In this episode of Podcast Answers, we delve into the importance of performing a tech check for your podcast. Learn what a tech check entails, why it's crucial for both solo podcasters and those with guests, and how to ensure everything runs smoothly before you hit record. Tune in for practical tips and advice!

Welcome to Podcast Answers, the show where I help you start and grow your podcast, answering

any podcasting questions along the way. That's right. Today, we are talking about a topic

that is fun. It's something that I think people forget about a lot. And so, we're going to

be talking about tech checks.

What does it mean to have a tech check and why you should have one and all of that good,

good stuff. So welcome back, guys. If you've never joined me again, I just try to answer

podcasting questions and help people grow and start their podcast.

And so this day is no different. And it's been a while, guys, since I've done this.

I've been... Summers are really, really busy. And so one of the things that I do preach

is to try and stay on a schedule with your podcast, which means you should be out there

and you should be doing the thing.

We can week out, we can week out. So that way people know when to expect your shows.

People build you into their lives. And I've not done a great job at that. I have really

not done a great job at that. I have. Yeah, the last couple of weeks have just been interesting

for me. I've been out and about and not being able to get into the studio.

But if you... The last episode we did was on... It was with Laura from Sure, talking

about different mics that you can use for your podcast. And so that's a great episode.

If you've not had a chance to check that out, go ahead and check it out. Today, though,

we were talking about... We're talking about all things tech check. So essentially, what

is a tech check?

Right? Well, and I do want to say this before we actually start. So I've been doing something

called Summer of Live, and I've been doing it on the podcast answers YouTube channel,

as well as my own personal YouTube channel. And essentially, I'm just going live. I'm

trying to go a lot live a lot. It's not every day of the summer, but it is trying to be

as much as I can.

And I did actually cover this topic yesterday on that show, but I wanted to get it out to

you because I know not everybody who listen to this podcast also checks out the YouTube

channel, which if you've not go ahead and go over to our YouTube channel because we

do have a YouTube channel and that's at podcastanswers.com/youtube. And you can see that and you can go ahead

and see our YouTube channel there.

And all of the things that we produce at the YouTube channel is over at podcastanswers.com/youtube.

But the Summer of Live is essentially just me going live with different topics and different

subjects of live streaming. And so I talked about this a little bit yesterday on the show,

but I want to talk about it here on this podcast because again, I know that not everybody that

listens to this podcast is on our YouTube channel.

So the thing what so what is a tech check? First off, what is the tech tech check check?

Just like it sounds it's a time that you check your technology. And this really is two different

topics, really. Because if you're a solopreneur, a solo podcaster, like I am, for the most

of the time, it's going to mean one thing.

But if you have guests on or a remote host, it's going to mean something different. And

so I'm going to talk about both of those things today and, and the differences between them

and what you can expect with a tech check. So realistically, what a check check is, is

it is just that you're checking your technology. And if you're a solo podcaster, what that

means is having a rundown, a pre show rundown.

And really, this applies to both things, you'd probably want to do this, even if you were

had a guest, you'd want to do your own tech check, as well as your guest tech check. And

so if you've ever flown with a pilot, and I'm not talking about commercially, you know,

like, United or American or whatever, I mean, they do this too. But you don't get to see

it. If you've ever flown with a pilot, you've ever had a friend that's a pilot, and you've

flown with them, they have a rundown check sheet, they pre flight check sheet that they

run down, they check their engines, they check their whatever, I don't know, I'm not a pilot,

but I know that they've they I've seen it, I have friends who are pilots, and they have

a check sheet that they run down. And they basically say, Okay, this is good, this is

good, this is good, this is good. Now we can fly. Now that we've done all of the checks,

and all of the things, we know that we're going to be good. And we know that we're going

to be able to not crash, because we've done all of these pre flight check things. Now

we can go. And so those are the same things that you're going to do here. So for me, and

this may look differently, depending on what kind of hardware you have. But the first thing

that I would say is, make sure your mic is not muted. Right? I mean, when you go to start

your recording, make sure that you're actually recording, not just talking to yourself, because

there's nothing worse. Okay, there's a few things worse, but nothing worse than finishing

your recording, and realizing that your mic was actually muted. Or you go to hit the stop

buttons for the stop recording. And it turns red. And to indicate, hey, I'm now recording,

because you didn't actually hit the record button. So you've talked for 10 1520 minutes

an hour, whatever it is, and you don't actually have the recording. Because you failed to

unmute yourself, or you failed to press the record button. So that's something you want

to check. Now, again, if you're, you check your levels. So if you're if you want your

soundboard, make sure that your levels are all hidden in the right spot. Before you go

live or hit the record button. You're going to want to make sure that when you're looking

at your meters, you're hitting the right spot. Those are all the same, that your music is

good, that all of your stuff is good. If you're live streaming it, make sure that you're going

to be live streaming, make sure everything is scheduled. I'm live streaming and video

and audio at the same time on this show. So on this show, I have audio and video both

streaming. And if you're in a new podcast app, you can listen to the show in one of

the new podcast apps as I'm recording, which is a lot of fun because I'm coming straight

to use to your podcast app. Or if you want to watch me on YouTube, I want YouTube, but

make sure all of those things are set up ready to go. Make sure that you're if you're doing

video to your scenes are good, your camera's good, your cone of cleanliness is good. So

those of you who do video, you may have a really messy room. But the cone of cleanliness

is that area that your camera sees, make sure that the area that your camera sees is clean,

make sure that it is not going to look messy. And so those are the type of things that you're

going to tech check, right, you're going to go ahead and you're going to say, Okay, I'm,

I'm got all these things good to go. And I'm ready to go. Now, what you what you can do,

and what I would definitely recommend doing is, if you're using, like I said, you can

use anything really, you can use a note, like in, you can use a note on Evernote, or the

notes app on your phone or your computer or whatever you want to do, you can use those

things as you go live. Or you can use that as a as a check to make sure that you're actually

checking those things right and you're getting all of it and you're ready to go. You can

you can use a note like that. But you can also if you're live streaming use something

what I call a mechanicals or, or something along the lines of that. So a scene essentially

in your in your profile for your streaming software. And again, I use E cam. But I have

something called infos. I have profile infos. And then I also have a checklist. So I have

this checklist that says, Okay, here's what I want to I want to hide my menu bar, I want

to set to the streaming profile, I want to turn my pro mouse on, I want to do mic check

input, I have a few things that I can go through and make sure that I actually have that ready

to go that I'm that I'm ready to go. So if you're watching on YouTube right now, this

is is part of my list, I'm still working on coming up with a better list for everything.

This is mostly just for streaming, but I'm coming up with a list to everything. But I

keep that as a just as an extra scene in my live streaming software. And so that way I

have it ready to go. And I'm ready to, I'm ready to actually do the thing I'm ready to

actually stream. So now the next thing is okay, so you've checked yourself, which is

great. Now you want to check your guests too, because you if you have guests coming on,

whether that be through zoom or through E cam interview mode, or through stream yard

or through Riverside, or any number of things that you can live stream on, you're going

to want to check check your guests too. And so tech checking your guests means coming

in before the time. So if you're going to go live, and this is really important for

those things, if you're going to go live, right, so those of us who live stream your

audio or video or both, it's important to make sure that we're that we're, if we go

live when we say we're gonna go live, but we want to have our guests there beforehand.

So if you go live at 830, you want to make sure that your guests are going to come on

at 815 and tell them this, tell them that you're not going, you're not going live right

away that you're going to do a check. So we're going to show it for tech check. And this

can be right before the show, or it can be a day before or whatever I recommend before

the show right before the show, because something may have changed. They may be in a different

spot, the lighting may have changed, the mic may come unplugged, you want to, I suggest

doing it right away, like right before the show. And so tell them, hey, come on 15 minutes

beforehand or whatever you decide is the appropriate amount of time for you. But for me, I say

15 minutes. And then what I do is I say, okay, we're gonna check and make sure that your

audio sounds good. We're gonna make sure that you are coming in loud that we're matching

levels that are levels are close to the same on the mixer board. So if you have a mixer

board that has a couple different channels on it, you want to see that you're actually

hitting about the same spot on those mixer boards so that the sound levels are close

to the same when you're done. And then you want to also make sure that they're, that

they fit into your scene. Well, if you're doing video, so make sure that they're centered,

you know, because if you, if they're coming in centered in their camera or off to the

side on their camera, but then you crop their camera down, they're not going to be in the

frame. So there are some things that you can do, you can ask them to adjust or whatever,

but you want to make sure that their levels sound good, that they're not using a wireless

headphones there, that they're gonna be good to go. So anything that you need to make sure

is good to go for your guests, you want to make sure it's good to go for your guests,

right? And so that would be, yeah, making sure that they, they sound good, that they

look good, that everything is good. But then also making sure that they know what, how

the format of your show is going to be. If you're going to talk for 10 or 15 minutes

before you bring them on, let them know that, let them know that they are going to be waiting

10 or 15 minutes, five minutes or whatever. Or if you're going to get right to the interview,

then you get right to the interview. That's, that's more of a flow thing as opposed to

a tech check, but you're going to want to do a tech tech, tech check every time tech

check your equipment, check their equipment every time. And so what that really means

is yeah, making sure that you're good to go, right? I mean, you want to make sure that

you guys are sound the best, your guests sounds the best and knows what to expect. And then

if there's not, you have that time built in there that you can make adjustments. So if

their levels aren't good, you can recommend that they do something else. You can recommend

that they get a different mic or if it's noisy in the environment that they're at, you can

say, Hey, maybe can you like go away from this coffee shop that you're sitting in? Or

can you go away from the area that you are? Can you do this? Can you take the dog out

so that they don't interrupt us or whatever? You're the host. You can tell them how you

want them to sound, right? This is your show. This is your podcast. This is your YouTube

stream. Make sure that they sound good and look the best because really that comes back

on you. That comes back on you to have a great looking show and a great sounding show. So

make sure that they know that and can do that. And then again, I realized that everybody

has different technology. Now they may not have a professional video camera. Heck, in

fact, I don't right now. It's one of the things that I would like to get eventually, but I

don't, I don't have it. But they may not have a professional camera and it may not look

great. So you may want to give them suggestions on how to make their their show look better.

So those are the things that you can do for tech checks. And I recommend you do this every

single episode before you go live because they are gonna they may not be right. They

may not come in good and you want to sound the best for your show. So guys, I can help

you become a better podcaster. I can help you start your podcast. I can help you learn

Ecamm. Ecamm is a software that I use to stream. And right now they're actually having a sale.

And if you want to check it out, you can go to podcastanswers.com/ecamm. That's E-C-A-M-M.

Through the end of July, you get 30% off if you are a first time customer. And so again,

podcastanswers.com/ecamm. That link is also in the show notes to this episode. But you

can get 30% off of an annual or monthly subscription to that. And it is really the best streaming

software. But if you want help learning Ecamm, or learning how to podcast or making your

podcast sound better, you can also hire me to do one on one consulting. And you can find

that over at podcastanswers.com/contact. And that'll get you in contact with me and we

can set up a time to do a one on one zoom call so that I can help get your podcast set

up.

Great, because I love helping people do their podcasts. So guys, if you have any questions,

feel free to hit me up. I love to help people get their podcasts going. And again, this

is why I do this show. Because I've been podcasting since 2007. And I love it. And I think everyone

should be doing a podcast. And so if you want to get your podcast started, contact me again.

You can contact me at podcastanswers.com/contact. And that'll get you in contact with me and

we can set up a one on one consulting.

So guys, I just really encourage you to go out there and see what you can do this week

to make your podcast better. And then doing a tech check will help that. And so go ahead

and do your tech check. Have a great week. Keep podcasting.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

(upbeat music)