Audio Branding Jodi Krangle

“It was when I started figuring out, without knowing what it was called, because I also didn’t have any marketers in my life growing up. But when I was finding gigs for myself when I was the freelancer, mercenary, playing with a bunch of different people, I had to learn what these people are looking for. How do I figure out how to let them know that I can be the good fit for them? How do I find the people that I think I’m going to be a good fit for? And how do I convince them that I’m a good fit for them? Which is ultimately what the personal branding is.” -- Carl Bahner
This episode’s guest is a mix engineer, educator, and a brand strategy super-nerd on a mission to help artists and producers make great songs and help other studio pros attract ideal clients.  Hailing from rural Pennsylvania, he’s made a name for himself internationally as a team-builder and sonic wizard, focusing his boundless enthusiasm on playful, memorable, vibrant music. Working with artists like The Wombats and Hippo Campus, he’s proven highly adept at producing earworms tailored to fit like a favorite T-shirt.  But don’t be fooled by his youthful energy – he’s a seasoned pro who’s toured extensively and opened for major acts like Walk The Moon and Charli XCX.
In addition to mixing and production, he hosts the podcast Thanks For Thinking and is a passionate educator when it comes to sharing industry knowledge through content creation: he recently released an online course called “Communicating The Care” that’s aimed at helping studio pros clarify their perspectives and connect with ideal clients seeking meaningful collaborations.
His name is Carl Bahner. and this discussion will challenge the myth of the starving artist and give creatives some comprehensive steps to make sure they get paid what they’re worth.
As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. You can also join regular Clubhouse chats in The Power of Sound House every other Wednesday (check the schedule for times). Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, when new audio rooms are scheduled and what they'll be about, and it'll give you access to a resource called The Studio with lots of interesting sound-related mp3s, videos, educational pdfs, and exclusive discounts from previous guests.
If you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help – and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.
(0:00:00) – Early Musical Memories and Instrument Exploration
We start things off with a look back at Carl’s early memories of sound, or, in this case, the new memories he’s creating with his six-month-old daughter.  “That’s way better than my early memories,” he jokes, “which is probably just listening to Sandi Patty cassette tapes in my mom’s car or something.” Carl shares his journey through music, from the piano to the clarinet, and how he discovered the guitar. “What drew it to me is,” he explains, “or drew me to it, was the fact that there was so much more variation in what you could do with it – and, I think, a lot more exciting possibilities.”
 
(0:12:55) – From Trumpet to Percussion
Carl shares with us his...

When you think about shopping, what sound comes to mind? It might be the carts rolling up and down the aisles, or maybe the beeps of the scanners when you’re standing in the check-out line. Music might not be the first thing that crosses our minds, but it’s almost always in the background of our shopping trips, and it can have a surprising impact. From how long we stay in the store and how much we spend while we’re there to how we feel about it afterward, sound plays a pivotal, and often unnoticed, role in our purchasing decisions that we’re still working to understand.
If you think about it, using music to change the way we think and feel about an experience isn’t all that surprising. Whether we’re soothing babies to sleep with lullabies or marching into battle with drums and horns, sound has always helped give shape and texture to our daily lives. In modern times, that’s meant music at work and out in public, such as the Music While You Work radio program that ran in the UK until 1967 or the “Muzak” that filled American department stores and elevators in the 1950s. But the science of sound has come a long way since those early days, and the commercial soundscape has become much more sophisticated. What does the latest research say about the influence of sound on our spending habits? Can sound even be used to turn us into more responsible shoppers?
During the heyday of elevator music and workplace radios, there was another famous – or, perhaps, infamous – approach to using sound as a marketing tool. That tool was subliminal advertising, and it only became possible over the last century, as vocal recordings and sound editing allowed secret messages to be layered beneath an audio track or “backmasked” into reversed snippets hidden within the melody. Those subliminal messages, the thinking went, could cause unsuspecting moviegoers to crave popcorn, or even turn ordinary teenagers into rebellious rock-and-roll fans.
The good news for free thinkers is that subliminal advertising never really worked that way. Reversed audio doesn’t create any sort of subconscious suggestion, and, while soft, layered words can leave a faint impression on listeners, it’s actually a weaker effect than just saying the words out loud in an ordinary commercial. If you’re curious about the rise and fall of subliminal audio, check out this short video from Cheddar about the fake study that started it all:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU-eUcXcaqk
We might not be able to use hidden messages to boost soda sales, but sound does motivate us as shoppers in ways that we hardly notice. Music can have a powerful effect on the brain, such as lowering our cortisol and stress levels when we listen to a soothing song, and a 2010 study found that music also releases dopamine in the brain. This came as something of a surprise to researchers, since it means music activates the same sense of innate pleasure as food, money, or even love.
Sound has a much deeper impact on us than we realize, and a UK study in 2022 showed that different genres of music lead to different behavior when it comes to shopping. Pop music motivates people to spend more and to make more impulse purchases: 37% more people were likely to try a new hairstyle in a salon that’s playing pop music. Other genres have their place, though, as 31% more diners ordered the most expensive menu items in a restaurant that played classical music. The only sound that didn’t have any upside for businesses is silence: according to a consumer survey conducted by Luxury Academy last year, 67% of shoppers would leave a store that isn’t playing any music.
Want to hear what shoppers think of store music? Here’s a short video by the Irish Music Rights Organization that interviews customers on the street, including a surprising number who make their shopping...

“If you take the, you know, Foley work and the soundtrack out of a movie and just show, you know, the film with just the dialogue, even a great movie, it just, it completely falls emotionally flat, right? It just it’s, you know, if George Lucas had not hired John Williams to do the score for Star Wars, it would probably be a little-remembered, B-grade science fiction movie that hardly anybody would even know. The music kind of glosses over some of the kind of tropey, pulpy shortcomings of the script.  I mean, because the music is just majestic. It’s amazing.” -- Jeff Bohnhoff
 
This episode is the second half of my conversation with musician, audio engineer, and longtime producer Jeff Bohnhoff as we discuss his firsthand experience with Dolby Atmos music production, his collaborations with a wide range of artists, and both the past and future of audio technology.
As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. You can also join regular Clubhouse chats in The Power of Sound House every Wednesday (check the schedule for times). Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, when new audio rooms are scheduled and what they'll be about, and it'll give you access to a resource called The Studio with lots of interesting sound-related mp3s, videos, educational pdfs, and exclusive discounts from previous guests.
If you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help – and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.
 
(0:00:00) – Music Production and Collaboration Experiences
Our conversation picks up with Jeff’s work with Dolby Atmos in the studio, and how it compares with traditional stereo. “It’s like, ‘I guess it’s different, yeah,’” he describes listening to a remaster, “and then I went back to the stereo mix and then it was like, ‘oh yeah, now I can really hear the difference.’” We talk about his professional and personal collaborations, and the different expectations and styles that come with each new artist. “It’s interesting, though,” he explains, “working with different people, because, you know, when you collaborate with people, everybody has their own style.”
 
(0:07:35) – Album Collaboration With Folk Musicians
Jeff also talks about his collaboration with such acclaimed filk singers as Katy Dröge-Macdonald and Steve Macdonald of Twotonic and  Dr. Mary Crowell. “The songs are so beautiful,” he says, “and the lyrics are really poignant and I just really felt like we were both kind of on top of our game for that album.” He shares snippets of such songs as “Jazz & Mai” and “I Put My Low Stat,” and we talk about the storytelling power of music, whether it’s about gaming, mythology, or even sci-fi blockbusters. “I’ve heard George Lucas in interviews,” Jeff says, “pretty much acknowledge that, when, you know, he first saw a cut of the film with the score, it was like, ‘oh wow, we have something here.’”
 
(0:19:33) – How Music Can Bring Us...

“I know, like, Apple Music is offering that, so you don’t have to have anything but a pair of headphones in order to listen to most music. And it’s even possible on some computers. I know, like, Apple MacBook Pros, if you just play through the speakers in the computer, it’s astonishing. It gives it, it’s got DSP built in that, just, basically, it sounds like the mix is all around you. So, yeah. So that, wow, and none of those things are possible with, um, you know, the classic, you know, surround formats, which is one of the reasons I think that Atmos is going to probably, um, you know, catch on a lot more, more readily than those did.” -- Jeff Bohnhoff
 
This episode’s guest is a musician, audio engineer, and producer. He’s been performing and recording with Maya, his musical partner and wife, for over forty years, and he’s produced more than twenty albums for various artists. His name is Jeff Bohnhoff, and this week’s discussion about the power of sound and music, the changes in recording from analog to digital, and his thoughts about the future of audio with the rise of Dolby Atmos, make for a fascinating discussion. If you’re an audio engineer or just interested in where audio tech is taking us, this discussion’s bound to be inspirational!
As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. You can also join regular Clubhouse chats in The Power of Sound House every Wednesday (check the schedule for times). Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, when new audio rooms are scheduled and what they'll be about, and it'll give you access to a resource called The Studio with lots of interesting sound-related mp3s, videos, educational pdfs, and exclusive discounts from previous guests.
If you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help – and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.
 
(0:00:00) – Early Memories of Musical Influence
The conversation starts off with a look back at Jeff’s memories of sound, from the toy record player of his childhood to the rock albums of his teenage years. “I remember just kind of lying there,” he says, “and wishing to myself, ‘Man, I wish I could create something like that.’" He tells us about receiving his first guitar, and how, despite a rough start, it led to bigger and better things. “I wasn’t any good,” he recalls, “I was terrible. But I was stubborn, and then I saved up some money and bought a better guitar, and it just kind of went from there.”
 
(0:04:41) – A Musician’s Early Career
We talk about his first band and the chance meeting that led to both his second band and meeting his future wife, Maya. “We were doing a lot of cover songs,” Jeff tells us. “We were playing like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Rush, stuff like that.” He explains how MIDI controllers had just begun to shake up the music industry around that same time, and how they sparked his fascination with early electronic music and digital audio’s ability to create true one-person performances. “I was doing electronic music,” he says, “but I wasn’t really doing what you would think of as electronic music. I was trying to recreate the...

“I was, like, on tour, I spent twenty hours driving all over Ohio, talking to different places. And I work from home, so I don’t drive a ton. And now I was, and I was listening to all these podcasts, and I was amazed how many times I had to ride the volume knob because somebody would be talking, and then somebody would come in and they’re much, a much lower volume. And then normally, even in a quiet room, you might be able to get away with that, but not when there’s now noise from the tires and the atmosphere. And I was just like, wow, there’s a lot of really bad audio out there. And there are tools, there’s Auphonic, there’s all sorts of things you can do to make things level. And that’s the other one besides the whole reverb room and the dog barking and things like that. Some of the stuff you can’t avoid, kids are not really... A three-year-old doesn’t care that daddy’s recording a podcast, but you can still try to bribe them with cookies or something to be quiet while you’re recording.” -- Dave Jackson
 
This episode is the second half of my conversation with pioneering podcast host, consultant, and School of Podcasting founder Dave Jackson, as we talk about building and growing your podcast, why now may be the best time in years to start a podcast, and Dave’s podcasting tips for beginners.
As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. You can also join regular Clubhouse chats in The Power of Sound House every Wednesday (check the schedule for times). Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, when new audio rooms are scheduled and what they'll be about, and it'll give you access to a resource called The Studio with lots of interesting sound-related mp3s, videos, educational pdfs, and exclusive discounts from previous guests.
If you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help – and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.
(0:00:00) – Podcasting Fundamentals and Evolution
We begin the second half of our discussion with Dave’s strategies for growing a podcast, and, most importantly, figuring out why it exists. “Is it to position myself as an expert?” he asks. “Is it part of a marketing plan of my company? Is it cheap therapy, which it is at times? You know, I just want to get the word out. I’m creative and I want to do my art man, you know that kind of thing. So you’ve got all those reasons.” Dave also shares the lessons we can learn from celebrity podcasts, the perils of what he calls "room-verb", and how AI is continuing to transform the industry. “By the time we’re done with this interview, there’ll be yet another piece of AI where you upload your audio and it’ll make a newsletter for you. It’ll transcribe it, it’ll do your laundry. It slices, dices, and makes Julienne fries.”
 
(0:13:05) - Microphone Upgrades and Audio Quality
Dave talks about his podcasting hardware and software tips, and about striking the right balance between recording the best sound at the moment vs. editing it in post-production. We also talk about how having the right microphone can be its own confidence booster. “Sometimes it’s not so much that you know your...

“And I hit play on it, and I hear ‘Hello, Dave, this is Michael Van Lahr from Nuremberg, Germany.’ I’m in the basement of my brother’s house. This is where I started. And that, which goes back to, it doesn’t matter. Just, just start. And my brother goes ‘Did he say Nuremberg, Germany?’ And I go ‘Yeah.’ And we just sat there for the longest time, just, ‘Hello, Dave. Hello, Dave.’ I’m like, and I was just like, wow, there’s somebody, I’m in the middle of Mogadore, Ohio – everyone together, ‘Where?’ Yeah, exactly. It’s me and the cows. And there’s some guy on the other side of the planet that found my stuff.” -- Dave Jackson
 
This week’s guest has been helping people understand technology for over twenty years as a trainer and consultant. He launched the School of Podcasting in 2005 and was inducted into the Podcasting Hall of Fame in 2018. He’s also the author of Profit From Your Podcast: Proven Strategies to Turn Listeners into a Livelihood, and has launched over thirty podcasts with four million downloads.
His name is Dave Jackson, and if you want to learn more about what it takes to have a compelling podcast that lasts – and I’m always interested in learning about that myself – this is the place to be. Dave’s also a musician with a unique perspective on where podcasting has been and where it’s going, and he’s pretty outspoken, so you won’t want to miss out on what he has to say.
As always, if you have questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes. If you have questions for me, visit audiobrandingpodcast.com where you’ll find a lot of ways to get in touch. You can also join regular Clubhouse chats in The Power of Sound House every Wednesday (check the schedule for times). Plus, subscribing to the newsletter will let you know when the new podcasts are available, when new audio rooms are scheduled and what they'll be about, and it'll give you access to a resource called The Studio with lots of interesting sound-related mp3s, videos, educational pdfs, and exclusive discounts from previous guests.
If you’re getting some value from listening, the best ways to show your support are to share this podcast with a friend and leave an honest review. Both those things really help – and I’d love to feature your review on future podcasts. You can leave one either in written or in voice format from the podcast’s main page. I would so appreciate that.
 
(0:00:00) – Passion for Sound and Podcasting
We start the conversation with Dave’s early memories of sound, his start as a musician, and how tinnitus has changed both his life and his relationship with sound. “When it comes to sound,” he says, “I’m, like, I hate silence because it makes my ear-ringing, just, you know, kick into gear.” He tells us about how a surprise career change led to him to Libsyn and podcasting. “I was, like,” he explains, “if I wanted to, if I have to stand up and say ‘this is the place where you host your media,’ I’m, like, where would I go? And at the time, I was like, you know what? Libsyn. So that’s why I chose them.”
 
(0:10:43) - Improvising and Rolling With Technology Glitches
The topic turns to the lessons Dave learned as a musician about improvising and rolling with the performance punches, and how they’ve helped him grow as a podcaster. “That’s one of the things that I think podcasters don’t do enough of,” he says, “just play, like, as a musician. You spend hours in the basement, just, wood-shedden’ is what they call it.” We discuss the art of what...