Equipment

First of all, if you haven’t read the How to Podcast Tutorial – do that first. Seriously, do it now and then come back and read the rest. It’ll all make more sense to you. Plus, he’s got a FANTASTIC tutorial on how to use Audacity that will make you an expert (as much of an expert as you need to be) in minutes.

__________

I’m getting a lot of email recently from people that are interested in how we put out such a good sounding podcast. And by “good” I mean “extraneous noise free.” Rather than answering the same question over and over, I’m going to go ahead and list it all here for easy access. Remember, I may be neurotic about audio quality, but I am far from an expert on equipment. Most of this was suggested by Clint (who works with me at Audioholics). You are only a few Internet searches away from a slew of alternative equipment choices including complete podcasting kits. Any one of these may be the one for you. It all depends on your level of expertise and willingness to learn. The advantage of my setup is that it is mostly portable and powered by the USB port on my computer and that it has good fidelity. The downside is that it isn’t the cheapest rig and the sensitive mics are both unforgiving of bad (reflective) rooms and delicate (so don’t throw them around). The other big drawback with my setup is that it isn’t really easily expandable to more than two mics (Edit - see Edit 1 at the bottom for a possible solution). It can be done but not without buying additional equipment.

What you basically need to podcast is something to pick up your voice and get it into the computer. There are a number of ways to do this but we use an M-Audio Fast Track USB Pro, Audio Technica AT2020 mics (there is a USB version but we wouldn’t want that in this application), an Alesis 3630 compressor, and some accessories. The M-Audio is essentially an external soundcard/preamp. The way you hook all this up is the M-Audio to the computer via USB, the mics are plugged into the front of the M-Audio, and there is a cable that runs out of the back of the M-Audio to the compressor. Essentially, the M-Audio is USB powered though you can plug it in if you need to. The M-Audio is cool because the mics are condenser type and need power. But the M-Audio can power them all from your USB port! This makes this whole setup very portable. When we did our camping podcasts, we took everything but the compressor.

A compressor is a piece of equipment that I think is absolutely imperative. Essentially what it does is truncate loud sounds. So if you are talking normally, it does nothing. But if you start yelling it brings down the volume closer to your normal speaking voice. This prevent clipping (which you may recognize in other podcasts as when a loud sound suddenly sounds staticy) and forcing your listeners to keep changing the volume as you laugh and whisper. The Alesis 3630 compressor needs wall power and is connected to the M-Audio by what is called an insert cable or TRS to mono “Y” cable. I’ve linked it up so that you can see but just in case that link goes dead, it has a 1/4 inch plug at one end and two at the other. The two are labeled “ring” and “tip.” The tip is plugged into the input and the ring is plugged into the output. The other side is plugged into the TRS output on the M-Audio. Setting the compressor will take a little doing so take your time, do some research, and know that in the end, it will be worth it.

The Audio Technica AT2020 mics are pretty much universally regarded as a great “bang-for-buck” microphone. As I mentioned, they are a condenser type. The other type that is out there is a dynamic mic. I personally prefer the condenser types because they have a flatter frequency response and sound more natural (to my ears). The dynamic mics never sound that realistic to me (though that’s probably more due to the quality of the mics that other podcasts use rather than inherent to the mic type) but they are far more durable. Dynamic mics also tend to be a bit more forgiving than condenser mics of louder environments.

Which brings us to the room. The reason why our stuff sounds so good in general is because 1) I’m neurotic and take a lot more time editing out odd noises even if it means I lose some content and 2) we have a room dedicated to podcasting. Essentially, we used absorptive panels usually used for home theater in mass quantities. The room is so dead (no echoes) that many people don’t even like to be in here for too long. They say it sounds like their ears need to pop. Doesn’t bother me. You can read about the room here. That’s obviously a costly solution (and not very attractive) but there are other options. Before we had the room done, we would just put a pillow or something around three sides of the mic and then lean in to talk. Tanel didn’t like that because she wanted to look at me while talking. I’ve set up something similar across a table with a pillow between the two mics. Putting up a little absorption on the walls in your room will make a big difference though. Too many podcasts out there (and some of them top rated on Podcast Alley) sound like they are recorded in an echo chamber with 25 cent mics. I can’t listen to them at all.

There are some accessories you’re going to need. Do searches for pop filters, mic stands, XLR cables, and the like. Don’t constantly look for the cheapest deal either. A lot of times you end up paying more in the long run replacing cheap equipment than you would have if you had just ponied up for the good stuff in the beginning. Reading the comments can be a help but remember that these people could be just anyone. Just because they say it doesn’t make it true. For example, I bought a shock mount (the Samson Audio SP01) for my mics (a great idea if you or your partner talks with their hands) which was actually for another mic. The guy in the comments section said “they fit perfectly with my AT2020 mics.” Well, his idea of perfect and mine are slightly different as there was a gap and the mic flopped around a bit. Kind of defeats the whole purpose of the shock mount. A little rubber insulation tape later and the problem was fixed. Had I known this was the problem, I probably would have bought the shock mount anyhow but that’s beside the point.

Lastly, don’t forget you’re going to need some sort of editing software. Lots of people use Audacity and I can say that it is pretty good overall and GREAT for the price (free). I’ve also used Pro Tools which is around $500 and is considerably better but for podcasting, you’ll be fine with Audacity. Personally, I save all my files twice – one as a wav and one as an mp3. Why? Wavs are uncompressed which means a) the files are HUGE and b) they are exactly copies of the originals. You then save an mp3 at whatever compression you want. Lots of people use 96k though I think that the sound quality is unacceptable. 128k is probably the minimum I would use though because of cost we use 112k.

Don’t forget you are going to need somewhere you host your website and store your podcast. I use Wordpress though I will be the first to admit that it is frustrating at times. There are two ways to do it; you can have them host it for you or host it off site. We do the latter. It’s great if you don’t mind getting all techy with it because of its flexibility but when things go wrong, they often go catastrophically wrong. Finding the right theme is not much of a problem but modifying that theme so that it does exactly what you want it to do can be an exercise in aggravation. Blogger and others are getting better about hosting podcasts but so far, Wordpress is the best. You’ll need a service that (hopefully) will host AND install/update Wordpress for you and a service to host your podcasts. For that, we use Libsyn and just call the podcasts to our site. While you can do your whole website at Libsyn, my cursory experience with their website solutions lead me to believe that they are woefully inadequate.

I could go on and on but I’ll stop here. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. My setup, stands, equipment, and everything (except the room treatments which I didn’t pay for) probably cost around $400-$500 for enough equipment for Tanel and me. That’s pricey but not too bad considering some of the kits you see out there. The one drawback that I can see right now is that there is really no way to add an additional mic or two to the setup without adding a mixer. I’m considering that because of having more and more of our friends interested in joining us. I’ll update this page as my gear changes.

Tom

Edit 1 - I was surfing around the net looking for multiple mic solutions and I found something fairly affordable. It seems the ART ProMIX might be just what the doctor ordered. It will basically expand one of the inputs on the M-Audio to three. It runs on wall or battery power (cool – transportable) and can be found for less than $90! It has phantom power which means it will work with the mics. Pretty good deal overall. Not sure how it sounds but it looks like it should work. The problem will be that the compressor is connected up to that one channel so it will be global for all the people on that input. You’re going to want to be VERY CAREFUL to level match everyone with the ProMIX BEFORE you hit record as it will be impossible to do in post production. Here’s another option from Rolls for ~$150 that gives you a little more functionality and and extra mic.