Podcasting 101 - Lesson 3

Hi, welcome back. In the last video about podcasting, we talked about how to come up with the idea, how to come up with that idea that was uniquely you. And I sent you home with some homework between the last video and this one to come up with a list of ideas, of combinations that were unique to you that you could create a podcast around. So hopefully you've done that and hopefully you've come up with an idea. And even if you're at the point where you got 2 or 3 floating around, it's okay. At this point to be right there because you're not going to be producing and recording your podcast right now. It's going to take you a couple of days to really go through this training, digest it, and get that concept and that plan moving forward so that you're confident when you hit record what your show is going to be about. Okay? So now in this video, we're going to talk about technology. What types of technology are out there that you could use to record your podcast? Now here's the thing about My background is in broadcasting. I went to school for radio and television broadcasting. Now I specialized in video production, but I still had a strong passion and still kept my feet wet in the audio radio broadcasting field. The one thing that I still to this day absolutely love about audio, and now more importantly podcasting, is that it's so light with the amount of technology that you would even need. Now if you were going to be doing video like we're shooting this right here, You know what, I have a tripod, you can't see it, a tripod, a camera, a high-end microphone that's there. Luckily I have a window, so I've got some natural light, but if I didn't, I'd have to light myself. Now, obviously, and then also I gotta make sure that I'm presentable, I'm shaved, I'm dressed awesome, right? Maritime Full Throttle, big shout out to this brand here in Atlantic Canada. But the key with audio is it's your voice. You don't need all of that fancy equipment. You can have a production value that's fairly light, like I showed you right from your cell phone, up to multiple microphones, multiple guests, mixers, all that kind of stuff. It is completely up to how involved you are. Now the key with this I say is start light, get your feet wet, try it out, and as you progress through your episodes, as you progress through seasons, if you're going to structure it like that, we're going to talk about that in another video, then you can bring in new equipment. You can upgrade and bring up that production value higher and higher, okay? Don't get caught up in the fact that you need thousands of dollars of equipment, or don't think that you need thousands of dollars of equipment. I don't wanna use the word fact because you don't, but don't get caught up in that myth, there we go, that's a better word, that you need thousands of dollars of equipment to even get started because you absolutely don't. The idea is the most expensive thing that'll ever come of this because it's gonna take your time to come up with the idea for the podcast. The equipment, that's just minimal. Okay, so let's go through and see what you need. Now, very light, let's start from the light and let's move up from there. So very light, cell phone, okay? This is a Google Pixel 2. Obviously an iPhone will work as well. There are many audio recording apps that you can get in your App Store or in your Google Play Store that will record audio. The key with that is make sure you have one that will allow you to export the audio. You may have to pay a couple bucks, probably $3 or $4 for an actual paid app to do it, but the ones that I've liked and used over the years and suggested are ones that would allow you to export to either Google Drive or Dropbox, because then you can access those from your computer to do your editing and exporting later on in the production process. So one of the other key things to know is if you're gonna be recording with your phone, when you look at the phone, okay, here's the top of my phone, there's the bottom of my phone. The microphone, when you're talking on the phone, is located on the bottom. So the key is when you're running the app to flip your phone around and hold your phone like a microphone like this. Then if you're going to record yourself, you're just going to point the bottom to you. Don't put it up to your phone or your head like a phone would, but just hold it like this, okay? And you're going to talk. Now if you're going to do a 2-person interview, you would ask the question and then you can point the phone to them. You don't need to jam it right in their mouth, right? They don't need to talk really close to it. Just about a foot away is perfect. Don't hold it, you know, don't hold it like way— let's start here— don't hold it like way out here because then you're then you're going to start to pick up the space around you. Just about a foot is a good space for that. Your phone is obviously one recording method that you can use. Now, another one that we have here, I'm just going to pull it into the shot, is a portable recorder. Now, a couple of days ago I was at a conference and I did a whole podcast episode there recording people at the conference. I was recording audio around and I have this great little Tascam recorder. I don't know if you can see it fully there, but it has 2 microphones on the top. Everything's saved on an SD card. It is fully digital. It allows me to plug in headphones so I can monitor the recording if I want, but it also gives me the levels on it so I can see that it's recording. But now I can just either hold it between me and 2 people because there's 2 microphones, or I can go back and forth and do the interview. And it worked flawlessly. I could also just use this at home. I don't need to get a studio microphone if I wanted to just do an episode where it was just me talking. This is high enough quality that I could do that 100% with that. Okay, so that's that one. Now, if you wanna go a little step further, we have purchased another Tascam recorder and love that product. But this guy here, what this is, this is called the DR-60D MKII. Okay, I don't expect you to remember that. But what this was built for, this was built to go on the bottom of an SLR camera to allow you to digitally record audio far better than you could just with either the built-in microphone or the small microphone input from an SLR camera. It has 2 XLR microphone cable inputs on the end. Now what I love about this is it's a standalone recorder. So I can go out, I can plug in one of these studio condenser microphones, and I can plug it into here. I can also plug in a second one. So now if I'm going out and I'm setting up, let's say, a booth or an interview station, and I want to do several different guest interviews at one location, all I need to do is take 2 microphones, 2 stands, 2 cables, and this little guy. Plug them both in there, and then I can monitor everything, I can record it, and I get even higher quality because now I'm using a studio-style microphone. And if you understand technology, this little guy will output phantom power. And what that means is it's a small amount of voltage that it will send through the microphone cable to power this microphone. This is called a powered condenser microphone. So the pickup in there, the thing that hears your audio, needs a small bit of power to work, and that's where that word comes into play. If I didn't have that phantom power, this microphone would not work, okay? So that's the other key, is this little recorder. It's portable, but it's a bit bigger, taking you to the next level. Now if you're gonna set up a studio at home and you're gonna be bringing guests in, or you wanna have a space that's set up all for podcasting, and recording, then I would highly recommend that you invest in something called a mixer. So this one here, fairly big, this is a Mackie mixer, and it is powered, so it takes electricity. It outputs to FireWire, so this can go directly into my computer to record. Okay, so I can record directly into a computer interface or software. The key with this is it gives us more control per person. We are then able to then control the bass, the treble, the midtones. You could plug in 3, 4, 5 different audio sources into this. So if you wanted to have a, let's say you had a music show and you wanted to have a couple people playing guitar, you could plug into this and then mix in that audio and record that all separately as well, where you wouldn't really get that ability with something that was handheld or just a 2-channel recorder. That's where it comes to going a little more in depth as to having something like this. Now when it comes to microphones, I touched a little bit about it a few seconds ago about this condenser microphone here. You can also, let me pull this out here. If you're out in the field, you can use a microphone like this. This is one we're very used to seeing, right? Any concert, any performers would use this kind of microphone. This isn't a powered microphone. This does not need phantom power. Any microphone cable plugged into this into a recorder will record. Now, the thing with this is if you're gonna be recording people singing or live at a speech or anything like that, this is gonna plug into a microphone stand a lot easier. It's gonna fit in quite well for that. So this would also be used if you're doing an interview style, you could do that as well. Okay, if you didn't wanna go into this or use a portable recorder for that reason. But this is another form of microphone that you could utilize. The other thing you're definitely gonna need, in the industry we call it a set of cans, right? Headphones, right? You gotta put these on because you're gonna plug it into your recording device and you're gonna monitor the audio. Because you, even though you're sitting there next to the person, there may be something that's going on. There could be interference where you're hearing some hum in the recorded signal. Maybe the microphone cable's bad. You wouldn't really know that if you didn't have a way to monitor that. That is a great thing to have. Always have your headphones. And one little tip with this, and this is how I always do it, is when I have the headphones on, I hate being able to talk and have both ears covered in this, 'cause it sounds like I'm shouting. I hear myself. But I'll put these on, and I'll actually just pull one off, leave my ear open to the air around me, and then I can conduct that interview quite well. That way. So that's it. This little guy right here, this is called a pop filter. These you can get on Amazon for like $6, right? These are cheap, inexpensive, but these, man, these are the things that will take you from sounding amateur in your recordings to really having a clean sound. And what this does is every time you're talking, you're saying like Ps and hard consonants, your mouth, if you just put your hand in front of your mouth and go P, you're gonna feel air burst out and hit your hand. This stops that. This is called a pop filter. So those Ps and those plosives that you're putting out, it's stopping that air from hitting that microphone. Because if this wasn't here and I was talking and saying Ps, the air would hit this and it would have a popping sound in the recording. It'd be like a snap or a hard hit, right? It's really distracting. These are important. Any recording studio you see online, on TV, whatever, or if you've even been into one, they have them like this, right? They could be different shapes and sizes, but this is the key. You put it a couple inches away to make that depth there, but that's the purpose behind this. I highly recommend always getting one of these, right? It's a very inexpensive way to take your game up from here to here in your recording. So that's the recording side. When we get into how to edit, we're going to talk about the different types of technology that you can use to edit your podcast, and that's a whole nother video. So, so far, let's recap what we talked about. We talked about how to come up with a show idea. I gave you homework on that. And then in this video, we looked at all the different types of technology that you could use to record. So next, what we're going to do is I'm going to talk to you about where to record. What are some tips on, on where you can record, things to avoid, so that you have the best quality audio possible. So we'll see you in that next video.