https://randycantrell.com/inside-the-yellow-studio/

The link above is a comprehensive list of the gear inside The Yellow Studio. Assume every link is an affiliate link.

Ironically, I chose to make this an audio, not a video. Yes, that was intentional. I hope you’ll click PLAY.

It started in 1997. This podcast. It was a handheld Olympus digital recorder. No SD card. Just built-in memory. It was less than $100 and I’d been using it for a while to dictate work notes and ideas.

Audio was easy. And cheap.

Well, recording it was easy. Getting it online was a bit more cumbersome. Getting it off the Internet to listen was infinitely more difficult because we knew nothing of MP3, today’s defacto standard audio file format. My digital recorder used some funky format, but it was still possible to hear it from a website with a domain name a foot long, comprised of a bunch of letters and numbers (a free web page that came with my Internet service provider – ISP – Flashnet). Somebody other than my family found it because my first email came from somebody in Sweden. It blew my mind.

It was all done with a digital recorder, a dail-up modem, and an Internet connection. Add in a bit of rudimentary HTML skills, so I could build an ugly website, and you had the first iteration of Leaning Toward Wisdom. I dubbed it that because it was what I was trying to do – lean more toward wisdom and away from foolishness. I was 40 years old and that was 27 years ago.

Within a few years, I got serious. I registered LeaningTowardWisdom.com and invested a few thousand dollars (okay, probably closer to three thousand) for a rack of equipment and a couple of Heil PR40 mics (an amateur radio operator friend recommended them). That was The Yellow Studio for many years, recording into a Mac computer using software I can’t remember until I found Twisted Wave, a Mac audio recording/editing software recommended by a voiceover actor friend.

I bumbled along for a few more years. My audio quality was a point of pride and I was regularly complimented for it thanks mostly to good room acoustics thanks to a ton of books AND to Aphex 230 voice processors (one for each mic, I had two). My broadcast workflow meant that whether I was on Skype (later Zoom) or recording, my audio quality was always the same.

I went for years without investing anything more. That rack of gear and those two Heil microphones were stapmles inside The Yellow Studio for years. Audio was easy. And after that initial investment, cheap. The ongoing costs were maintaining domain names and website hosting (I hosted my own audio files for years before learning I should get a media host). Eventually, I found MapleGrove Partners thanks to a buddy, Jim Collison. They would host my site and my media files because they’re podcast-friendly like that. But beyond that, I had no real costs.

People entered podcasting trying to figure out how to do it as cheaply as possible and I never understood it. I don’t hunt. Or fish. Or bowl. Or golf. I don’t collect anything (well, I once collected books…but only to read). I had no hobbies except this. That’s still the case. Buddies who were into all of those things (and more) would regularly spend hundreds or thousands of dollars every year. Most of them weren’t wealthy. They were just ordinary guys who enjoyed whatever they were in to. They didn’t think twice about investing in hobbies they loved. I loved podcasting and I had saved for a good while before buying my initial setup. Admittedly, I made a sizeable investment, but it was calculated, planned and well thought out. It stood the test of time, too. I produced untold podcast episodes with that rig.

Then Rode, an Australian company, bought Aphex, the makers of my favorite vocal strips, responsible for how my podcast sounded. It didn’t affect me…until it did. Around 2019, Rode introduced a mixer with Aphex technology built in. Wait a minute, what? My thousands of dollars in a rack that sat just to my right could all be replaced by a single little mixer that would sit on my desk. All that cable could be replaced by just a few cables. I could connect my iPhone to it and take/record phone calls. And all for less than $1000. Sign me up.

My audience here at Leaning Toward Wisdom helped me buy it. It was my first time ever asking for anything, but boy did the crowd respond. I was grateful. I knew I’d sell my rack of gear and more than offset buying that first Rodecaster Pro, but I needed the Rode mixer before I unplugged and sold everything or The Yellow Studio would be down. I didn’t want to miss a beat and the audience stepped up in a big way.

In June 2021 I launched a new podcast – I had long had two, Leaning Toward Wisdom and Grow Great (my work podcast). This one was about a newly found favorite place, Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. I first discovered the Village in the Fall of 2018. We kept visiting and loving it more and more each time. It’s such a unique place I had so many questions that I couldn’t find answers to, I decided to find the answers and do it via a podcast, Hot Springs Village Inside Out. I dubbed it that because of 26,000 acres of awesomeness inside the Village and many miles of coolness outside, too. I recruited a guy who appeared to be right for a co-host, a Native Arkansas guy who lived in the Village and seemed to know quite a bit. He’d be my resident expert and I’d be myself, the naive curious guy who loved the place.

So it began. And it grew. And grew some more. In time, it was the first podcast I’d ever done that I even thought about monetizing. We said YES to two sponsors (advertisers). They help us pay the bills and provide my co-host and me with what amounts to really crappy paying part-time jobs, but we could not be happier! They’re great.

About 18 months ago I started getting itchy to elevate our show about the Village. It’s such a spectacular place audio just doesn’t do it justice. Our audience is largely folks who have never visited the place, but are interested in coming to visit. Some want to check it out to see if they might want to make it home. Besides, I wanted to capture the beauty and vibe of the place. That was going to require video.

I’m an old audiophile who spent almost all my adult life in and around great-sounding stereo systems. So it’s no surprise that audio was my cup of tea. At the same time, I have to confess that when I was in junior high I got a super 8mm camera. Fifty feet of film, that had to be professionally developed, produced about 3 minutes of video. I had a projector, too. I shot as much video as I could afford, which wasn’t very much. My video bug goes way back, but audio was just more practical, more portable and cheaper.

Hot Springs Village deserved and demanded video. I began a major research project. I asked millions of questions of dozens of photographers and videographers. I took copious notes. I kept asking questions. This was not going to be cheap! Some guys suggested gear that I knew I’d never able to operate. Others try to shoehorn me into how they’d do things, but none of them were producing the kind of show we were – and the one I most wanted to produce. I was growing increasingly frustrated with all the contradictory advice and I knew I’d also have to wrangle my extroverted, unfocused co-host so I kept pushing the research forward. All the way stowing away some money.

I decided to ask my audience if they wanted to help. Why not? I told them why. They responded. I was aiming at $1000, full well knowing I’d invest more than that. When I got kinda close to that number I stopped asking and pulled back. I was going to make this investment, Lord willing, but I had to make sure I was buying gear we’d use. And gear we’d use a lot.

During all this I was struggling to get re-engaged with my HSV Inside Out podcast. A variety of obstacles disrupted my flow with the show. Selling a house we’d lived in for over 20 years. Moving into an apartment not far from where we’d lived. Buying a house in Hot Springs Village. Moving whatever wasn’t in our apartment into the new house in Arkansas. Juggling client work, a nice problem to have. Along the way the vibe of the show about Hot Springs Village wasn’t going at all as I had planned so I was wrestling with more moving parts than I was used to. I’m focused. Purposeful. Intentional. Mostly, I’m strategic. Those weren’t things I was able to deploy with this podcast I loved so much. Instead I was taking a backseat and surrendering my original goal and vision — and I was growing more and more intent on getting things back on track. Video was going to help me do that. It was going to be a financial investment, a time investment and a major learning investment to develop skills I didn’t yet have.

Video killed the radio star, but it wasn’t a permanent death because streaming killed them both. Streaming – online content available on our phones, tablets and computers – kills it all. And yes, video is a major player. Active YouTube users are expected to grow by 346 million (+44.05%) between 2022 and 2028. Last year YouTube had almost 2.5 billion users monthly. They generated over $31B in revenue in 2023. On average, people spend 48.7 minutes on YouTube each day. The average user spends over 28 hours on the YouTube app. Over 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. (Source: