Creativity, Sound Design and Podcasting for Joy (DIALOGUE)

When we begin as podcasters, it's easy to become mired in the logistics, the admin,

the perfection and optimization of equipment, structure, distribution, and

It takes a unique individual like Mason Amadeus to remind us to ask, where has the

gone?

Welcome back to Rethinking Podcasting, where I take a Socratic approach to reflect

podcasting world and help you build your own podcast philosophy.

I'm Matthew Bliss, and this week I'm joined by Mason Amadeus, creative director

at Eighth Layer Media, expert audio and broadcast engineer, and self-proclaimed

professional bodge technician. Don't worry, we'll get into what that means in a moment.

I first met Mason through a podcasting Discord community, and found that he and his

friends had made PodCube, a sketch comedy audio-only podcast that is soundscaped to

perfection. That perfection shows in everything he does,

and since we met I've watched him create Digital Folklore with Perry Carpenter,

The FAIK Files, also with Perry, and more recently, The Bug & Moss Telephone Show.

It's not just my delight in chaos and whimsy that brought me to his inner circle.

He is a creative without peers, audio expert without measure, and has such a deep

about the world that learning could almost be his full-time job.

In our chat, we talk about making podcasting a thing you enjoy, art as a

not to save it, that creativity is your unique talent in podcasts, and the key to

work is to satisfy your curiosity and learn constantly. Whenever we jump on a call, they

always last three or more hours, so suffice to say that we don't cover nearly as much as

conversation. Keep an eye out for more episodes with Mason in future and check out

the show notes if you're already curious. Enjoy. Mason Amadeus, welcome to Coffee with

Matthew Bliss, thank you for having me.

Can you tell me what an all-terrain professional bodge technician is?

Uh, not exactly, but if you point me at a task, I'll probably figure out a way to do

That turn of phrase was something that my friend Eamon, I think I had tweeted

Help.

And Eamon tweeted back.

They sent this like paragraph that was really fun.

I wonder if I can find it in its entirety.

I think I have it saved somewhere.

It was really sweet and it meant a lot to me.

I think I made it like my banner photo on Facebook.

Homegrown DIY anti-corporate ADHD overachieving abstract public domain

all-terrain professional bodge technician was what Eamon said to me in that tweet.

And I was like, that is the most flattering and like aspirational way

to describe the things that I do.

And so I guess I just kind of adopted that as like a title

because I dabble in a little bit of everything.

Like I'm trained as an audio engineer, uh, and in, in broadcast engineering.

Oh, thanks beans.

My wife has brought me a bagel with sausage and cheese, which is always good.

Thanks honey.

Delicious.

I'll have one.

Thanks.

Um, I've done a lot of hosting.

I do graphic design.

I've done 3d animation, 3d art, web design coding.

I got a job as an it manager at one point because I broke us an old server, uh, by

it.

If you know, you know, and and then I had to it was running this

program oh man I always try and shorten this story way too much and then I end

up blathering I'll just tell the story very quickly so I read I power cycled

this old ass server that was running this AP news software that our newsroom

used to present which basically would just pull down stories from the news

wire and it would have little inline audio cues so they could present the

news and click the cue to play you know like a school bus caught on fire this

morning and the mayor was on the scene click

like to be able to drop in your news clips and make a cool broadcast all in one that

bricked that software doesn't exist they had a new product that costs thousands of

subscriptions uh but they were pissed they were like i can't believe you broke our

we have to use microsoft word and like a playlist uh and i was like i'm so sorry let

that program and so i learned c sharp and i recreated a version of that program, but

specifically for our station, it's called News Jock.

It is kind of a mess under the hood, but it does still work.

You can download it off GitHub if you want it.

If you're hearing this at your radio station, you probably don't.

Get the parrot one.

I forget the name of it, but that one's good.

It's expensive, but it's worth it.

I've got a feeling I know what that one would be too, but I can't remember the name.

Newsboss?

Is it Newsboss?

I feel like Newsboss is overpriced, but that might be outside of the scope of this.

Well, that's great.

Yeah, I was kind of leaning into that's your job title for life.

At the moment, your job title is Creative Director at 8th Layer Media with Harry

Who is the bomb?

Harry's so cool.

I think that's why you two are a match made in heaven.

The way that you work together with stuff, particularly at the moment, the FAIK Files,

that you both have depths that no one would possibly anticipate.

And I feel like hanging out with you every day for a month would be discovering several

things new every day about you that you couldn't possibly have inferred.

Well, dang.

Thanks, Matt.

I feel like that about Perry, because he's like, yeah, I was there when Evanescence

Bring Me to Life or whatever.

Like he heard like a demo version.

Like Perry's got all these crazy stories like that.

Yeah.

He's always throwing stuff at me.

Like he's a metalist, magician, metal singing, podcast, creating,

cybersecurity evangelist slash C-suite.

Yeah.

Got a huge list of stuff to his name.

And he won't walk up and be like, I am all of these things.

You'll just find out one day that like, oh yeah, so he was doing metal vocals

for something and you're like, what do you mean?

Yeah.

He's got the voice for it.

And you also have the voice, which is what we're listening to right now on what is

probably an inordinate amount of audio equipment that you've accrued over your

Would that be right?

Uh, yeah, some of it stolen, some of it bargained, some of it bodged and some of

it broken, but yeah, a lot of it.

And there's, I don't, uh, do you want me to say exactly how this audio is reaching

you right now?

Cause a little bit crazy.

If you want to, for sure sure i'll do it in brief uh i have a an audio console

with like 16 faders on it and then that is being it's plugged into a third computer in

that is garbage but all that computer is doing is serving this audio interface over

dante audio over ip network uh so that me and my wife can take advantage of this

she also works in audio so all of our stuff routes centrally through that. And then

But it's been a pet project I've done lately because I used to work as a broadcast

And I helped with building out audio over IP into our facilities when we made that

And it's so freaking cool.

Networked audio is so cool.

Networked video is cool, too.

But it's just I'm slowly edging into that.

But yeah.

No, I get that.

Like as someone with an IT background myself, thinking of Cat six wires as just

pipes are just for water. Like you can put tons of stuff through there. There was even

time when I was younger, that's networking over the electrical network in your house

And I think it even still is a thing. It still is, which is just like modulating a

signal above the 60 Hertz or 50 Hertz AC signal.

And the capacity of the network is related to the frequency of the wave.

Yeah.

Sort of, you can, however you want to multiplex the, that signal on top of the

Um, and then, yeah, your bandwidth is going to be determined by however you're choosing

to carry that.

All sorts of trade-offs.

This, that's my shit.

Signal processing really is like the core of it.

That's where I get super excited because everything's a signal, you know?

That's it.

Now, obviously this is a podcasting podcast, but I think it's really

important to say all of that in case we've either got audio techs salivating or people

familiar with the technology behind audio kind of switching off and going, why would I

and listen to this? Please hang around. We're going to get to the creative stuff

Oh, and it's so cool. It'll be so cool. Also, I really hope there's at least one

So that the moment I say one wrong thing, they are ready to email you because I

I'm going to just like fumble something or say something unconsciously wrong. So that's

that's my call to action for the audience. Growth mindset. Uh, we'll make that the sub

subtitle of this, this podcast, but I think that all that's really important because you

of aspirational to me in terms of, uh, my audio production journey in being a podcast

people that you can talk to and follow that give you exactly what you need to get the

But there are also people that you can listen to that give you the little things

experience of going with the car metaphor with driving, but that improves your fuel

gives you those little things that gradually build and build and build into

more impressive than it could possibly have been before. And with audio particularly,

a fog of war sort of thing. You can't see the direction you're going when it comes to

quality and production quality. You kind of have to experience what is bad until you

it becomes good.

And then even realizing what you thought was bad is actually good in a different way

it was bad.

You know, you can see where I'm going with this.

I think so.

One of the major things you said to me recently was if I wanted to understand audio

from the wave form in a much better way is to look up electrical engineering and

with a lot more similarities than you'd think there'd be differences completely mike

how my career progressed from uh from audio mixing to like working on rf transmitters

this like the same principles it's an oscillating waveform when you look at a

on a computer you're looking at a graph of voltage over time. The vertical axis is

already doing electrical engineering. Understanding that allows you to then look

that underlie electrical engineering and apply them to audio. I mean, also like all

used to be discrete outboard hardware, right? So it was made of discrete electrical

You can build high-pass and low-pass filters using capacitors and inductors

way that those components interact with the circuitry, which you can

understand from an electrical engineering end, or you can come at it from an audio

But yeah, I'm really about the interdisciplinary bits here because I think

that underlie things that are what gives you those fuel efficiencies, those boosts

mentioned. I think it genuinely, I really think it comes from understanding from the

what you're doing. I feel like we don't do that a lot, and particularly with something

Hearing is a sense that you typically only

use reactively. The most active listening the average person does is when you can't

phone and you're like calling it, even though it's on silent and you're trying

the vibrations. That's like the most an average person is actively like, think of

trying to hear. Most of the time, ears are just, you just hear things and react to

not trying desperately to hear things. So that's already a perceptual shift when

visual arts there's no feedback except for your ears so you have to learn how to read

have to learn how to read graphs and just the more you lean into the fundamentals of

your experience is going to be but because most people get into audio engineering as a

of production because most people are just like i want to make a podcast and by virtue

have to learn some audio engineering i think that's what leads to a lot of

at least in the circles that we're running in. Yeah, that's it. And let's keep it to

just keeping people enticed into finding those 1%s for themselves as the conversation

In particular, audio, because a lot of the creative efficiencies lead to some of the

awesome stuff that you do with one of your podcasts called Podcube, which has been

It's a sketch comedy, very short sketch comedy kind of, actually, I should just get

explain it because I think it's one of those things where for everybody, it's a

bit different, but it's one of those meta stories that has built both over time from

a previous podcast into PodCube in addition to layering on itself so many times, it's

of paper 10,000 times and you just end up with like so many layers. It's crazy.

It's my favorite thing I've ever worked on. And like, I love all of the things that I'm

on. Um, but there's just a special place in my heart for that stupid show. I think it's

for me to Homestar Runner, which was like a universe that existed online. I don't know

I wasn't, unfortunately.

It's like a, it's a universe.

The podcast is just sort of one of the like avenues into it.

Pretty much the main one,

because that's like what it was conceived as.

But PodCube itself, it's so much bigger.

We have so much lore.

We actually just brought on a new team member

doing sound design so that I can focus

on doing some of the more ambitious,

weirder stuff we're doing with that show

and also sound design.

But yeah, it's like an audio cartoon, but it's also a universe.

So today, what I really want to talk to you about is the creative stuff that you put

this work, which really is a labor of love.

I think a lot of people look at podcasts as a way for them to talk at people and get

their ears and sell their products or share their opinions or get feedback and be

confirmed of whatever beliefs they have or whatever they've achieved it's just a way to

create a road to something like that but for you podcube has and for you and i should

tucker and jordan it almost feels i feel bad talking about podcube just to you

other two of the present but we'll bring them them back. We'll bring them in for a,

for a larger discussion about it at some point. Oh, that'll be extremely fun and

if you get all three of us together. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the views expressed by me are

views of PodCube LLC, which is a real, it's like a real company. It was for, it forms in

obviously anything I say is just speculative, but that's okay. Especially

here. But I think this, this speaks to the project. So we, I feel like I still need to

to PodCube yet, that the idea of it being like a cartoon, like Homestar Runner, that

is a designed product that's intended to enable people who have one to listen to

happened in the known universe at any space or time or place, I think is what you put in

little tagline. Yeah, I'm so glad you said it. Audio from anywhere in space or time or

Yeah. The idea, it's kind of like those portrait picture frames, those digital

you can get people, you know, how you can just like drop photos to your grandma that

she has like a digital picture frame or whatever, Podcube is kind of like that. But

you buy a Podcube from Podcube and you tell them where you want it sent. And then

will, they will send it to that place and you will start receiving a live audio feed

request it.

And the podcast feed, a part of the terms of service of that with PodCube is that they

have the right to any transmissions that come back.

So they maintain this podcast feed of like curated transmissions that are particularly

funny or particularly interesting or that they particularly like.

And that's what the podcast pod, the PodCube podcast feed is.

Yes.

Which, you know, for time dilation enthusiasts would be an interesting backdate

for a product created in the future, licensing access to things from the past

for permission. And I could see what you want to talk about it. I'm going to stop you

because we don't want to go too much into the law. I'd love to hear more about the

creative side around it. So this is part of that because there's a little Easter egg.

When you mentioned that I'm curious if you've ever noticed the date of the first

episode that is published on the PodCube feed.

I did.

I can't recall the date, but it is well before podcasting and RSS feeds were around,

Before the internet existed, I believe.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it came out like on the Linux epoch.

I set that as the publish date or something like that.

Yeah, you had UTC on it somewhere, I think.

But it shows up as having come out in...

Okay, let me just grab it real quick. But it shows up as having come out in, uh, okay.

Let me, let me just grab it real quick. It, it, okay.

January 1st, 1990.

I experimented to find the earliest date that, uh, Apple podcasts would list.

Cause I had started with like the 1800s, the earliest one I could like type in.

Yeah.

And then I just worked up from there.

But it all lends to the universe that you're trying to build.

But the thing about PodCube is every episode is a little bit different.

So the, the general arcing theme is that you're listening through your Podcube to

Could be in 1800s medieval England with wizards curing villages and it being a scam.

Or it could be, what was his name?

Tommy Birthday, I think.

Oh God.

Singing themes for Rusty's Burger Trough.

It could be going number three in a weird Russian bath in the middle of New York.

Like there are so many different scenarios that you can do.

And the three of you together, you, Jordan and Tucker, you play different voices and

different characters in each of these sketches, but it's all improvised for the

In the post-production, it's not, at least not in the sense that you can edit on the

fly, but you kind of come in with a prompt, like an improv group would create

the scenario and spend a bit of time putting that together into a scene and, uh,

with hilarious results.

Thank you.

Sometimes you've live streamed them, which is why I know how it happens.

And that sometimes the funniest stuff is being able to see how you put these episodes

as a sketch comedy group.

Yeah.

Doing the live streams was a blast.

Uh, and we want to get back to doing that again we've recently

pod you had to take a hiatus well all three of us went through some pretty big

life changes yeah so we've recently started bringing it back and we're gonna

bring back those live shows but yeah it's it's entirely improvised and then

edited and most of the time we try and keep it the way I've described it is

that it's the editing isn't so much to make it funny the editing makes it feel

like it was when you were watching it live. You know what I mean? Because when you're

there's like a different expectation

for spacing and timing

because we're all dealing with the internet lag

between all of us.

Sometimes you do a few different takes of-

Yeah, of a line or something.

Yeah.

But the overall impression that you're left with

from that context is,

oh, that was funny.

It was really fun.

But if I take that and I upload it without editing it,

that context doesn't come across

because when you're listening to something presented as a finished product that was

Like all takes aside, even if we did a beautiful one take through sketch where the

So a lot of the time, the editing, tightening up those gaps and stuff, I think

over-edit it. Yeah. So what we're talking about there is like the top layer of how you

PodCube episode. Like you get together, together you record it. There's like a

created kind of like watching an improv group on stage. Like you kind of capture

the movements and, uh, you know, the emergent themes that come about as a result

Oh, the visual, even though that's not included in the final thing is very fun.

Yeah.

That's it.

Cause this is an audio only show, except for some of the reels you've created, uh,

some of the episodes during the recording, which are just as funny or funnier by the

way.

Yeah.

We're going to figure that out.

The content strategy is, is weird.

It's tough.

It's a lot of work.

Well, I think that the state that we're in audio only as a podcast is still like

listening experience as audio dramas tend to, and that's where you sort of

lean towards with the way you put these together, but I think you've kind of

jumped the zone where video was creeping up and I think this year, 2025 at the

time of recording, everyone's going like nuts for video and they don't really

need to, and the reemergence of audio as a rebellious phase in podcasting is going

to be the thing that emerges, but I hear a hot take coming.

Yeah.

I take issue with that because everyone's been crazy for video since the pivot to

video killed cracked.com in like 2012.

Like this is, this is one of those cyclical things.

And I think it's only because podcasting is still RSS based and decentralized.

I feel like every three years, we're going to alternate between talking about

everyone pivoting to video and then rebelliously just doing audio because this

happened like three times.

So we're still on the surface with it.

Like, like I mentioned, you doing being the improv group, we're going to talk more about

that in a sec, but the idea that video rolls back around or sorry, has emerged as

to rolling back around again.

It's just a, it's a meme.

It's a group think about the approach to things and it's driven by, you know,

people watching other people be successful, at least in podcasting with it.

And they correlate that success with having video on top of YouTube and

TikTok and other video based platforms, incentivizing people to have video so

that they can continue to market their product to people.

You are absolutely right.

It is, it is something that successful shows have because it often requires more

work, or at least, you know, that was kind of what kicked off the cycle.

And then we, yeah, we get into the cycle of like, to be successful, you must have

video because the successful shows have it and it's just, yeah.

Yeah.

But there's like a, there's always a splinter group talking about something.

Uh, I think with podcasting, it's particularly hard to penetrate the walls.

Like the, the demilitarized zone between areas of podcasting are expansive and very

Like with podcasting, there's a phenomenon I'm still trying to find a good name for,

Which is why I find Podcube a really interesting uh prospect as a podcast because

of a podcast they don't think of podcube no not at all not usually what we're doing

guess you know just an interview on audio and or video and uh having a chat about

where i think podcube excels though because the editing you mentioned before, like, you

It is much, much more than that because you create soundscapes for what are essentially

And the amazing thing is that all three of you edit these together sometimes.

Like one of you will take one and one of you will take another.

And yet the quality doesn't seem to change or dip between them.

And I think that shared collective experience of like an imaginarium

as you unpack the scene together kind of allows you to do that

along with the technical skill that we kind of covered earlier on.

So I think it's really great.

I mean, that's kind of emergent from, I guess, just as friends, like the three of

Gosh, I don't know how actionable this would really be for other people.

We just have very like divided strengths and we're really good at just helping each

So for me, it's particularly like technical audio production and stuff.

Tucker is extremely just a genius when it comes to like world building and lore

Jordan, I don't even know where to begin describing jordan the funniest

person i've ever met yeah that's probably it also they're both also phenomenal at

so like yeah we're just really good at teaching each other and and sharing things

occasionally i will come in with like a technical fix if something we had like some

wasn't quite good or something was a little harsh or like well we're always pitching

forth the same thing is when you see us performing live and we like pause the scene

like, wait, your character should say this right now, because that would be funny,

of traditional improv. That same kind of thing happens behind the scenes for like,

if we added this? What if the time travel sequence in the Circle Day episode ended

surrounding farts? And then like, you know, so it's just very much, it's a product

and joy. It's not something that could exist if we weren't having fun making it.

an interesting thing. It's not a show we could force. It just has to stop if we're

make it. Like if we're not able to have fun with it, which is also different from pretty

other show I've worked on. Yes. Because I feel like we've all done an episode where

I need to publish. I'm burnt out. I'm tired, but I need to get something out

I hate that. I don't think that's good. And we like when things are your job and when

of income that becomes a lot more complicated but podcube sits in this weird

couldn't exist that way it needs to be something that is done as a labor of love

work if it wasn't it but the way that you set it up to your benefit is that it's a

for you guys to do what you love doing and creating a thing and And the other thing

and it's a bit hard when you look at the numbers for that to think that that's the

you tend to attract people who are there for what you're giving. You're not going to

Rogan listener who's just been through the entirety of some bloke talking about the

and what it means about the existence of Jesus and suddenly stumbling upon mystical

I mean, they may enjoy it.

I imagine I would probably be that kind of person that would do that.

But the people that are there for PodCube are the ones who are going to stay.

It's funny for people who are more like KPI or metric brains, our audience activation.

So like when we put out a call to action the percentage of our audience that will

participate in that is close to 20 which is insane yeah because typically you look at

or two percent for of like your total audience as like the activated base that

participate in an ad be more likely to pursue this go to your website or whatever

is crazy high not that we ask a lot but like our patreon we have a very small

immediately grew like people are just immediate i'm phrasing this poorly and i

data pulled up because i wasn't super ready and we shouldn't talk too long about this

it is close to a 20 activation rate for surveys for like filling out responses

asked for something and that is i i am floored and honored by it and i think it is

it is like like attracts like like you get back what you put out in some ways.

And I think there's a very specific kind of person who really likes PodCube.

And I, and we only make it for that person.

Yeah.

It's you.

It's me.

It's Jordan.

It's Tucker.

It's Perry.

Yeah.

That's it.

It's for a very specific person and we love it and we make it because we love it.

And I think that comes through so much that people are like, I'm willing to like, oh,

I want to see this website.

I'm excited to see what other stuff is coming from this.

That's how I feel about the things that get me really excited.

Like as a kid, I spent my days taking homestarunner.com URLs, changing.html to.swf

like their flash file and take it apart and play with it.

Like people are always asking like, how does it work?

How is it put together?

Yeah, I've lost the thread a little bit, but we have a really high activation rate.

I can only assume it's because of the fact that it's a labor of love.

But it's the creativity too.

of love. But it's the creativity too.

Like me saying before that you've built a universe that you can kind of build as you

go.

The fact that it can be at anywhere in space or time or place means that you can

a sketch from anywhere.

So if you think it's funny, you don't have to check the law documents to see if you

about a guy who murders geese and is being fired or something.

I think that was one of your early ones, whether that fits.

Because of course it fits.

A meeting about, uh, I'd actually forgotten this until now.

The Little Rubber Men was, uh, one of the, one of the key themes across plenty of

episodes, you know, corporate meetings about the, the, the returns of Little Rubber

What are they?

You don't really explain it.

Well, no, because you're listening into the meeting and everyone at the

meeting knows what they are, right?

So.

Yeah, they turned up.

knows what they are, right?

Yeah, they turned up. A guy rocks up with a tin or a bag of creamed corn

and he's just eating that for some reason.

Specifically an urn.

An urn it was, sorry.

I need to listen more attentively.

Oh gosh.

But yeah, literally anything can happen.

And I think as a creative pursuit for you guys,

the fact that you enjoy working together,

that you work together when it works for you, that it enables your

creativity. You're all in board for the same thing and you have fun together when

a shared vision when it gets to the stage, when you're editing it together to a

soundscaped environment in most cases. All of that together, I think just shows as the

I don't know.

We're going basic here.

Living your best life, you know, like.

So this is like the crux of what I've been thinking about first for, uh, and I think

what I put on the Google form when we were setting this up, people are always like, how

do I get people to watch or like, listen to my thing?

And like, the answer has to be because you are making something you are excited about.

if you are like doing something because you think it fits an audience niche or you think

perceived need is obvious. It does. Like there's lots of YouTubers that I watch who

also. And like, I can tell when they're not enjoying it. I think like we focus far too

on things that don't matter. And what actually matters is that you are going to

You are going to die someday.

And right before that happens, you're going to look back and think, how did I spend my

And like, what, what did that achieve me?

And for me, I think the more time you spend on things you actually care about and

The happier you're going to be that moment before you die, because like, even if you

political daily YouTube talk show, if you hated that and you like thought that that

you rich, you're going to be unhappy even if it makes you money. Like it's stop trying

stop trying to make a podcast and start trying to make art, start trying to make the

to make and use whatever tools and whatever medium you want. Like, I think people are so

outcome focused and this is me too. This is me at me in the future and in the past and

but myself, make good stuff,

make the shit that you actually care about.

I feel like we so often don't,

or we start with something we wanna do

and then we slowly pervert it

into whatever we think the audience expects

or some imaginary need is.

Every time I have done that in my life,

I'm only 31 years old.

And so I've only done this like three or four times

and never at any large scale,

but everything I've ever worked on that felt that way

kind of ended up going poorly.

And everything I've ever done where I felt invested

and excited about like the core concept

and the process of doing it has gone extremely well,

both in terms of like reception

and just like being the person

who is living and doing it, I guess.

Yeah, I can hear the person listening to this

asking themselves, well, what have I been looking at?

Like, I want the outcome.

Why can't I do this? And if they've paused this discussion, had to listen to a couple

PodCube episodes and come back. They're going to be like, who the fuck is this guy

shit? He just made an episode about farts. Well, in fairness, I think Jordan is the

proponent of a lot of fart content. About 90% of the time that there's a fart, it was

it was a Jordan, Jordan Reed idea, which is amazing by the way. Love it.

Um, but like it's, it's a really, it can sometimes be a really long, hard journey

to get to the stage where, like, uh, I guess for lack of a better term privilege.

Of being where you are to sit back and go, Hey, I have been a radio

broadcaster, an audio engineer and technician, programmer, general,

you know, bodge technician stuff that kind of builds to this moment.

I will say, I found often it is the people with the same privilege as me that I

You're 100% right to call that out. I have a ton of experience and knowledge that makes

easier and more possible for me. Plus I'm white. I live in America. I'm a male.

My life has been very easy comparatively, but like,

if we go too far down that road, we'll lose the thread of everything.

Yeah. And there's a whole socioeconomic climate that we could assure as, you know,

the drive to make money is made by people who make a lot of money and then tell

other people how to make money the way that they made it and then more people

tell more people because they made money the same way, but it's the bottom 10%.

And the other 90% lose out and then they get disheartened and trusting that the

audience implicitly and like understands that we, and them are on that same page.

About that. I have found that it's the are on that same page about that.

I have found that it's the people with the same amount of privilege or similar

amounts of privilege as me that are often more distressed or complaining about

like, how do I reach these numbers?

How do I get a bigger audience?

How do I do that?

Whereas like the scrappy younger artist type kiddos without the technology or

the training or the equipment or the money or the budget or anything are the

ones putting out these like cool ratty, weird art things that are getting

attention and doing well on YouTube.

And I, it really comes from a place of authenticity, which has just been this

growing craving that we have societally for authenticity.

Yeah.

Not the synthetic stuff that we see.

Yeah.

Authentic, authentic authenticity, not synthetic authenticity.

You're absolutely right.

Uh, I think people not doing what they want to do is a big

barrier to being successful.

But I think success in podcasting is starting, at least the perception that I

is before it even gets to the audience, where the experience of interviewing has

the connection has been excellent. You can, I guess, repurpose content from the

podcast, a networking connection, collaborative opportunity. There's just, for

business, you can get clients by interviewing them for your podcast. Not as

you know, method, but that's the value that you want to get from the show. And that's

you. Not a million downloads that you see lining up on your podcast host. I mean, it's

how you define success, right? What are you shooting for? Yeah. What is your KPI?

What are your KPIs? The cool thing that you guys do is that because what you do is

are performance to some degree, but what you do is for an audience of yourselves, but

it's for an audience. So it gathers that audience, even though you've had a great

you do as a passion project. Like if you had zero listeners, it probably wouldn't be

same. But again, going to what we talked about before, you attract the people who are

So the audience that are there, they're going to enjoy what you're doing because of

Like it all just kind of synergistically fits together.

That's the sweet spot, right?

Because something interesting just happened in my brain when you said that.

I think that's how most people just say, I just had a thought.

It is made for an audience.

And like our show,

like the value is like the entertainment

and like the escapism

and like the payoff you get

from like when we reference the established lore

that builds up over time,

like whatever.

The value is very much an entertainment value

with this show

as opposed to like any kind of sales funnel type thing.

So looking at it from that lens,

we do make it for an audience,

ostensibly.

It is released for an audience.

What I am thinking when I put it together

is how am I going to make Jordan and Tucker laugh? How am I going to make Brooke and

am I going to make my friends I send this to laugh? Because the idea is just like, in

and this will apply to a broader point, we are making it for each other. It really is

other. And just what happens is like we're sitting around a table giggling about this

people are walking up and we're like, oh,

this is what we're giggling about. And then the people who want to join in sit around

with you. It's sort of the virtual equivalent of like, that's what's happening

is to like community building, providing entertainment value, you should be doing it

for yourself, like first and foremost, because, you know, it's infectious. I think

an artist, gosh, this is going to be a two pronged thing that maybe you'll poke holes

i see a lot of discussion online where people seem to feel like artists job is to

and i feel like an artist's job is to pick up the broken pieces of the world around

rearrange them into ways that make different kind of sense or make different

the role of an artist like the function of an artist in community from like thinking

creations. So fans of, I don't know, Eragon or whatever, there is an Eragon fandom.

and bond over shared interests all the time. Like that is one of the things that

as society is shared interests. And those can be things from hobbies to jobs to

But one of them that is not specific to any other traits besides taste is a shared

or a show. So I think in large part, an artist or any kind of public figure in the

community's role is as a signpost carrier for other people to gather around where

this is the thing. If you like this thing, come stand by me and we can all talk with

about this thing we like. I find that to be just a more apt or a more useful way to

Because instead, if I was standing there going, who wants to laugh? Who wants to see

funny? What do you think is funny? Hey, what's funny right now? I don't know. That's

different energy than standing there laughing and drawing people in.

Yeah. So I think that is a very visual, but very compelling way to describe the kind of

advice that people throw around podcasting circles,

make the thing that you want to make, but also make it for yourself before someone

That advice, it's, I don't think I can re-explain it the way you explained it. It

I think the core, I think what I said was a bit word soupy. The core of what I wanted to

is like, maybe make it for yourself, but also make it for your friend. Like make it

of close friends, make something that you think is really cool that you have to share.

Yeah. Because like, it's really easy to say, you know, be yourself, make it

like these, these really abstracted things. But I think you just focus on what you're

you focus on how it's impacting anybody else, you know? Yeah. Make a thing that

fandom of, you know? And it doesn't mean you have to know the whole thing, like the

of the thing from the outset, because that's something you can get tied up into.

There's a lot of playing to find out what happens.

There's a lot that happens on the road and in, in travel.

You don't have to have a perfect plan or like wait either.

Think less.

Which is a great time to mention that it actually started with

Haberdasters, no Alabaster's Haberdashery.

Yes.

With you and Jordan, right?

The, uh, the first PodCube spinoff came out before PodCube was a podcast.

Makes sense. PodCube is a spinoff of that way more obscure at this point show,

about. We told like a couple of people. We would send episodes here and there. And then

noticing that like I think some people found it because the downloads started

But that was a similar thing where it was just Jordan and me at the time. We would

sketches where he was Alabaster who ran a haberdasher shop in the 1800s. It was

That was our just like framing justification for that show.

And we just made episodes in that haberdashery forever.

And then one day Jordan was like,

what if we did just like a variety show?

And then we ended up coming all the way.

We went full on.

I was like, we were pitching names.

I had like a terrible name I loved called Biscuit Gantry.

I was like trying to pitch like a,

like a second city style improv troop vibe.

And we came all the way back around and landed on PodCube.

So like, it's the best.

Yeah.

I don't think there's anything to extract from that though.

But that was, that's like part of your journey.

Like it, it started and that had very specific constraints that I'd apply to other

who play with constraints for their own podcast as well, that, that either works or

work.

Yours grew from creative stuff, but I think you had three minutes per episode.

Yes.

For The Haberdashery.

Yeah.

The first episode of that show, he sets up the PodCube as it arrives, and you hear him

go through the setup process, and the PodCube suggests 30 minutes, and he just

at it, and the PodCube says, okay, three minutes.

And so now it just records three-minute episodes at random.

That was the premise of that show.

Yeah.

And you timed yourself when you recorded it, and then soundscaped it the same way?

Three minutes and six seconds on the phone timer, and go.

Yep.

But that's like you slowly building, not just just story-wise like you mentioned with

ended up in the podcube universe but also for yourselves recording the episodes it was

you and jordan and three minutes and six seconds and that has grown into whatever

that was uh practice for the skills of of improv which is like i almost i don't you'll

improv is not anywhere in the branding of podcube because improv leaves a bad taste in

People hear improv and they think, oh, you just made it up and didn't put effort in.

And there's a lot of reasons for that. We don't have to get into it. But good improv

good. And I love improv, dude. The art of it. I read Del Close's book ages ago and got

hooked on it. I want to do Heralds. I've structured out a whole podcast format for

is essentially like an expanded Herald. We could talk about that some

other time though. But that was great practice for skill building. You're right.

for me to not say that I have practiced. I have spent hours and hours and hours. I used

in radio as a host. I used to read like five radio ads a day into a microphone, cut

throw music under them. I have a lot of experience. It feels weird to imagine anyone

but if anyone is like, oh man, you, they make it, you seem so easy.

It's practice.

Anything that seems easy is practice.

I see you raising your hand, Matt.

That's crazy.

No, it's not crazy because you've done it.

So I don't have to, like, I, I kind of, I'm the Ben Affleck reverse engineering,

the product that you make so that I can bet more easily put it together and,

you know, do it for myself.

Is that something Ben Affleck does?

A paycheck, I think was the film where he was someone who was paid by businesses to

businesses' products, reverse engineer how they're put together, but I've never seen

Oh, that's funny.

This is one of the things we might get into one day that my memory for movies,

television is so immaculate and connected, but I can't get up and take a shower every

day.

Like that's, it's probably another good example of why we as humans are really, you

someone who has an immense skill.

That is not the entirety or the full story of how they got to where they are.

Which is what you're trying to get at there.

And I think the important thing that anyone, well, the person listening to

this right now should take away, isn't that you're like the goal, like they

shouldn't just go and get a radio job.

No, don't get a radio job, dog.

Stop.

Don't do it.

Not today.

No.

You'll end up very quickly at the full circle where you end up making a podcast, I

That's where a lot of radio is going.

But you can't, like, you can't walk into podcasting, load up those stories by

of Podcube and feel like you're ready to do that kind of thing.

That's why I think, like, you are someone who people should look to knowing what you

can do.

See it as something aspirational, but to take what they want. I don't think the

have at the moment to carbon copy people that we aspire to, to be able to do the

can do is healthy. I really don't think it leads to the fulfillment that you talked

comes about as a result of Podcube as well. It necessarily leads to the product that you

love making and you'll continue to make it regardless of the level of success,

whatever that success is, but also that you are the kind of person who's built to create

product at this time with your skills, with these people that you love hanging out with.

It's okay to bask in the confluence of all those things to create the thing that you

but I don't think it's beneficial for people to look at that and go,

I can do that by doing all these things. It's just, be your own podcaster, create the

you want to make. We can't just listen to this advice and then

completely ignore it by going like you know ctrl c ctrl v i can do it you know no but if

want and like we always seek prescriptive paths right we are always and this is the

encounter the most when i'm working with people on like audio everyone is just says

your compressor what are your compressor settings i can start by being like okay well

depends on like what what are we driving it what what is

driving it what's the input level what kind of a signal is it what do we want to achieve

everything is case by case you don't achieve anything by just following

the real if you want something actionable understand what you're doing from the bottom

up try and break it to the most basic component of what you're looking at if

that you do that you don't understand what it is you don't you can't describe or tell a

what it is that it does or how it works,

learn it, Google it, like dig in.

That feeling you get when you're overwhelmed

by something you don't know goes away.

You can push through that.

And that is like a skill, just like exercising a muscle.

And that is something I don't hear talked about a lot

is overcoming that initial learning resistance.

If there is one skill that I have as a person, it is that,

because I will sit down and hit my head against something until I get it. And I

can do that. I don't think that that is unique to me, but it is uncomfortable until

So like, if you can't, if you encounter something, I'm trying to think of like,

what is an actionable axiom someone can take? I guess if you encounter something and

think you could explain it to a five-year-old, figure it out until you can,

And like, you'll be surprised at all of the connections you draw. The thing I'm most

for in my life is the variety of like career experience I've had in such a short

because I've, the thing that I think is most important is cross-disciplinary

It's so easy to get stuck in a lane. So just understanding the fundamentals, man,

it is. Yep. And to illustrate that, like, I'm not sitting here trying to be you,

secrets to tell other people, but also replicate myself. Like my, my approach to

different that you even came on at the beginning before we started recording and

what you do, Matt. I just can't, I can't do it. Then the thing that I do is probably

in front of interviews and just editing and gradually getting, you know, better and

and improving and continuing to press that in the same way that you press against

learning how, you know, the CL dash two way. I can't remember the name of it now. I

they're trying to flex my name of compressors that I've been to a, everyone

It's, it's a good compressor. Um, it's fine. It's a, it's a dangerous space in

to start talking about plugins, but what they do, I think, cause the people who like

understand it, get it, but then also want to get in the

weeds about it.

Because like, who else do you have to talk to about that?

But then so many people who don't understand it weigh in and it's exhausting.

And I don't, yeah, we don't need to go there.

Yeah, no, they don't need to.

Not for podcasting.

Like it doesn't make sense.

But exactly.

Like you shouldn't seek to imitate anybody else.

But like, I think just going deeper on anything you're into, like learning, just

learn voraciously and be curious. I, I, I, I can't do what you do in the sense of like,

I really struggle with, um, I'm going to call it a context window. Cause I've been

fairly often, not as often as you, but if I had to do what you do, I'd go crazy. I can't

enough context in my brain at one time of like, okay, how does this tie back to like,

when they mentioned this, will the, is this presented does this tie back to like when

the right order for like the listener to follow along? Like I get really caught up in

aspects and like there's all like skills and things that I'm sure anyone could

but I just, yeah, I don't think I could do it the way you do it. It takes me so much

And that's what I was leading into, like to explain my background to getting to

People might look at me the same way that they look at you. Like, oh my God, how is he

How does he get all that stuff together?

Why does his voice sound the way that it does?

Yeah, it's not fair.

No, sometimes it's not fair.

Like sometimes it's an, it's a natural talent, but, um, you know, I was, I've

been in the education system, parents were teachers, so I've got a strong

learning development background and also a performative learning background.

I'm a trained teacher.

So I know how to adapt and formulate information in different ways.and doing that

Like Coffee with a Podcaster was previously solo episodes, now it's interviews because

out that being in concert with other people that I enjoy talking to is the important

But yeah, that swirling space of adapting, holding ideas that have just been said so

without processing them, like pushing the onus on the other person to think more about

that I've just picked out that you said 10 minutes ago that you forgot about that I can

push at you again. I guess I haven't thought about it that way before, but it

the interview as well that I edit. No, that's what I was talking about was the

cutting it down and trying to keep that in mind. I love doing interviews.

I love interviewing people.

That part's fun.

It's the editing that you do that would drive me crazy.

Yeah.

And to, you know, to be perfectly honest, I'm trying to do less of it these days.

So, you know, millions of downloads guys, let's go, let's get sponsors.

Um, but yeah, no, yeah, absolutely spot on, but everybody's background is a

little bit different being aspirational to someone is different than copying them.

But I love the idea of researching, Googling, AI generating ideas, all that

stuff, that, that kind of self push to try and discover instead of having it delivered

to you.

That's the super important part.

Understanding the, like the lowest level moving parts that you can, like for me,

the biggest unlock in audio was when I connected it to electrical engineering, but

wave interactions, like the very basic idea that if you have one wave going positive and

another wave that is going negative at the same time, adding those together cancels

if two waves are added together that move positively at the same time, they add up

simple cancellation and then starting to learn about phase when the same signal

unlocked in my brain as far as understanding like not just how these

flanger is just introducing like a very small delay to create phasing issues which

different frequencies to be sort of filtered based on additive and subtractive

between the two signals like it helped me understand how every effect works it helped

me understand what i was looking at on the waveform graph. When you see like a big

slow wave that is made up of a bunch of tiny high frequency waves, the fundamentals,

fundamentals, fundamentals, like learn what the learn. If you are looking at something

realize, I don't actually know what I'm looking at, learn what it is and you will be

That has been the most, yeah. I just want to beat that drum one more time.

Yeah. But the other question that comes up for me with regards to that particularly,

especially from a creative pursuit is to not be afraid to not waste time,

but spend more time than you expect.

Like I think a lot of people think about creative time as deep work, but they're

And for different people,

creating that space is important for yourself to be able to do it.

But the thing for podcasting, like part of the, for me,

the audio improvement thing was exploring hearing more, unveiling that fog of war on

could see more of what was going on.

But then you eventually arrive at a place where you understand way more than you need

for what you're doing.

But that's okay.

We are too focused on optimizing everything at the expense of learning and being able

to add knowledge that creates that foundational layer that you're talking

The discipline of audio engineering in general is, I would say, something I'm super

but it came from doing something creative. So I guess there's two prongs to what I

the most successful way to learn stuff for yourself. And the first one is, if you can't

explain it to a child, you don't understand it. But you can use Google, use the

You can do it.

You are smart enough and you can figure it out.

Nothing is that complicated.

Everything is just a lot of simple systems on top of each other.

That's what complexity is.

It's all simple stuff just stacked up.

And then the second thing is don't learn this shit in the abstract because it's never

Have a project that you're trying to do because then you have like a goal.

And like that is one way of being, I guess, outcome oriented, but not quite the same.

Just have something you want to do. And then as a byproduct,

you have to learn some skills, but go deeper on that than you might be first

Really try and get what you're doing. It just makes it so much easier.

I'd love for there to be an audio engineering episode that we can go into in a

There's a whole world of it. Yeah. And we've been dancing on the edge of it,

but I think this is, you're right. This is not the time to get deeper into it, but

I do recommend it.

It's very.

But it does give you the excessively strong, natural musculature to flex

your creativity in a way that allows you to realize a vision like Podcube,

like Alabaster's haberdashery, and also we should say like digital folklore.

Um, Perry Carpenter that you mentioned earlier.

Yeah.

That was two seasons of scripted, soundscaped, hour-long episodes with

Which we brought you on to edit partway through because I couldn't do it on top of

And I feel so terrible that I was still on my audio engineering journey at that stage.

And there are some interviews that I could redo for you today that would sound a lot

It was a godsend at the time.

And like, that's what matters you know yeah uh and also matt don't

kid yourself you are not off your audio engineering journey you are never off of it

is changing around us constantly uh like new technologies are emerging yeah there's

lot i'm going to bring you and perry back i think for an episode to talk about ai in the

podcasting because i think the two of you would be incredibly equipped to talk about

can deliver it in a way that people do understand and isn't just like a groupthink,

ick that we get for people who just use it for show notes. People who want to listen to

that you do should listen to PodCube, which has recently come back with a bunch of brand

episodes. They should listen to The FAIK Files with Perry Carpenter and yourself,

And trying to make it understandable for normal folks.

And often with hilarious results, as the most recent GROK AI example showed you.

I got cyberbullied by a robot on the show.

You should check it out.

It was a lot of fun.

It was fun.

And be aspirational, search, be creative, find out more, build your foundations learn

yes and don't be afraid to be a generalist i mean that's another drum that's being

but you know hyper specialization on one thing or the business orientation for

outsource to other people but pay a pittance for it as well that's kind of been

for the last little while too but don't be afraid to learn cool new stuff and create

creative project like Podcube. If something interests you, pursue it and get better at

You'll just be happier. I am at a stage in my life where I feel confident that I can do

want as it pertains to audio, anything. And that is a really nice feeling because it is

to create in that space. Engaging your technical skills and building them just

and you can do it. You don't have to be like a super genius or wicked smart. You can

it. I think that's what I want everyone to feel smarter. I want everyone to feel like

understand stuff because they can, you can, you're not stupid. I hate that. So many

stupid. Anyway, podcasting for happiness, podcast for, yeah, for happiness, podcast

and then go and listen to the pod cube and laugh at some farts. Thank you so much for

Mason. Really appreciate it. And

we'll see you again in another episode. Thanks for letting me rant, Matt. Great,

Thank you.

This conversation only skimmed the surface of what a full in-depth session with Mason

So we'll definitely have him back again. As an aspiring, creative and constantly

audio engineer, he's always teaching me a ton, even if he doesn't know it. If you've

at rethinkingpodcasting.com or head to rethinkingpodcasting.com and send a

via the prompts. If you'd like to work with me to produce and edit your podcast,

or just have a chat about where you're going as a podcaster, head to mbpod.com and

consultation. In the next episode, I'll be musing on an interesting contrarian theory

up online recently, a live internet theory. Struthless on YouTube

brought it to my attention, and I think it's a great prompt for us podcasters to

thinking on what podcast analytics mean to us. Thanks for listening, keep rethinking,

and I'll see you in the next episode.