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Hello.

Hey, John.

Hi, Merlin.

How's it going?

Merlin, man.

I'm self-conscious.

Why are you self-conscious?

Oh, God.

No one cares, but I've got a different microphone, and it's making me self-conscious. It sounds good. You notice a difference? Yeah, it's clearer. I think it makes me sound old. You think it's a, it adds a few years to your voice? No, I'm worried that it's accurate. It adds a few pounds? No, I'm worried that this is actually what I sound like. Oh. I haven't smoked in a really long time, but I sound a little bit like I've got some filterless camels in my throat. Yeah, you've got a little Joan Rivers going. I try not to talk as much. I like to save my instrument, you know. You thought the old microphone kind of concealed that a little bit? Hmm, the mic I had before. This is really super interesting stuff. Uh, like it. As inside baseball, as they say. Uh, the old one is a workhorse. The, uh, the road podcaster, you know, it's like the, uh, yeah, right, plug and play. Yeah, it's like the SM 57 of podcast mics. That doesn't make any sense. That's like saying the YouTube of videos. But this one, I've got to be careful because of my plosives, I think. Is that a thing? Is that a thing? Plosives is a thing. How did you learn to use a mic? Hmm.

The hard way, for sure.

Yeah.

You know, you can tell a singer that doesn't know how to use a microphone,

and you can really tell a singer that does know how to use a microphone.

And sometimes a guy, you know, or a gal will be a singer for years and never really figure out mic technique.

But because I was a guitar player, right, I had to, you know, I didn't have the option of like a lot of Mike shenanigans.

You know, it's one of those things where at least while you're still just getting proficiency at all of the different pieces, there's so many, you probably never got this, but I just remember feeling like I had so many different things to do at once. I had to like remember you only play it twice, this part, you got to play the guitar, you got to make sure to turn your volume down on this part. The pedals pedals don't even get me started on the pedals a lot of pedals a lot of pedal work yeah and then on

top of all that you have to remind yourself if you're the singer to oh right also inhabit the

emotion of the song and present it to the audience in a compelling way.

You got to be the DLR out there.

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