Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the
Speaker 1: tech are you Well. I'm still working on some really
Speaker 1: big and complicated tech Stuff episodes, and as a result,
Speaker 1: I thought that it'd be fun to take a listen
Speaker 1: to a really, really really old episode of tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: This one came out way back on November two, two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, and the title of the episode is
Speaker 1: called how Podcasting Works, But I honestly think that title
Speaker 1: is not really that accurate. I think it would be
Speaker 1: more like history of tech Stuff slash podcasting Tips. Now.
Speaker 1: At this time, this was when Chris Palette was co
Speaker 1: host of the show, and we talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the fact that Chris was also the original co
Speaker 1: host with Josh of stuff. You should know, which is
Speaker 1: just kind of a fun little bit of trivia, is that,
Speaker 1: you know, Chris had been one of the first people
Speaker 1: on The House Stuff Work's staff to podcast. He recorded
Speaker 1: several episodes with Josh before Chuck ended up taking over
Speaker 1: that spot and then the rest, as they say, is history,
Speaker 1: and Chris got saddled with me. We recorded quite a
Speaker 1: few episodes together before Chris moved on. He decided he
Speaker 1: wanted a career change and he went to pursue a
Speaker 1: career in library science, which is pretty awesome. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: I've been back here helming the Tech Stuff Ship ever since.
Speaker 1: So listen to this classic episode How Podcasting Works, published
Speaker 1: November second, two thousand and nine, and enjoy today going
Speaker 1: to talk about some podcasting tips. We actually get a
Speaker 1: lot of requests to do an episode about podcasting, and.
Speaker 2: We keep coming up with the reasons why we shouldn't
Speaker 2: do it today. Right today, we decided to do it today.
Speaker 2: We're like, you know what, We're going to get this
Speaker 2: out of the way.
Speaker 1: You know why, because if we weren't doing How Podcasting Works,
Speaker 1: you know what we would be doing cantennis or tech
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories. Oh yeah, two other ones that we keep
Speaker 1: putting off.
Speaker 2: Actually, just between you and us, we're not supposed to
Speaker 2: talk about the tech conspiracy.
Speaker 1: Oh that's right. They don't want you to know, So
Speaker 1: let's talk about podcasting instead. Now, we've had a lot
Speaker 1: of people ask us things, everything ranging from what kind
Speaker 1: of equipment do we use? What kind of software do
Speaker 1: we use, and just general tips on podcasting, So people
Speaker 1: who want to get into podcasting, what should they do,
Speaker 1: what should they avoid doing? And a lot of the
Speaker 1: stuff that we have learned over the course of our
Speaker 1: what year and a half of podcasting, mainly we've learned
Speaker 1: through trial and error. Wow half. Yeah, sorry, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's pretty much been a year and a half. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's he's right.
Speaker 2: Actually, we were one of the very first podcasts at
Speaker 2: how Stuff.
Speaker 1: Works Yeah com and we followed Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: and stuff you missed in history class. Yeah, so we
Speaker 1: were the third one. Yeah, Marshall Brains. Marshall Brain has
Speaker 1: been doing one for a while.
Speaker 2: Right, He was doing a podcast in a blog sort
Speaker 2: of independently from the group for a long time. And
Speaker 2: then and then we jumped on board. And actually when
Speaker 2: when I was the first Josh's first co host on
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: Right, So you've been doing this longer than just about
Speaker 1: anyone else besides Josh. True.
Speaker 2: True, But it's funny because we tried a bunch of
Speaker 2: different stuff. We've actually had uh, we got we've gotten
Speaker 2: some comments over the course of the last year and
Speaker 2: a half, like you know.
Speaker 1: Who writes this stuff? Right?
Speaker 3: And the answer is nobody.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We actually, Josh and I tried a little bit writing
Speaker 2: some of the stuff out and that just totally we
Speaker 2: tried to test with that and that totally didn't work.
Speaker 1: Just tech stuffs. We we outlined the heck out of
Speaker 1: those early early shows.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, so.
Speaker 1: Let's let's talk Let's talk about the genesis of tech
Speaker 1: stuff in general, and then we'll talk about some of
Speaker 1: the equipment we use, and then we'll give some podcasting tips.
Speaker 1: How about that?
Speaker 3: That sounds great?
Speaker 1: See, you know, this is the sort of stuff that
Speaker 1: we used to talk about before the show, and we
Speaker 1: would outline it and we would go point by point.
Speaker 1: We don't do that anymore, which is why we kind
Speaker 1: of go through things in a haphazard way.
Speaker 2: Although I do feel compelled to point out that not
Speaker 2: all the podcasters here at how Stuffworks dot Com go
Speaker 2: buy that theory. Now, Yeah, in general, we do try
Speaker 2: to be conversational.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's there.
Speaker 2: Nobody's I don't know of anybody that scripts out what
Speaker 2: they're going to say when they come on to the podcast.
Speaker 2: But I think everybody pretty much, you know, just has
Speaker 2: a good rapport with his or her co host, and
Speaker 2: it's sort of a Okay, we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: these ten things. Make sure we cover this or that.
Speaker 2: Jonathan and I are just sort of looser about it, don't.
Speaker 1: We don't meet beforehand like some of the other podcasters do.
Speaker 1: So yeah, everyone as their own style. We'll get to
Speaker 1: we'll get to style in a little bit. So let's
Speaker 1: let's do the history of tech stuff Sour our editor
Speaker 1: in chief, came to us. Connell Byrn, He came to
Speaker 1: us and said, guys, we want you to do a
Speaker 1: podcast about technology. Think you would blow it out of
Speaker 1: the park. You'll be super rock stars, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: And I had looked around and said, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: What are you talking right?
Speaker 3: And I was like, let me go.
Speaker 1: I want to do it, Let's do it now. And
Speaker 1: uh so we were told at that time that we
Speaker 1: were trying you know, this, this was brand new for us.
Speaker 1: It was not something that house Stuffworks dot com had
Speaker 1: been doing before. Besides Marshall's podcast and the this is
Speaker 1: before even Stuff you Should Know had started to publish.
Speaker 1: This was just before it started to publish. So at
Speaker 1: that time, since we were all kind of new to this,
Speaker 1: we decided to put some limitations and some parameters up
Speaker 1: to kind of give us a framework so that we
Speaker 1: wouldn't just flail around the way we do.
Speaker 2: Now, let's speak for yourself. I flail pretty handily, thank you, Mitchell.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the very the very first rules were that
Speaker 1: the episodes had to be around five minutes in length,
Speaker 1: and they were supposed to relate back to a specific
Speaker 1: article on the site.
Speaker 3: Wow, that just makes me want to laugh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't do that anymore.
Speaker 3: We don't.
Speaker 1: We don't do either of those things anymore. Now. Now
Speaker 1: other podcasts they do, they'll they'll still cover specific articles,
Speaker 1: which is fine. We just that we don't have to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're no longer required to do that, but we can
Speaker 1: do that if we want to. And we've done a
Speaker 1: couple of episodes where we've talked about specific articles, but
Speaker 1: fortunately we're no longer restricted to just that. So back then,
Speaker 1: we discovered very quickly that it was hard to get
Speaker 1: into a topic and cover it in five minutes. Most
Speaker 1: of our episodes were pushing seven or eight minutes easily,
Speaker 1: because by the time we were telling me the introductions,
Speaker 1: we had about two and a half minutes left to
Speaker 1: explain whatever it was we were talking about. Yep. But
Speaker 1: we also got feedback from our listeners that and the
Speaker 1: most of the feedback said, you know, I like the podcast,
Speaker 1: but it needs to be longer because you're not really
Speaker 1: getting into the topic. So with that, we extended the
Speaker 1: time to about ten minutes, right, We went from five
Speaker 1: to ten. Yeah, And so if you look at those
Speaker 1: early Tech Stuff episodes, you'll see the first few or
Speaker 1: five minutes long, and then the next group is about
Speaker 1: ten minutes, and then after that kind of explodes because
Speaker 1: we were told one day we came in and that
Speaker 1: was when Jerry was producing our show, Yeah, and she
Speaker 1: told us one day like, oh, don't worry about the time,
Speaker 1: just don't go over you know, twenty five minutes. That's
Speaker 1: probably that's probably about the upper length of what we
Speaker 1: want to hit. But other than that, you know, go
Speaker 1: as long as you need to go to explain the topic.
Speaker 1: And that's when our episodes really started to change. At
Speaker 1: the same time that we had the five and ten
Speaker 1: minute rule, we were outlining our episodes pretty heavily. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because we had to make sure we hit that time limit, right.
Speaker 1: We couldn't go over it, so we wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure we knew what we needed to hit. We couldn't
Speaker 1: just talk our way through it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we also when we had that was very
Speaker 2: helpful when we had specific ideas that we wanted to
Speaker 2: hit in the podcast too, which we don't always get
Speaker 2: to In some cases. I've gone back and looked at
Speaker 2: my notes on a couple podcasts and gone, oh, man,
Speaker 2: I didn't talk about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's happened to me too.
Speaker 2: So you know that it can be useful to have
Speaker 2: an outline, especially if you want to do that. But
Speaker 2: then again, most of the time when we do that,
Speaker 2: it's because we get so excited about whatever it is
Speaker 2: that we're talking about, and then we have so much we
Speaker 2: want to say about it that we just keep going.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So once those uh, once, once the format changed,
Speaker 1: we we started to change our own methods, and we
Speaker 1: began to realize that the more we try too short
Speaker 1: well not yeah sometimes so we went to the German
Speaker 1: opera range. But no, the we began to realize that
Speaker 1: the more we would prepare together for a show that
Speaker 1: we were about to do, the less conversational it was
Speaker 1: and the more like lectury it sounded. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it didn't sound like we had two guys trying to
Speaker 1: explain and talk about a topic and give it context.
Speaker 1: It sounded like the pre recorded notes for some sort
Speaker 1: of you know, technology lecture. And so we started to
Speaker 1: do our own studying at that point, and then we
Speaker 1: would just meet for the podcast and we'd each have
Speaker 1: our own notes. We would sometimes share links if we
Speaker 1: saw something that was really useful, so that the other
Speaker 1: person would also have access to it and not just
Speaker 1: you know, come out of nowhere. But then we would
Speaker 1: just we sit down at the microphones and hit record,
Speaker 1: and then we would torture whoever it was that was
Speaker 1: producing our show at the time with horrible puns as
Speaker 1: we talked about whatever the topic was.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a helpful tip that I would give you
Speaker 2: if you're considering doing your own podcast. Make sure to
Speaker 2: use plenty of puns.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, because Lord knows everyone loves puns. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Josh and Chuck are incredibly fond of puns. Yes, they
Speaker 1: like puns the way I like pie.
Speaker 3: You must hate pie a lot more than I thought
Speaker 3: you did.
Speaker 1: Hey, it's Jonathan from twenty twenty four. So when we
Speaker 1: recorded this episode back in two thousand and nine. It
Speaker 1: was before we had monetized podcasting, so there were no
Speaker 1: ad breaks built into the episode. That's why I'm here
Speaker 1: to let you know. We're gonna listen to a couple
Speaker 1: of ads and we'll be right back. So let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the equipment and software that we use.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, So what do you want to start with? Microphones?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll talk about the mic So we were asking
Speaker 1: our producers about the microphones. Because you may find this
Speaker 1: hard to believe, but even though we are the tech
Speaker 1: writer and editor of howstuffarce dot com, we do not
Speaker 1: have a database filled with every single piece of equipment
Speaker 1: that is in our office.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's true, and you know, sort of bridging
Speaker 2: the gap between this history of tech stuff and the equipment.
Speaker 3: There are.
Speaker 2: One of the nice things about us getting into podcasting
Speaker 2: in the first place was we already had a studio
Speaker 2: available to us because there were other projects that we
Speaker 2: used a lot of this equipment for. We already had,
Speaker 2: you know, high end video equipment and audio equipment and
Speaker 2: people who knew how to use it. So you know,
Speaker 2: you don't necessarily this is not necessarily the setup we
Speaker 2: already had some of the stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we we repurposed a lot of stuff that we
Speaker 1: had for other projects, specifically for podcasting. We are not
Speaker 1: saying that you need to go out and purchase similar
Speaker 1: equipment because for one thing, it's probably out of a
Speaker 1: lot of people's price range, none of my price range. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely on a mind if I were to do
Speaker 1: this on my own. But this is people have asked
Speaker 1: us what we used, so I thought we would go
Speaker 1: ahead and explain. So for our microphones, we use akgs
Speaker 1: and they are C two thousand B microphones. We were
Speaker 1: told by mister Matt Frederick that they are not omnidirectional,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that they totally look like omnidirectional microphones.
Speaker 1: But they're not. They're directional. They just have a wide
Speaker 1: angle or wide cone that you can speak into, which
Speaker 1: is a good thing because occasionally we'll, you know, lounge
Speaker 1: in a weird way and just talk toward the microphone
Speaker 1: and it still seems to pick us up pretty well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we also have a nice pop filter in front
Speaker 3: of itself.
Speaker 1: Yes, we do use pop filters because we don't want
Speaker 1: to pump our pes. Nice. Yeah, we also have as
Speaker 1: our pre amp. You don't necessarily have to have a
Speaker 1: preamp if you've got a microphone that plugs directly into
Speaker 1: say a USB port, but we aren't using that. We're
Speaker 1: using a pre amp, the Applied Research and Technology pre amp,
Speaker 1: and we have one of those per input. We have
Speaker 1: got three of the preamps because we do have three inputs,
Speaker 1: although we have not actually used the third one yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Stuff you should know has used it for their healthcare series.
Speaker 1: They had Molly in and she got to she set
Speaker 1: in and joined Josh and Chuckers as we like to
Speaker 1: call him, or sometimes listeners like to call me Chuckers
Speaker 1: when they forget that my name's Jonathan.
Speaker 3: Well you know Jonathan sounds like Chuck.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We haven't figured out, by the way, which one
Speaker 1: of us should be more offended, Chuck should be more offended,
Speaker 1: or if I should. Neither of us are really offended,
Speaker 1: because you know, Chuck's a cool guy and yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm not on his radar. So now, as for as
Speaker 1: for the software we use, we're using uh Final Cut, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's the that's the audio software we're using. We
Speaker 1: record with soundtrack, which is part of that suite, and
Speaker 1: then for all of our sound effects whenever we do soundscaping.
Speaker 1: Liz pulls that from the suite as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are using a Macintosh computer to do this,
Speaker 2: but you there are software programs for Windows and Linux
Speaker 2: both that can can do the same kinds of things,
Speaker 2: specially so and.
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick also wanted to me to point out that
Speaker 1: his favorite piece of equipment that we have. We're not
Speaker 1: using it right now, but his favorite piece of equipment
Speaker 1: is called the Blue Icicle and you can plug and
Speaker 1: excel our microphone into this. It converts it to USB
Speaker 1: and it actually has a volume control on the device itself,
Speaker 1: so you can help control that the levels before it
Speaker 1: ever reaches your computer. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, then the name of the company is Blue and
Speaker 2: it is in Icicle.
Speaker 1: Yes, so, but he wanted specifically for us to point
Speaker 1: that out. So that's that's our setup. But here's the thing. Now,
Speaker 1: we're going to get into some podcasting tips, and one
Speaker 1: of the tips I would give people is don't sweat
Speaker 1: the equipment and software that much. Yes, that's absolutely not
Speaker 1: necessarily the that that should not be your number one
Speaker 1: concern because if you're concerned with having the most technologically
Speaker 1: advanced equipment and the most the software with the most features.
Speaker 1: You might have a podcast that sounds really good, but
Speaker 1: that that's not enough for listeners to tune into you
Speaker 1: week after week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's it's uh, as long as you
Speaker 2: have a quiet room, you know, something preferably without hard floors,
Speaker 2: and yeah, something.
Speaker 1: Where you're not echo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you might.
Speaker 2: You might even try out a couple of different settings,
Speaker 2: especially if you have a laptop computer and something that
Speaker 2: you know, something that simply plugs into your your machine
Speaker 2: should be fairly easy for you to test a couple
Speaker 2: different environments and see what sounds good to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can. I would suggest testing up several different
Speaker 1: kinds of microphones maybe, Like there's some headsets that actually
Speaker 1: aren't that bad. They actually provide a very decent sound.
Speaker 1: At home, I use a snowball mic which works really
Speaker 1: well for me. It's no omnidirectional mic, and it actually
Speaker 1: I like it a lot. But I use that with
Speaker 1: my mat Yeah, and then a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: I would probably recommend against using a native microphone on
Speaker 1: a computer. I mean, some of them can pick up
Speaker 1: some pretty well, but most of them you're not going
Speaker 1: to get the best sound quality out of those. And
Speaker 1: that's one thing I would say is getting an independent
Speaker 1: microphone is probably a good purchase, a good investment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that's sort of a very basic necessity. Yeah, unfortunately. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but you don't have to fork over, you know, hundreds
Speaker 2: of dollars to do that. In fact, you can even
Speaker 2: get a good XLR for less than a hundred dollars
Speaker 2: really or maybe just over right.
Speaker 1: You would just need to have the equipment to plug
Speaker 1: it into exactly, so perhaps an icicle or a pre app.
Speaker 3: Or a a you know, an expensive board.
Speaker 2: It depends on how many inputs you're going to want
Speaker 2: to use, too, because if you are, if you're going
Speaker 2: to want to have, say, get your your friends together
Speaker 2: and do a podcast with a bunch of people, you're
Speaker 2: gonna need something to handle the different channels. Assuming you're
Speaker 2: not all going to speak into one mic. Uh, it
Speaker 2: could be a little cozy quarters there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about some other
Speaker 1: stuff like uh, post production. OK, I just said, oh
Speaker 1: right there, that was an uh, yes, I heard the uh. Now,
Speaker 1: some podcasters would want to go in and take out
Speaker 1: all the uzz ums, pauses, things like that, in order
Speaker 1: to make a podcast sound more smooth and professional.
Speaker 3: That would be really time consuming.
Speaker 1: It takes so much time that that can take. Okay,
Speaker 1: imagine a thirty minute long podcast and then you go
Speaker 1: with yes and now you're going to you're gonna take
Speaker 1: I keep doing. It will take you hours to get
Speaker 1: the sounds of Palette screaming out of your podcast because
Speaker 1: you're strangling him repeatedly throughout the Yeah. So, concerning yourself
Speaker 1: with this, I think taking out really really bad stuff,
Speaker 1: like stuff where it just it bringing the recording to
Speaker 1: us halt, that's fine. But I wouldn't worry about any
Speaker 1: of the small things because it gives you your podcast
Speaker 1: a little character. People really talk like that. It's not
Speaker 1: something to be ashamed of. Yeah, and unless you're like
Speaker 1: some sort of professional voiceover actor or radio personality, you
Speaker 1: probably haven't trained yourself to take that that stuff out
Speaker 1: of your speech. I haven't, and I'm doing this as
Speaker 1: part of my job. So that's all well and good.
Speaker 2: However, nice radio now, Yeah, I think one of the
Speaker 2: problems with that is, I mean, you sort of have
Speaker 2: to think about what you're going to do here. But
Speaker 2: I think that also makes it sound really flat.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you were reading off a script, you
Speaker 2: don't have any ums or us it just it comes off.
Speaker 1: As really really flat. Yeah, it doesn't. It's not very
Speaker 1: inviting to the listener necessarily. Uh So, let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit more about some other tips. One of the
Speaker 1: big tips I would I would give anyone who's getting
Speaker 1: into podcasts is really, what's the purpose of your podcast?
Speaker 1: To find that, figure out why you want you know,
Speaker 1: why do you want a podcast? What is it that
Speaker 1: you want to say? Is there a specific topic or
Speaker 1: a category of information that you really want to talk about.
Speaker 1: Is there a specific game that you want to do
Speaker 1: a podcast about, or a specific television show or genre.
Speaker 1: Don't you know? Doing a podcast about practically anything sounds
Speaker 1: like it's very liberating, but it actually ends up being
Speaker 1: really frustrating and difficult to pull off. Well. It also
Speaker 1: is hard to get an audience because someone may have
Speaker 1: a real interest in one topic, but your next topic
Speaker 1: doesn't interest them at all because it's not at all
Speaker 1: related to the first one. It's hard to build an
Speaker 1: audience that way.
Speaker 3: And one thing you.
Speaker 2: Can consider too is limiting yourself more at the beginning,
Speaker 2: because you can you can always change. You think back
Speaker 2: to the early days of tech stuff, we had to
Speaker 2: we had to talk about a specific article. So we
Speaker 2: would look on the site for something that we wanted
Speaker 2: to talk about and then okay, we got a topic,
Speaker 2: a specific topic, and we you know, would riff on
Speaker 2: that for five or ten minutes. Well, now, one of
Speaker 2: the things that Jonathan and I like and I like
Speaker 2: to try to do, I mean, other than answering listener mailes.
Speaker 2: That's kind of been where we've been the last few weeks.
Speaker 2: But you know, we've we want to try to come
Speaker 2: up with something that's not on the website. But you know,
Speaker 2: we still are working within the confines of computers and electronics, right.
Speaker 2: But you know, it did give us a platform from
Speaker 2: which to start, because we already had something to talk about.
Speaker 2: I mean, you could say, well, I want to talk
Speaker 2: about everything, but maybe start with something you know, well,
Speaker 2: like video games. And then maybe you say, well, I
Speaker 2: like talking about video games, but what if I want
Speaker 2: to talk about board games too, so you could have
Speaker 2: a games podcast or.
Speaker 1: Even like or yeah, exactly, I've been talking about role
Speaker 1: playing games. Now maybe I should talk about this fantasy
Speaker 1: movie that I really like and that'd be fine too.
Speaker 1: I mean, having it grow organically is probably a good
Speaker 1: tip as well, you know, don't you don't necessarily have
Speaker 1: to force it into any kind of any specific Hey,
Speaker 1: it's Jonathan from twenty twenty four. Again. We're gonna take
Speaker 1: another quick break, but we'll be back to wrap up
Speaker 1: this classic episode of tech Stuff that originally published back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine. So an easy way to
Speaker 1: build an audience, A good dependable way pay them no
Speaker 1: is to have a regular and dependable production schedule. Yes,
Speaker 1: if you publish your podcast, you know, whenever you have time,
Speaker 1: and that's it. And so it may be that you
Speaker 1: push one out one week and then the next week
Speaker 1: you have a second episode, and then it maybe three
Speaker 1: or four weeks before you have a third episode. It's
Speaker 1: very difficult to build an audience that way. People will
Speaker 1: tend to to lose interest and start to leave. So
Speaker 1: it's good to set up a schedule of publication and
Speaker 1: stick to it as best you can. And part of
Speaker 1: that that can be really challenging if you just you know,
Speaker 1: some weeks you just don't have the time to do recording, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, or you're sick with the swine flu. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what what what we do is Chris and I
Speaker 1: will sit down, we record two podcasts at a time,
Speaker 1: sometimes three uh in one recording session. Uh, and then
Speaker 1: we do enough of these so that we've built up
Speaker 1: a backlog of episodes so we can when when we
Speaker 1: started publishing, we had actually recorded I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: six or seven episodes total before the first one ever
Speaker 1: was released.
Speaker 2: I think there may have been more of that. More
Speaker 2: than that, It could have been as many as like
Speaker 2: ten or twelve. Yeah, so they plus they wanted to
Speaker 2: evaluate them.
Speaker 1: We wanted to.
Speaker 2: They had other people listening to them too to see
Speaker 2: what they thought. And you know, they change, so, you.
Speaker 1: Know, because it was a thing we were lucky they
Speaker 1: didn't have to. They didn't want us to change too much.
Speaker 1: I mean, they they gave us the go ahead to
Speaker 1: make them longer, and that was about it. But the yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, if you if you record them ahead of time,
Speaker 1: if you do, if you do several episodes so that
Speaker 1: you have a backlog, then you don't have to worry
Speaker 1: so much on those times where you know you just
Speaker 1: don't have the time to record, You've got episodes to
Speaker 1: fall back on and you can keep publishing them even
Speaker 1: if you had to take a break on recording. Now granted,
Speaker 1: of course that's only gonna work for so long. You can't,
Speaker 1: you can't. We found that out. Yeah, Yeah, we've we've
Speaker 1: run Yeah, we ran out of the backlog a couple
Speaker 1: of times and then had to go into some intense
Speaker 1: recording sessions to build it back up. We're currently I
Speaker 1: guess maybe a week and a half ahead something like that,
Speaker 1: something like that. So at any rate, the the best
Speaker 1: advice there is just make sure you've got a few
Speaker 1: episodes recorded, uh, and and publish them, like I said,
Speaker 1: on a regular basis, whether that's once a week or
Speaker 1: every day. I mean, if you're doing a daily podcast,
Speaker 1: you're probably recording every day. Anyway, that might be a
Speaker 1: little bit different.
Speaker 3: That's like challenging.
Speaker 1: Our episode is not necessarily timely. We aren't always tackling
Speaker 1: something that's in the news, although we have done that before,
Speaker 1: and we do a little of that on Tech Stuff Live. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've got a live streaming show that we handle most
Speaker 1: of the timely stuff. We don't. We don't worry about
Speaker 1: that so much in this podcast, although we have, like
Speaker 1: I said, tackled some some fairly timely topics. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so if you're if you're not handling, if you're not
Speaker 1: talking about something that is time sensitive, then you have
Speaker 1: the luxury of being able to record as many as
Speaker 1: you like before you start going live if it is
Speaker 1: something that's time since, of course that does change things.
Speaker 1: If you're doing something where you're you're discussing, say a show,
Speaker 1: a television show, and you want the episode to go
Speaker 1: up live the day after the television show airs, you
Speaker 1: don't have that kind of flexibility. So, I mean, it
Speaker 1: all will depend on your situation, but I do think
Speaker 1: that if you can, if you can established that reliable
Speaker 1: publication schedule, you will build an audience much faster than otherwise.
Speaker 2: And just just as a comment, I sort of envy,
Speaker 2: uh stuff you missed in history class, because you know
Speaker 2: that's history for us. We have actually recorded stuff and
Speaker 2: have it have had it go out of date before
Speaker 2: it actually goes live because we're doing publication.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then you know we go oh.
Speaker 1: Man, yeah, nothing like saying something like you know, android
Speaker 1: phone is never going to go to any other carrier,
Speaker 1: It's just going to stay on T Mobile. And then
Speaker 1: the next week you're like whoa, it's unsprint. Well all right,
Speaker 1: well you know that. Haha. We'll just have people, Oh
Speaker 1: it's on Verizon. Now we've some of them.
Speaker 2: We've had to uh have our engineers re edit a
Speaker 2: couple of the podcasts, like go back in the studio
Speaker 2: for five minutes and sort of record a patch to
Speaker 2: uh rip out the old one.
Speaker 1: You may have actually noticed a couple of yeah, because
Speaker 1: there's some of those just in. Yeah, we've done a
Speaker 1: PostScript where you could tell that we had to go
Speaker 1: in afterward. Sometimes our our editors are just very good
Speaker 1: at cutting out the offending bit and inserting a new
Speaker 1: bit and you can't even tell thank you, Lizzy, Thank
Speaker 1: you Lizzie. So, do we have any other tips that
Speaker 1: we want to give, like any other like just general
Speaker 1: tips about podcasting.
Speaker 2: Just want to reiterate, don't get hung up on the
Speaker 2: whole podcasting biz thing, because you can honestly do this
Speaker 2: with a computer and a microphone. Just make an MP
Speaker 2: three of your yourself talking and making a podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not it's not rocket surgery. I can't yeah, I
Speaker 2: can't imagine.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine what it would be like to do
Speaker 1: this on my own.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it would be harder.
Speaker 2: I mean, we have people who record this for us,
Speaker 2: we have people who edit the podcast, we have people
Speaker 2: that publish them to iTunes for us, which is for
Speaker 2: which we're all extremely grateful. Speaking for everyone there, well
Speaker 2: even I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1: I mean, even just thinking about doing it without a
Speaker 1: co host. Then when it's just you and a microphone,
Speaker 1: that changes the dynamic quite a bit. O whither. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if he meant that he was gonna
Speaker 1: ditch me or that he was going to, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he wanted to take the show over himself. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 2: I was totally gonna start a new podcast called Stuff
Speaker 2: on my Desk, And because that never changes, I don't
Speaker 2: have to worry about it.
Speaker 1: Seven episodes and then just rerun them. Yeah, exactly. It's
Speaker 1: sort of a mini series. Those are our our tips
Speaker 1: and just you know, general information of what we do. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you you're curious about our process, we pick our
Speaker 1: topics usually the week before we record, and then the
Speaker 1: day of the recording is when we've end up doing research.
Speaker 1: Despite the fact of having an entire week to have
Speaker 1: looked into it, but we researched the topics independently, we
Speaker 1: come together, we have our conversation, and then we sit
Speaker 1: there and notice that we've been recording for like thirty
Speaker 1: minutes and then realize that we need to stop.
Speaker 3: I notice the timers off.
Speaker 1: Well, that's because my phone started vibrating because of.
Speaker 3: The Oh yeah, there's a kick. Leave your phone out
Speaker 3: of the studio.
Speaker 1: Okay, I have my phone set on airplane mode. It's
Speaker 1: just because the damn schedule thing went off.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm telling you. I'm saying, don't forget to turn
Speaker 2: off that stuff. Actually, uh, we're not. We're generally not
Speaker 2: supposed to have phones in here because they actually cause
Speaker 2: interference with our equipment. Yeah, including phones that are because
Speaker 2: our studio is actually in the middle of the office
Speaker 2: and people whose phones are the people who sit just
Speaker 2: around there.
Speaker 3: It can the equipment can actually pick that up.
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's why I have it on airplane mode,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't I know, it doesn't say I'm stop
Speaker 1: a tip, stop persecuting me. I hope you enjoyed that
Speaker 1: classic episode of tech stuff. It's always fun to go
Speaker 1: back and listen to those. I was actually really enjoying
Speaker 1: that listen because I got to hear some names of
Speaker 1: folks that I haven't seen in years, like Liz, I
Speaker 1: haven't seen her in years. She was such a joy
Speaker 1: to work with, and also names of people that I
Speaker 1: still work with to this day, which is amazing you
Speaker 1: think about how much time has gone by, but you know,
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick, he's still a coworker. Jerry, She's still a coworker.
Speaker 1: So pretty cool to go back. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it says a lot about a company, even though the
Speaker 1: company has changed around us a couple of times. But
Speaker 1: it says a lot about a group of people when
Speaker 1: you have a core of those folks who just stick together.
Speaker 1: That I think is a really positive aspect of any group.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this classic episode, and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.