My friends, Vince Horn, and Duff McDuffee, also Falling Fruit co-founders, launched a new personal development blog, called Precision Change, a new blog about technologies of transformation, from personal productivity to personal power, mastery to meditation, self-development to self-transcendence. In Duff’s words,

Unlike other blog sites that recycle tired old aphorisms and
over-generalizations, we will focus on precise, practical ways to bring about change using the richest and deepest models available, backed by real experience. We will wrestle with complex issues while keeping it simple.

Think of it as personal development 201.

Also, Falling Fruit TV is launching a companion podcast on April 2nd, also called Precision Change.

You want more. More from your career, more from your time, more from
your life. To get more you’ve got to grow, from the inside out. Growth
is not always easy, but it can be a lot of fun, and a healthy
challenge. Precision Change is a show about growth. We explore the
technologies of transformation—from personal productivity to personal
power, lifehacks to life mastery, GTD to NLP, and other acronyms you’ve
never heard of.

Our first guest is Mark Hurst, author of "Bit Literacy: Productivity in the Age of Information and Email Overload". We already have several well-known personal development bloggers on the schedule, and one HUGE productivity author on the bill. Stay tuned for it’s launch!

Check out my first post on Precision Change, "Overcoming Obstacles by Listening to the Voices in Your Head".

This is cross-posted at Shoot the Fruit, the official blog of Falling Fruit.

As Executive Producer, I’m pretty geeky about the studio at Falling Fruit, to say the least, and I thought I’d give you all a little tour of the space where our shows are recorded and produced. I’ll cover our studio in layperson’s terms, but I’ll also throw in some geeky lingo for those audio/producer nuts out there:)

Our studio is located just off of the Pearl Street Mall in downtown Boulder, Colorado. Pearl Street is one of my most favorite places to hang out in Boulder, not for the shopping really, but for the awesome coffee shops! Around the corner from us are the Boulder Bookstore and Bookend’s Cafe, and down the street are Trident and Saxy’s Cafe. On any given day you’re likely to find some of the Falling Fruit gang at one of these joints sipping on some tea. Before dropping into our studio, I highly recommend any of these cafes:)

Now, on to the studio! When designing and creating our studio we had two goals: 1. To make the experience inviting, warm, and exciting. 2. To be professional and have the capability of producing high-quality audio content. Basically this comes down to aesthetics and technology, both of which we emphasize equally. Our shows are similar to talk-radio shows in nature, and often radio stations have great technology and gear, but you feel like your in a sterile, boxed-in environment. We want you to feel like your in a warm, cozy living room as much as possible:) At the same time, we set our studio up with the same equipment you’d find in any professional studio.

The first thing you see when coming to our studio is the “green room“. This is a space where hosts, guests, and producers hang out before recording an episode. It’s a relaxed, informal space, and is a great space to get to know one another and to chat about the topic of the episode prior to recording. It also happens to be a prime hacky sack space for Falling Fruit when we’re not recording:)

Next is the recording studio. Hosts and guests grab a seat at the broadcast table, where we have five broadcast mics (industry standard, Shure SM7B’s). These mics make you sound smooth, with a nice radio voice, although it doesn’t guarantee you’ll sound Theolicious Now, you don’t have to be in the studio to be on an episode. Non-local guests are brought into the conversation via Skype, and we set it up so everyone can hear everyone else. All in all, we can have five people in the studio and, theoretically, an infinite number of folks non-local (though we prefer no more than two or three).

Now, for the geeky tech stuff, for those of you interested:) To help everyone sound the best they can, we run everyone’s voice through a voice-processors during the recording (we use DBX’s). After the recording we edit the audio in Pro Tools, another industry standard and favorite. We use Garage Band 08 to piece together the main parts of an episode (intro, dialogue, outro). We also use Garage Band and Apple Loops to create the music in our shows. For the voice-overs, we have an special mic (Shure KM32) and a vocal booth. At the heart of everything is our Mac Pro (we’re Apple addicts at Falling Fruit).

We have other gear that we use to make our shows sound great, including equipment to record outside of our studio, which I’m excited to try:) If you have any questions about our studio, geeky or not, feel free to ask in the comment section.

So far, we have three votes. Bet you can’t guess whose they are?:P Seriously, we have a good shot at this, I think. At least it will be fun, if nothing else.

Big things happening in my world. In short, Lion and I will be able to move full steam ahead with our project. It’s wonderful:)

Too many things we’re happening last night for me to post about the second day: conference ran late with a live taping of Macbreak Weekly; hangin’ with ebuddha; almost getting beat up or mugged, or just really intimated (but ebuddha had my back - thanks, dawg!); then big news and long chat with Lion

Leo Laporte and Merlin Mann
Originally uploaded by integralawakening.

Yesterday was all about video gear, technique, and production. It was lead by amazing artists and techies, such as Alex Lindsay, who worked on Star Wars. Yeah. They’re not just good at what they do, but I see them as visionaries and innovators in the field of online media. If you’re into video, you MUST check out Pixel Corps and Gear Media Tech.

Zeum Theatre
Originally uploaded by integralawakening.

Day 1 of the Gear Media Tech seminar was awesome

I LOVE this stuff. I can’t wait to tell you about the project Lion and I are working on, but you’ll have to wait:) Instead, I’ll share a super brief run-down of the day.

Today was all about the tech side of podcasting: mics, mic technique, mixers, audio gear, post production techniques, etc. It was lead by Scott Bourne, Alex Lindsay, and Leo Laporte. Much of technique was not new for me, given my background, but I did get the low down on some great gear. It was well done, especially for those new to podcasting, but who are serious about it. Also, we got into a discussion about the production and business side of podcasting, which will be the focus of Friday. That part ROCKED my world. One quote from Leo Laporte:

“We expect BILLIONS of dollars to be invested in podcasting within the next 12 months.” (my emphasis)

Meaning, that much invested by advertisers. Whoa. To say the least.

All of these guys are top notch - wicked smart, funny, excellent presenters, and all around great guys (yeah, they’re all guys).

There was also a live recording of the podcast, iLife Zone, hosted by Scott Bourne with Alex Lindsay and Leo Laporte as guests. Good times. Tomorrow will cover videocasting techniques, which I’m stoked for, as I know nothing about it, and if it will be like the audio presentations, I will leave with a solid understanding of how to do them. Oh, and there will be a live taping of MacBreak Weekly (I’m thinking it’ll be the video edition).

Technorati Tags:
podcasting, videocasting, pixel corps, Leo Laporte, Scott Bourne, San Francisco, Alex Lindsay, Gear Media Tech, Zeum Theatre

Mosser Bedroom 1
Originally uploaded by integralawakening.

I made to San Francisco safe and sound. The hotel is nice. Different, but nice:) I’m extremely tired and think I’m ready for a nap. Here’s the breakdown of the conference:

• Three-hour sessions, 10-5pm, with an hour lunch break.
• 30 minutes/subject, followed by 10-20 minutes Q & A.
• There’s no wifi to be expected. WTF?!! Lame. Doubly lame considering it’s a geeky conference.
• Tomorrow is all about podcasting.

So, I may not be able to update as often as I had hoped, but minimally I’ll post something lunch and evening. At least some photos:) In the meantime, check out more photos of the Mosser hotel.

Tomorrow I’m heading to San Francisco for the GMT Seminar presented by Pixel Corps, this being the inaugural year for the conference, and I’ll posting updates here, Integral Awakening, and on my Zaadz blog, and on my Tumblog:

The GMT Seminar is dedicated to the skills (technical and artistic) required to produce compelling online content. Whether you are producing audio or video, for phone, web, or mobile device…GMT is a guide to doing this effectively. Lead by some of the industry leaders: Leo Laporte (of TWIT), Scott Bourne, and Alex Lindsay - GMT covers both production techniques and show designs that are key to navigating the next revolution in media.

Three days of training in audio production, video production, and designing your own show, presented by some of the best out there. Scott Bourne announced that there will be some surprise, well-known presenters in addition to the folks listed above.

I am fortunate to be attending due to tremendous kindness of my pal, Lion. We’re collaborating on a top secret project(s) that you’ll hear more about over the upcoming months, and this seminar provides us with wisdom and experience directly related to what we’re doing. Of course, being an audio geek I’ll benefit from this in other projects such as Buddhist Geeks. I’ve also begun doing freelance audio work, so if you’re in search of an audio geek, shoot me an email:) Your audio needs as much love as you give to the rest of your website. Consider me your love doctor;)