How to Start a Podcast

Podcast recording: setup and record your podcast

• Buzzsprout • Season 1 • Episode 5

Share episode

In Episode 05 of How to Start a Podcast, you'll learn how to set up and record a professional podcast from the comfort of your own home.

Next Steps:

Gilon:

Welcome back to How to Record No. Sorry, we can't record your voice episode Welcome back to How To Start A Podcast. I am Gilon.

Alban:

And I'm Alban. And in this episode, we are going to record your first episode. So far we have done everything to pick out the concept, the format, we picked out, hopefully some equipment and had it set to your house. And now we are ready to record your first episode.

Gilon:

Yeah, so recording your first episode is not as simple as hitting the record button at all.

Alban:

Right? There's definitely things you can be doing the save yourself a lot of time later, a lot of the tips we're going to give you in this episode, you're going to thank yourself for listening to them when you're editing the episode. Because as every sound, an audio engineer will tell you, every bit of work you put in on the front end, you're going to save your editor, probably you a ton of time.

Gilon:

So think of your future self and do this work for future you. First things first an outline, why would we want to start with an outline? Isn't that just gonna like slow us down? We just need to be recording, why do we need an outline?

Alban:

So have you ever gone to one of those meetings where you're not exactly sure why the meeting was called? And then like 45 minutes into it, then an hour into it? And it's kind of going on? And then eventually it lets out. And you're like, did we talk about anything important? The reason that meeting didn't go well is because there wasn't an agenda. If there's an agenda, everybody knows, here's the topics we've got to talk about. Here's what we need to work through, here's what we need to discuss, here's the conversation we need to have. Well podcast is the exact same way. If we are not writing down, here's what we're trying to cover, then it's very easy to meander and actually miss the most important things we had to say

Gilon:

definitely and beyond just not listening to someone meander, because my goodness, I don't know that I could continue listening to that for 45 minutes, you also miss or potentially miss some really important real estate for your podcast, right? If you don't set your intentions with your outline, you might miss introducing yourself, you might miss your intro, you might miss your call to action. So making sure that you'd have some sort of format that you're following ensures that you hit the high points, as well as the important opportunities along the way.

Alban:

So if you have an outline, it doesn't need to be a script, you know, a script, which is written for like TV shows is verbatim what's probably going to be in the final version, you know, and there's some you can play with it a little bit. An outline, like the outline we wrote for this episode does not have to be that long. I'm looking at it right now we have eight bullet points. And each of them is just a phrase. The first bullet point, by the way, is write an outline. So you don't have to be super in depth. Instead, you're just making sure, here are the things that are important, the order in which they should be talked about that way, you know, okay, we're transitioning the conversation, and the more people you have, the more important it is to have everyone on the same page for what you're going to talk about.

Gilon:

And I think along the lines of making sure you have an order, some things really need to be laid out in a specific order. Sometimes you can hop around when you're just free flowing, and people aren't able to follow your thought or the natural progression of the information you're presenting. And so even just having an outline to keep you on track for how you want this information to be presented, does wonders for the flow of your audio so that listeners can know exactly what it is you're trying to convey. If you

Alban:

are entering into a conversation, and you know, some of what you want to talk about, it's very easy to miss the very basic points that are critical to people understanding. Imagine you're teaching someone how to play baseball. And the first thing you need to tell them is their innings. And we're trying to score runs. And here's how we score runs. If you jump in and say here is how to catch a ball, and here's how you know, base running techniques, people are not gonna understand why that's important. So if you were writing the outline for teaching the game of baseball, you would first start out with is this a competitive game. And here's how you win it. In the same vein, write down the main points, make sure they're in the most logical order. And then we talk through the outline with your co host before hitting record.

Gilon:

Gotcha. So we ready to hit record. Now.

Alban:

I hope you've already hit record on this exact episode.

Gilon:

So you've done your outline, right? And you might be thinking, Alright, perfect record. Well, you got to set your stuff up and you've got to find a place to set your stuff up. I'm just imagining people walking around with like a computer and a mic. Where are you going to go? You're homeless? podcaster so where are we going? Where should we like plant our stuff to record our audio?

Alban:

So there's a lot of considerations when picking the right place to record a lot of we're gonna be obvious, but we'll say them anyway. The first is we want to get stuff a lot, a lot of background noise. And so be mindful of things like Hey, am I in the room that's right next to the laundry room and maybe someone's you know, running something in the washing machine, maybe spincycle and shake the wall. Am I nearby kids that are running around? Is somebody mowing the lawn outside, if any background noises that are going to be nearby, try to minimize them, maybe go and talk to people in your house and say, Hey, I'm going to be recording for the next hour ish. So if you could do your best to not walk in or interrupt, I would greatly appreciate it.

Gilon:

And I would also add, like time of day, right? So you mentioned talking to the people in your home, I would wait until everybody in my house went to sleep. Just because sometimes even though I've said to you, I am going to be recording this podcast, that doesn't mean that you're going to stop having loud conversations in the kitchen that my mic somehow still picked up. Right? So timing is not a hypothetical, no, this is completely as never happened to me, I don't know, I'm just spitballing here. But yeah, it's time of day, you know, if you live near a really busy street, and it's just really hard to not get that road noise, you might want to pick a day or time of day that you're not susceptible to all of that road noise. So just being mindful of the environment, people outside noises, all of that it's really important one other considerations.

Alban:

So what we've talked about there is minimizing background noise, which is going to make the editing a lot easier. Other is sound treatment, making sure that your own voice is going to come through as clear as possible. And so the things that you want to be thinking about are what we would call sound treatment, you probably aren't going to be in more of a studio environment, you're not going to have all the sound dampening stuff on the walls. But you can find a room with carpet, you can find a room with lots of furniture, lots of things that are soft, or want to soak up sound so you don't get the echoey reverb sound from the room.

Gilon:

So the big thing is to kind of avoid a place that has lots of hard surfaces because hard surfaces allow sound to bounce off and ricochet like crazy. For instance, carpeted rooms, like you said, if you maybe I don't know recording the closet, that would be a great place. Right? Right. We could do that.

Alban:

We need to put this in the show notes. But during the beginning of COVID, when we had all the lockdowns, Jalon actually filmed a bunch of YouTube videos in her walking closet. And I just remember it because so many people left comments about it like, hey, that's actually where I record, it's where I get the best audio quality, and where I know it won't be disturbed. And all the hanging clothes, they soak up so much noise. So not only were you getting compliments on the location, you had some gobble that's on the actual clothes sitting in the background.

Gilon:

People like where'd you get that shirt from that super, I think I have a shirt. Great top. I love it. Okay, so let's say we've picked a spot, right? We've minimize background noise. We've talked to all the people, we're soaking up sound, we've set our stuff down, how do we connect it,

Alban:

the best thing we can recommend is whatever microphone you bought, go type it into YouTube and say, Samson, q2, you set up and watch a video about how to actually set it up the software that you pick, go watch the setup for how to record with that software. It's not that these things are too hard for you to figure out. But we want you to feel so comfortable with what it looks like how to approach it, that you're not spending your brain space thinking about Did I hit record? And I plug that in? Right? Oh, I think our audio is off. If you're thinking about that during the podcast recording, you're not going to be thinking about the flow of the conversation and paying close attention to your guests.

Gilon:

And I definitely when I started started with YouTube videos like okay, how does this get connected? How do I make sure that I'm listening to my actual microphone through these headphones? YouTube was the way that I did it. And I really recommend people doing it step by step, right? So looking up the microphone that you have in the computer that you have and just Googling like, Hey, what is the Samsung cue to you, you know, paired with a MacBook Pro, how do I set that up. And then even doing that with your editing software, right, there's specific ways to set up your editing software, so that you can have a master tracks all the presets, settings, all that good stuff is already set up for you. And do it like with your product. You can watch it one time, but then also do it step by step so that you get that hands on learning. You know, when you do it yourself, you're able to then kind of be more comfortable and it won't be like your first time at the rodeo when you go to record your first episode.

Alban:

So we'll give you now kind of the checklist. These are the things to think about when you're setting up just so you don't make the big mistakes. We'll start at the microphone. The microphone itself needs to be turned on in some instances. So if your microphone has an on off switch, turn it to the on position, you might have an LED light that lights up so you should have a cable going directly from that microphone into your computer. If you're recording with multiple people, they're going to be running through an audio interface like that FocusRite Scarlett to itu we talked about earlier, or maybe the road caster Pro which we are recording with right now. So you're going to have your microphones that will either plug in to the audio interface, or probably into your computer. You need to make sure your input is set to the right microphone, so it's not annoying. Common just happened to me plenty of times where you start recording, and then you go and you look and you're recording the entire time on your computer microphone. So check that and make sure the input device on the recording software is set to the microphone, the plugged in. Definitely,

Gilon:

those are all really important as well as hitting the record button. Because who hasn't missed hitting the record button, right. So we've got our setup, we've got our mic and our computer, let's talk about software. So that what's a really important thing to do when it comes to our editing software.

Alban:

Well, the big one there is recording separate tracks. So I put out a thread on Twitter about how to set up zoom recordings. And one of the tips was make sure you record separate tracks. And it was like the biggest giveaway, who the audio editors were that they were all retweeting that tip because your audio editors are all living in a world where people give them a single track with a bunch of voices. The problem there is you now have one waveform, and it's somebody coughs that is overtop of all the voices and stuff they actually want to leave in. And the first episode that we recorded a few days ago, hopefully everybody has already listened to, we noticed we had a lot of moments where we are like, kind of talking and affirming each other saying let's uh, yeah, I agree with that. And it kind of didn't help the flow of the conversation most Right, right. And so we just went back, and we deleted those little bits out was super easy. Because we had suit two separate waveforms, one waveform was just my voice, and one waveform was yours. So we could go in and clip all the points where I did that. And instead, now we have a clean audio file that doesn't have those mistakes,

Gilon:

like recording separate tracks is a game changer for editing. Again, think about your future self and how your future self will feel having to edit a single track with multiple voices, and people likely coughing. So recording separate tracks is really important. So we've sat down, we've got our setup physically, as well as software wise, and we've got our microphone in front of us, how should our microphone be set? How should we be sitting, these are all really important pieces. Also to recording your audio.

Alban:

Yeah, we want to get our voices to sound as good as possible. We're trying to avoid a few different things. One is there's a few noises you can make with a microphone that you don't hear real life. They're called plosives, or like sibilant SS. So the S sound can get a little hissy inside of a microphone, just the way they're set up. And a plosive is that sound. And what's happening is a lot of air leaves your mouth, and it hits the capsule in the microphone. And it kind of makes this boom sound. And those aren't things you would hear in real life. But there are things you will hear when you're using a microphone to record ears are shaped differently than microphone capsules. So how do we avoid those, you avoid those with the pop filter. So we already have a pop filter, kind of that squishy thing on the microphone, it diffuses the sound waves are all the air that's coming out of your mouth. And you can also rotate your microphone, so it's a little off access rather than pointing directly into your mouth. It's kind of at an angle. So you're talking kind of past the end of the microphone.

Gilon:

And then the other thing you want to make sure as far as seating and posture is that you're about 445 ish, four to three ish, a hand space, away from your microphone, right. So you kind of avoid those plosives but also sitting straight up so that you're speaking from your cleared out body diaphragm, your diaphragm, but you want to have good posture, right, you want to be sitting so that you're not cramped down on your stomach or your chest isn't caved in. You just want to have a nice good straight posture in front of your microphone and kind of be about three to four finger width apart from your mic.

Alban:

Sitting up is really important for me, I know that if I'm not using a boom arm that allows the mic to sit up close to my mouth fully up. Well then I end up hunching over, your energy drops. And you're really just kind of start sounding a little bit more high pitched rather than a full body voice. The other thing is, you're talking about four finger width subpart, which is perfect, but then we're trying to keep that consistent through the whole recording. I know a lot of times you can get in a habit of like drifting away from the microphone. So I'm gonna start doing some of these you start drifting away from the microphone and then you start realizing like how different it sounds. When you get a little bit of distance from the mic. Also, you're just like laughing and having a good time. Some people have very intense laughs and if you're getting really intense laughs right into the mic or you start shouting or getting intense. Well, now you are running into clipping and that's where the audio is maxed out. If you look at like the little volume controller, it's going all the way to red, it's hitting the top and even then if we bring the Audio down. And editing, it's still not going to have the like characteristic of a voice because we've lost a lot of that audio data. And then some

Gilon:

other kind of asides your device, put your device on Do Not Disturb. Okay, sometimes you'll get a text right in the middle of recording, and you got that thing now in your audio, and that'll mess things up. And then being mindful of your hands, if you're like, tapping on the table where your mic is, or you put your elbow down, that noise is also going to come through. So whenever you can be as mindful as possible to kind of keep your hands away from wherever your mic mic is sitting, and have your devices on Do Not Disturb

Alban:

kind of in that vein jewelry that's like dangling. So sometimes earrings can be bumping into the mic, and that will make noise, I have a jacket that kind of makes odd noise if I'm wearing that. So I just cannot wear it when I'm doing a recording. So just notice, that's why we've got the headphones on, right. Like we're noticing the way we sound and we're catching any mistakes or fidgeting or anything we're doing in real time. So that we only have to worry about editing that out once not editing it out a dozen times. And on that

Gilon:

note, we really encourage you to record a test track, you don't want all the pressure of being mindful of all of these things we've mentioned, sticking with your outline and having a place that's quiet and making sure there's no one mowing the lawn and make sure everything is hooked up and connected. And oh, did I hit record. Also, this is my interview and I need to not blow it like that can be a lot of pressure. But you can sort of get to that pressure off of yourself. If you record a test track, it could be a whole walkthrough of your first episode or your trailer, or it could just be a few minutes where you're able to kind of monitor this is how it works. Okay, the sound is on I hear myself, Oh, that sounds too loud, or I've got those plosives Alban was talking about, that's a really good moment for you to try things out to get a feel for recording. And then to be able to make some adjustments for your real episode,

Alban:

it can be just as small as a minute, so that you listen, you go, Oh, my mics a little hot, it's a little too high, I actually have somebody who might be using the wrong input device. So they're not actually using their microphone, we're actually getting some sound bleed, it's because some he's not wearing headphones, like, all of those things become very apparent when you do the test track. So we record short test tracks when we're doing this. And we definitely recommend it for you. And then the last thing is whatever recording software you have, will allow you to export your file. So if you record on Zoom, or squad cast Riverside are just on your own editing software, all those you can export the file, if you do record it in a audio editing software. So let's say in GarageBand, we don't have to export until after we've edited so we would talk about that part in the next episode,

Gilon:

right? But we will say whenever you go to export your audio file, we recommend using either an mp3 or a WAV file, those work really well with Buzzsprout. We can take an mp4, but it's it's a pretty large file. It's pretty chunky dude. So it takes a while a chunky file, chunky file to begin. And so you just want to export in an audio file format so that you can upload to whatever your hosting site is, after you've edited and done all that good stuff.

Alban:

WAV files are really good, but they're really big NP threes are just super compatible across everything on the internet. And they're pretty lightweight. So those are like the two we recommend everything you throw Buzzsprout we will take it but those are like optimal for when you're exporting. So we've talked a lot now about how to record how to pick the right spot, what to do beforehand how to prep your guests, everything. Well now it is time for you to hit the record button. If you're still feeling a little intimidated, we've got lots of resources for you. So Travis, what should people be thinking about before they hit that record?

Travis:

So I've got two really great videos and a blog post that I think everyone listening to this episode should go and check out the first one is actually kind of a funny video so I took it upon myself to see if I could make the Samsung Q to you or go to recommendation for new podcasters for a microphone if I can make it sound like a Shure SM seven B and did like a head to head audio test battle thing and you'll see me demonstrate all those mic techniques and different strategies that Alban Jalon covered in this video so if you want to get a visual of what a good distance away from the microphone looks like, if you want to see what speaking of access looks like and all the different things that are involved in helping your microphone sound as awesome as possible, definitely go and check out this video. We also put together a video on how to record a podcast remotely and while in this episode, we talked a lot about getting ready to record and doing test recordings and things like that that video especially if you're planning on using zoom or Riverside or squad cast when these long distance recording solutions that will walk you through the settings that you'll want to have set up ahead of time. So when you go to record your podcast, it sounds awesome. And then if you're looking for some low cost ways to help treat your space, the place where you When I record your podcast, whether it is a walk in closet, or a home office or a spare bedroom or something like that, there's a blog post we have with a bunch of ideas for acoustic treatment for your podcast. So really easy things you can do to improve the sound quality of your podcast and reduce some of that nasty reverb. So, two videos to go watch one blog to read, and you'll be all set to record your podcast.

Gilon:

Thanks so much, Travis. So now that you have those resources, you've got a little bit of homework. Before you come back to our next episode. Make sure you look at those things. Get yourself set up, have the questions, ask the questions, do all that good stuff. But our next episode will be about editing your audio, which is super exciting. Make sure you come back it's not super intimidating, you can do this. So we'll be talking about the gold editing some tips for editing pointers, all that good stuff, you're going to want to make sure that you don't miss that. So be sure to come back for Episode Six. And as always keep by casting See y'all there.