Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer
Speaker 1: at how Stuff Works in I love all things tech,
Speaker 1: and recently I did a live stream celebrating the tenth
Speaker 1: anniversary of tech Stuff. I know I've been talking a
Speaker 1: lot about that, but to me, it's a really big
Speaker 1: deal to to be the host of a show that's
Speaker 1: lasted ten years. And we did some question answer stuff
Speaker 1: on that episode, and some people were asking me about
Speaker 1: what it takes to start your own podcast, And so
Speaker 1: I've talked a little bit about that in previous episodes
Speaker 1: and kind of covered it in brief, but today I
Speaker 1: really want to dive into this concept. What does it
Speaker 1: take to make your own podcast? Let's say that maybe
Speaker 1: you are interested in launching your own show. What are
Speaker 1: the things that you need to think about? What are
Speaker 1: the steps you have to take? How much work is
Speaker 1: it to produce a show? And as it turns out,
Speaker 1: the answer to that question is variable on a lot
Speaker 1: of different factors. But the first thing I would say,
Speaker 1: you have to do the most important thing by far
Speaker 1: out of all the stuff you're gonna have to do
Speaker 1: to make a show is to pick a topic or
Speaker 1: a subject something that your podcast is about. If you
Speaker 1: want to do the podcast about nothing, you're gonna find
Speaker 1: it incredibly challenging to stick to a schedule time and
Speaker 1: time again. It is just gonna be tough. Plus, you
Speaker 1: want to have a good focus to give yourself direction
Speaker 1: for producing the show. You want to make sure that
Speaker 1: you are able to have a goal in sight. Not
Speaker 1: only that, but it also helps when you're categorizing your
Speaker 1: podcast because a lot of people find podcasts by going
Speaker 1: into their podcatching application of choice to typically, Apple podcasts
Speaker 1: is the grand daddy of them. That's the biggest one
Speaker 1: out of all of the directories out there. But whether
Speaker 1: you're doing that or Stitcher or Spotify or Google Play
Speaker 1: or any of those things, chances are you're looking at
Speaker 1: things like categories because you know what your interests are
Speaker 1: and you want to look for podcasts that serve up
Speaker 1: your interests. That's true for audiences around the world. So
Speaker 1: if you are able to focus on your show and
Speaker 1: give it a subject that you are going to reliably
Speaker 1: be able to talk about week after week, that will
Speaker 1: allow you to categorize your show and make it easier
Speaker 1: for other people to find it, because ultimately, you want
Speaker 1: people to listen to your show. Otherwise, why are you
Speaker 1: going through the motions of doing it. You could just
Speaker 1: talk to friends about stuff without ever having to go
Speaker 1: through the trouble of recording and editing and publishing and
Speaker 1: sending it to podcast directories if that were the case.
Speaker 1: So presume presumably you want people to listen to it.
Speaker 1: So finding a focus something you're passionate about already is
Speaker 1: really important, and I think being passionate is is incredibly
Speaker 1: necessary so that you will not lose enthusiasm for the
Speaker 1: subject of whatever your podcast is, and it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be a specific thing. Like there's some great shows
Speaker 1: out there. My Brother, My Brother and Me, which I
Speaker 1: mentioned in a previous episode, is a fantastic comedy show
Speaker 1: where three brothers give terrible advice from questions that are
Speaker 1: sent in from the audience or cold from Yahoo answers,
Speaker 1: and it's hilarious. It does have some structure and it
Speaker 1: does have a focus in that it is this kind
Speaker 1: of advice show for the modern era, as they say,
Speaker 1: tech stuff. We focus on technology and its intersection with culture.
Speaker 1: The Soundtracks show is all about soundtracks, movie music, and
Speaker 1: television music and how that's changed and involved in the
Speaker 1: influences that have gone into it. So picking your sub
Speaker 1: act is uh is great, and being passionate about it
Speaker 1: is even better. You don't have to know everything about
Speaker 1: your subject. In fact, I would argue that for some
Speaker 1: podcasts that makes the show even better, whether it's a
Speaker 1: serious show or a comedy show. If it's a comedy show,
Speaker 1: then the comedy can be in you not knowing about
Speaker 1: a lot about whatever the subject is and learning about it.
Speaker 1: But in a nonfiction or non comedy show, it could
Speaker 1: be you learning things and then expressing that to your audience.
Speaker 1: That's very much what tech stuff is. I frequently, if
Speaker 1: I'm going into a subject, I might know a little
Speaker 1: bit about it, but I never know enough to do
Speaker 1: a forty five minute show about it. So tech stuff
Speaker 1: is really ultimately the documentation of me learning about something
Speaker 1: and then expressing what I've learned to you guys. I
Speaker 1: think that's where a lot of the value of tech
Speaker 1: stuff comes in. It's it's the excitement I get from
Speaker 1: getting to learn something. So you don't have to have
Speaker 1: encyclopedic knowledge about your subject. I'm not suggesting that if
Speaker 1: you do happen to have encyclopedic knowledge about something and
Speaker 1: not that very many people are talking about it, you
Speaker 1: might be ideal for a brand new podcast. But yes,
Speaker 1: step one pick your subject. Step two is kind of
Speaker 1: deciding how you want to talk about this right, how
Speaker 1: you want to treat your subject, not just what it's
Speaker 1: going to be about, but what sort of format is
Speaker 1: your podcast going to be? How many hosts are going
Speaker 1: to be involved. Is it going to be a solo
Speaker 1: host show like tech stuff? Is it going to have
Speaker 1: multiple hosts and and it will be conversational in nature.
Speaker 1: Is it going to be an interview show where you're
Speaker 1: going to be recording interviews with various people, And if so,
Speaker 1: how are you going to do that? Because that's going
Speaker 1: to come into planning. Leader on also figuring out is
Speaker 1: it going to be a nonfiction show? Is it a
Speaker 1: fiction show? Maybe you want to talk about horror, for example,
Speaker 1: and maybe you want to do a fiction show where
Speaker 1: you actually create either a fictional horror story or maybe
Speaker 1: you're talking about fictional horror movies. That is a very
Speaker 1: different thing than a nonfiction show where you're really taking
Speaker 1: a more a more methodical approach to discussing the topic.
Speaker 1: Is it scripted? If it's scripted, that's going to add
Speaker 1: more time. You're gonna have to write everything before you
Speaker 1: actually record. But scripted ones can keep things nice and
Speaker 1: tight and really again focused on whatever the subject is.
Speaker 1: Or is it improvised? Is it something where you only
Speaker 1: have a vague idea of what you want to talk
Speaker 1: about and everything else just comes out during the recording process.
Speaker 1: That could be a lot of fun. It could also
Speaker 1: mean that you might have a lot of editing to
Speaker 1: do once you're done recording. You could do the interview approach,
Speaker 1: which again puts a lot of the pressure on the
Speaker 1: other person. You have to learn how to be a
Speaker 1: good interview or something that I'm still learning. Honestly, I
Speaker 1: would not call myself a good interviewer at all. It's
Speaker 1: something that I'm working on, but it's still something that
Speaker 1: I'm new to. Or is it conversational? Do you have
Speaker 1: someone else sit down with you and you just break
Speaker 1: down a topic. That's the way tech stuff started. Chris
Speaker 1: Palette and I would do our research independently and sit
Speaker 1: down and have a conversation. All of these are are
Speaker 1: different ways of treating your subject matter, but it is
Speaker 1: good to figure out which one you want to do
Speaker 1: before you get started. You might also want to give
Speaker 1: consideration to things like how long should an episode be?
Speaker 1: How how what are you shooting for a lot of
Speaker 1: people like to aim for that thirty to fifty minute window.
Speaker 1: That's the way tech stuff used to be. Now it's
Speaker 1: closer to thirty five minutes, but that tends to be
Speaker 1: pretty good for people who are on commutes, so it's
Speaker 1: a very popular length that people aim for. And this
Speaker 1: also it's important for two reasons why. And you need
Speaker 1: to figure out how long is it going to take
Speaker 1: you to give your subject matter the treatment it deserves
Speaker 1: per episode. Uh, because you want episodes to be long
Speaker 1: enough to really tackle something, whether it's comedy or nonfiction,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. But also it determines how much
Speaker 1: work you're going to have to do, both in pre
Speaker 1: production and in post production. Not only that, but also recording.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously the longer the episode is, the more
Speaker 1: time you're going to be spending speaking into a microphone.
Speaker 1: So unless you're just uploading as you record, in other words,
Speaker 1: you're doing no post production editing at all. Your shows
Speaker 1: are going to take some time to edit and publish,
Speaker 1: and the longer the show, obviously, the longer that process becomes.
Speaker 1: And it can be more than just linear. Right, recording
Speaker 1: a half hour show and then editing it and then
Speaker 1: publishing it does not necessarily take uh half the time
Speaker 1: of recording, writing, recording, and editing and publishing an hour
Speaker 1: long show. That can actually take longer, especially depending if
Speaker 1: you're if you're not proficient in editing yet, if you're
Speaker 1: just starting out, longer shows are going to take you
Speaker 1: much longer to edit. So let's say like typically for me,
Speaker 1: I would say that it would take me about one
Speaker 1: and a half times as long to edit a show
Speaker 1: as it took to record the show. So for a
Speaker 1: half hour show, it would take three quarters of an
Speaker 1: hour to edit it, but if it were an hour
Speaker 1: long show, then it would take an hour and a
Speaker 1: half to edit it. Um maybe maybe up to two hours,
Speaker 1: depending upon how complicated the show is, and of course
Speaker 1: the more people you add to it, the more editing
Speaker 1: you may have to do. So the more complicated the show,
Speaker 1: the longer it's going to take you to produce an
Speaker 1: individual episode. And this is very important for you to
Speaker 1: think about early on. And the reason for that is
Speaker 1: every time you make a show a little more complicated
Speaker 1: or it's a little harder to prepare and then to
Speaker 1: do the editing and publishing on, you have created a
Speaker 1: barrier between you and doing it again, because the harder
Speaker 1: it is, the more you're going to feel disinclined to
Speaker 1: record and edit and publish the next one, even if
Speaker 1: you're really excited about the subject. So you want to
Speaker 1: be careful. You want to know your limitations, and you
Speaker 1: don't want to jump in saying, all right, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a four host show. Episodes are going to be
Speaker 1: an hour and a half long, and we're gonna have
Speaker 1: a whole lot of soundscaping. We're gonna have sound effects,
Speaker 1: we're gonna music, we're gonna have transitions, we're gonna have
Speaker 1: all this stuff. I'm gonna add it all in post.
Speaker 1: Because you're talking about a process where by the end
Speaker 1: of it, you may be spending three or four hours
Speaker 1: per episode editing it before you ever publish it, and
Speaker 1: by the time it goes out, you're sick of it
Speaker 1: and you don't ever want to touch it again. So
Speaker 1: you want to be careful about this sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: That's not to say don't be ambitious. You certainly should
Speaker 1: try to be ambitious. And then, finally, one other thing
Speaker 1: I think you should think about before you really get
Speaker 1: going is how frequently do you want to publish this show?
Speaker 1: Should it be a monthly show, should it be weekly,
Speaker 1: bi weekly? Maybe you published multiple times a week. Maybe
Speaker 1: you're crazy and you're you're publishing four new episodes of
Speaker 1: your show every week, plus a rerun on Friday's. If
Speaker 1: you're insane, that might be what you're doing. I don't
Speaker 1: recommend starting out that way. But again, the more frequently
Speaker 1: you decide you want to publish, the more work you
Speaker 1: have created for yourself. And unless you are podcasting as
Speaker 1: a full time gig, then you're doing this on your
Speaker 1: off time, and the less free time you're gonna have
Speaker 1: for other stuff if you're doing it more frequently. I
Speaker 1: usually recommend to people to aim for maybe once a week,
Speaker 1: but it is also important to try and stick to
Speaker 1: a schedule once you've decided what it is. Uh So,
Speaker 1: once you've decided what you can reasonably do within any
Speaker 1: given amount of time, do your best to stick with
Speaker 1: that as best you can, because it's a good way
Speaker 1: to gain an audience. If you are publishing haphazardly, then
Speaker 1: people don't know when your episodes come out, and people
Speaker 1: are less inclined to to subscribe. So I highly recommend
Speaker 1: you figure out how frequently you want to publish, and
Speaker 1: then you stick to that as best you can. If
Speaker 1: you start out and you find out that you were
Speaker 1: too ambitious, it's fine to scale back, especially early on,
Speaker 1: because people will get used to it once you've established
Speaker 1: the routine. But it is good to have that timely,
Speaker 1: predictable approach. So if you publish, if people know, hey,
Speaker 1: a new episode goes up by six pm every Wednesday,
Speaker 1: then people have something to look forward to. If you
Speaker 1: don't have that regular schedule, people never know when a
Speaker 1: new episode is going to be out, and you'll start
Speaker 1: losing listeners. All right, that's just the beginning of some
Speaker 1: tips and tricks to starting your own podcast. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk more about this in just a second, but first,
Speaker 1: let's take quick break to thank our sponsor. Okay, so
Speaker 1: let's assume you've picked out what you want to talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, the subject of your podcast. Uh, let's say
Speaker 1: that you've you've picked a topic that a lot of
Speaker 1: people haven't really dove into in great detail. Because if
Speaker 1: you do pick something that has already got a lot
Speaker 1: of podcasts about it, then you also have to figure
Speaker 1: out how do you differentiate your show from all the
Speaker 1: other shows that already exist. That's really complicated too. Like
Speaker 1: with tech Stuff, there are a lot of technology podcasts
Speaker 1: out there. There are a huge number. Some of them
Speaker 1: are very very hyper focused on a specific topic like
Speaker 1: Android or Apple or things like that, or video games. UH.
Speaker 1: There are shows that are dedicated to news. So when
Speaker 1: we launched tech Stuff, we wanted to make sure we
Speaker 1: were taking a different take on technology. We were really
Speaker 1: looking at not just how tech works, but how it
Speaker 1: interacts with us, how it shapes our culture and our society,
Speaker 1: and how that changes over time. Because that's really fascinating
Speaker 1: to me, and it goes beyond telling news, which is
Speaker 1: really useful. There's some great tech news podcasts out there,
Speaker 1: and they're entertaining their informative and it really helps if
Speaker 1: you want to stay up to date on what's happening
Speaker 1: in the world of technology. But I knew that I
Speaker 1: could not do that better than UH podcasts like This
Speaker 1: Weekend Tech or at the time se nets buzz out loud.
Speaker 1: But today I would say things like daily tech news show. Uh,
Speaker 1: those kind of shows. I knew I couldn't do it
Speaker 1: as well as as those guys do it, So I
Speaker 1: chose a different route for tech stuff. Same thing should
Speaker 1: be true for your show. If you're going into something
Speaker 1: that has a lot of podcasts about that subject matter
Speaker 1: out there already, you need to figure out something that
Speaker 1: differentiates yours. Moving beyond those basics like the idea of
Speaker 1: of struck sure and subject matter and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, let's talk about actual tech. What do you need?
Speaker 1: What stuff do you need in order to record a show? Well,
Speaker 1: you're gonna you're gonna need a microphone. That's a big one.
Speaker 1: Although I guess you could if you really wanted to
Speaker 1: use something as simple as a phone to record stuff.
Speaker 1: But the quality is going to be fairly low. Now,
Speaker 1: sound recording quality, you actually have a lot of leniency
Speaker 1: in this. There's you don't have to have the best
Speaker 1: sounding quality audio out there in order to do well
Speaker 1: in podcasting, although it helps, um if it's if it's
Speaker 1: really bad, it's distracting. If you've got a lot of
Speaker 1: hiss or hum, If there's a lot of distortion in
Speaker 1: the voice. Then that ends up being kind of a
Speaker 1: a detractor from the quality of your show. So getting
Speaker 1: a decent microphone is not a bad idea. And by
Speaker 1: decent I don't necessarily mean super expensive. I mean you
Speaker 1: can go crazy. If you've got the money and you
Speaker 1: want to have a killer audio recording setup, you can
Speaker 1: go and do it. But I don't think it's absolutely
Speaker 1: necessary to get a good sounding podcast out there. Uh,
Speaker 1: it is important for you to educate yourself about microphones.
Speaker 1: There are lots of different kinds. For example, you have
Speaker 1: dynamic versus condenser mikes. Dynamic microphones tend to be directional.
Speaker 1: That means that you kind of have to speak into
Speaker 1: them pretty much dead on to get really good sound.
Speaker 1: They don't pick up sound from outside of a cone
Speaker 1: that kind of extends out from where the end of
Speaker 1: the microphone is, so you have to have it positioned
Speaker 1: in such a way that you're talking into it. They
Speaker 1: also tend to present a more warm tone, which you
Speaker 1: could describe as being a little less crisp than condenser mikes.
Speaker 1: Condensers do tend to be very crisp. They create bright tones,
Speaker 1: but they are also really good at picking up a
Speaker 1: lot of ambient noise, and that could be a pain.
Speaker 1: So if you've got a really good condenser microphone, it
Speaker 1: might pick up little sounds and and pick them up
Speaker 1: right into the recording, and it can be a real
Speaker 1: pain to to get rid of those. I remember I
Speaker 1: used to use a condenser microphone for podcasts that I
Speaker 1: was doing back at my house, and those you could
Speaker 1: hear the clicking of my dogs toe nails as he
Speaker 1: ran across the floor and he was in the other room,
Speaker 1: and that was you know, I barely noticed it in
Speaker 1: the room while I was recording, but you could definitely
Speaker 1: hear it in the in the actual recorded audio. So
Speaker 1: you can use either type. It all depends upon your preferences,
Speaker 1: and it's not like it has to be a dynamic
Speaker 1: over a condenser. You can check out reviews of both
Speaker 1: and decide which which version meets your needs more. And
Speaker 1: in fact, there are different reasons to use different ones.
Speaker 1: If you're doing a solo host show and the audio
Speaker 1: quality is really important to you, I would probably recommend
Speaker 1: a dynamic microphone over a condenser. But if you wanted
Speaker 1: to do a group show and you didn't want to
Speaker 1: have a an audio track for each and every single
Speaker 1: person that was on that group show, and you were
Speaker 1: all in the same physical place. When you're recording, one
Speaker 1: condenser mike that's located in the center of all of
Speaker 1: you might be perfect because you'll pick up everyone's conversation.
Speaker 1: It will be much more like the listener was present
Speaker 1: during that conversation. However, you have to also make sure
Speaker 1: that everyone's speaking at a pretty typical level, like the
Speaker 1: similar level of volume, because you're not gonna be able
Speaker 1: to adjust individual tracks of volume. Everyone will be recorded
Speaker 1: on a single track in that case, So if you've
Speaker 1: got one loud friend and one quiet friend, that ends
Speaker 1: up creating this weird dynamic within the audio recording, and
Speaker 1: listeners might find it off putting because they may feel
Speaker 1: they have to turn the volume up whenever your quiet
Speaker 1: friend is talking. But then when your loud friends starts talking,
Speaker 1: they suddenly have their ear drums blasted out. So it's
Speaker 1: a delicate balance that's a lot more easy to handle.
Speaker 1: If every single person has his or her own audio
Speaker 1: track within a recording, which you would do with individual
Speaker 1: microphones or orcorded tracks that are coming in, you can
Speaker 1: then adjust individual levels of volume in post if you
Speaker 1: have to, so that's easier to do if everyone has
Speaker 1: their own. You also have to figure out do you
Speaker 1: use an XLR microphone or USB microphone and this this
Speaker 1: involves the cable right the way the microphones plug into
Speaker 1: other other stuff. XLR mix typically require an additional power supply,
Speaker 1: and they have a cable that plugs into stuff like
Speaker 1: external audio interfaces rather than directly into computers. They did
Speaker 1: make some sound cards that could accept XLR cables, but
Speaker 1: those technologies change pretty frequently. It's much better, i think,
Speaker 1: in my mind, to get an external audio interface. That's
Speaker 1: what we use here at how stuff works. We have
Speaker 1: an external audio interface. The microphones plug into that, and
Speaker 1: then that in turn plugs into the computers that we
Speaker 1: use to record the audio. Uh. These are the devices
Speaker 1: that will supply power to the microphone. You can also
Speaker 1: find XL R T USB adapters, so you can find
Speaker 1: an adapter that plugs in to a computer's USB port
Speaker 1: and then on the other end it's the female end
Speaker 1: of an XLR connector However, computers. Depending upon the microphone,
Speaker 1: computers might not provide enough power to get a good
Speaker 1: quality signal out of the mic, so you can record,
Speaker 1: but the quality of audio is going to be maybe
Speaker 1: substandard compared to if you had plugged your microphone into
Speaker 1: an audio interface instead and then connected the audio interface
Speaker 1: to a computer. USB microphones are way more simple because,
Speaker 1: as the name suggests, you just plug the USB microphone
Speaker 1: directly into a USB port using a standard USB cable.
Speaker 1: So uh, some microphones actually have both options. The mic
Speaker 1: I have at home is an Audio Technica USB xl
Speaker 1: R microphone. I bought that microphone with my own money.
Speaker 1: Audio Technica is not a sponsor. They have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with this show. I just wanted to give you
Speaker 1: the actual model I use. I like that microphone a lot.
Speaker 1: It's really versatile because I can use it as an
Speaker 1: x LUR mike if I want to, or I can
Speaker 1: use it as a USB mike. It's a pretty good
Speaker 1: budget microphone. It's not very expensive. It's less than a
Speaker 1: hundred dollars if you hunt around for it. It's an
Speaker 1: older microphone. It doesn't have all the features that newer
Speaker 1: mics have. But I find that it's a really useful
Speaker 1: dynamic microphone, and I think it sounds great in the
Speaker 1: USB mode. It it sounds better as an XLR microphone,
Speaker 1: but I think it sounds just fine as USB. Mike's
Speaker 1: that tend to get really good reviews among podcasters include
Speaker 1: things like the Sure s M seven B Dynamic Mike.
Speaker 1: Sure is spelled s h U R E, the Hile
Speaker 1: PR forty Dynamic mic that's h E I L, the
Speaker 1: Keys Studio Series s L three USB condenser Mike if
Speaker 1: you prefer a condenser, or Blue Blue makes some really
Speaker 1: good USB microphones, including the Yeti. The Yeti has been
Speaker 1: like a standard for podcasters. It's also incredibly portable. You
Speaker 1: just have your computer and a Yetti microphone and a
Speaker 1: USB cable, you're good to go. Uh. The Blue Snowball
Speaker 1: microphones also incredibly portable and easy. We have one here
Speaker 1: at the office. We use that whenever we're talking with
Speaker 1: someone over Skype or something like that. There are tons
Speaker 1: of other options out there, and there are no shortage
Speaker 1: of review sites if you want to take a look
Speaker 1: into this and find out which one is ideal for
Speaker 1: your needs. Um But again, if you want to record
Speaker 1: a lot of people at once, just keep in mind
Speaker 1: that means you're either going to need a setup that's
Speaker 1: capable of supporting multiple microphones, so that each person has
Speaker 1: his or her own microphone and thus their own audio
Speaker 1: track in whatever recording software you're using. Again, that will
Speaker 1: make things easier if you need to adjust individual levels
Speaker 1: dynamically throughout a podcast, but it also makes it, you know,
Speaker 1: more complex. You've got more actual audio tracks to deal
Speaker 1: with in a single recording. Or you can go with
Speaker 1: a condenser mike and record everybody in one swell foop,
Speaker 1: as a friend of mine would say. But then you
Speaker 1: can't do that that individual adjustment of audio tracks. Everyone
Speaker 1: will be mixed together in a single vocal track unless
Speaker 1: you're recording from other sources as well. Like if you're
Speaker 1: doing a podcast where you are not sitting across from
Speaker 1: the person that's on the show with you, maybe you're
Speaker 1: using something like Skype or Google Hangouts or some other
Speaker 1: voice over Internet protocol system and you're using a program
Speaker 1: to record their version of it, or so you're either
Speaker 1: recording the whole call and you're using that as your audio,
Speaker 1: or maybe you're natively recording your track, you're recording their
Speaker 1: their call over the internet, and then you mix the
Speaker 1: two together. That's another way that you could possibly go
Speaker 1: about actually including all these different audio tracks um and
Speaker 1: and individually adjusting all the levels within that. That's something
Speaker 1: else you could do. I've done that before. It's actually
Speaker 1: a little tricky because you have to sync up the
Speaker 1: individual audio tracks so that they match up properly. Otherwise
Speaker 1: you'll have one person asking a question while the other
Speaker 1: person has already answered it because the tracks aren't lining up.
Speaker 1: But it is possible to do. I have a little
Speaker 1: bit more I want to talk about with the stuff
Speaker 1: you need if you want to launch a podcast, But
Speaker 1: before I jump into that, let's take another quick break
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. Alright, so you figured out what
Speaker 1: microphone you want, you also need to figure out what
Speaker 1: sort of recording software and editing software you want to use.
Speaker 1: This is what you're gonna use to actually record those
Speaker 1: tracks and then manipulate them afterward in case you want
Speaker 1: to do stuff like take out mistakes or put in
Speaker 1: elements like music or sound effects. Maybe you create a
Speaker 1: standard opener and closer that you want to include with
Speaker 1: every episode, and you don't want to have to record
Speaker 1: it every single time, so you record it once and
Speaker 1: then you create a template so that you can just
Speaker 1: plug that right in to your your podcast These are
Speaker 1: all things that are pretty standard in podcasts, and they
Speaker 1: could be tricky to learn at first, but all it
Speaker 1: really takes is some time and effort to learn a
Speaker 1: software package. And there's lots of different options out there,
Speaker 1: including a lot of really good free ones. So, for example,
Speaker 1: Audacity is a free tool. You can just download it,
Speaker 1: use it right out of the right off the download,
Speaker 1: and use it to edit tracks like crazy. It's got
Speaker 1: tons of built in tools. You can record into it,
Speaker 1: so it's not just an editing software suite. You can
Speaker 1: just record directly into Audacity. You can once you've done
Speaker 1: editing it, you know, you can export things into different
Speaker 1: file formats. It's got tons of different effects and filters
Speaker 1: that you can add to a recording to to change
Speaker 1: the the quality and the effect of that sound, and
Speaker 1: you can do stuff like it's pretty standard among all
Speaker 1: editing software. You can do something where you record what
Speaker 1: is called room tone. Room tone is just the baseline
Speaker 1: recorded sound that your microphone is picking up or even generating,
Speaker 1: without you saying anything into it. So, um, here at
Speaker 1: how stuff works. Before I start talking, we record several
Speaker 1: seconds of room tone because that creates this this baseline
Speaker 1: signal that then we can scan and use to remove
Speaker 1: that from the rest of the episode, so that if
Speaker 1: there is a hiss or a hum, maybe there's a
Speaker 1: worring noise, something that is low level. It's not it's
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to take out all noise that's
Speaker 1: generated in the background, but anything like that, it can
Speaker 1: pull that out of the finished recording and you have
Speaker 1: a much nicer, cleaner sound. Most of these software editing
Speaker 1: programs i'm gonna talk about can do that, but definitely Audacity.
Speaker 1: I know because I use it. Audacity is what I
Speaker 1: have used at home in my personal projects. I use
Speaker 1: Audition here at the office, but that is not a
Speaker 1: free tool. So if you're really wanting to get into
Speaker 1: some serious audio editing, then maybe something like Audition is
Speaker 1: right for you. But Audacity is free. There's other ones.
Speaker 1: There's osan Audio, O, C E N A U D I. Oh.
Speaker 1: It's slightly less intimidating than Audacity is uh. There are
Speaker 1: fewer bells and whistles, but still incredibly useful. And that
Speaker 1: is a useful editing software suite. There is a program
Speaker 1: by DVD video Soft called Free Audio Editor. It's important
Speaker 1: for you to know it's from DVD Video Soft, because
Speaker 1: there's actually quite a few programs out there called free
Speaker 1: audio Editor, So the one that I recommend is from
Speaker 1: DVD video Soft. It's also pretty easy to use, but
Speaker 1: there are lots of others, so you can do some research,
Speaker 1: find out things that are uh that look like you
Speaker 1: could spend some time to learn how to really navigate it,
Speaker 1: and the more you use the stuff, the easier it's
Speaker 1: going to become. At first, when you're using it, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be doing everything pretty much the hard way, unless
Speaker 1: you just happen to have someone teaching you all the
Speaker 1: shortcuts right out of the gate. But as you get better,
Speaker 1: you start to learn shortcuts, You start to learn what
Speaker 1: is and isn't important. You learn quick ways to do
Speaker 1: things like mute a track. Let's say that you're recording
Speaker 1: and interview with someone over Skype and at some point
Speaker 1: you made a noise into the microphone and the person
Speaker 1: on the other end didn't stop. They kept on going.
Speaker 1: Everything was cool, but you don't want that noise to
Speaker 1: go into the final recording. You can learn things like
Speaker 1: how to mute that little noise so that it never
Speaker 1: shows up and the audience is none the wiser stuff
Speaker 1: like that. These are all things that these editing software
Speaker 1: suites can easily do, and a lot of them can
Speaker 1: also take in plug ins that can even increase the
Speaker 1: functionality of the editing software suite. So it could be
Speaker 1: a little intimidating if you've never used it before, but
Speaker 1: it's stuff that if you just take some time, it
Speaker 1: really is uh not that hard. And I say that
Speaker 1: as someone who has done this myself, I do not
Speaker 1: consider myself an audio engineer by any stretch of the imagination,
Speaker 1: which is intimidating because pretty soon I'll be acting as one.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it is possible to learn how to do
Speaker 1: these even if you are someone like me, someone who
Speaker 1: feels that it's a little outside of your your wheelhouse. Um,
Speaker 1: once you've got all that down, you've got the you
Speaker 1: know how the software works, you know how to edit
Speaker 1: a show. You've edited your first episode, you feel good
Speaker 1: about it. You've taken out all the ums and uz
Speaker 1: which took you an incredibly long time, And you should
Speaker 1: not do that because again, every time you start adding
Speaker 1: things that you need to do for every episode, you're
Speaker 1: increasing the amount of time it takes to produce one,
Speaker 1: which decreases your incentive to make another one, So don't
Speaker 1: go over overboard with editing. But you've done all this stuff.
Speaker 1: You've put in music, you put in sound effects, whatever
Speaker 1: you might have done. Now you need to figure out
Speaker 1: how to get this out to a world. UM that
Speaker 1: would involve getting a hosting service. UH. You could host
Speaker 1: files on a website that you are operating. Let's say
Speaker 1: that you go and you you register a domain and
Speaker 1: you've got a website. You're using some sort of web
Speaker 1: hosting service, maybe it's WordPress or something along those lines,
Speaker 1: and you're storing files directly on there. You could do that,
Speaker 1: but most often, if you start having a lot of
Speaker 1: people downloading stuff. Let's say that your podcast gets incredibly popular,
Speaker 1: you're gonna find issues with your host if if there's
Speaker 1: a lot of traffic going to your site. So most
Speaker 1: podcasters will use a podcast hosting service, which typically costs
Speaker 1: a certain amount of money per month, and the amount
Speaker 1: depends upon which provider you go with and what options
Speaker 1: you choose. So some popular UH podcast hosting services include
Speaker 1: stuff like libs in podcast website, pod Bean, spriaker, that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. They tend to have hosting fees and
Speaker 1: those fees, like I said, are dependent upon typically how
Speaker 1: much material you're uploading per month. So there might be
Speaker 1: a limit saying like we will allow you to upload
Speaker 1: this many megs of audio per month. Uh, some of
Speaker 1: them might have a limit on how many how much
Speaker 1: information can be downloaded per month, so you want to
Speaker 1: pay attention to that. But there are a lot of
Speaker 1: options out there, and a lot of them also have
Speaker 1: unlimited options for pretty reasonable amounts like ten bucks a
Speaker 1: month or something like that, And for that you can
Speaker 1: upload your podcasts to the service. They will host them.
Speaker 1: Whenever anyone downloads a show, ultimately, it's coming from that
Speaker 1: source on the Internet. All the podcast directories out there,
Speaker 1: like Apple Podcasts or Google Play, ultimately all they are
Speaker 1: doing is pointing you toward that RSS feed that exists
Speaker 1: generated by whatever the podcast hosting service you used happens
Speaker 1: to be. So once you've got your podcast hosting service,
Speaker 1: the new step is actually getting listed on various podcast
Speaker 1: directories like Apple Podcasts or Stitcher or Google Play or
Speaker 1: tune in or Spotify. And one thing I recommend you
Speaker 1: do is once you've created your podcast on one of
Speaker 1: these podcasts hosting services, typically you have to fill out
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of information the first time. You do
Speaker 1: this all about your show. Once you do it once,
Speaker 1: you're pretty much good. But it's important because these different
Speaker 1: directories will pull information from your RSS feed to populate
Speaker 1: their directory, and without that information, you may not get
Speaker 1: listed in those directories, like Apple Podcasts in particular. If
Speaker 1: there's information missing, you'll get an error message if you
Speaker 1: submit it to Apple and they'll say, no, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: you don't have these fields filled in. You've got to
Speaker 1: fix that. So most of these podcast hosting services have
Speaker 1: that stuff built into their system and you just have
Speaker 1: to take the time to fill it all out. Once
Speaker 1: you do that, you can use a tool like cast
Speaker 1: feed value a data dot com which will look at
Speaker 1: your RSS feed. You just feed in the u r
Speaker 1: L to your RSS feed into the service and it
Speaker 1: will tell you if you have fulfilled the requirements for
Speaker 1: various types of podcast directories, and then you need to
Speaker 1: submit to the actual directories. Some podcast hosting services make
Speaker 1: this easy, like Libson. If you wanted to submit directly
Speaker 1: to Google Play, there's a way of doing that from
Speaker 1: Libson's dashboard. So once you create your show, you can
Speaker 1: use the dashboard to submit it to Google Play and
Speaker 1: it takes care of the rest. Others, like Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: typically you have to actually create UH an Apple log in.
Speaker 1: You have to go to iTunes, go into the podcast area,
Speaker 1: and you have to submit your podcast through there um
Speaker 1: and again you submit it by copying UH the R S,
Speaker 1: s U r L, pasting it into Apple Podcasts, and
Speaker 1: then within a few days, Apple will review your submission
Speaker 1: and tell you they or not you've been accepted into
Speaker 1: the podcast directory. I really recommend that if you if
Speaker 1: you only have to pick one podcast directory out there,
Speaker 1: if you just you don't have it in you to
Speaker 1: do this for the various outlets that are there, definitely
Speaker 1: go with Apple podcasts because it is by far the
Speaker 1: most popular way to get podcasts in general. Oddly enough,
Speaker 1: not for tech stuff tex stuff. The best numbers tend
Speaker 1: to come from outside of Apple Podcasts, but for most podcasts,
Speaker 1: Apple is the way to go. With us it's through
Speaker 1: all the other means are actually more popular once you
Speaker 1: look at it, things like Android, you know, using Google
Speaker 1: Play or Stitcher, Spotify or something like that, But most
Speaker 1: of the time, Apple podcasts the way to go. When
Speaker 1: you do this by the way. You will also have
Speaker 1: to do things like create good album art so that
Speaker 1: people can see it when they are browsing through the
Speaker 1: different shows. You want something that's really eye catching and
Speaker 1: uh engaging that the the album art represents the show
Speaker 1: well and is fun and and attractive, so that people
Speaker 1: want to find out what the heck is this show
Speaker 1: that's connected to this logo. Same thing with the name.
Speaker 1: You want the name of your show to be really
Speaker 1: catchy and ideally somewhat related to whatever the show is about,
Speaker 1: so that people kind of have an idea of what
Speaker 1: they're getting into. It also doesn't hurt to record what
Speaker 1: we call trailer episodes, which are just like a minute,
Speaker 1: a half or two minute long episode that gives a
Speaker 1: quick rundown on what the show is all about. This
Speaker 1: tends to be called like an episode zero or preview episode,
Speaker 1: so that people can just record the rundown, giving listeners
Speaker 1: an idea of what to expect if they start to
Speaker 1: listen to or subscribe to a show. And that is
Speaker 1: in a nutshell, my guide to getting started with podcasting. Now,
Speaker 1: there's a whole lot more we could talk about. There's
Speaker 1: more advanced stuff that you have to start looking into.
Speaker 1: For example, it's a good idea to launch a companion
Speaker 1: website to support a podcast, especially if you want to
Speaker 1: do stuff like show notes or links. Maybe you want
Speaker 1: to do merchandise, that's another issue entirely. There's the whole
Speaker 1: monetization process that's also very involved. But all of that
Speaker 1: is is further down the line. It's not something you
Speaker 1: really need to focus on when you're first getting started.
Speaker 1: When you first get started, unless you just happen to
Speaker 1: be lightning in a bottle, it's going to be a
Speaker 1: very slow ramping up process. Uh, it might even be
Speaker 1: distressingly slow at first. You might be one of those
Speaker 1: people who say, the only person I know who is
Speaker 1: downloading my show is my mom, and she doesn't even
Speaker 1: know how to listen to it. I just know she's
Speaker 1: downloading it. That can happen, but don't get discouraged. If
Speaker 1: nothing else, just the process of recording and editing and
Speaker 1: publishing the show will give you a lot of valuable experience.
Speaker 1: And maybe it means that the podcast you launch doesn't
Speaker 1: really take off, but maybe the next one will. So
Speaker 1: it's it's good to develop these skills. And again that's
Speaker 1: just one possible outcome and maybe that you're lightning in
Speaker 1: a bottle and next thing you know, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: begging you to be on my show to give people
Speaker 1: the real tips for how to launch a successful podcast.
Speaker 1: Well that wraps up this episode. I hope you guys
Speaker 1: found that discussion interesting and useful. From somebody who's been
Speaker 1: doing this for ten years, it's been a blast, and
Speaker 1: I can't wait to keep on going out there and
Speaker 1: recording new stuff, including new shows. There are gonna be
Speaker 1: some new shows coming out of How Stuff Works soon
Speaker 1: that will feature yours truly, and that's where I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be doing a lot of audio engineering work. Like I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, we will be editing stuff. In fact, I'll
Speaker 1: be recording a pilot episode of one of those this week.
Speaker 1: The week that I am recording this, wish me luck,
Speaker 1: and then after that I get to edit it. So
Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoyed this. If you have any
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes, whether it's a technology, a person, company,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be related to tech Stuff, let me know.
Speaker 1: Send me an email. The address is tech Stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com, or drop me a line
Speaker 1: on Twitter or Facebook to handle it. Both of those
Speaker 1: is tech Stuff H. S W. Don't forget to follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
Speaker 1: that how stuff works dot com