Church of the Customer Blog
« What makes for a good podcast? | Main | BzzAgent transparency »
May 11, 2005
What makes for a good podcast?
Talk about the potential of podcasting: Jeff from Allstate emailed us to say he listened to our most recent podcast at Wrigley Field in Chicago while waiting for the start of a Cubs game.
Content portability is one of the many persuasive arguments about the power of podcasting. One of its chief difficulties is, and always will be, creating compelling content.
What's a bit easier is assembling the technology behind it. Since we have received quite a few emails inquiring about our podcasting toolset, we decided it could make for a helpful blog post. (If you are one of those people who had emailed me a technical question and I didn't respond, I can only say my dog ate it. And, I'm a bit of an email laggard.)
For our podcast "studio," we opted for what might be considered a mid- to high-range solution: professional-quality microphones, a mobile recording device, and excellent audio editing software. There are vastly less-expensive set-ups
available than what we use, but for several hundred bucks, your podcast quality is goosed
incrementally as well as the ability to edit your work.
The theology behind our podcast is unabashedly NPR-like. I'm a huge fan of NPR (Robert Siegel, you are my
hero!), so we unshyly emulate the NPR show model. That
means 10-minute segments in a 30-minute show, musical interludes and advance planning.
To make our NPR aping come alive, we use (prices are approximate):
Microphones:
Audio Technica AT3035
$199
An excellent in-studio (read: home office) mic; makes voices sound richer. If you're an amatuer musician, this baby is rock-star quality.
$79
A good mobile mic and excellent for keeping out
extraneous noise surrounding the person speaking into it.
Edirol UA-25
$239
It's not the most beautiful-looking piece of equipment
ever designed, but it seems like it could stop a bullet (good if you're at
Bloggercon caught between Dave Winer and a vendor). The beauty of this gadget?
It operates using the power of a USB connection from your laptop. It will also
take two mics... perfect for interviews, or capturing the sounds of a
completely unnecessary Bloggercon spat.
iRiver iFP-895 mp3 player/recorder
$139
This gadget is slightly bigger than a cigar lighter, but
it packs a lot more fire. Powered by one AA battery, the iRiver can capture
about 90 minutes of high-res audio. I much prefer this than recording directly
to a PC or Mac. Adam Curry says he no longer records his podcasts directly to
his laptop because of "too many heartbreaks of a computer crash in
mid-show."
Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit Pro)
$299
It can take months to explore the zillions of features in
this high-end program but for editing sound down to the micro-second level, Audition
rocks. It lets you work at a high-resolution level and save down to lower
bit-rates. There are oodles of filters for eliminating rumbles, pops and other
extraneous noises. I also use it edit the length of the musical interludes.
Now, if it just had a "ummm" or "ahhhhh" remover...
Free, baby!
I use iTunes to insert the mp3 ID tags into the file,
including a custom-created picture that would normally go where the CD cover
image resides.
Conference Calls Unlimited
Various plans available
The beauty of this set up is that all of the tools and
software are available for PC and Macs, and I often work seamlessly between the two.
Other blogs that reference What makes for a good podcast?:
You just made my day! Thank you - this is extremely useful. Now, I need to get my feet wet making a podcast!
Betsy -- Be sure to let me know when you unveil your podcast/screencast show.
All great advice! Having been involved in recording engineering for 20 years now, it's been interesting to witness home recording boom... and now podcasting is making engineers of the most unlikely people.
While decent equipment is a good start (but not necessary), the most valuable asset is knowing decent mic techniques, a bit of how to set input levels and compression (essential!), and a general knowledge of digital audio. Oh... and "popper-stopper" windscreens will save your recording when folks get excited about the topic at hand.
Amazon.com has many good books on the basics of home recording, and MusiciansFriend.com has all the gadgets at great prices.
Trevor, decent mic techniques and input levels are a key technical challenge for us. It seems we struggle with those every time (but incrementally improve with every session).
And I neglected to include our wind screen equipment in the list. Good catch.
