The Show | Jeff | Gretchen | Carol | This Website | The Studio | Podcasting
About The Show
back to top
Jeff and Gretchen's bi-weekly (every two weeks) compendium of conversational snacks, offered up in a buffet of varied topics ranging from personal observations to ruthless rants and gratuitous raves of anything and everything. From Dallas, Texas.
Is that what you wanted to know? hehehe
Jeff and Gretchen started This And That (w/ Jeff and Gretchen) after another friend, Pat, that you have all gotten to know left the show. The show started as a personal 'audio' blog for friends and family but they have seen it grow well beyond their expectations.
Not your typical 'couple-cast', Jeff and Gretchen come into each show as if two friends were catching up over a weekly lunch. Topics range from the news and politics, intellectual pursuits such as science and math (well.... it CAN be interesting!), and dating / romance is always on the table for discussion. Jeff often spices things up by adding produced 'bits' (see "selected bits from the show" on the "Links' page). In fact, the production of this show is so good, you'll think you're listening to Jeff and Gretchen's favorite radio station - NPR. Well, perhaps we shouldn't get carried away...
If you enjoy thinking AND laughing, you will certainly want your weekly dose of Jeff and Gretchen.
About Jeff back to top
Jeff started doing cassette shows when he was 10 years old along with his make believe cohosts. After that, it just got worse. Recognized early for his desire to be a late night talk show host, Jeff was the master of ceremonies for many grade school events.
Eventually Jeff let his radio and talk show dreams die as he pursued a livelihood of the more corporate variety. With the advent of the internet, Jeff found that it provided the perfect avenue for exploring his technical and creative skills and dived into writing and producing music. In fact, Jeff was awarded with the #14 all-time most creative song in Pop music on garageband.com with his song "Dreams By The Lake" about an early jazz idol, Bix Beiderbecke. Trying to mix a little bit of music with the podcasts, Jeff often writes funny or interesting songs and bits for the show. His song "Podcast Star" has been heard by thousands as a result of getting plays on Adam Curry's The Daily Source Code and the Dawn and Drew show.
Jeff enjoys music of all types, technology, the arts, working out, good coffee and good beer. He has recently discovered the French Press and is now in coffee heaven. He is currently involved with getting his 1918 Craftsman Bungalow painted / restored to historically appropriate colors.
About Gretchen back to top
Rather than entertain at age 10, Gretchen was dressing dolls and the family cat in handmade paper clothing.
She’s from Pennsylvania, then California, then Pennsylvania, then California, then New York and now Texas. She studied journalism and business and was a professional copywriter for several years until she couldn’t stand it anymore because the strongest desire is not love or hate--it is one person’s need to
alteredit another’s copy.
She found it was more interesting to make toys and get paid for it and is working on a book about the hilarious and often murky, behind-the-scenes business of toys. A handful of Pillsbury Doughboyish, middle-aged white men determine not only what your 3 year old must have 24 months from now, but the number of commercials your home will be bombarded with, which is inversely related to the inventory levels of this “hot toy” as December 25 approaches. It’s a wholesome industry!
Maybe because of her journalism background, she’d like to think what’s interesting to her could be of interest to you. She could be wrong. We’ll see.
Some personal things. She dislikes: the large road bumps unique to Dallas turn lanes, mushrooms, the color maroon and the inefficiency of the US Postal Service at lunchtime in any US city. She tolerates: the gym, carnivores and ultra-conservatives (because this is Texas and they were here first). She’s fond of: very high heels, iced tea, fast cars, men and roller coasters, witty conversation and Entourage.
She continues to dress mannequins in paper clothing and accessories and one day hopes to own a business that makes women a bit prettier and does nice things for some less fortunate folks.
About Carol
back to top
Carol should have been an entertainer (but she wasn’t keen on being a starving artist). She is a ham, loves to make people laugh, feel good about themselves, and is craving to bring out her creative side. Being an engineer and then in IT has somehow thwarted the left brain. Carol like Jeff is a seasoned project manager. Although Carol tries to reinvent herself every now and then, she is now on a mission in pursuit of health, long term happiness and the real meaning of life. Could it be middle age crazies or perhaps the 40 year itch (oops, I gave my age away)? Her journey has just begun and podcasting is part of this journey. Carol does love to talk and hopefully our podcast listeners will enjoy listening to her talk.
Carol has remained very good friends with Jeff since they met in 1996. Jeff is truly talented, one of a kind, and was much better looking 10 years ago when Carol was his girly friend (lol). When they were going out, they joked about creating a play called ‘About Jeff and Carol’, er I mean, ‘About Carol and Jeff’. Jeff will be the first one to tell you how feisty Carol is ;-). It’s probably the hot Spanish blood. Carol was born a military brat in Madrid, Spain, and then learned English as a second language when she was 10 years of age. Carol has strong conservative convictions and prides herself in being no-nonsense (most of the time unless she is hamming it up).
Carol loves animals as they are often neglected and abused. She is happily unmarried and without children. She has though been lucky in love more than once. Carol, like Pat, used to be secretly in love with Brad Pitt. However, Carol didn't approve of how he handled his love affair with Angelina while still married to Jennifer so she lost respect. It’s very hard to love someone you have no respect for and once it’s lost, it’s very hard (if not impossible) to get it back. Oooh, too serious for a bio.
About This Website
back to top
Hey it's not THAT complex - it's just a website ;-)
The main purpose of this website is to give you the ability to listen to This And That (w/ Jeff and Carol) on a weekly basis. We also give you the opportunity to learn a bit more about Jeff and Carol as well as podcasting in general. Check out the "Blog" page for our web blog.
You can listen to the shows in a number of ways:
Real time (streaming player)
Found near the top of the "The Show" page, you can listen to to the show without waiting to download the whole file first. Simply hit the 'play' button and a flash player will come up in a separate window. Select the show you want to listen to and you get Jeff and Pat in an instant. This is very handy for first time listeners to come in and sample the show.
Download the files from this website
If you would like to download the shows to your computer for playing later, simply right click on the 'podcast' icon in the "The Show" page. Select "save as..." from the menu and save it to your hard drive.
Subscribe!
This is by far the best way to listen and why podcasting has really become popular. By subscribing to our show, you can set up your subscription software to run any time to look for updates. If it finds a new show, it will download it automatically for you. We prefer to do this at night (when we are asleep and our computer is bored). Great subscription software we recommend include iPodder, iPodderX and Doppler.
Click on the RSS Podcast button (conveniently found on all pages) and copy/paste the 'feed' URL into your subscription software. That's it.
About The Studio
back to top
Podcasters, like musicians, always seem to want to know what everybody else uses for their recording and production. This section is for those people. You know who you are!
For a "virtual tour" of our studio equipment, please see the VIRTUAL STUDIO TOUR PAGE.
Below is a description that includes a little bit about how I use this equipment for podcasting production. Ready for the geek talk? Here we go....
Recording: Carol uses the Studio Project C1 mic and I use the Marshall MXL V69 tube mic. We both use pop-filters. I have both of these mics going into separate channels of the FMR RNP mic preamp. This preamp, in turn, gets fed into two tracks on the Akai DPS16 digital mixer/recorder. Sometimes I'll play music or bits live while taping. I usually do this by simply loading the bits onto my iPod and feeding the iPod directly into another track in the Akai mixer/recorder. (note - for those astute enough to follow, this is basically taking a digital file from the iPod and running it through a D/A converter then to an A/D converter and back to a digital file in the Akai. LOL We would most likely never take such a potentially file-degrading step for 'real' production - but this IS only podcasting after all....)
Post: I edit out any guffaws or 'time-outs' directly on the Akai. I will also mix in the alternative track that we recorded during the show. Sometimes I'll apply some EQ to the voices (bass rolloff mostly) at this point. I then mix all tracks in the Akai down to one stereo track. While mixing, I send Pat's and my voice to two external effects units (the FMR RNC compresser and the M-One XL reverb processor) where I add a bit of compression and reverb. Then I transfer this file directly to the PC through the M-Audio Audiophile USB interface (44.1Khz, 24bit). Once in the PC I use Adobe Audition to mix in musical bits, effects, etc.. Finally I mix down to a two track file and use Izotope Ozone for limiting, mastering compression and any overall EQ if needed.
Upload. Once this is all done, I use Adobe Audition to convert it to an MP3, use iTunes to add the ID3 tags to the file and then use FTP software to upload it my server!! Done...
About Podcasting
back to top
What the heck IS podcasting? Well, pull up a chair and check out these great descriptions.
Description 1: From Podcast411 LINK
Podcasts are like Magazine Subscriptions. With a magazine subscription you register for a magazine (podcast) and then every so often the publisher (podcaster) will send one to your house. Now after the Magazine is delivered, it sits in your Mailbox (aggregator) until someone removes the Mail and puts it on the Kitchen Table (iTunes). You then decide when you want to read that magazine (Daily Source Code) or some other magazine (podcast411) or you can just throw it away because it no longer interests you (Yeast Radio). You can also cancel any subscription at any time.
With Podcasts, you only receive those you have subscribed to. There are no unwanted L.L. Bean or Victoria (XXX) Secrets Magazines cluttering up your mailbox. Actually that is one of the great points of podcasting (so far) it is spam free!
Description 2: From Wikipedia LINK
Description 3: From Podcast Alley LINK
