed or a lot of different things you can do with that there Yeah, you can also pull video sources out So, you know, you could pull out the people that are on video and put them into something like a cam live so you're now broadcasting that video to YouTube or twitch or Whatever or just using Ecam but you're able to pull those people out separately and kind of place them where you want them to go so if you always want the President layout Yeah, you always want the president in top left corner, and then you want to be able to switch or if you have a You know different things like that where you can move people around map them to a specific spot keep them there do switching all of that Sort of stuff so that's an interesting potential application For this I think I'm gonna reach the limits of this Mac mini pretty quickly if I start doing Now that is an actual advantage of having the Mac mini though is because number one and I was thinking about this last night too, Which is when I have to do something that is a heavier production load like if I have to do a hybrid You know streaming thing.
Michael: [42:33] Yes.
Damashe: [42:34] I'm going to use my mac mini for a couple of reasons Uh, number one, it's always plugged in and it has a fan. Yes that fan makes a difference that man makes a huge difference I I imagine and I never tried it on the m1 macbook air, but I imagine sometimes when i'm When I would be running Mac whisper, it would have given me everything is busy where I don't get that as much as I probably would have gotten it with the air So I don't get that as much as you would expect with the Apple silicon laptops at all Like I didn't get it a lot with the m1 MacBook Pro And I don't get it with the m2 air, but I'm also this is not sustained There's this going on in this in that going on right and mostly what seems to happen When you're doing things like that is that you're gonna you don't have that sustained speed like it's gonna start to Slowly clock you down as the computer gets hotter and I haven't really hit that limit with the m2 at all but you were doing zoom ISO and and Ecam and yeah Then we probably get to that point where things start to kind of slow down. Whereas having a fan allows the processor to keep doing all of the work that it's doing.
[43:53] Now another thing about Zoom ISO 2 is that one, it's Mac only. So unfortunately, if you're a Windows user, you don't have access to that application at all. But one of the reasons that it is Mac only is because I also believe it only works on Apple Silicon Macs because they have written it to be optimized to run very efficiently on Apple Silicon.
Michael: [44:14] Got you. The hotel does have an owl. Well, they have two of them. I don't know if you've heard of those.
Damashe: [44:21] Mallory's heard of them.
Michael: [44:22] Yeah.
Damashe: [44:23] Yeah.
Michael: [44:24] For video. So I think we'll be using that in October because though I'm completely blind, I have to remember that we have a majority of our members are either low vision or You know have some sight and have some visual aspect of it is beneficial to them and it opens up to a wider audience too because we do live in a sighted world if you want to get Donations from sighted individuals and they want to know where they can see you then they're not gonna be able to donate to you Uh-huh, that that is a very important thing.
Damashe: [44:57] I have not looked at our camera I remember you telling me about them at one point too and I've heard of the name I think a couple of people have used them for webcams.
Michael: [45:07] They're good for group scenarios apparently because they'll focus on the person talking and move in a circle I guess.
Damashe: [45:14] Huh, I may have to look at one of these. I just bought a web camera, but I don't know. I'm still in my return window for this too. Yeah. I don't know. I gotta stop buying stuff. That's what I need to do.
Michael: [45:28] Unless we start getting more downloads. So again, you need to go and tell one of your friends if you like this episode. We had a total of 642 downloads, 46 of the most recent episodes, and probably two or three of those were me testing. And so, the numbers are going up slash staying steady, which means you keep coming back, but you're not telling people about the podcast. Or you're telling people and then you stopped listening, which is a little weird. So, uh, let us know.
Damashe: [46:00] Or just grab your friend's phone and just subscribe to them.
Michael: [46:05] Or tell us what we're not doing that you want, that you want us to do. So you will grab your friend's phone and subscribe.
Damashe: [46:11] Yeah. I mean, I would like for the content, the vibe around the show to be such that that is a thing that you would want to do. You may not always be able to do it and you may decide not to do it because is rude, I don't know. I'm a little socially awkward, honestly, so I don't know if that would be weird or not. But if you hand me your phone to fix something and I ask you if you listen to podcasts and you're like, yeah, and then I'm gonna just subscribe you to the show. But I would like that to be a thing that you would like to do, even if you don't actually do it. Like, you know, you would be like, yeah, you know, this makes sense. The show is good enough that everybody should be listening to it.
Michael: [46:45] Or just mention it in conversation, because that helps too.
Damashe: [46:48] Yeah, I mean, if we provide information that you're learning or interesting ideas that have sparked a conversation for you, like just mention that you heard about it on this show or submit feedback to us and we will talk about that.
Michael: [47:08] So I think I've talked about my macro setup on Reaper. What do you want to talk about this week?
Damashe: [47:13] So, hmm.
Michael: [47:16] Because if you don't have an idea, we can talk Reaper.
Damashe: [47:22] I need to set up Reaper. Have you ever tried using the oh? Another thing that occurred to me too about sending your audio out was that I remember the plug-in that you can install in your dog That will let you take to pull the audio from a channel and send it out and provide a virtual device for you to pull audio in No no no no no no bus Um that's a good back channel solution though. Yeah What is it called what is it called what is it called it was a plug-in It's from the source elements people are not remembering I mean, I'm sure I probably Know what you're talking about, but I don't So the salute the problem that it solves in a way at least from my perspective is, think about Reaper, right? So let's say you're wanting to record everybody out of Zoom onto their own track using Reaper.
Michael: [48:23] You can run effects on the track and then send it back out. Right.
Damashe: [48:26] Yeah. So that's also a thing.
Michael: [48:33] Yeah, that could be, I want, I would, have you played with the podcast out adobe.com slash in hand yet? I know you've heard some audio I've sent you, but have you checked it out?
Damashe: [48:44] I have not.
Michael: [48:45] To me, it looks like they just put a gravity form, uh, that sends audio through their plugin and then spits out a link that you can download. I mean, that's probably not what they did, but the thing is, is it looks like It's just getting processed through an effect and then given back to you So I would love that if I could have that in Reaper Because right now I can only process one hour of audio Per upload no more than 500 megabytes. It will not take flack. So that limits you and then Hate things that don't take flack.
Damashe: [49:17] So that makes me not want to use your stuff If you're not, I'm sorry flack has been around long enough and isn't acceptable um, audio format that I feel like if you don't take flack files, like we, we have a, this is a beta tool and it is their AI.
Michael: [49:35] So maybe at release they will take flack and I will submit feedback to them about that because that would be helpful, but I'd also like it. If I could just put that effect on a track and, you know, walk away. I'll walk away from Reaper, even if it takes a little while to run it, because it is pretty magical. I will say it does become very creepy if it's trying too hard to enhance voices So we did a zoom call on for one of our Chapter meetings and we were in a restaurant and someone was talking three people down and you could barely hear them in the recording so I tried to enhance it and it was very Very strange what they did to the voice, but it brought up the voice and you could understand it So again, it's in beta.
Damashe: [50:22] Yeah, it isn't better. I wonder have so Have you ever used On a trial basis Isotope, RX Advanced. No. Because I wonder if it has, and I always forget this, even though when I install it, I have to install their app, I always forget about the app, because for me, my primary usage of it has always been through the...
Michael: [50:54] VST plugins and Reaper.
Damashe: [50:55] Yeah, yeah, the VST plugins. So I tend to forget that there's an app that has more features in it than they expose over their VST plugins or their AU plugins, if you're on the Mac, because you get those too. Although some of them are just VSTs, which is, you know, weird. It's like, why are you doing just, just do one? Like we don't need to do all of them.
Michael: [51:17] That isolate though. Could be.
Damashe: [51:18] Yeah. I wonder if that would be a solution that could also work in conjunction, maybe with some other stuff, but maybe you process the audio through their first and bring it into reaper or yeah, because reaper has the ability to use an external editor.
Michael: [51:34] So what I actually should do is set that to be the external editor, take it into the, take the item into the external editor, which I think is control alt or command option. I think I have to figure it out.
Damashe: [51:49] That doesn't make any sense. You should change that shortcut immediately. Yeah, that I don't, there's no correlation in my brain to come. I'm not saying control command.
Michael: [51:58] I, I think it might be for, I don't know.
Damashe: [52:00] It still doesn't make sense. What is the eye for though? Or maybe it's E maybe makes sense because it's like external, but I, I have no idea why I wouldn't remember that open item and external editor.
Michael: [52:12] It's kind of sinking because I think that's the name of the action. All right. So we are back recording. Let me tell you what happened here. So I don't know what happened there, but I heard a click and then my monitoring went out, but I could still hear you. Like the microphone was no longer there. And then a second later my microphone came back in my headphones but you still couldn't hear me. Audio Hijack gave me an error saying that the device was no longer available, and. Yeah, then I reloaded and then I am clean feed didn't keep me logged in. So I had to re log in and voiceover did that thing where whenever you hit tab, it always said, uh, ignoring the press.
Damashe: [53:01] And that means your voiceover key got stuck. I've noticed that has been a major problem with using voiceover, using the caps lock as the voiceover.
Michael: [53:08] OK, so it's not just me because I'm getting that way more than I should be. I think.
Damashe: [53:13] Uh huh. It is not just you. It is frustrating to the point that, uh, uh, sometimes I want to break things.
Michael: [53:20] Can I, um, I wonder, huh? Hey, Demasi, could we swap it around and switch control? Option? No. I was, I was thinking about doing some weird convoluted keyboard where you're mapping to be able to make our keystrokes still work, but I thought about it.
Damashe: [53:38] And the only problem, the only thing that I could think of doing is remapping the caps lock to be control option, but then that would break me trying to use the control option keys elsewhere, though.
Michael: [53:50] Yes, yes, so but anyway, so that's what happened. And so I will edit these together and I think you're recording a backup anyways. And hopefully Audio Hijack picked up on the device reconnected. Slightly concerning. Need to figure out what happened there if that happens again.
Damashe: [54:06] So go check your audio hijack and start and stop the session. And no, I'm not recording a backup. Oh, I'm recording Mac Whisper for I'm trying to. That's right. All right.
Michael: [54:18] Yep. When I restarted it, it picked it up, so.
Damashe: [54:22] OK, good deal.
Michael: [54:24] And I'll just edit the two clean feeds together and do some sort of clean transition. We'll figure that out.
Damashe: [54:32] I haven't installed RX yet because I haven't even set up Reaper. So I will try the advanced version just to see if that Offers any of that sort of Any of those sort of tools because they have mentioned AI and their stuff a little bit here and there and I just haven't really Paid attention to it because everybody's talking about yeah Everything has a I mean the mail lady stopped over there. She was like so AI How does that you know Refer things well, it's gonna tell me if I don't have any mail for your street that I don't have to come down your street at all Or it'll tell me the likelihood of whether or not the one package that I have for you is important enough for me to come down this whole street or just wait until tomorrow. She didn't say any of this, none of this happened. I'm just being very facetious. But it feels like every time you turn around, people are talking about it, yeah.
Michael: [55:25] And we can use it to improve the experience.
Damashe: [55:29] Although listening to DTNS, apparently, it's so expensive to run things like ChatGPT and the other AI tools that are out there that maybe you don't have to worry about it taking your job because it would cost infinitely more money to run the AI than it would to just pay a person. One question for you about Reaper, have you ever, or do you know of anybody that has used, this is for the audience too I guess, have you used, or do you know of someone that has used the remote Reaper application where you're controlling Reaper on another computer from a different computer with the remote app?
Michael: [56:13] Nope, but that would be kind of cool, especially if I had like a Mac Studio in the cloud or something that could process the effects and not walk my own max and then set up studio the cloud low.
Damashe: [56:26] Yeah, expensive. Yeah, that would be expensive. But you know, although huh? Ramping windows windows in the cloud and windows machines in the cloud are about the same, at least with a WS or about the same cost as a Linux box system. Mac OS ones that are more expensive. I think I'll do some looking.
Michael: [56:51] But you get a decent windows in the cloud, for example, and then you wouldn't have to use Ram to connect to that. I think, I think you could just open the remote Reaper and just pick the machine that you want to connect to once it's all set up and then use that Reaper set up on that machine.
Damashe: [57:08] Oh yeah. Uh, Michael Doyle has mentioned to me yesterday, I was hanging out in their, Tech room Mentioned that RDP on the Mac does pass audio, But I'm thinking that's to the Microsoft RDP application He said he tried it with Mac Stadium and only reason you couldn't get it working there is because you have to reboot into Recovery and go do the the policy exception thing like you have to with ace for robot Meebo's tools And so he couldn't do that like that part didn't pass audio through yeah well it didn't pass it through from Mac Stadium but he's been able to do it I'm guessing on like a local Mac that he actually had direct access to to be able to do that so that's an interesting thing to try out because I wonder if that would also work with a Windows machine.
[58:05] Some recent things Something to follow up on for sure hybrid events though I think are gonna continue to be a thing we talked about this a little bit yesterday, but I think they're gonna continue to be a means of Extending your reach and allowing people to do what's more comfortable for them. I think that's one positive side effect of The lockdowns and kovat is the fact that people figured out you can do things from home that you know Maybe ten years ago would have been more difficult To do from home or do remotely because the bandwidth maybe wasn't there or the software wasn't there Like there's a combinations of things that you know I can understand why a lot of people or a lot of companies wouldn't have one of people working remotely But when you look at the layers of security and VPNs that you can use to protect your traffic and only your traffic versus You know, whatever else is going on a person's network tools that we have such as how good zoom is now even though it's annoying and always trying to sell me their email and Their calendar and I don't understand because I pay you money. I Want a poll we should do a poll on on Macedon I'm like am I the only person that feels like this if I am paying you money for a service You shouldn't keep shoving crap at me zoom Apple.
Michael: [59:27] That'll be your next Mastodon post and we'll tell you how you can reach out to us a mess Myself be my next best of all folks, okay.
Damashe: [59:38] Well everybody listening that is on Macedon And I will post this as a poll on Macedon because I just discovered as you can do polls on Macedon and Mona will do Yeah, I was listening to know a little more It was about Macedon. I was like, oh, I didn't know there were polls I should I should do one is gonna be my poll if you're paying for a service Would there be a web service app or whatever, but you're paying for something on a recurring? Occasion as well. It's not just one-off payment. You have a subscription to a thing Should or should not You be allowed to like say listen stop shoving your other crap at me because I don't want it if I wanted I'll come looking for but stop it Zoom is really bad about this there Apple is getting worse and worse about this. Microsoft can be bad about this a lot of companies did yes, and I don't like it I Get you out more money out of me, but let me come to you to give you my money I'm okay Occasionally if you show me a thing that maybe is new and there's you know I probably didn't know about it But every time you open zoom.
Michael: [1:00:50] There's a different ad or the same ad Yeah, like that that that is getting annoying And you know that I've never hit a hundred participants. Why would I need to upgrade to five hundred participants?
Damashe: [1:01:06] Right So yeah Or at least allow me to say like, you know Like I've turned I've started now turning off the ability for applications on iOS to request a review Oh, and the reason I turned it off is I used to leave it all because it's like, okay I'll probably you know, give you a star rating or something at some point but everybody pops it up at the most inconvenient time. Either when you first are launching the application, it's like I haven't used it yet, how can I tell you if I like it? Or I just tapped on a notification, which means I'm trying to get to whatever this notification was talking about. Oh, would you like to leave us a review?
Michael: [1:01:42] No, I'm trying to work. I might want to leave you a review the next time I actually open you from my home screen, but not from a notification. And if you can't tell that difference, there's a problem.
Damashe: [1:01:51] There's a problem. Either you're doing it wrong or Apple's doing it wrong, but you know what? You're just getting in my way is the problem. Like I just want to use the app right now. Like you're being inconvenient. And I don't like inconveniences. Let's see, what else we got?
Michael: [1:02:12] I think edited word about an hour ish.
Damashe: [1:02:15] Did I tell you I tried the baby face pro? I'll tell you about that.
Michael: [1:02:19] OK, yeah, we talked about that last week, actually. I think it was last week.
Damashe: [1:02:24] No, that was the that was the sound devices.
Michael: [1:02:27] Oh, then maybe I did not know about the baby face pro.
Damashe: [1:02:30] Oh, so I did try that, too. We'll talk about that another time because I want to know that's an interesting device, though. We can cut this out of the show. But it's an interesting device and the reason I was thinking about it again last night is because apparently somebody well I knew it when I had it. I just didn't have the ability at the time to run Windows but there was a The baby face Pro is a very very slimmed down machine like it literally has two XLR inputs, I think I had two XLR outputs headphone jacks and one single big knob that you kind of rotate for all different stuff and then some Lights to indicate what you were doing the big knob dial thing was like pushable so like you could push it to switch what it Was doing But it was also controllable to have an app that you were used to set up your routing and all of that stuff actually has 12 inputs and 12 outputs Okay, but they're all not physical is the thing then it has toss link, which I don't understand That you could connect it to a different device so you could extend its channels. I was like that that seems cool So I picked it up. It was super small super portable felt like it was very regular Like I wouldn't have a problem throwing it in a, ooh, I do know what the next topic for the show is gonna be though.
[1:03:52] Threw it in the bag or whatever well of course the Mac out wasn't accessible And it to me it could have been if they put the attention to detail that Roga me But doesn't to something like audio hijack because it seems like that's basically what you were doing is like hey I would like to connect Microphone that's on channel one to go to output Headphones right like it kind of seems generally from reading the manuals that the type of connections that you're doing so could have been accessible Well apparently it also works over OSC Mm-hmm and there is a Windows application that would allow you to control it over OSC and was pretty full feature like you basically do all the stuff that you could do of course I couldn't run Windows back then but it popped up to me as an interesting possibility of something that's lightweight to carry that could Solve a lot of problems if that OSC software worked. However, it is not a cheap device But that is also a concern for me with the with the vocash or so I'm interested to see how you're traveling with it does cuz it feels Hmm Oh Demasi Reaper solves all your audio problems. Of course it does There's an OSC API for Reaper so you could probably control everything in Reaper Yeah, I just didn't have a I did not know. I thought you could control Reaper will see I did not know it could send OSC commands out of Reaper, though. Yeah, it looks like you can.
Michael: [1:05:22] Huh? I don't need this. I don't.
Damashe: [1:05:25] And then there's zoom OSC. Yeah. Interesting.
Michael: [1:05:30] So maybe OSC is something I need to learn more about. What is OSC?
Damashe: [1:05:34] Yeah, that's what I need to do to learn more about OSC. I have not yet, and I think it's partially because I haven't spent enough time trying to actually learn about OSC itself. Found an application for the Mac that just, you know, lets you control stuff over OSC itself for Zoom, but I think all Zoom does is just Zoom. I don't think it does anything else.
Michael: [1:05:55] Right.
Damashe: [1:05:56] But yeah, it's definitely a protocol we should, we should investigate.
Michael: [1:06:00] Yeah. I'm just asked our favorite friend, what is OSC? If you feel right there at once from the edit box, after you ask your question, you hear the little clicking sound that tells you that voiceover is doing something. And when that stops, that means the answer is complete. You can interact with the list and then press via right arrow. And it says OSC stands for open sound control. And it's used to communicate between software and hardware devices, which process sound and they can be the message. So it looks like many programming languages and software applications support it, and it can help with automating audio. So I do need to definitely learn more about this. This will go in the follow up section.
Damashe: [1:06:52] So one thing that I wanted to come up with or talk about, and I'm looking for feedback from you because you've traveled a little bit more recently than I have, and also from anybody else Listening that has been traveling because I have not been like outside of that that Greyhound trip back to Alabama at the beginning of January like I haven't been anywhere Transportation wise like that like, you know flying bus train, whatever since well before 2020 so I Have to fly to Houston this summer I haven't flown since I don't know maybe 2018 2017 somewhere back. Yeah, I have no idea How to pack to get on a plane without getting into a whole bunch of hassle My plan right now, so two things number one if anybody has a good recommendation for bags backpacks For laptops and gear and stuff. I share those I do have one So I'm not an imminent, you know need of one But I do need to get a new one because I don't I'm not super happy with this one But it was on sale when I bought it a couple years ago Secondarily I Don't need to go buy a new suitcase. I think I know where I want to get that from My tip that I can share with people is get a seat place with four wheels when you're getting a new one Yes to the two.
[1:08:15] Yes Do that make the most of the time you only used to but so Yeah, but you know Yes, that four wheels helps like that four wheels help for sure So one of the things that I am thinking about is I'm traveling. I'm gonna have a backpack. I'm gonna have a suitcase It's pretty much all I'm taking. I don't think I'm taking anything else with me as far as Luggage, I think my suitcase should be a carry-on We could go under the plane if I should do that, but I'm thinking it could also be a carry-on Backpack definitely goes on. Now in my backpack at the moment, and this is all stuff that I am planning to take with me unless somebody tells me I shouldn't take it because TSA is gonna lose their mind. I have a microphone. It's the ATR, nope, the AT 2005 Audio Technica microphone. It's in a little bag. It's getting the sure bag that the Beta 87A came in, along with a mic clip.
[1:09:18] And a couple of those little Adapters so like the you know three eighths inch to five eighths or whatever adapters I a couple of those in case I need it also in there is a small portable tripod Mm-hmm to put the microphone on this is just in case I need to you know record something or You know I don't know and also We got to figure out technique to working for those couple of weeks there, too that would that tripod would be good for me to have had cuz then they wouldn't have had to hold it while they were reading their notes I could have just had it sat in front of them I will I will send you a link to the one that I have right now which is you know reasonably adjustable it does take up quite a bit of space with the legs yeah when you lay it out but that's because it's so lightweight that it spreads the legs out really wide so it can maintain balance.
Michael: [1:10:15] Eventually I'll send or we'll talk about the sound quality of the leadership meeting that we had and how I'm pretty satisfied with it. There's some changes but you know the Beta 87A did a good job at noise rejection for sure.
Damashe: [1:10:33] It is a great microphone. It is a good one. It's an expensive microphone for a a mobile solution, but yeah, that is, that is, uh, my biggest concern, honestly, because it's a condenser is like, I'm really nervous about traveling with it. Yeah. Because I would hate for it to get banged in it. Like now I don't have a good, you know, microphone of this, this quality level. I think that's why I was so interested in, or am still so interested in the MV7 because I think it's a dynamic, which means it may be a little bit more, you know resisting to getting banged around and it's a travel mic so I don't have to take this one down but I have that also have a new little mini tripod that I bought to set my phone or a camera webcam up it can you know support a couple of different devices to put on top of it because it's just a 8-inch screw you attach so I have that thing this is a Mantis Bot Pro I think is what this thing is called. And it comes with like a little slide on mount, you can get different sorts of mounts. But this was just a basic slide on mount with an adjustable head so you can rotate it and it supports different angles and all kinds of stuff. So that's going in the bag.
[1:11:51] What else do I have here? I I think that's it, but that's a lot of metal. And I'm like I don't I don't want to go through TSA, and I got to take and then also also in the back would be My laptop of course my MacBook Air, which you know TSA should be familiar with laptops I'm more concerned about the ancillary equipment like if I take this webcam with me Which I'm probably not cuz I mean jeez I've just spent 200 bucks on a webcam.
Michael: [1:12:21] Yeah I don't see a need for it I don't see a need for it And I don't necessarily want to take it on a plane even if I did have a need for it Yeah, cuz I haven't been on a plane so I have no idea what's gonna happen and I don't want to lose this Well, I do have a 1080p USB webcam that I might throw in the bag just in case so I think that's something we need to figure out is are we gonna do any recording when we're at convention because If we're not do you even need to take all that equipment and I don't have that answer right now I mean, of course you need to take the computer, but do you need to take the audio stuff?
Damashe: [1:12:52] Yeah, that's that's a part of it A part of me is taking this or at least leaving the stuff in that bag That's in there is because like I need to see what it's like Traveling with it because I haven't done that because there will be a time that I'm gonna need it I don't really expect that. I'm going to need it in Houston But then again, who knows maybe the rest an opportunity will arise and I will record It'll be you JJ and Shelley.
Michael: [1:13:14] I'll jump on a show together.
Damashe: [1:13:16] That might be a thing.
Michael: [1:13:17] There you go And then you have good equipment Patrick will be happy when he edits it I mean, I don't wanna have to use my laptop microphone or the webcam mic, oh Jesus. So let us know what you pack with when you travel, especially if you're in the audio world.
Damashe: [1:13:33] Yeah, especially if you're traveling around with gear. And you know, do you put all of this stuff in your backpack and take it on the plane with you? Do you put it in your suitcase and put it, you know, with the regular plane luggage so it's not as heavily, I don't wanna say not as heavily scrutinized, but you don't have a TSA agent giving you that crazy look like, I have no idea what this thing is that you have in here. And we're gonna confiscate it.
Michael: [1:13:58] They're gonna look at me when I'm traveling with a Mac mini. a you.
Damashe: [1:14:03] So the big thing here is like, how do you, cause I've heard people say like, oh, they want you to open up the laptop and turn it on so they can see that it's actually a working laptop. How do you do that with the Mac mini? It's like, you have a power outlet here.
Michael: [1:14:17] Do you have a power outlet? Do you got an HDMI connector? Do you got a screen?
Damashe: [1:14:22] I'll tell you what, put these headphones on.
Michael: [1:14:24] Here's a keyboard.
Damashe: [1:14:25] Well, you'll hear, so if you can plug it in somewhere, you'll actually hear the chime come up and hear voiceover talk through the Mac Mini speaker. But it's the point of like, you actually need an outlet.
Michael: [1:14:37] Put this to your ear though, because it is not very loud.
Damashe: [1:14:40] Hold this Mac Mini up to your ear, and don't yank the cord out of the socket right there.
Michael: [1:14:44] Don't worry, I got a wireless keyboard over here. So how can, oh go ahead.
Damashe: [1:14:52] I've just been thinking about, and again, you are right, like most of the things that I'm looking at, like I'm not taking that webcam, because I don't have a secondary one. That's a really, that's a 4K webcam. So I'm not, not taking that with the potential of something disappearing. And I don't mean disappearing as in somebody steals it. I mean, disappearing as in TSA is like, yeah, we don't know what that is. We're not letting you take any of this on the plane. So yeah.
Michael: [1:15:14] I think you're just overthinking it, but I get where you're coming from too.
Damashe: [1:15:18] I probably am.
Michael: [1:15:20] Yeah.
Damashe: [1:15:20] I probably am. Yeah. But I've never traveled on, since TSA's integration, like since things have become the way that they are, I've never traveled with anything that did look weird except the one time when I was trying to fly to Denver and I had a belt buckle that was a gun. It was a belt buckle shaped like a gun. And they took my freaking belt buckle. I'm still upset about it. 12 years later, I'm still upset about it.
Michael: [1:15:46] Now I understand your concern then because I've never had that happen to me, but that makes sense.
Damashe: [1:15:51] I was like, it's just a belt buckle.
Michael: [1:15:53] Yeah, like seriously. But that was also 12 years ago, So two years after September 11th. No, that would have been the same year.
Damashe: [1:16:01] It's been 10 years after 9-11.
Michael: [1:16:02] Oh yeah, yeah.
Damashe: [1:16:07] Wow. Huh, that's still ridiculous. It was clearly a belt buckle. It was holding my pants up. Like that's the other thing that really made me mad is like I had a belt buckle.
Michael: [1:16:16] Oh, so it wasn't even like in your bag. Oh, that's ridiculous.
Damashe: [1:16:18] No, I was wearing it.
Michael: [1:16:19] Oh.
Damashe: [1:16:21] So I went through the line, I took off my shoes, I took off my belt, I didn't even think about it It was just my belt buckle like yeah, you know It was one of those belts that you can swap out the buckles all right Somebody bought me that nice little buckle and it worked for you know, how I wore my belt So I've never even really thought about it. It was a gun And the TSA agent was like you're not gonna be able to keep that buckle. I was like what's wrong with the buckle? Well, sir, it's shaped like a gun and I stopped for it. Oh, yeah, it is. Thanks. Wait. What are you serious though? the bell buckle. Right. So, uh, but yeah, share your feedback with us about what you take on the plane. What has been your experience? What would you put in your carry on versus putting in your regular luggage? Just any travel tip for me in general. Cause I haven't been anywhere.
Michael: [1:17:03] Uh, Michael has been places, but yeah, I just throw computer vocaster microphone and I'm good to go. Oh, and the cable usually. And then, and then Mallory bought these hard case one, uh, suitcases. So I packed inventory demo units and inventory in one half of it with the zipper pouch and the other half had my clothes if it didn't fit it didn't go and I think we had to like stretch it out a little bit to get everything and We took that on or I took that on the plane it went above and then my back foot it went by my feet Okay, so you had air tags?
Damashe: [1:17:39] That's what I need to pick up to us a couple air tags or tiles AirTags. This is a family-friendly show, sir.
Michael: [1:17:53] So, give your feedback. How can they reach out to you on Mastodon, Demasi?
Damashe: [1:17:57] So, you can go to Demasi, D-A-M-A-S-H-E, dot yourownpay.com, and that will take you to me on Mastodon, which is actually about to change sometime in the next month, so that's why we set these links up. I'm gonna switch servers and Michael is Michael dot your own pay calm and that will take you to him on mastodon You can send an email in to TW at your own pay calm if you have feedback as well Tell a friend about the show if you find it good share your feedback with us on things that you would like to hear or If you have questions like we are entertaining and open to answering people's questions maybe I, mean depends on what the question is like we're not gonna. You know it's up to all you can ask any question You want to I'll put it to you that way. Yeah, we will answer what we choose to answer so So, uh, yeah, and we'll be back next week.
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