How to Start a Podcast - Video 1: Equipment and Software

Key Takeaways

Hey, what's up everybody? It's Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income and this is the first of a series of videos that I'm shooting to help you get your podcast up and running because a podcast has been one of the most beneficial things I've ever done for my brand and also for me personally. So, I'm hoping this video series is going to help you get yours up running much faster than I did. In this first video, I'm going to be going over some equipment options like microphones and things like that and also some software you can use to help record your voice because you're going to need the stuff before you even record your first word. So, uh, let's get right to it. Sound quality is extremely important when it comes to your podcast. Bad sound quality can mean the difference between people listening to your show or just totally skipping right over it. And sound quality starts with your microphone, and I've gone through my fair share of mics. Here's a quick comparison of each. So, here's a Logitech USB headset, one that you would use for Skype calls and gaming and things like that. And it runs about 30 bucks on Amazon. If you have like hardly any budget, this is what I would start with. But as you can hear, it sounds very hollow. It's It's not going to give you the quality that you want in a serious podcast. Okay, so now you're looking at the Blue Snowflake. A nice little compact USB mic. Runs about 46 bucks on Amazon. It really fits in your pocket and it sounds really decent for the price. And this is a great starter mic, but again, it picks up a lot of echo, a lot of room noise, and I think about upgrading to a more professional mic if you're serious. Okay, so now you're looking at the Samson C01U USB studio condenser microphones. one of the more popular USB mics that's out there and it runs about 70 to 75 bucks on Amazon right now. So, you could tell it sounds a little bit deeper, a little bit nicer, a little bit more pleasing to the ear, and it was one of my first professional microphones. Okay, so now you're listening to the Audio Technica ATR2100 USB microphone. And I I really have to credit Father Rodrik from fatherick.com for this beautiful find because we both use high OPR40s, which I'll show you in a second. And this one comes to a close second as far as sound quality is concerned. And this one runs about $200 cheaper. This one's This one's about 40 to 50 bucks on Amazon. And it sounds really, really good. I mean, just listen to it. And it's interesting because there's two ways to plug it in through USB and a XLR connection. You're listening to USB right now. And now you're listening to the XLR connection, which runs a cable from the mic to a mixer, a mixer board. And then that mixer board runs a cable to your computer, uh, which is how you record it in the software that you're using. Again, a great studio quality microphone for 40 to 50 bucks. Amazing. All right. And finally, you're looking at and listening to the Hy PR40. This is a top-of-the-line podcasting microphone. It's the mic that I use in my show. The mic that Cliff Ravenscraft from Podcast Answer Man uses and so many other podcasters use this. Why? Because it just sounds amazing. It plugs into a mixer next to your computer. And that mixer, like the ATR, plugs into your computer as well. And you have control over so many things like the bass and the treble and everything. It just you can get it to sound perfect. I mean, I swear I sound so much better on the microphone than I do in real life because of this mic. And it's nice because it just gets rid of all the background noise. It only picks up right what's in front of it. And it is a little bit expensive. It runs about 300 bucks on Amazon. Um, and like I said, you also need a mixer to go along with it. But if you are serious about podcasting, you know, you're going to be doing a show for quite a long time and you want to start with the best sound quality, this is the mic for you, the Hy PR40. Okay. Okay, so in addition to the actual microphone, there's some microphone accessories you're going to want to pick up. For example, a pop filter. Those are those foam things you put on top of the mic or a screen that you put in front of it like you see in recording studios. You're also going to need some sort of stand to hold the mic and position it where you need it to be. And also a shock mount, which mounts to your microphone so that vibrations on your desk or wherever, they don't affect your sound quality at all. Okay, so here's a quick overview of my particular setup with the HYOP PR40 microphone and the Behringer Xenox 100002 mixer, which you can see a close-up right there. That's what the mic connects to. And there's a cord that connects from that to my Mac computer to uh record everything I need to record. Here's a close-up view of the Hy with a little mic flag uh for some branding purposes. It's good for video and stuff like that. Uh and then a HY arm, which uh is made specifically to hold the higher PR 40. And again, connects to my desk. And there you go. All right. One last thing. When it comes to podcasting equipment, I encourage you to go to podcastansman.com/equipment and check out some of the stuff that Cliff Ravenscraft has to offer over at podcastansman.com. You know, Cliff is directly responsible for the success of my podcast. I owe him a ton. And this is just a small little thing I could do to pay him back. You know, I owe him so much. And he offers a lot of podcasting equipment packages. He doesn't sell those things individually, but in he includes them in packages to get you up and running right away. And you know, there's a few different packages you could choose from. You can just go ahead and go to podcastansman.com/equipment and check them out there. He he also shares some other equipment to take your podcast to the next level. And there's one piece of equipment that he uses that I want to talk about, which I don't use, but a lot of other podcasters use, and it's actually a really smart thing to do. He records his podcast episodes into a digital audio recorder like the one you see here, which is the Roland R-05. And that's, like I said, a really smart thing to do because when you do that, you decrease the risk of something crashing or messing up when you record. You know, when you record directly into software like GarageBand or Audacity, which I'm going to show you in a second, you know, sometimes things crash and you can lose the hard work that you put in. Luckily, I've never had that issue. And, you know, I'm I'm taking a shortcut. But, you know, if you are truly serious about this, you know, and you just want to make sure you cover all bases, check out podcastanserman.com/equipment. Check out what he has to say about a digital audio recorder. And he has some tutorials on that as well to help you out. So, now let's talk about some software. Now, since I work on a Mac computer, I'm going to talk about the Mac software that I use first. Then, I'm going to talk about the PC Windows stuff in just a second. Now, you're actually looking at GarageBand, which I use to record, edit, and also export as an MP3 file uh all of my episodes. And it's great. It's so userfriendly, really easy to use. Just drag and drop. I can easily slice and dice and move things around. Uh it's fantastic. I use it for everything uh when it comes to my podcasts. Now, if you're on a PC or you just don't mesh well with GarageBand, you've used it and you don't like it, you can try Audacity. You can get that at audacity.sourceforge.net. And it's absolutely free. It's free software you can use to edit, record, and do all types of things. Import, you know, your jingles and your intros and your outros and also uh interviews, which I'll talk about how to do in a second. Totally free. It's great to use. You know, test it out if you want. Again, that's if GarageBand doesn't work for you and you're on a Mac or if you're on a PC. Free. You can't go wrong with that. Now, one thing I love to do as a podcaster, and I know a lot of other podcasters love to do, is is we like to bring guests on a show. You know, it's a great way to add some new flavor to the content that you have and also to introduce someone new and cool to your audience. And there's no better way to bring a guest onto your podcast than to record a Skype conversation. Now, unfortunately, Skype doesn't have its own built-in recording software, so you have to get that from a third party somewhere. And if you're on a Mac, this is the place to get it. uh ecam with two ms.com and there you can get callrecorder for Skype. You can download a free demo if you want or you can buy it for $19.95 really cheap for what what it is if you're going to have a lot of guests on your show. It works really easily. So let me just give you a quick demonstration uh you know hypothetical demonstration. Uh say I'm on a conversation here with Corbett Bar. We're doing an interview or something. You know I'm not going to disturb him. It says do not disturb. So I'm not going to do that right now. Uh but you know if we were having conversation I could record it. I can just pull up my call recorder window here, press the record button, boom, it would be recording. I can push stop at any time. It would actually take that conversation and turn it into a M OV file movie file. And the reason for that is because you can also record Skype conversations uh through video. You know, if you if you have a video conference, you can record that as well. Now, if if you're doing an audio, you can actually pull up this convert to MP3 software that comes with call recorder for Skype. You can drag that movie file onto here and it'll turn it into an MP3 which you can then drag and drop into uh GarageBand or import into Audacity. Um it's super easy to use. What I also love about this software is also comes with this thing called split size of conversation. So I can take that file, put it in here, and then it'll give me two files. One of Corvette Corvette's uh side of the conversation and one of mine. So in case one of our levels is off, we can adjust it without having to worry about messing up the other one. So, you know that that's fantastic. Now, if you are on a PC, unfortunately, uh Call Recorder for Skype is just for Mac only. If you're on a PC or or on Windows, you want to get Pamela for Skype. So, just go to Pamela.biz and you'll see those products there. Pamela for Skype is about 30 bucks. I I believe $34.95, I think. And again, it works similar uh to Call Recorder for Skype for Mac. So, that's it. and and that's the software that I use to uh edit, record, and and export uh you know, and just build my show. You know, that's that's how I produce my show. Earlier, you saw some of the different microphone options, my whole you know, library of microphones, and you can choose the one that's best for you based on your budget. And yeah, that's it. So, I'll see you in video number two where I'm actually be talking about recording your first episode and editing it. So, I'll see you there.