Adobe Audition Podcast – Cliff Ravenscraft (transcribed by Sonix)
Mike Russell: Hey I'm Mike Russell from music radio creative. And welcome to the Adobe Audition podcast honoring 25 years of Adobe Audition in this series of 25 episodes. I will interview Pouya uses of this awesome audio editing software we'll reminisce back to the cool that it produce through the introduction of multi-track editing and bring you right up to date with Adobe Audition CC and features like the essential sound panel. This show is brought to you by the awesome audio gear giveaway if you'd like the chance to win my perfect Oreo creative studio setup. Head over to MRC dot fm slash win and enter now. There'll be many prize draws every month with a final gig giveaway taking place at the end of September. That's MRC dos FM slash w i n for a chance to win. Good luck. Sleep. My guest today is Cliff Ravenscroft a business and life coach Cliff mentors coaches consultants and thought leaders through the transition from the unfulfilling day job to their own responsible and profitable online business so that they can live the life of their dreams and do the work that they feel most called to do in this world. On top of that cliff is also coached thousands of people around the world. How to podcast in particular using Adobe Audition. Cliff welcome to the show
Cliff Ravenscraft: Mike thank you so much for having me on. It is an honor
Mike Russell: So it feels like it's always a bit of a setup question to ask you this considering I just said that you have mental. Thousands of people in the past 2 podcast using this specific piece of software but how you self are you using Adobe Audition in your role as a business mentor.
Cliff Ravenscraft: Well obviously I'm still podcasting these days. I have transitioned away from being a podcast coach and consultant. But as you said I have been podcasting since December 2005 and I have personally trained over 38 thousand people how to podcast in the last 12 years of my life and all of those people I taught how to podcast using Adobe Audition. So it makes a lot of sense that I'm still using Adobe auditioned for my own podcast. The cliff Ravenscroft show which I use to promote my business to to share content with the world that demonstrates the type of value that I can bring to them through the products and services that I have. So yeah I use Adobe Audition in my role as a business mentor today in the production of my own audio podcasts. I also facilitate Mastermind groups and a lot of one on one coaching and mentoring sessions and I use a service called Zoom and those zoom calls are automatically recorded on their end and if I forget to hit the record button on my own recorder here in the studio I'll sometimes will download the audio version that zoom records which I think it's em4 a file or something like that something that's not as common but everyone would recognize. So what I'll do is I'll take that file from Adobe or from zoom. Open it up and Adobe Audition real quick and then just save it out as an MP 3 file.
Mike Russell: That's really cool so obviously with the amount of content you continue to create today. As a business mentor and life coach you are using Adobe Audition for the audio side. But obviously I've seen from your Yule blogs and other stuff that you're putting it online. You are using quite a lot of the creative Clowe package there so you got you got premie approach going on. Probably some after effects as well for the motion graphics some bits like that but your your primary purpose now is to help people transition. Probably sitting in a day job in a cubicle looking to get outside of that and create something online that can allow them to live the life of their dreams so I'm curious over all the years that you'd be making this transition Cliff and you've received advice you've got some fantastic mentors. If you had to give me one piece of life advice that could sum it up that could say you could say this is something that will really help. What are some of the best sort of life advice that you've received.
Cliff Ravenscraft: There is a tie for two different things in my mind. The first one is understanding that everything that we have as a result in our life we are today the sum of our decisions and understanding that every decision we make is based upon what we believe to be true. And I think the most valuable piece of advice that I've ever been given is to take time to understand what it is do what what do we actually believe about sales what do we believe about money what do we think what are we believe about relationships and how those ought to be to understand. Take time to understand what do we believe and then evaluate how did we come how did we come around to believing those things because a lot of people have a lot of different beliefs about money a lot of people have a lot of different beliefs about faith and God in every other area of life. Not everybody believes the same thing so the question is not only what do I believe but man how did I come to actually adopt that belief. And more importantly to take time after you've evaluated that say hey is it possible that I need to change that belief to achieve the desired outcome that I want in life. So that's that's the first piece of advice. The second one is I actually discovered that it is possible to learn how to control your own emotional state. So how you respond to any given stimuli or circumstance in life. And I used to remember this whole scripture of Be joyful always and all good and all things give thanks. I remember thinking that is like but there are some times I just don't want to be thankful. But I've actually learned how to be in control of my own emotional state and that is radically though those two things understanding what my beliefs are how I came to believe them and understand that I can actually change those beliefs and also the fact that I have full control over my emotional state at any given moment in time. Those two things have radically altered my life
Mike Russell: So yeah I like the understanding what you believe and how you came to believe that. So how can you can you go a little bit deeper into that how can you go about changing that.
Cliff Ravenscraft: Yeah I'll give you a perfect example of this. So Mike as a coach and consult him. Years ago I was working with people one on one and I remember at the time I was charging 150 dollars an hour which by the way I believed was a lot of money at the time. And I I kind of felt a little weird because you know I I lived a lifetime as an employee and an hourly rate back in the day working as an employee. You don't make 150 dollars an hour as an employee and not most positions that I had been in my in my adult life. Going all the way up to I guess my early thirties right. So here I am charging 150 dollars an hour and I'm doing work that I love. I kind of feel like I should be paying these people to be on a call with me because I'm actually doing what I most love to do in this world. And it's weird actually getting so I had this belief that number one you should you should only get paid for doing things you hate. And the more you hated something the more you should get paid to do it. And here I left a soul sucking career and I'm doing what I love and I'm getting paid you know five six times as much per hour. That was crazy. And so it took a while to understand that belief system. But here's a really interesting one and that is that I used to self sabotage myself so that so that when somebody hired me there's this one time somebody hired me for two hours a consulting plus they bought a big huge equipment package.
Cliff Ravenscraft: Total profit on this one client was six hundred dollars. And this person had everything all set up perfectly. And a couple of weeks later actually a couple of months later I get an email saying Hey Cliff I'm having some static issue on my J.K. audio broadcast host with the telephone hybrid device. And I said Well have you tried contacting cord. You know I told you there was a little bit is that he has no I can't even hear the person. And I said Well you know I'm currently booked up for two weeks. But if you want I can put you on my list. And he says absolutely put me on your list as soon as I can talk to you. That be great. And I emailed him and said you know you could get advice for free from the support over it. Jake audio it goes if it's OK with you Cliff I'd rather work with you. Well two weeks went by. Finally it comes time for the call and he basically is on the call five minutes early we had a conference call set up and so I dialed in five minutes before the call starts and we're on the phone together. I get over I get a studio line I call him from my cell phone and I hear the static noise and I'm like oh.
Cliff Ravenscraft: And he's like what. And I'm like I know Zach. I said when you went out of tech he told me he went out of town and when he came back from being out of town that's when this started happening and he thought somebody maybe in the family had you know mixed some knobs or something like that I said wouldn't you went out of town is there any chance that your electric went out. He said Yeah it is. You know when I came back I had to reset all the clocks and I said there I said do me a favor take your power cord from the back of the unit unplug it and plug it back in. And he did that and I Dalgetty him up and boom instantly it worked. And that was it. So literally it's it was less than five minutes I solve this problem. Right now he's he's ready to pay me another 150 dollars. And he's like hey thinks Clo. Thanks so much. Send me the invoice and I'm like I can't send you an invoice for this. And he's like What are you talking about. He says there's no way I can send you an inquiry. I can't do this in good conscience. And he's like tell me why. And I say well because you're paying for an hour of my time. Number one that's another belief system that I had. I had this belief that people were paying me for an hour of my time.
Cliff Ravenscraft: I've since changed I understand people are never paying me for an hour of my time. They're paying for a solution to a problem. I gave him this solution to the problem. But in my mind I believed he was paying me for an hour of my time. I didn't even have. It took me less than five minutes. And I felt like this is something I should have asked before because I soon as I heard the sound I knew it because I've heard that before and it happens every time after there's a power outage when the power comes on it surges and causes a crossover inside of the unit. I should have known that. And so I the guy begged me to send him an invoice and I told him No don't worry about it. And then later about two or three weeks later I read this book that talked about self sabotage and where that came from and it says you need to go back to your earliest times in your memory and say it's about money and what is it that you think about money. And it was funny because I was the first time I ever went back and said What's my earliest memory of money. And at the time I have an earlier memory now. But at that time I remembered a time when I desperately let's just say maybe 9 10 maybe. No maybe even 13 years old at 13 years old. I wanted a moped more than anything and my mom and dad at the time were they were struggling financially right.
Cliff Ravenscraft: So my dad my mom desperately wanted me to have this moped and she decided that any change at the end of the day that her and my dad had they'd put into this glass jar. And it's like this. This isn't just like your pennies. Right. This is like quarters dimes nickels. It's got it's got half dollars and this is I'm from the 70s right. So it has silver dollars and it. I mean this thing was filling up big huge heavy jar. Now my mom and dad have no clue that I have this memory because I was in the hall one day and my mom and dad were in the kitchen having a fight about money. And I did not. I literally what my entire lifetime forgetting that this ever happened until the day I read this book and it says Why do you think what you think about or why do you believe what you believe about money. And I remembered that I closed my eyes and I could literally hear my mom and dad fighting in the kitchen. And I remember my mom picking up the glass jar and throwing it across the room and hearing it the glass shatter and the change just going everywhere. And from that point in time I realized that I had this belief that having any thing any money more than what's necessary to pay the bills and have it and wanting financial wealth or wanting anything like that's unnecessary such as a moped wanting things for yourself or receiving money that you didn't work hard for all these other things.
Cliff Ravenscraft: I had this belief that that leads to problems it leads to hurt. It leads to pain. I associated basically receiving money is a painful hurtful thing. It's like it's hurting other people. And I never realized I believed that until I evaluate it and then I'm like wait a second. Now here I am I at the time I'm probably late third in my late 30s and I'm I'm evaluating this is like OK now I understand what I believe about money or at least some of the things that I believe about money. Now I understand where some of those beliefs just automatically became associated in my mind. And now I ask myself What is it really true. And I'm like No I mean I can see as a little kid I how I could think those things. But here I've gone my entire life thinking these things without even know why I think then why I believed them. And so that's example what I'm talking about and as a result of as a result of reading this book by the way it was called Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by t Harv Eker and once I read this book I will tell you right now I absolutely love money. I have no problem charging anyone for the services that I provided and radically transformed my life and every area
Mike Russell: That's amazing. I really like that those two stories that the second story of the moment in your childhood where the Shatterer. I love the shattering of the glass jar literally was shattering and changing your belief about money at that point. And then there were the previous stories held later on when you get a coaching client. You were coming to terms with the just the idea of challenging for advice that seemed to you quite quite simplistic. So it's amazing so throughout your life you've overcome a lot of challenges a lot of fears and beliefs about not only money but but lots of other things as well. You've set up an online business that is obviously in the past helped to coach thousands tens of thousands of people to podcasts. And this year I know in September you're organizing your first event so you're no stranger to challenges and I like your room. You have all your wallpaper. I don't need easy I just need worth it. So tell me more about those challenges and perhaps you could give us an example of a really challenging project you've worked on
Cliff Ravenscraft: Well I'm always working on some new challenge. So you talked about the fact that I left my career in insurance or we briefly covered the fact that I left this career in insurance after 12 years and pursued this business of teaching people how to podcast is how I initially started and that was the biggest challenge of my life trying to figure out how do I wrap my mind around business actually owning a business. I lived a lifetime as an employee. That was a major challenge then then it's becoming a public speaker. You know I've done all this stuff behind a microphone and I can speak into a microphone comfortably after doing it. Thousands and thousands of times but had this desire to become a public speaker for some reason I wanted to get out there and share my message with audiences. And I just was terrified to get up on the stage I always I was like a miserable train wreck for the first five to 10 minutes. Every time I stood in front of an audience. Now the thing is five to 10 minutes into any public speaking that I would do. I like completely lost all of that nervousness and I got into a flow. And by the end of the talk all I could think of is Oh my gosh when can I speak again. You know but but there was so much time in between those that I kind of lost that that confidence if you will.
Cliff Ravenscraft: And so that was a struggle for me. By the way I learned how to get rid of that struggle. I realized the reason why I struggled with the first five to 10 minutes of every talk is because the focus was on me. And as soon as I learned that for me to be a successful speaker I can no longer get on the stage and say to myself I hope that I impressed these people with what I know or with who I am. I hope that I look good. I hope people don't judge me for this or whatever. And as soon as I got out of that and decided that every single time I get on stage it has nothing to do with me. The question is. Am I actually going to be able to share a message that's going to benefit their lives. It's all focused on them. And ever since then I've never been nervous to start a talk. Now I've still had a little bit nerves that lead up to a talk but I've never got on a stage and like fumbled over the first five to 10 minutes because I was terrified of whether or not I was going to say the right thing or or do something to impress somebody right out of the gate. So that was a challenge.
Cliff Ravenscraft: And of course you know I'm now I'm doing my own live events. But one of the most challenging projects that I've been working on since 2000 January 2009 is building the physical body of my dreams. So I've been I've been going through a process of this for years and I'm now closer to reaching that goal than I ever have before. But it's a challenging process process because it's physically you've got so much going on but you also have mentally so many things to work on as well. But here's the deal as soon as soon as I am today running my own business. It's a piece of cake today. Getting on a stage. It's. It's a no brainer for me. In fact it's one of the things that I love to do the most and I am and I'm actually going to be pursuing it in bigger ways I hope to do Stoke stadium events but end today working out. Going to the gym. It's so easy for me. Yesterday I did a 63 mile or 100 meter Mike bike ride yesterday for five and a half hours on my bike. So for me working out and building the physical but it's becoming less and less of a challenge. So I'm always looking for bigger challenges something new to tackle some new area of life to fix and take them to the next level
Mike Russell: Wow. And from what you've just said it's not just business but is everything about your life so developing your personal skills and the body of your dreams. So obviously now I'm guessing you have more freedom to pursue all of those dreams than you would have done in your job in insurance right.
Cliff Ravenscraft: Oh yeah. Gosh. I actually have built my business. Now the thing is as I said if I share this statement it I'm I'm I'm I hesitate to share this statement but I've built my business it is take me. Gosh it's I left my career in insurance. January 2008. So it's been 10 years but ten years later. By the way the first year of my business I work 14 hours a day seven days a week for the first nine months without taking a single day off which was terrible. And not to mention the fact that it was financially miserable. But today I have a business that quite frankly I know what my minimum amount of income is that my business needs to generate each month. And I now generate that income with two meetings per month one 90 minute meeting in the morning on Wednesday mornings and one 90 minute meeting on Wednesday evenings and I literally can take every Wednesday afternoon completely off which I do I take that every Wednesday I go out to lunch for hours with my wife every week. That's a standing lunch date. And then if I want to I could take every Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday and Tuesday off but I don't because I love what I do and there's other things I like to do. But yeah I have a lot more free time you could say that
Mike Russell: That's fantastic. Wow. I love that that Wednesday lunch day with the wife that goes on for hours and hours and hours. So I guess you place great importance not only on balancing and maintaining your business interests but also your whole family life and your health as well.
Cliff Ravenscraft: Yeah. In fact it used to be that I saw my business as the primary focus and primary goal of how I'd define what success is for myself because I felt like my number one priority in life is to make sure that financially I'm providing for my family. But the reality is for the first several years of my business it was all focused on providing for them financially. But here I was never there emotionally. You know there wasn't a lot of quality time. I just I just worked and worked and work. Now the thing is I worked hard and I I became extremely successful in my business and it became somewhat of an envy of a lot of people around me. But the reality is my personal life was not great. Now thankfully my marriage was wonderful but my my parenting my relationship with my kids was suffering greatly and my physical body was absolutely out of control. So much so that in January 2009 after my first year doing business I ended up in the hospital and almost died. I had gotten to the place where I weighed nearly 300 pounds I weighed 272 pounds when I was in the hospital today. I weigh 192 and I'm on my way down to 180 but yeah. So the reality is is that it is extremely important to me today my business is no longer my primary focus. In fact my primary focus as this is I want to what's most important to me is I want my physical body to be in excellent health. And number two I want to be an excellent husband. And number three I want to be an excellent father. And number four if I think I'm still keeping the numbers right I want to be an excellent friend and serve all those people around me. And I want to live. I want to do the things I feel most called to do in this world. And it's I actually now see my business as the I see my business as a means of serving all of those other things in my life. But all of those other things are way more important than my business.
Mike Russell: That's good. So we've already had a look back at some of your challenges and how you've got to where you want to die but of course there's always something else to do. There's always something to aspire to and of course to stay inspired about so. Have you got any cool projects that you are looking forward to working on perhaps even something you haven't told anyone about yet something you'd really like to do in the future.
Cliff Ravenscraft: So Mike that's the problem with me is that I tend to share everything. Well I can't think of anything that I've thought to myself that I can actually talk to somebody about whether it be my wife or my mastermind group but quite frankly there's very little that goes through my mind that I haven't actually put out in an audio podcast a Facebook Livestream or of log on YouTube so that some of the some of the cool things that I'm working on as I'm working towards the goal of actually doing stadium events I actually want to do. Tony Robbins style stadium events where anywhere between 10000 to 15000 people at a time actually come to events that I host so that their lives will be radically transformed as a result of the information that they receive at these events the insights the motivation the education that they get there. So stadium events is one big thing. Another cool dream of mine and I actually spoke at your conference New Media Europe and shared this in my opening keynote. But one of my goals is to be on the front cover of Men's Fitness magazine with a totally ripped body. So that's going to happen one day and then another. Another cool thing. And it just seems materialistic and it probably is. But I will only be able to achieve this if I've added so much value to people's lives that they just consistently throw certificates of appreciation at me which by the way certificates of appreciation is what I call money. But just one crazy goal that I have is I think I'd like to build a castle my own castle on the South Island of New Zealand.
Mike Russell: Wow that's amazing. So how do you how do you keep track of these are these cool dreams and these visions. Do you have any. Are you a visual person. Maybe I'm guessing you're an auditory kind of person. Do you keep any vision boards or anything anything practical that you do to to keep a tab on these really cool projects you want to work on.
Cliff Ravenscraft: So I was doing. I was doing a one on one mentoring session. I have this package where somebody can pay seven thousand five hundred dollars and they come to my studio and spend an entire eight hour day of mentoring with me. And so I had this client his name is Chris Nelson. And he comes and spends this day and we got a lunch together so we're we're driving to lunch and I'm driving my wife's Honda Pilot because I don't own my own car. My you know my kids took the car that I used to have and even that is a 2003 Toyota Avalon. So I'm I'm just not a car guy right. I work from home. Why do I need a car. And in this conversation I'm saying you know I'm at the place now where I you know I can afford to go out and get a new car. But quite frankly if Stephany's out the kids have the car the other car I just pick up manouver and just go wherever I need to go. I'm fine with you guys really so you don't have a dream car. And it was the first time I'm like huh. Dream car. I said OK. There are two cars that I think would be really cool to own. I guess one would be a Tesla. That would be cool but that just seems so incredibly impractical to me. I mean the amount of cost right now for a Tesla is just so high and the amount of time that I would use that car is so low that I probably would do more damage to the lack of use of that car and its battery and all that other stuff that it just that just seems impractical I said but I guess if I have a dream car I do have a dream car and it's going to sound crazy but my dream car would be a early 70s Volkswagen beetle bug and he said really why I said I don't know.
Cliff Ravenscraft: I just. I've always been nostalgic for these early Volkswagen Beetles any time I ever saw one on the side of the road for sale I'd always stop and look at it you know. But they've all kind of been you know decrepit and falling apart. So you know if I had one I would want one that is like in really good very almost like new restored condition. I would want one that would be a great engine and all this other stuff. And I said Yeah eight years. Have you ever looked and see how much they cost. I said yeah there's somewhere between 7000 to twelve or thirteen thousand dollars fully restored. It's interesting. And then the conversation moved on to some other things right. So about a week and a half later after he was here I get this package in the mail and it's this little dye cast car. It is a war. It is a 1973 Volkswagen beetle bug. It is a it's a metal dye cast car. The doors open the bonnet in the front opens and if you turn it upside down it is it is a 1 24th scale of the actual car.
Cliff Ravenscraft: And so he bought this for me and he put a little note in the car and he says Cliff thank you so much for the day that we spent together. And your investment in me and helping my dreams come true. I hope you enjoy this gift. And it's that it gets you one step closer to realizing your dream. And I guess I didn't even think about that as as my car was my dream. And the funny thing is I had just like I had just earned in one day in one day Chris Nelson paid me the amount of money that it would cost to just go out and buy that car. So this car this little metal toy Embu which by the way I'm holding it my hands it's just sitting here on my desk every single day. And as a result of it sitting on my desk I find myself asking wonder what life would be like if I actually owned a 1970s Volkswagen Beetle. And so that got me to go start searching you know is are there any available within the you know a 50 to 100 mile radius of my home. Next thing you know I find what I find a couple of listings on Facebook and their market place on my phone. And then I found Abigail. Now Abigail is the name of my car that sits in the draw in my parking element in my garage. And what happened was I found this 1974 Volkswagen beetle that is a beautiful gorgeous canary yellow super high gloss paint job fully restored Volkswagen Beetle by the way the engine is the original engine in the car with only 1500 miles on it and it note the odometer did not turn over.
Cliff Ravenscraft: So this car has been sitting. Somebody bought it fully restored it and then turned it into a show car. It came from Texas. It was available. It was for sale for nine thousand five hundred dollars. I like all my gosh I have to have this. And I never even thought about it. If this car wasn't sitting here on my desk every day but because it was sitting at my desk I was on the look out. It kind of a woke in that dream inside of me. And then next thing you know I'm over at the car dealership picking up this car and now it sits in my car or in my garage. And I as I love it I drive it all the time. It is. It is the best running Volkswagen Beetle I've ever seen. And I am I literally have my dream car parked inside of my dream home and I live the dream. Every time I get an ad it's called Abigale because Abigale if you look up the meanings of names Abigail stands for the father's Joy. And so I'm a I'm a believing kind of guy you know I'm one of those Christian dudes. So every time I get inside of my car I feel the father's Joy. I feel like God is just smiling because he's like See I want to give you great gifts.
Mike Russell: I love that I love I love you your passion and the story of how I came to be is just stunning so thinking thinking about that and thinking particularly now about your passion for audio because there's as far back as I can remember suddenly my experience if you Cliff. You've been an audio guy you've been about getting good sounding Orio and making the best sound that you can. So I'm imagining this must have gone back to your childhood. You must have had an experience with Orio at some point. Maybe it was cassette tapes. Maybe it was vinyl maybe it was something else some kind of toile contraption or something completely different maybe just being out in nature. Curious to hear what it is for you that moment in your childhood where you heard something happening with Oreo and it just made you think this is something I want to pursue in life. What was that for you back to the interview in a moment but if you want to in my perfect Orio creative set up head over to MRC Goertz FM slash when
Cliff Ravenscraft: It goes way back. I have so many connections to audio as a child. I remember my very first little tiny record player one of those little 45 rpm record players and I used to play the little Peter Pan story album and listen to it read to me the story over and over again as I was you know what it was. It would play a tone. Every time you're supposed to turn the page I remember that I remember the first time I had a cassette deck and I of course I loved listening to music on cassettes but not only do I remember that but I remember the first time I had one where I could press the little buttons the two buttons together and I could record I actually record my own voice. And I found that if I took up all piece of paper and stuck it into one of the holes on one of these cassettes I figured I could actually record onto cassettes because I didn't have any blank ones but I learned that I could do this and I'm like oh my gosh. So I'm recording over all my dad's you know. Really. You know Neil Young and all of that. But I would record my own little messages and my favorite.
Cliff Ravenscraft: There are two memories that really stick out to me as a kid. Number one I remember the first time I heard my own voice on the radio. So in the radio stations they would have those call ins. You could actually call in and request a song. And when you called in they would actually answer the phone and you would talk to the deejay. And I remember thinking oh my guys I'm talking to a celebrity. And I remember them asking me so what song do you want to say yeah I want to play this song and I want to dedicate it to so and so and it was always some girl that I had a crush on or whatever but they would always tape delayed. So what happened is you'd wait about 15 minutes and then Ulas you're listening to the radio and then you hear your own voice and that conversation that you had and it's like oh my gosh my voice is on the radio and people at the school the next day oh my gosh I heard you on the radio last night and like yeah that was me. So cool. And then the other the other thing. DC How lit up I get about hearing my voice out through the world.
Cliff Ravenscraft: So so here's the other one and I should probably shouldn't say this but maybe the statute of limitations are are over now but when I was little Mike I was probably 7 or 8 years old at this time. My mom had purchased a CB radio and it was what it was called a base station. So it wasn't one you put in your car but it was a base station realistic Tandie you know TR somethin 20. I can't remember what it was but it was a CB radio and I used to get on the CB and I would talk to the truckers that were going by on the expressway but there was also I mean this was in the late 70s early 80s very early 80s. And there there was this movement of other people like young adults and stuff like that. They also had radio CB radios and we would talk to each other. And I had my own very illegal radio show and I would hosted every Tuesday night on Channel. I think it was on channel 3 and I would take over a channel 3 on the citizens band radio and completely jam up that signal for an entire 90 minutes every Tuesday night.
Mike Russell: It's fantastic. I love that. That's amazing. So yeah going back to the being already a calling into radio Radio request shows and hearing your voice back on the radio to getting a transmitter actually. It reminds me of a similar thing FM tiny little micro FM transmitters were available in the UK back in my childhood. Again illegal to use but Ancell like so you could broadcast down your street a little radio station and that is just so so cool. So some really cool experiences with audio I had no doubt cliff that you'd have some really good stories so that gets me to thinking then to ask you this question. Obviously you grew up on radio and being on the radio and might you say back then it was a big thing a big deal because everyone was listening to the radio. I also like the fact that you were you were recording podcasts on tapes and kind of hacking about with audio gear to get its records. Even before podcasting was a thing. So let's let's talk about music because obviously you went on the radio requested music. So I'm interested and I've heard your wife Stephanie talk about this before being a bit of an ED SHEERAN FAN BUT what music really gets Cliff Ravenscroft in the zone do you ever do you play music when you were working or would you like to keep things nice quiet and focus. How do you work with music. Give us some of your favorite tracks and artists I'm curious to ask you that.
Cliff Ravenscraft: Well I'm working. I actually learned I discovered from a study published by this company called Focus Atwill which you can find at focus that will not come. But I found that when you're working you should not listen to music that you like because you actually are distracted by it because you actually like the song and you'll find you subconsciously are humming along to singing along with it. It's actually distracting you from the work that you're doing but focus that will has it's it's actually using neuroscience and what they've learned about how the brain works and they've created music tracks that you can listen to while your work that will hypnotize your I can't remember with the whatever part of the back of your brain that or does the fight or flight instinct. So basically it's always when you're looking like for example one of the things that I've learned. Of course I still don't do this. If you are if you have an office you want to you want at your desk to face that when you're working on your computer the the door to your office should be visibly visible in front of you. Otherwise my desk is not like this so right now I'm actually facing my computer. I'm talking into my microphone but the door into my office is behind my back which means that at any moment in time any of my children could slowly open the door without making a sound they could tip top tip toe right up behind me and then like scare me out of nowhere.
Cliff Ravenscraft: Right. So as a result of that your are unconscious our subconscious mind is consistently always scanning the periphery. So therefore we're consistently distracted by the fact that there's potential danger from a door that people could break into behind us. And what happens is a focus that will actually has music that is designed to hypnotize just that part of the brain and it will completely take you completely shut down the fact that anything behind you could happen and it is set up to where you could do it for any amount of time but you could set it for 20 minutes 30 minutes 90 minutes. But I put this thing on for 90 minutes and at the end of whatever time you set it I'll play this music for the amount of time and then it dings and it'll stop the music and I will tell you my. There are times when I can set this thing for 90 minutes and start working with this music just playing in the background and the 90 minutes will be up and it'll ding and I swear I just been working for about three minutes. That's it. But I had just worked for 90 minutes. And not only that but during that 90 minutes I just did more in those 90 minutes than I would normally do on an eight hour work day.
Mike Russell: I need to look into that focus. Well is it a paid subscription. How does that work.
Cliff Ravenscraft: It is. It is if it is a paid subscription by the way if anybody's interested mindset answer man dot com slash focus that will is my affiliate link. I get a commission if you end up using it. But even if you don't use my affiliate link at mindset answer Match.com slash focus that will you just go to focus that will dotcom and trust me. I love it I swear. So when I work I listen to. Matter of fact my favorite channels are there is ambient medium intensity there is baroque piano medium intensity. There is cinematic medium intensity and then there is classical medium intensity. Those are the four channels that I listen to when I work
Mike Russell: That's Berlijn. OK so focus. Well when your when you're working but what about when when Cliff is working out or when you were in the 1974 VW Beetle. What are you what are you playing a high volume then
Cliff Ravenscraft: So you get this I actually have a playlist inside of Apple Music called Abigale. So it's my Abigale playlist and it's all. It's not like it's mostly because it's in my car's a nostalgia thing. I have built a playlist that brings me back to when I was a kid. So it's it's late 70s early 80s music so I have like Born to Run by Born's Bruce Springsteen feel like making love by bad company. The Joker by Steve Miller Band. Come Sail Away by Styx. All right now by free. Just what I need. The cars cold as ice foreigner Blue Oyster. Call it Kansas. Boston Lou Reed Cole and the gang. Paul McCartney in the wings just the late
Mike Russell: All right. I'm with you on that. I'm that.
Cliff Ravenscraft: Yeah. So it's so it's a it's a late it's an early 70s car but I grew up in the you know when I was really listening to music like all day every day was the late 70s early 80s. And so when I get into Abigale I'm take him back to my childhood and so that's the playlist that I listen to.
Mike Russell: That's amazing. Do you believe that. Well obviously this is this is a truth. But music has the ability to transport you back to a moment in time right
Cliff Ravenscraft: You know I found that it's not just music that but it's actually audio in any form. It's it's actually not just music it is actually audio. So what is audio audio is nothing more than vibrations of sound right. So. So and here's why I know that. So you and I. There are certain songs as soon as a song starts playing. You're transported immediately right back to a point like the first time or at least a maybe not the first time you heard the song but when you were in a high emotional state where there was a great emotional state or maybe a really terrible but we hear a song and it transports us to the past right. So the interesting thing I listen to a lot of audio books now and I listen to a lot of podcasts now and what I have learned is sometimes I'll go back and I'll I'll listen to an audio book again. And when I listen to it like for example I listen to I probably shouldn't tell people this but I am I'm like the biggest Twilight fan in our entire household. So by Stephanie Myers I listened to the entire audio books of Twilight the Twilight saga and I listened to them while I was out walking. Because back in the day I was you know to lose weight. I was just walking 10000 steps or five miles a day. And so I would go and walk in different places and stuff. And when I went back and read listened a couple years later to the Twilight saga books in audio form as I'm listening to them I'm actually remembering exactly what streetcorner I was on the first time I heard that phrase
Mike Russell: No you're absolutely right. You just as you were telling me that story about audiobooks I was remembering on your recommendation when I started listening to and completed the big leap by gay. I remember exactly where I was. I was walking from Manchester City centre in the UK to Manchester International Airport it was eight to nine mile walk. And I completed the audiobook in Warks.
Cliff Ravenscraft: And for me I listened to the big leap while I was at Disneyland in California because I was there by myself after podcast movement and I'm like hey I'm in Anaheim I've never been to Disneyland. I'm going to go there I'm by myself in this park all day. I might as well do something worthwhile to to keep my mind busy so that's when I listen to the audio book of the big leap and the. And I can tell you that the very moment that changed like that book radically changed my life as you know and I can tell you exactly what intersection I was on because I had actually left the park that day and I was it was the I think it was like seven blocks from the entrance of the exit I guess of Disneyland and my hotel and I know exactly what block what intersection I was walking through that I had my quote unquote big breakthrough of my mindset.
Mike Russell: School so yeah. Wow. That's interesting information because yeah I was thinking along music and song related lines but you're right just vibrations of audio whatever it is whether it's a podcast or an audiobook providing like you say you're in a high or potentially low emotional state one or the other. You're you're likely to go right back there so wow cool. Ok yeah.
Cliff Ravenscraft: You know why I think that is my. I think it has to do with the fact that when we're when we are listening to audio we're at it. And specifically when we're actively actively listening so are actually our concentration and our focus is actually on what we're hearing what happens is we're still taking in other forms of information. So we're taking in the visual. We're taking in smell. We're still taking in the physical the things that we feel but the focus is on the audio. And so what happens is I think that it's called neuro associations. So whatever is unique it all gets associated him bundled together and so matter of fact when it comes to that song or it comes to that piece of vibrating audio when it's repeated over again. When you play that song back or you hear that phrase from an audio book again and it peaks you you could close your eyes and whatever you smelled when you were listening to it the first time you can smell it again whatever you do even though your eyes are closed whatever you were seeing at that moment you can see it again and whatever you were feeling at that time you will feel it again. And it's all because of neuro associations.
Mike Russell: Like the good signs behind that that information. So let's focus now. We've already covered lots of interesting information. So from life advice to challenging projects cool things you're looking forward to memories of ordeal from your childhood and even off into a wonderful audio tension about music and audio and and the power behind that. But I would like to delve into Adobe Audition for a little bit. It's the 25th birthday that we're celebrating this year of that so I can hardly play. It's been that long and I'm curious as a user of audition not only to edit the show you can really put out the cliff Ravenscroft show but many many thousands of podcast episodes over the year you will play with many of the different features in auditions so which feature is your personal favorite.
Cliff Ravenscraft: You'd be shocked to learn how little of the features I actually have ever touched or used. However I do have my favorite. And it is the multiband compressor and. And personally I also love the actual hard limiter as well inside of Adobe Audition so it's a combination of both of those but what I love about the multiband compressor and especially they have like a radio voice. No it's called broadcast as the preset and then I go in and I pump up the i turn band one up a little bit. Just give me a little bit more bass but the thing is you know it's that little kid that wants to sound like I did. I want to have that voice like you're a radio guy and so so I go in and everything if I've put out I guess like I've done over 3700 podcast episodes and there might be about 20 or 30 that I didn't run the multibrand processor on and I consider I consider that I would call that flat I sound flat I sound normal but man I run the multiband processor and some people don't like it it's like listen it's just a way to base is like listen I don't care if you don't like it I like it and I love the way it makes me sound. Sounds like I'm that big huge boy. You know that boisterous radio deejay sound
Mike Russell: And it's not over the top though. I mean I listen to a show on a regular basis and this is not over the top. It's not making your earbuds slight know vibrate or giving you a headache. He's just like you say giving you a boost or making your voice sound good. So it's yeah it's a brilliant feature and I love the fact you get the kind of real time display as you auditioning and like you say you can move different bands so I think the one two three four bands and I think it's the blue bass band on the left hand side that you kind of set up a little bit of
Cliff Ravenscraft: Yeah too. And then I do the brickwall limit or I limited that to negative one point five. And sometimes I can't remember if the brickwall limit or actually keeps it from any peaking whatsoever. And so just in case and I happen to know what your next question is is do I have any amazing workflows so if I may just jump right into that I I do have the effects RACT. I think it was 3.0 that they came out with the version 3.0 that came out with the effects rack and ever since they came out with the effects rack I had my multiband compressor thrown into the effects rack with my my own personalized preset which was basically the broadcast setting pumped up base number 1 brickwall limit to negative one point five and then just in case. I also throw right underneath it in the effects rack the hard limiter with negative one point five DBI. Like super hard limit and I and I save that as a preset and it's called Kliph secret sauce and I run the secret sauce over every piece of audio that I do.
Mike Russell: Wow. I think anyone listening to this podcast is going to need to replay that clip a few times because you've just given away your secret sauce.
Cliff Ravenscraft: All
Mike Russell: Brilliant
Cliff Ravenscraft: Right. I've given it away a number of places over the years but yeah that's the secret sauce that makes my song my sound sound the way it does.
Mike Russell: Excellent. So we've covered a favorite feature amazing workflows and timesaving short cuts as well. Now again this feels like a really interesting question to ask you. You'll go to resources and audio gear like we're talking Mikes headphones mixing boards and stuff like that when creating Oleo as the guy who's coached tens of thousands of people to podcast and also has a very popular and well-known podcast equipment package which I believe if you type podcast equiptment into into Google he or you are one of the top results there. So it feels kind of strange asking you what do you go to resources and get but if you were to summarize that for us or maybe bring us right up to date with what you're using or what you're you're hot on using now for Rhodia what would that be.
Cliff Ravenscraft: All right. So number one my microphone of choice and it's just personal preference. I love the hile PR for the microphone. Absolutely hands down. I I wouldn't want to use any other microphone other than the hile PR 40 I use a Maquis mixer it doesn't matter to me which version of the Maquis mixer use I currently use of the Elzie for Velzy forro. I can't remember now for 002 Velzy for so I love Maquis mixers. They're really dirty soup. I mean literally can drive over one with the car and probably not damage it and then I record everything into a digital audio recorder and mice. The thing is they don't make them anymore but my preference on digital audio recorders is the roll and our dash 05 recorder. And yes I know it's not a multi-track recorder and you know I record. Believe it or not I record all of my interviews into one single stereo recording of audio including my voice and people are like well you can't you can't go in and separately edit your guest from your audio and blah blah blah. It's like yeah I understand that but what I do is I try to make sure that the audio is right. Perfect the first time before I hit the record button and and anyway it 3700 podcast episodes later I've not regretted it so I'm good with it.
Mike Russell: That does the job. That's good. Cool. So let's wrap up. Lots of great information in this show not only your life advice the projects you've worked on and hope to work on in the future. Some of your childhood or your memories and favorite features and workflows of course an Adobe Edition including I'll say again Cliff's secret sauce. But now let's wrap up cliff with a piece of advice for young and aspiring person maybe getting into this crazy world of audio or indeed online content creation and developing an online business that can help them to live the life of their dreams. What advice would you give to someone who's young and they're listening to you now and they're thinking yep I want to follow this guy. This is what I want to do. How would you give them some advice to help them live their best life.
Cliff Ravenscraft: Well the advice that I would give you is this life is too short to live someone else's dream. So only live yours. And what I mean by that is for me I was a guy who seemingly enjoyed life. I had a very lucrative lucrative career as an insurance agent. I worked there for 12 years. I was at the top of my game. I was a top ranked insurance agent. I had financial income like you would not believe financial security job security. All of that stuff my mom and dad owned the insurance agency and it was in the family since 1937 so job security was there. I had everything you could possibly dream of when it comes to a career that was cushy comfortable. All of that stuff. However when I started podcasting I never realized just how much I had basically walked away from any dreams of what I wanted to do. And I ended up doing what was quote unquote responsible. You know I got married I started having children and all this other stuff and then I'm invited into the family business and I get to the place where I'm spending all my time every day of my life selling insurance which was never a dream of mine.
Cliff Ravenscraft: I guarantee if you ever asked me as a kid what do you want to be when you grow up. It wasn't an insurance salesman. But remember I mean I can tell you right now is as successful as I was as an insurance agent and I was at the top of my game. Remember when Mike asked me the question Tell me your memories of from your childhood when it comes to audio remember the day that I was putting a little tiny piece of paper wad and recording my own voice and my own little audio programs on the cassette tapes and I was Brodkin at that. Remember the passion that I tell you those stories and that just makes me come alive. It's me communicating to the world and sharing what's on my heart and what's on. That's the real dream. That's what I really. And so what happened was I started a podcast and I started to see the influence and impact it was having in the world. And by the way my first podcast was about the TV show Lost and built on an audience of thousands of people around the world and people are like Wow. Tell us more about this. And people wanted to hear me and I'm like I was entertaining educating encouraging and inspiring people with audio content with my voice.
Cliff Ravenscraft: And I'm like oh my gosh. And I began to ask myself I wonder what life would be like if I could do that for a living instead of selling insurance. And I felt guilty ashamed of asking myself that question. What a ridiculous and selfish thing to even think about. But that wouldn't go away. It continued to grow. It continued to fester until one day I began to start to despise my career as an insurance agent. I be used with something before I started podcasting. I thought I loved it. It's like I felt like I found the easy path in life until I discovered what. Until that dream inside of me of being able to create audio and have my voice impact people's lives. Wow. That awoke a dream inside of me to where nothing else would do. And I got to the place where eventually as cyclists and life is too short to live my parents stream. It's time for me to get out and live my own. And so I encourage people to go out and live their own dream. Life is too short to live someone else's dream
Mike Russell: That's a brilliant place to end this show. So bring great chatting to you Cliff. Great to have you on. Really really good episodes and I'm sure many people will want to go back and listen to this again. But in case somebody would like to go and check you out on line and find out more about what you do and you'll podcast and everything else. What is the best place to go to to find you.
Cliff Ravenscraft: Well obviously anybody who's hearing my voice right now they're familiar with podcast. My show is called the cliff Ravenscroft show. It's in your favorite podcast directory so check it out. Cliff just do a search for Cliff Ravenscroft. Also you can find me on the web. Cliff Ravenscroft Tom but I mostly want to encourage people to check out the conference that I'm hosting called Free the dream and you can find out more information at free. The dream lives
Mike Russell: Thanks Cliff. Thank you for joining me
Cliff Ravenscraft: Mike thank you so much for the opportunity my friend it's always a blessing.
Mike Russell: That concludes this episode would you like an extra chance to win the awesome audio gear giveaway. Subscribe and review this podcast. Then melody tells the podcast at MRC Dotts FM for an extra entry into the awesome Oleo giveaway. Good luck.
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