How many places are your files backed up to? This week, Anne & Erikka meticulously discuss their redundancy rituals in the booth. Everything must be backed up. Files, microphones, power, internet connectivity, cables, interfaces, XLR cables, and more. In a perfect world, every BOSS has a plan for when tech inevitably fails, and if you don’t, we’ve got you covered!

Transcript

>> It’s time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry’s top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let’s welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.

Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast and our balance series. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I'm excited to start my day with my extra special guest co-host Erikka J. Erikka! Hey.

Erikka: Hey Anne, how are you?

Anne: Erikka, I had a bad dream last night.

Erikka: Uh-oh. What was it?

Anne: My bad dream was I was in the middle of a client session, and my computer just went, blah. It just died. And I was freaking out because I couldn't figure out what to do. I couldn't get it back up. And my client was just waiting, and there was like crickets. And I kept thinking to myself, man, if I don't do something to get this up and running quickly, I am not gonna have this client anymore. So.

Erikka: Yeah.

Anne: I think we should talk about being prepared in the event of this sort of a thing happening and talk about equipment.

Erikka: Yeah.

Anne: And what's important for us as business owners to protect ourselves and our businesses by maybe talking about equipment, having backup equipment, what's involved, what should we be thinking about, all of those good stuff.

Erikka: Certainly a balanced approach to have is to understand that hardware, it's not about if it will fail, it's when.

Anne: They're built to fail, actually.

Erikka: Right?

Anne: My prime example is the Toyota Corolla because I had a friend who literally drove a Toyota Corolla back in the day. I think it was a 1970 some odd year of Toyota Corolla. And it went for, I'm gonna say 500,000 miles or something crazy like that. They took really good care of it, obviously, but I'm like, they don't build cars like that today. They build them to break at a certain point. And yeah, our equipment is no different really. I mean at some point it will fail.

Erikka: Yeah. And it's everything it's like, you know, thinking about the entire chain, like mics, usually they take quite a while, but your interfaces, your cables, your computer screens, your keyboards, your mouse, like all of it.

Anne: And I think the most scary of them all is your computer.

Erikka: Oh God.

Anne: Outside of your internet not working, right?

Erikka: Yes.

Anne: I have things that my heart rate goes up, and the first is that if I lose my internet connection. The second is if my computer dies, and I cannot get it back up and running. And then I think to myself, when was the last time I did a backup?

Erikka: Yeah.

Anne: Oh my goodness.

Erikka: Yeah.

Anne: All of that just gives me like heart palpitations.

Erikka: Yeah, buddy. It's a scary thing. Anxiety inducing experience. .

Anne: So this is what we can say probably together in chorus, redundancy --

Both: Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy, redundancy. .

Erikka: Let's make a song.

Anne: Yes. We have to have the redundancy song and it'll just have the word redundancy.

Erikka: That's it.

Anne: That'll be it. And it'll just sing it over and over and over again because yeah.

Erikka: And see how that goes together, the redundancy of the song?

Anne: Exactly.

Erikka: Haha!

Anne: Exactly. So redundancy in, in pretty much everything. This is something you should build into your business. And I think it's important to talk about. Yeah, you're right. Mics last a long time. I've actually yet to have a mic fail on me.

Erikka: Same.

Anne: And I've been in this for quite a few years now. So over 15 years, of course, what happens is I buy new mics just because I want a new mic. . I want the new technology, but I have had the unfortunate incident of my interface just dying in the middle of a recording. And I did not have a backup interface. Now --

Erikka: Same.

Anne: -- thankfully I was not on the line with a client at the time, but I got so scared because I thought, oh my God, what if I was on a live directed session and something just happened?

Erikka: Yeah.

Anne: So I would say a redundant interface, and they're not that expensive these days. You can get a really decent one as a backup for -- I love my Steinberg interface. I'm a big fan of the Steinberg interfaces. They're relatively inexpensive, $175 maybe. And I have the, UR22 or is it the 2i2, I believe, I can't remember, but it has two interfaces, support for two interfaces. And I just love that. It was a workhorse for me for good six years and literally it didn't die. I just decided I wanted to have a different interface. So that became a backup interface for myself.

Erikka: Well, that's another thing you bring up, Anne, yeah. So I'll address that first is that not just redundancy of different interfaces, but having the dual inputs because you can have just one input die.

Anne: That's true.

Erikka: So having a dual input's a great idea. So that even the built in redundancy in the interface is great.

Anne: Yeah.

Erikka: But yeah, when I started, I had the Scarlet 2i2; it served me well for years before I was really kind of doing more broadcast quality stuff. It's a great starter interface for sure. But I had to just start to make these weird spikes in the audio and clicks and I was like, what's going on? And I'm like seeing if it's the cable and it was the day gone interface and I didn't have a backup. Thank God did not have a live session, quickly ordered an Audient ID 22 .

Anne: Yep.

Erikka: And it got here in time, but that was scary.

Anne: Well, I am gonna tell you that I also had that problem with weird noises happening. And that happened to two of my Scarlet interfaces. So I no longer recommend those interfaces. And I know there's a lot of people that do. But I think you have to be very, very careful. I have not had good luck. I've had a lot of students who've not had good luck with them. And I just think if you have one, buy something for redundancy, but buy a different brand.

Erikka: For sure. Yeah, For sure. Always get something different because mine was the first gen, which it lasted for a fair amount of years, but I heard the second gens were pretty bad.

Anne: Yes.

Erikka: And I've heard people have had great experiences with the third.

Anne: With the third, me too.

Erikka: I did not go back to it. But like you said, there are tons of options. Like I have the Audient Evo, which is like super tiny, like for travel. I've got the Motu. Those are both under $200. Like you said, the Steinberg is under $300. Audient has a number of them that are great. And even if you do get a big boy, like I got the Apollo because I just wanted to --

Anne: Me too.

Erikka: -- see it, and I like the colors and I just love it. But I do have Audients as backup. Yes.

Anne: I like when you bring up all the colors and the little dials. Yeah. It's very pretty.

Erikka: It's like you're booting up a spaceship. Like --

Anne: It's very sparkly yes. I bought the Apollo because it's so sparkly. It's wonderful.

Erikka: I know.

Anne: Right? But yeah, I also have an Apollo interface, and by the way, just FYI, the Steinberg is actually under $200, so --

Erikka: Is it? Okay, perfect.

Anne: -- it's a really reasonable price for the Steinberg.

Erikka: Thought it was like $229, but yeah. Perfect.

Anne: Yeah. For $179, I've seen it, but yeah. So I absolutely love the Steinberg. I have it as a backup, and actually I have another backup just because I was all buying interfaces to try them out. So I have another interface. I have a Mackey interface that is another backup as well. So I'm set for that. And because I'm gonna tell you guys, it took me 10 years to buy a 416. So I had a TLM 103, I still have it. And I said, I'm gonna try a 416. And so now I have, you know, a couple of choices when I come into the studio here, but one is redundant, right? If I, this one doesn't work, the other one will. Also for traveling. So my justification was, let me get a 416 for my travel microphone. And then I said, well, well, I'm not traveling during the pandemic, right, it went right into my studio. Now it's just becoming something I use every single day, which I absolutely love. And --

Erikka: I love my 416, but I do love my 103. 'Cause when I do things where bigger noises, it's not as forgiving. I know there are people that do animation on the 416, but I just like being able to have the space to kind of yell a little more freely and for singing, like I wouldn't really use the 416. So I love my 103 for that.

Anne: Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. I love them both. I have the option. So I'm really excited about that. Now computer computers.

Erikka: Goodness gracious.

Anne: I have, myself, I have an iMac, a 27-inch iMac, which is my main computer and also my audio computer. But I also have a MacBook pro, which is what I got for travel. But that serves as my redundant computer in case something were to happen to my main Mac.

Erikka: Yeah. I'm a Windows girl. So offering the balance here.

Anne: That's it. That's right.

Erikka: I did a custom build. So like went out and like my brother helped me pick all my different parts and all my RAM and everything's custom to make sure it fits. And I actually have a case that is isolating. So it's super quiet.

Anne: Nice.

Erikka: So that's my main computer and yes, I primarily use it for recording, but I do other things like everybody else, but not a lot of other software on that one. And I have a HP something or other, I forget what the model number is, but that's my travel. But then I also have a backup to that. I've got like a Surface Go or something like that.

Anne: Mm-hmm, yep, yep.

Erikka: So obviously if the, if the main one went down, which it better not, 'cause I only built it like a year and a half ago, but I could use the laptop and record from that.

Anne: Yeah. So having those around in the event of something happening when you are online with a client or a studio, recording with a studio, it's always wonderful to have those. And I think I mentioned this once before in one of our episodes, it's important that you kind of understand like how they go together. And so if you don't necessarily, labels are really helpful for cables, what goes where, taking pictures of your setup. I used to take pictures of my, my mix, mix minus setup, like take all the dials before I really figured out how my equipment worked and, and I would have an engineer help me set it up and then I would take pictures.

Erikka: Yep. Yeah. I write on mine with the little marker, like, so I know the marker where's my optimal gain setting is.

Anne: Yep. Absolutely.

Erikka: Yeah. Yeah.

Anne: Very important. So yeah, I think that labels, photos, making sure you know, how things go together, and also redundancy in, let's say, your internet connection as well, 'cause yeah.

Erikka: Oh buddy, yeah.

Anne: Don't wanna forget if you lose your internet connection. Do you have another way to connect to the internet? And I know that I have a hotspot on my phone --

Erikka: Same.

Anne: -- as another way to connect. And I've actually used that while I was online with people in a session. So make sure that, you know, that that hotspot works, and I was using ipDTL at the time. And you wanna make sure that that hotspot is powerful enough so that it can support you in a SourceConnect or ipDTL session.

Erikka: Yeah, thank goodness I haven't had that scenario where I lost internet and couldn't, you know, was able, had to use the hotspot, but I was close. I do have the one on my phone as well. And it's just great to have an option because yes, hardwired should be your primary by all means. But even having a wifi card, you know, in your main computer or, you know, like you said, your laptop or something else.

Anne: Good point. Not just hardwired ethernet, but also wifi capacity as well. Even though I think hardwired is always best. We had our new house built and moved in right before the pandemic. I had this office outfitted with three ethernet jacks. So I had redundant I had redundancy in my hard wire in addition to our wifi and getting different satellite options to make sure the wifi worked in every room.

Erikka: Yep.

Anne: So that if we could have that redundancy. You just can't afford, if you are a business owner and you work from home, you can't afford to not have I think a decent internet connection. And with that being said, I mean a decent internet connection. I'm not talking about like a couple hundred megabits per second upload. I'm talking gig. If you can get fiber or gigabit internet, it's absolutely worth the money. Like what do you think, Erikka?

Erikka: It's so necessary. Yeah, absolutely. I've been like emailing my HOA, like when are we getting fiber? Because this is an older established neighborhood. So I'm like waiting for, please dig up and give us fiber because it's worth it. But until then I do have gig internet. It's just so necessary. And I go test my speed every once in a while on like speedtest.net or whatever website is just to make sure I'm getting what I'm paying for.

Anne: Yes, speedtest.net is a great resource. I wanna just back that up.

Erikka: Yeah.

Anne: And saying that's how you can find out if you're getting what you're paying for. I've had to do that test multiple times with students who are like, oh no, I just upgraded my internet. And I'll be like, okay, go to speedtest.net. Let's see what your download and your upload is. And your upload is actually pretty important when you're doing a SourceConnect or an ipDTL. So upload speed is important. And Erikka, you mentioned something about, you know, you're waiting for gig, and a lot of times gig is underground when they do the fiber, they put the fiber underground.

Erikka: For the fiber, yeah.

Anne: So one thing that you also mentioned to me prior to this was depending on where you live, right, what type of internet connection, but also the power, right?

Erikka: Yes. Yeah.

Anne: Like I think that you wanna make sure that everything you have, if your power goes out, do you have redundant power somehow? Or do you have protection on your equipment? Like you mentioned a UPS.

Erikka: I did. And that was one thing where -- thank goodness I don't get a ton of power outages. I've had a couple like brownouts, but an uninterruptable power supply, UPS or Ups. What that does is for when it is a surge protector, well, if you get the one that they usually have a surge protector built in, so it gives you back. But what it also does is it will save your computer from, it'll give it some power. It's like a battery that will temporarily it's big enough. It's pretty heavy to be able to keep running your equipment that's plugged into it. And the idea is to be able to have it still have power so that you can safely shut down --

Anne: Yeah.

Erikka: -- and save whatever you're doing. So say you're in the middle of a session. If you lose power, obviously your Internet's probably gone. So maybe your clients were on the phone and they're gone now, but you can save that session or finish recording a take and save it and then shut down safely without it being just cut off from the power outage or even brownout. So I have all of my devices plugged into the Ups. I actually use a power strip where I plug everything in so that I could have more outlets. And then I plug the power strip into the Ups.

Anne: Yeah. So important. And when your computer crashes from a power outage, sometimes it doesn't come back up. And that's where, you know, my heart rate, as I was mentioning, my internet goes down or my computer doesn't boot back up properly., that just gets me really nervous. So.

Erikka: Safe mode, blue screens, or --

Anne: Exactly.

Erikka: Oh, it's so scary.

Anne: Yeah. So in addition to all the redundant hardware, also making sure -- we had also talked about redundant hardware where I back up my files to an identical external drive.

Erikka: Yes.

Anne: So I have two of the, I think they're like four terabyte drives that I love, oh my gosh. Now I'm gonna have to go look up what kind of drives they are. But the ones that I have are external drives for my Mac. And I basically put all of my audio files on an external drive. I've never put my files on an internal drive to my computer in case it doesn't boot back up.

Erikka: Yeah, yeah.

Anne: I wanna always have access to my files on an external drive and God forbid, my external drive goes, I've got the mirrored copy on the second external drive to get that information off of. And I also have a backup on the cloud. So I have three spots where I can get access to that. And so hopefully you have software that will retain information if you happen to crash. I know that Twisted Wave does if I crash out of my computer, and I boot back up, Twisted Wave will say, do you want to recover from a crash?

Erikka: Yeah. Audition too.

Anne: Audition too. Thankfully.

Erikka: Yeah. Thank goodness. What I'll do is I have, because I had mine custom built, I do have like an extra drive that was built in there. So I do save my, my recordings there, but I do have a auto running backup that goes to my external drive. And it's four gigs too. And I can't remember the brand name now 'cause I never look at it 'cause it's for backup.

Anne: 'Cause it's so darn good.

Erikka: And thank goodness. Hopefully I'll never need it. But then also when I send my files out to my clients, I put everything on Google Drive and I paid for the extra space. So that way, not only will they have access to it, but I know that at least my recordings are out there on the cloud, and if I lose everything, I've got those files.

Anne: Thank goodness. Right?

Erikka: Yeah. Yeah.

Anne: And there's lots of backup, backup, backup, guys. I would say redundancy in your drives if you can do it. And I think that's just from 20 years in working in technology. We always had to make sure that we had backups of things because the last thing you wanna do is lose your data. And then it was easier to restore from a backup than it would be to reload the operating system and then go back and reinstall all the programs that you use. And so there's lots of software programs out there that'll do backup for you to do that. If not, definitely, I would say contact someone to get help and back up those computers, back up your phone, that kind of thing. All your pictures now. This is the other thing too, is my pictures that I have, what, over 10,000 pictures now on my phone. Oh good God. .

Erikka: So many pictures of random things.

Anne: Yeah. What happens when you lose your phone? So.

Erikka: Oh gosh.

Anne: Yeah, yeah. Lots of redundancy there.

Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. And you know another thing, even though this isn't necessarily hardware, you know, often if you're in a live session, you'll hear somebody say, you know, can you run a back up? Like that's why, having redundancy in the recording, right? Whether you're in --

Anne: You're running a backup --

Erikka: -- SourceConnect --

Anne: -- for me now.

Erikka: I'm running a backup right now because when we are recording, ipDTL is obviously very, very, you know, reliable, but things happen. So, you know, any little glitch that happens because it's the internet and technology's not perfect. You have that source file that's coming directly from my studio. So always run a backup. And I remember before I built this computer, I could never run a backup and be in SourceConnect, then I realized I didn't have enough power. I needed a more powerful computer. So if you're not able to do that, it's a sign that it might be time to upgrade.

Anne: Ah, yes. When do we upgrade? .

Erikka: Ooh, I know, I know it's more money.

Anne: It's interesting because we can run our businesses. We can do our recording. And I don't think that today we don't have to have an extremely powerful computer to record our audio.

Erikka: No, that's super -- mm-mm.

Anne: However, it really depends on what you're doing. I mean, I always say have a dedicated recording computer just for your recording if you can, and then for all other work you will do on a different computer. And I think that that is, I think it's a good idea because then you're not overtaxing the computer that you use for recording. However, I think there's times when, I mean, I think you can get like for me, 'cause I'm I use Mac these days, you can get like a Mac Mini for like $400 to $500. Gosh, I recorded on a Mac Mini for a long time, and it was an older one that I had and that's all it served, that purpose, was to record my audio. And of course I still had my external drives where I saved all of the audio files onto and then back them up. So yeah. It's something to really consider to have a specific computer that is dedicated just to your recording.

Erikka: Yeah. I mean, that's how it is in the big studios. They're not doing all kinds of other things on those machines. It's all about recording. Like I said, I just sit at this computer all day, so I just do more on it. But its primary purpose is recording. Other than that, it's really just internet surfing probably that I do otherwise.

Anne: Yes. That's a lot of it. I think that if you have a dedicated computer just for recording, now you have to start thinking about though, when it gets to be too old, then it may not support your audio hardware.

Erikka: There you go.

Anne: And that is the thing. So remember, guys, this is a business, there are some investments that you have to make. And most people think when they're investing in their equipment, they're just thinking microphones and audio interfaces. But in reality, there's so much more besides that. I mean your base computer that you're doing the recording on, the software that you purchase to edit the audio, all of that stuff is still part of that investment, and redundancy should be built into your budget for that.

Erikka: Yes, absolutely. And it's like, yes. You know, obviously we're, we're growing as we go. So there may be that you start with one, and then put it in your plan, in your budget for next quarter to buy your backup. Or you can break this up and iterate. But I mean, even like a webcam because --

Anne: Well, I was just thinking that, oh my God, are you reading my mind? I was just thinking that, what other hardware is there, right? And you're like, yes, the webcam. I mean, gosh, this is how we're communicating these days a lot.

Erikka: It's nice to be able -- I flip on video for the first five minutes, you know, just to have that human interaction. And I think it makes a difference in relationship building. And I turn it off when, when I record. I make a joke. Like, you know, you don't have to see my weird actor faces, but you know, it also, it eats up some bandwidth, you know? So I wanna make sure that the audio is as clean as possible. So they're hearing all the nuances so they can direct me. But yeah, like webcams --

Anne: Lighting.

Erikka: Lighting. Oh my goodness. Yes.

Anne: Yes. Something you have to consider is lighting. I -- there's so many people that when you get on a Zoom call with them, and they're in their studio, but yet it's dark in their studio. So the lighting is not optimal. I think that it's worth a look at investing at some light. I own a little light that sticks on the back of my monitor. It's called the Loom Cube.

Erikka: Yeah.

Anne: And it's not that expensive. I wanna say it was under $100. It literally has one of those suction cups that you put on the back, and you can establish like two lights. If you can do two lights to the left and the right, you kind of avoid that reflection in your eyes, if you can go left and right with it. And there's just many inexpensive ways to get good lighting in your studio. And I think it's worth a look at, and that's also hardware that is something I think you can consider.

Erikka: Yep. And I would say honestly, I mean, this leans a little bit to performance too, but for me, like I have the bright light that's in my studio, but sometimes I turn it off because it gives me a different mood and puts me into a different read. So I have like, I don't wanna call them mood lights, but I have like this little tiny, like salt rock lamp that gives me some ambience.

Anne: Lava lamp.

Erikka: Yeah. Well, kind of the lava lamp is another option, but it's like those Himalayan salt rocks.

Anne: Oh yeah.

Erikka: With the little like amber light. So like --

Anne: Absolutely.

Erikka: So it can change your performance, the type of lighting that you have in your studio. So for me, they, that was $20, but it is hardware in my studio. So I mean.

Anne: And, and not just those, but also I have the LED lights that are actually installed on my ceiling.

Erikka: Yep, with the colors, there you go.

Anne: Yeah. You have a remote, you can do any color you want. And so that also is hardware installed. And, and if there's any type of, let's say ventilation system in your booth, you don't have a ventilation system and hey, I didn't have a ventilation system for a long time in my booth. So I had a fan, you know, I mean, literally it's open the door, put the fan on when you're not in there recording and it's as simple as that. Or it could be as complicated as we had Tim Tippetts who we had plenums. We basically had space between the wall where the air that would come from air conditioning and then it would be directed out through this tiny hole that would make it very quiet. So it was a well designed system. But I'll tell you before I had that, I functioned okay. Thankfully I wasn't doing jumping up and down and doing video games because then I would've had to look into it much sooner, but I had a fan and I had just opened the door, turned the fan on. So that's also hardware.

Erikka: Well, yeah. And you bring that up because I love my house, but like they did the HVAC kind of weird. So it's like one side of the house gets much warmer than the other and gets much cooler in the other, depending on the season. So it was like, what of course, the side where my office is, my studio is where it's weird. So it was like, even though I did things with my vents, it, it still kind of got warm in here in the summer and you know, cool in the winter. So I did have a mini split system installed because they're super quiet. I know those are expensive, but again, I built up to that, but that way I could keep my room cool. Because you have to make sure your equipment doesn't get too hot, not just you.

Anne: Oh, absolutely.

Erikka: Equipment has to be kept at a good temperature. So that was hardware for my studio as well. That helps kind of temperature control my area. But yeah. Fans work, even things like changing the vents that your air comes out of to straight ones. My HVAC guy told me that.

Anne: The filters.

Erikka: Yeah. Well not even the filters, like the, the actual grates.

Anne: Oh yeah.

Erikka: A lot of houses come with the three way ones. And he actually told me the straight one ones are way more efficient and they're like $18 or something for the really good ones and $5 or $10 for the cheap ones.

Anne: Oh, well, that's a great tip. I love that.

Erikka: Yeah.

Anne: Yeah.

Erikka: Yeah. So that helps the airflow be a little, like more efficient.

Anne: That makes a whole lot of sense actually. And it doesn't surprise me because when people are installing that type of stuff, and I just know, because I had a house built, if they opt for the cheaper version of the vent, it's something that they're gonna do that probably to save money on the, the cost of building the house. But it's not something that's tremendously difficult for you to upgrade. And I remember you mentioned before, and I was just thinking about this with my mouse issue, keyboards and mice, especially if you have Bluetooth devices, if one --

Erikka: My keyboard died on me. Yeah.

Anne: And you're in the middle of --

Erikka: My Bluetooth keyboard died.

Anne: And when God, what do you do when the keyboard dies? You need another one.

Erikka: I freaked out and thank God I had a wired one, and I've been so freaked out ever since that, I only use a wired one now, unless it's in my booth.

Anne: Yeah. I'll tell you, God knows that I love my Apple Magic Mouse, which I really do, which is Bluetooth. But I'm in my studio beside my computer, which is outside of the studio. Every once in a while, either Chrome is taking up too many resources on my computer. And it starts screwing around with the capabilities of Bluetooth and USBs. And so things don't work. They don't operate. And gosh, if you're trying to like navigate your system to hit file-save while you're in the middle of a client session and your mouse doesn't work.

Erikka: Oh my gosh.

Anne: Or your keyboard doesn't work to type in that file name. And you're trying to like maintain cool while you're freaking out inside. And you're like --

Erikka: The most embarrassing thing.

Anne: -- oh my gosh, how do I even type a file name so that it can save?

Erikka: Yeah, yeah. I think I was like trying to join a session, and I'm trying to click the mouse, and I'm like, ah, you know?

Anne: Yeah, yeah. I can't tell you when I've hit file-save. And then it, it sits there waiting for me to type and I've lost my keyboard.

Erikka: Oh my goodness.

Anne: And again, it's like one of those things where it could be the keyboard just needs to be charged.

Erikka: Batteries, yeah, yep, recharged.

Anne: Right? Or you need to run out of your studio and then make sure your other keyboard works. But yet your other keyboard also might be Bluetooth. And so therefore you're at that point where it's like, oh my gosh, do I need to reboot? Or how am I gonna type a name in to save this file? Then it turns into your software being, hey, can I recover this file for you? .

Erikka: Yeah. Yep, yep. Yep.

Anne: So I've run into a lot of close calls, too many close calls. And especially in my 20 years in technology, I've run into many close calls knowing that redundancy --

Erikka: Saves the day.

Anne: -- if you got anything else out of this episode, right? Redundancy would be it.

Erikka: Redundancy.

Anne: Yeah.

Erikka: And the one thing I think would be touched on for a second, I did wanna make sure is cables, those XLR cables.

Anne: Yes! Oh gosh, yes.

Erikka: Because it is so easy to like, oh my God, it's my mic. It's my interface. It's this. And sometimes it is as simple as the cable. And you know, when I first was starting, you know, I just got, oh, you know, cheap Amazon cable. Yay. That'll work. And they make a difference. I'm now a Mogami girl, but get good XLR cables and have a backup.

Anne: I know, so some people are like, why do you pay all that money for that cable? You could have a lot of cheap cables as a backup. You could.

Erikka: You could.

Anne: But I also agree with you. I have the good cables that are connecting my mic to my audio interface. And I mean, you're talking like, what, three cables, maybe, making the investment?

Erikka: I mean, the thing is it's transmitting a signal. Right?

Anne: Exactly.

Erikka: Remember that an, an interface is an analog to digital converter. When you're talking into a mic, that is analog information and it's translating it to be digital to come into a wave form in your computer. So you kind of want the thing that's transmitting that information to be of good quality.

Anne: To be of good quality. Yes.

Erikka: And if you can't afford the Mogamis, I know Jordan has recommended before the Sweetwater Quad 4. They have the stuff in them that's nearly as good as the Mogamis and they're much, much more affordable, so.

Anne: Oh, good advice. Well guys, BOSSes out there, build redundancy into your business.

Erikka: Sing to yourself, redundancy.

Anne: And budget for it. What a good conversation.

Erikka: I Love it. I love it.

Anne: I'm glad we could share all of our failures, our hardware failures, and make it into an educational podcast for the BOSSes.

Erikka: That's right. Yeah BOSSes, get the redundancy in.

Anne: That's right. All right. I'd like to give a big shout-out to 100voiceswhocare.org. Here's a chance for you to use your voice, to make an immediate difference in our world and give back to those communities that give to you. Go to 100voiceswhocare.org to commit. Also huge shout out to my favorite, ipDTL, ipDTL.com, my favorite way to network with BOSSes like Erikka, and you guys can network with ipDTL as well. ipDTL.com for more information. All right, guys, have an amazing week, and we'll see you next week.

Erikka: Bye!

Anne: Bye!

>> Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your host Anne Ganguzza. And take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at voboss.com and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies, and new ways to rock your business like a BOSS. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via ipDTL.

Episode 234 - Occupational Safety - Hazard Correction Fixation Syndrome