What Do You Need to Get Started

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to Creative Podcasting I am here to talk to you about what do you need to get started podcasting. Now we're gonna talk a little bit about software and hardware today. You are looking about whether or not it is hard to podcast, don't forget to look at episode two where we kind of went over a little bit of the mindset and what it is that you want to bring to the table when you're podcasting.

So today we're going to start by saying, starting a podcast can be daunting. Let me tell you a little secret. This episode goes live tomorrow. , it's two o'clock in the afternoon and I'm only just recording it now, and I actually only just started recording episode one and two an hour ago. I should have been recording this three weeks ago, but life gets in the way and sometimes, you know, sometimes you just have to roll with the punches,

[00:01:00] Podcasting doesn't have to be hard, as I've mentioned before, and all you're gonna need is a little bit of an idea and some equipment and a passion for telling stories. Now we're gonna go into storytelling in a different episode because it is so important to bring storytelling in and to bring in old episodes and to bring in your CTAs organically to reach people.

Now, this particular episode though, is gonna be talking about a little bit about software, a little bit about a hardware, and I just wanna tell you a little bit about maybe the area that you podcast in as well. So what is it that you need for software? Let me tell you, the cheapest software you can find is probably, And I'm gonna say it's going to be fine because if you are a PC user, you're probably going to use either Zoom or Audacity.

And if you are a Mac user, you're probably going to use Zoom [00:02:00] or GarageBand. Now, I have also had a client's. Actually do their podcasts on their iPhone in a closet. Another place to do your podcast would be on your phone in a car because cars are already soundproof, so what the heck? Why not? And there's no kids around.

And probably a great place to be. So the dogs aren't barking either, There are some places that you can go to record your podcast in the cloud online. Zencaster is one of them. Riverside is another one. You could also use Streamy Yard. You could use Zoom settings to record in the cloud, although I do suggest that you actually record that and save that to your own device.

And then there are actually some hosts, that will allow you to record. in their software now and do all the editing and everything in there as well. They're all a little bit different. I know that for me, I record in aud dac. [00:03:00] and then I will actually pull the files from Audacity and I'll pull them into Descript. So Descripts another one as well. And when I pull it into Descript, it's because I can get a transcription and read that at the same time.

So any kind of audio cleanup I might do in Audacity, but any kind of moving around of audio, I'll do Indescript because you can just read it and it's. Easier for me to be able to do it that way. Not everybody's gonna find it to be that way, and that's perfectly fine too, but you know when you can visually see it and hear it at the same time, it's an all immersive, right?

So, . the different types of software that you can use, a lot of them are free. I might have mentioned Audacity is Free Garage brand is free. Of course, your own phone, the recording software in your own phone is certainly free. It is sometimes a lot more difficult to get that particular audio [00:04:00] out of your phone.

What I have found works for me and my clients is that they will upload. To a Google Drive. So they'll actually have Google Drive installed on their device and then they'll take that particular audio and they'll upload it to Google Drive. That's what we've found to be easiest to get it off of your phone.

If you have a different way of getting it off your phone, please let me know. I would love to know. Now, Zencaster does have a free version for you to be able to use and Riverside might have a free trial offer, but I have not used Riverside in a while. I have used Zencaster more.

And I actually might use that for some of my guest recordings because it just seems like a really fun platform to be on, right? To be able to record right there records it really crystal clear cuz it's recording both sections. your guest, and [00:05:00] you, it's recording those separately, and then you kind of bring them together in your editing software such as Audacity, GarageBand, descript, or any of the other dos that are out there, Hindenburg Pro, Jules, all of those so now that we've talked a little bit more about the software, let's go on to the hardware that you're going to need. I'm gonna mention that if you are using your phone, you'll probably want to make sure that you are recording that in a closet or in a car or someplace that has a lot of cushion around it.

Even when you're recording your own podcast episodes with a microphone, you will want to make sure that you have some maybe acoustic panels or maybe you have a towel behind your. Laptop you'll want. Make sure maybe you have a carpet in the room, you'll want to make sure that you're recording so that you're, you cannot hear your animals if the u p s guy shows up, for instance. Okay, so when you are [00:06:00] choosing a microphone, what you're going to be wanting is something similar to my audio. Technica Attr 2100 x, and this particular microphone is a dynamic microphone.

It's better for capturing sounds, and it's also particularly really great for listening directly to your voice. A condenser microphone is used and actually. , all sorts of things in your studio. And a condenser microphone, for instance, would be that all loved Yeti that is going to listen to all the sounds in your house.

So if your dog is in the corner sneezing, it's gonna pick that up. So that's why I prefer having a dynamic microphone and just having that right there so that you can hear just what I'm talking. I do have a foam wind guard on my microphone, [00:07:00] and I should have a pop filter, so my peas, my poofs, might be a little on the harsh side, but I am also currently in between.

My workstations, we are actually working on a new area in my house for me to be able to record in. And so that's, I'm kind of in a different area than I'd like to be. So what I do have here is an acoustic panel in front of me. It's just basically like a nice soft piece of foam and it's right behind my laptop to try to absorb some of the sound.

I do also have some curtains. Blanket. I have just some things to just kind of cushion that area around me and make sure that I have something that is absorbing the sound and it's not just hard areas around for it. There's to be an echo or any kind of reverb or anything like that. . I also am wearing a headset and my headset is [00:08:00] actually, uh, I don't remember the first name of it, but it's definitely in called an M P O W, and this particular one you can use.

any headphones or any headset that you wanna use. But this particular one here actually lasts for something like 30 hours on one charge. And as a podcast producer, I kind of spend a lot of time in my headphones, right? So, 30 hours is actually really good because it's gonna last me the entire week. I don't have to worry about recharging it.

But do you have to? No, you don't. You can use any kind of headset that you have, and this is especially important when you have guests, because those guests, if they're talking and you're talking and you don't have headphones on, or they don't have headphones on, there could be an echo back and forth and it could just be, ugh.

Sometimes the echo. , it's just terrible in grading, so try not to turn off your listeners and make sure that you have the least [00:09:00] amount of echo that you can. And by doing so, you can prevent some echo just by having a headset on and also asking your guests to have a headset on as well. So what do you need?

So that would be your software. And then you need your hardware. Of course, I did mention the actual software, but the hardware of course you'll need is, is a laptop or a PC or a Mac, right? Because you need someplace to actually record that. And then the recording software that I talked about, you can actually do all of your editing right in there.

I think you can even do the editing in Zencaster, but definitely you can use the editing software in as part of Audacity or Garage Band in order to be able to create your finalized podcast episode or descript, even descript. I, I'm not a big fan of finalizing episodes in descript, but uh, Absolutely it works.

I do all my Instagram reels in descript . So then your microphone, [00:10:00] if you do happen to have a condenser microphone such as a Yeti, don't worry about that. It's not that you have to trade it in, it's just you have to be a little bit more careful about where you record, right? So you'll wanna record in an area that has a lot of acoustic panels and maybe definitely keep the dogs or the cat out of that particular room when you're recording.

My headset of course, and hmm. Oh, you know what I didn't mention was my boom arm. Now I have a boom arm. that I actually connect my microphone too. And the reason why I have it on a boom arm rather than just sitting on my desk is twofold. One, so that I have more room on my desk, , right? And two, because that way I can actually.

Hit it. . I know that sounds so silly, but I don't wanna hit my microphone when I am talking. And sometimes I have a tendency to use my [00:11:00] hands . And if it's right there in front of me, or sometimes I'm looking up notes, right? Because I've written outlines of things that maybe I wanna say, and then if it's right there, I might bump into it.

But on the boom arm, I have less of an option or less of a chance of bumping into that particular boom arm or microphone and making it have any kind of sound. .

And then of course, I mentioned earlier I had a foam wind guard on mine, and this just makes my poofs a little bit better. It makes my voice a little bit richer. It just, you know, prevents any kind of like really big breathing, , anything like that just makes my voice just a little bit better too, I think.

All right. I think that is it for, what do you need to get started? It isn't really very much a little bit of software, a little bit of a microphone. Again, you could totally bootstrap it with your, your actual phone. Phone and in your car, and just a notepad with all of your topics that you're gonna talk about.

just [00:12:00] those few things is all you're gonna need to get started and you could start creating your podcast. I would love to know if you have started your podcast and whether or not you are interested in telling me what your podcast is going to be about. I would love to know. I love listening to new podcasts and I love to be able to offer you any kind of advice or help.

if you find that you might need that in the future. So if you do, you can always shoot me an email, kim kp creative media.com, or you can join our Facebook community, and then you can actually see me live once a week and you can ask questions then and say, Hey, you know, I'm getting this terrible echo reverb and hey, oh, I didn't wear my headphones, but I just wanna know why I'm getting it.

And I. Try to see what we can do about fixing that for you. But until next time, I am so looking forward to being part of the creative podcasting universe and I'll be back [00:13:00] next week with more episodes. Thanks so much. Talk to you then.