For the 200th episode, Robin and Jamon are joined by the team behind React Native Radio, Todd, Missy, Justin, and Jed, and talk about how an episode makes it from their mouths to … your ears?
For the 200th episode, Robin and Jamon are joined by the team behind React Native Radio, Todd, Missy, Justin, and Jed, and talk about how an episode makes it from their mouths to … your ears?
This episode brought to you by Infinite Red! Infinite Red is a premier React Native design and development agency located in the USA. With five years of React Native experience and deep roots in the React Native community (hosts of Chain React and the React Native Newsletter), Infinite Red is the best choice for your next React Native app.
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Todd Werth:
Welcome back to React Native Radio Podcast, brought to you by Inside Baseball. Episode 200: Behind the scenes at React Native Radio.
Jamon Holmgren:
Hey, React Native Radio friends. Welcome back. This is the React Native Radio Podcast, and I am your host, Jamon Holmgren. I am joined today by my illustrious cohost, Robin. Robin, how are you doing this morning?
Robin Heinze:
Wow, illustrious. That's a good one.
Jamon Holmgren:
I don't know why it came to mind, to be honest.
Robin Heinze:
No idea. Just out of thin air. Uh, doing great. I'm doing great. It's a little, it's a little bit cloudy here, but-
Jamon Holmgren:
It is, yeah. It's cloudy here, too. I doubt that we have different weather very often because we're, what, 20 miles apart, something like that?
Robin Heinze:
Yeah, we pretty much have the same weather.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah. Northern tip of the Willamette Valley, basically, is where we both live although I'm in Washington State and you're in Oregon.
Robin Heinze:
Far superior, Oregon State.
Jamon Holmgren:
Wow, I didn't realize this was a competition
Robin Heinze:
Everything is a competition.
Jamon Holmgren:
Everything is. Okay. We're not alone in this call, though.
Robin Heinze:
No, we're not.
Jamon Holmgren:
We are used to doing things, you know, us two, but today we have a really cool topic which we're gonna be getting into, and that necessitates a lot bigger team than you normally see on the podcast. So, today we have with us Missy Warren, Todd Werth, Jed Bartausky, and Justin Huskey, and I'm going to let each of you introduce yourselves and maybe the title of what you do on the podcast, 'cause we're going to be talking way more in-depth about it. So, Missy, how are you doing today?
Missy Warren:
Hey, Jamon. I am doing well. I am in sunny Los Angeles, California. I think that spring is in full effect, and I have spring allergies, which is why I have a different voice today.
Jamon Holmgren:
I've worked with you for, what, a year and a half or something... no, two years? I don't know.
Missy Warren:
Yeah. A little over two years now.
Jamon Holmgren:
Two years, yeah. Thanks. And, I don't think I've ever heard you sound like that except for the morning we're gonna do this podcast, so great timing.
Robin Heinze:
Yeah, it's Murphy's Law.
Missy Warren:
This is not what I sound like on the regular, but I guess everyone will think that it is.
Robin Heinze:
Maybe it's a good thing.
Missy Warren:
Yeah.
Robin Heinze:
Maybe it's a good thing. It's like, it's like Phoebe, Phoebe from Friends: she had her sick voice and she sounded way better than her not-sick voice.
Missy Warren:
Yeah, I kind of like it better, so if it stays like this, then that's fine by me. But yeah, for the podcast I am the social media coordinator, so what you see on Twitter is usually from me.
Jamon Holmgren:
You and I also work together pretty much every day. You're the sales and marketing coordinator, and since I'm kind of the guy who does a lot of the sales at Infinite Red we work together on, you know, if someone, someone's reaching out, you're going to be talking to the two of us. So, welcome aboard, Missy. Looking forward to having you on this episode.
Missy Warren:
Yes, I'm excited to be here.
Jamon Holmgren:
Also with us, with us today is Jed Bartausky, also known as Jed Bartausky or Jed Bartelowsky, depending on how I mangle his name. Jed, can you say your name for the record, uh, so that everybody knows how I'm supposed to be pronouncing it?
Jed Bartausky:
Yes, yes. Thank you, Jamon. So, just to set the record straight, uh, it's pronounced Jed “Bar-toss-ky”.
Jamon Holmgren:
I don't know. I was watching the TV show, Chuck, I think, at the time when I first met you, which was a while ago, because Chuck's an older TV show, now, and his name was Chuck Bartowsky, and so I just totally connected the two in my mind. I'm like, "Ha, Jed, yeah. You're like Chuck's cousin, right?" And you just kind of went with the joke, and then I just called you “Bar-tow-sky” for like, the next 10 years.
Jed Bartausky:
Well, and a funny thing too is you'd be surprised at how many people actually question my first name, like, that was my given name. I was, I remember distinctly, there was one time I was at Starbucks, ordering coffee, and the barista had asked for my name and I said, "Jed," and she's like, "Is that your real name?" I was like, "Yeah. Jed. J-E-D." She's like, "Are you sure?" Like, she figured that I must have somehow forgotten it. I'm like-
Robin Heinze:
Are you sure?
Jed Bartausky:
I'm like, "I don't... I didn't bring, I wasn't prepared with the documentation required to convince you, apparently, so you're just going to have to take my word for it. But yes, it's Jed, so."
Jamon Holmgren:
You know what? I think we need to introduce ourselves, as well, with what we tell the barista for, our name. I never say Jamon. I always just say Jay, because, you know, they kind of usually get that right. So Jed, do you use Jed or do you give some other name just to mix it up?
Jed Bartausky:
I've used Jed, but I mean, I like the idea of just using Jay. I may need to try that in the future.
Jamon Holmgren:
It works. Yeah, until we all do it, and then there's, you know, 15 Jays called out.
Jed Bartausky:
So, just a little bit about myself. I live here in eastern Washington, in the Tri-Cities Area. Our regional flower is, of course, the tumbleweed, so it keeps things interesting. As far as the React Native Radio Podcast goes, I am the transcript and release coordinator for the majority of what I do. Andd then alongside with that I'm also working with Todd. He's training me up on the editing side of things. So, that's been something we've been doing recently that's been really exciting.
Todd Werth:
We're not supposed to put what we're, we're doing in the podcast, right?
Jamon Holmgren:
No.
Todd Werth:
Okay.
Jamon Holmgren:
Not really.
Todd Werth:
Just the title.
Missy Warren:
Just the title.
Todd Werth:
Jed.
Jed Bartausky:
Oh. You want me to redo that?
Robin Heinze:
No, he just did the title.
Jamon Holmgren:
Sort of, yeah.
Jed Bartausky:
I also threw the editing bit in there, too.
Jamon Holmgren:
It's okay.
Robin Heinze:
Which is also a title. Right? Editor?
Todd Werth:
I don't know what to do. Assistant to the editor? I should put that in there.
Robin Heinze:
Assistant to the editor, I love it.
Todd Werth:
Assistant to the editor.
Jamon Holmgren:
All right, very cool. And, also with us today, is a man you actually do hear every episode, but you may not know who it is: Todd Werth, my co-founder and a CEO of Infinite Red. Todd, welcome aboard.
Todd Werth:
Hey, Jamon. Thanks for having me. It's actually fun to be on, actually on the podcast. My name's Todd, and I'm CEO of Infinite Red, and although I don't code these days I am a software engineer. I just focus on my CEO duties as of late, which, really is just napping and taking credit for everyone else's work.
Robin Heinze:
And Facebook. Don't forget browsing Facebook.
Todd Werth:
I stopped that, browsing Facebook, after the last election. You can understand why.
Robin Heinze:
Mm-hmm.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah, it just became too much, to be honest. Uh, the napping-
Todd Werth:
Yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
... and the taking credit for other's work was, was just enough-
Robin Heinze:
It's a full-time job.
Jamon Holmgren:
It is, really.
Robin Heinze:
That's all, yeah.
Todd Werth:
It is for a CEO, yeah, yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
It's true. Well, you do a great job of it, and I'm really happy to have you on the podcast. Todd and I have been business partners for six years, now and counting. Also with us today is our design lead at Infinite Red, Justin Huskey. Justin, you live not very far from me. We've worked together, well, dating back to my previous company, actually.
Justin Huskey:
Yeah, yeah, about seven years now. So hey, everybody. I'm Justin. That's actually my real name, that's not just a pseudonym I use at Starbucks, like Jed. And-
Jed Bartausky:
Another Jay?
Justin Huskey:
Another Jay. I am the design lead here at Infinite Red. I help clients with their products and doing the whole design phase. Going from idea to actual visuals and all of that kind of stuff to get ready for development. And then, more recently, I've been focusing more on Infinite Red and how it relates to developers and the kind of brand experience. And also just kind of the design experience that everybody interacts with our brand. So that could be at Chain React, could be through this podcast, and many different avenues.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah, very awesome to have you on the podcast, and all of you for joining us today. Before we get started I want to mention that this episode is sponsored by the company that we all work at: Infinite Red.
Todd Werth:
Not this again.
Jamon Holmgren:
But we are sponsored by Infinite Red. We are a premier React Native design and development agency, located fully remote in the USA. We're the best choice for your React Native app. Hit us up, hello@infinite.red. You can email me directly, Jamon@infinite.red; you can go to infinite.red/reactnative, and if you want advice on napping, you can email Todd, Todd@infinite.red. He is more than happy to give you advice on that. Don't forget to mention that you heard about us through the React Native Radio Podcast. We love hearing that.
Jamon Holmgren:
All right, let's get into the topic for today, why we have everybody here, too. The topic is: behind the scenes at React Native Radio. And I want to do this episode because, while Robin and I, and when they get a chance, Adhithi and, and Harris, are kind of the, you know, "On-Air talent." The people that you hear, there's a lot more that goes into this podcast than just us getting behind a mic and recording and uploading it. There's a lot more that goes on. In fact, our job is probably the easiest part of the whole process.
Jamon Holmgren:
So, now you get to meet the people who make all this happen. We're going to talk about what happens to get an episode from our mouths into your earbuds. Is that kind of... that was a little creepy, wasn't it? We'll just roll with it.
Todd Werth:
I'm still visualizing. Give me a second.
Jed Bartausky:
The visual's already there. I'm trying to get rid of it, currently.
Robin Heinze:
Yeah.
Justin Huskey:
Mm-hmm, okay.
Jamon Holmgren:
This is a... yeah. Well, we'll move on. If you've ever been involved in podcasts then you're probably familiar with some of this stuff, but there's different kind of levels of podcast. There's just kind of record it and upload it, though you can certainly do that. But we've taken it to another level, and maybe even people who are involved in podcasting might learn some things. So, we'll approach this kind of going through an episode from the beginning and, you know, start to finish. So, let's start off with topic selection.
Jamon Holmgren:
Robin and I and the other hosts have a Slack channel where we kick around topics. We'll just kind of brainstorm what ideas we might want to talk about, or what might be interesting, or what is even, like, topical at the time. We put them into a Google Drive spreadsheet, we have
columns that have, you know, topic, guest, episode number, recording date, and release date. So, it's a schedule, and it kind of gives us a good idea of what's coming up. What, who, you know, what guests there are, when we're gonna be recording, and when we intend to release it, as well. These are pretty fluid. Like, we do move them around a lot, other than when we have a guest scheduled, right, Robin?
Robin Heinze:
Yeah. A lot of the topics we pick are pretty evergreen. They don't necessarily correspond to a particular date and time, so we'll move them around as needed. If someone has some recent experience with a particular topic and they can't make that particular day we'll move it around. I think one time we actually changed the topic the morning of recording. So, yeah, I would say it's pretty fluid.
Jamon Holmgren:
And this episode isn't going to be so much about Robin and me, but we do have different ways that we prepare, the two of us. Robin tends to be a little better about preparing, I'm a little more seat of the pants, unfortunately. So we've managed to make it work so far, and we also have to schedule guests. So you know, we've had some good guests on and we do like doing guests from time to time. But, we have to schedule those to make sure that they're available at the right time, and it can be interesting because sometimes we'll have... In a recent episode, for example, we had someone from India, and they have a very different time zone requirement here, you know. It might be really late at night for them, for example.
Jamon Holmgren:
So that can be a little challenging, but we try to record Thursdays at 9:00 AM. Before that, though, the Monday before, we do some prep. And so, it's just, it's, like, a 30-minute prep period. We get together, we have a Google Doc, we have notes we copy and... You know, like, we have a template and we copy and paste that. We do some back-and-forth on what we might want to cover. We're in a Zoom call. We put in some links, uh, we try to... in fact, we did that with this crew this Monday as well, and just talked about what we might want to accomplish with the episode. The more... I found the more that we prepped, generally the better the episode goes, because we kind of know what to expect. But, it's always a little bit of a rolling the dice.
Robin Heinze:
And we cheat and we sort of change things as we record, too, sometimes. Like, you'll prep one way and then you kind of maybe paraphrase, or adapt, or change things as it makes sense while you're in the conversation.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah. It's always kind of a fluid thing. So, we record Thursdays, generally at 9:00 AM Pacific Time. We use QuickTime to record our audio. Robin, I think you use Audacity, though, right? You had some problems with QuickTime.
Robin Heinze:
I use Audacity and QuickTime because I got burned one time, by my audio not saving, so I have all the backups.
Jamon Holmgren:
We also record in Zoom, so Zoom has the ability to record in separate channels, so that's kind of an even, an additional backup. It's not as good of a recording, because it's online, but it's, it's better than nothing, for sure. And what's funny is we recorded our intro for this one and then found out that both Todd and I had some massive problem with QuickTime that was, like, oh, it was like, we played it back and it was, like, screechy, so we had to redo the whole thing. That happens from time to time.
Todd Werth:
Our redundancies have redundancies, but there is a method to the madness.
Jamon Holmgren:
Exactly. You can tell we're in software because we don't trust anything. We also have some fairly good equipment, and I'm gonna, Todd's going to be talking more about kind of how we go, how we set all that up. But, we try to have high-quality equipment. Todd, what... Just as a little aside here, can you talk a little bit about how you select the hardware part of our recording equipment?
Todd Werth:
Sure, yeah. So, our company started out fully remote, and our intention is to be fully remote for the rest of our existence of the company. So, we actually do get good audio equipment just for our normal work, for Zoom calls.
Jamon Holmgren:
So, it's not just for recording.
Todd Werth:
Right. Zoom calls, doing, recording screencasts, that kind of stuff. So, a lot of us already had good audio equipment. It's something I'm interested in on a hobby level. Obviously, it's not my job, but we also have two audio engineers here: Derek Greenberg and Darren Wilson. We have lots of resources. But, basically, just picked equipment that fit up to our price point, because in a lot of things price doesn't matter. You're paying for branding. In audio equipment, pretty much price dictates quality. The higher, more expensive it is, the higher the quality, so we pick a budget, about $350 for all the audio equipment, say, Robin has, that kind of stuff.
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm.
Todd Werth:
Some people, because I enjoy audio, I will have more expensive equipment, but that's just not necessary.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah. I mean, I think you have the best mic of the bunch of us, which is something just, kind of reflects your, your hobbies and what you like to do.
Todd Werth:
Mm-hmm.
Jamon Holmgren:
But I think all of our equipment is good. Even, like, Missy's, for example. She's not necessarily set up for podcasting every day, but you got a mic this week, right, Missy?
Missy Warren:
Yeah, I did, and I really like it, so maybe I'll get more into it. It's kind of nice. I'll probably use it on some of our sales calls going forward.
Jamon Holmgren:
Nice. Yeah, that's awesome. I like sounding good in, you know, Zoom calls, 'cause we do them all the time.
Todd Werth:
Not to go off-topic, but I'm always super impressed with our team and Zoom, because not only do we have good audio, we have good video.
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm.
Todd Werth:
It just, you know, especially in the pandemic world, it really sets you apart. I notice more people are trying to improve that now that they live in Zoom.
Jamon Holmgren:
And it's not just... Yeah, like you said, it's not just the microphones, but it's also having good headphones-
Todd Werth:
Mm-hmm.
Jamon Holmgren:
... is good. Uh, quiet space is really important. I think Robin banishes her husband and daughter from the house when we record.
Robin Heinze:
When I, when I can, yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah.
Robin Heinze:
It makes a big difference.
Jamon Holmgren:
You know, it's great. I think it's not only... and we'll be talking about this later, too, but it's not just for the quality of the sound, but it's also for how easy it is to edit, too, and it makes it easier to edit this. Now we're at the part where we record, so some of the things we try to do, we try to make sure that we give some space around things to make it easier to edit. For example, there might be a... you might be thinking of something, and you can give a little space there, and we could leave that in, for example, in editing. You would cut that out, normally, and I would sound more natural. It would come off more naturally. But, what we do is not, in the recording, is not necessarily what ends up in the final product. But, we do that on purpose, because we want to make it easier for the editors.
Jamon Holmgren:
So, during recording we have specific things that we remind ourselves about before we start the podcast. We also try to avoid "Um, uh." This is a very tough one for me. I've been working on it, I've gotten a little bit better, but I'm still pretty bad at it. It's something you really have to work to train yourself out of. We've recorded on QuickTime. We then stop the recording. We have our backup in Zoom, and then we send all these files over to Todd. We have a channel in Slack, and we just upload the files into a thread there. And then, that moves from the recording part to the editing process. So, this is where I cue up Todd. Todd, go ahead and walk me through a typical editing session when you receive the files.
Todd Werth:
Okay. So, yeah, I do the editing, although I've been training Jed, and he's been learning that and helping as well, and we worked on the last episode with Sanket together. So, as far as what we do, editing... Well, there's two, there's three parts. First, we get all the audio files and we fix the audio.
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm.
Todd Werth:
I wouldn't call this editing, but we spend... we have good software and we spend a decent amount of time fixing everyone's files.
Jamon Holmgren:
What software do you use?
Jed Bartausky:
Isotope RX8 is what we use for the initial processing.
Todd Werth:
And we also use Adobe Audition a little bit, but mostly Isotope.
Jamon Holmgren:
Okay.
Robin Heinze:
And what do you mean by fixing?
Todd Werth:
What do we mean by fixing is... So, Jamon and Robin's audio's pretty good 'cause we have them set up correctly and we have some training on how to do it, but especially for guests, could be good, it could be horrible. It depends. So, the typical things we remove is noise: background noise, reverb or echo. We remove mouth clicks, which are really annoying to listen to and everyone does it. We remove plosives, or puh-puh-puh-puh sounds, P sounds. We do all that.
Todd Werth:
Then we normalize the volume and we compress the audio a little bit so that there's less range in the volume. The hosts are not professional hosts, so they don't come out of the can like you would hear, say, someone on NPR or some sort of kind of professional broadcast. So we do all this stuff and get it all nice and clean, and get everyone equal to each other.
Jamon Holmgren:
I've watched you do some of the... I haven't sat through a whole editing session, but there's a lot happening, as you're going through and correcting the audio like that. But you also, you'll cut things out, you'll rearrange things, as well, right?
Todd Werth:
Mm-hmm. So, that's the first step. That's getting the audio in good quality. Now, if we were sitting in a studio in-person, we would get good quality from the start. But since we don't have that luxury we have to do that. So, the next step is the first step could take about an hour if there's a lot of guests, but it could be quick, also. If it's just Robin and Jamon, it's actually fairly quick.
Todd Werth:
The next part's the hard part, which is the actual editing. So, we have all this clean audio, as if we were sitting in the studio, which we're not, and then we have to edit the podcast, and that's just going through it second by second, cutting out filler words, cutting out, you know, someone coughs or clinks their mug on the desk while they're talking. Jamon, you did that this episode.
Robin Heinze:
Called out.
Jamon Holmgren:
Jeez.
Justin Huskey:
Wow.
Todd Werth:
As the editor, I really try not to sit here and watch you all and notice everything you do wrong, but, like, clinking-
Robin Heinze:
Just, whatever. Just, like-
Jamon Holmgren:
Now I'm really nervous. I'm just gonna sit here.
Todd Werth:
Well, when you're not talking it doesn't matter. Like you can be playing the violin and that's fine, because we just cut that out. When you're not talking, you're not there. But, when you're talking anything in the background, especially like that, we can't... if Jed and I had mass amount of time we could actually remove that clink-
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm.
Todd Werth:
... from behind your voice and have it be natural. Obviously, we don't have the time to do that kind of detailed stuff, uh, but it is possible.
Robin Heinze:
We trust that our listeners come to us for the content and not necessarily the audio quality.
Todd Werth:
That being said... that's, that is true, but we actually take the quality super seriously.
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm.
Todd Werth:
It's one of the things I love about Infinite Red, is the entire team takes everything very... We're not a serious company. We have tons of fun, and-
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah.
Todd Werth:
... uh, you know, half the things in my mouth are jokes. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your perspective... for me, it's fortunately, for everyone else it's unfortunately ... but, when it comes to our work we are serious about it while we're having fun, and we try to produce quality... Do we need to make this podcast high-quality? Probably not. Are we going to make it low-quality? Absolutely not. After you kind of get editing out, the, say, the imperfections, then you get into content editing, and I will shorten things for clarity. I will... if everyone's talking over each other I will highlight one person more and maybe we'll remove the other people or blow their volume or something so that you can just hear the person who's the primary person talking.
Todd Werth:
Um, sometimes I'll remove things that are wrong. I won't pick on anyone here, but let's pick on Harris, because he's not here. This is not true. I'm just picking on him, 'cause why not. If someone says something that's technically wrong and I know it's technically wrong I'll remove it, because it's just wrong, you know?
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah.
Todd Werth:
You know, something like JavaScript was invented in 1978 or something. And, in addition to that, shorten for clarity, brevity. Sometimes people go off on a tangent and it's great, and sometimes it's not very interesting-
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm .
Todd Werth:
... to listeners. So, we'll remove that. Is there anything else I'm missing on the editing part, Jed?
Jed Bartausky:
Not anything that I can think of. Those are the big things. Of course, there's a lot of cutting up that has to happen so we can, we can have that flexibility to remove what we need to remove.
Todd Werth:
Yeah.
Jed Bartausky:
Todd mentioned it earlier, but it's one of those things, like, I've only paired up with Todd a couple times on editing a full episode. Even just doing that, it's really fun, like, being in the podcast, like, right now, and I can already picture in my mind, like, okay.
Todd Werth:
Mm-hmm.
Jed Bartausky:
Here's what we're... Like, we're probably gonna move this around, or we're probably gonna be cutting this down, or, or refining X, Y, and Z. It's just really fun.
Jamon Holmgren:
It's very meta, like you are.
Jed Bartausky:
Mm-hmm, it really is.
Jamon Holmgren:
You're, you're listening to this right now as you're editing-
Jed Bartausky:
Yep.
Jamon Holmgren:
And so.
Todd Werth:
The other thing, too, is what people don't realize is good audio that you're listening to is actually very unnatural. You don't want to listen to people's natural conversations. When you listen to some sort of professional audio, they remove that. The trick is to edit it in a pleasing way that doesn't sound edited.
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm.
Robin Heinze:
Which is very difficult, actually, to make it sound not edited you have to edit it a lot.
Todd Werth:
Yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
It's like design. Design, if you have a really well-designed app it feels natural and doesn't look over-designed, you know? Like, it's something that takes a lot of time. It's like, I guess, a lot of art. Uh, a lot of art is that way, but it-
Robin Heinze:
"Oh, that looks easy. I could have done that."
Jamon Holmgren:
Right.
Robin Heinze:
But it takes a lot of work to make it look that easy.
Jamon Holmgren:
Mark Twain said, "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." It's kind of that same sort of idea.
Todd Werth:
100%. The easier something seems, probably the harder it was to do.
Jamon Holmgren:
Exactly. This is kind of a fun story: there's an incident that happened early on in the history of React Native Radio, where you and Robin had to re-record her entire portion of one of the early episodes. So, I wanna hear that story.
Todd Werth:
Well, I'll let Robin tell some of it, but just to start it off: Robin's audio had severe problems. We couldn't use it. We would have to get everyone back together, and guests back together, and that kind of stuff to re-record it. So, we decided to re-record her parts.
Robin Heinze:
Yeah, this was really early on. I think this was the second episode that we ever did after we took over the podcast. For whatever reason I don't think we know, to this day, why this happened, but my audio file was corrupted, messed up somehow, so I kind of sounded like a robot.
Todd Werth:
Mm-hmm.
Robin Heinze:
Even after Todd, like, fixed the file and did everything he could using software, it still, it sounded horrible. But you, it was still intelligible, so what we had to do was we got in the Zoom call and Todd would literally play five, 10-second section of me, and then I would have to repeat the section with similar phrasing-
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm.
Robin Heinze:
... and tone of voice to sort of recreate the recording. And, it was... it, it ended up working. I think the final product was really good, and I got a chance to maybe rephrase some things that I didn't like the phrasing of the first time. But it was exhausting, and having to listen to yourself that many times-
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah, I can imagine. That would be... I'm sure that took forever.
Robin Heinze:
Quite a while. It was also really, really informative, though. It was uncomfortable, but I learned a lot about what I sound like, so ultimately it was positive, but I don't ever want to do that again. So, I got a really good mic after that.
Jamon Holmgren:
In retrospect, we probably should have just done the episode over again, but I guess the learning experience was worthwhile.
Todd Werth:
It was fun. It was, it was actually fun working with Robin on that, just one-on-one. We don't do that too often, so that was actually fun. We started getting into a rhythm to maximize efficiency. I would read something, I would... the look on her face, I would know if I had to reread it, and at first it was very clumsy, but over time, like, we were a well-oiled machine.
Robin Heinze:
I had to hear it twice, usually, in order to solidify in my brain what I needed to say, 'cause it's like reading from a script, but you don't have the script. You just have to hear, hear the line and then repeat it.
Todd Werth:
You really start appreciating actors... voice actors, regular actors-
Robin Heinze:
Mm-hmm.
Todd Werth:
... how they can just turn it on and match something that doesn't seem artificial when it's all completely artificial. It's not, not easy at all.
Jamon Holmgren:
I know a pastor who will record his whole sermon, and then when he gives his sermon live he has it playing in his ear. I don't know how you would do that, but he plays it in his ear, and he basically performs it, doing that. That seems... I don't know. He's got something different in his brain than I do. I would just be completely lost.
Todd Werth:
See, this is why I'm not allowed at your church anymore, 'cause I would have secretly replaced the audio with a Cheech and Chong movie.
Jamon Holmgren:
So, once Todd and Jed have the audio ready to go, then Jed takes over in his kind of more official capacity as the release coordinator.
Jed Bartausky:
Mm-hmm.
Jamon Holmgren:
So as you, as you mentioned, like, we can blame you if it's late, then, right?
Jed Bartausky:
I would love to interject. You can almost always blame me, I'm running late on the editing.
Jamon Holmgren:
It is the most time-consuming part of it.
Robin Heinze:
And really, if it's taking you a long time, you can blame me and Jamon.
Jed Bartausky:
No. I'm taking full responsibility, 'cause it is a side thing I do, and every other job I do I can usually multitask, but when you're editing audio, I can't multitask. I can't listen-
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm.
Jed Bartausky:
... I can't listen to stuff, I can't be in a meeting on Zoom, so I have to have those hours completely focused, and frankly, I just don't or can't always get to it.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah.
Jed Bartausky:
And that's a really important thing to touch on. Like, I know with the new thing that I've been doing with Todd, like, the whole assistant to the editor role-
Robin Heinze:
Assistant to the regional editor.
Jed Bartausky:
... assistant to the regional editor, yes. My legitimate title here at IR is I'm the project manager, so that's one thing to also touch on. There's all he actual, like, day-to-day work that we're all doing on top of this, as well, so-
Todd Werth:
Our real jobs.
Jed Bartausky:
Yeah, the real jobs that are happening here. Like, what Todd mentioned with editing, of course, you have to have, you know, specific conditions to be able to do that stuff, and I definitely ran into that as well with the stuff that I've been helping, um, the editing side with, as well, where I'm going through and processing the audio initially. Generally, I'm doing it later at night so that... You know, I've got two awesome daughters, but they like to be loud, and of course you can hear a lot of that, and it affects the, what you're able to do with, with listening to the audio.
Jed Bartausky:
But, as far as... to get back to what you said, Jamon: as far as what we do after the file is edited and the podcast is ready to go on to the next step, I'll do a couple things. So, we've got our own Slack channel for the podcast. We'll start a thread in there, which is like, "Here's the most recent episode, episode release thread." And so, there's a couple different things that are happening at the same time. The first thing that we do is I send off the actual file, off to our service that we use for transcription. That's going and getting transcribed. And then, on the other side of things, I'm working with Justin to help him get what he needs to put together any sort of... Well, he doesn't need me at all for the graphics, but if we're doing something like a waveform... You all can't see, but he's shaking his head.
Jed Bartausky:
As far as the things that are happening. So, we've got the files off in transcription, we're working on getting the different aspects of the content ready, the little extra things. So, I'm going back through the episode, listening to it, scanning for, like, a waveform or anything that we can use when we release the episode. Also, I'm starting to build that initial episode draft in the platform that we use for releasing the podcast. We use Simplecast for the actual distribution of the podcast, so.
Jamon Holmgren:
Just a little interjection about the transcription: that was something that was important to us when we acquired React Native Radio. We wanted to make sure that every episode had a transcript, and we felt that was important. It's helpful, obviously, for searching and whatnot, but it's also, it makes it more accessible to people who may be, you know, obviously can't listen to it or don't have time to listen to it, also. I mean, it's very helpful all the way around. And there's the waveform file, and, Justin, the waveform. Talk about what that is and how we use that.
Justin Huskey:
So, the waveform is a clip of the podcast. Generally, it runs somewhere in the realm of, like, 30-60 seconds. I make Jed choose the best moments of the podcast. I'm not responsible for that. So, he has to listen to it several times, and what we do is we put it into After Effects. Uh, it's a gross under-utilization of After Effects, but we put it in there anyways. It creates a nice little waveform that people can share on Instagram, Twitter, wherever social media is at these days. But, they put it out there and it's a way for them to share it with their followers and stuff like that without having to listen to all of you talk for a full hour.
Todd Werth:
After Effects is the equivalent of using the world's strongest man to open a peanut butter jar .
Justin Huskey:
I brought this chainsaw to cut into this bread.
Todd Werth:
You've never seen better-sliced bread.
Robin Heinze:
Actually, I don't think that would be too-
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah, and Missy, you're also involved in some of that aspect, as well as, like, the actual social media part of it. So, can you talk about how, once you get the assets from Justin and Jed, you know, whether it's the, the transcript you know, the waveform, the graphics, etc.?
Missy Warren:
Yeah. So, like Jed mentioned, we use a transcribing service, which is really helpful, but I still have to go through and make sure that they got everything right. Even, sometimes, they'll confuse who's talking.
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm .
Missy Warren:
So, one time we had Gant as a guest, and that, they mixed up Jamon and Gant, so I just go through and make sure that all of that's right, that they get every word correct. And typically, to speed up the process, I'll listen to the recording in, like, 1.5 times speed.
Jamon Holmgren:
Hmm.
Missy Warren:
But there are some times where the person who transcribed it couldn't understand what was said, and it's hard for me to understand, too, so in certain cases I'll listen to it in, like, half-time speed over, and over, and over again, and I can usually get it then.
Missy Warren:
I have a story about how doing this has helped me-
Jamon Holmgren:
Oh.
Missy Warren:
... in my everyday life. I was playing a game of Scrabble, and I used a word that I think Robin said... You guys have probably all used it, but I didn't know what it meant. It's a programmer's word. It's diff.
Jamon Holmgren:
Oh, a diff.
Missy Warren:
Diff. Yeah, of course. And it was contested, but we looked it up and it did count, so I got those points.
Robin Heinze:
Nice.
Jamon Holmgren:
That's fantastic.
Missy Warren:
Yeah. That was a little story I had. I can thank you guys for that.
Robin Heinze:
The little words that we are in our lexicon as programmers, that-
Missy Warren:
Yeah.
Robin Heinze:
... I forget are, like, not normal words.
Missy Warren:
Yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
I wanna use lexicon next time in Scrabble. Put that X right on a triple-letter score.
Missy Warren:
Yeah, yeah, you'd get a lot of points for that one. I don't think diff got me very many points, but that's okay. And then, typically, after that, we're ready to launch and I get the waveform or whatever graphic we have from Justin, and I'll post that to Twitter. We have a format that we follow that's actually kind of difficult to get in everything, because I'll tag each of the hosts, the guests. And then fitting in the link to the episode is also kind of difficult with the character count. So, that is my part in the social media. And then, interacting with our followers. I know Jamon does that, as well, so.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah, it's awesome, and representing React Native Radio out in the social media world, it's great, and you do a great job of it. Yeah, so I think that kind of follows it all the way through. Of course, you know, we also post it in various places, like putting it in our Slack, telling people, "Hey, you know, we have a new episode out," and we put it in our Infinite Red newsletter so people will know what the latest episodes are. We put it in our Infinite Red community Slack. And by we I mean Missy. Like, she's doing a great job of putting these out there. And then, I promote it on my personal Twitter, and Gant on his, and, and some others as well, so.
Robin Heinze:
And why is that, Jamon? Is that because you have more followers than anybody else?
Justin Huskey:
Do you have more than Gant?
Jamon Holmgren:
I do not have more than Gant, no. I do not.
Robin Heinze:
You did for... I thought you guys were pretty equal for a while.
Jamon Holmgren:
We were pretty equal, but Gant is just, he's a machine. It's just impossible to keep up with him. So, you know. My biggest thing is that I feel like I have more of a connection to my followers. That's a big thing. I actually think-
Justin Huskey:
Oh.
Jamon Holmgren:
Shut up, Justin.
Justin Huskey:
It's a quality over quantity kind of thing.
Jamon Holmgren:
It's a quality over quantity thing, yes. Totally.
Todd Werth:
One thing I forgot to mention, that we didn't go over at the beginning of the editing process, we do the intro, which is, you hear me at the beginning of every podcast. I have a little different voice, 'cause I do a radio announcer. "This is React Native Radio Podcast." And then I do the little silly "Brought to you by", which, I don't know why that occurred to me. The first time I did it I just had "Brought to you by the number 12", like in Sesame Street.That actually takes me a while to think of.
Robin Heinze:
How Todd knows that we listen to the episode.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yes.
Todd Werth:
Yes.
Robin Heinze:
If I comment to him on how cool his "brought to you by" segment was he knows I listen to it.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah, yeah.
Todd Werth:
Or if it’s controversial or something Jamon may pipe up.
Jamon Holmgren:
I don't think I've done that yet .
Todd Werth:
The challenge is out there.
Justin Huskey:
No, no.
Jamon Holmgren:
I would, though.
Todd Werth:
Even the COVID joke, I made a few episodes where I'm like-
Robin Heinze:
The 5G?
Todd Werth:
Yeah. "Brought to you by 5G. Get yours injected today."
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah.
Todd Werth:
Um-
Jamon Holmgren:
I thought it was funny.
Todd Werth:
Yeah. Well, but you know, it's a little...
Jamon Holmgren:
Could be.
Todd Werth:
Yeah, a little controversial.
Robin Heinze:
It's on the line.
Todd Werth:
But, anyways. So, we do that, I do that right at the beginning of my edit.
Jamon Holmgren:
Let's talk about the branding, actually, for a bit here. So, Justin, we actually get a lot of compliments on our branding for React Native Radio. What was the process like? Because we did a whole rebranding exercise once we acquired React Native Radio. So, I mean, what was that like, and, and how did it all come together?
Justin Huskey:
Well, first of all, I have to start and kind of preface this all by giving a lot of credit to Jenna. She's been on the design team for a few years now, and we work really closely together.
Jamon Holmgren:
Jenna Fucci, yeah.
Justin Huskey:
Yeah. She put a lot of the branding assets and stuff together that you see, the visual stuff as far as the branding in the podcast episode and all that. We actually, when we acquired React Native Radio, one thing we did is we approached it like a real project. We didn't just open up Photoshop or Sketch and then put in a cover. We went into the podcast store, we looked at the different podcasts that were in the top... What do they call that? It's not a podcast store.
Jamon Holmgren:
Directory?
Justin Huskey:
Sure.
Jamon Holmgren:
Uh, podcast app?
Justin Huskey:
Podcast app.
Todd Werth:
Are you talking about Tower Records?
Justin Huskey:
So, the first thing we did is we actually opened up all of the top podcasts, we looked at what
was trending, what kind of visuals they were using, and what kind of things seemed to really connect with audiences, and what's funny is we noticed a few trends that every podcast has about one of three directions when they make a cover. First one: they open PowerPoint, they typed in Synergy in clip art, and then just dropped whatever was on there into their podcast, called that branding.
Jamon Holmgren:
Fact.
Justin Huskey:
And the second one is that they would try to compete with the indie band and their cover art: they would just come up with something obscure, try to put it on there, it looks all crafty, it's cool. Doesn't really make a whole lot of sense in the terms of what podcast it is. And then the third one, which is really popular... I know everybody's kind of seen this... is it's the host who take a photo, but they don't really, they look serious but they try to pretend like they don't know somebody's taking a photo of them. They're like, "Hmm..." Looking off into the distance, and, "Oh, there's a camera there."
Justin Huskey:
And so, when we looked at the three different versions of them, we wanted it to be very noticeable. So, if a developer were to open a podcast and scroll through, they would instantly connect with the React Native Logo. That's something we actually do in a lot of our branding, whether it's the conference or whatnot. And, Jenna actually came up with this really cool idea, is what happens if we bring the React Native Logo and then try to put in some sound waves into it, trying to give it that old podcasty feel. If you think back to, like, the early days of podcasting, where everything had either headphones or a radio wave on it, we tried to kind of marry the two of those together into an updated graphic.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah. Did you just say "The early days of podcasting" as if it was-
Justin Huskey:
Yeah, back when I was about 10, 11 years old, and you were about 30 .
Jed Bartausky:
Oh boy.
Jamon Holmgren:
Wow. Ouch.
Justin Huskey:
"Tell us about the olden times, Todd."
Todd Werth:
And I can fire Justin, but he knows I won't .
Justin Huskey:
It's true.
Todd Werth:
I think I'm getting a little tired, it's time for a nap .
Jamon Holmgren:
It's funny because it's true.
Todd Werth:
It is true.
Jamon Holmgren:
Oh man. Yeah, and we get all kinds of compliments about it. It's fantastic. I was so blown away when I saw the new branding. It really, really... it made such a difference, but, like, I'm very interested to know, kind of how that, how that came about.
Justin Huskey:
With everything we do with design, we kind of think about the context that it's gonna be viewed in, and how people might be scrolling... For instance, in this example we were kind of looking at what some of the top podcasts were, especially in tech, because we were thinking, "Developers are already there, they're looking around the store, they're looking for something new to listen to. How can we kind of instantly connect with them?" I think everybody at this point, especially if you're listening to this podcast, knows the React Native logo, right? And so, what we did is we took that... It's kind of almost front-and-center on our podcast cover art. They're scrolling through, there's a lot of different things that don't make a whole lot of sense in the terms of the covers and everything, and then you see React Native.
Justin Huskey:
And, we want it to stand out, so it's in kind of a dark theme. It's impactful as you're scrolling through. And that's kind of how we came up with it. And then, we wanted also it to have kind of a techy vibe, and just our overall branding, so any time you interact with us on Twitter, on Instagram, we have these, like, little accents and stuff like that to kind of connect, "Ah, this is techy, this is React Native." Hopefully developers are connecting with that. That was our intention with it. And, so far we've been getting a lot of compliments on it and, you know, obviously 100% shoutout to Jenna for a lot of that. She sent most of that work, and, and it's turned out great for us.
Jamon Holmgren:
That's fantastic. Yeah, I'm, I'm really proud of, uh, well, really everything that you all have done to make this a success. It's been so amazing. We continue to grow the audience, people are interested in what we have to say, and we're very grateful, of course, to our loyal listeners and people that promote us around-
Todd Werth:
Very much so.
Jamon Holmgren:
... around the interwebs. And, so yeah. Thank you very much for joining us today. We're a little long on this episode, so I'll go ahead and wrap up now. We have some other cool things in store, as well, so stay tuned. If you're interested in knowing when stuff comes out, you can sign up for our newsletter at newsletter.infinite.red. So, as always, but for the first time in-person, thanks to our producer and editor, Todd Werth.
Todd Werth:
You're welcome.
Jamon Holmgren:
Our transcript and release coordinator, Jed Bartausky.
Jed Bartausky:
Most definitely.
Jamon Holmgren:
Social media coordinator, Missy Warren.
Missy Warren:
Thanks for having me.
Jamon Holmgren:
And our graphics... and I gotta make up a title on the fly for some reason, for you, Justin... Graphics and, uh, waveform producer, Justin Huskey.
Todd Werth:
Mastermind, there we go.
Justin Huskey:
The Design Ninja.
Jamon Holmgren:
Mastermind.
Justin Huskey:
Yes, yes.
Jamon Holmgren:
Thanks, Robin, for joining me and doing this, hosting this episode. A special thanks to all of you listening today. Make sure to subscribe on all the major podcasting platforms. We are React Native Radio. We'll see you all next time. Bye-bye.
Robin Heinze:
Bye.
Missy Warren:
Bye.
Jed Bartausky:
Bye.
Todd Werth:
I feel like we should do something controversial, like Basecamp to make this go viral.
Robin Heinze:
Oh, god.
Todd Werth:
So, we should say something like, "We just recently-"
Robin Heinze:
No, no.
Todd Werth:
"... told our employees that they're not allowed to breathe loudly during meetings, 'cause it irritates the CEO."
Robin Heinze:
Yeah. But the CEO is allowed to eat chips .
Jed Bartausky:
During a podcast recording, okay.
Robin Heinze:
During a podcast recording.
Todd Werth:
Hey, they were crackers. They were crackers, just to be clear.