today's show is sponsored by microjig maker of the gripper work safer work smarter when I was 16 I started playing guitar and all I wanted in life was to be a rock star at around the age of 24 I realized that dream wasn't likely to happen so I went to school for graphic design my first job out of school was at a newspaper where I developed film scanned in the negatives and edited photos for newsprint that was fun for a while because I had free access to a darkroom and all the film and photo paper I could ever want so at this time I really got into photography but the love for music was always in the front of my mind as I was still playing in bands and learning about home recording while working at the newspaper I ran into a fellow who owned a local recording studio and I convinced him to let me train with an engineer for a year I started reading all the text books on recording audio and subscribed to all the trade magazines I really got into it and learned as much as I could about acoustics how the ear works and how microphones work and interact with their environment this was my way being a rock star so after a year of training I became a head sound engineer at the studio for the next few years although working at a recording studio can be fun recording crappy metal bands into the wee hours the morning started to get pretty dull so then I got hired as a graphic designer for a Toledo ad agency while at the agency I made the career shift from graphic designer to web developer out of necessity and then became obsessed with HTML and CSS it was a small but growing agency and because of my photography experience I was also thrown into videography and editing I spent many years at this agency and watch it grow from a small start-up to one of the best in my part of the country I worked with so many talented people and it was here where I picked up most of my knowledge on marketing copywriting good design and branding at this time I was getting some of my photos professionally framed for an upcoming art show I was shocked at the cost of framing I thought it was something I can learn to do I took woodshop back in high school so I did know a little bit about taking large pieces of wood and making them smaller that's when I discovered the Wood Whisperer and woodworking for mere mortals I found a new thing to get totally obsessed with and watch every video I could find on woodworking and spend all my money setting up shop Oh in the video I'm taping down the cloth before gluing it to the frame this is a good tip to get it stretched evenly and tight woodworking was away from me to get off the computer and build things with my hands as clients at my day job got more demanding and my popularity on YouTube Facebook and Twitter started to grow I could see some potential to take all my previous obsessions music graphic design audio engineering photography web development and videography and actually start my own business by blogging and making how-to videos in June of 2014 I was able to quit my job at the agency and make a full-time living from blogging and YouTube I often get asked on where my income comes from and it's a combination of sponsorships selling plans patreon donations Amazon affiliate links Adsense and ad space on my web site here in the video I'm creating a shell rabbit in the frame to create a shadow line you'll see one assembled shortly after becoming a full-time content creator myself Jimmy desta and Bob clay get started an audio podcast called making it as well as recording the audio for the podcast in my office I also do a lot of voiceover work here I recently removed a couch from this room and noticed a lot of reflection and room sounded my audio degrading the quality so here I am making these acoustic panels that will hang behind my desk and not seen in the video is the acoustic treatment added to the ceiling this will greatly reduce the reflection that gets into my microphone acoustical engineering is a very complicated and scientific issue to deal with and is beyond the scope of this video there's a big difference between sound diffusion which enhances the room sound sound absorption which removes the room sound and soundproofing which block sounds from leaving or entering the room just know that if you're doing this for music recording a lot more treatment would need to be done if you have a good room sound you'll want to capture that but most houses have parallel walls which creates standing waves so it's critical to remove the room sound a common mistake and removing room sound is only adding these acoustic panels which deadens the mid and high frequencies these soft panels have no effect on low frequencies and then bounce back and forth between parallel walls muddying up your sound which is hard to detect until you play back your audio for this you need base traps every time I wanted to learn a new skill I get totally obsessed with it and study it hard each one of these obsessions has led to a career change and I'm fortunate enough to use all these previous experiences and what I do now what's my next obsession and career pivot I'm not sure but lately I've been really into drawing digital painting and sculpture and my upcoming videos are going to reflect a hint of that what does that mean for the future of this channel only time will tell well thanks for watching if you enjoy my videos and want to support what I do please visit my patreon page and consider pledging three dollars a month subscribe to my channel to be notified when new videos come out and as always be safe stay passionate and make something