[0:18] When he showed up on this webinar There was something about his camera presence, his video quality that was bugging me because it was so good.
[0:26] Welcome to the Confident Live Marketing Podcast with Ian Anderson Gray. Helping you level up your impact, authority, and profits through the power of confident live video. Optimize your mindset and communication. And increase your confidence in front of the camera. Get confident with the tech and gear. And get confident with the content and marketing. Together, we can go live!
[0:56] Ian: Hello and welcome to episode 219. My name is Ian Anderson Gray and we're diving into behind the scenes with studio setups of special guests and I'm very excited to bring in my good friend Mike Alton. How are you doing Mike?
[1:11] Mike: Fantastic, Ian. How are you doing? And thanks for having me on here.
[1:14] Ian: I'm doing well. Yeah it's, it's a good day and it's a bank holiday for both of us. I'm in the UK and you're in the US and it's usually I get teased that how many bank holidays we get in the UK, but you've got one too.
[1:26] Mike: One of our few and having working for a French company. I don't know that you have more bank holidays than the French cause they have a ton. I think they had two or three last week.
[1:37] Ian: Yeah. I think that's right. I think that's right. So we've known each other for ages and you have always been one of the people I've looked to in awe of the amount of content that you create and it's not just the plethora of different content that you create you it's all very good quality content. You started off with blogs and then you came into creating videos and podcasts and stuff like that.
[2:01] For people who don't know you, can you give a brief introduction about you highlighting your background, and then we'll come up to talking about your studio set up.
[2:10] Mike: You've known me since gosh, 2016, maybe even earlier than that. I think we finally met in person, 2017 at social marketing world. And you're right, I was a writer then I still am a writer today. Never thought that I would be a podcaster, but that is what I am today as well.
[2:25] I have six podcasts now, which blows my mind, but I started writing about social media and online marketing in 2011. That's when I started the Social Media Hat and went on to take a role as a CMO for a few years. And then I joined agorapulse in 2018 as their head of strategic partnerships but still maintained that side business, that side hustle, if you will the Social Media Hat, because I like talking about and writing about and teaching people how to use digital marketing, whether that's social media, email, content marketing. SEO. Now we're talking about artificial intelligence is being embedded and overlaid on top of all these things. And even though I wasn't very comfortable on camera, definitely still today, not very comfortable listening to the sound of my own voice, I did recognize relatively early on that it's just more powerful to deliver content via video via audio. People can hear the tone of my voice. They can see my body language if it's a video and I leaned into that. So this studio, whether it's the audio, the video, the lighting has been a work in progress, gosh, since probably 2012.
[3:36] Ian: Yeah, it's, it is a progress for all of us, this work in progress. And I'm sure there's still things that you want to change over time and we'll come into that. Now you're going to come back onto the show to talk about your journey. So, I can't wait to find out a little bit more about that, but let's dive into your studio and particularly let's focus on audio and your microphone setup.
[3:55] So what microphone do you currently use? Use and why did you choose it?
[4:00] Mike: Well, This is the Rode Pod Mic. And it's interesting because this was not my original microphone. I used to have one of the Audio Technica ATR 2100 C microphones. And the reason I point that out is because that was a really inexpensive microphone and that microphone had both a USB and an XLR cable and XLR, that's what like professional musicians use. But you can't plug an XLR into a computer. And this is all to ramp up as to why I have what I have today with this older mic, I had bought a Behringer mixer, which gave me this beautiful British EQ which I really enjoyed. That mic I used for a decade. It was a powerful microphone that probably cost me $75 on Amazon, about a year or so ago, I started having, issues with that microphone. It was going in and out and I couldn't figure out if it was the microphone or the mixer and it ended up being the mixer that had gone bad on me.
[5:00] So I needed to either replace the mixer or replace the mic or both. Cause that was the quandary. And I thought I'll just take this opportunity to upgrade my entire audio system. So that's the why and doing my research, I didn't have hundreds of dollars to spend on a Shure or some other kind of high end mic.
[5:19] Like that I was doing this on an Agorapulse's budget. Most of the video and audio content that I create is for Agorapulse. So they helped me with paying for a lot of this equipment. But I didn't have a blank check. So I had to find something that was going to fit within the overall budget.
[5:34] And that's when my research led me to the Rode PodMic, which is what I'm using right now. Interestingly, when I ordered it and brought it in, I did know that I needed to plug it into a mixer if I wanted to continue to use the XLR. And of course my mixer had failed. So I have the Rode A1 mixer, which is really just a basic mixer.
[5:53] You, you mentioned there's always things that we want to improve over time. I think that's top of my list right now. I think I'd like to upgrade that Rode mixer, because it's really nothing more than an adapter at this point. There's not a lot of settings on it. I can't do anything interesting or fun with my audio.
[6:08] It just is what it is. But what was really fun is that I got the microphone and I got the mixer and I plugged it in and I installed the mic on, on the boom arm that I had on my desk at the time, and it instantly fell and smashed into the desk. This microphone is really heavy. It was too heavy for my old boom arm.
[6:31] The Audio Technica mic that I had previously was a fairly lightweight microphone. Word to the wise, if you're considering the RØDE PodMic, you're going to want to get their boom arm, or at least something that's designed and talks about this particular microphone, because it's really heavy.
[6:45] Ian: think I've got one as well I've got the PodMic and I couldn't believe how heavy it is. I mean it feels robust, which is great you've got that plugged into an audio interface and the thing is like It does the job, I've got the Rodecaster Pro II and it's to be honest, it's just sitting there.
[7:01] I don't really use any of the settings. Yes. Okay. It's got the audio processing. So it does enhance my voice. But so I think for most people, just something basic that you can just plug your microphone in is probably all you need. And like the amount of content that you create. You said you've got six podcasts.
[7:17] You're doing just fine with what you've got you the any enhancements are going to be really small. I'm probably only you're gonna notice the difference. Really?
[7:27] Mike: That's a hundred percent right. There's a, there's one issue that I have with my voice and I don't know if your listeners will even pick up on it, but when I speak, there's a slight popping sound, it comes from my jaw and it's not an uncommon affliction, but it's the kind of thing most people wouldn't even notice particularly if they're not listening to themselves talk, which we don't really do on a regular basis, but it's almost like if you're like cracking a joint or something like that, just very light popping sounds.
[7:52] But the mic picks it up. And if I'm editing my own podcast, which today I absolutely refuse to do for this reason. It's the kind of thing that I'm trying to nitpick and remove just tiny little variations in the sound waves. And it's insane how much time I could spend editing a podcast and try to remove this annoying sound that literally no one hears.
[8:13] For the most part, or they don't realize it's part of my voice. That's just, a little bit of a crackle in this, in the audio that they wouldn't imagine it's coming from a person, but it is. And it's definitely something that I'm hoping that maybe the technology, whether it's hardware or software in the future could automatically remove for me.
[8:29] But to your point, that's the kind of thing that I notice. And as a content creator, we all know there's things about our content, whether it's audio, video, or written that kind of, you know, nitpick and bother us. And we just as soon resolve that. And I have to tell you, it's worth it in the end, even if it's something that nobody else will notice, it's something in your background, something with your lighting, something with the way that you're writing, spend a little time fixing that because you'll be happier with the results.
[8:55] Ian: that's a good point. I think there's a balance, isn't there? Because we can spend so much time, and if you're a recovering perfectionist, like me, I've gone down these rabbit holes and I've spent so much time, and actually, sometimes done is often done is better than perfect, but you've got to enjoy creating the content, you've got to be happy with it, and particularly if you're editing your podcast and you're hearing these strange noises like I'm aware of that as well. When I do my, when I do my editing, oh my goodness.
[9:21] Let's look at cameras. So audio is in my opinion, like the most important thing, but your camera setup looks great. We're going to come onto your lighting. Cause I love your lighting, but your choice of cameras and any, I don't know, special features or experience that you've had over the years in getting your camera set up just right.
[9:38] Mike: Yeah. So very similar to the microphone. This is my second camera. The first was, it was a Canon that worked really well, but eventually the HDMI interface in the camera started to go bad and that was causing a lot of latency with the video. So I had to replace the camera. This is about two years ago.
[9:55] So now I'm using a Sony A6400. That's a mirrorless camera which might mean something to you. It might not, if it doesn't mean anything to you, don't worry about it. The point is, this is a really good camera. It's designed to film video. So I have it plugged in. I have an adapter so that it's always powered on.
[10:13] It's not running off a battery, meaning, and it has a direct cable interface into my computer. The key for me was to have a really great lens. So when I bought that Canon many years ago, I bought a really great Sigma prime lens. So it's fixed on me. This camera sits on a tripod. It never moves.
[10:32] It's directly behind my desk and my monitor with the lens focused exactly on me where I know I'm going to be seated. So when I'm ready to go. Whether that's for a meeting or a live video or a podcast recording, whatever the case might be, I tell my Alexa that I'm ready to go live and she turns on my lights and she turns on my camera and it's on.
[10:54] It's all ready to go. It's plugged into a Cam Link adapter, right? So the HDMI is adapted fully and I can, Use this camera in basically whatever video interface I'm using. And the one catch there was that when I replaced the Canon with the Sony, I had to get a whole different adapter to make that Sigma lens work, but otherwise it was a seamless transition.
[11:19] Ian: That's something I've looked into. I. So I started off with a Canon M50 and then I swapped over to a Sony. I actually then went with a Sigma lens. So actually I didn't, I went with the correct lens for my camera, but you're right. So you have to make sure you get the right mount.
[11:36] And you're using the Elgato Cam Link 4k adapter. So you're plugging the output of your camera into your computer and you need this is interface. But one thing that again, I found and I think your camera obviously does this. It needs to have what's called clean HDMI.
[11:53] I can't say the word clean HDMI out. Otherwise you get all the battery power and all that kind of stuff on the on the stream, which is not what you want. So yeah, your setup looks great, but at one thing that I think really enhances that you can have the best camera in the world, but if you don't have decent lighting, in my experience, it can look really bad.
[12:14] And that was certainly the case with my Canon. And I've spent some time trying to get my lighting better. It's something that I really struggled with. I find lighting difficult. Your lighting's great. So you've got lighting presumably in front of you, but you've also got this cool. I don't know. Mood lighting.
[12:29] Do we want to call it that behind you? Tell us a little bit about your lighting setup.
[12:32] Mike: Yeah. So this is also something I struggled with for years. This is also the third or fourth. Yeah, this would be the third because I moved a couple of times since I started doing live video. When I first started doing live video, I had no direct lighting at all. I just had whatever lights were in my room.
[12:48] And at least then I was in a second floor loft, so there was a lot of natural light. When I moved into a temporary home with my in laws, I was broadcasting out of their basement. I just carved out a little nook in their basement to be as my office. And I had a window behind me, which I didn't realize at the time, but that is a huge no, for those of you listening, don't put natural light behind you.
[13:10] You want to face those windows. You want to face that natural light. Now, when I moved into this home, which was 2019, just before the pandemic started. We bought the home knowing that this room was going to be my office which is fantastic. So we moved in and I built this office. We built the background, which is shelves and very strategically placed, books and decor behind me, knowing that I was going to be on video all the time, because by 2019, I was doing meetings and live videos and that sort of thing regularly.
[13:35] But at the time, what I was doing is I had two large standing lamps on either side. In front of me and really high watt bulbs in those lamps. And my thought was that these lamps, they look beautiful. They're still in here today, but I don't use them for the lighting anymore. But they look great. And I figured with the high power bulbs, that would be plenty of light on my face.
[13:58] I do have one natural light source in front of me, a small window, but it doesn't get a lot of natural light. It's facing the wrong direction. So it's not reliable. Behind me. And this is something that I had done with the decor behind me going back three homes. I have Edison bulbs hanging now. They're not on now, so you can't see them.
[14:18] But if you look close, you might see little cables hanging from the tops of these shells. For those of you can watch the video and It was never great. It was creating like little blobs of light behind me. In person, they look amazing. Edison bulbs look fantastic in person, but on camera, they just show up as blobs of light.
[14:35] Nobody knew they were Edison bulbs. And I was never very happy with how I looked on camera, even though I continued to get, better and better camera gear. At that point, I had the Canon T6i and so on. I wasn't thrilled with it. And one day I was hosting a webinar. I was the moderator. I had a number of guests And one of the guests was Chris Stone who I don't know if he's been on the show But he's a mutual friend of ours and I remember when Chris got started.
[14:59] I remember seeing some of his video I think I was on his show and it was fine When he showed up on this webinar There was something about his camera presence, his video quality that was bugging me because it was so good. I didn't know why it was so good. And even though I'm moderating and I'm supposed to be asking questions and paying attention, I was getting a little annoyed at just how good Chris's video looked.
[15:20] And then it dawned on me. It was the backlighting. He had colored lighting behind him and it was just making just this incredible difference in the quality of his video. And I vowed to myself right then and there, I'm going to figure this out. So after the call, like by the weekend, I was thinking about, okay, how do I get colored lighting behind me?
[15:43] And I realized that my daughter, she was 11 at the time. She had a box of an led strip light in her room that we'd gotten her to run around the outside of her ceiling to ring her room in a colored light, but had been sitting there unopened for six months. So I just went into her room, stole it, and brought it back into my office and just draped the strings on these shelves behind me, turned off the Edison bulb lights, and it was just instantly impactful. Then I started thinking about how the two lamps that I've been using weren't illuminating my face the way I wanted to. And I have a umbrella kit, right? These are the umbrellas, a cowboy light kit. So those have the umbrellas with the stands and the bulbs that you put behind the umbrellas.
[16:27] And I have two forward facing ones and one that's supposed to go behind you. I took just one of it and propped it up directly behind my camera. Facing my face and put one of those good bulbs in it. So this is a really high lumens bulb, like 6,000 light bulb, a full spectrum light bulb, put that in there, turned it on, turn the other lamps off. And it was just this instant transformation. Now I had the right balance of powerful light on my face and just enough light behind me to remove the shadows and create some visual interest with the color. The cool part is I can change the colors. So I, right now I've got blue, I've gone with yellow, I've gone with purple, different colors.
[17:10] I find the blues and the purples are enough of a contrast to make real visual interest without taking away from me, but the real powerful point was that I stopped using the Edison bulbs behind me, and that allowed the camera to focus on my face and kind of blur everything else and not get distracted by those bulbs of light behind me.
[17:30] Ian: that makes sense. And it's sometimes it's the simplest solution to our problems. I tried to do that. I tried to do something similar, but the issue that I had was, I saw a lot of flicker. So you've got to be careful with the frame rate on your camera and making sure that you get lights that don't flicker as well, because that can be a bit of a problem.
[17:49] Tell us about your computer that you have and any software online tools that you particularly love for content creation.
[17:58] Mike: Yeah. So this is a Mac Studio. That's also a recent upgrade. I've been using a MacBooks since I started with Agorapulse and they often struggled with video, to be frank. So I finally convinced the powers that be that I really need a Mac Studio for all the video work that I'm doing cause it was just lagging too much.
[18:17] And so I upgraded to a Mac Studio and I love it. I just sits underneath my desk. I don't have to worry about it at all. I've got two Acer monitors, which is a. Big tip. I wish more people who are doing video, particularly like live video production, would have a second monitor because if you're presenting, you can have the second, You can have your presentation on your second monitor and still be looking at your meeting or your audience or whatever it is that you need to be actually looking at to make eye contact.
[18:45] So many meetings, people are, pulling up presentations and then they have to ask that, that thousand dollar question. Can you see my screen? I never have to ask that because I know I can see that my screen is being shared correctly. In terms of other software. I don't use anything in particular these days.
[19:00] I used to use Ecamm a lot. I don't use it constantly. I use StreamYard for most of my recording, but there's something else that's always running. But one other big tip that I'll share with you, whether you're doing a recording, a meeting or anything like that. I have my camera positioned directly above and behind my monitor and it's on a tripod, so it's slightly tilted down and I take whatever it is that I'm recording into in this case, we're using I think live call dot TV. Is that your, is it your
[19:31] Ian: That's, that's, it's, it's actually Ecamm,
[19:33] Mike: Fantastic. So we're using Ecamm. So as a guest, I'm just looking at this video and whether I'm in a Google Meet meeting or a StreamYard or Ecamm, I take that video screen and I shrink it so that it's as small as possible directly above and at the top of my monitor.
[19:48] So I'm looking directly right now, actually literally at myself. I'm making eye contact with myself, which is a little awkward, but as a frequent speaker, I know how this works. It appears as though I'm looking at the camera. But I'm not. So even when you come back on screen, I'll be looking at you. If I'm talking to guests, I'm looking at them, but they're just really tiny on my screen.
[20:06] So that's just a hack that people can use to share. And that way, if you need to read from a script, like I'll be presenting soon, I'll be reading from a script or so I've been looking at notes or remarks. I can have that relatively small and centered on my screen. And again, have that appearance of making eye contact.
[20:22] Ian: Now that makes sense and, and that's something I've, I've always I always used to struggle with when I first started video was, I was looking at the screen and then it made it look I wasn't looking at my audience. And so it's important to have what you're looking at as close to your camera as possible and just to work at looking at your camera instead of the screen, because it takes a lot of practice, or you could buy something like the Elgato teleprompter, which costs, a little bit more money.
[20:47] But that's another option as well. I want to get into your personalization of your studio because you're in your studio, your office a lot of the time, I'm going to guess. And so you want it to be I assume you want it to be a place that fosters creativity and productivity as well, but you also want it to It's a bit personal as well, and you've spent a lot of time with your background just in a minute or two Can you just go through your setup and how you've thought about your studio setup?
[21:17] Mike: Thanks for noticing. By the way, this is something that to be perfectly frank, my wife helped me design. So we have two shelving systems that we ordered and built my office. You're right. This is my office / studio. I spend all day here. So I have a bit of a steampunk Star Wars theme going that maybe you can pick up on. Maybe you can't. But these shelves, the bars of the shelves are like piping. And this thing that's on my wall over here, there's like little pipes that have come out of the wall that hold that dad sign that my daughter made. Other elements of the room have steampunk ish things. And there's over here some Star Wars elements.
[21:55] But I also have pillows over here that are social media themed. And a lot of books that have been turned around so that we don't have the multicolor binding. We just see the whiteness of the books and other kinds of elements like that really reflect who I am as an individual. And they remind me of things.
[22:09] If I happen to look around the room, I can see bobblehead dolls that I've had from speaking engagements and other Star Wars paraphernalia. It's not overloaded with Star Wars. I'm not like that kind of a guy. My wife was just asking me about this and the other day she showed me this reel, this guy who had built an entire room devoted to Star Wars Legos. And it's I don't want that. I don't want that much stuff, but I like this little subtle cues and reminders. This poster over here, which most of us can't actually see, it doesn't come across on camera very well, but it's from Battlestar Galactica.
[22:37] So there's some principles there that are a solid reminder to me. And. that's the studio in a nutshell.
[22:43] Ian: Now that's cool. Oh, I remember are you talking about The, the old 1980s Galactica, or the new
[22:48] Mike: Oh no. The remake,
[22:49] Ian: Yeah,
[22:49] Yeah. I remember the old one. That's, that brings me back. I even remember the theme tune. But let's not get into all of that. It is time.
[22:56] It is time. I'm trying to keep these really, Short and sweet, but I don't do a very good job because we go down all these tangents.
[23:02] Mike: No, it's me. I'm the one who does all the talking.
[23:04] Ian: not at all. Let's get on with the quick fire round. So I'm going to ask you some quick questions and you need to you need to answer as quickly as possible.
[23:12] Let's do it. Are you ready? It looks like you're ready. Okay. Let's do it. Let's do it. Okay. First question. Headphones. Yes or no.
[23:19] Mike: Yes, but I use a wireless Bluetooth earbud, not very high quality, but I don't need high quality for what I do. I just want to have barely be able to hear
[23:28] Ian: Come on. Let's get on with it quickly. Ring lights. Good or bad.
[23:31] Mike: bad, awful, hate ring lights.
[23:33] Ian: Yeah. Good. Good. Okay. Microphone in or out of shots.
[23:37] Mike: In the shot. Let's have that pro look.
[23:40] Ian: Awesome. Awesome. Standing desk or sitting desk.
[23:43] Mike: I'd love a standing desk, but I have a sitting desk,
[23:45] Ian: That's okay. We can go with what you'd like. Okay. Webcam or fancy camera.
[23:50] Mike: fancy camera. Those webcams are awful for content creation. Don't
[23:54] Ian: They definitely are. Okay. Sitting or standing. It's yeah. When you're creating content. I suppose if you've got a sitting desk, then it's that. Okay, background music, mood setter or distraction.
[24:04] Mike: Mood setter,
[24:05] Ian: And finally, green screen or natural background.
[24:09] Mike: Natural. Ditch those green screens. They're awful.
[24:12] Ian: They are. Unless you're doing something, specifically for a presentation. They are. Yeah, I agree with you. They are awful. Thank you, Mike. That's been awesome. It's been great to have you on the show. Thank you for all of that. We are out of time, but let's let us know where we can, where people can connect with you and also what you're currently working on.
[24:29] Now, I know you've got all these podcasts, so tell us about these podcasts.
[24:32] Mike: I have a bunch of podcasts for Agorapulse, but if you want to learn more about me personally, go to the social media hat. com. That's where you'll find my content. You find information about me and you'll find my new podcast, AI and marketing unpacked.
[24:43] Ian: That sounds awesome. I can't wait to listen to that. I know you just told me about this new AI podcast and I'm going down all the rabbit holes of AI, so I need to, I'm going to be listening to that. Can't wait. Thank you, Mike. It's been great to have you on the show. Awesome.
[24:55] Mike: Thanks for having me, sir.
[24:56] Ian: We are out of time.
[24:57] Thank you so much for plugging us into your ear or watching on YouTube. But until next time, I encourage you to level up your impact, authority and profits through the power of confident live video.
[25:07] See you soon. Bye.
[25:08] Thanks for listening to the Confident Live Marketing Podcast with Ian Anderson Gray. Make sure you subscribe at iag.me/podcast so you can continue to level up your impact, authority and profits through the power of live video. And until next time, Toodle
