Podcasting 101

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Equipment

I’m often asked what equipment you need to start a podcast. Here’s my list:

  • Microphone – This will be your best investment. If your audio sounds lousy, people will turn it off. Plan to spend between $100-$300+ on a quality microphone.

    • There are many kinds of mikes: but the main question is: where are you going to plug it in? If it’s your computer, you want a mike with a USB plug. If you’re planning to record 2 people in the same room at the same time, or go out into the field to record your audio, you’ll need mikes with an XLR output that can plug into a mixing board or digital recorder.

    • Here are some good brands for mikes: Rode, Shure, Electrovoice, Audiotechnica

  • Mike screen – you don’t want to pop your p’s

  • Recording device - how are you going to record it? You’ll need a computer or digital recorder. You may need a mixing board. For remote recording, the voice memo app on a smartphone is pretty darned good. There’s also software out there to help, like Talk Sync. PLEASE don’t use zoom or call record UNLESS YOU HAVE NO CHOICE.

  • Editing - there are lots of editing software choices: Protools, Garage Band, David, Adobe Audition, etc. The easiest is Audacity. NOTE: editing is the ultimate time suck. You can also hire an editor.

  • Hosting – where will your podcast live? You can put it on your website, but you need a way to put it out into the podcast player world. There are lots of podcasting hosting services: Anchor, podbean, Blubrry, Beansprout, and Libsyn

  • But what do you use, Kitty? Most of my recording is done “in the field,” so I use either an EV 635 or an AT835b shotgun microphone. I use an ancient Marantz portable recorder (bought used on EBay. When I record into my computer (mostly for Zoom presentations) I use an ATR2100x. It also has the flexibility of having both a USB and XLR plug. I own a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 interface, but rarely use it.

  • Do you teach this stuff, Kitty? I do. Your library or community group can hire me to teach a remote or in-person class.