0096: When Tools Evolve, It’s Nothing Personal

Raw transcript:

one of our awesome coaches at vo Heroes
Stuart Gauffi is also the author and
purveyor of a great newsletter that
gives you tips on how to use audacity
which is our digital audio workstation
of choice and he brought up a really
important point when it comes to our
tools and I want to take it from the
specific to the general because I think
it just might help you out and we’ll do
that in this episode of the vo Heroes
podcast
[Music]
in a recent edition of his newsletter on
Audacity tips uh coach Stewart Stuart
gophy uh brought up a point that I think
is applicable not only to audacity but
to every tool we use in our pursuit of a
professional and high quality
performance career in voice over and in
acting and in any other form of
Storytelling and I think we sometimes
lose sight of it so I wanted to sort of
draw a beat on it and share it with you
in a way that helps you understand what
goes on
so audacity is a tool that we use as
voice over talent usually
to record
dry single track mono
voice over voice tracks
we rarely use it
for what other people who have
downloaded and installed audacity do use
it for I’m talking about musicians and
producers and uh creators of any type
people that are doing sweetening for
video who knows
but the use cases for audacity and for
other tools that we use
are many and varied and go far beyond
what we usually use them for you
probably heard the phrase maybe a a
number of times in your career I only
use a small portion of what it’s capable
of doing or I’m only familiar with a
small portion of what it’s capable of
doing and by it I mean a tool a software
tool or even a non-software tool a piece
of hardware
and we kind of have to remember that
because over time these tools again as
Stewart brought up are going to be
changed they’re going to be improved
there are errors in them are going to be
fixed new interfaces are going to be
introduced new options are going to be
introduced in some cases new defaults
are going to be introduced for those of
you who have been through my coursework
and understand how to use the stair step
method
you may and have been with me for a
while you may remember back in the day
and by that I mean like over three years
ago as I’m recording this in 2022
um audacity’s default Behavior
was
to when you stopped recording
and then you started again it’s default
Behavior was to stop the track and then
begin a new track just below and to the
right of it in fact that’s what spawned
the stair step method because you have
this pattern
now that’s not the default uh behavior
and so in my instruction I have to
remind people to enable that in
preferences these things change all the
time
and my message for you today is don’t
get upset by that
don’t let yourself feel emotional
because you get surprised one day when
you decide to update a piece of Hardware
or a piece of software and it doesn’t
behave the way you’re used to having it
behave
it’s nothing personal it’s not like they
sought you out to make you unhappy about
this new state of affairs
it often leads to even better use or
more streamlined use of a tool you never
know until you really investigate it uh
and again having said that you need to
be aware of that you see posts all the
time in Pro connect our private
Discussion Group
and in uh groups on Discord and uh
Facebook and on Twitter people
complaining oh my God I updated
audacity or fill in the name of the tool
here and now this is broken this option
doesn’t work anymore something’s changed
all of a sudden this is this is the
nature of the Beast
and it’s kind of
the thing where and I have a solution
here for you if you get all upset about
these things ask questions instead of
you know raising your fist to the
heavens and and you know leaving it at
that ask questions
ahead of time as well as post update so
if you’re thinking of updating to a new
version or a new piece of Hardware or a
new computer or a new operating system
you might want to ask
is there anything I should know about
this that you’ve experienced that I
should be aware of
uh is there anything I should watch for
and then after the fact if something
breaks
or if something is different
you know do more than just complain that
things are different
ask questions that’s why we’re here
that’s why proconnect is there that’s
why those groups that you’re in in
Facebook are there despite the notion
that often we think those groups are
just simply to make fun of everybody
I just wanted to bring that up because I
think sometimes we we lose sight of the
fact that it’s more than just us in this
self-centric world of ours and that
other constituencies use these tools uh
we likely have no idea what a lot of the
stuff that are in the preference pains
in audacity and other pieces of of
software and other items of Hardware
even mean
but just be aware that we’re here to
help Stewart’s got a great newsletter we
talk about this stuff all the time
please understand it’s nothing personal
I think that’s my whole point so uh yeah
I hope that helps and if you’ve got
issues uh you can leave comments below
this but instead start a new thread in
your favorite Discussion Group if it’s
Pro connect if you’re one of my Pros
great if you’re in a Facebook group and
you want to do that ask questions don’t
just complain okay hit the like button
if this makes sense for you if you want
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released uh and if you have comments
please leave them in the comments
section below all right hope this helps
I’m David H Lawrence the 17th I thank
you so much for watching and for
listening and I will see you in the next
episode of the vo Heroes podcast
[Music]

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