As The Raven Dreams Podcast - A (Not So) Quick Podcast Update - Volume issue, Ads, etc

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

Hey there Friends! I wanted to address something that a lot of you have been mentioning- Volume Issues with the podcast and Ads. So, if you have issues with the volume of the podcast, PLEASE listen to this update. There's also a slight update at the end about me having Covid, explaining why my voice sounds not the best. Thank you! I appreciate you all. I am working on the issues as you report them, and trying to find the balance, and I hope it works well for you all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Cirotay. Bookine. Oh, so see. And profite. Villaray, the voice that we love. Hey there, friends. I just wanted to pop in here to kind of, I guess, address an issue that a lot of people are commenting about with the podcast. I've received a lot of comments basically stating that the podcast is really quiet. I do admit that while looking at some of my older episodes, perhaps the volume wasn't up as high as it normally is. Though it's a bit strange because on the YouTube side of things,

I don't have this problem. So all of my audio was recorded. I'm going to explain this a little bit, just to say guys know. All of my audio is recorded at one time, so like an entire video or an episode's worth of audio on YouTube. I then take the audio from the YouTube videos because I save all the stories separately in their own files. I then put them together to export a podcast episode,

typically two YouTube videos worth. I've never had an issue with volume on the YouTube side. No one has ever complained about that. I've listened to my own videos on YouTube, and I don't typically have to have it up too loud to hear it, so it's never been an issue that I've had to address. And, prior to a few months ago, it didn't seem to be an issue on the podcast side,

though I will admit my listener based on my podcast side of things around what four or five months ago was a lot less than what it is now. There's been some amazing growth in the podcast. I'm not going to get into that, but thank you to all of you who do listen. So I'm not sure if it's just an issue of there are more listeners so there's more opportunity for people to report this issue or what. I have been trying to increase the volume on all of my podcast episodes since the same. started getting reported. Because from what I've been told, and the biggest issue with this, is that the content itself is too quiet, and then the advertisements that are like mid-rolls end up being too loud. I think this problem is actually two-fold. The, and I apologize, I have no script for this. I'm just talking off the top of my head, and if you guys watch

my YouTube videos, you know that's a terrible idea on my part. Um, anyways, the, first issue, the first fold, is that my audio is not quite as loud as it should be. Again, I think that comes from there's never been an issue, so I've never had to fix it. But what I've been doing to address that problem is I have been amplifying my recordings. I went into audacity, my audio recording software, and I changed my macro to kind of change the compressor, how I do it, and then also add some speech leveling, which does increase the lows and kind of decrease the highs, kind of tries to get it more of a mid-range. There is some more amplification I do in my macro, which does make it a little louder, a little, not really more bassy, but a little

less trebly, I guess. So hopefully that does kind of fix some of the issue. The problem with that is that what I'm finding is, on my amplifications, I'm almost hitting clip range. If you work with audio, you know what clipping is. Clipping is whenever it breaks that spectacles. It breaks that and it just sounds god-awful. So I'm trying on that front. And with that, I genuinely implore you guys. If you notice an increase in volume that is good, please comment and let me know.

That way I know that what I've done is working or isn't working. Because if it's not working and it still sounds too quiet, I need to know that too. Now, mind you, that only applies to episodes after, let me check really quick. the 23rd, I believe, of which there's only been two, but there's another one tomorrow,

and then you guys know I do every Friday and then every Sunday, so from there to the end of that, basically. If you guys, if it is working, please let me know. I'm trying. I really am trying. Trust me. I'm not just ignoring your guys' comments about it and saying whatever. But I also don't want to overdo it and make the audio clip and just have it sounds awful.

You know, it's a, it is a very delicate balance on that, so. Now, the second fold of that is the advertisements being super loud compared to my content. First things first, I want to make it very clear. Podcasters do not choose the advertisements that play on their podcasts. They do not choose the volume. They don't adjust it. All we do is we click a spot in the podcast for a mid-roll. That's it.

there is no hands-on work with advertising outside of like sponsorships, which I don't have right now. So any advertisements that you get are not reflective of my views, opinions, or work, I suppose. If I could adjust the volume, I would make them match my content 100%, but I can't. so if you think the situation is the content is too quiet versus the ad then there's really not much you can do other than let me know that's about it however from what I've seen there have there has been

and this is not negative to Spotify or anyone else in any way shape or form but there has been a situation where I've seen reported where some some advertisements are for no reason extremely amplified versus the content. That is not supposed to happen. Obviously, advertising is, there's a whole, like, science to it,

and they do have, some ads are loud, admittedly. You guys have watched TV and have those ads that come in, like, five decibels louder than the show you're watching. But it's not supposed to be that the content is X loud, and then the advertisement is 3x louder. So if you find an advertising, that does that.

Jot down, I don't know all the information, sorry, but jot down like the time, who it was, and the episode you were watching. And if you Google search, Spotify, support, advertisements louder than podcast, you will see that there is a forum thread of people reporting these advertisements. That's what you need to do.

Reporting the advertisements to Spotify makes it to where they can fix this issue and make it to where those advertisements don't blow out your eardrums, basically. It's a thing that shouldn't happen, but if you look, again, if you Google it, it is happening. It is the thing it happens. I don't know whose fault it is. I don't know if it's the advertiser, Spotify, or just a bug in the system.

It's hard to say, so. So, all that said, I've gone on for almost seven minutes. Probably will go over seven minutes. Again, let me know if my volume is getting louder, if it's good. If it's good, getting louder, not like bad. And then if you have any advertisements that seem obnoxiously, loud or excessively amplified. Please do report that to Spotify so they can take care of that.

I would say report it to me, but there's not much I can do. I can't report things on your behalf because they won't have access to like the analytics of who saw the ad, how many times it was reported, etc. So it has to be on you guys, unfortunately. No, I'm done, done rambling. Sorry if my voice did sound a little off in this video. I am coming out of a COVID infection, which is another. thing to address. I'll address it very slightly here. I'm coming out of a COVID infection last week,

actually slightly before last week, the 15th, to be exact, is whenever my COVID symptoms started hitting me. It was Thursday night. It was just a basic sinus thing. I was like, oh, this sucks. I'm having sinus pressure, which happens to me all the time. And then the 16th was really bad, like really painful my sinuses. And then I started having some other symptoms that I attributed, have attributed to COVID in my mind because the other times, two times, unfortunately, that I've had it. It's been the same symptoms. I took a test. It was positive.

I had COVID over that last week. So finally came out of it around the 13th-ish, somewhere in there. And I'm doing a lot better. However, if you've had COVID, you know that there is a lingering issue with, like, coughing, congestion, throat scratchiness, like that right there. So I'm getting better. I'm drinking a lot of water, drinking teas. It'll be okay. Just some stories over the next few episodes, maybe a little rough.

Not all of them, but some of them. It's hard to explain. Just some of them. Okay? So that's all. I'm not going to keep rambling. If you listen to this, thank you very much. If not, but thank you anyways.

If you've ever listened to any of my podcast episodes, thank you so very much. You guys are amazing. I really do appreciate you. All that said, friends, I hope you have a beautiful day. Hope I see you again soon. but until next time, much love and sleep well.