MiNiSTUDIO Creator Changes the Game for Podcaster Wawrzyniak

November 2016… With a background that includes marketing, broadcasting, public relations, and promotions, Bruce Wawrzyniak is in an excellent position to advise up-and-coming entertainers on the business side of their art. Wawrzyniak’s company Now Hear This offers management, promotion, and booking services for a variety of entertainers, from singer/songwriters, duos, bands, and DJs to magicians and comedians. His free weekly Now Hear This Entertainment podcast dispenses sage advice about the entertainment business to listeners in 124 countries and has received extensive media coverage.

As successful as his podcast is—he recently posted podcast number 143—Wawrzyniak felt somewhat limited until he got his hands on TASCAM’s MiNiSTUDIO Creator US-42. “I don’t think I’m overstating it when I say that the MiNiSTUDIO Creator was a game changer for me,” Wawrzyniak insists. “Before, I always recorded the podcast at a recording studio on Thursdays at 3 pm. If I had guests who couldn’t do it at that time, I was stuck. I did record interviews with one of Joe Walsh’s singers and with his drummer, Joe Vitale in a hotel room, using a laptop, but it wasn’t ideal. I didn’t want to do it that way again.”

Then Wawrzyniak got the MiNiSTUDIO Creator, as well as new mics, mic flags, stands, and cables. He often speaks at songwriters’ festivals, and he wanted to be able to do some podcasts on location while there. With his new MiNiSTUDIO Creator-based system, he finally had the tools to make it work. “There’s an annual songwriting festival in Pensacola Beach, Florida that draws about 75 songwriters who perform their material for fans at venues around town,” he comments. “This year was my sixth time there, so I know a lot of the people. With the MiNiSTUDIO Creator, I was able to make interview plans this year that I could never make before.”

The difference was the ability to podcast on location. “It used to be I’d give someone my card and suggest we get in touch when we get back to our respective cities so I could interview them on a Thursday at 3:00 — and I’d just hope to hear from them,” Wawrzyniak notes. “Now I use the MiNiSTUDIO Creator to do a face-to-face interview during the festival, where industry people who normally are hard to approach are more relaxed and willing to talk. It opens up a whole new realm for me.”

Although he’s a veteran podcaster with previous on-air TV and radio experience, Wawrzyniak discovered that his MiNiSTUDIO Creator rig improved his mental approach to podcasting on location. “I felt much more comfortable and more professional because the system looks professional to the songwriters I’m interviewing,” he explains. “The results are professional-quality, too.”

Since the MiNiSTUDIO Creator is small, sturdy, and lightweight, Wawrzyniak can take it anywhere. “I have an event coming up in two weeks in California and a big songwriters’ festival the week after that in Alabama, and now I can record podcasts at both events,” he confirms. “The MiNiSTUDIO Creator raises eyebrows at the festivals, too, because it’s a tool songwriters should consider for their own use. A lot of them ask me about it when they see it.”

Wawrzyniak has interviewed a lot of successful entertainment-industry people for his podcasts. “I’ve interviewed a Grammy Award winner, a Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer, a Las Vegas headliner, the lead guitarist for Garth Brooks, and people who have performed on TV talent shows,” he recalls. “I ask the predictable questions about their new record or tour but I also focus on how they placed songs on TV, how they crowdfunded their CD project, how they got on American Idol. I don’t hesitate to interrupt a guest and say, ‘that’s great but how did you do that?’”

So, we asked Wawrzyniak, that’s great but how did you get all those cool interviews at the Pensacola Beach Songwriters’ Festival? “Most of them never would have happened,” he replies, “without the TASCAM MiNiSTUDIO Creator.”