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The How To Podcast Series - Podcast Co-Hosts, Practical Podcasting Tips, and Podcast Community
E576 - Assembling Your Podcast Tools - The Podcaster’s Path, 24 Steps from Beginner to Pro
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Okay, we're rolling. Hey, welcome back to the how to Podcast series. It's Dave with you. This is path step number three out of 24 in the podcaster's path. 24 steps from beginner to pro. This is assembling your podcasting tools. And, yeah, we're doing this 24 episodes in 24 hours. Weird, right? If you're following along in real time, then there's a lot of content coming your way in a very condensed period of time. But if you're listening later, then this is going to be perfect for you. This is meant to be 24 individual episodes as a starting point for a new podcaster or starting a new show, or you just want to refresh on the whole process. 24 episodes in a row. We're calling it the Podcaster's Path. If you go to YouTube, a link in the show notes, you can actually get the entire thing, all of the episodes together. And this special little mini series that we're doing over 24 hours. It's a little. A little challenge I gave myself at the beginning of the year, and today's the day, so I'm already. This is episode 3 out of 24. Long way to go. It's gonna be a long day and a long night and then tomorrow. But I love being here with you, so definitely check it out over on YouTube also, you can listen right here in order. All these episodes will be back to back to back. And, yeah, I'm excited to have you here. We're gonna talk a little bit about assembling your podcasting tools. It's not just a microphone. There's a little bit more to that, but let's talk about it. I'm glad you're here. So we're just three episodes in here, so we're only on the third step out of 24. So we're right back to the beginning. If you already have your gear, set up your tech. Great. Awesome. That's wonderful. I'm happy for you. But somebody new coming to me, they're like, dave, I have. I am not a tech person, and I'm being told that I have to buy this and I have to buy that, and I don't even know what these things are. So what do I do? How do I do this so that I don't waste money? I don't want to overspend, but I don't want to buy the wrong thing either and then be stuck with this thing. So there's a few things to consider here. I'll go back to One of my favorite sayings in podcasting, that has nothing to do with podcasting, but I like to use it. Do what you can with what you have, where you are. That's it. That's all you need to start your podcast. If, if all you have is your phone, then, oh, awesome, you have a podcast. You can start a podcast with your phone. Is it going to be the same quality as the big shows? Well, no. They have studios and a team of 20 and thousands of dollars per episode they can put in as a budget. So obviously that's not a fair comparison. You're in the front seat of your car on your iPhone. Not even close. But if technology is stopping you from podcasting, really, you can podcast with your phone and this whole episode could be skipped because that's all you have, then that's fine, great. But for those that do want to invest in their show, I'm going to give you some alternatives and things to think about that when you're assembling your tools. These are some good starting points. Again, if you're like, I, Dave, you don't know me. I am not techie at all, then reach out to me. HowtoPodcast ca. There's a calendar link on my website, always available to you. We can just sit on, zoom together and chat and, and kind of uncover what's best for you. This is not meant to answer every question about tech. For podcasting. There are shows that. That's all they do every episode. I don't do it often here on how to podcast, but people are asking, so let's get into this. As you start your podcast journey, you start to think about assembling the tools that you need to do the thing you want to do. Create your podcast. This is kind of like your official on ramp into podcasting is talking about the assembling of your tools. Here, though, is where a lot of gatekeeping happens. Here's where a lot of frustration happens. People are going to try to sell you expensive gear, things that are not designed for podcasting specifically. More for the music industry, the recording industry. Way too many buttons, too many things that you really don't need. You don't need to buy tools for live streaming if you're never going to live stream your podcast. You don't need sound pads that have a laugh track and music that's brought in and, and weird bongs and gongs and noises that you can add to your show in real time. Do you need. You don't need any of that. So be careful because when you Go into Facebook groups. When you listen to podcasts about podcasting, there's a lot of people trying to sell you a lot of stuff that you just don't need. It's going to sit in a box. It's going to sit on a shelf. You're never going to touch this. And you just wasted a whole bunch of money and time. So that's my concern for you. Your voice matters more than your microphone. Your voice matters more than your web camera. Your voice matters more than your tech, your computer. All of these things. It's about you. So let's go back to my first setup. Now, my first setup is my current setup, and I've been doing this for years. I've got thousands of episodes, and I'm using the exact same setup that I started with. It's a $50 USB mic that I bought on Amazon, $50 US $80 Canadian, because everything's more in Canada. And that's it. I'm. I'm using a microphone stand that you would see at any concert. You know, the one where the singer walks up, takes a mic off the stand, moves it to the side, that kind of stand. 15 bucks at my music store. And I have a desktop computer that I've had forever. And. And that's it. That's all I have. I use a lot of free software. There's a lot of things. Podcastforfree.com is my website where I list all of the free tools that I use. But that's it. Years of podcasting, never had an issue. Super reliable and not expensive. And I picked this mic because I liked how my voice sounded on this mic. That's the reason why there's a lot of other mics that I could spend a lot of money on, but I've chosen this mic because it works for me. And I don't really take into heart all of the other people who want me to change my mic and do something different, because why it works, it's cheap. It gets me going, and I can move on to creating content and stop worrying about mics. So that's kind of my approach for my show. So I'll put in the show notes everything I'm talking about here, so you can kind of go through and see. Now, some of the stuff I don't use, some of the stuff other people I work with will use. So you kind of have to kind of pick what works for you. Again, the best way you and I get together over zoom, talk through this. Okay? But I will put some stuff in there for you. As links and as ideas and suggestions. But really, it comes down to what you think works best for your show. That's the big thing in all of this. Don't let me persuade you or dissuade you. Either way, what works for you, works for you. So I would encourage you, if you can, if you have the budget to do so. A $50 USB mic, like I'm talking about, USB simply means it plugs right into your computer. One thing and you're done. If that's all you can do, great. That's a good investment. If you're going to be a guest on podcasts and you're going to be on a lot of shows for a longer period of time, then a mic would be a great idea. You showing up with your laptop mic or your tablet mic, it's not the best sound. You're going to sound like you're in another room. You're going to sound really hollow, and your podcaster is going to struggle to make you sound good. So if you're going to be a guest frequently, then, yeah, a $50 mic that you can plug right into your computer. Perfect. Perfect. You'll. You'll. You'll get a better result by investing in your show. That would be my first thing. And then the other part, too, I haven't mentioned, is headphones. Why do I wear headphones? You can wear in ears as well. I like a wired set of headphones. When you go with Bluetooth, you are at the mercy of Bluetooth, your mercy of batteries dying, all that stuff. Wired headphones just work great, whether you have them over the ear like you see on a lot of podcasts on YouTube, or in ear, where they're kind of more invisible. Perfect. Whatever. But the fact that you have earphones in means that if anything comes out of your speakers, it doesn't get picked up. If sound comes from your speakers and into your microphone, then that creates a loop, and that loop can create feedback and create distortion and all kinds of weird noises. Having headphones, silences. So there's no audio coming from your speaker into the room when you're recording. It goes right into your headphones. Simple. Headphones are cheap. 12 bucks, 10 bucks, 15 bucks. Easy, easy, easy. And then a quiet space. I think that's another thing that we need to think about. I'm recording right now. My grandchildren are here with us in the house, and my granddaughter just had a huge screaming fit just seconds ago, making me pause and wait that out. So find a quiet space where you can record because that's going to make editing so much easier. When your dog's not barking, when your neighbor's not cutting the grass or shoveling snow or whatever. Find a place that's quiet and find a soft place. Not a hard place. Think of your kitchen. Think of a bathroom. The hard walls. Tile hardwood floors. Tile floors. Clap your hands and you hear that clapping sound back. Yeah, that's not a good spot for a podcast. Surrounded by glass. Not a good place for a podcast. You want something soft, find a nice quiet place. And then there's always free software that you can use. I'm using Audacity right now. It's completely free. If you want to learn Audacity, I'm happy to help you with that. Again, go to my website calendar links right there. We can do a screen share. I'll show you all the basics for Audacity and get you up and running. Happy to do that. So you don't need to spend a lot of money. Again, I'm talking 50 bucks for the mic to 10, 15 bucks for the stand and 10, 12 bucks for the headphones, and you're good to go. So it's not expensive to start if you want to go that route. If you want to use your phone, use your phone. Whatever works for you. Why constraints spark Creativity for us as podcasters, I like the idea of limitations because they breed ingenuity, meaning you got to kind of compensate for a lack of tools. You don't have the best of the best of the best. You got to figure out a way to make this thing work. When gear choices vanish, weaker ideas die faster, so you can't hide behind your effects. Your script gets better. You don't have a fancy mixer. Then your pacing tightens. You don't have. You have phone only audio. Then your room treatment needs to improve. When you have limitations, it makes you come up with ingenious ideas to work around and make it better. So don't be afraid of your limitations and don't wait to have everything you need to start. You do what you can with what you have where you are. Big budget creators drown in options, and they get paralyzed by all these different shiny buttons and things that are available to them. Solo podcasters, they just ship out the episodes. Every restriction is a decision made for you. So allow the fact that you don't have all of the tools and the best of the best to not be a limitation in a bad way, but a limitation in a good way. Because now you can just focus on creating content. As your podcast improves and as your Audience grows and money comes your way, which I wish that for everyone. Then look at upgrading, but only do it when you feel it necessary, not because you feel pressure to do so. What do we do from this episode going forward? Then we talk about assembling our tools. Choose one starter setup today, even if it's just your phone, and schedule a 10 minute test recording before midnight tonight. Record answering, why does my voice matter? Record it, script or no script, just jump on your phone and record that. Grab your mic, plug it into your computer and answer. Read out the question out loud and then just record yourself. Why does my voice matter? And answer the question. Listen back to it, cringe productively. Because you're gonna be like, oh, what is that? You've crossed the equipment threshold. Your podcast exists. It might not be released yet, but your podcast exists. You've done something. Gear upgrades come after episode 10. Start with what you have, and then when you. Once you get to episode 10, which is like the medium where most podcasters don't get to. Once you get past that episode 10 into the double digits, now we can start saying, okay, is it working? Is your tech setup work for you? Can you keep going? Is there a change needed? Because we've actually done the work when you haven't even started and you're making decisions around tech, you've got it backwards. The horse in the cart is what's happening right here. Start messy. Learn fast. Your listener won't hear your hear ambition, they're going to hear you. So focus on that. Don't let tech stop you from your podcast. Don't let a microphone purchase derail you from creating something that you want to create. Do what you can with what you have, where you are. That's all it takes. So if you're expecting this long diatribe about all the different types of tech, that's not what we do here on the show. The content's more important than the tech. You want to be heard. You want to be. You want to be. Your audio to be understood. It's got to be loud enough that people can hear it while they're doing something else, but not so loud that you blow out their earbuds. There's some tech stuff that has to happen, yes, but if that's all you focus on, you're probably never going to start your show. So let's get you past that and let's get you to a point where you feel more comfortable creating content and then upgrade as you see fit. That's how you podcast. So that was step Three Step four We're going to be talking about choosing your podcast or podcasting path kind of now what? Now that I've got the tools, I got the idea, I've got my starting point. Now where do I go? So part of this 24 step path process we're talking about is actually going to be talking about the path itself. And that's the next episode. Check it out. Coming up soon. Take care. If you're looking for more information about podcasting and you're looking for a community around podcasting, come check out how to Podcast ca. It's my website where everything we do around podcasting, this show, our community or meetup resources. There's a lot of great stuff there for you. A whole list of free tools that you can use as a podcaster to save yourself some money. That's based on my website, podcastforfree.com which just leads you back to my regular website. And if you want any more information as well, there's a calendar link on my website website where you and I can meet anytime. It's always there. It's always available. Whatever you see available on your end. I'm ready to talk podcasting with anybody. I'd love to help you no matter what your questions are. We can grab a virtual coffee and we can talk through what your big idea is. Maybe some of your struggles in podcasting, maybe some motivational things, maybe some growth things. Happy to help you over at how to Podcast. Come check out the website. Let's connect. Stick around because we have a bunch more episodes here on The Podcaster's Path. 24 episodes here in a row. That's meant to be kind of your starting point for your journey as a podcaster or if you're going to start a new show or you want to refresh your journey and catch up on maybe some of the things you might have missed. That's what this show's about. I'm glad you're here. My name is Dave. Love to help you reach out anytime. HowtoPodcast ca. Take care. Talk soon.