Ep 1 - First episode... again.

The third try at the first episode of my podcast about all things spoken word audio.  In this episode, I'll talk about my love of spoken word media and about my plans to create a premier provider of spoken word audio.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to the Standing Wave Podcast, all things spoken word. Welcome all. It is June 15th, 2026, and this is episode one, the inaugural episode of the Standing Wave Podcast. And as mentioned in the little intro, this is a podcast about all things spoken word. And that encompasses things like this and other podcasts, audiobooks, audio dramas, which I'll talk a lot more about a little later, voiceover for commercials, corporate content, voice acting for animated content, and the OG spoken word content, uh radio. And then also film and TV often treat uh the dialogue audio as as somewhat separate. Um, and that includes stuff like ADR, uh, not a huge focus, but that's certainly part of spoken word. And then ancillary stuff related to that, um, you know, sound design, foley, music composition, and all these come into play when we talk about something like audio dramas or even you know uh commercials or corporate content. And that's kind of what spoken word encompasses. So that's a lot of what we'll be talking about. And specifically, um, this podcast will be about a few things or cover a few things. Um number one will be my journey in attempting to build a premiere provider of all things spoken word. That's sort of a goal phrase that I came up with in my head. And I'll I'll talk a bit more about what that means specifically later. Um, but I'll also be talking about tools and techniques that I'm using as I go through this journey. I will also speak about spoken word content that I'm listening to and excited about and want to kind of share with the world. Um, and then one thing I will not be giving is expert advice. I'm not an expert, except maybe as a consumer of this content. But right now I am in a trying, failing, learning, trying again, experimenting phase of all this. Um an example of a great example of that is this is now the third time I'm recording this podcast. I actually recorded episodes one and two two different times, uh, and got to the end of the you know, editing and mixing of the second episode both times, and realized that there were enough things that I could improve about it uh that I felt I need to scrap those and and go back to the drawing board. So this is actually the fifth time I've recorded a podcast and the third time I've recorded an episode one. But uh this is still the inaugural episode, and at some point I just have to get going and put this out to the world. So here it is. Now, one thing I won't be doing here is giving any sort of expert advice. Uh I am not an expert other than maybe as a consumer of spoken word content, but I am completely in the trying, failing, learning, improving, you know, experimenting, trying again phase of all this. Um and a good great example of that is that this is the fifth podcast I've recorded. I've recorded episodes one and two twice. So four other um four other actual podcast recordings, and at the end of both episode twos, I've gotten through the you know editing and mixing phase and thought there were enough things that I could improve that it was worth scrapping those earlier efforts um and and having a redo. So this is sort of my third try at starting this podcast. But at some point I need to just put it out there and move forward, and if it's not great, learn from it and keep going. But I can't keep doing the same thing again. So here we are, the uh for real this time inaugural episode. Um so that's kind of where I'm at, and my goals for this podcast are my personal goals, are um, you know, to hopefully create some content that other folks might be interested in if they're if they're following a similar journey. Uh maybe they can learn from some of my mistakes and hopefully some of my successes. Um also get some experience talking into a mic. So some of the things I want to do, talking about later, um, you know, obviously require uh will require voice acting. And I want to, even if I don't end up being the voice talent, I want to at least understand what it's like to speak into a microphone and be able to come at it if I'm working with a performer to at least kind of understand things from their point viewpoint, even if you know they're more experienced than me, and there's more I can learn from them than they can from me, at least I will come from some sort of base point of reference. Um, I can also get experience editing, uh mixing and distributing content, and I um that that will be helpful. And then um I it's also a big part of it is holding myself accountable. So I have some, you know, kind of big goals at the end of this, and in order to achieve those goals, I I need to keep moving forward. So there's nothing like putting out into the universe what your plans are um to kind of keep you focused and uh on the right path to hopefully achieve those goals. Um even if nobody's listening to this, uh at least I'm putting it out there and I know those are my goals for the podcast, and and the podcast is hopefully just a start of this journey. So my background is not in audio of any sort, it's in software, but I have been a lifelong fan of spoken word content. So to kind of lay out that background really quickly, uh the first thing I remember is that as a kid, a very young kid, uh I got for Christmas, I think it was a two-cassette um rendition, you know, audio, fully uh cast audio drama of Treasure Island. Um, and I listened to that tape until it broke. I wore it out and it it broke, and I loved it. It instilled in me at a very young age sort of a love for adventure. Uh later in life as an adult, I ended up buying a sailboat and had that for a while until I had a kid and and that kind of uh took the time away from sailing. But I it it had a big effect on me as a a young kid. Um and it it I think it helped solidify in me uh a form of imagination, I think, that you know you can hear things, but you have to imagine all the visuals. And I think that helped me in some ways. Um, and I'm not saying that's any better than watching a movie or TV. I think it's just different, and I I think it's it's something that shaped kind of how my mind worked. Um now I believe that was a production done by a company called Mind's Eye. I believe I've tracked down the audio. It's actually they went out of business, and the rights holders are sort of in question, so there is no commercial way to get it, but I, you know, having the internet is great. I've I believe I found it, so I'll probably talk more about that when I when I uh re-listen to it. I haven't had a chance yet. Um and then when I was a little bit older, I got hooked on old time radio. Even when I was a kid, it was still old time. This is uh stuff that aired from, you know, was produced around the 30s into the 60s, and it was sort of the primary form of entertainment before TV, if you're not familiar with it. Uh there was an AM radio station that aired these old shows on Friday and Saturday evenings, and I would lay in bed with the with the AM radio on and and just listen to these, and it was it was great. You know, it was much like the the Treasure Island. And and some of these shows, if you're not familiar, and I'll talk more about them in in future episodes, but um, shows like Dimension X, Suspense, X Minus One, The Shadow, you may have heard of. Um, and these were great. Uh, I really, I really like them. Even if if you listen to them back now, they're you know, the stories and and productions are nowhere near as sophisticated as as we can do now, but it it still had that uh you know sort of base storytelling that that really appealed to me. Um I also listened to there was another show that was actually still produced well into the 80s, I think early 80s, um, called CBS Radio Mystery Theater. Uh, and they would produce both original content as well as you know stuff like Edgar Allan Poe and existing content, and those were great too. Um you can find all those as well. I also listened to a little bit of AM Talk Radio. Um, Ron Owens, I remember, was a big deal in the Bay Area when I was a kid. So I I actually, now that I think about it, I actually had a audio-only version of Star Wars that I used to listen to. Um so that's sort of, you know, my my background as a child listening to all this stuff. And now that I am no longer a child, uh I have a long commute to work, and I also split time between um the California Bay Area and Southern Oregon. So with all that, I listen to tons of podcasts and audiobooks. Um, so I'm, you know, I've still been to this day, I'm I'm still consuming audio, spoken word content, and I love it. So that's my spoken word background. Again, my professional background is not in audio uh engineering or audio production at all, but I have been playing with music production just as a complete amateur, just screwing around for quite a few years. Um, and that has given me some experience with audio engineering skills, and I've also accumulated some uh hardware around recording and mixing, which I have some limited knowledge of how to use. Um and so I think that will help in the end, but again, I I have to realize coming at this that I don't know what I'm doing. Now, many years ago, I had a dream, and I got a domain name in the early days of the internet, fairly early days, and I wrote a script based on a semi-obscure science fiction book, and I had this idea of creating these, you know, full production audio dramas. The problem was that it it was a dream, and like all dreams, one you know, at some point you wake up and it never happened and it wasn't real. You know, at the time I was pretty young, the whole plan completely overwhelmed me. I didn't know how to get the rights to this property I wrote a script on. I had no idea how to find voice actors, how to do all the sound design, music, any of that stuff. And so it just ended up dying, but it sat there uh somewhere in my brain. And then recently, uh a few months ago, um, several months ago, I had a health scare. And that health scare was the kind of thing where it makes you realize that tomorrow is not guaranteed for any of us. And you know, at some point after that, I started thinking about that dream, and I decided to change it from a dream to a goal, and then from a goal to a plan. Um, and now I have two big sort of end goals in all this. And the first end goal is to create premium full cast audio dramas, you know, music, sound design, foley, everything. Um multi-channel audio. That's the one of the big end goals. And then the second big end goal sort of goes along with it a little bit, is I would like to open a commercial recording studio focused uh specifically on spoken word audio, which obviously dovetails into creating this original content. It would be great to have a studio space to do that. Um and in addition to that, um, you can rent that out for recording, mixing, mastering uh podcasts, YouTube content, obviously, again, creating uh our own original content, voiceover stuff, and then maybe even some stuff for film and TV in terms of ADR, sound design, foley, that sort of thing. Um, and and so these are the big end goals, but you know, I don't have the skills or the money to just go straight to those start doing those goals. It's a process where it's gonna have to build up. So again, I think it's important to realize and keep in mind that I don't know what I'm doing. Be humble about that. Or if you don't do that in something like this, you'll never end up learning because you think you know it all already. And so realizing that you don't know a whole lot helps uh helps you learn. Uh again, I have, you know, may have some skills um and ideas and a long history as a consumer, but no formal experience. And that experience is what allows you to go forward with something like this. And one thing I have learned in life is that artistic endeavors tend to look easy. And that is because when you see some some artists doing what they do, you're watching a very experienced professional in general, whether that be, you know, acting in a movie or TV show, um, doing a painting or sculpture, you're generally seeing professionals who've been doing it for a long time, and of course they make it look easy because they have that kind of experience, but none of those things are easy at all. So it's important to remember that what you're going after, or for me, what what I'm going after, is going to be hard, but not impossible. You just have to keep learning, and and you will fail, you there will be hiccups, but just keep going. So that's why I'm starting with this podcast. Uh, obviously, podcast, and I I just said nothing's easy, but I'll throw out that the podcast is sort of an easy way to to get into this. I can put out a podcast even if nobody listens to it. I have all the equipment I need to make a podcast. And the hard part, of course, is making it good and making it something people want to listen to. So hopefully that will come with time. So I think the podcast will help me build up some of the skills that I'm gonna need. Recording, distributing, mixing, audio, as well as microphone technique. Um, it will help with all that, and it's a a good first start towards towards the big goals. So the other thing I need to think about is how to monetize uh some of this stuff earlier rather than later, because a lot of the things I've talked about, opening a commercial studio, you know, making these big productions, uh, that's gonna cost money, and that money is not sitting around in a bank account somewhere. So I need to figure out a way to sooner rather than later uh start bringing in some income so that I can fund these next steps. Um, you know, this is not about getting rich, but it it's also not about going broke. So um that's some stuff that I need to think about because I'm gonna need to pay voice actors, possibly acquire content, opening a studio, you know, that's now a monthly nut that needs to be met. So all that stuff requires um some income coming in. So I I need that's something I need to think about um relatively soon. So I think I'll leave it there for this one. I think that's good. Uh hopefully I've given you some interest in in uh following along in this journey. And until next week, go out and listen to something interesting.