The Trunk Recording
Good afternoon. Welcome to another Eric Project. For those of you who know me, might get a good laugh. For those of you who don't know me, I'll explain it to you. I was originally calling the show my little podcasting journal here an Eric project, because that's exactly what it is.
Eric Regier:But through editing, through making a logo in Microsoft Word and clipping it, I decided to call it another Eric project because that's just what this is, is another project by me. So with my last recording between breaks in conversation, collecting myself, just trying to get the right things said, it was about eleven minutes long of content I had. Not necessarily good content or even talking, but it was about eleven minutes that I condensed down to just under seven minutes, I believe. That was an interesting process. As you may have noticed with the last episode, there are about two kind of like bad edits, repetitive words.
Eric Regier:The one I left in there because I couldn't get it really clean where I said the same word twice in a row. But it's, you know, a big learning experience. And it was fun. It was fun to edit it. Probably took me about half hour, forty minutes to edit, listen, edit, listen, go back and forth that way.
Eric Regier:What have I been doing since my last episode? Well, I had a chance to do a test record with another person, two microphones. That was a bit of a, learning, just using the right settings and the preferences. I'm using Reaper audio to do the audio. I didn't like Audacity.
Eric Regier:I did it wasn't the cleanest. Didn't allow for the best best usage of what I wanna do here. So that was interesting doing the tracks. I I didn't do any editing. I did all of my setting changes directly on the live track, my audio interface mixer that I'm recording on.
Eric Regier:During that recording, I used some headphones. I got these Sony's that don't have any sort of added bass boost, just clean clean audio. They're for studios. I got that on Amazon. And that worked really well.
Eric Regier:I mean, I think it was about twenty minute record that I'll never put out, but it was fun to do. What else? I picked up a microphone stand, but not like one of the pedestal ones that sit upright. It's like a boom microphone. So if you're sitting down, standing up, you can, kinda jot it out to in front of someone so the whole stand's not in front.
Eric Regier:I didn't wanna get dedicated table microphone stands because you're not always gonna have a table in front of you. So I wanted to have that that clean look, but not you don't always want anyone to just hold on to the microphone. You just want options available to people. So I picked up one of those. I liked it.
Eric Regier:I'm gonna pick up the second one. This is my first time also recording with a microphone cover. I noticed that there's some paws that were popping through. So I got the covers. I got those on Amazon.
Eric Regier:They were cheap, but they smelled like like solvent fairy chemical, just gross. So let those aired out for what ended up being two weeks, because I haven't I haven't recorded anything about three. Because I I picked up a a new job. The hours aren't very good. It's exhausting.
Eric Regier:It's a lot of lifting. But it is what it is. I'm getting back on the horse here to do this podcast little business venture I'm doing. I've been fortunate enough for when I'm ready to do some actual production. I have a local business and a hobby podcast.
Eric Regier:They wanna try something out, so I'm gonna do those. I'm just gonna ask for testimonials. So that's fun. I have no idea when that's gonna happen, but I'll give it a try. I also started up an Instagram account for this little journal podcast called another.eric.project.
Eric Regier:I have it set to private, but that's where I'm gonna be experimenting with social media, making reels, making different posts on there, experimenting with stories. So give that a join if you wanna see what I'm doing on there. But I will be using my main Instagram account for advertising for now. I'm not too fond of Facebook right now. It's mostly just advertising suggested groups and posts and celebrities.
Eric Regier:So I'm doing all of my advertising and sharing of this right now on Instagram because it's more simple and that seems to be where everyone is other than like TikTok or Twitter, but I'm old and I will not be using TikTok and Twitter. I just do not want to use that. Same with Blue Sky, I'm just not interested in those platforms, but I may eventually have to move on to those if I want to make this a bigger thing. Besides that, I don't really have any updates for now. The only other thing that I can think of sharing at this time is the usage of AI.
Eric Regier:I've been bouncing ideas using ChatGPT for suggestions and it's kind of, you know, giving feedback, good feedback, bad feedback. But I mean, it's gonna be biased unless you use the right language with it. But when it comes down to editing this and making it a real thing, I won't be using AI for any of the audio or potential video editing. Not interested in that. It's impersonal.
Eric Regier:You don't really get a sense for hearing because I mean, AI can do transcripts, but it can't give the best feedback on content that like people would wanna hear, or even quality of audio. And I just don't wanna do that. Originally, was thinking of not using AI at all. I did use AI to make me a transcript for my episode. And it did help output, like, it did help put out kind of a key parts.
Eric Regier:It's able to point out, hey, what would be good for social media? What would be good for reels and stories? And it can identify. It's scary how good it is. I'm not gonna let it be kind of the absolute, hey, this is the final idea.
Eric Regier:This is great. It's a good guidance. So, it's one thing I'm kind of struggling with is AI is such a super useful tool, but it lacks that human connection. And at the end of the day, what podcasts are is you're just giving content, you're getting your words out there for people to hear. It's not for AI to hear unless AI is just using it for other means or just copying your voice and putting stuff out there that sounds like you.
Eric Regier:I'm really torn with it. I mean, I'm looking at, like, slogans where it's like, don't use AI to edit your voice, but I'll gladly use it to make sure your voice reaches more ears. Another slogan is your story is shaped by skilled hands and trained ear. There's no shortcuts, just real editing. And we're using industry standard tools.
Eric Regier:Like, through editing, it's, you know, you know, modify the gains, remove background noises. There are tools for that. They've been around forever, guided by human ears. I mean, because if you're advertising the idea of, hey, we're not using AI, people have to take you for your word, but you need to make sure people know it's like, hey, there are tools out there. The tools have existed.
Eric Regier:They are not artificial intelligence. It's, it's really, it's a, it's a tough balance of figuring it all out. Sorry, I'm just looking through my notes here. I got a little notebook, filling things out, trying not to use my phone because the phones are very distracting. But, yeah, that's kind of, that's where I am right now.
Eric Regier:I'm looking at my recording here. I am just hitting eleven minutes in the recording, as you're listening back on it. It's not gonna be eleven minutes. I'm hoping for the next episode, episode three, I'm hoping that I will be able to have an interview done before then, and hopefully not a three week gap. I'm at three weeks, I believe.
Eric Regier:This is more like unprepared. I had everything in my car already. I didn't wanna record at home, and it's such a beautiful day. And with the idea of this being a a mobile production unit, I wanna be able to record anywhere. I'm running on no power.
Eric Regier:Nothing's plugged in. I'm running on battery off my laptop that I have my mixer hooked up to in the back of my vehicle in a parking lot. So what this is doing is just being a proof of concept, trying things out, But, that's all I really have to say this time around. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'm aiming for the third one to be a little more polished with content, more notes, better structured.
Eric Regier:I will hear you. Look forward to the next one. Look out for the next one. Keep an eye on the two Instagram accounts, my personal one, and another dot eric. Project.
Eric Regier:And, feedback's always welcome. So please just message me directly, talk to me, message me. But if you don't know me or know any other way, a direct message or just reply on one of the posts, good or bad feedback is always welcome. And I will talk to you next time.