Billionaires Are Good is my favorite. My co-host Caleb Synan and I have a great time together, and I get to exercise pretty much every creative muscle I have. I record the show, edit the show, make clips, design merch and manage our webstore. I built the website, designed our logo and made every single other graphic element we post as well. It's fun.
This episode was recorded in our tiny office in Los Angeles, which we no longer have because I moved to New York, but it was a great little studio and I'm glad you get to see a bit of it. I put it together myself, wiring it for in-person recordings, remote guest recordings, live watch-a-longs and twitch streaming. We did everything in there. The show was called What's it Called back then, but don't you worry about that.
One thing this episode doesn't showcase is the amount of imaging and audio production that goes into the show nowadays. As the show has evolved, I've added more and more sweepers, bumpers, sound effects and segments. Scroll down a bit for some samples.
Production tech & equipment: Zoom H6, Shure MV7X Vocal Microphones, iPhone 13, Adobe Audition, Adobe Premiere, Streamyard, Farrago, Loopback Audio, Logitech c920x Webcams, Elgato HD60S Capture Card
GET STUPID
My audio-only solo show. I do every creative thing and every production thing for this show too. Nowadays I put out episodes sparingly, but during the pandemic it was my main thing and I poured everything into it. Not only did I book guests for interviews, I booked/cleared standup tracks to include and made weekly flyers as if it was a live standup show. We were trapped inside and I wanted every episode to have numerous acts like the live comedy showcases I missed so much. I brought on friends for recurring segments and designed lots of audio imaging, like I do now for Billionaires Are Good.
Production tech & equipment: Zoom H6, Shure MV7X Vocal Microphone, Adobe Audition, Streamyard
IMAGING
As I said a few times above, I've made a lot of imaging for my podcasts. Imaging is, for those unaware, an industry term that translates approximately to, "Loud, psychotic piles of sound effects that play between songs and commercials on terrestrial radio stations."
In truth, all podcasts and radio shows have imaging -- it's the theme song and sound design that let you know (with audio) what show you're listening to -- but I came up listening to and working in rock radio so, to me, imaging is aggressive clanks and explosions. It's also by far the funniest type of imaging. I make a lot of it.
Here are some samples! The first is the intro for Billionaires Are Good. (I did not write and record the music, Chris Cresswell did, but I made the rest and edited it together.) The others are two of my favorite bits on Billionaires Are Good. If you dig it, I suggest listening to the show! It's a great show, lots of imaging.
WHO IS THIS
SiriusXM Comedy and I made two seasons of this stand-up comedy game show in 2022 and 2023! Two comedians played against each other, each with a buzzer in front of them. Each episode began with the comedians picking their buzzer sound, followed by three rounds of listening to standup clips and guessing who was talking in the clips. There's a clip above or you can listen to more Who Is This on the SiriusXM app.
I was the host of the show and kind of an associate producer. That is to say, SiriusXM had their own in-studio producer for the show, who ran the board and edited the episodes, and they also had an in-house imaging producer, but I had to do everything else. I made all the buzzer sounds, for example. I wrote all the imaging and went through rounds of editing with the producer. When we started recording guests remotely I was in charge of almost all production, because I had to figure out how to play my sounds off my computer into both Zoom and the recording and how the contestants could buzz in on both Zoom and the recording. Loopback Audio and Multibuzz.app were the answers, by the way!
Production tech & equipment: SiriusXM's studio & eqiupment, MacBook Air, Adobe Audition, Zoom, Farrago, Loopback Audio, Multibuzz.app
Older Shows
I have very fond memories and all the love in the world for this show I produced and hosted with Hampton Yount and Starburns Audio for years. We ended it because the subject matter was too heavy to keep up, but I'm so glad we did it. Not long before it ended we changed the name to Y'all Ever and you can still find the episodes wherever you listen to podcasts.
My first solo podcast. Produced by Nerdist and part of the Nerdist Podcast Network. Again, heavy subject matter drove me to end the show over time, but I'm very proud of it. Each episode I would ask the guest to pick one of these two questions to answer: "What are you afraid of?" or "What do you dislike about yourself?" I took the episodes off the internet a little while ago, but they're coming back! Stay tuned.
From 2011 to 2013 I was the co-host of Nerdist's Sex Nerd Sandra Podcast! For this show I wasn't involved in production at all. I deferred to Sandra, the host. Basically my role was to say "Wow!" and "Really?" when she described something about the kink community. It was very fun.
My first job after college in 2004 was as DJ, sidekick, and (eventually) producer for 103.7 KRZR The Wild Hare in Fresno, CA. It's funny to say but that job changed my life. I learned mic etiquette, running a show, production software, live hosting and all kinds of things in my short two years at Fresno's Rock Station. Rock radio gets clowned on a lot (often by me!) but the people at KRZR were some of the kindest, funniest and most caring people I've ever met.