The Zoom Podtrak P8 Vs Rodecaster Pro

Your Podcast is A Steam Train

I often say that when you start out, your show is rolling slow. As it keeps moving, it gets faster and faster. It just takes time, consistency (of schedule, and value). Kim Kajci of Toastmasters 101 pointed me toward this YouTube video from Box Angeles. This video shows Mellisa Hunter who has a hilarious series of Adult Wednesday Adams and how one video in that series went viral and her back episodes starting taking off with the original video. 

More Cool Podcast Gear For Podcasters

One of the great things about podcasting getting more and more popular, is more and more products are coming to the marketing Specifically for podcasters. Zoom Recently came out with the Podtrak P4 (for me this is THE go-to piece of equipment). Now they've come out with the Podtrak P8 which is a direct competitor of the Rodecaster Pro from Rode.

Neither one of these units is a bad purchase. They both make it easier to create great sounding podcasts.

Who Is This For?

The Zoom Podtrak P8 (and the Rodecaster Pro) allow you to:

Record up to six people in the same room.

Report a remote interview via SB

Connect and record a smartphone

Play live sounds via touch buttons.

Comparing Different Features of the Units.

For me, I am always connected to my computer via a USB cable. This is for zoom calls, or recording directing into software. Keep this in mind when I talk about different tests. I do one live show on Saturday morning where I record to the internal card, or if I'm doing an interview (I use it as a back up). 

Power

Both the Zoom and Rode can be operated via batteries (The Rodecaster has an optional DC-USB-1 cable that enables you to plug in a USB battery). The Zoom P8 uses double-A batteries or can be powered via a USB cable. So with the Rode, you will have a USB and a power cable. With the Zoom P8, you can power it with just your USB cable. Advantage Zoom P8

Price

The Rodecaster Pro currently lists for $599.
USB Power Cable for RODECaster Pro $20
Total: $619

The Zoom P8 is listing for $499.
Zoom BTA-2 Bluetooth Adapter $49
Total: $548

Advantage Zoom P8

Input Channels

ZOOM P8

This is an interesting one, as the Zoom P8 has six XLR inputs. It has a dedicated channel to the phone input.

This means you have a total of seven inputs. The USB interface on the zoom is used in place of one of the XLR inputs. You could have five XLR inputs, one USB, and One phone.

Rodcaster Pro

The rodecaster pro has four XLR inputs. Then it has a dedicated channel for a phone. It has a dedicated channel for the USB interface. It has another channel for Bluetooth.

This means you have a total of seven inputs. You could have four XLR, one USB, One Phone and one bluetooth.

Comments: The blue tooth is built into the Rodecaster, and the P8 has the ability to have one more XLR input. Advantage? Tie.

Number of Outputs

The Zoom has six headphone outputs, and a stereo output. The Rodecaster has four headphone outputs and a stereo output. The plugs are on the back of the Rodecaster where the inputs on the Zoom are on the face. Advantage: Zoom.

Marker Feature

Both units have the ability to add markers. Advantage? Tie

Normalization

While there is no normalization in the hardware of the Rodecaster, using the additional software on your computer you can have the files normalized with multiple settings with presets for Apple, Audible. The P8 has a normalizing feature built into the unit. There are no details on if this is peak normalization or loudness normalization. It appeared to be peak. Advantage Rodecaster

Recording Mode

Both units provide each individual tracks along with a stereo mixdown of the whole recording. The Rodecaster provides the ability to turn off the individual track recording and just provide the stereo mixdown. This enables you to not have a ton of extra tracks when you don't want them, which doesn't take up as much storage on your storage card. Advantage: Rodecaster

Effects

Both units provide effects for each track.

Zoom P8: The Zoom provides bass and treble controls. It was one combination compressor/De-esser. There is also a limiter and low cut.

Rodecaster: Each track has Aphex effects built-in. This includes a de-esser, compressor, big bottom (bass), and aurel exciter (treble), high pass filter (low cut), reverb, and what my favorite feature - a noise gate.

Neither unit provides the full slate of effects to the USB channel (which is frustrating).

Advantage: Rodecaster (by far much more control).

File Management

Zoom: The zoom uses an SD Card and allows you to delete and rename files on the unit. Both units have a card slot on the back of the unit. The Rodecaster uses a microSD card. In my case, I have to put the microSD card into an adapter to insert it into my computer.

Advantage (due to ease of use): Zoom P8

Sample Rate

The Rodecaster Pro has a sample rate of 48 khz

The Zoom P8 has a sample rate of 44.1kHz

For me, this is no big deal, but if you're doing video it probably is (video people love a sample rate of 48 khz)

Advantage: Rodecaster

Transfer Speed

I took a wave file and put it on both cards. It was 557M and then copied and pasted it to my computer. The Rodecaster tool one minute 14 seconds, the Zoom P8 took one minute two seconds so it appears to be slightly faster.

One thing I do like more on the Zoom is when you put it into transfer mode, it doesn't make you confirm. I do not understand this on the Rodecaster as you have to somewhat hunt to get to it, so why do I have to confirm it (both on and off).

Advantage: Zoom P8

PreAmps

The specs show that:

Rodecaster: 0dB – 55dB

Zoom P8: 0 – +70 dB

I recorded on both units and found the difference in noise was almost nonexistent. If you have to listen that hard to see if there is noise, you're fine.

Advantage:

Footprint (Dimensions)

Rodecaster Pro: 350 x 275 x 82 mm (13.8 X 10.8 X 3.2 inches)

Zoom P8: 295 × 248  × 61 mm  MM ( 11.6 X 9.7 X 2.4 inches)

The big difference here is the XLR inputs are on the face of the Zoom P8 and on the back of the Roadcaster. This extends the height to by 2.5" (64 mm). Likewise all the headphone/output jacks also on the back s0 the Rodecaster does take up more space on my desk.

Sound Pads

With the Rodecaster you have to use the free additional software to bring your files on to the Rodecaster. With the Zoom P8 you can drag them on to the card and bring them into the unit. It even converts the files if needed. The Zoom had 9 pads where the Rodecaster has 8. Both allow you to scroll through the screen to switch between multiple pages.

Advantage: Zoom P8

Quality of Outputs/Headphones

In going back and forth between the two units, I did notice more noise in the headphones when using the Zoom P8. This noise wasn't on the recording, but a bit of a bummer when what you're hearing is not what you're recording.

Advantage Rodcaster

Noise Gate Vs Noise Reduction

One of the KEY features of the Rodecaster is the ability to add a noise gate to channels (sadly not the USB). The Zoom has a feature called, "Noise Reduction" When multiple mics are being used to record sound, the noise reduction function of the P8 suppresses background noise to a constant level by automatically reducing the levels of the mic inputs not being used by people. Sadly, I tried to test this, but living alone, I couldn't really put the Noise Reduction into practice and Zoom doesn't talk about it much in their videos.

Advantage: Rodecaster (as a gate is better than reduction)

Mic Modeling

This is a feature only available on the Rodcaster. For example, you can use presets for the Rode Podmic, EV RE20, and with a push of a button, your channel is set to your microphone (video).

Combining Files / Editing

You can combine files into one, you can trim files, add fade-ins and out. (Basic editing without a computer). This is only available on the Zoom P8

Summary:

When you look at the features I covered:

Power: Zoom P8
Price: Zoom P8
Input Channels: Tie
Number of Outputs: Zoom P8
Quality of Outputs: Rodecaster
Marker: Tie
Normalization: Rodecaster
Recording Mode: Rodecaster
Effects: Rodecaster
File Management: Zoom P8
Sample Rate: Rodecaster
Transfer Speed: Zoom P8
PreAmps: Zoom P8
Sound Pads: Zoom P8
Noise Gate/Reduction: Rodecaster
Mic Modeling: Rodecaster
Combining/Editing: Zoom P8

There are 17 items and the Zoom Podtrak P8 had eight of these, with two ties and the Rodecaster having an advantage in seven of them. You can see that its very close, but for some, they may argue as the areas where the Rodecaster comes out on top is on boosting the sound (the Aphex Processing) and in that area, the Rodecaster is much better. HOWEVER, keep in mind that you can use something like the Schepps Omni Channel plugin on sale for $69 (and sometimes even less) and you can all this processing in post-production.

So Again, It Depends

So if you're doing a ton of live streaming, you may want the extra processing (and noise gate) to keep things sounding great as you go live. However, if you have large fingers and hate having to take out that tiny MicroSD card and having to deal with adapters and confirmation prompts, the ease of use of the Zoom Podtrack P8 may provide you a better experience than the Rodecaster.

Conclusion:

As I said at the beginning if you are having (Let's pretend there is no COVID) multiple people in the studio with you, both of these machines make it easy. The P8 gives you two more mic inputs (which, for me is a lot of guests for one podcast). If you like ease of use, and are not going to obsess about your sound then the Zoom P8 is a good fit for you.

If you don't mind having to do a bit more searching through menus to find what you are looking for (to enable you to sound better) then the Rodecaster might be the way to go.

Mentioned In This Episode

Join the School of Podcasting

Rodcaster Pro from Rode

Zoom Podtrak P8

Zoom Podtrak P4

Electrovoice RE20

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Evaluating Your Guest Appearances

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TIMELINE:
00:02:33 Reflections on Jim's Trip East
00:05:19 Dave's Book Update
00:06:10 David Vs Goliath Book
00:07:06 Last Week's Blast From the Past
00:11:52 Jim Got to Go Critique Cigar Authority
00:15:28 Evaluating Your Guest Appearances
00:24:00 Accepting Feedback on your first show
00:28:55 Thanks to Our Awesome Supporters
00:32:25 Sure Mv7 Microphone
00:36:32 MOTU M2
00:37:13 I Don't Recommend Mixers Anymore
00:43:57 Epoccam Rewind
00:46:20 Joe Rogan Had Alex Jones
00:47:46 People Stealing Your Content?
 
 
Mentioned In This Episode
MOTU M2
Sony EZ1 Video Camera
Sure MV7
Elgato Epoccamm
 
 
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11 Steps I Took To Create a "WOW" Interview

Last week, I interview Matthew Dicks who is the author of the book Storyworthy. I am a HUGE fan of Matthew and was very excited when he agreed to come on the show. After the episode was published I get email after email. I saw comments on Facebook all stating, "WOW, That was a great interview." There will be times when you get feedback, and no matter if it's positive or negative you want to investigate why (so you can do more about it).

I've received more than average feedback on episodes like The Ultimate Guide to Hosting and Guesting Podcast Interviews, Overcoming Impostor Syndrome,  How to Start a Podcast Network: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, but the feedback I got about How to Tell Better Stories with Matthew Dicks was "way more than usual."

One of the things I help people do is figure out what they are doing correctly with their podcast so they can do more of that type of content. With this in mind, I went back and looked at "Why did this connect with my audience?"

Step 1: Start with someone interesting

Getting entertaining stories out of Matthew Dicks is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Step 2: Ignore the Back Story

Matthew has an AMAZING back story. He took enormous steps to avoid telling his first story. While that's a nice story, I was looking for something my audience could take away. Ask yourself what is more helpful their backstory, or what they can do for your audience NOW?

Step 3: Have a Goal

Why was I bringing in Matthew Dicks? Because his book storyworthy is filled with strategies. I wanted to focus on strategies. I wanted to boost the skills of my listeners, and I wanted to sell books more Matthew.

Step 4: Know your Guest

I really wanted to get this interview going in the right direction. The minute I knew he was coming on the show, I was focused on coming up with the best questions. I especially wanted that first question to lead to a story, and to help people understand that words matter. Every night I would walk around my neighborhood listening to Storyworthy on Audible. I've already listened to this book, but I was now looking at topics that I would want to expand on. This would allow me to mention the book, and to get the content I was looking for my audience.

Step 5: Don't Test Their Powers of Improv

I had decided that the opening question would be, "When did you realize the power of words?" I really liked that question. It would lead to a story, and let my audience knowing we were going to be talking about words, and story crafting. However, I also realized that this question might need some thought on Matthew's part. Consequently, I let him know the topics we would be covering.

That would be:

When did realize words had power? (the actual question)

Editing (such as where to start a story).

Homework for life (this is Matthew's Freebird).

Normally I don't give my guests the exact questions. I typically let them know why I'm bringing them on, and the subjects we will be covering.

Step 6: Get the Best Audio You Can

When we connected via Squadcast,  I was hearing Matthew through his camera's microphone. I tested this by having him tap his microphone. When he tapped it, and I didn't hear the tapping, I knew Squadcast was using the wrong microphone. When he switched away from his camera's microphone, it was like night and day.

Step 7: Prove You've Done Your Homework

When we first connected and got the microphones configured, I wanted to show Matthew I was a fanboy without being a fanboy. I know he is a HUGE fan of the New England Patriots football team. They recently made a quarterback change, so I asked him how they thought they would do.  My questions also showed I had actually read the book.

Step 8: Ask and Shut Up

When I do an interview I had my list of questions on a pad to my left and a blank pad in front of me with a pen that doesn't click. When I was would ask a question I would then shut up and listen. I didn't "um, hmm" and I listened for potential opportunities to ask a follow-up question.

Step 9: Follow Up Questions

When he was talking about things that had happened because of his podcast he mentioned how at one event that he was asked to tell a story, his daughter got up and told I story. While I realize that asking an athlete, "How does it feel to win the game?"I still asked what it felt like to watch your child follow in your footsteps. This question isn't in alignment with my goal (story crafting and book sales), but I know my audience has children, and I believe we call can identify with how cool it would be to see your child follow in your foto steps;

Step 10: Remove Things That Aren't Needed

I asked Matthew what was the first podcast that he listened to. Matthew couldn't exactly remember it and was a little blurry on the year. Does this help us craft stories? Does it sell books? No. Does it give us a glimpse inside Matthew that you can't get anyplace else? Nope. This is why you didn't hear it.

Step 11: I Ran It Through a Transcription Service to find the Nuggets of Gold

If you do interviews, one way to reposition yourself as the expert (and not your guest) is to do what I call the "Jerry Springer" a summarize the main points that YOU found interesting. This enables you to share a bit of yourself as well as remind the audience of the value they just received.

For this step, I ran the edited interview through Otter.ai. This enabled me to find those great points in record time. Instead of having to listen to the episode again, I could read it much faster. Using transcripts as an editing tool is not something I hear people talk about it is typically about to create a full transcript of the show.

I did edit the transcript into something readable and added it to the website. This is not something I normally do, but maybe I should.

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Memory Lane: Revisiting "Episode 1"

Today I am moving into what I'm calling "My new old house." While I'm seating and hoping the movers don't break my standing desk, I thought I would take a trip down memory lane and dig out some of the first episodes of "Ask the Podcast Coach."

The Early Episodes Sounded Bad, and I Was Awful

There is a ton of hiss in the first "School of Podcasting Live" was awful and this was in 2011. Later I wanted to test Blog Talk Radio and Spreaker for "The Podcast Coach" show and treated it like nobody was listening (because nobody was listening). Then on August 10, 2013, Jim Collison joined us. You can also listen to what might have been the seed for the "Podcast Rodeo Show."

Why Am I Subjecting You To Bad Content?

The goal is to show you that we all start ugly. We all get better over time, and maybe just maybe you should be a bit organized before pressing record. 

The Show Comes Back Next Week

Dave and Jim will be back live at www.askthepodcastcoach.com/live Saturdays at 10:30 AM ET

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Mentioned In This Episode

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Keith and the Girl

Mighty Networks

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How to Tell Better Stories with Matthew Dicks

I have had the voice of Matthew Dicks in my head more than any other person this year. I heard him on a podcast, bought his audiobook Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling, and listened to it. When I was done with the book I wanted more and found his Speak Up Story Telling podcast. Unlike other books on Storytelling that have brilliant messages like "Stories are good," and "You should learn how to tell stories," I was THRILLED that I had finally found a book that explained HOW to tell better stories. It is an AMAZING book, and I feel it will benefit anyone who reads or listens to it.

Today I am honored to have the author on my show.

Here are some key points:

Start with a thesis. I use to think something, and then something (the story) happened, and now I think something else.

I would prefer to be entertaining than lengthy and boring. Always serve the story (not yourself).

I think about what I want my audience to feel in certain parts of the story. I make those decisions before I begin crafting my story.

"How about making the first thing you say something that's actually engaging and interesting? Because those first 30 seconds to 60 seconds of a story that is such fertile ground, that is your opportunity to either convince the audience that what is to come is worth listening to, or I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Because I've just bored you for 30 to 60 seconds, and essentially told you nothing."

Our questions that we asked people like in a podcast, the more specific they are, the more helpful they are to our guests.

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TIME TABLE

01:22 Matthew Dicks Introduction
03:50 When Did You realize Stories Had Power?
08:38 Do Stories HAVE to show vulnerability?
10:14 Is vulnerability Magic?
12:38 How do you know what to keep and what to delete?
15:27 The Importance of Location
19:30 Homework For Life
23:44 Can you Tell a Story "By Numbers"
26:40 The Power of But and Therefore VS And
30:16 Story Telling Peeves
33:52 3-2-1 Game
36:23 When Did Mathew Know He Wanted to Podcast?
37:58 Because of My Podcast ______
40:58 Watching Your Daughter Tell a Story
42:13 Where to Find Matthew's Workshops
44:33 Storytelling is More Than Just Stories
45:40 How Storytelling Helps
47:36 Matthew Has Other Books

Profit From Your Podcast is Available

Pick up any book on podcast monetization, and you will find 90 percent of it only covers how to launch a podcast. If you already have a podcast, you have that information; you’re ready for the next step. Profit from Your Podcast provides top strategies and real-life examples of podcast monetization. This book is more than what to do. It also tells you how to do it. Chapters cover such topics as: 

• How to Grow Your Audience
• How to Set Your Pricing
• Understanding Advertising Jargon
• How to Find Sponsors
• Best Strategies for Making Money as an Affiliate
• Master Strategies for Crowdfunding
• Harnessing the Power of Webinars and Events
• The Top Tools to Make Your Job Easy

Built on the author’s fifteen years of experience in podcasting, this action-packed guide will benefit new and veteran podcasters. Get clear on who your audience is and what they want, deliver value, and build an engaged audience that wants to give you money. Leverage your relationships and the integrity you have built through your podcast to create multiple streams of income. Profit from Your Podcast gives you the tools to do it all.

Mentioned In This Episode

Matthew Dicks Website

Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling

Get the Audiobook for free if you're new to Audible

Speak Up Story Telling podcast

Homework for life video

Profit from Your Podcast

School of Podcasting

Podcast Consulting

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Using Podcasting To Boost Your Business

This week Jim is on the road and hanging out with Ed from Sonic Cupcake and Dave from the Cigar Authority at Studio 21 Cafe. We talk about his book David vs Goliath: How to Compete, And Beat, The On-Line Giant. 100 Proven Promotions For Brick & Mortar Retailers and how he uses his podcast to boost his business.

VIDEO VERSION 

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TIMELINE

01:09 Sponsor: Podcastbranding.co

02:29 Jim Joins David Garofalo

03:20 David Garofalo has a book as well

04:56 How The Podcast is Boosting Cigar Sales

06:39 Promotion when your content is blocked

10:20 Getting Monetization Ideas From Your Audience

11:01 THREE YEARS (A Popular Answer)

13:41 WIN WIN WIN Can go Forever

15:15 The Power of the Niche

16:51 Anything Didn't work?

19:43 What Do You Think of the Set?

24:40 Using Your Podcast To Open Doors

27:43 How Long Does it Take A Traditional Store to Grow

30:29 Our Awesome Supporters

32:33 Advice for New Podcasters

34:46 How Do You Deal With Censorship?

39:52 Accepting Constructive Criticism

42:18 How Has COVID Affected Your Business?

46:45 Ask the Podcast Coach Downloads

47:20 The Motivation Behind Ask The Podcast Coach

48:50 Sponsors and Downloads

50:11 Same Formula Different Niche-Different Result

54:06 A Passionate Nich is Needed

56:25 Road Trip Report

PATRONS ONLY

Become a PATRON

01:00:21 Cats Are Horrible Podcasters

01:02:49 EU Podcaster Gets Investigated

01:05:26 RIAA Takes Down Show

01:06:36 Focusrite 2i2 Question

01:12:23 Old Hissy Mixers

01:18:52 Normalization

01:23:43 Auphonic is great, but...

01:25:08 No Show on the 24th of October

 

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Mentioned in This Episode

David vs Goliath: How to Compete, And Beat, The On-Line Giant. 100 Proven Promotions For Brick & Mortar Retailers

Audio-Technica BPHS1 Broadcast Stereo Headset with Dynamic Cardioid Boom Mic

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What Podcasters Can Learn From Eddie Van Halen

This week rock guitar God Eddie Van Halen died after a long battle with throat cancer. As a guitar who was 13 when Van Halen's first album was released, and whose band provided the soundtrack to my adolescent years this hit me hard. With this in mind, I wanted to talk about things podcasters can learn from Eddie Van Halen.

Sponsor -Profit from Your Podcast: Proven Strategies to Turn Listeners into a Livelihood

Methods and Advice for Making the Most of Your Podcast—Pricing, Sponsors, Crowdfunding, and More

Pick up any book on podcast monetization, and you will find 90 percent of it only covers how to launch a podcast. If you already have a podcast, you have that information; you’re ready for the next step. Profit from Your Podcast provides top strategies and real-life examples of podcast monetization. This book is more than what to do. It also tells you how to do it. Chapters cover such topics as:
How to Grow Your Audience
How to Set Your Pricing
Understanding Advertising Jargon
How to Find Sponsors
Best Strategies for Making Money as an Affiliate
Master Strategies for Crowdfunding
Harnessing the Power of Webinars and Events
The Top Tools to Make Your Job Easy
Built on the author’s fifteen years of experience in podcasting, this action-packed guide will benefit new and veteran podcasters. Get clear on who your audience is and what they want, deliver value, and build an engaged audience that wants to give you money. Leverage your relationships and the integrity you have built through your podcast to create multiple streams of income. Profit from Your Podcast gives you the tools to do it all.

Order on Amazon.com

Van Halen Took Years to Build Their Audience

The band was formed in 1972. Some of the top songs in 1972 were Saturday in the park in Chicago, Brandy (You're a fine girl), I'll take you there (the staple singers). Not exactly a thriving time of high energy, guitar-oriented hard rock. They played clubs for years.

In 1976 (four years later) Gene Simmons of Kiss financed a demo tape, and arranged a performance in front of Kiss's management and was told that "they had no chance of making it" and that they wouldn't take them. Gene then removed himself from further involvement.

A year later when they were playing the famed "Starwood: club Ted Templeman of Warner Brother saw the band and they were offered a contract.

Good Planning Leads to Less Editing

As they had been playing clubs for years, the band was well-rehearsed and ready to go. Their first album was recorded in three weeks with almost no overdubs.

You Don't Need to Spend a Ton of Cash

There are two popular guitars in rock music. A Stratocaster has a thin sound and used by blues players and it had a whammy bar. A Les Paul has a thicker, chunkier sound. Eddie took the guts of a Less Paul and put them into the Stratocaster (called the Frankencaster). He made the guitar himself using a guitar body that cost fifty dollars and a guitar neck that cost eighty. He ended up with a thicker, chunkier guitar tone that had a whammy bar. The guitar that cost $130 to make has a replica that now goes for thousands of dollars.

He stated that because he was poor he had to find ways to make the noises on the guitar.

He Learned Through Trial And Error

In the process of creating his own guitar, Eddie states, "I ruined a bunch of stuff." The bottom line he never stopped experimenting. In the song intruder, you hear Eddie creating bizarre sounds on his guitar. It turns out that some of those sounds were Eddie Swiping a Schlitz beer can up and down the neck. In the song poundcake, Eddie uses an electric drill. The bizarre noise on Automic Punk is Eddie running the side of his hands up and down the strings. He was always looking for ways to make different noises (like an elephant) with his guitar. The strange wooshing noise in the middle of the song Panama is Eddie's Lamborgini.

He had an endless curiosity and was constantly experimenting.

He Never Learned How To Read Music

He would watch his teacher's fingers and then play whatever he just saw. His parents forced him to play the piano and won contests when he was ages 9-11. After using the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five he picked up the guitar. Because he never learned guitars lessons "by the book" he believes he wouldn't play the way he does if he had done "Traditional" guitar studies.

Inventions Around Van Halen

I mentioned how he created his own guitar. He holds a patent for a device that allows you to stand and hold the guitar flat. He perfected a style of playing called "tapping" where he play notes with both hands. This lead to the invention of guitar tablature as people couldn't figure out how to put down on paper what he was doing on the fretboard.

Enjoy Your Soup

How did Van Halen get their sound? Drummer Alex Van Halen prefers straight forward rock. Eddie liked progressive rock, and David Lee Roth like disco at the time. Eddie referred to this as ingredients in your soup.

I like singer Gary Cherone from the band Extreme. He joined Van Halen and recorded Van Halen III. On that album bassist Michael Anthony has stated that Eddie told him what and how to play, Gary stated that Eddie was playing bass and drums, making it more or less an Eddie Van Halen Solo album. One point here is this album came out in 1998, and was not sober until 2008. This was the first album to not go platinum (it did achieve Gold status). I was also the longest studio album. 

Embrace Who You Are

When they were in the clubs, they were playing covers. As Eddie put it, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't play what was on the record. I could only be me. Consequently, when you hear a Van Halen record, it sounds like a Van Halen record.

Go To Where Your Audience is and Promote Nonstop

When they couldn't get a record deal they started throwing their own parties and concerts. They toured for 11 months straight to promote their first album including 23 shows in 25 days in the UK. When he got home Warner Brothers alerted the band that they owed the record label three million dollars and a new album. They wouldn't take no for an answer. They stuffed flyers in lockers of high schools. If you liked them or not, you were at least going to know about the band. Slowly they built an audience of 3-5000 people which attracted the attention of Warner Brothers.

He Was Always Nervous Going On Stage

In the early days, he asked his Dad how he dealy with stage fright. His father gave him alcohol and cigarettes (and would later die from Alcohol-related issues). After Eddie got sober, his son was in the band and Eddie said, "If my sixteen-year-old son can be out there kicking butt, then I guess I better get out there."

You Don't Have To Release Everything

Eddie built himself a studio and was always recording, experimenting, but it is assumed that there is quite a bit of music that was not released.

Have Fun

One of the things you can hear in a Van Halen record is fun. Watch Eddie play guitar and you will see one thing that never changes. He smiles. Why? Because he came to this country from Holland with his parents who brought a piano and what amounted to $50. He didn't speak the language and got bullied as he was considered a minority.

Money Changes Everything

In the book Runnin' wit the Devil" he states that the Van Halen brothers (along with David Lee Roth) gave Michael Anthony an ultimatum right around the time the “1984” album came out. In a nutshell, they did not believe Michael’s contributions to the band’s music entitled him to an equal 1/4 split of the profits, so they drew-up a contract that stipulated that he would no longer share in any royalties from Van Halen recordings from the “1984” album on, and I believe it also limited what he would receive from the previous records, touring, and merchandise sales as well. In effect, while Michael would technically still be in the band, he would essentially become a paid employee from that point on.

Most die-hard fans found this offensive. We want to believe you all get along and are best buddies.

Put Your Family First

In 2006 Eddie Van Halen replaced Michael Anthony with his son Wolfgang. He knew this was not going to be a popular choice, but he put his family first. What father wouldn't want to play with his son?

Communication is the Lubrication

Eddie Van Halen wasn't on social media. The website as I write this now does not even have a notice that Eddie has died. For years his audience had no idea what he was up to. Michael Anthony found out he had been replaced via the Internet. He could have kept that connection stronger by keeping people in the loop. 

Why? Eddie was a nice guy, but an introvert. He just wanted to make music. Upon his cancer diagnosis, he retreated even further. 

Profit From Your Podcast Is Available

Thanks to Letitia Evans who was the first to write a review of my new book Profit from your podcast: Proven Strategies to Turn Listeners into a Livelihood. She said, "Dave is one of the best in the podcasting space! This book does a great job of sharing the pieces that need to come together for podcasters to serve their listeners well without shortchanging their livelihoods. Any podcaster that wants to start right and continue well will benefit from this book.

Mentioned in This Episode

Audio Technica ATR2100x microphone

Samson Q2u

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