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Can You Really Sound Pro Without Paying Pro Prices? · Your Mic

• 0:00
  The technology is so cheap, but the quality is so good.
• 0:03
  You don't ever need to settle for anything less than good.
• 0:08
  You can have a great sounding mic for 100 to 150 bucks.
• 0:12
  We had our hop-on Riverside with...
• 0:15
  And you would have never guessed that I was using microphone that's less than 100 bucks
• 0:20
  in between audio recorded with a $400.
• 0:24
  Having great audio is all about self-respect.
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  Not just respect for your audience, and not just respect for the host.
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  If nobody's going to respect your show, if you can't even respect the audio,
• 0:36
  I have avoided this very topic like the plague because I just never felt like...
• 0:42
  I needed to go there, but apparently I do.
• 0:47
  Welcome back to your mic.
• 0:48
  My name is Freddie Cruise Founder of Speak Podcasting.
• 0:51
  If you want to chant pods, hit me up Freddie at SpeakPodcasting.com.
• 0:56
  And back to the gospel of poor audio for one second.
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  I just want you to pretend that you're listening to a late-night sermon,
• 1:05
  not watching anything, but you're listening.
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  Your eyes are closed, and you're pretending as if you are right there
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  on the first floor, listening to the preacher preach.
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  He's reading from Scripture.
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  You can hear the passion in his voice.
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  It's your maybe it's your favorite verse.
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  Thing is, it sounds like he's shouting through a pillow.
• 1:27
  Oh I'm sorry, if you're not watching, and you're listening, I was covering my mouth.
• 1:34
  It sounds like he's shouting through a pillow.
• 1:36
  You know, he's shouting through a pillow.
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  Not good.
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  Definitely not good.
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  And when it comes to audio, the reason why I have been avoiding this subject
• 1:52
  for so long is because the technology has gotten to a point where it's so just
• 1:59
  as much as I hate the word cheap, the technology is so cheap, but the quality is so good.
• 2:05
  You don't ever need to settle for anything less than good.
• 2:11
  You can have a great sounding mic for 100 to 150 bucks for speak podcasting's clients
• 2:19
  and record remote interviews.
• 2:20
  We rely heavily on the ATR 2100X.
• 2:24
  Not only do you not need some sort of external machine to connect to.
• 2:30
  You connect that ATR 2100X, by the way, they are not a sponsor of speak podcasting
• 2:34
  or me for any cruise.
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  We just love the product.
• 2:39
  You connect it to your laptop or tablet or desktop and rock and roll.
• 2:45
  And this is how amazing the ATR sounds.
• 2:51
  A couple of years ago, I was editing a podcast episode for one of our flagship clients,
• 2:57
  the Rose Breast Center of Excellence.
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  Their show is let's talk about your breasts.
• 3:01
  And there was a mispronunciation of one of the guest's names.
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  And I wasn't able to make it to the Rose's office in Southeast Houston in time to capture
• 3:13
  the audio with my Sure SM7B microphones.
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  That's the mic that we love using for in-person recordings.
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  So we had Dorothy, who's the co-founder and CEO and the host of the podcast.
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  We had her hop on Riverside with her ATR 2100X, record the name.
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  And then in Pro Tools, I imported Dorothy saying the name and with my audio chain, which
• 3:43
  consists of a Renaissance EQ 6 equalizer and some compression and a limiter.
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  And you would have never guessed that I was using a microphone that's less than 100 bucks
• 3:57
  in between audio recorded with a $400 Sure SM7B microphone.
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  And that, my friend, is just how great that microphone is, but it's not the only mic.
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  I've got industry peers who love other models.
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  And we're not going to laundry list every single mic, but you can do your homework.
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  You can go up on Amazon and search for a podcast mic that is less than 100 bucks.
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  You can just rock and roll.
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  You don't have to settle for default zoom audio.
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  You don't have to settle for your default desktop audio.
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  You don't have to settle for a $20 lav mic that you bought on Amazon because you wanted
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  to try and have something quote unquote professional.
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  Take the investment and when you are hosting a podcast, your listeners, especially if
• 4:55
  your show is an extension of your business, your listeners are going to take you that much
• 5:00
  more serious because they're going to hear that you invested enough time in capital,
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  not very much capital, into the sound of your show.
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  And if you're a guest on somebody's podcast, it behooves you to make that same investment,
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  especially if you're using guessing as a brand strategy for your business that if somebody
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  is willing to share their audience with you and use that time dedicated to you and the
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  value that you bring to their audience and their show, well, the least you could do is
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  invest in a mic that sounds great.
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  It's not even a hundred bucks, not even close to a hundred bucks.
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  So if you're going to be recording an episode as a guest on somebody's podcast, you can
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  quite literally buy something on a Wednesday morning and get it by that following Thursday
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  evening, spend about 30 minutes learning how to connect it and adjust the levels and all
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  that other sort of hoo ha.
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  And then that next day was Friday, that next Friday morning, if you got a recording, boom.
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  You are set, you are taken care of.
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  It's just that easy.
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  And so when you really think about it, when you really think about audio quality and
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  I'm not trying to be precious here, but when you think about audio quality and we're going
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  back to investing the time in the capital that is necessary for making your show sound
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  not just good, but professional, what does that tell you?
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  It tells you, it tells your audience, it signals to these people who might be prospective
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  clients, customers of your business, whether it's a service or an actual product, especially
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  if you're B to B.
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  And these people that have been following you on LinkedIn, they're going to know having
• 7:04
  great audio is all about self-respect, not just respect for your audience and not just
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  respect for the host if you are deploying your talent to other people's audience.
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  It's a matter of self-respect as well and nobody's going to respect your show if you can't
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  even respect the audio and I hate that I'm even having this talk because there are some
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  podcasts out there with far less than stellar audio but good content.
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  And I'll use an example, there are a couple of really big-name business people who experiment
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  with different sounds and these are people who speak at large conferences and so they'll
• 8:01
  use their keynote speeches as audio for their podcast.
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  And so it kind of sounds like they are in a large auditorium because they likely are.
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  You get that reverb in the crowd noise and it doesn't sound like they're in studio.
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  So the quality is far different from an intimate studio setting and so just remember that if
• 8:31
  you're going to take that risk and use that audio, tread very lightly and make sure that
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  it's at least somewhat dressed up in post-production and not just using the raw audio from whatever
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  file you get via Dropbox or Google or what have you.
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  There's another podcast host who's worth quite literally hundreds of millions of dollars
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  who had people call into a show and I could almost guarantee you, I was listening to the
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  audio version, I'm sure it's on YouTube somewhere but it sounded as if he was taking live calls
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  and he was holding his phone to the microphone and that was how they were playing back the
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  collars into a show.
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  Now I've worked in broadcast radio for 25 years up until 2021 and I can assure you that
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  the technology has not changed.
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  There are dedicated phone lines and there's a certain process for airing collars on any
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  kind of a show.
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  I've got a roadcaster board that we use in studio and then we deploy it whenever we record
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  remote interviews at our client's offices.
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  That was not using any sort of tool that is professional grade and so when you hear these
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  top ranked business people, these world class entrepreneurs, they can get away with doing
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  this because of who they are.
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  Let me backtrack that and say it again.
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  They can do this, use bad audio and know that they can get away with it because of who
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  they are.
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  The content, objectively speaking, great, the audio quality, not so much and so if you're
• 10:42
  going to take that kind of a creative risk with your audio and maybe you're not even
• 10:47
  a year into it, possibly less than 25 episodes into your podcast journey, you'll definitely
• 10:55
  want to tread lightly.
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  So what do we learn here?
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  Bad audio can happen to good podcasters but it never has to be this way.
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  It just doesn't for less than a hundred bucks.
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  I'm currently recording this episode on a Tuesday which is going to go out in about a week
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  and a half from the time of the recording and I can tell you right now I can go home,
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  order a mic for less than a hundred bucks on Amazon, have it delivered in 24 hours,
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  learn how to use it, it'll sound good, I don't need an external device to connect to,
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  connect it to my iPad, connect it to my desktop, rock and roll in less than 30 minutes.
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  It's just that easy and there's absolutely no excuse for it.
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  The end of the day, good sound doesn't just prove that you're a professional, it means
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  you care.
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  And that my friend is the cost of entry when it comes to embarking on your podcast journey.
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  Thanks so much for listening to this episode of your mic.
• 12:18
  If you have any questions, please hit me up on Instagram, on LinkedIn, on Facebook and
• 12:24
  shoot me an email, Freddy with a Y at SpeakPodcasting.com, till next time.