Podcasting doesn’t have to be hard and all you need is an idea, hardware, and passion for storytelling. In this episode of Creative Podcasting, we discuss the software and hardware needed to start podcasting. We go over the different types of software, such as Audacity, GarageBand, Zencaster, and Riverside, as well as the hardware, including a dynamic microphone, acoustic panels, and a headset. We also explain that recording on your phone in a car or closet can be a great option. Get all the tips and tricks you need to start podcasting today!

Audacity https://www.audacityteam.org/download/

GarageBand https://www.apple.com/mac/garageband/

Descript https://www.descript.com/?lmref=MxdjIA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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