Speaker 1: It is important to put the effort into sounding good.
Speaker 1: Not just your voice, which should sound good, but also
Speaker 1: the recording of your voice should sound good. People will
Speaker 1: forgive lower quality video than they will lower quality audio.
Speaker 1: Going to do a solo episode today, I know you
Speaker 1: guys seem to enjoy when I do these solo episodes,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking forward to this one because this one
Speaker 1: is kind of a pickup of a blog post that
Speaker 1: I wrote back in twenty eighteen on will Lucas Co,
Speaker 1: which is my website, check me out. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: wrote this blog post entitled the gear you need if
Speaker 1: you wanted to build a highly rated podcast, and I'll
Speaker 1: even link that in the show notes, the link to
Speaker 1: that blog post, and I'll link everything I'm about to
Speaker 1: talk about in the blow in the show notes as well.
Speaker 1: But today I wanted to update that list, so we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the gear you need to make
Speaker 1: a highly successful, highly rated podcast. And so I've been
Speaker 1: privileged to be podcasting since about twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: and previous to that, I did radio since I want
Speaker 1: to say nineteen ninety nine, back in the nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, I think actually so I've been doing
Speaker 1: this for a long time.
Speaker 2: It sounds wild to say that I've.
Speaker 1: Been doing some since the nineteen hundreds, but I guess
Speaker 1: I've been doing it since nineteen hundreds, So.
Speaker 2: You know, those things correlate.
Speaker 1: So podcasting is a lot like radio, and so having
Speaker 1: all those years of radio experience translated super duper well
Speaker 1: into podcasting. And it's not that I want to say
Speaker 1: this because I don't want people get confused like you
Speaker 1: have to have that sort of radio background to be
Speaker 1: good at podcasting, because you obviously don't. There's so many
Speaker 1: people who are successful at podcasting that have never been
Speaker 1: in a radio studio, and so I just wanted to
Speaker 1: clear that up before I went further. So I talked
Speaker 1: about a lot of things in that blog post that
Speaker 1: I will rehash today because a lot of the gear
Speaker 1: that I'm using I still like to use. And there
Speaker 1: here's what I will say about podcasting, or actually i'll
Speaker 1: start with me and equipment, and so there are three
Speaker 1: four you know, there are certain levels of equipment or
Speaker 1: software I will talk about today that will and I'll
Speaker 1: provide options. So if you want to have the expensive option,
Speaker 1: I'll provide that the middle of the row option, I'll
Speaker 1: provide that, and the inexpensive option, I will write that
Speaker 1: or say that also. And so, but what's important to
Speaker 1: know at least about me. I don't know how you work,
Speaker 1: but this is how I work. I struggle to produce
Speaker 1: creative product, creative outcomes with cheap stuff. It's just really
Speaker 1: difficult for me to do that. And so I remember
Speaker 1: when I was learn I'm a musician, so when I
Speaker 1: was learning to play drums, I needed to learn on
Speaker 1: a quality drum set. Because I'm playing on a cheap
Speaker 1: drum set. I just couldn't get it. And so maybe
Speaker 1: you don't have that issue. But if I'm learning how
Speaker 1: to do something, I need quality tools to learn how
Speaker 1: to do it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Once I got it, then I can go use whatever
Speaker 1: and I can do it the thing on whatever. But
Speaker 1: it's difficult for me to learn using cheap stuff. And
Speaker 1: not to say that everything that's inexpensive is cheap, I'm
Speaker 1: just saying that. There are a whole lot of blaw posts,
Speaker 1: a whole lot of podcasts about you know, you can
Speaker 1: do certain things just using your phone, and you can
Speaker 1: do certain things, you know, going completely free. And while
Speaker 1: that may be completely true, I don't learn that way.
Speaker 1: It's difficult for me to produce a podcast just using
Speaker 1: my phone, although that is extremely popular, I see need
Speaker 1: to say popular. It's possible you can produce a podcast
Speaker 1: just using your phone. Now, with that said, I don't
Speaker 1: know anybody who has a super successful podcast and just
Speaker 1: does it using their phone, and so you can start
Speaker 1: that way. And I think it's necessary to get reps
Speaker 1: in by using the tools that you have at your
Speaker 1: disposal and not investing a whole bunch of money or
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of things into something that you're not
Speaker 1: going to be serious about anyway. So I do think
Speaker 1: there's value in using the tools that you already have
Speaker 1: at your exposal. But I think it's more important to
Speaker 1: prove to yourself and to the world that you are
Speaker 1: serious and that you're going to do this thing before
Speaker 1: you have all the dollars invested into it.
Speaker 2: So I think it's.
Speaker 1: More important to do it that way, and more so
Speaker 1: proving that you are in this to win it, versus
Speaker 1: thinking that you're going to scale a big podcast just
Speaker 1: using a limited amount of tools. I just don't know
Speaker 1: people who do that, and so I'm just being honest.
Speaker 2: With y'all. So we talk about that, talk about us, you.
Speaker 1: Know, setting up your phone and doing things, you know,
Speaker 1: talking into the audio recorder. Start that way, completely fine,
Speaker 1: and I encourage you to do that. I will advise
Speaker 1: people to do that, But it's not necessarily again to
Speaker 1: belabor the point, and unintentionally, it's not necessarily because I
Speaker 1: believe that you're gonna win that way.
Speaker 2: I just think that it.
Speaker 1: Is an important step to proving that you are serious
Speaker 1: about this. So what I'm saying that all that to
Speaker 1: say is I did mention I have a radio background,
Speaker 1: and so I had the privilege or else. I have
Speaker 1: a marketing and video production company, so I have the
Speaker 1: privilege of already having a lot of the equipment. When
Speaker 1: I decided to go and start doing a podcast, already
Speaker 1: had a bunch of equipment. I already had computers, I
Speaker 1: already had keyboards and instruments, and I already had recording devices.
Speaker 1: And so for me, like that's just a playground that
Speaker 1: I have the privilege to play in. And so not
Speaker 1: everybody has that. And so again we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: all these tools. So I want to start here talking
Speaker 1: about just that very thing, recording software, and so I'm
Speaker 1: going to give you a couple of different levels. Most
Speaker 1: of all of these things that I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: about today, I have, and I'm even gonna do a
Speaker 1: video version of this podcast, so you'll be able to
Speaker 1: check this out on YouTube and actually see all the stuff.
Speaker 1: But I record, I'm start with the higher end stuff,
Speaker 1: and then I'll talk about the middle of the row,
Speaker 1: and then I'll talk about the inexpensive end or free options.
Speaker 1: I record using Apple Logic Pro, and so I record
Speaker 1: using that because I learned how to record using things
Speaker 1: like pro Tools and Apple Logic, and so if I
Speaker 1: were to start over again, there are way more tools
Speaker 1: available on the market today that you can use to record,
Speaker 1: especially recording yourself and or you know, guests, if you're
Speaker 1: going to have a guest podcast. There are way more
Speaker 1: things on the market today because podcasting is way bigger
Speaker 1: than it was when I started that. Are you know
Speaker 1: these things are available to you, and are you know
Speaker 1: you can amazon it? You'll have it tomorrow. But Apple
Speaker 1: Logic Pro is one of the things that I record,
Speaker 1: the only thing I pretty much record or I should
Speaker 1: say edit with, because I records using a couple of
Speaker 1: different things but editing, particularly I record using.
Speaker 2: Apple Logic Pro is powerful.
Speaker 1: It does way more than than it's necessary to podcast
Speaker 1: because it's designed for you know, audio production in a
Speaker 1: big way, So you can do everything from scoring movies
Speaker 1: on it to doing you know, music making beats on it.
Speaker 1: But just to be clear, it's very powerful also for
Speaker 1: recording your voice and voices of people you may be
Speaker 1: interviewing on your show. So what's important to me is
Speaker 1: that I have an interface that is very easy to use.
Speaker 1: And so sometimes, because I've been doing this for a
Speaker 1: long time, I will go through and you know, when
Speaker 1: I'm recording, I can see the waveform of my voice,
Speaker 1: and so I've been doing this so long, I can
Speaker 1: look get the waveform and find things that don't make
Speaker 1: sense because I know how a voice should look in
Speaker 1: wave form. And so when I see a quick little
Speaker 1: spike in the audio and there's not something anything to
Speaker 1: the left or right of it, that's probably either a
Speaker 1: click in a voice something like that, or something like that,
Speaker 1: and I can just go and quickly edit that out
Speaker 1: super duper fast without even listening back to it, cause
Speaker 1: I know what it looks like. Is I've been doing
Speaker 1: this for a long time. So Aple Logic Pro I
Speaker 1: believe right now is like two hundred bucks.
Speaker 2: You can get it.
Speaker 1: And what's cool about it is it's not like most
Speaker 1: software anymore where you're paying monthly for. It's like a
Speaker 1: subscription that never ends. Like once you buy Apple Logic,
Speaker 1: you have Apple Logic and you don't have to have
Speaker 1: a subscription necessarily. So I'm actually, you know, in I
Speaker 1: kind of don't like that about today's world, especially as
Speaker 1: a consumer, maybe a producer, but not as a consumer.
Speaker 1: Having you can't just buy software you know, so often anymore,
Speaker 1: y there's a subscription for which is whack.
Speaker 2: But I digress.
Speaker 1: So if you don't want to spend that much on
Speaker 1: an audio editor and or recorder, because you can do
Speaker 1: both in Apple Logic. You have things like Adobe Audition,
Speaker 1: which I also have, I just don't use it because
Speaker 1: I don't love I shouldn't say because of people from
Speaker 1: Adobe listening to this. I just I'm not a big
Speaker 1: Adobe fan, and I kind of see Adobe a lot
Speaker 1: like I see a lot of Microsoft products. They just
Speaker 1: don't work for the way my brain works. Apple products
Speaker 1: work way better for the way my brain works. But
Speaker 1: with I said, I do have Adobe's Creative Cloud because
Speaker 1: my video production team works a lot in Premiere and
Speaker 1: it's the only reason I have Adobe Creative Cloud because
Speaker 1: even like the designs I want to have anymore, I
Speaker 1: can do a lot of that in Canva. And so
Speaker 1: Adobe Creative Cloud comes with Adobe Audition, which is a
Speaker 1: doll which means digital audio workstation. Adobe Audition is a
Speaker 1: doll which you can can use to record and edit
Speaker 1: your voice and the voices of your guests, and you
Speaker 1: can do that very easily. Again, it comes as part
Speaker 1: of the Creative Cloud. So if you have Adobe Creative Cloud,
Speaker 1: you can probably already download this as part of the
Speaker 1: suite of tools you have. So I mean you get
Speaker 1: Adobe Premiere, you get Adobe Photoshop Illustrator, all these things,
Speaker 1: and an audition depending on which level of the Creative
Speaker 1: Cloud you subscribe to from Adobe Audition from Adobe. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but as part of the Creative Cloud. There's different versions
Speaker 1: of this, especially if you're in school, you can get
Speaker 1: a discount for the Creative Cloud, but you know there
Speaker 1: are versions where you can get like twenty one dollars
Speaker 1: a month and you can get Adobe Audition for that.
Speaker 1: On the free side, there's programs like Audacity, which I've
Speaker 1: used before. Again, it's kind of a scaled back version
Speaker 1: of both Apple Logic and Audition, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: for most people, it will work and it's free. And
Speaker 1: so it's an open source audio editing you know software,
Speaker 1: and so it's free to use. You can learn it
Speaker 1: pretty quickly, and you can export your audio edit your
Speaker 1: audio record into it, you know, and we'll talk about
Speaker 1: the tools you'll need to record into it in a moment,
Speaker 1: but you can do all that with Audacity and it's free.
Speaker 1: And then going from there we talk about hardware recorders.
Speaker 2: So I mentioned.
Speaker 1: Recording software when I'm talking about Apologic, Audition and Audacity,
Speaker 1: but I pretty I don't record into software often. Right
Speaker 1: right now, I'm recording into software because I'm not interviewing anybody.
Speaker 1: But if i am interviewing somebody, I'm going to use
Speaker 1: an external recorder just because of the way my setup
Speaker 1: is designed. And if you ask twenty different people on
Speaker 1: podcasting setups, you will get twenty different answers. I'm telling
Speaker 1: you what Lucas does, and so I've been doing this
Speaker 1: for in my own experience for a long time.
Speaker 2: This is what I do.
Speaker 1: It works for me, and it probably would work for
Speaker 1: you also, But external recorders. The most important thing you
Speaker 1: learn when you start recording audio or video or writing documents.
Speaker 2: Is saving it. Because what you.
Speaker 1: Will find is when you have a machine that is
Speaker 1: doing you know where you input the work into the machine.
Speaker 1: If you don't save it, you will lose work. And
Speaker 1: it raised your hand. If you've ever lost work, you
Speaker 1: see technology before. And so I like to use external
Speaker 1: recorders because if I'm recording directly into matter of fact,
Speaker 1: while I'm saying that I'm gonna save this, which I
Speaker 1: can do while I'm recording, and then I have to
Speaker 1: stop and actually even to the program crash, it will
Speaker 1: likely save an AUTOSI, an auto save version. So it's
Speaker 1: less likely I will lose it if my computer crash
Speaker 1: right now or the software crash, but it's still possible.
Speaker 1: So going back to hardware, I personally am a big
Speaker 1: fan of recording into a dedicated device. And the reason
Speaker 1: why is because again I'm gonna say this a hundred times,
Speaker 1: I've been doing this a long time, and when you've
Speaker 1: been doing certain things for a long time, there you
Speaker 1: develop these habits or ticks because of the things you've
Speaker 1: experienced to where you don't like to do things other ways.
Speaker 1: And the reason I don't like to record directly into
Speaker 1: computers is because computers do crash. Not that other hardware
Speaker 1: does not crash, but through hardware is probably only doing
Speaker 1: one thing. It's just accepting your audio and it's recording it.
Speaker 1: That's probably all it's doing. Your computer is doing probably
Speaker 1: twenty thirty forty one hundred other things at the same time,
Speaker 1: is trying to record your stuff. Hear your stuff, record
Speaker 1: your stuff, display your stuff, all all of those things
Speaker 1: and even more stuff. You probably got tabs open in
Speaker 1: the background, and all these things open up more gateways
Speaker 1: for things.
Speaker 2: To go wrong.
Speaker 1: And so I prefer to record using an external device
Speaker 1: that is just doing what I'm asking you to do.
Speaker 2: Record.
Speaker 1: So I record, for the most part, especially when I'm
Speaker 1: doing an interview, I record using a zoom Age six,
Speaker 1: which is a six track portable recorder. I can carry
Speaker 1: it with this little case. It's like a size of
Speaker 1: a book, and the case of the size of a book.
Speaker 1: The device is half the size of a book with
Speaker 1: wise at least, and I can plug different microphones into it,
Speaker 1: so I can add six different tracks, and so if
Speaker 1: I'm interviewing somebody, I can be interviewing several different people
Speaker 1: at one time, and each of them have their own volume.
Speaker 1: So let's say I'm sitting in front of three other
Speaker 1: people and one person talks really really loud, other person
Speaker 1: talks really really quietly. I can turn the person whose
Speaker 1: voice is really quiet up louder and while keeping the
Speaker 1: person who talks loud their volume down lower, recording them
Speaker 1: that way because you know you want independent So I've
Speaker 1: used to it when I was didn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of money. I was trying to record using you know,
Speaker 1: one singular input, and you can control the various volumes
Speaker 1: people talk at because everybody's being recorded to one channel
Speaker 1: and so you can't like splice out one person's voice
Speaker 1: from another. But if you're recording on different tracks and
Speaker 1: then you import that audio into a doll like Adobe
Speaker 1: or you know final cut sorry Logic like I use,
Speaker 1: then you can see everybody's voice on their independent channel,
Speaker 1: and I can make tweaks to your voice without touching mind.
Speaker 1: So it's super super important and also has phantom power,
Speaker 1: which means I can plug a microphone into it that
Speaker 1: is not necessarily powered itself. It's not like I can't
Speaker 1: unplug it into a wall. But this microphone is just
Speaker 1: a microphone and it needs power from some source. And
Speaker 1: so the Zoom eighty six has phantom power on it,
Speaker 1: which is what it's called when you need the power
Speaker 1: a microphone, so it will provide the power your microphone
Speaker 1: needs to be able to accept your voice. And you're
Speaker 1: recording directly to an SD card, so the audio is
Speaker 1: not being record record it to the device. You are
Speaker 1: putting in another SD card into the device which it's
Speaker 1: recording to.
Speaker 2: So it's another.
Speaker 1: Level there of security for the audio that you are
Speaker 1: interested in capturing. The device I don't have, but I
Speaker 1: think it is a really really cool device. Is a
Speaker 1: road Caster Pro. I've used it, I've seen other people
Speaker 1: use it. It's amazing for podcasts recording. It's pretty much
Speaker 1: a whole podcast studio in one. And what I love
Speaker 1: about the road Caster Pro is not only can you
Speaker 1: you know, use Bluetooth with it, but it has programmable
Speaker 1: sound pads. So let's say you are, you know, recording
Speaker 1: a podcast where you want to have sound effects. You know,
Speaker 1: these are just pads that you can trigger at any
Speaker 1: moment and give yourself like an audience clap or laugh
Speaker 1: or you know, a trumpet or a fire truck horn,
Speaker 1: and you can program all these sound effects into it
Speaker 1: and trigger them, you know, at the push of a button,
Speaker 1: and all of that stuff happens in the recording in
Speaker 1: real time.
Speaker 2: Suber super cool. And then the inexpensive route, I mean.
Speaker 1: So I should go back. Actually, so the zoom A
Speaker 1: six which I use, is about three hundred and fifty bucks.
Speaker 1: The road Castered Pro a little bit more expensive. That's
Speaker 1: about six hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 1: There are different versions of it, so you don't have
Speaker 1: to have the Pro, but the the task Cam DRO five,
Speaker 1: which I have, also is one hundred dollars. And the
Speaker 1: task Cam what's cool about it, it's compact, it's more affordable.
Speaker 1: It's about one hundred dollars, and it has microphones built
Speaker 1: into it, so stereo microphones which are built into it,
Speaker 1: so you can legit, just pull out the device, hold
Speaker 1: it in your hand, and record people right into the device,
Speaker 1: so you don't even need an external microphone because they're
Speaker 1: built into it. And it also records into a Nest card.
Speaker 1: So it's a great choice for people who are beginning
Speaker 1: and just trying to figure out if podcasting is for
Speaker 1: them or if you just don't want to spend a
Speaker 1: bunch of money on this equipment and you just got
Speaker 1: something saying you gotta get it out. Rove is a
Speaker 1: good solution for you. So let's talk about microphones, because
Speaker 1: I did talk about this on.
Speaker 2: The blog posts. Because the each.
Speaker 1: Of the microphones I'm about to mention to you I
Speaker 1: have now, and the first one, which is the more
Speaker 1: expensive one, I did not have when I wrote the
Speaker 1: blog post, but it is the Sure SM seven B.
Speaker 1: It's like a four hundred dollars microphone, and I love
Speaker 1: this microphone. It's my favorite microphone out of everyone that
Speaker 1: I have. It is because it's excellent for vocals spoken word,
Speaker 1: and it's not necessarily designed for much anything else than
Speaker 1: that it is.
Speaker 2: Designed for voices.
Speaker 1: I'm actually not even using that microphone in this moment,
Speaker 1: but I love the microphone not only because it sounds amazing,
Speaker 1: but it also looks amazing when you are recording and
Speaker 1: recording video at the same time a low profile, it's
Speaker 1: kind of stocky. It's just it's a beautiful microphone to
Speaker 1: look at. And then the one I'm actually recording on
Speaker 1: right now is a microphone I've had, almost, if not
Speaker 1: since I started doing podcasts at all. I think I've
Speaker 1: had this microphone since like the the two thousands, like
Speaker 1: the first decade of the generation. So the road in
Speaker 1: T one, which I'm recording on right now, is the
Speaker 1: studio microphone.
Speaker 2: It's super dupe.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've had to think for a long time.
Speaker 1: Its super duper durable. I don't beat it up, cause
Speaker 1: you know, I take care of my stuff. But it's
Speaker 1: also good for musicians. So I talked about the uh
Speaker 1: SM seven B, which is great for vocals. The NT one,
Speaker 1: which I'm recording to right now, is versatile, so you
Speaker 1: can use it for audio I'm sorry now audio. You
Speaker 1: can use it for vocals and if you're trying to
Speaker 1: sing into it, if you're trying to record UH acoustic
Speaker 1: instruments into it. You can use this NT one also,
Speaker 1: But it sounds amazing too. It's just not it's a
Speaker 1: it's a studio microphone, so it's not as necessarily designed
Speaker 1: for people who are just doing podcasts like the SM
Speaker 1: seven B is. If you're doing spoken word, that'sh your microphone.
Speaker 1: But you can also do this with the Sindheiser E
Speaker 1: eight thirty five, which you also have, and we actually
Speaker 1: use that microphone as the general house microphone.
Speaker 2: For Lucille's, which is my jazz club that I have.
Speaker 1: And so the eaight thirty five is a vocal microphone also,
Speaker 1: but it's super duper rugged. I cannot tell you how
Speaker 1: many times that I've seen that microphone dropped. I mean,
Speaker 1: we have like ten of them, but I've seen them dropped,
Speaker 1: beat up, you know, these things get dinged up. They
Speaker 1: are great for live performers and even in person interviews
Speaker 1: because if you're out on the streets and you're doing
Speaker 1: in person interviews, you're probably gonna beat the mic up.
Speaker 2: A little bit. But the EA thirty five, so.
Speaker 1: Like one hundred dollars microphone, still sounds amazing, travels super
Speaker 1: duper well, and it just it just handles rough environments
Speaker 1: way way well, way more well than like they rolled
Speaker 1: in T one ever would because it's just not designed
Speaker 1: for traveling that way. It's a studio microphone. It's designed
Speaker 1: to be mounted and left alone. So that's it on microphones.
Speaker 1: And again, I will put all this stuff in the
Speaker 1: show notes, and I'm probably even update the blog post
Speaker 1: to to give you a new version of that since
Speaker 1: it was sick. Ke here, since I did the last one.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about interfaces because sometimes people believe, hey,
Speaker 1: I have a computer and I have a microphone, I'm
Speaker 1: ready to rock. Well that depends because certain microphones, your
Speaker 1: computer can't read the audio, and so we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about that because you need an audio interface. You need
Speaker 1: something that goes that sits in between the microphone and
Speaker 1: the computer, and that's called an audio interface. It converts
Speaker 1: the analog signal of your voice, which your microphone can accept,
Speaker 1: into a digital signal that your computer can process. Often
Speaker 1: they also improve sound quality. But the point of the
Speaker 1: interface is to translate. It's the translator. It's the person
Speaker 1: that if you go to a different country, they speak
Speaker 1: a different language. The translator is the person that sits
Speaker 1: in between you guys, hearing what you say, translating it
Speaker 1: for them to understand. So the interface is the translator.
Speaker 1: So I'm speaking, and I'm speaking analog because my voice
Speaker 1: is an analog tool and then or analog sound maybe
Speaker 1: that's a better way to say it. Analog sound. My
Speaker 1: computer can't read my voice, and so the interface does that.
Speaker 1: The Focus right. Scarlet two I too is a device
Speaker 1: that I have. It's popular, it's easy to use, super
Speaker 1: high quality sound. I can put two microphones into it.
Speaker 1: I can put instruments into it, and it's super great
Speaker 1: for podcasters people who are recording at home, and it's reliable.
Speaker 1: You know, it's very hard to not get right because
Speaker 1: it's designed to be simple and it has fanom power
Speaker 1: on it, which I also mentioned about the Zoommate six.
Speaker 1: But if I'm recording directly in my computer, which I
Speaker 1: want to do sometimes like today, I can just use
Speaker 1: the audio interface and it can translate the NT one
Speaker 1: which I'm using as a microphone, into something the computer
Speaker 1: logic can read. So to I two, which is the
Speaker 1: Focus by Scarlet super duer popular. This one's like one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty bucks. Then there's like the Bearringer Euphoria.
Speaker 1: I particularly talk about the UMC two zero two HD.
Speaker 1: And the reason I'm bringing this one up and there
Speaker 1: are other options Barringer provides, is because I want to
Speaker 1: kind of give it like an Apple to Apple. So
Speaker 1: this one also has the two inputs, so I can
Speaker 1: put two microphones into it if I'm talking to somebody
Speaker 1: on my episode. I like Bearringer products for beginners because
Speaker 1: they are designed pretty durably, pretty simple, and they try
Speaker 1: to give you the bells and whistles that more expensive
Speaker 1: tools give you, just without the costs. So obviously they're
Speaker 1: not made with as high grade mechanicals or materials, I
Speaker 1: should say.
Speaker 2: But they're good. They're really good.
Speaker 1: And so if you don't want to spend two times
Speaker 1: the price a beer injury product will work super well.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't mean that they're not quality things, they're
Speaker 1: just not you know, their budget contest.
Speaker 2: That makes sense.
Speaker 1: Okay, then we could talk about this also because I
Speaker 1: mentioned the point of a an interface is to give
Speaker 1: you the ability to translate. It's the mediator between your
Speaker 1: voice and the computer. There are some microphones which are
Speaker 1: digital microphones, and I have the Blue Yetti also which
Speaker 1: I like that microphone a lot. I don't use it
Speaker 1: when I'm recording the guests, but I use it if
Speaker 1: I'm just talking into the computer and just need to
Speaker 1: record something real quick. It's more of like my you know,
Speaker 1: on the fly, Hey I got to record something.
Speaker 2: Keep it moving. And so the U it's a USB microphone.
Speaker 1: It eliminates the need for interface altogether because it's just
Speaker 1: got a USB connection and it's plug and play. You
Speaker 1: don't have to download any software to use it. You know,
Speaker 1: you plug it in, it's ready to rock. And it
Speaker 1: was double bato YETI is. It also has a headphone jack,
Speaker 1: so you can hear directly what's coming out, and so
Speaker 1: you you could plug your headphones into the computer and
Speaker 1: hear what it's hearing. But you can also plug right
Speaker 1: into the microphone to hear what you can your microphone
Speaker 1: is hearing super dope and that you ADDI YETI is
Speaker 1: somewhere like one hundred and thirty bucks somewhere around there.
Speaker 1: And again for I said this about five times. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put all these links in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Storage.
Speaker 1: I mentioned saving to you a minute ago, and it
Speaker 1: is saving. What is the point of creating if you
Speaker 1: can't save it? And there have been many heartaches I've
Speaker 1: had because I produced something that was beautiful and it
Speaker 1: did not save and it's lost forever. Reliable storage solutions
Speaker 1: is of utmost importance. And you don't want to just
Speaker 1: store things in equipment or on a computer that is vulnerable,
Speaker 1: and so you want to record things in this stored
Speaker 1: preferably in more than one place, because just to have
Speaker 1: less points of fault. And so if anything ever happened
Speaker 1: in your computer, or you ran out of room, or
Speaker 1: you need to free up space or all the other things,
Speaker 1: you have your media your content stored on a device.
Speaker 1: So even if you are using the computer to store
Speaker 1: your stuff, highly recommend also recording it off the computer
Speaker 1: in a device like the Lace Rugged USBC drive, which
Speaker 1: I use. I have a four teara byte one. I
Speaker 1: think I have a couple four teara byte ones. There
Speaker 1: are bigger ones.
Speaker 2: Like eight terabytes. I just have a couple of four.
Speaker 1: Teabyte ones because that's really all I needed for I'm
Speaker 1: not personally storing a lot of video online. My team
Speaker 1: does on their but they have NAS devices. But I
Speaker 1: am storing most of my audio files on one of
Speaker 1: these Lacey Rugged devices. Now, the important thing is this space, obviously,
Speaker 1: and typically when I'm recording an audio only podcast, the
Speaker 1: audio each my voice and the guest voice might each
Speaker 1: be If it's a half an hour thirty five to
Speaker 1: forty five minute podcast, my audio might be one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty megabytes. Their audio may be one hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty megabytes. I got plenty of space for several seasons
Speaker 1: of a podcast in afford hereabout device and it's rugged
Speaker 1: and so there are no moving parts in a Lacey
Speaker 1: rugged device. You know, hard drives back in the day
Speaker 1: used to have a little you know, disc in them
Speaker 1: that would spin and you could hear them when you
Speaker 1: plug them in, and they would store your stuff pretty
Speaker 1: much on a CD. That's pretty much like what it was.
Speaker 1: These Lacey devices are a solid state there SSDs, so
Speaker 1: there are no moving parts in the laceys, which makes
Speaker 1: it way more secure and less vulnerable. And as a
Speaker 1: byproduct of being having no moving parts, it's also faster
Speaker 1: and so highly recommend.
Speaker 2: The lace rugged drives.
Speaker 1: Then we can talk about things like Dropbox and Google Drive,
Speaker 1: which are both sweet. I have subscriptions to both which
Speaker 1: over time I will probably move all my.
Speaker 2: Stuff over to the drop Box. I just had Drive
Speaker 2: for a very long time, so it's lots of to
Speaker 2: move over.
Speaker 1: But I like Dropbox because a lot of version control.
Speaker 1: I can set a configuration for who can do what
Speaker 1: inside the drive, and I can reverse back in history
Speaker 1: to see, you know, if somebody change something, I can
Speaker 1: go back to the previous version. I like, I'm giving
Speaker 1: you versions drawn by two different ways, but you get it.
Speaker 1: I love that also, automatic backups, file sharing, all those things,
Speaker 1: obviously because it's in the cloud that can so synchronized
Speaker 1: things between devices.
Speaker 2: Google Drive is.
Speaker 1: Also dope too, and it integrates into your other Google services,
Speaker 1: so if you're using you know, Google Email or Google Calendar,
Speaker 1: all these different things.
Speaker 2: It's easy to use.
Speaker 1: So you just take your pick whichever one you like better.
Speaker 1: I'm not here to you know, k for either one
Speaker 1: of them, but whichever one you find that you like,
Speaker 1: Trybox or Google Drive. I support them both because I
Speaker 1: have subscriptions to both. And then you know, you have
Speaker 1: things like just a regular SD card which you can
Speaker 1: store your stuff.
Speaker 2: On very cost very affordably. Pretty much.
Speaker 1: What I would say is you don't want to leave
Speaker 1: your stuff on an SD card. They are small, and
Speaker 1: there is something to say about things being too small,
Speaker 1: especially when you're trying to store them for a long time.
Speaker 2: It's a lot easier to lose it.
Speaker 1: So I would recommend using an SD card to save
Speaker 1: things only for a short term. Just don't recommend saving
Speaker 1: things for a long time on a SD card. So
Speaker 1: now you got this amazing podcast recorded and you gotta
Speaker 1: distribute it to the world. How're you gonna get it
Speaker 1: out there? And so from there, I for a long
Speaker 1: time used libsn to host and distribute my podcast And
Speaker 1: so when I started up ten Podcasts, which was the
Speaker 1: one I had before Black Tech, Green Money i S,
Speaker 1: I used lipsyn And so Lipsen has a variety of
Speaker 1: different plans, from plans that are you putting out one
Speaker 1: episode a month, you know, very small size, to ones
Speaker 1: where you putting it out daily and you need analytics.
Speaker 1: Lipsyn has all of that stuff, and it starts like
Speaker 1: five bucks a month, just again depending on which one
Speaker 1: you wanna use.
Speaker 2: And it's also easy to get.
Speaker 1: Integrated with Google, Google's Podcasts platform and Apple Podcasts, cause
Speaker 1: it kind of walks you through how to get Just
Speaker 1: cause you put it on lips it doesn't mean you're
Speaker 1: automatically on those platforms. You have to connected them, and
Speaker 1: lipsn makes it easy to do that. One I have
Speaker 1: not used is Podbean, and I only mention it because
Speaker 1: I know other people who have used Podbean. I just
Speaker 1: don't know a lot about it, but it is I'm
Speaker 1: sure a lot like lipsyns. From when I'm told very
Speaker 1: user friendly, but that's pretty much all I can say
Speaker 1: about Bobby because I don't use it. The other one
Speaker 1: I have used also is SoundCloud. It's probably good in
Speaker 1: the way that you have access to a directory and
Speaker 1: so you're part of a community with other people podcasting.
Speaker 1: So it's probably easier to be found on SoundCloud versus
Speaker 1: like libsn because there's like not a community of people
Speaker 1: searching on Libsyn. That's more of like a distribution platform,
Speaker 1: and so SoundCloud people are going there to find things
Speaker 1: that they didn't produce. So I don't want to go
Speaker 1: listen to stuff, So let me go to SoundCloud and
Speaker 1: type in podcasts on politics, podcasts on technology, and you
Speaker 1: will find podcasts on politics and podcasts on technology. If
Speaker 1: you go to SoundCloud, it's not just a platform, but
Speaker 1: also you can be part of a community of people
Speaker 1: and be found there. And so Libsyn, pod being, lips
Speaker 1: and pod being and SoundCloud. You know, I'm a Lipson
Speaker 1: fan and SoundCloud fan, just depending on what you're trying
Speaker 1: to do. But today we use a platform that's more
Speaker 1: developed for corporations that have advertising partners, So I heart
Speaker 1: handles all that stuff for me today. But Lipsyn is
Speaker 1: super dope if you want to go that route, and
Speaker 1: I highly recommend it. For video, Let's say you are
Speaker 1: going to actually I'm only going to talk like for
Speaker 1: a second about video because most of the stuff I
Speaker 1: talked about today has to do with audio podcasts, and
Speaker 1: so if you want to talk about video, well, let's
Speaker 1: do that for like one minute. And so today we
Speaker 1: record videos, especially if I'm doing if I'm recording with
Speaker 1: somebody remotely. We no longer record via Zoom, which we
Speaker 1: used to do, which that's also one of the options.
Speaker 1: You can get a Zoom account for like fifteen bucks
Speaker 1: a month, but we use Riverside.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: We use riverside because riverside allows the video file to
Speaker 1: be taken from the device. So here's what happens. So
Speaker 1: when you are on like a Zoom call, you might
Speaker 1: look amazing to yourself because you're not looking at yourself
Speaker 1: via the Internet. You're looking at yourself from your camera,
Speaker 1: and the person looking at you, who's in another house,
Speaker 1: another office, another state, is looking at you, however, via
Speaker 1: the Internet, which means what you see is not what
Speaker 1: they see. You look super clear to yourself. You don't look, however,
Speaker 1: how you look to them. Riverside is different. The riverside
Speaker 1: what happens is it's recording on your local device. So
Speaker 1: what you are recording is what your computer camera or
Speaker 1: your external camera sees, not what is uploaded the web
Speaker 1: or streamed, I should say, so you get a much
Speaker 1: higher quality audio I mean video feed. And so before
Speaker 1: you close down a riverside recording, you gotta wait before
Speaker 1: all the video gets uploaded, because again it's recording from
Speaker 1: your device, not from the stream. That makes sense, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think you got it. So riverside is dope in
Speaker 1: that way. And your guests also they have they're being
Speaker 1: recorded on their side, so it's dope that way. Then
Speaker 1: if you just want to see somebody, but you're not
Speaker 1: necessarily recording.
Speaker 2: But it's you get a better.
Speaker 1: Audio recording if you guys can see each other, because
Speaker 1: there's other context clues you get by seeing their face.
Speaker 1: So Google meet is free, I mean, is you can
Speaker 1: use that just because if you want to.
Speaker 2: Get good quality.
Speaker 1: You can also screen share and do stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but I don't I've never used screen sharing in a podcast,
Speaker 1: but you can do it. I've actually never even recorded
Speaker 1: a Google Meet, so maybe you can record a Google meet.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it's free and you can see
Speaker 1: each other and you can at least you capture the
Speaker 1: audio from there. So those are your options. On the
Speaker 1: video side, we can have another podcast on.
Speaker 2: An actual full video.
Speaker 1: Podcast if you want to go that route, which I
Speaker 1: recommend if you can do it. So I say all
Speaker 1: this to say, you know, it is easier than ever
Speaker 1: to have a podcast, a beautiful podcast, and one that
Speaker 1: people want to listen to. And so the important thing
Speaker 1: I mentioned this at the start and I will close
Speaker 1: with this also is the sound matters, and no matter
Speaker 1: what people say about you can start using any tool
Speaker 1: in front of you. It is important to put the
Speaker 1: effort into sounding good, not just your voice which should
Speaker 1: sound good, but also the record of your voice should
Speaker 1: sound good.
Speaker 2: People will forgive lower.
Speaker 1: Quality video, then they will lower quality audio. If you
Speaker 1: have a video that is not the best quality in
Speaker 1: video clarity production, but the audio is still good, you
Speaker 1: will continue watching if the content is there. Now, if
Speaker 1: the video is amazing but the audio sounds terrible, you
Speaker 1: may actually turn it off a lot faster because the
Speaker 1: audio sounds like garbage. And so it is important to
Speaker 1: put the work in to get high quality audio even
Speaker 1: before you put the work into getting higher quality video.
Speaker 1: And so I admonish you to do the work in
Speaker 1: that respect. Again, you can use all of these tools. Again,
Speaker 1: I don't know big podcasters who record using a lot
Speaker 1: of the tools they tell y'all that you can use.
Speaker 1: The point is not that, though. The point is that
Speaker 1: you can start and you can get going doing these things.
Speaker 1: But there is a graduation that happens inevitably if you
Speaker 1: start to get good at it and you start to
Speaker 1: get more invested in it. And so if you are
Speaker 1: just starting, I encourage you highly to just start with
Speaker 1: the tools in front of you. Start with your audio
Speaker 1: recorder on your iPhone, Start with you know, one of.
Speaker 2: These subscription services to just software.
Speaker 1: Online that you can edit and use AI and all
Speaker 1: these things to edit your stuff down. I encourage you
Speaker 1: to do that. As the bigger your podcast get, at
Speaker 1: least today, not in a year from now when AI
Speaker 1: gets even more crazy, I would probably have to change
Speaker 1: this whole episode. But for today, there are things that
Speaker 1: you should need to do. Things you need to do
Speaker 1: well in order to have your podcast be coveted by
Speaker 1: the masses. So with all that said, I appreciate y'all
Speaker 1: listening again. I will put all of these links in
Speaker 1: the show notes. You got any questions, you know where
Speaker 1: to give me. I'm at Will Lucas on IG on
Speaker 1: all them things, but I G is probably the best
Speaker 1: place to find me at Will Lucas, W I.
Speaker 2: L L l U c A S.
Speaker 1: Encourage you to send me a DM, drop a note
Speaker 1: in the comments because I want to talk about this
Speaker 1: on my feed and so yeah, it's good talk to y'all.
Speaker 1: Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blavity Afro
Speaker 1: Tech on Black Effect podcast Networking Nightheart Media, and it's
Speaker 1: produced by Morgan Debond and me Will Lucas. The additional
Speaker 1: production support by Kate McDonald and Jada McGee.
Speaker 2: Special thanking to Michael Davis since Sarah Ergan.
Speaker 1: Learn more about my guests and other technist others an
Speaker 1: innovators at afrotech dot com.
Speaker 2: Enjoying Black Tech Green Money. Share this with somebody, Go
Speaker 2: get your money. Pace in love
Speaker 1: Can do to me