Starting a Podcast? This is how we're doing it...
It's no great secret, Podcasts are having (possibly have had?) their moment; but if like us, you're thinking about jumping on the bandwagon we thought it might be useful to share how we've gone about it, for a couple of reasons; firstly maybe you'll find it useful if you'd like to get started but have no idea how, and secondly, it will really interesting to read this back in a years time and reflect on what's changed.
1. What do we use to record our audio?
We actually record straight onto voice notes on our phone, which after some research is a fairly common way of recording audio for a podcast. It has it's pro's & con's, it's obviously super convenient, the audio quality isn't too bad if you record in an optimal environment. As I write this, we've just had our 3rd episode in a row not published due to the audio being painfully bad, due to having to record outside and in even a slight breeze the audio is just unbearable to listen to.
We're about to experiment with using a couple of lav mics and an external recorder, so we'll see how that goes and give you an update.
2. Editing the Audio
We use a free piece of audio editing software called Audacity, which doesn't particularly like the audio files my phone creates, so this how I get the file into it in the first place... Record onto Phone > Upload onto my Google Drive > Chuck the audio file into the Google Drive mp3 converter > Download mp3 file onto laptop > hey presto, open it up in Audacity. I guess I'm starting from absolute zero with this stage of the process as I studied Music Tech back in college so have a general understanding basic audio production; from time to time this also manifests itself through strange electronica type music I make at even stranger hours of the night...
I don't know an awful lot, and all the 'industry grade' software I learnt on is now nearly two decades old, but the fundamentals are always the same, and we're not recording the London philharmonic here. That said, a lot of the issues I have at editing stage could have been avoided if we spent some time to record it properly in the first place. So I guess tip 1, is get the raw audio as clean as possible and tip 2, learn about EQ. Or, I mean don't, do not let the pursuit of perfection stop you from starting.
After about an hour of chopping out all the horrible sniffs and the ermmms you should be pretty much good to go. Hit export, and there we have it. Your episode has been born.