You're listening to Barbell Logic, brought to you by Barbell Logic Online Coaching, where each week we take a systematic walk through strength training and the refining power of voluntary hardship. Welcome back to Barbell Logic. This is producer Trent. Matt is not here today because he is out on vacation and celebrating his 20th anniversary. So first of all, congrats to Matt and Miss Rachel Reynolds for 20 years. And since Matt is out, today what we're going to do is hear from some of the rest of the Barbell Logic staff. Nikki Sims and Andrew Jackson got on Zoom and recorded a discussion about coaching and specifically what they get out of coaching. So this is a little bit different spin on things. We've talked about the benefits of coaching here as a new lifter and it's kind of obvious, right? A coach can help you get started with excellent technique. A coach can make sure that that technique stays good and stays consistent over time. A coach can help you navigate programming, can even help you with nutrition, all sorts of stuff. So a coach is a wonderful thing for a new lifter, but coaches are also useful for people that have been lifting for a long time. As we've talked about many times in the programming episodes and on the MED master class, programming gets kind of complicated when you're an advanced lifter. But even beyond that, coaching can also serve as a source of accountability to make sure that you're staying on top of your training and also a way to keep things fresh. You know, working with a coach that has different experiences than you that has a different knowledge base can introduce you to some training methods and help you push your fitness in a direction that you may have ever considered before. So in short, coaches need coaches and advanced lifters need coaches. And that's what Andrew and Nikki are going to talk about today. Now, please bear in mind that with all the COVID stuff going on right now, it's very difficult to get audio equipment and create the same kind of recording environment that you're used to with Matt and Scott. So what you're going to hear today is from Andrew and Nikki's Zoom feed. And we did the best we could with it, but the audio is not quite up to the same standard that you're used to here at Barbell Logic. But we're doing the best we can with the circumstances being what they are. So without further ado, let's listen to what Andrew and Nikki have to say about coaching. Welcome to the Barbell Logic podcast. And I was also going to welcome you to the Barbell Logic podcast. We're officially hijacking this from Matt, who's both of our coaches. That's right. Yeah, it feels like we're being sneaky, although I think he'll be totally okay with us. Yeah. He's on vacation, so ask us to record a podcast. Yeah. It was interesting because we were talking the other day, totally unrelated. Hold on there, Mr. People need to know who I'm listening to. So of course, I am going to introduce my co-host here. This is Andrew Jackson. I'd be surprised if most of you don't know who he is, but he is Barbell Logic's vice president of, what is it again? Operations. It's been a hard time. He's our vice president of operations, which involves a lot of processes and spreadsheets and workflow stuff and things that he's really good at and things that I'm not very good at. So if that works really well. He's also an Instagram celebrity for lifting in the forest, which he doesn't do anymore.  Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And I am here with Nikki Sims. Of course, everyone on this podcast knows who that is. Our vice president of human resources and a coach with Barbell Logic for over three years now. It's the very beginning of time. December 2016. In fact, we were one of, we were both two of the initial 16. Yeah. That's true. We've been working together for a while and I'm excited to do this podcast. Yeah. Likewise. We have, we get, we actually have a lot of interesting stuff in common because like Andrew said, we are both coached by Matt. We're both coaches. So we have kind of an interesting perspective. Being coaches and getting coached and talking about our coach behind his back. Yeah. And I think that was kind of how the idea for this podcast got started is that we were chatting. And I just started feeling curious about as an advanced lifter yourself and an experienced coach, what you feel like you get the most value out of coaching or having a coach, I guess I should say. And so I'm kind of interested in getting to ask you a bunch of questions about your experience with being coached and what it is that you like about having a coach. Okay. That's, that's sort of like the theme, I think. Yeah. I kind of like that since I think a lot of our listeners are getting coached or want to be coaches or think about lifting all the bloody time like we do. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think sometimes people wonder like, well, if I've been doing this for a while, do I really need a coach? Yeah. You've been, you've been lifting for over 10 years now, right? I think so. If you count my CrossFit days as lifting, but yeah, I've been doing things in the gym for a long time. And yet still find value in having a coach. Yeah. Even more so over the last couple of years. So I worked with, I've actually worked with Matt twice. I worked with him probably three years ago, closer to when Barbell Logic first started and then I fired him. I don't know if I remember why and I wasn't even working with him for that long, which I know is a problem is that it really takes a minute, especially as an advanced lifter to get used to things. Yeah. How did that conversation go? Gosh, let's see if I remember the medium. I probably did something shady like break up over text. It's the one liner we're done. It's not you. It's definitely me. Oh, always, always. I have definitely been ghosting, attention, everybody in the world better than ghosting. It is funny though how whenever somebody, a client leaves, it always feels like a breakup. Oh my God. Every email or text or message I've ever gotten, I could copy, paste that into a breakup message. Yeah. So do you feel like he was there any emotional tension there, especially because you were working for him at the time? Yeah. I think it felt okay to me and honestly I don't really remember anything negative about it. So I think it felt okay. I think it was just like me just needing to like explore and figure things out. And so you went to go coach yourself for a period of time? Yeah. How'd that go? I coached myself not very well. I notice there's like a phase of lifters where they start lifting and then they get a coach for a little while and then they start to get enough knowledge to be danged with programming them like, okay, I'm going to program for myself. I don't think programming for yourself is a great idea because you were the worst. Maybe some people are better at this, but like it's so hard to be biased when you coach yourself. Like so easy to think like, oh, that squat didn't go well, time to pivot. www.powerliftingprograms.com, what can I do now? Right. So easy to lose sight of the bigger picture and just make like more emotional reactions or I think I was running off of like RPE program. So it's just like that completely opened the door for just like, well, how do you feel about that? What do you feel you should do next?  There's like just like, no, not go well. Right. A lot of variables that you're all having to try to evaluate while reacting to it also physically, emotionally, psychologically. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So you rehired Matt out of that as well. Yeah. Yeah. And that went pretty well, although it still took us a long time to get into a pretty good kind of beat and I know we have like a really difficult meet together where I like totally had a terrible meet and you probably have some perspective on this. But like, man, when you have a client who's competing, that is a gut wrenching day. Oh, yeah. Way worse than being a competitor in my experience. You just feel everything and you know how hard your client works. So like, you know, online for them. And you also know that things can be a bit unpredictable on meet day. Not everything is unpredictable, but like you can't have as much control over it as you want.  In their hearts. So coming out of that, though, you stayed with him. Yeah. And have since had good meets. Yeah. Then we felt really good meets. So how did you go about that? Like when you're kind of debriefing or evaluating the programming up to the meet, the performance of the meet, how do you know whether to stay or how did you decide to stay working with him until the I think what's been really important for me is to give myself a cooling off period after a competition or after a big day has I know I'll get really worked up about competitions. No, I'm not. And so if it doesn't go how I want it to go, or even if it goes well, I still have to have like a cooling off period. And I'll usually share some of that information with my coach or with Matt and just be like, I think this went really well. That kind of stuff. And thank you. I just always try to be really grateful. But I think it's good to have like a week or so cooling off period before you like make a huge shift because, you know, you have so much on the line, but like after that, or maybe during that time frame, I think it's good to ask some hard questions. Like why did why do you think this happened? Was it because of this?   And that's happened to me where she's like, why did we do that? Like, this wasn't how we did it before. Like, but then, you know, you're, you're trusting. You're trying to be in that relationship where you're trusting your coach, but then, you know, when you're looking at it from, you know, that after your third deadlift, like things look different. I think it's good to actually have those conversations. And it's good to have a coach who you can have those conversations with so that you can go into the next few months or whatever programming knowing that you can be listened to. And that you actually can analyze what didn't work well. Right. So you have a collaborative kind of a relationship with your coach and like you ask or you suggest things that you'd like to try and program and kind of dialogue about where to go next or how to change things going forward. Yeah. And sometimes I just do it. Yeah. Sometimes those squeaky wheel. Sometimes I'm just like, I'm just going to start doing walking lunges and glute bridges. And then I'll let him know about it. But I think the interesting thing for you and I is that we've been coaching for a long and then we coach. So it's like, am I going to try and be a know-it-all? Or am I going to listen? Right. Right. Yeah. That's a tough line to walk.  When I'm coaching people who are advanced, like I have to make sure that I'm not taking for granted things that I should be explaining to them. Right. Right. Yeah. So that's your current state. What's back up a bit to the beginning? Like what how did you what was your first coach? Like what was that? Do you remember your first coach and what that experience was like? Like what thing or just anything? Or in general, yeah. Like how you weren't in sports or growing up. I'm curious like your kind of the evolution of your experience with coaching from as far back as you can remember along the way. There's anybody that's I remember playing soccer when I was in, like I think I was in elementary school. I hated it, but you played soccer. What did you hate about it? I hated the running.  And so but if I mess it up, like all the parents are just like they're a disappointment. Not my parents, but like parents of the kids who are actually good. Like and I don't know if they should that, but man, I felt that. I got it. I got it. And like, you know, if you like miss a pass or whatever, he's like miss a goal, like. Well, yeah, so not a huge like not a major life impact if a coach kind of experience. Was there a first coach where you.  And maybe maybe it hasn't happened. It certainly did for me. But I'm curious if there was a coach along the way somewhere that maybe it was in sports, maybe it was just in life or somebody that you considered a coach that stood out to you in a way that made it seem like something that. That you want to pursue or that you really appreciated the influence that a good coach could have. Or maybe not. Maybe you just didn't experience that until you became a coach yourself. Well, yeah, I think when I started getting into CrossFit, I joined a CrossFit gym. It was a two coach there. OK, the names and, you know, that's it was shortly after I started doing that, that I totally switched careers from being an estimator in sort of general contracting firm to being a CrossFit coach. And it came with a huge pay raise, I imagine. So yeah, I think the impact that they provided was, I know that you could have really you can have a lot of fun with it. And there are lots of things that you could do with it. And I don't know, I think it's more of the community. So I'm curious with all the experiences that you've had with coaches along the way, what are the things that stand out to you as what makes them the great coaches, at least, what makes them good? Like, what is it that they they do for you or how they work with you that that you think makes it worthwhile to have a coach makes your experience better as a lifter? Yeah, that's definitely something that's changed over the course of lifting for so long. But, you know, when it's when it's early on, like, you want them to help you fix everything, like fix my back flexion or like, why are my knees always caving? And like, why haven't I hit a PR on forever? And it's just like, fix everything to fix everything for me. And then I think it shifts where you start to learn how to take more responsibility for things. And then being more advanced, I like having I've actually liked having the same coach for a long amount of time because the same cues that I hear over and over again, I still get the same cues over and over again on some things. Yeah, yeah. Elbow flair. Yeah, I've never heard that one before. Elbow flair too? Every single bench session. I actually get my favorite now is he calls it on like rep one. He'll say that it was good, but he'll be like, I'm waiting for it or like waiting for three or something like that. Like here comes the elbow flair because he gives me video feedback like real time. So he's like, he's like the color commenting the reps for a set of five and calls the elbow flair shot, like three reps ahead. Yep. And even like while I'm benching, I'm like, and I just know I'm like, okay, well, he's going to tell me about my elbow flair. Even though I can't feel it, I can't feel elbow flair. Can anybody feel elbow flair? And if you can, please let me know. Please call in right now. You need elbow flair and an honest or something like that. But honestly, even that has made me, and I'm maybe I've just adapted to it. And I was like, well, I'm going to figure out a way to fix it. Yeah. And so it makes me kind of explore ways to, but he lets me know that that's important. And I'm just like, okay, well, that cue doesn't work, but I'm going to fix it. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, for me, having Matt as a coach, even though like I joke about the elbow flair situation, but having somebody who's got that experience and attention to detail and just kind of relentless expectation that things need to get better. And he keeps focusing on smaller and smaller and smaller points. And some of them are really chronic patterns that are difficult to change. But that processes has made my lifting significantly better in the time that I've worked with him. And I don't, you know, if I, even though I made some progress when I was coaching myself, I let myself get away with a lot of those things, right? I wouldn't quite hold that same standard. And that's one of the things you get away with. Oh, well, my bench in particular was super sloppy. And you was like, didn't bench, right? I, well, yeah. First of all, I just would not program it because I didn't appreciate it. Well, what, and that's actually another thing that I found is that I would not do things because I didn't appreciate the complexity of it or I didn't see all those details. And it was actually a combination of working with Jordan Stanton at a bench press camp and also Matt Reynolds as a coach that I was able to start seeing some of the finer points of even something like the bench, which, you know, typically is sort of like the bro lift that people just kind of. Much great stuff for the bench. There is. And well, and you actually at some of the seminars, you've, there's been a couple of times where you've pointed out a detail or you've used a cue and it just shifts my perspective on, on the lift. And I'm able to see that level of detail. And I think that's true anytime you, you talk to somebody or you meet somebody who understands something at the level of depth that you don't see and you're able to step into that perspective. And, and then you can appreciate something at a level that, that you didn't before. So that definitely changed for me with something like the bench, which I enjoy a lot more now. Yeah. Do you think that that also applies to like programming? So working with the coach will be like, okay, well, I will get to learn about programming now from another. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that the more advanced you are in your career having that insight from a coach who's done more programming options or programming, use different tools or different exercises or variations that I didn't have experience with. And, you know, as a lifter, you build comfort and experience with, with different programs or different exercises and having somebody program stuff that's outside of your comfort zone. And maybe you don't have experience with, I think helps add that to your, your toolkit, not only as a lifter, but then also as a coach there's things that I'm more confident using for my clients because I've had that involved in my program. So he's definitely brought in different rep schemes, you know, different variations. I bought chains recently. I hadn't really, I'd used them a few times in my past, but I definitely think that makes a difference. Yeah. It's like a, it's like cooking and baking.  Right. This is a time when we need to be really precise and exact versus this is a time when we can be a little more fluid and change things and the more, it gives you more confidence to kind of explore that. Right. And also different, different experiences with problems or sticking points. I think it's something that is a huge value is a huge value of that, of having a coach that somebody who's encountered those, those problems or sticking points or encounter them with different people or more people. So instead of what I, what I experienced personally is that and where I think a coach no matter what level you are can make a difference is that you can figure a lot of this stuff out on your own, I think, or you could program for yourself or you could try to fix technical issues. But the time that it takes is orders of magnitude longer to figure it out. If you're trying to do your first program by yourself you're going to run into almost weekly you're going to run into problems that you're trying to figure out for the first time that somebody else has coached people through hundreds of times and they're simple problems to fix. So you might figure it out in three to six months whereas the coach can get you through in a week or session and the same is true even at the advanced level. It's more complex, there's more variables, there's different problems, but I think having coached there enables you to get through those, those sticking points faster. That I've equated and I've equated like coaching to like learning a language or even lifting to learning a language. Even used to lifting like the very basic like Banished 101 where it's just like, how do you say shoes? How do you say hair? How do you say student? And it's like, of course that you've never really used. Right, right. And that's also you could even equate it just lifting on your own or just like, oh I'm going to download an app and try and learn a language. It's like, I'll just walk around my house and say this is bread and this is water. You actually start to need to have a conversation then you start to learn about like, oh now I need to figure out how to use this word and now I need to put this sentence together and then the longer and longer you learn it and study it and interact with it, like it just is like becomes part of your, you think in that language. And I think that's a really cool thing that happens to like a more advanced coach is that it's not just like seeing something and regurgitating something. It's just like, you'll see something and you can predict something and also know like all the other branches of where that might be coming from and it's coming from talking about it and having coach and actually being curious and like making a lot of connections. Right.  It's just like cemented in place. Good. So one of the other questions I think I asked you that got me thinking about this also was I was curious actually, I think we were talking about the elbow flare and it got me curious like because we get feedback on every single session and you know, do you even as an advanced lefter, do you find value in getting feedback on all three lifts every session? Yes, I do. Tell me about that. Yeah, I was thinking that and I mean, maybe I just like someone paying attention to me. I think that's probably a big thing that a lot of us, maybe not all of us will admit. But most of my lists and depending on where I am in the program, most of my lists are going to look fine. It's just like okay, this is just like kind of volume work like you know what you're doing. But maybe there's something, it makes me stay accountable even during those phases where it's just like if I know that someone's going to be looking at this and like I better not take a round, I better do what I'm supposed to be doing. So I find that helpful even if it's just like, yeah, that looks good. But it also provides, and this works for online coaching, there's going to be a mechanism of communication. So if I do have a question, I'm not sure of anything, that's where I know I can ask it and I will get an answer. So like the portal is open. So I find it really helpful. And I honestly think that it makes the coach pay attention more. Like if you're only getting a couple workouts looked at every month or even every week, like they just don't get to see as much. And so when programming does change and when things get a little more important, like as the weight on the bar goes up and things get more meaningful like towards a competition or something, they know where you've come from. Yeah, I think it's hugely important as a coach to watch all the videos in every single session. I build, and I don't even know if I do it intentionally, but I feel like I develop an eye for the lifters bar speed, their kind of emotional state. I can start to read their body language, how they react to the lift or just how they, whether they're attacking the lift or whether it looks like there's something going on. There's been many, many times where the day itself, there's nothing in particular really special about it. It might need to just be a light day. And there's something about the way they're moving or the way they're behaving that I pick up on and maybe I make a comment on.  And they wouldn't have said anything about it. Like they would have just kind of posted the numbers and moved on. But because we are paying attention to every single day, every single lift, I think it builds that relationship like you're talking about. There's a communication there that goes beyond just the sets, reps and the weight that you did and whether you got it done or not. I don't even know if I could program very well. I mean, I could, but I don't, I wouldn't be as confident about my program. And I really hate when I have to program without seeing videos. It feels good because I'm like, well, I'm done in like four minutes, but it's also just like, well, I just viewed out stuff. I don't really know if it's going to work. It's like just drive by and I don't like it. Yeah. And the margin of error or buffer that you have to like build into the program is significantly greater. I think so you can get a, I think the program can be more, a lot more effective. Also when you're following along with their kind of, with their evolution. Yeah. Because it's interesting too that you don't necessarily know how they're going to respond to some changes. And then when you see that the bars flying, the bar speeds flying, when you thought it was going to be a grinder, it can, you know, it could definitely change the direction. I think for me it's like, I need my coach to have a lot of faith in what's coming up for me today. Like I need to just be like, you've, I need, and I will do everything that I can in my power so that I can say, I have done everything that I can to get ready for this competition. I like being able to go into a meeting thinking that. Yeah. And so then if my coach is always just can agree with that, then I feel really good going into me.  Like I, that is the last thing I need to hear. Like I need them to know what happens to me when I'm lifting super heavy weight so that they can prepare me for that, not to have the textbook lifts. Right. Right. Yeah.  And I have had a lot of dialogue with Matt about this stuff too. And she'd like, you know what, Matt, for my squat and meet day, I just want to go three for three. I don't care about it. That's fine. So there, you know what, they're going to get there. He's going to help me get three for three on my squat. That's cool. And it's like, Bench, you know what, I really want to, I really want to hit a PR, like what do we have to do to hit a PR? And then it's just like, you know what, I want to go all out for my deadlift. What do I have to do for that? Right. And so I tell them how important certain things are, and then they like reaffirm, reaffirm the importance of that. Yeah, that's, that's really interesting that it's, it's not just that the coach cares, it's the matched care that I think was what you called it. Like they need to be on the same page as you about what's important at that particular time. And I think that actually connects also to that having that relationship and that kind of constant communication, because those things change all the time, right? Like maybe right now it's lunges and glubridges that matters. Maybe right now it's the, the, the deadlift or the bench or the total, you know, and different, that can totally change the program and priorities. The thing that's interesting there though is you can't, coaches can't get taken advantage of by their lifters. I see that with a lot of newer coaches where it's just like, well, my client really wants to do this now. So then they like flip-flop over to this and just like there, there has to be, the coach has to really, you know, have a stake in the ground and be like, you know what, I can, I'm hearing that you want this. It seems like this is actually what's important to you. Is that still corresponding to what you told me three weeks ago? Like if there's a lot of flip-flopping, like if it's a flip-flop every month, something else is going on. And I found that the more coaches cater to those kind of wins, the sooner the client leaves because it ends up having to have a backbone. Interesting. And you see that across the, like you have that perspective of seeing every client, well, not anymore for a long time. You were seeing every cancellation and interacting with them. That's something you picked up from, from watching that. Yeah. And from like, from, you know, maybe like difficult client interactions where it's like, and this, I know I've done this before. And I'm not saying anything that I've never done, like I'm totally done there. It's like, well, my client wants to do this and I feel like they need to do what they want. These are their goals and here I am to support them with their goals, but they just keep moving around all over the time, all over the place. Like how can I still be the professional that I'm supposed to be for them, but also not get walked all over, you know? And maybe it's just that they want something that you can't give them as their strength coach. Right. Yeah. You have to like actually dig in like, where's, where's this coming from? Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. What do you do like when you try to find out what the client actually needs? I try to ask them as many questions as I can to get them talking about what they care about. It kind of goes back to your like, what, what do you care about match? That's the starting point. And I think from there it's, I mean, I'm a strength coach. So I'm always going to perceive and funnel things through how can I work with what they want and what they say they have the capacity to do and steer that towards getting stronger. Otherwise, it's not a match for me because my job is to help people get stronger. Yeah. So I mean, there's, I guess you could argue that there's an agenda that I have. But it's your job to have that. But that's my job, right? Like they hired me ostensibly to get stronger. And so I try to look at what they have. And this goes for both my nutrition clients and my lifting clients. What I'll see is along with bar speed, a lot of what I'm monitoring is compliance. And compliance changes over time. And I, that was something that changed with, that I picked up on really early on with online coaching is I would have these clients that would quit. And I think, well, wow, they were getting PRs, they were making all this progress. And I started reflecting on, you know, what was leading up to them quitting and nine times out of 10, I saw the compliance drop off. And it wasn't necessarily low compliance because some people just have consistently low compliance. But it was a, it was a change in compliance. So if somebody went from 100% day after day, a week after week, month after month, and then all of a sudden they dropped down to like 80 or 70. And they were just kind of like bouncing around. I used to just kind of think, Oh, maybe that was just a bad week. Somebody starts fluctuating compliance. Now I'm immediately asking like, what's going on?  And behind that, what I'm really trying to understand is not only what they care about, but what they have the capacity to do. Because a lot of times with our programming, we get wrapped around the axle about like, well, what's the optimal volume or intensity? Yeah, we like how it looks on the computer. Right. And we've got these frameworks of three days a week or four days a week or X and number of slots. But if the client doesn't have capacity to do it because it's a two hour workout, right? Or because it's a 90% effort at the end of a day that they just don't have the energy to do it, or they open up the app and they see they've got a 90% single.  So like an effective program and what the client quote unquote needs, I'm listening for a combination of what they care about, what's motivating them, and what they have capacity to do with an aim towards getting stronger or as strong as I can get them. Because some people do come back and say, you know what? Sometimes they say, I really don't want to be maximally strong right now. I don't want to be grinding on 1RMs or PR right now. Some people just go through phases where I want to go on a two-day bike ride in the mountains, mountain bike ride. Or I've got one guy who's a swimmer and competes regularly in the pool and he's not going to be setting lifetime squat PRs necessarily like the week or two before. Sometimes he can, but anyway, priorities and capacity I think are the big things that I'm listening for. Well, this is a bit of a non sequitur, but it goes back to some of the early questions on the good coaching. Like, do you have an idea in your mind of like who you want to be as a coach or like what the best version of yourself as a coach is? Like as a lifter, we have a model. We look at ourselves and say, okay, yeah, we're squatting well. How do you do that for yourself as a coach? Man, that's tough. And I feel like I'm going to answer this and all my clients are going to be like, wow, it doesn't do that at all. I think I want to always be someone who they can trust with for programming, but I also really want to make sure that I'm honest because it's like I'm not the best programmer in the world. I don't know who is. It's not entirely predictable, but I always want to be honest with like what I think is going to work and what I think I did wrong and but still I don't want to when I open that door, I don't want to lose my my position of being the person that they hired that they could trust. Who's the expert? You know, I think that's always a line that I'm trying to make sure I walk carefully, like acknowledging my mistakes, but also being the one who should know what the hell they're doing. But I like, I would like to be that kind of coach and I also would like to be the coach who stays curious and creative with how I communicate with them. Like I, you know, I have, I've had some clients who I've just had with me for years and I love getting to see their videos, but I know that I might say the same things over and over and over again and I want to be like really careful that I don't do that because that bothers me. And so I've found that I have to make sure that I get really present to watching their their lift and I'll start to explain things. Like if I feel like I'm starting to say the same thing over and over again, I'll like explain why something goes a certain way and then I'll try and come up with a new cue for it. Like I try to be creative with how I'm trying to get my point across. Yeah, and I always want to match their level of care. You're like, oh, this is important to you? Okay, I want to make this important to you. What about you? So I see my role as a coach and what I strive to do as a coach is a combination of what I mentioned earlier, being able to see somebody for who they could become and be able to help them also see themselves in that way. I think of a client being on sort of their own personal strength journey. This might sound a little bit cheesy, but you know, they have some goal that they're aiming at, something that they're trying to accomplish, maybe it's health, maybe it's just absolute strength, maybe it's preparing for competition, whatever it might be, they're trying to get somewhere. And I see my role as a coach as a guide to help them. Somebody who's been on similar journeys before or similar paths, I have experience going towards those goals. And so I can help them kind of navigate that along the way. I can help them see themselves in that future state. Because I think oftentimes when, especially with something as transformative as strength, when you first start working with somebody, their concept of what they're capable of love is nowhere near what they actually are. When you first start lifting, 300 pounds sounds like a lot or 400 pounds or 500 pounds sounds insane when it can be for many people a normal amount of weight. And it's all obviously going to be specific to that individual. But whatever that number is, so people starting out can seem unattainable and just like mythical. And so I think one of the things that you can really help people with as a coach is to normalize that, to make it seem achievable and give that individual confidence and belief in their ability to get there. Sometimes I think that's half the battle is just believing that you can get there. And you hear that folks, you got to believe in yourself. Gotta believe. And then obviously there's the technical aspect of providing feedback to movements lifts, but importantly doing that in a way that the client can hear. There's I think it's a John Wooden quote that says a good coach is somebody who can provide feedback without creating a sense of resentment.  But it's not going to be effective for you as a lifter if you can't hear it or if you can't accept it. And I think that's a skill of coaching that goes along with building a relationship and being a good communicator. And it's certainly in my experience throughout my life that the best coaches that I've had are the ones that are able to understand me enough and communicate in a way that's simple and effective in that most importantly I can actually hear. And that changes over time. Like you said, that changes on depending on the context, depending on your experience level. And I think that's part of the skill that I strive to do or that I strive to constantly improve is make sure that I'm communicating at the right level with my client. So yeah, I think that's kind of like the model that I approach and that I think underpinning a lot of that is that it's the lifter's path, not mine. So I am a strength coach and I'm always going to steer that direction, but it's their their journey. Which I think is important because I think there's been a lot of times I've seen or I've felt that either I in my sports or lifting career lost track of what it was that I was doing myself and I started doing things because it was important to somebody else. Yeah. This happened more when I was younger, I think, like getting caught up in caring what somebody else thought was important. But I think it's important for the client or the lifter to own their own training. Absolutely, absolutely. Feel that. That's big. Or else they'll be thinking like, oh, well, this lifter does this, so I need to lift that much or I need to lift this way or you know, I want this for Instagram. And then it's just like, it's not going to go anywhere. It doesn't really. Right. And I mean, the whole purpose that we're doing this to like in my the going back to the guide perspective is that, you know, there is going to be a time probably for every single client where they're going to move on to either a different coach or they're going to coach themselves. Like, I don't want them dependent on me. Like it's like the they are a capable independent human that wants us to work with me because I can help them. Yeah, that's an interesting thing, actually. Like when a client like they need to ask you for every single thing, you're not doing their job right. Right. They're not doing their job right. Yeah.  Each person's kind of owning their part. Yes. Yeah, the B word. Do we need to talk about that? That's a whole another 19 podcast episodes. Yeah. But yeah, I think the important things we talked about were like, understanding how things are going to shift over the lifespan of a client or of a lifter and of a client coach relationship, making sure there's like a pathway for communication to stay open. Just speaking so that what they're saying can be heard. Yeah.  So that's two people talking about coaching. Yeah. That makes a podcast. And to wrap up, Andrew, where can people find you? What's your home? Yes. Well, I can be found on Instagram at Andrew Barbender and at BarbellLogic.com. Yeah, great. How about you, Nikki? Any more openings for coaching? But I am on the grams at there and I, there's a winner score in there between Vera and Mass. And that's the only place anybody else needs to know about boundaries. Yes. Good, healthy boundaries to be covered in the next next episode of Nikki and Andrew hijacking BarbellLogic podcast.


Well, let's bump it. We have a visiting report this evening. Opening set, Wildcats attacking off the serve. Hadley Hadrava with the kill to get the home scene started. But the Panthers had an answer, and her name is Sydney Foreboard. She hammers it down from the outside to tie it up. And a little serving later, Ariana Sam, A-C-E-Ace, the perfect placement in the corner. This was midway through the first set. Panthers no leading, no final, reported. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


Hello, and welcome into the All Dispersons show. I'm Joe Wombo, joined out with All Dispersons, head coach of the men's volleyball team. Coach, you guys had an interesting week last week rounding out some of the CVC play. You got one more match to play, but able to take advantage of heading over to the Green Spring Gym and getting back onto the winning track. Yeah, that's right. We had lost against Mary Mountain, Juniata, and then we got on the winning track by beating Teal on Saturday. So we're undefeated in the Green Spring Gym when it was, so actually a great experience because the guys got to play in a nice gym on campus over there, a lot of them hadn't, and we won 3-0. And then another 3-0 victory against Alvernia last night. Hoping you can do the same against Arcadia tomorrow night, but first talk about that trip up to Alvernia that you guys had to pull out that 3-0. Well, it was a nice day. Spring day, got up there a little early and walked around campus some and really nice school. It's a new program. They have a lot of freshmen and sophomores on the floor and their coach does a great job with them and they fought really hard. They played good scrappy defense, but we were able to pretty much serve and block and dominate, so we got out of there pretty quick with a 3-0 win last night, which was really good, because now we're just back in a winning mode. Which is very important for the stage of the season that you guys are in right now. You've clinched a berth into the CVC tournament, rounding out play with Eastern Mennonite on Saturday, and then you guys will obviously have a senior night Saturday night. What do these next two matches with CVC opponents? What is the aim gonna be? A little bit of rest or keep the mode of going and trying to stay on the upswing of things? Yeah, I think we're staying on the upswing, going with the lineups that have worked. And we play, EMU is real important on Saturday because the seating for the top four is still not set. So Juniata needs to play EMU, we play them, but we're definitely in the top four. Marymount is definitely number one in hosting, so I hope everybody comes out Saturday for that 2 p.m. match against the Mennonites, and they'll be back here on the Owings Mills campus. Both of those matches, we're looking for large crowds, of course, to do a little bit of intimidating on against Eastern Mennonite, we really would like that victory. And then of course, against Penn State Altoona on Saturday evening, it will be senior night. Just talk about how important the senior class has been to what the program is. Well, I have five seniors, three of them on the floor most of the time with Kyle Johnson, our setter, and Anita Ellis, our captain, middle, and Mike Fears is our O2, our outside. And then first off the bench are Nick Gross, outside hitter, and then we have David Santangelo, Sandy comes in for our opposite. So those five guys have really pushed hard for four years all through practice and playing now, and so they'll be recognized on Saturday. It's a 6 p.m. match against Penn State Altoona, for that's our last home game. And all of them were on the team last year that made it into the final four. Hopefully maybe making a deep run, first steps first, try to win the CVC, what do you feel about that tournament heads into next week? Yeah, well, we're definitely an underdog. I mean, we've lost the matches against two to Marymount, and we split with Juniata, and with EMU we hope to split with them too. So I think it's up to us how we play, and we could, that's our team goal for this year is to repeat as CVC champs. And an obtainable goal as you guys had into that, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. If we play well, push hard, we can get it. Well, Coach, good luck in the rest of this week and on senior night on Saturday, and we look forward to talking to you next week. Okay, thanks a lot, Joe. He's All Dispersons, I'm Joe Wamba, and this has been the All Dispersons Show.


James Fleming, Precinct 3, Article Component. This picture was taken a few weeks ago when the sign for the Heights pub went up over the old Five and Dime to great praise from local residents. Locals also remember how long it took to get approval and that it might not have happened at all. What was the problem? The store was built around 1970 before the current zoning by-law and, importantly, before minimum off-street parking requirements. When Five and Dime closed and the pub wanted to open, the pub was on the hook for adding parking to comply with the by-law. Look at the building. Where would you add parking? There's no room at the back and no one would spend money demolishing part of the building to add parking. The requirement just makes it harder to start a business, so storefronts stay empty for longer. Luckily, the ZBA was able to make it work, so the pub is going in, and Article 20 passed in November of last year to allow removing parking requirements in court business areas by special permit. Problem solved, right? Well, not really, because the same problem can happen elsewhere. In Arlington Heights? Near the High School? In East Arlington? And in other pedestrian storefronts and neighborhood offices around town totaling 384 properties. This article would allow for a special permit authority to remove parking requirements in all business zoning districts if they find creating more parking is impractical or unnecessary. In effect, this extends Article 20 to all business zoning districts. This proposal doesn't affect other types of districts on-street or accessible parking. The goals of this proposal are one, to make it easier to comply with parking requirements, and two, to preserve existing building value. Let's talk about that one for a second. This is a section of the zoning bylaw that describes the parking a business must provide. In some cases, a business must provide parking nearly equal to the square foot of actual business. To show the effect that this has, here's a comparison of two stores in town. On top is Walgreens in East Arlington, and below is Regina's near the High School. According to town records, Regina's is worth a million dollars, and Walgreens four times that. Sounds great, right? The thing is, Walgreens is a huge lot, and Regina's has a tiny lot. Walgreens pays four X the tax revenue, but uses 18 times the land. Think about that. Regina's, built 100 years ago, provides more than four times the tax revenue for the land it uses. It's a financial powerhouse, but you couldn't build it today because of parking minimums. Based on its value, we should want more buildings like Regina's. In summary, this article would let special permit authorities remove parking requirements in all business zoning districts, if they find that creating new parking is impractical or unnecessary. You should support this because the requirements make it hard to reuse some buildings, and because businesses which actually meet the requirements are less valuable than they could be. Thank you.


Hey, I'm Anfa. I've been recently recording some voiceovers and I thought it's a good opportunity to record a video About my workflow and all the tricks I've learned in making that kind of recordings Of course, I'll be using open-source software and Linux I would just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux is in fact GNU slash Linux as always so in this video I will record edit Process and export a voiceover track all done in Ardor 6 and Open-source lv2 plugins all running on Manjaro Linux. Let's go Okay, so before we start I want to talk about things you need to take care of to actually record a decent track Because if you record crap, we're not gonna be able to edit or process anything good out of that Okay, so the first thing is to make sure your room is as quiet as possible Turn on any equipment you don't need to run close any windows or doors Warn the people you're living with that you need some silence right now and you'll be recording, etc. Second thing is Treat your room so there's minimum amount of reverberation happening if you clap your hands in your room You will hear a reverb tail If this reverb tail is long You're gonna have a really hard time recording a usable voiceover Because voiceovers by nature need to be extremely dry So if you can bring some clothes bring some bookshelves And hang it all around your stuff If you don't have access to professional sound treating materials then you can do this kind of stuff if that's not possible Maybe open up a wardrobe full of clothes and sit on the edge of that So that your microphone is pointing towards all the fabrics hanging in there and the mass of that is going to absorb a lot of reflections coming in From outside and from your voice bouncing from from the walls and it's going to cut down on the reverberation And this is very important. Third thing is use a directional microphone Most microphones you'll buy have a so-called cardioid pattern So if the microphone is pointing up, it's going to capture most sound from the from the front So if I'm here, you can hear me very clearly It's not gonna capture as much sound from the side. So if I go here you can hear that It's not as loud and if I turn around the microphone and make it completely face the opposite direction You can hear that I'm much quieter So use this to your advantage and for example point the back of the microphone at the loud computer that you cannot turn off because it's recording fourth thing is To record get as close to the microphone as possible. I'm going to show you this from a side So you don't want to be recording your voiceovers from here. You want to be recording them from here as Close to the microphone as possible without touching it okay Why is that important because it's going to give your microphone more of your voice and less of the room's Response to your voice and we want that we want as dry as possible. So let's reverb more of your voice Okay, also if we get close to the microphone capsule What's gonna happen is that the low frequencies in your voice are going to get emphasized and we could of course do this artificially in the post-processing with an EQ But this is a natural Thing that's happening. It's called proximity effect and it's very helpful in getting that deep Radio tone of your audio to your voice. Okay, because you know Many male vocalists are gonna have that low tone, but it's gonna be quiet And if you get up close it's gonna get amplified if I record this this from from a little bit farther away Even so I'm speaking just as low you can hear that there is not as much lows in my voice present at the microphone.  This is sure SM 58. I believe and this is the windshield is called aws AW2s or something like that And it's made for this microphone, but it only works if you talk to it from the front I'm going to blow into the microphone and If I go to the side these pluses are going to get through go through and create unpleasant sounds at the microphone capsule Which we don't want So make sure like like that your pop filter is doing the job You can't be like catching your pop filter because it's not gonna do the job because your Pluses are going to go right through it You need to have a little bit of distance, but it can be very close to the microphone Like you need to listen record and balance that okay if you don't have any pluses protection You don't have any windscreen or anything the least you can do is simply Move So that your the microphone is facing your mouth from the side and this way You will still be able to record quite a clean vocal with a very good response But all the pluses Are going to go in another direction and not hit the microphone capsule, which is important. Okay, seventh thing is Is warm up your voice before you start You can do that. There's many different warm-up routines You can I don't know you can beatbox for a while or sing your favorite song for 10 minutes or read the text as Expressively and overemphasize everything Like if I'm gonna read my script make sure your room is as quiet as possible close any doors windows turn off Equipment you don't need to run warm people at home that you need to them to be quiet for a while, etc You need to like warm up your voice so that you're not sounding like that your sluggish and And like you can't articulate stuff because you're just your your muscles are not warmed up That's one thing so articulation needs some warm-up But also your voice range is warm up to for example If I don't warm up correctly, I'm not able to hit these radio like deep facing notes and I'm just gonna I'm stuck a little bit higher and it's not as satisfying to listen to So don't rush it like I'm not gonna teach you a warm-up routine. I'm not a voice coach, but Let your voice warm up gently and then it's gonna give you the best Don't stress it though eighth If you produce a lot of smacking noises clicks pops from your mouth like This kind of stuff you can bite your tongue Gently and it's gonna trigger your saliva emission and that's going to water your mouth a bit and it's gonna help with that We of course can cut out these Noises to a certain degree in post, but it's a lot of work So if we can get it better at the source, let's do that. Okay, and ninth thing To record you'll need as low audio monitoring latency as possible. I Switch my jack server to the buffer size of 128 or 256 frames per period There's a command line program to manage your jack servers buffer size and it's called jack underscore buff size I'm going to move this microphone here. So you can hear me better If I run it without any arguments is gonna give me what is the current buffer size if I run it with an argument I Can change the current current buffer size and Now we're running jack at a smaller buffer size now mind that Sometimes I've had ardor crashing If I do that while it's running, okay So savior work before you do it some other programs using jack may also crash at times like it shouldn't be a problem But sometimes it is so be careful, but usually I do it and it's not causing any problems So now I'm recording the video as well. So I'm going to keep that a little higher Because my CPU load might prevent me from going with the lower buffer size But we need as low latency so we can hear yourself through the headphones as you speak and hear What is actually being recorded and if it's gonna have a little bit of delay? That's going to be very distracting and you won't be able to give a good performance Most audio interfaces external audio interfaces have an option of direct monitoring So you can use that also you can disable monitoring in ardor or any other problem if you're using and Use that instead, but it's not gonna give you any processing. So well You might be able to if you can get a low buffer and pro monitor your audio through ardor Then you can you know have the compressor and EQ and all the other stuff working as you speak and hear the final results in your ears But for now, we're gonna record it without any processing And we're gonna set the processing after we record and edit the material. All right and the 10th thing I want to mention before we start recording is You need to set your mic gain properly. I like it might be obvious some of you but it might not be so the mic gain is the amount of amplification you apply in your pre-amplifier for the microphone and usually audio interfaces have some indicator of The sound level being Okay, or being too hot meaning it's clipping or it's saturating the signal Which is not good because that means distortion.  I'm distorting my Audio interface is showing me distortion. I am turning this down in post so you don't have your ears hurt But now if I speak and I turn down the volume. I'm watching a little LED. Okay, it's start. It stopped Okay, right now. I'm not distorting. But if I see something louder, it blinks again Okay, louder louder louder All right, that's that's now I've set it to a volume where I don't see any clipping even if I do a louder sound so generally you want your Preamp gain to be as high as possible So that you have less noise because if it's lower then you will have to boost it more and you have more noise coming from the preamp and Audio interface itself But if it's too hot, you're gonna distort it and that's no good So make the loudest sound you possibly can Lower it until it's not clipping and then you're good to go to record. All right, that's all the prerequisites Let's record the vocals Depending on how much text you have. I think it's best to first rehearse Read the text out loud. For example, you can like rehearse a couple paragraphs at once then record them then rehearse the next couple and Process them in chunks until you get to the end of it. Sometimes when there's not much text You can just rehearse it and record it in one go So I'm going to record a little bit of text a little bit of a famous text This kind of text and let's record only the first paragraph. Okay, because it's not about Recording it all and like making it complete. It's about showing you the process and How it's done and hopefully that's gonna give us enough room to actually do that. All right, so what I'm gonna do is put on my headphones Note that these are closed back headphones They are not going to produce a lot of sound outside of the capsules And that's important because you don't want your headphones to be feeding back sound to the microphone again Because that's gonna sound bad And if you hear that happening turn down Your monitoring volume. I'm going to enable recording I have an audio track in Ardor. My microphone is assigned and I can already hear my voice and it's pretty okay It's not bad. I can hear my voice Okay All right, now I'm going to rehearse this paragraph So I'm gonna read it very quickly so I can record it fluently without too many errors All right, I made a few little mistakes there But right now I should be able to record this in full So let's start capturing and I will go on if I make a mistake I'm gonna back off a little bit to give myself the way to cut so that I have an overlap between different takes and I'm not going to stop the recording until I'm done. So it's a it's a single chunk It's a single region of my timeline. You can't do that You can stop and resume, but I like to do it this way. It's a bit easier to edit after that All right, let's go Also an important thing water I'd just like to interject for a moment. I would just like to interject for a moment What you're referring to as Linux is in fact GNU slash Linux or as I've recently taken to calling it GNU plus Linux Linux is not an operating system unto itself But rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU core libs shell utilities and vital system components comprising of a full comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX Okay, that was pretty flawless. So I'm going to record another Paragraph without rehearsing it so we get more mistakes so I can show you some editing tricks, okay? Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day without realizing it Through apart through a peculiar turn of events the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux and Many of its users are not aware that it is basically that it is basically the GNU system developed by the GNU project That it is basically the GNU system developed by the GNU project Let's go on there really is a Linux and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use Linux is the kernel the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources To the other programs that run that you run to the other programs that you run The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself It can only function in the context of a complete operating system Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system The whole system the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added or GNU-Linux L The whole system is basically GNU with Linux added or GNU-Linux all the or GNU-Linux All the so-called Linux distributions are really used in the GNU operating system Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU-Linux All the so-called Linux distributions are really Linux distributions are Are really distributions of GNU-Linux are really distributions of GNU-Linux All right, so we've got our material recorded now. It's time to edit it um For editing voiceovers specifically It is very useful to switch order to the ripple mode In ripple mode, if you delete something like I'm splitting this region. I'm deleting here Everything after that on the timeline is moving forward or back depending on how you think about it Which is very useful for deleting mistakes in the voiceover I'd just like to interject for a moment I would just like to interject for a moment What's your All right, let's start with this one I would just like to interject for a moment What you're referring to as Linux is in fact GNU-Linux or as I've recently taken to calling it GNU plus Now there's a little bit of Now we can cut it off cut it out If I just do that Calling it GNU. It sounds better already GNU plus linux Linux We could also remove this bit Linux is not an operating system unto itself But rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU core libs shell utilities And vital system components comprising of a full comprising okay, and vital system components comprising. Okay comprising comprising Let's cut here and delete this system components comprising a I think we should move this back a little bit Yeah, we can also make a little bit of a fade Some components comprising a full os as defined by POSIX Great, we don't want these crabs here All right, but this is good signed by POSIX Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day without realizing it through apart That's there's a little bit of clicks and pops Remove this one realizing it through apart through Oh Okay, I need to preserve this breath here. So I'm going to move it a little bit And crossfade without realizing it Through a peculiar turn of events the version of GNU, which is widely used today is often called Linux Now this is ugly, I don't want that and I know what this is and called Okay, this is cold, but this is a piece of garbage. I want to remove that I'm not sure if this is going to be a problem. This is a steep click Well, let's hear if there's going to be a click then called Linux. Okay. No click because auto creates these default Default fade outs and fade ins. We can also inter overlap these regions and it's going to crossfade between a is often called Linux And many of its users are not aware that is this basically that it is basically Okay, that it is That it is basically that is this that is That it All right, I need to That that is it So in this kind of situation what you need to do is find the spot in two takes that is identical So you can layer them all one on top of each other or that is That that and here is that it. Okay. I need to layer these two Oh my goodness. I'm sorry and Where that it Now let's Find a place where these two can meet where that it is basically Okay, I think we need to back off a little bit the where that it is Where that it is basic. All right, you see we managed to to find a spot where the two takes can be transitioned between without You hearing any any discrepancy are not aware that it is basically the GNU system developed Ah another ugly stuff Maybe let's mute this one instead of deleting a system developed by the GNU project Now why muting is because I don't want to shorten this part. I just want to have a pause there And in this ripple mode it's it would be Automatically shortening this part new project That it is basically the GNU system Aware that it is basically the GNU system developed by the GNU project Okay, this is another take by the GNU project I like this system developed by the GNU project There's are not aware that it is basically the project That it is basically the GNU that it is based All right, so we have another take which is better. So I want to find it where that That it is where that is there's are not aware that is that it is okay that it Where that Oh, I can see by the waveform that we are having the same part here. Okay. I'm gonna delete this. Oh, oh, oh um and this is where the Ripple mode is kind sometimes fighting against you And sometimes slide mode would be better because wouldn't automatically slide this thing Not aware that is basically Are not aware that is basically the GNU. Oh wait Where that is this basic? Oh, okay. Okay. Where that is this basic that it is basically There that is this base there that is this Oh, that's slip up. Oh, we need to combine more of that stuff. All right It is basically the there's are not aware that is this base That it is basically Okay, so we need to um Eat that Yeah, we're in the slide mode. I think we're gonna be good in the slide mode for now So the are not aware that is We need to fix this with that part, but also replace the other part later with this Okay, which part is this there's are not aware that it is basically aware that Aware that it is okay aware that it is not aware that it is basically the Basically the okay. I'm gonna split it here that it is and go here is basically the That it that it is basic aware that it is basic Aware that it All right, now we have the third take and we're going to find this place. Oh nice. This I can make a crossfade here That it is basically the GNU but users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system developed by the project Okay, uh That's the type of anything I wanted to show you Sometimes you have multiple takes which have like parts of words that are okay and parts which are not okay You need to combine them into a single flawless performance And finding the same spot layering the two and finding the perfect place to go from one to the other Is how you do it Now where are we project? All right, then developed by the GNU. Let's go on All right, and then there's the third paragraph I wonder if I should edit the third paragraph. I think that's going to be enough.  I'm just doing this to show you The workflow and the tools and I think we've I've shown you enough Okay, now let's go to the third part After recording Editing let's go to processing so to process this first thing I'm going to do is Have a little bit of noise That's going to be perfect. Okay What I'm gonna do is add A plugin that performs noise removal It's called noise repellent It's an open source lv2 plugin what it does is um It it does pretty much what audacity's noise removal does And that it profiles some sound to create a frequency response profile and then it uses that profile to remove noise So first we need to activate the learn noise profile option and play back some of the noise through the track Now it's learned. It's been learning. I can disable this and it's going to Attenuate the noise you can hear that we hear no noise right now in there I'm going to move that plugin before the fader Let's listen to the voice and see how that handles it. It can only function in the context of a complete operating system Now I don't hear any artifacts from this But we could lower the reduction amount Linux operating system Linux Let's mute it or bypass the defect operating system And now I can hear okay let's go with six decibels of um Maybe even eight decibels. I still can't hear at even at 10 decibels of that of re of noise reduction um Now there's always going to be a little bit of noise and after we apply equal equalization And compression the noise is going to be brought up. So if we can get it down That's good. That's always great So the next thing to do is I'm going to add a gate I've recently started using lsp plugins a lot and I think they're really good Okay, let's go lsp gate lsp gates mono because we're using mono and mono track lsp lv2 great Okay, so if you don't know what a gate is doing is it's Attenuating the sound when it goes below a certain threshold of volume I'm going to make this keep stay above other windows and let's play back some sounds Now let's move down the threshold With the gnu operating system the whole system The whole system is basically gnu with linux added okay, so What is really good about the lsp gate is that it creates this very useful graph I would just like to interject for a moment Oh, you see now we're we've cut off the end of the word too fast So I'm going to lower the threshold. What you're referring to as linux is in fact gnu slash linux now we didn't Let the start through or Quickly enough. I'm going to enable auto return so that I can play back a part of the timeline Gnu slash linux or as I've recently I want to remove reduce the attack time new slash linux So that it opens up the gate quicker. You can see this ramp if I make the attack long new slash linux Or as I've recently taken to calling it gnu plus you can see that gnu was Gnu it was softened because of the low long attack if I shorten it or as I've recently taken to calling it Gnu plus linux let now we want this The gain reduction envelope to only duck when there is nothing being said, okay So it's cutting off or attenuating the silence between words And this is going to help us first reduce the noise even thirder and also Shorten the reverb tail of this room because this room isn't properly acoustically treated And there is some reverberation and we can get rid of that a little bit by using this gate Of course, it's not going to do wonders, but it's a little bit of a push towards a better sound and Whatever we can do we'll do it to have the better sound Or as I've recently taken to calling it gnu plus linux Now the gain reduction is 24 decibels And we could go all the way to negative 72 or as I've recently taken to calling it Gnu plus linux, but I think that often is very brutal and like doesn't sound very natural So we can go stay with negative 24 or even go higher Or as I've recently taken to calling it gnu plus linux Linux is not an operating system unto itself But rather another free component of a fully functioning gnu system made useful by the gnu core libs Shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full os as defined by posix Many And it nicely attenuates the spot the pauses so we don't have any noise lingering there Okay, the next thing I want to do is apply an equalizer EQ and I'm also going to use lsp eq Parametric equalizer 16 mono. Yes Let's make it stay on top and Okay, so the first thing I want to do is boost the lows a little bit And So I'm going to use a low shelf filter I'm also going to turn on the analysis and make it post eq or as I've recently Now we can drag this in or as I've recently taken to calling it gnu plus linux Or as I've recently taken to now we are like emphasizing the proximity effect and making the voice sound a little bit more radio like Or as I've recently taken to calling it gnu plus linux We've got three Three decibels of actually I want to have less like or I'm gonna zoom in because three decibels is already a lot Or as I've recently taken to calling it gnu plus linux. Okay. Now we have two decibels of gain in that on that Another thing I want to do is cut off low frequencies that we don't need and that's going to be anything happening I'm below my lowest like Fundamental so I'm going to use a hypers filter And we are going to want to use the steepest one available So let's go for I don't know if it's l r l r x And times four. Yeah, this is extremely steep or as I've recently taken to calling it gnu plus linux Linux is not an operating system Now that reminds me of the video I made about achieving the radio voice transmission effect or as I've recently taken to calling it gnu plus linux Linux is not an operating system I'm going to Unzoom so I can see more or as I've of the frequency spectrum analysis or as I've recently taken to calling it Gnu plus linux. Okay. I like that. Let's have a bell Filter to boost the highs a little bit. That's something I do often Or as I've recently taken to calling it gnu plus linux Now don't pay attention to the sibilants just yet sibilants the sounds They're going to attenuate them after this But I want to get the general vowel tones to sound a little bit brighter Or as I've recently taken to calling it gnu plus linux Linux I'm using the mouse wheel to widen this filter or as I've recently taken to calling it gnu plus linux All right. Another thing I want to do is Have a Okay, maybe not the notch filter. Maybe a bell filter first I'm going to search for resonances So I'll have this filter and make it narrower or And I'm going to sweep through the spectrum and listen to anything that goes that jumps out at me Let's maybe sweep with this frequency knob. So I'm not changing the amplitude. So I so the actual thing jumping out is not the Cause by me just move wiggling my mouse app accidentally Or as I've recently taken to calling it gnu plus linux Linux is not an operating system unto itself But rather another free component of a fully functioning gnu system made useful by okay. This this sounds like Something is going on in there and I want to attenuate this part. So Let's go and lower The gain to negative values or as I've recently taken to calling it gnu plus linux Now we can mute this filter and listen to How it sounds without it or as I've recently taken to calling it gnu plus linux Okay, I think it sounds a little bit cleaner. We could do this a bunch more times Create a bell filter Narrower it Sweep up the frequency spectrum Or as I've recently taken to calling it gnu plus linux Linux is not an operating system unto itself But rather another free component of a fully functioning gnu system made useful by the gnu core libs Shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full os as defined by posix Many computer users run a modified version of the gnu system every day Okay, I think this sounds a little bit nasally and I could want to attain with a little bit And then we can see and compare if it sounds better with that filter on or not Let's listen it to it without Or as I've recently taken to calling it and with gnu plus linux Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component I can barely hear a difference, but I think this one sounds a little bit cleaner Now any room you're going to record with has some room modes or resonances and that in smaller rooms. That's going to be Um higher frequencies. So if you're in a tiny tiny room, you may have reason resonances up in, you know 800 hertz 500 hertz. I don't know in a little bit bigger rooms. You're going to have resonance at 50 100 at 40 at some size of a room The resonances go so low that you don't hear them anymore And it's the best place to be in but not everyone can afford a huge room And also then afford the sound treatment Materials to put in that room because if it's big you need a lot of that And it gets expensive quickly. Okay. So that's dq action for us Now what I want to do is Apply compression Actually, I'm going to apply multiband compression lsp multiband Compressor mono. Yes now what the multiband compressor does is It uses a bunch of clever shelving filters that attenuate or Emphasize different frequency bands separately based on their amplitude. That's what a modern multiband compressor does I have a full two videos about compression in general. So I'm not going to talk detail here What I want this to do is even out the the sound and like make it fuller It's going to sound bigger And more radio like again or as I've recently taken to calling it GNU plus linux So what we need to do to actually make this thing do anything is Rise the ratios and you can just do it by clicking on this dial So let's click on that angle to dial in 2.5 Ratio of okay Highest good or as I've recently taken to calling it now what I usually do is Instead of tweaking the thresholds Which are ratio and knee knee decibels if if you turn this down It's going to start compressing faster like this or Or does it or as I've recently actually we need to like rearrangeer. Okay. We need this to be about four and a half Okay, let's go a four thousand hertz. This could be a bit higher. This could be a bit higher Or as I've recently Yeah, let's go or as I've recently Okay, if I rise or if I rise it it's not compressing at all But it's still very low and I think I'm just going to rise the input volume Give ourselves 15 more decibels Lower that afterwards so we're not getting smashed with the sound or as I've recently taken to calling it GNU plus linux Linux is not an operating system unto itself But rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system Okay, I think the highs are nicely attenuated, but it's a little bit too aggressive and I think I'm going to back off the Ratio or as I've recently taken to calling it Also shortened the release So it's immediately retracting and not like spilling the the attenuation at the sounds after it Or as I've recently taken to calling it GNU plus linux Yeah, let's go and mute that or Or as I've recently taken to calling it GNU plus linux. Listen to the GNU plus linux Or as I've recently taken to calling it GNU plus linux It's not hurting anymore. And that's what a dsr would do for us now I'm going to probably add also a dsr after that, but this pretty much does what a dsr would do in a split mode So I think we actually don't need a dsr because we view this multiband compressor to do the job of a dsr for us Or as I've recently taken to calling it GNU plus linux Okay, what I want to do after that is Apply a compressor and not not a multiband compressor anymore To even out the levels Finally or as I've recently take Let's lower the threshold or as I've recently taken to calling it GNU plus linux I also want to rise the attack time a little bit or as I've recently taken to call and rise the makeup gain Or oh my goodness. That's loud. Sorry. Um, or as I've recently taken to calling it GNU plus linux Linux is not an operating system unto itself But rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU core libs shell utilities And vital system components comprising a full os as defined by posix A posix and by posix Okay, I think the posix is a bit too high by posix. We get a little bit of a click by posix As as defined by posix. All right. Yeah. Yeah that that managed to do it computer users run a month without realizing it Now there's a bunch of compression and it sounds really like meaty and huge and you might not be after that kind of sound but That's kind of the sound of a voice over you'll hear in a commercial And since I've been doing some Video game trailers. That's what I was doing uh Of course, you can back off the multiband compression and the compression and Like make this sound a little bit more natural And also the acoustics of the room again are not perfect system unto itself So maybe you could try and tweak the gate a little bit to Cut off the reverb tails even more Maybe if I like lowered the release time System unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning new system made you Maybe I'll need to lower the threshold of release so that it's system unto itself, but Oh, I can increase the zone range system unto itself But rather another free component of a fully functioning new system made you Okay, so that it's like it has it like a Less of a steep slope, you know if I embrace the zone system unto itself But rather it's it's clicky and if I lower the zone System unto itself, but rather it's a bit more gentle and there's also a way to enable hysteresis so that we have like two different Curves for like attack and release, but I don't really understand how it works I'm not gonna use it then Oh, we could lower the reduction a little bit to also make it a little bit gentle system unto itself But rather another free component now, what if we just disable this now does it actually contribute anything good? Let's check system unto itself But rather another free component of a fully functioning new system made useful by the GNU core libs Shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full os as defined by posix system unto itself, but Well, yeah, I can hear that there's less reverberation being being audible in this recording when we enable the gate So it is doing something good. I've heard some Denoising artifacts near the end though. Let's check that out as defined by posix Many computer you okay. Um, I guess the gate also attenuates the parts where the Denoising artifacts are most audible All right, uh, the last thing I will do is add a master limiter before we export this And again, I'm going to use lsp limiter this time. It's gonna be stereo So we could export this to a mono file as defined by posix now our levels are really low We're not touching the compressor the limiter at all. I'm going to turn this down in post But now let's dial in the actual levels As defined and I'm going to lower my headphones volume as defined by posix Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day without realizing it Through a peculiar turn of events the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux And many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system developed by the GNU project There really is a Linux and these people are using it, but it is just Okay So that's that i'm going to set my export marker. There really is a no project My goodness it sounds no project. It sounds really over the top you may uh, either be like delighted with that sound or being a gag reflex from the sound but Well, if you need to get that sound and voiceovers that sound like this Then now, you know how to do that with free and open source software Let's just export it I am going to do it for 24 bit flak We don't need a normalization because we're running a a limiter Let's call the session snapshot and disable the time span and analyze the exported audio I will export it and I will look at the analysis screen All right. So here is our export and report analysis And we can see that our volume has went over the zero decibel limit Um, we should have limited our we should have had like negative one decibel of Output gain on our limiter actually to limit that Because no limiter actually is going to be perfect even if I use oversampling and this is our vocals the Integrated loudness is negative 15.6. I'll ufs and I think that's a very good level if you want to like Have this voiceover be uploaded to youtube or some other stream services because it's going to be loud and clear But also it has plenty of dynamics as you can see in the waveforms There's There's a lot of room for this to breathe Even if it's multi-band compressed and then compressed and then limited We're still like we're not smashing it Um, we could be going way harder at this and actually destroy the sound and make it unbearable But it's not that bad really So I think that's a very good level And I did that like just by looking at the limiter's gain reduction So Yeah, funny All right. That's all I wanted to show you in this video I hope you've enjoyed this video and you found it worth your time Thanks for watching and also huge thanks to all the people who are supporting me financially If you would like to join them Please go to patreon.com slash anfa or liberapay.com slash anfa Or can give me a buck or two every month or not. You can download this session Link is in the video description. You can play with it. You can Practice editing you can practice mixing or just use this and and make some memes I don't I don't know the downloads are licensed under cc zero So effectively public domain you can do whatever you don't have to credit me even though an attribution is always welcome Once again, thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video. Bye I would just like to interject for a moment What you're referring to as linux is in fact GNU slash linux or as I've recently taken to calling it GNU plus linux Linux is not an operating system unto itself But rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system Made useful by the GNU core libs shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full os