Better audio

0:00 How to sound better on air chat? Start from the root causes. Concise, clear thinking. Results. Better output. Speed. Slow down. If you speak too fast, you may start to use the filler words like mmm and like, whatnot. So, when you don't know what you're talking or your brain is going slower than your mouth, you can slow down. It takes conscious practice to do this, but you get better when you do it enough times. Repetition makes perfect.

0:48 Nobody likes their voice. It just sounds different within your skull than for the rest of the people who are hearing it the other way. You can change. Check the articles. There are enough material on the internet so you can check it out. But the fact is that you get used to your voice when you hear yourself enough times. One way to do that is practice here. Another way to do is start a podcast and edit all your episodes. You will find your filler words. You will find all those things which are not. Not so great in your speech. It's a good practice. Now we can focus on the last 10% of the total results. Technology.

1:41 Many people have poor mics. It's understandable. You don't hear what the other people are hearing. You just speak and you assume that they can hear you. So you may not have tested how good is your mic or actually how bad it is. Your surroundings matter as well. If you have a lot of echoes, reverbs in your environment, meaning hard surfaces, that will make your sound not so clear. And it's more disturbing. A lot of the other voices are disturbing elements in your speech. Or in your audio. Or something which are subconscious.

2:30 People can filter them out. It's automatic. But it still affects the feeling of the sound. How clearly and how they perceive you. So it's important. Also if the voice is too thin. If there's no bass. If there are just... Really narrow band. It will result more disturbing and stressful listening experience. For example if you're using Bluetooth headsets or usually any headsets which come with your mobile phone. The audio quality is not really great. Check the small demo test in the previous article.

3:22 There are a lot of little details. Fine tuning details. And that's a never ending game. But when you get those other things right, you can start to focus on those things. So the other things are like mouth smacks, breathing, noises. Basically how do you keep your mic? What's the mic position? The distance? Is it a dynamic mic which ignores most of the surrounding noises? So it's better for speech. The quality of the mic, audio equipment, what you're having. Those come after the previous things. But you can significantly improve your voice. And the radio voice you can hear.

4:14 Joe Rogan's mic and many other podcasters you may know from their shows. They may have that deep sound. And some of it is coming from the mic. So the equipment matters as well. But I wouldn't start from the equipment. I would start from those things I mentioned in the earlier chits. And being aware of all those things which are not exactly there. It doesn't matter. You don't need to be perfect. I noticed so many things in my previous chits when I was doing this. That are not correct. Well, in a sense correct. That they could be better. But I did all of this at first take.

5:05 I didn't have any notes. I just opened the mic and started to speak. So do you really need to prepare? Do you really need to make it perfect? Or is it enough that you get the message out and it's good enough? Because in many times, most of the occasions, it's good enough. It's perfect for the audience and for the message and for the results you want to get. I think this is a really good thread. I've listened to it piece by piece. The first part that resonated with me was about speaking slowly. And allowing yourself to cut out the likes and the ums.

5:57 I speak slowly. I've noticed on reflection. I still give the ums and the likes and the you knows. Seem to be one of my unconscious favorites. But I am getting better at eliminating them. The second thing I would add is that firstly to talk about what you know rather than what you don't know. So that takes some awareness in terms of understanding your circle of competence. And trying to convey that as clearly as possible. And hopefully conveying it in a way where you add to it.

6:50 Why people should care. Why it might be important to pay attention to. Because I was one of those people that once upon a time had a really nice set of golf clubs. But when it came to hitting the ball, I was a train crash. So, and somebody commented, all the gear and no idea. And that was true. And it was something that stuck with me. And sticks with me to this day. That you know if you, sometimes the audio equipment, the audio sound is not as important if the ideas that you're giving are good ones. Or the perspectives you're giving.

7:48 Giving are unique takes on existing perspectives. But just offer more in terms of the signal that you send. And I think that's really important. And I also, I think that what this thread demonstrates is be willing to point to what you may see as the obvious. And I think that's really important. And I also, I think that what this thread demonstrates is be willing to point to what you may see as the obvious. And I think that's really important. And I, on rereading it, I found a line that said, "Sometimes you feel foolish, even look

10:36 foolish, but you do the thing anyway." So last night I decided that I'd change that a little bit. Sometimes you feel foolish, even sound foolish, but you do the thing anyway. And that's what I'm attempting to do more and more on air chat. Because I am getting much better at speaking. And I think it's a great platform in which to do that. Plosives, you can reduce or eliminate by pop filters or just chasing the angle to the mic. So not directly speaking to the mic, but a little side or just experimenting with the distance might help.

11:25 Also if you're using a wired mic. Like a headset mic. Just make sure that it's not dangling with anything. Usually just a tiny movement of the mic, you don't even notice it's in your shirt or somewhere, can make a huge sound. Or if there's a wind blowing as well if you're outside. Those can be really annoying, but you can only notice them if you play back your audio. Avoiding Bluetooth microphones is a great recommendation. It's convenient, but it compromises your sound quality. It's a great way to minimize audio quality. Some hundred hours of podcast episodes and many guests, numerous online events, phone calls, WhatsApp calls, all the types of communication over distance.

12:21 The most common thing I have noticed is that people don't realize how they sound. They're not even using their mic when they're calling someone. When they're using their mic. And even the tech savvy ones don't realize that they have a problem. They may complain for other people, but they don't seldom consider themselves as a problem. It's like everybody thinks they are a good driver according to some statistics. When it's queried who is a good driver by considering by themselves. I think that's the most common thing.