Steve Ejbick and Ryan MacNeill, MEET THE MDHTTRB SOUND GUYS!
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now.
[0:07]Thank you so much. Called moms don't have time to read books.
[0:10]It is a daily podcast, 365 days a year, and each day we talk to an author about all of the things related to their career,
[0:18]their book, their life, and more in 30 minutes or less because who has time?
[0:22]I am now an author myself, although I wasn't when I started this podcast, and you can get my new memoir,
[0:28]bookends, a memoir of love, loss, and literature, wherever books are sold starting July 1st, and my children's book prints is charming.
[0:36]You can learn more about me at ziviowens.com, but really you're here to learn more about the authors and that is what we're going to do.
[0:43]Also, be sure to check out all the other podcasts in the Zcast podcast network.
[0:48]You can learn more at zcastnetwork.com and definitely check out those shows as well.
[0:59]I hope you'll all check out the all-new Zivi bag, Z-I-B-B-Y-M-A-G, the literary lifestyle destination with essays, book news,
[1:08]a lit lifestyle feature, and even some classes. Check it out, zivibag.com.
[1:13]This is a little bonus episode that I recorded in person when I was in Toronto for the Toronto Film Festival,
[1:20]because my husband's company, Morning Moon, had a film called Wildflower there.
[1:24]Anyway, that was a long introduction to say that while I was there, I finally met with the sound editors of this very podcast.
[1:32]Mom's Film Factory books and all of the podcasts under the zcast slash ziviadio umbrella.
[1:38]Steve Edgebick and Ryan McNeal have been in my inbox more than almost anyone else in the world.
[1:45]They have sound edited every single episode plus all the intros, outros, bios, the whole thing.
[1:51]And they have been so amazing. They work at a company called Texture Sound.
[1:56]And I took a minute to have coffee with them while I was in Toronto and then decided,
[2:01]why don't I just record this so everybody can hear about what it's like to sound edited a podcast.
[2:05]And I thought this would be particularly useful for other podcasters out there or big podcast fans who want to see behind the scenes
[2:12]and know what it takes to take an introduction like the one I'm doing,
[2:16]which is when I'm recording it stumbling and terrible and turning it into what it sounds like to you,
[2:21]which is what Steve and Ryan do so beautifully.
[2:23]So here's a little behind the scenes, learn what it takes to be a sound editor, what a sound editor for a podcast does,
[2:30]why these guys are awesome and what they've learned about writing.
[2:33]This is listening to every single one of my podcasts.
[2:37]They're probably the only people on the planet who have done that.
[2:40]So I'm here in Toronto with Steve and Ryan from Texture Sound who have been editing this very podcast the entire time.
[2:48]And now we're meeting in real life, so I was just starting to ask them all sorts of questions.
[2:51]And I thought let's just add this into the podcast. So anyway, here we go.
[2:54]Alright, how did you do end up getting together and starting the sound editing?
[3:00]So we worked in TV, we still do.
[3:03]We started at a studio in Toronto working on films, television,
[3:08]and I think I worked at the studio for about two years before you started.
[3:12]Yeah, and then so we worked at the studio and my mentor worked at a big studio there.
[3:16]He hired me on Ryan's starting to go two years after me.
[3:19]Yeah, it's an intern and they just needed some help.
[3:22]So at that stage, I'm going to be wherever they need me, so they put me next to this guy.
[3:29]Yeah, they kind of teamed us up.
[3:31]They opened a new department fully. Do you don't have the incredible fully?
[3:34]So fully is performing sounds to film while you're watching film.
[3:39]So the classic one is like a phaser.
[3:41]So you'll watch the actor walk and then Ryan will do the same thing.
[3:46]So we still do a lot of that, but that was the new department in the studio and they put us doing that.
[3:53]And we worked really well together.
[3:55]Yeah, I mean we since left that studio, but maintain the partnership and
[3:59]when often to other ventures like podcasting and just any kind of editing,
[4:04]we can find editing and mixing.
[4:07]So how many podcasts do you work on now?
[4:11]No matter what I throw your way, you're like, yes, I can do it.
[4:14]I was like, you guys are going to quit. There's no way.
[4:17]And now here's this and now try that.
[4:19]We just do the ones.
[4:20]Yeah, all of yours we did have a few a couple of years ago.
[4:23]Yeah, and they finished up and as you started getting busier,
[4:27]we just stopped taking on a podcast.
[4:30]Trying to laugh.
[4:31]Yeah, yeah.
[4:32]But we do films pretty consistently.
[4:35]Like we're doing a show right now called Cocoa Screw in my life,
[4:39]which is Eli Rock.
[4:40]It's a big core guy.
[4:41]It's a good title.
[4:42]Yeah.
[4:43]And you have a film and tip.
[4:44]No, we can.
[4:45]It's called Night Talk.
[4:47]Okay.
[4:48]So we just did the polly on that one.
[4:49]We didn't do the whole, we didn't do the whole, the whole film.
[4:51]Because we usually work with like a bigger group when we do films.
[4:54]So yeah, we have one and tip right now.
[4:57]I love it.
[4:58]So you said you'd listen to like a thousand hours or just a 500 hours.
[5:04]It's got to be over 500 hours.
[5:06]So what everybody says is asking me like what have I learned from doing my own podcast?
[5:11]So what have you guys learned from listening to this podcast?
[5:13]Do you have any interesting books before like are you big readers at all?
[5:17]I'm not a big reader.
[5:19]I used to read a lot more when I was younger.
[5:22]I just don't have the time.
[5:25]I also, yeah, it's harder.
[5:28]It's harder now.
[5:29]I also find like sometimes if I pick a book up, if I don't like it, it's hard to finish it.
[5:34]And like I know that's a bad habit.
[5:35]And like I do the same thing with films and TV.
[5:38]Like you know, you get halfway through, you know, like it and then you regret it.
[5:41]So yeah, sometimes I find like unless a book is really recommended to me.
[5:45]Yeah, it's hard to just like find one.
[5:49]Right.
[5:50]And then start.
[5:52]So none of the books I've read.
[5:55]I read your book.
[5:57]And I read Ray Dallio's book.
[5:59]Oh, yeah.
[6:00]That was one that I was really interested in.
[6:02]There's a few.
[6:03]Yeah.
[6:04]There's a few that I wanted to pick up.
[6:05]But then I just get because then we do a new podcast.
[6:08]It's a new book.
[6:09]Yeah.
[6:10]But yeah, Ray, I've seen a lot of them on like our local morning news broadcasts.
[6:16]Like yeah, he was always on the front page of yeah, who financed it.
[6:19]Yeah, he was used on it.
[6:20]Yeah.
[6:21]Yeah.
[6:22]Principal's five principles.
[6:23]Is that what it was called?
[6:24]Oh, yeah.
[6:25]Yeah.
[6:26]Yeah.
[6:27]Yeah.
[6:28]But I'm kind of the same way as Steve.
[6:29]Like I wish I was more into books, but like like I'll actually get books.
[6:33]Take the note from the library and then I'll get halfway through and then I'll have
[6:37]renewed it three or four times.
[6:39]And they're like, where's this book?
[6:41]You need to return it.
[6:42]I have a few books that are like half red.
[6:44]Yeah.
[6:45]Like I put down because I was doing other work.
[6:47]And you said you did say though that you guys now is just like your both two new dads
[6:50]that you're getting some of the parenting content for this podcast.
[6:54]Yeah.
[6:55]Oh, yeah.
[6:56]Yeah.
[6:57]All the parenting stuff are just keep it up.
[6:58]Particularly eating.
[6:59]So what did you learn from the eating podcast?
[7:00]Did it help you at all?
[7:01]It was a couple.
[7:02]I was actually talking to a friend the other day about it.
[7:03]It was like the and like it kind of goes to like the like the health and wellness episodes
[7:09]too and like moving shake.
[7:11]Yeah.
[7:12]Because if you on there about eating, I mean all of them, but like the kids and like
[7:17]kids will just eat at their own pace.
[7:20]Like that was kind of the message and like you shouldn't like make your kids finish their
[7:24]meal or if they're not hungry, don't make them eat because that that makes bad habits.
[7:30]Right.
[7:31]That was interesting.
[7:32]I know something else with that.
[7:33]I don't remember.
[7:34]And so has the podcast ever ever sparked your interest in writing?
[7:39]The ever thought like, oh, sounds like so much fun.
[7:42]I think it's too creative for me.
[7:44]I'm more of a technical person.
[7:46]And I think that's like, yeah, I would focus like, I don't know.
[7:49]I like reading manuals.
[7:51]That's, you know, like for software.
[7:53]I literally never heard that before.
[7:55]Yeah.
[7:56]There we go.
[7:57]That's my the most interesting thing I've heard today.
[7:59]It's like it's technical, right?
[8:00]So it's like older and more from like.
[8:02]Yeah.
[8:03]How this works.
[8:04]How this works.
[8:05]Like, you know, like software reuse is really complicated.
[8:07]So, you know, going through the manual and reading how to do new things.
[8:10]How to be more efficient in the way I work.
[8:13]I don't know.
[8:14]I don't even like reading instructions for board games.
[8:16]Yeah.
[8:17]I'm like, this is too long.
[8:18]I'm just going to figure out.
[8:19]Yeah.
[8:20]Yeah.
[8:21]So take me through the short version of how you edit the podcast.
[8:23]I send you the whole file, including when I always say I'm late running in the,
[8:27]related in the beginning and whatever's going on in my office before the author joins.
[8:32]So you take the file and then how do you make it sound like what do you do?
[8:36]Okay.
[8:37]So that's my department.
[8:39]So I loaded into my software and I can see both tracks.
[8:42]Okay.
[8:43]When you're guest.
[8:44]Yep.
[8:45]And it's got to do the point now where you start almost every episode with welcome to
[8:50]the moment of time.
[8:51]Great books.
[8:52]I can actually see like what the waveform looks like for where you start.
[8:56]So I don't even have to listen to all the stuff in the beginning.
[8:59]I can just go straight to where you say welcome and start editing from there.
[9:04]Oh my gosh.
[9:05]That's great.
[9:06]Yeah.
[9:07]So I mean, what are, where I don't, 1100 and 20, 40, 80 episodes?
[9:12]Yeah.
[9:13]I have to be more than a hundred.
[9:14]They're been 1300.
[9:15]I feel like they've been 13.
[9:17]Yeah.
[9:18]Maybe some of them weren't edited.
[9:20]Could that be?
[9:21]We started.
[9:22]We're like a hundred in.
[9:23]Yeah.
[9:24]Yeah.
[9:25]And then we just go through and if there's any like, sometimes zoom makes really weird,
[9:30]like, digital, like things, clicks and pops.
[9:33]So we give it to those.
[9:34]How do you know, like, if I say I'm going to do listen to everyone because often I'm like,
[9:40]I'm going to edit this part out.
[9:41]Yeah.
[9:42]We'll have to take this out.
[9:43]So you listen for the whole, you have to listen to the whole sound.
[9:45]Yeah.
[9:46]Yeah.
[9:47]Anytime there's subtle scumbles, sometimes you'll be like, wait.
[9:50]How do you, but, you know, and then like that, that's all gone.
[9:54]You don't have to worry about telling us to remove that kind of stuff.
[9:57]Is that just, it's just, it makes sense, right?
[10:00]Like, people want the information and they don't want to be thrown off by, you know, stumbles and stuff like that.
[10:06]So yeah, and it's funny because you can hear, like, how comfortable people are.
[10:11]So like, I think you've had a few talk show hosts on and they're, like, really good at speaking and it's easy for us
[10:17]because we don't have to edit as much and then there's other people maybe haven't been interviewed so much.
[10:21]And those take more work because they're thinking of their thoughts before they say it.
[10:26]So there's some gaps in there. They're using filler words, like, um, or, you know, that kind of stuff.
[10:32]So it's interesting with the range of people.
[10:35]So you identify someone who's a new guest or less experienced by filler words and lags in speaking.
[10:43]You feel like, like, causes? Yeah. Yeah.
[10:47]So if somebody wanted to get better or appear more experienced, they have to really focus on what else, what else can they do to sound better?
[10:55]No, that's a tough one. Yeah, just like, like, so we're going to edit that out.
[11:00]It's a day that I'm not very proud of speaking just like, not moving around very much is a big thing too.
[11:07]So every time they move their heads, you can hear a different volume.
[11:12]And so they should try not to move as much. Exactly.
[11:15]And hitting, hitting the table and stuff.
[11:17]But some people are expressive speakers, right?
[11:20]So if they don't, you know, you don't want to give them to me rules because then they're going to be thrown off and they're
[11:24]trying to think more and more filler.
[11:26]So it's, it's a tough balance. I think you have a difficult job like managing all that, which I think by kind of just letting it be casual, like you do.
[11:36]I think you do.
[11:37]That's the best way to do it.
[11:39]Just people always have like, wait, you don't do a ton of editing.
[11:42]You don't like take these quotes from that.
[11:43]And I'm like, no, I just kind of throw it in there.
[11:46]So, but actually you do good luck.
[11:49]You do polishing.
[11:50]Yeah, yeah, it's not, it's not moving things around or, you know, some other podcast we've worked on.
[11:56]Like, can you take this and move it to the beginning and add this music here.
[12:00]And so it gets a little tedious that way.
[12:02]But the way that you do it is great.
[12:05]Is it it ends up, it sounds like it's a lot of work that we do all this editing.
[12:09]But it's, it's really not.
[12:10]It takes, you know, no time at all.
[12:12]It's not.
[12:14]How many edits do you think we do?
[12:16]That's a good question.
[12:17]Maybe like, 15, 15,
[12:20]15,
[12:21]15 or 100.
[12:22]15 to 100 edits for episodes.
[12:24]Yeah.
[12:25]Probably around there.
[12:26]Depending on the speaker, but, you know, it's about that.
[12:29]I think.
[12:30]But again, it's just highlight the lead.
[12:32]I like the lead.
[12:33]And it's not like a whole process.
[12:35]So have I gotten better?
[12:36]Totally.
[12:37]I think you had it be less.
[12:39]You don't have to say that.
[12:40]I can do the same.
[12:41]It's not time.
[12:42]Yeah.
[12:43]No, totally.
[12:45]But not, not like you were bad at the beginning.
[12:47]It's just experience.
[12:48]Yeah.
[12:49]Like the more you, you know, for anybody, the more you do, the more you.
[12:51]Yeah.
[12:52]The better you are.
[12:53]Yeah.
[12:54]I've gotten better.
[12:55]I used to take me longer to do it, right?
[12:58]So now it's faster for me.
[13:00]And how do you keep track because every time I send you an episode, sometimes we don't
[13:05]release that episode for months.
[13:06]I mean, I try not to, but we have such a background.
[13:09]And I don't ever change the file name usually unless it's on a garage band.
[13:12]It's, it's been a work in progress.
[13:14]Yeah, I'm not, I'm not the most organized person.
[13:17]So like it does get tricky sometimes, but that's my own fault.
[13:21]Like if you send it and I put it directly in the folder that second, then it would be fine.
[13:26]But sometimes I'll just download.
[13:28]You send five in a day, download, download, download.
[13:30]And then we have 10 other things that they get sent to us from other clients.
[13:34]And it's just sitting in that downloads folder.
[13:36]And then I go back to a week later.
[13:38]Wait, where does this go?
[13:40]Yeah, but it's been like, it hasn't just been like one a week to 10 a week.
[13:43]It's been a slow ramp up.
[13:44]So we've been able to kind of just.
[13:46]Yeah.
[13:47]As we go, we have a server as well for ourselves.
[13:49]So we can put all of our shared files together.
[13:51]One location and pull them down as we need them.
[13:54]Yeah.
[13:55]So that was something we got like part way probably a year after we were working
[13:59]to start a review.
[14:00]So that's helped with organizing.
[14:01]And like the software we use is quite good.
[14:03]You know, just for categorizing things and doing backups and we archive
[14:07]everything.
[14:08]That was another question.
[14:09]So you have all my episodes.
[14:11]You have all of them.
[14:13]Yeah.
[14:14]So what if I ever need this?
[14:16]Yeah.
[14:17]They're always available.
[14:18]Yeah.
[14:19]It's a lot of data.
[14:20]Yeah.
[14:21]I think I bought two big part drives just the store all of it on it.
[14:24]Yeah.
[14:25]Yeah.
[14:26]It's all there.
[14:27]So yeah.
[14:28]So then Ryan does the editing.
[14:29]And then I'll upgrade it to the server.
[14:31]Ryan uploads it to the server.
[14:32]He'll give it to me.
[14:34]And I'll mix it.
[14:35]So there's two parts.
[14:36]There's the editing and there's the mixing.
[14:37]So the editing is kind of taking out all of one of things.
[14:40]The mixing is like balancing.
[14:42]So to make sure like the volume is right for you in your guest.
[14:46]We use plugins, you know, like to give it kind of more of that radio
[14:50]to be able to like a talk show host.
[14:52]And then that's kind of it.
[14:54]We master export all the files and we send them on it.
[14:57]Yeah.
[14:58]It's probably for each episode.
[14:59]It's probably like six to three hours or so.
[15:02]Or two to three.
[15:03]We're going to have to walk with us.
[15:04]Yeah.
[15:05]Yeah.
[15:06]And so what if I wanted to do stuff like just take
[15:09]this quote from that episode.
[15:12]Or they don't do a lot of that.
[15:14]Like make audiograms or something.
[15:16]So kind of like what Kelsey does.
[15:18]But it's Kelsey.
[15:19]Now we're trying to make Kelsey today because to the podcast.
[15:22]Mom's gonna have time to grieve.
[15:23]And now she's posting sex talk with Tracy.
[15:25]Yeah.
[15:26]So she will send us a list of like at this time code.
[15:30]Like at eight minutes a day.
[15:31]At this level.
[15:32]Can you send me a clip?
[15:33]And she uses it for social media, right?
[15:35]Yeah.
[15:36]I'm not exactly sure.
[15:37]I think social media.
[15:38]Yeah.
[15:39]Yeah.
[15:40]It's just like a 10 second 10 to 20 second clip.
[15:42]Yeah.
[15:43]It's part of her episode.
[15:44]Does that take you a long time?
[15:46]No, that's easy.
[15:47]Because they're already done.
[15:48]So we just go through.
[15:49]Yeah.
[15:50]Take it.
[15:51]Are you thinking of doing something like that?
[15:53]I just I have so much content.
[15:55]What should we do with all this content?
[15:57]Like what I'm trying to think of ways to repurpose that aren't so
[16:01]time consuming with that drop people.
[16:02]And I have so many episodes before as many people listen to my
[16:06]podcasts.
[16:07]That they might not even know that I did.
[16:09]So how to breathe new life into those.
[16:12]Well, I was thinking a couple of years ago because you always
[16:15]asked what's your advice and taking all that.
[16:18]But you kind of did that already.
[16:19]Yeah.
[16:20]We tried that.
[16:21]Yeah.
[16:22]And then you had the wake up and write, which was kind of interesting.
[16:25]For owning the authors, you already had on.
[16:28]Tricky, I don't know.
[16:29]We're launching a new magazine next week called Dibi Mag.
[16:33]And we're going to have for like literary lifestyle section where
[16:36]they'll put up the links again to the blog.
[16:39]Even if it was a lot of time ago.
[16:41]But I'm wondering if I could even do like little clips.
[16:44]Maybe there's some way in there.
[16:46]Yeah.
[16:47]Definitely.
[16:48]Yeah.
[16:49]Let us know we're open to more work.
[16:52]We're like, no.
[16:55]Well, since the pandemic has started, it's been the busiest
[16:59]two and a half years.
[17:00]Two and a half years for me.
[17:03]Like, and you saved us through the pandemic too, because
[17:06]here was the one down.
[17:07]Yeah.
[17:08]We're doing anything more.
[17:09]We can really shut down here for the summer.
[17:10]Yeah.
[17:11]I think the only work we had was doing the podcast.
[17:14]Yeah.
[17:15]So like March, April, May, June.
[17:18]It gave me July.
[17:19]And I ramped up to like seven a week then.
[17:21]Yeah.
[17:22]Exactly.
[17:23]So I ended up working nicely.
[17:25]Yeah.
[17:26]Yeah.
[17:27]Yeah.
[17:28]All right.
[17:29]Well, anything else I can do to improve any pointers after
[17:32]listening.
[17:33]I think like along the way, like anything that's come up
[17:36]we've told you right away.
[17:37]I think I'm watching for this or that.
[17:39]Yeah.
[17:40]So just like keeping communication open.
[17:41]Yeah.
[17:42]You know, like that kind of stuff, which has been really
[17:44]good too.
[17:45]Which is really good.
[17:46]Yeah.
[17:47]Shout out to Chelsea Grogon.
[17:48]Yeah.
[17:49]He's been podcasting as soon as she's so amazing.
[17:51]Yeah.
[17:52]All right.
[17:53]Well, thank you guys.
[17:54]Thank you.
[17:55]Thank you.
[17:56]Yeah.
[17:57]Okay.
[17:58]If anyone's interested, they don't have much time left.
[17:59]Let's do it in a texture sound.
[18:00]Thank you guys.
[18:01]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[18:05]to Read Books.
[18:06]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zebioans and
[18:09]at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[18:11]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zebioans.com and sign up
[18:14]for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom
[18:17]every other week.
[18:18]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the
[18:21]sound editing.
[18:22]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing
[18:24]this fantastic intro and outro music.