Alan Seales Podcast: What happens when the lights go out on broadway.

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Steve Werner: What is going on everyone welcome back to grow your impact income and influence the number one show for monetization strategy fun.

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Steve Werner: witty banter and today learning about the technical side of podcasting I have Alan seals with me he comes to us from brooklyn New York he doesn’t have an accent I think he likes pizza I know he wanted to move to Japan.

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Steve Werner: But more than anything, he helps people.

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Steve Werner: That want to get their podcast off the ground by handling all the technical stuff we’re going to talk a lot about that he got into this by helping people that were on broadway maybe a little bit off broadway.

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Steve Werner: All they wanted to do was show up and share their message, but they had to learn how to edit they had to learn how to do graphics they had to learn how to upload all the stuff that ways people down and stops you from getting their message out to the world Alan welcome to the show.

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Alan Seales: Thank you, thank you for having me it’s great to be here.

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Steve Werner: No problem, this is gonna be a lot of fun, if you are watching this on video he has one of the coolest backgrounds in the world.

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Alan Seales: built it built it myself out of quarantine boredom they’re two inch sound absorbing panels that are made to look like Fo would like sort of a flooring that I got like a $50.

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Alan Seales: fiber optic kicked off of Amazon drilled holes through the panels and threaten them through so that was.

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Alan Seales: Quite the challenge what I thought would take me a couple hours took me a couple days, because if you’ve ever tried to so with spaghetti then you’ll know what it’s like to thread fiber optics through a through soundproof paneling.

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Steve Werner: dude only only a podcaster we go through that so I want to know how you got into this like take me back to the beginning, where did this all start.

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Alan Seales: Oh gosh um I have always had the acting bug i’ve always wanted to be onstage but, yet it been in contact within my own brain.

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Alan Seales: With the technical side and i’ve always just been obsessed with technology I love physics, I love space I love the expansion of the universe I love to get as nerdy as we can, and then go sing about it.

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Alan Seales: And so it’s been sort of this weird internal struggle, where I haven’t been able to figure out which path to go down in life and so i’ve been sort of flip flopping back and forth and.

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Alan Seales: The best advice I ever listened to that my mother gave me was you can do computer science, you can you can do.

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Alan Seales: acting with a computer science degree, but you can’t do computer science, with an acting degree.

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Alan Seales: And I think that, so I got a computer science degree and that sort of sealed my fate to not be a professional actor, because if you’re going to be a professional actor, you have to do nothing but act.

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Alan Seales: But i’ve gone through the years and and and now have carved out a little niche for myself as as being like the tech guy in this scene and a lot of my friends.

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Alan Seales: Before quarantine of course pandemic and broadway shut down aside a lot of my friends are on broadway and on TV and film and there i’m surrounded by that world but still helping them and immersed with the tech and so i’m getting the best of both worlds.

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Steve Werner: that’s that is pretty awesome that you get to do the best of both so I have to ask your question on something book of mormon love it or hate it.

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Alan Seales: I.

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Alan Seales: I love shows that push boundaries and I don’t think that it would be, it would have gotten green light, I think I don’t think it would have come to the stage in today’s day and age, given.

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Alan Seales: Everything that’s happening now in in our modern Zeitgeist but I love it for what it is, I think it’s brilliant matt stone and trey Parker can just do no wrong in my book anyway.

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Steve Werner: So I I took I didn’t know what to expect when I went to see it and I took some friends of mine that are about 20 years older, and I mean i’m in my mid 40s so they were like I looked over at one point, and you could tell they were like deer in headlights.

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said.

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Steve Werner: Either think it was brilliant it’s probably I mean i’ve seen a couple broadway shows, and it I just thought it was brilliant and so different I know that you said you like to push boundaries, a little bit you like that kind of stuff but the.

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Steve Werner: I just want to get your take on it so talk to me about tech on broadway like what does that involve like for people out there that are like what does that mean is that, like stage design is that lighting what is that strings spaghetti through sound panels.

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Alan Seales: A kind of a little bit of everything.

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Alan Seales: Recently, in the last year, basically, since broadway shut down everyone was scrambling to try to figure out how to continue to earn a living, because when your ability to be on stage when your ability to.

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Alan Seales: To like when your whole industry just says nope we don’t exist anymore that everyone sort of has this existential crisis and.

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Alan Seales: they’re figuring out what to do some people quit the business altogether some Tony winners move back in with their parents.

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Alan Seales: Some people have started teaching, some people are still are working more now than they did when there wasn’t industry and a lot of that has to do with how well they’re adapting to their surroundings and how well they’re able to shift and and.

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Alan Seales: Because of the fact that this is 2021 now and, in so much as speaking about the technological technological advancements of the Internet and audio recording at home studio building.

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Alan Seales: Many of these people have now the great performers great actors on broadway but now they’re all of a sudden doing books on tape they’re supplementing their whole life reading whole books in on tape.

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Alan Seales: or they’re doing voiceover acting and they’ve gotten cast on cartoons that they never, never would have had time to prepare for when they were doing eight shows a week so go going along with all of that is.

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Alan Seales: Alright i’m getting an audition together.

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Alan Seales: What do I need to do to make myself sound the best that I can, because when you go into a physical audition space, you want to look your best you want to sound your best you want to present yourself your best self for that character.

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Alan Seales: And so, when you’re at home, especially when it’s audio only and you’re developing this intimate relationship with someone with earphones on right.

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Alan Seales: How do you sound and look the best if if video, of course, is of is something that matters.

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Alan Seales: And so I all of a sudden, all of these things that I just learned about as a hobby became so incredibly useful and.

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Alan Seales: What microphone do I use if i’m on a budget if I don’t have a budget what should I use doing like I don’t sit in front of a window what do you mean I can’t be in front of my noisy window with horns and honking and.

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Alan Seales: All of these things Why wait multi track audio recording what does that mean you know all of these things that you and I know as podcasters.

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Alan Seales: Implementing all of that into the people who didn’t show up on stage, as you said, in that wonderful intro.

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Alan Seales: and are used to just lending their voice to the scene and causing emotion to happen now all of a sudden, have to be there end to end production crew.

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Alan Seales: And that’s really hard for a lot of people who have never had to do that before some of the some of our podcast guests, the podcast guests if you’re if people have started podcasts have.

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Alan Seales: have never used a computer I joke, you know I kid you not that we have a podcast on broadway podcast network I co founded that i’m sure we can get to that soon.

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Alan Seales: But one of our podcast is called breaking bad and it’s a play on break a leg and it’s this.

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Alan Seales: Huge broadway Yankees fan a Yankees fan who’s also a broadway fan, and he switches back and forth between interviewing like the Yankees and broadway stars.

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Alan Seales: And so there’s always a tie in because the broadway people love baseball and the baseball people love broadway so that’s the common thread.

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Alan Seales: Nice some of the people we’ve had on there, like all stars darryl strawberry the you know some current active Yankees who were just sitting around doing nothing when sports shut down.

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Alan Seales: He gets these on and we’re we’re having to troubleshoot and a case by case basis, because they’re like.

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Alan Seales: I don’t I don’t know how to connect how do I connect to the microphone to my laptop or like you plug it in the USB port what’s a USB port.

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Alan Seales: And some of this basic stuff you you that you would assume most people would know when you make your living on the on the the the Court or the field, or whatever it is everyone’s got their own set of challenges.

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Steve Werner: For sure.

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Alan Seales: i’ve learned never to assume anyone knows anything in this space.

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Steve Werner: Even the people that you would think I have I had a guy That was a CEO and founder of a multimillion dollar company that showed up.

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Steve Werner: On his phone with.

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Steve Werner: Like a single air pot like nine air pod a single.

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Steve Werner: Like plugged in thing it sounded horrible he’s getting all kinds of weird noise, I was like Sir come on.

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Steve Werner: We gotta we gotta work on this a little bit and I don’t know if it was just.

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Steve Werner: He just didn’t realize like Oh, maybe I need to sit at my desk and sound good or if he did, that all the time, because he was a CEO and he.

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Steve Werner: could do whatever he wanted.

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Steve Werner: But it was like one of the biggest interviews i’ve ever done and I never aired it, I never released it because it was so bad.

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Steve Werner: I couldn’t leave it up.

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Steve Werner: And I was just like well that’s what happens so I want to talk about because, when the pandemic happened there had to be a huge shift for you like what happened.

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Steve Werner: Like let’s talk let’s talk about timeline like February, March, April what what kind of went through your head and what What was your playbook like what did you start doing how to go.

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Alan Seales: Oh, my goodness Okay, so I co founded the broadway podcast network with multi Tony award winner dori bernstein who is just one of the most incredible people i’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.

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Alan Seales: And she and I got together in December of 28 2018 yes and we’re like hey we don’t really know each other, but we have this love for podcasts and we realized that we can’t find anything and the broadway space.

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Alan Seales: In the theater space, combined with the podcast space it’s hard to find your collection of anything, there is no destination, so we.

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Alan Seales: quickly within like two months we’re like all right here we go we’re starting this company and that we started this company that became the broadway podcast network that launched in October of 2019 and then.

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Alan Seales: We were going through the challenges of going to old school big big broadway producers and Western producers.

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Alan Seales: and saying hey we got this great thing we have this great place for you to advertise we’ve made the destination for all for all of your listeners everyone who wants to buy a ticket to see your show is on our network listening and they’re like awesome what’s a podcast.

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Alan Seales: And then we got that conversation going, and they were like I understand podcasting where do I find one and.

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Alan Seales: It was just pushing and pushing and pushing things forward until finally February hits.

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Alan Seales: and February 2020 and and we we all of a sudden every it just clicks for everyone and we’re we’ve got these big advertising campaigns lined up for the shows that are about to open in March.

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Alan Seales: And Tony campaigns that are that are being talked about, and then this is also in the back of our minds we’re hearing all this this.

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Alan Seales: virus this coronavirus is, on the other side of the world, I guess it’s you know we got to be careful and if anybody’s getting sick in the studio make sure you’re not coming in, we got to disinfect it, you know we didn’t really think anything of it at the time.

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Alan Seales: Then come march 12 2020 broadway shuts down that’s when the whole city, says the city of New York says no, no gatherings over 500 people period which every broadway house that’s every broadway house.

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Steve Werner: So I want to know what you did when you got that message, because to me it’s like our generations like.

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Steve Werner: kinda like JFK moment right like.

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Steve Werner: What the whole city shutting down I can’t go anywhere well what what What did you do like that day.

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Alan Seales: I remember.

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whiskey.

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Alan Seales: I I sat ironically so dory my co founder was.

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Alan Seales: she’s one of the producers, she was a lead producer of the problem on broadway and one of the main producers of the problem for netflix and so she was actually on set in La.

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Alan Seales: When this news hit so they had four three or four days left of production and so she’s sitting with Meryl Streep and James corden and all these people and i’m talking with her and i’m like what do we do we just lost our industry.

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Alan Seales: And ever the optimist, you know we talked through it and we said, well, we can either pause or we double down, and I remember, we made the conscious decision that.

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Alan Seales: We are going to find the silver lining in this, no matter what, and we, as an industry as a global industry podcasting was declining and.

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Alan Seales: We immediately without missing a beat like tech skill at tech skills to the rescue through you know put my pull over pull up my shirt and you know Ts man tech skills man is under there.

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Alan Seales: So immediately we worked and found a way to not only host live events but move our our physical studio into an online recording environment very similar to how we’re recording now.

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Alan Seales: we’ve got a collection of platforms that we offer to all of our podcast series now depending on if they want video or audio or how many people are etc and.

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Alan Seales: Immediately just we were like we have to keep going, because if we can continue to deliver the arts to people when their shows are shut down this is, this is what everybody needs every like the world.

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Alan Seales: Is is unhappy, the world is freaking out just not just us not just me, but the world is freaking out and being in the broadway space and the arts theater space for so long.

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Alan Seales: Something that I have learned is is this is catharsis for people, this is how they.

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Alan Seales: relate to other humans, sometimes when they have no other way of doing so and to just rip that away from them.

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Alan Seales: was causing mental health issues left and right and stress and anxiety and we said we just have to deliver and we didn’t care about revenue, we didn’t care about the financial aspect we just said, we have to continue to produce.

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Alan Seales: And we foot we’ve footed the bill for so much, and we still are, and we want him.

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Alan Seales: Immediately within weeks of doing this we worked with a script writer, we had an original script that that we turned into a radio play so that was our that was one of our first Dracula a comedy of errors.

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Alan Seales: narrated by the amazing Alan tunic who is, who is from firefly and King candy on wreck it Ralph and many other like he if.

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Alan Seales: He does every voice and sound effect, you can think of.

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Alan Seales: But along those lines, he was in Vancouver because he was shut down, he was filming something he was in Vancouver.

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Alan Seales: We shipped him a MIC.

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Alan Seales: And he was just in this big echo a room and we, but we need to, we need to sound as crisp as we can, so that goes back to the tech skills and we literally we just send pictures ahead of time to all these people, we say pre prepared to build a pillow for it.

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Alan Seales: Because i’ve got pictures of Alan stick with pillows all around his microphone.

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Alan Seales: underneath his smelly dog blanket because he literally just grabbed a blanket that was next to him that he used the wife does his dog’s feet off after they took a walk.

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Alan Seales: And we’re just recording these lines with him around his pillow for it inside his pillow for it and then we’ve got other Tony nominated Tony winning.

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Alan Seales: Members of the cast who are doing the same thing and we’ve just got all these amazing foot screenshots and footage of people.

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Alan Seales: With their improvised sound booths and then over time we’ve produced more original content and it’s funny because, as time progresses.

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Alan Seales: At everybody set up gets a little bit better every time and they realize they need to get a little bit closer to their wi fi.

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Alan Seales: Or the retrofit a little bit of their closet or you can see the cheeky sound panels start to go up behind them to absorb the ECHO and they’re they’re starting to learn and get it, and every every time.

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Alan Seales: You know we’re always we’re always making sure that we get mix out to them and that we’ve had ahead of time to talk through the sound setup but it’s it’s.

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Alan Seales: It was a really fun challenge that I remember like we were disappointed to answer your question long story long.

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Alan Seales: When we were disappointed we I sat on it for a moment and then dory and I made that decision, we will not let this stop us and and we saw we experienced double digit growth while the industry was seeing the huge decline.

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Steve Werner: That is awesome and my hat is off to you for for doing that for making the conscious decision to double down, so I have a couple things that I want to talk about we’re going to get into tech stuff if you’re listening to this and you want to know.

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Steve Werner: The tech stuff we’re going to get to that in just one, second, but there are two or three things I want to pull out of what you said, the first one is.

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Steve Werner: What is a mindset trick that you use during this time to keep positive because I mean you had a lot of balls in the air, you had a lot of forward momentum, I know a lot of people that just would have been like.

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Steve Werner: screw it this sucks run down the street jump in front of a train like.

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Steve Werner: Whatever right i’m just going to take a stimulus check and i’m not going to do anything, how did you like, what was the mental.

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Steve Werner: I don’t know what it what the answer is, but like it takes a different mentality to say you know what we’re going to find the silver lining we’re going to push forward and we’re going to double down, do you have a do you have a strategy or quote or something that fits in there.

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Alan Seales: Not a quote really I think what i’ve learned.

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Alan Seales: And and it’s it’s sort of exemplified by the team.

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Alan Seales: That we’ve built, you know there’s a very there’s a small team of us that that are the core people of broadway podcast network and it’s surround yourself with people, you can trust it surround.

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Alan Seales: yourself with people that you want to work with the next day and I, you know I still think that inspiration comes from the top two and.

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Alan Seales: I never I don’t know what this is, I think this is, you know the insecure actor in me i’ve never been able to accept defeat and so when when insecurity and.

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Alan Seales: And I guess insecurity and self doubt come into play, instead of like some some people everyone deals with it differently, and some people kind of retract and some people go we’ll put forth that air of confidence that you can tell is really fake.

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Alan Seales: And and i’ve i’ve just.

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Alan Seales: Only recently to obviously with, with the help of therapy and many conversations in many podcast interviews of my own, on my own podcast but have realized that it it’s that i’m driven to succeed and that no matter where I am.

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Alan Seales: To quote Andre to shields I guess here’s a quote for you, when he wanted his Tony award back in.

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Alan Seales: He said.

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Alan Seales: The top of one mountain is the bottom of the next and.

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Alan Seales: I really resonates with me because i’m climbing and climbing I get there, and sometimes you slip and sometimes you fall back a little bit and and make some backwards progress but.

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Alan Seales: Hopefully, when you slip you learn, and you don’t take that same path again, but once you get to the top that’s just the bottom of the next mountain.

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Alan Seales: So what the therapy has helped me do, and my own introspection has helped me say okay here I am i’m sitting with this i’m happy with where I am.

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Alan Seales: And i’ve accomplished something, but now what’s next so that when I think dory is very much the same way, is that, whenever we have a challenge we don’t.

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Alan Seales: we’ve learned to not take it personally because this business is very harsh it’s full of rejection so maybe we’re just used to a lot of rejection in the first place anyway.

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Alan Seales: But we don’t let it stop us and if there’s a roadblock we try to walk around it.

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Alan Seales: that’s this is always what i’ve done with my life and and I think a lot of this mentality, maybe comes from my dad too, because he I grew up watching him fix things he very much people he was a doctor he became a doctor, to get out of a life, he didn’t want to have.

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Alan Seales: As a younger child and but, even though he was into medicine, he still was very handy around the House, he likes carpentry and we would.

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Alan Seales: We would sneak out the toilet and we would fix the air compressor around the fridge and.

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Alan Seales: All of the other thing you know we would pick fix the holes in the walls that my brother, and I would create, and so I grew up without realizing it until as an adult just with the assumption that if something breaks, I can fix it.

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Alan Seales: Absolutely yeah.

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Steve Werner: that’s I mean, I think that you touched on a couple things that i’ll just reiterate first off, there are three things that you can do when you when you’re stressed about saying when when life throws you a curveball right.

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Steve Werner: You can.

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Steve Werner: Blame somebody you can run the other way you.

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Steve Werner: Can.

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Steve Werner: Basically whine and complain.

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Alan Seales: and

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Steve Werner: Victim victim victim.

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Steve Werner: Or you can put on like you said that air of.

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Steve Werner: Confidence but everybody knows it’s fake or the third one, which you obviously took and I think most successful people take is we put our head down we get to work, and we figure out how to make it do something on have you seen the last dance with Michael Jordan.

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Alan Seales: I have yes.

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Steve Werner: Like the thing that I took away from that i’m not a huge sports fan at all, but I watched it because I love studying people who win and he was like it, he needed.

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Steve Werner: To be down 10 points because it just forced him to work harder he showed up at 5am two hours before everyone to work five times as hard.

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Steve Werner: so that he could go out and like, if you look I don’t remember which game, it was as a playoff game like he had the flu, he was sick he could hardly walk and he scored like 68 points or something.

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Alan Seales: What was high scoring games yeah.

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Steve Werner: it’s just like, how do you and the question that I usually comes up around that is like, how do you push yourself that hard well you just you it’s a habit.

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Steve Werner: When life throws you something you figure out how to put your head down and work, which is what you guys did so congratulations to you for that that quote was great as well, I love that so much um we’re going to put that in the show notes.

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Steve Werner: So I want to move out of this conversation a little bit, and I want to get to a couple of like the hardcore yes, no.

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Steve Werner: tech questions so first off.

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Steve Werner: I think it would be really cool.

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Steve Werner: If you got pictures of all of the people, building their pelo forts and send them to people and be like, as long as it looks better than this.

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Steve Werner: you’re doing okay.

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Steve Werner: It would just be kind of funny.

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Steve Werner: I don’t know make a joke or a Christmas card out of it or something.

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Steve Werner: yeah i’ve seen the same thing so let’s start with technical gear if you’re recommending somebody be on a podcast or start running their own podcast, what do you think is a good budget.

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Alan Seales: um.

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Alan Seales: Oh gosh well I didn’t expect you to start with the budget stuff because budget usually comes from from this from your need right, so what I what I was what I was all prepared to answer was how do you plan what you need tech wise.

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Steve Werner: let’s go with that, then, how do you plan what you need because I think a lot of people starting a podcast or like i’ve seen them be like i’m just going to talk to my phone yeah no no snow.

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Steve Werner: Right.

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Steve Werner: And then i’ve seen you.

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Steve Werner: Know i’ve seen the other people who are like I need $5,000 I have to build a booth and an arm and I, like our tx cables and like I don’t know if that’s the real word than the not USB cables.

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Steve Werner: xlr xlr there we go um.

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Steve Werner: So.

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Steve Werner: You tell me where where do you think most people should start if they want to start an in home podcast what do they need.

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Alan Seales: You I always yeah I always tell people when they’re starting out with the podcast people they say i’ve got this podcast idea what should I do and I said, well, first of all draw it out literally put it down on paper.

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Alan Seales: write a timeline like right draw a rectangle and say from this segment to the segment this minute to this minute is going to be segment one this minute to this minutes gonna be segment to.

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Alan Seales: Commercial if i’m going to have one goes here so you’re you’re literally writing a script whether or not you realize it your graphically writing down a script and I think of it for people who.

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Alan Seales: understand this metaphor of of thinking of it like a like a three camera sitcom because you want it to be as live to tape as possible, more or less if that’s if that’s your stick so.

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Alan Seales: immediately think of your end goal.

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Alan Seales: and work your way backwards, do you want it to be a bunch of pre recorded clips is it going to be live to tape are you going to have music that you reference, are you going to have sound effects that need to be played, are you going to have.

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Alan Seales: You going to be video or audio only D, do you plan on monetizing it because immediately decide if you want it to be business or a hobby Those are two distinct mindsets that are going to help dictate budget and help dictate effort level because podcasting ain’t easy, and you know that.

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Alan Seales: But it’s a lot of work, and most of the time you’re doing it on your own and you probably will never earn any money from it so.

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Alan Seales: decide what you want your end product to look like and then work your way backwards, what problem, are you trying to solve So if you want.

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Alan Seales: To do something that’s going to have video, then how important is video quality to you right you do you already have and what do you already have laying around so i’ve got this little.

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Alan Seales: 10 or $15 you hdmi to USB capture card.

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Alan Seales: That I got off of Amazon.

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Alan Seales: And this turns anything that I can plug into the hdmi port into a webcam that’s recognized by my computer so a camcorder that I have laying around.

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Alan Seales: My D slr that I have laying around I sometimes use my canon seven D, as the most expensive webcam money can buy right because i’ve got this massive camera with a huge lens that I stick right here and.

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Alan Seales: I don’t have it on.

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Alan Seales: yeah so it looks amazing and So what do you have laying around what can you, what can you repurpose and.

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Alan Seales: Then again, what is your personal budget because, once you work your way back and you’re like.

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Alan Seales: I think, obviously, you want to not talk into your phone and use voice now it’s just please everybody listening.

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Alan Seales: don’t do that that just sounds like crap and it’s going to turn listeners off, whether they know it or not, whether they realize it because they’re not hearing, good quality audio.

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Alan Seales: But there are some decent mike’s and I some people disagree with me, but I think the yeti blue is a great cost per function.

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Alan Seales: Entry level MIC for your for your person who wants to dabble or do voiceover auditions or even just wants to sound a little better in your corporate meetings, because it’s USB which everybody knows how to use.

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Alan Seales: it’s very simple to unpack and setup and it’s anywhere from 120 to 160 or 70 bucks if, like the original one I got.

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Alan Seales: came with this Mike arm which i’ve now repurposed for my current Mike so I got a whole kit with the headphones the MIC arm and a US and a yeti for like $160 and it was a great setup.

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Alan Seales: And then.

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Alan Seales: If you want to go a little bit further like now i’m using an audio technica I don’t feel the need, because I personally from my space don’t need i’m not doing professional voiceovers for high end cartoons, so I don’t need the SMP seven.

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Alan Seales: Because that that’s a couple hundred bucks i’d rather put somebody somewhere else so because I do a lot of cameras stuff I took the money, I would have spent on a high end Mike and bought some nice looking sound panels.

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Alan Seales: And fiber optic kit right and it’s all Google home interactive interactive too, so I can you know smart home control my lights behind me as well, so.

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Alan Seales: But that’s the technique me anyway, but yeah work backwards draw it out and then decide what makes sense and then people.

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Alan Seales: There there’s always the ability to swap out audio in podcasting right, you can go back at any point swap out your audio files swap out your.

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Alan Seales: update your files, so if you don’t like how you sounded recording something an intro from episodes one through 20.

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Alan Seales: Re record yourself with a better MIC once you know what you’re doing and swap out the audio but if you’re not sure you want to do this don’t blow your budget right in the beginning.

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Steve Werner: I mean I, I agree, I actually recommend, I have the audio technica as well, it was 150 bucks the blue yeti is really good on just get a decent sounding Mike I love the camera I actually I use a Sony a 6100 on but it’s great, but you don’t need to do all that.

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Steve Werner: I would say, I always tell people get a MIC start with that.

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Alan Seales: get past 20 episodes.

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Steve Werner: yeah, then you can worry about.

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Steve Werner: Everything else you don’t need a bunch of crazy stuff on Mike arm and a MIC will run you $150 that’s what you need audacity works really well camp Asia, you can even use, you can use any video editing and just strip the audio out level sound level it doesn’t have to be difficult.

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Alan Seales: to edit my audio only in final cut pro.

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Steve Werner: that’s.

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Steve Werner: There, yes.

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Alan Seales: I came from a linear editor background so that’s where are nonlinear editor Becker and so that’s where that’s where my expertise is.

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Alan Seales: But the only other thing i’ll add to that is that, as we were talking about building pillow forts and putting up sound panels, you could get the best Mike in the world.

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Alan Seales: And if you’re recording in the middle of your living room with 20 foot ceilings and hardwood floors it’s going to sound.

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Alan Seales: horrible and you’re going to get a better sound out of the the wired microphone with the little onboard thing on the cord because because that’s right there and not picking up ECHO from all over your your room so.

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Alan Seales: Get that cheapie Mike the less expensive Mike and make sure that your space is as pristine as it can be in you don’t want to spend any money on a walk in closet if you’ve got one just sit in there and record that’s free for your first 20 episodes.

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Steve Werner: I mean, honestly, so we did this with a friend of mines mom a walk in closet and we hung clothes all around her.

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Steve Werner: Because it absorbs the sound.

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Steve Werner: yeah it basically works like sound deadening and nobody has to see you and I said once you get past 20 episodes, then you can spend a few hundred bucks.

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Steve Werner: and get it done but proved yourself like baby steps of what about baby steps onto the boat.

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Steve Werner: mast i’m sailing on.

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Steve Werner: The friend.

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Alan Seales: That hangs a mattress pad behind.

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Alan Seales: him when he records that’s perfect.

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mm hmm.

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Steve Werner: Alan tell us a little bit enclosing about your podcast if people want to come follow you, because this has been really informative and fun something a little bit different where can they can find you what’s your podcast tell us about it.

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Alan Seales: So my personal podcast is the theater podcast with Alan seals and of course available everywhere, you find your podcasts and you can go to the broadway podcast network to find it it’s broadway podcast network.com.

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Alan Seales: And my shtick and actually my podcast was podcast number one on vpn on the network, because I had it and that that was what made me realize that I couldn’t find anybody else’s.

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Alan Seales: My shtick is is maintaining success and I like to talk about the mental health of these people that we don’t think about having to deal with the stress and anxiety of being successful.

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Alan Seales: I deal with major broadway stars, who have literally told me they’ve had straight on panic attacks, while they’re alone on stage in the middle of your solos because all of a sudden and hits them.

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Alan Seales: Oh, my God i’m carrying the show everyone’s looking at me there’s 2000 people’s out there, am I gonna forget my lines what’s going on, oh my God.

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Alan Seales: And, and they just freak out and go down this road, so I love love love talking about that my most recent episode I just recorded before we’re recording now was with donnie most from happy days.

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Steve Werner: So.

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Alan Seales: You know he’s talking about his journey from from this success the massive just overblown success, this is before social media, mind you.

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Alan Seales: Remember, of not being able to go outside without being mobbed from happy days and then purposely leaving that he left the show himself.

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Alan Seales: and not being able to find work, for years, because nobody wanted to see them as anything but Ralph mouth So how do you deal with that with that struggle How does that make you feel.

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Alan Seales: But yeah so i’m on instagram and Twitter at theater underscore podcast my personal website is the theater podcast COM, of course, visit broadway podcast network.com for myself and many, many.

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Alan Seales: Other podcasts that are lots of different things summer comedy summer drinking podcasts some are.

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Alan Seales: we’ve got one that’s brand new super popular that’s a true crime sort of crossover it’s a documentary style podcast about carry the musical, which is one of the biggest flops to date.

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Alan Seales: it’s based on Stephen king’s novel and came to broadway and closed after like two weeks, it was just this massive flop so that’s super big.

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Alan Seales: I think that oh yeah YouTube or on YouTube slash broadway podcast network, and I think that should be it Oh, we just we just launched an ios APP.

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Steve Werner: There you go.

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Alan Seales: yeah so.

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Alan Seales: Then that FM.

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Alan Seales: slash APP gets you that ios APP and you can also add non vpn podcasts as well, so we can replace everything you replace your current pod chaser.

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Steve Werner: awesome well Alan it has been so much fun to have you on we might have to have you back on because we still got to talk about Japan, but that will be an open loop to bring.

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Steve Werner: You guys back.

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Alan Seales: Yes, please anytime.

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Steve Werner: Alan Thank you so much for being an amazing guest to everyone else who is listening until next time take action change lives make money do things that make you smile and have a great day we’ll see you soon.

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Steve Werner: And we’re good.