These episodes are not easy to produce. They take organization, patience and a LOT of time. Thanks to the energized fans of the shows I've produced, picking the moments has been made easier via submissions of moments which gives those fans ownership of the episode. Almost always however, even though a ton of moments have been submitted by fans for inclusion, the episodes still require manual mining on my part to fill in the loose ends. Is the show filled with a bunch of moments from a particular part of the year, leaving another part of the year empty and unnacounted for? Certainly there are great moments within those blank periods. That's when I grab all of the episodes and scan randomly, looking for moments of laughter and odd looks. Those usually signal a great moment to be snapped up for the episode.
I export each moment with ample time before and after the key part to its own file in a folder, naming it after the episode number it was pulled from and a 1-3 word descriptor. This tells me in aggregate which episodes are being included in the best-of and when all moments have been pulled, this makes it much easier to see what parts of the year are missing, if any.
Once they're all grabbed, its simply a matter of laying them all out on a timeline, cutting them down so as to only include the meat of the clip and nothing extra and unnecessary. A best-of isn't succesful if the listener is bored with meaningless ramble in order to get to the nuggets. They want nothing but good stuff. At least, that's how I've always approached my own best-ofs.
It occured to me that I've now produced five years worth of Best-of's. From Buzz Out Loud, to Gadgettes, to Tech News Today, I've spent a good amount of time (and its a labor of love) putting together book-end episodes that, if I've done my job right, act as keep-sakes for the year's worth of episodes. The way I figure: Most people will never go back and re-listen to an episode of Buzz Out Loud from 2008 or re-watch an episode of Tech News Today from January 2011 because the news is quite simply too old and dated. But if I create a magical best-of, they get to revisit the many things they loved about those old episodes with none of the old news to weigh it down.
I present to you a compilation of all of the best-of episodes I've produced in one easy-to-find place! I forgot about a few of these myself. (The Buzz Out Loud "Titles of 2008" episode was particularly difficult to produce!) I hope you enjoy these as much as I still do.
Buzz Out Loud
Best of 2007 (2007)
Best of 2008 (2008)
Best of 2009 (2009)
Gadgettes
The Songs of Gadgettes (2007)
Director's Cut of 2008 V. 1 (2008)
Director's Cut of 2008 V. 2 (2008)
The Web Not-As-Exclusive-Anymore Episode (2009)
The Web Obviously-Not-Exclusive-At-All Episode (2009)
Best of Gadgettes pt. 1 (2010)
Best of Gadgettes pt. 2 (2010)
Tech News Today
Best of 2010 (2010)
Best of 2011 (2011)
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I was invited to take part on the Just Talking podcast a few weeks ago and true to the title of the show, I had an awesome conversation with host Christopher Snider. We discuss my career path from school, to CNET, to TWiT. We also talk about geeky audiophile things like compression rates on MP3s, as well as tips for making your own podcast more engaging to your fan base. Christopher was an excellent interviewer and I'm honored to have been approached for the show, so thanks Christopher!!]]>
Well, I'll tell you all about it in this interview! I spill the beans on my education leading up to my opportunity at CNET, my transition and time spent at TWiT, my encounter with the Secret Service as a 7th grader, being a father, and a whole host of other stuff.
Dr. Ken Tangen was gracious enough to ask me to take part in a project of his where he's compiling the stories of people from all walks of life. If you've ever wondered what it's like to be a cop, a tech writer (Iyaz Akhtar), a fire breathing magician (Brian Brushwood) among many others (and more published every week), then these audio interviews should give you an idea. The interview was smooth and Ken was super easy to talk to. Check it out!
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Fast-forward six years and I am thrilled with the fruits of my labor. After a number of unpaid internships, I've risen from production intern for ZDNet, to Podcast Producer for CNET TV, to one of the leads around the creation of CNET Live. I've also created a close rapport with the fans of CNET that make it possible for me to make a living doing this stuff. It has been a satisfying experience throughout and it all stems from loving what I do.
Jason Howell: Coming to TWiT!Opportunity came knocking once again by way of Leo Laporte's TWiT network. I am proud to announce that, effective Monday, September 27, I will become a member of the highly regarded TWiT-iverse, acting as Producer for my longtime Buzz Out Loud cohort, Tom Merritt. If I were Yoda, you'd probably hear me say something like "Thrilled, I am." Thankfully, I am not Yoda. I'm much taller. I am, nontheless, thrilled!
I am absolutely confident in my ability to produce top-notch quality content for TWiT. I know how well Tom and I work as a team, and I plan on using our podcast history together as a launchpad for even better things going forward. It's an opportunity that I quite simply can't pass up, and I'm flattered that Leo and company have chosen me to help with this effort.
This news takes nothing away from the entire gang at CNET, to whom I owe so many thanks. I've been awarded numerous opportunities and entrusted with much responsibility over the years. Everyone at CNET TV has been supportive of my development as a Producer of all things podcast, and to say that I've learned countless lessons from you (you all know who you are) would be a complete understatement. I will really miss working with you guys on a daily basis. A lot.
Me too, Yoda.But, you know another thing they say, right? When one door closes, another opens. After more than five years at CNET, I'm stepping through that door to face a new set of challenges with TWiT, and I look forward to seeing you all on the other side.
You can purchase this EP at Beatport.]]>
As with every blog that gets redesigned, I'll type the obligatory "I intend on writing more" phrase. I plan to continue the focus of my writings on my pursuits with music production, but I hope to also expand on that a bit and try out some new ideas.
One idea I've had would be posting Twitter response streams around questions I've asked in my feed. A lot of times, I will use my Twitter account to get a broad spectrum of opinions and ideas from the folks that follow me there. Soon after, I end up with a bunch of other people tweeting "Hey, if you find out the answer, please share it with us." The only problem is, those answers are often spread across 15-20 different replies, so sharing those answers in a nice and easy thread can be pretty difficult. Why not use my blog to post those threaded answers? Huh? No really... that's a question and I'm waiting, arms folded, for you to answer!
I'm also seriously considering creating a portion of the site dedicated to Boise punk of the 90's. You might ask yourself "Really, why?" to which I'd answer "cause there might actually be a good number of fellow Boise punk rawkers that would appreciate it!" Basically, I'm thinking about reaching out to all the bands that played at venues like the Crazy Horse back in the 90's to get any recordings they might have, some bands photos, and a list of the members, and create an index of sorts. For those who were a part of that scene, they'd experience a walk down memory lane. For those who had no idea that Boise, Idaho was big enough to have any type of a punk scene, they'd learn about a small slice of American culture. How's that for putting lipstick on a pig?
As for now, however, I've expanded the Music section to include a wider range of my own musical endeavors. I intend to add even more projects from my music-filled past as well. I am sitting on mountains of digitized 4-track tapes so I figure, why not make the best of them public. It's (more or less) easily done! Right now, I host most of the albums I've already posted to the music section on a service called Bandcamp that I absolutely adore. (I wouldn't mind posting a review of that service here in the near future as well.)
That's it! I hope you enjoy, and check back for more free music! Now, get back to work. Your boss is watching you read this.
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Yellowgold is the name of a solo project I began way back in 1992. My buddy John Kuehne and I were playing a lot of music together, and both of us individually picked up a Tascam 4-track tape recorder. From there, we amassed a huge collection of master tapes filled with collaborative music as well as our own solo projects.
Each of us named our solo projects (his was The Fabulous Medicine Men) and we even went as far as to give them fictional histories and discographies, which we later went through and filled like requests. To this day, I've never finished the number of "albums" listed in Yellowgold's fictional discography. For the record, this album wasn't actually on that list either.
The Mellower began around two years ago when I purchased a new acoustic Ibanez guitar. If you are interested in spurring your creativity, buy new equipment! Works every time.
Then, over the course of the next few years, I'd record my own jam sessions to mini-disc. Later I'd sit down with the jam sessions, pick out the gems, and save them to audio files on my computer. This became my idea bank for The Mellower.
Anytime I felt inspired to produce a new track in Pro Tools, I'd pull open my idea bank and thumb through the ideas (of which there ended up being many!) If something caught my ear, I'd begin on that project. I tweaked these songs continuously over the course of the last eight months. I'd burn the playlist to CD anytime I had a lot of chores to run to get a sense of the current state of all songs. Also, I'd move the most recent playlist to my iPod Nano before going on a big trip with airplane time in order to listen in that noisy environment, writing notes about things that struck me during each listen. Then I'd incorporate those changes when I made it back home. I did this at least six times for The Mellower. I could definitely say that I am sick of listening to this album!
But I am extremely happy with the final result. At a certain point, you just have to pull the trigger when it comes to releasing something like this... because you can be too much of a perfectionist and never think it's "ready."
I used Bandcamp.com to host the album. Brent Kelley, a good friend and ex-drummer of Freak in a Jar, used it to distribute his own music, Laengthengurthe, and I was blown away at how clean the site is, and the amazing download options given to the listener. They make it easy to set up links to your Paypal account in the case that someone wants to give you a few dollars for your music (and people have in the case of The Mellower! Totally unexpected, but pretty awesome to say the least.)
Now, to move on to other projects. Does it ever end? Thankfully, NEVER! ;)
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