Latest / Buzzcast / The Best Podcast Gear Setup For Any Budget

Transcript

The Best Podcast Gear Setup For Any Budget · Buzzcast

0:00
Alban: Kevin, Jordan, congratulations.
0:02
Kevin: Who dis?
0:03
Kevin: New phone, Who dis?
0:05
Alban: This is Alban.
0:06
Alban: I'm back from my sabbatical and I'm excited to record.
0:09
Alban: I haven't seen you in forever.
0:11
Alban: Friday was my last day on the sabbatical and I almost messaged both of you and said, if you can move it up 30 minutes, I'll be there, Because I was excited about you were talking about all of the YouTube slop which I'd been running into and you were talking about magic mastering, which I was excited about, but you didn't talk about the thing I was most excited about, which was we got a huge achievement we got 500,000 downloads for Buzzcast.
0:38
Jordan: Half a mil baby.
0:39
Alban: Half a million and I was surprised at how excited I was when I got it.
0:45
Alban: I got it as a notification because I have the Buzzsprout app and I was just like wow, that's actually a pretty big number and you know, smaller numbers over time added up go to a bigger number, and half a million feels like that's surprising to me.
0:59
Alban: I feel like I didn't expect us to be that close.
1:01
Alban: So congratulations to both of you.
1:07
Jordan: Yeah, what was really cool was we got that notification on the 4th of July, so I was lighting off fireworks and I was like all right time to celebrate.
1:12
Alban: I was just pretending that all the fireworks I saw were celebrating us.
1:16
Jordan: Just felt a little bit better than everyone else that night.
1:19
Alban: But also I really enjoyed the two episodes I wasn't on.
1:22
Alban: It was kind of nice to listen to Buzzcast and not have had a little bit of the inside knowledge of how it was made.
1:29
Alban: And so I really liked the episode about magic mastering the updates you did.
1:35
Alban: I have some feedback.
1:38
Jordan: Oh, I knew it was going to happen.
1:39
Jordan: Here we go.
1:41
Kevin: Good news.
1:41
Kevin: If you have, like you said, feedback, which is typically a bad thing, like it's like Magic Master would remove it.
1:48
Kevin: Yeah.
1:50
Alban: Just save it.
1:50
Alban: So from now on, if I say the thing Kevin doesn't like, he'll go.
1:53
Alban: I think filler killer must have deleted that whole segment.
1:56
Alban: Yeah, so my feedback is actually the same as Tim.
2:01
Alban: He wrote in via fan mail and said I appreciate your brave attempt to record the worst possible audio.
2:07
Alban: He has very brave.
2:08
Alban: Both of you and you published an episode after running it through Magic Mastering, but I would love to have heard the before audio to see how far it was improved.
2:19
Alban: And I thought the same thing.
2:21
Alban: I heard what sounded like good audio.
2:24
Alban: I know you and Kevin, so I trust that both of you really did record this outdoors on your AirPods.
2:29
Alban: Yeah, so let me catch you up.
2:31
Kevin: First of all, it was a quick cast, and so one of the things we try to do with quick cast is cover one topic in 10 minutes or less, and we try to keep it tight so there's not a ton of editing.
2:41
Jordan: Yeah.
2:41
Kevin: Those are kind of the rules of the game.
2:42
Kevin: We don't always follow the rules of the game, but that's generally the rules that we play by, and so, in order to do like a before and after, you wouldn't be able to just take one recording and run it through power clean, because it would have cleaned everything up, and so that's one thing.
2:56
Kevin: We just wanted to run the final recording through power clean and be done with it.
2:59
Kevin: Yeah, the other thing is that we were both using AirPods, and AirPods automatically do some like background noise reduction.
3:06
Kevin: So it wasn't the best test in the world in terms of the recording itself had already kind of been cleaned up a little bit by the AirPods, and then power clean did the rest of it.
3:15
Jordan: Yeah.
3:16
Kevin: What's a better example is for us to go out and use AirPods or a microphone or something, but like turn off any.
3:21
Kevin: Like pre-processing that's happening in the microphone and getting a real noisy recording using that and then running that same thing through power clean, editing them together and then not running the final through power clean.
3:32
Kevin: So maybe Jordan is up for that at some point, maybe today, I don't know.
3:36
Jordan: I'm going to do that today.
3:38
Jordan: I'm going to do that on this episode.
3:40
Jordan: It's going to be like a little bit tricky how I do this, but I do have an audio clip from a convention and it's really noisy.
3:50
Jordan: In the background you can hear like things clinking and people talking and crowds, and I'm running it through power clean.
3:57
Jordan: But I have to run only that through power clean so it doesn't clean up the bad audio before it.
4:02
Alban: So it's going to be a little bit of a trick.
4:04
Alban: It's hard to get the bad version into the final.
4:07
Alban: Yeah, so the disclaimer here is we will run the bad version through power clean, but the final won't get power clean because that would fix the bad audio, right?
4:18
Alban: Yeah, I'm now thinking our explanation makes this more complicated.
4:22
Alban: Let's play the clips.
4:29
Test Audio Speaker: Um, can I say two things?
4:29
Test Audio Speaker: Um, going to bat for other people is the name of the game.
4:32
Test Audio Speaker: So, um, that attracts a certain kind of personality, that attracts a certain kind of person.
4:36
Test Audio Speaker: Can I say two things?
4:40
Test Audio Speaker: Going to bat for other people is the name of the game.
4:43
Test Audio Speaker: So so, that attracts a certain kind of personality, that attracts a certain kind of person.
4:49
Jordan: Doesn't that sound so much better.
4:50
Kevin: Let me say this, though, On this show we talk about podcasting, we talk about things that are happening at Buzzsprout, and we want to give examples like we just did.
4:57
Kevin: But I would not encourage anybody to be like oh, powerclean exists, now I can go record anywhere.
5:03
Kevin: I can intentionally have awful recordings because they will always get cleaned up.
5:07
Kevin: These are for emergency situations when you had a bad recording.
5:13
Kevin: Unintentionally, somebody chose the wrong microphone when you were interviewing them and it's got a lot of reverb or room echo that you need to clean up.
5:20
Kevin: It'll help with that.
5:21
Kevin: You bumped into somebody at a conference and you tried to find the quietest space you could, but it was still a lot of background noise.
5:25
Kevin: It will help with that.
5:26
Kevin: You bumped into somebody at a conference and you tried to find the quietest space you could, but it was still a lot of background noise.
5:27
Kevin: It will help with that.
5:27
Kevin: It will help when you happen to have a bad recording, but I don't want anyone to be like, oh, I have free license to just record anywhere, anytime and PowerClean will always come in and save the day.
5:37
Kevin: That's not what we're billing it as.
5:38
Kevin: It's not how we're pitching it.
5:39
Kevin: We're pitching it for, like, emergency cleanup situations I had a bad recording.
5:42
Kevin: It's something that happens infrequently.
5:44
Kevin: That's why it's not something that you turn on by default for all of your episodes.
5:48
Jordan: Yeah.
5:48
Kevin: And if you happen to listen to last week's quick cast, you would notice that there's no hangup sound at the end but there was there was.
5:56
Kevin: Jordan put it in before she uploaded it and power cleaned it.
5:58
Kevin: But power clean heard that little at the end and said, oh, that sounded weird.
6:03
Kevin: That was probably not a part of their intended recording, but it was.
6:06
Kevin: But it took it out because it recognized it as a weird noise.
6:09
Kevin: Yeah, and so that's why you don't want to run power clean on everything, because it's aggressive.
6:14
Kevin: And most of the time your recordings should be good enough where you don't need to power clean them.
6:24
Alban: But once in a while.
6:25
Alban: You do have an exception and that's why it exists.
6:27
Alban: So power cleans the emergency shoot.
6:29
Alban: You're jumping, you know if you're skydiving?
6:33
Kevin: it's your emergency chute, also take the main chute, which is trying to get a good recording to begin with.
6:37
Kevin: Don't just jump out of the plane emergency chute only and just be like I'm fine, got this.
6:45
Jordan: Welcome back to Buzzcast a podcast about all things podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout.
6:50
Jordan: Well, I think that our magic mastering discussion actually segues nicely into what our episode topic is, and it's podcasting gear, because if you have the right gear for your podcast, you won't need the emergency chute of power clean, right, you won't need it very often hopefully.
7:06
Jordan: No, not very often hopefully.
7:08
Alban: It's funny because one of the myths that I was thinking about a lot is people will think, if you get really good equipment, you're going to fix all of the bad recordings and you're going to fix the bad recording environment, which isn't true.
7:21
Alban: It can help, but often you want to improve that recording environment before you buy more equipment, because that's really where you're going to have the biggest gains.
7:31
Alban: But it's funny that we've just spent a lot of time talking about how you can actually clean up the recording with software.
7:36
Alban: That that's where we've actually been able to make big improvements.
7:39
Jordan: Yeah, I think that's kind of where podcasting is at now where there's this incredible software that can make really bad recordings sound is at now where there's this incredible software that can make really bad recordings sound.
7:47
Jordan: You know almost studio quality.
7:49
Jordan: But it really is best if you can get a clean recording in the front.
7:52
Jordan: And part of that is definitely going to be the environment making sure you have rugs, making sure you have soft furniture and curtains.
7:59
Kevin: Yeah, like in my space.
8:01
Kevin: In particular, I am in a small home office setup.
8:04
Kevin: This room is pretty tight, it's like 10 by 10.
8:06
Kevin: And so this room has been notoriously a tough environment to record in, and so what I've had to do was I have had to install felt panels on all the walls, I've had to do bass traps in the corners and I've got some like rubber mats on the floor, and now everything sounds fine.
8:22
Kevin: But one of the last things people typically think about when they think about recording equipment is treating the environment that you're recording in.
8:28
Kevin: They usually think about headphones and microphones and boom arms and audio interfaces, mixers, stuff like that.
8:34
Kevin: But one of the simplest things and the most cost-effective things that you can do is just find a room that makes everything sound better, regardless of what other equipment you're using the microphone, et cetera.
8:44
Jordan: So what made me want to talk about this was a podcast equipment guide that Alban posted about a month ago and I really love the angle that you went from.
8:54
Jordan: This it's podcast equipment guide what I recommend after 500 episodes.
8:58
Jordan: I'll link to it in the show notes.
9:00
Jordan: But I love your story on here because I actually had a very similar thing happen.
9:05
Jordan: You explained that having the right podcasting gear matters more than just like what kind of like recording environment you're in, but it's also good to understand what kind of things can go wrong.
9:16
Jordan: And you had a lovely story about MV7.
9:23
Alban: I'm sure will resonate with a lot of people who have owned the MV7.
9:25
Alban: Yeah, so the MV7, for people who don't know kind of looks like that iconic SM7B.
9:30
Alban: It's almost like a little bit tinier version, but the nice thing was that it didn't need an audio interface because it could plug in via USB to your computer.
9:39
Alban: And so when it came out right at the beginning of COVID, I bought one.
9:42
Alban: I was so excited and I used it and it was really good on some vectors, but it was pretty bad on a few others.
9:50
Alban: That kind of killed the fun of using it and eventually shelved it.
9:54
Alban: The two things that it had that I didn't like.
9:57
Alban: It has kind of like a touch screen.
9:59
Alban: That would be how you would change your gain and it's how you would change the volume output from the mic so you could self-monitor yeah and there's like a computer in the mic so booted up every time.
10:12
Alban: It had a bad connector in the back this usb micro usb cable and so I think, having like three different times I'm recording an interview, one was with, like, one of my biggest guests.
10:23
Alban: I tap my boom arm and just tapped it and it popped the cable out of the back.
10:29
Alban: As soon as it popped out it turns off the mic.
10:32
Alban: I plug it back in.
10:33
Alban: It has to boot itself back up.
10:35
Alban: Then I have to use the touch screen to try to get back to the same settings.
10:39
Alban: After that I wasn't on big recordings, it'd just be on like a call with Kevin.
10:42
Alban: But a third time it did it.
10:50
Alban: I went.
10:50
Alban: I've tried to tape this thing in, I've done everything I can to make this connection tight, but it kind of just gave me this lesson that no matter how good the recording equipment is, the more failure points you have the worse.
10:57
Alban: And so the cable was a failure point that just kind of ruined the whole mic.
11:04
Alban: Similar thing happened when we were running cloud lifters, and so we had two XLR cables and a cloud lifter in there and you'd get a hum, and now you've got three pieces instead of one to troubleshoot to try to figure out where that hum comes from.
11:19
Alban: So I ended up, I think, really beginning of COVID going.
11:23
Alban: I want the simplest setups I can get and try not to unnecessarily complicate it, because you want that audio chain from the capsule that's in the microphone to the capturing device, which for me is a computer.
11:35
Alban: I want that to be as fast as possible and as clean and as simple as possible, so that fewer things can go wrong.
11:41
Jordan: Yeah, I had the exact same thing happen with the MV7.
11:44
Jordan: And with the design on it.
11:46
Jordan: I mean it was really cool that it had this.
11:47
Jordan: Like it was one of the first microphones that had like a touchscreen panel on it where you could adjust things in real time.
11:54
Jordan: But the problem was was they put the touchscreen on the top of the back of the microphone so you'd almost have to like look and make sure that you were actually touching in like the right place and then, yeah, you'd bump the microphone and then the cable would pop out, and so I had like the electrical tape kind of like anchored up across the back of my microphone just to make sure it stayed in.
12:13
Jordan: I had the exact same problem.
12:15
Jordan: I think that was the most common issue with the MV7.
12:17
Jordan: I don't know if they've upgraded to a USB-C, but you might want to check that if you're interested in that microphone.
12:24
Alban: Yeah, interesting enough, I went down this rabbit hole when I wrote the article, reading these tests of how many newtons of force are required to remove a cable out of different USB ports, and micro USB specifically, the version they use is the least, and I was like, yeah, there's sometimes like a USB-C, you click it in and it stays, but that micro one would pop out sometimes oh yeah.
12:49
Kevin: This happens to me in lots of areas of my life, but often in tech.
12:53
Kevin: I am a pretty technical person and I work in tech, and so oftentimes when I'm jumping into something new, I will go for the most high-tech solution possible.
13:03
Kevin: I'm just sort of attracted to high-tech stuff and so, whether it be like a TV setup with a surround sound system and a bunch of different boxes and they connect a million different ways or podcasting gear, oftentimes my initial approach to this is oh, I'm a technical person, I'm going to research all the best stuff, I'm going to go the high end, this is going to be great.
13:23
Kevin: So usually I get it all set up, it never works initially, so you troubleshoot, you get to the point where everything's working, and then you come back the next week to use it again and something isn't working and so you fix it.
13:36
Kevin: And then you get to this point where you're like I understand all this stuff, but it is complicated and the hobby that I thought I was like setting up like whether it be movie watching or podcasting has turned into another hobby, which is like troubleshooting tech, yeah, and then I get I get tech fatigue and I'm like, ah, this is not what I wanted to do, and so then I usually go the other way, which is like what Alban describes as trying to figure out what's the least technical solution, what's the simplest approach, and I usually go the other way, which is like what Alban describes as trying to figure out what's the least technical solution, what's the simplest approach, and I usually come full circle and all this stuff.
14:10
Jordan: Yeah.
14:10
Alban: It's even worse if you're the designated tech problem solver in the family and then people are like, hey, tv's not working.
14:17
Alban: And you're like, okay, well, here's what I think you should probably try to do, and you're walking somebody else through the setup.
14:31
Alban: Yeah, really, in the end, the thing I want is a good recording and it's a bonus to have a nice mic that I think looks cool, but in the end I just want to get a really good recording that sounds good enough that Magic Mastering cleans it up and I'm good to go and I don't have to think about it again.
14:42
Jordan: Yeah, and I think that that's where a lot of beginner podcasters are coming from as well, and you know, maybe honestly established podcasters too, where they're just like.
14:51
Jordan: I just want to do the simplest thing.
14:53
Jordan: I'm done with being a gearhead.
14:54
Jordan: Okay, so we have brought up a lot of, I want to say, like vocabulary terms that might not be familiar to someone just getting started in podcasting, and then maybe they aren't familiar with the equipment that they'll need to start a podcast, or you know what podcasting equipment does.
15:11
Jordan: So can we break down some of the equipment that people often encounter with podcasting?
15:18
Kevin: Sure, what do you think about starting with like a complex indie podcaster home setup and all the equipment that you might need to do that, and then we can kind of work down to a simpler setup that's, for most people, going to be just as good.
15:32
Alban: So we're starting with.
15:33
Alban: If you search this on Google, you're going to run into an affiliate page that's got all the recommendations you need to buy all of this stuff.
15:39
Alban: And now what Kevin's going to run us through all of that, and then we can start eliminating out what Kevin's going to run us through all of that and then we can start eliminating.
15:51
Kevin: So, like a high-end professional or like semi-professional home setup would include some sort of let's just start with the mixer.
15:53
Kevin: This is oftentimes called a audio interface, a mixer, a soundboard, some people would just say a roadcaster.
16:01
Kevin: It's kind of like the most popular one for that podcasters are interested in using.
16:05
Kevin: And then there's a couple of different versions of the Rodecaster.
16:08
Kevin: There's an original Rodecaster, there's a Rodecaster 2.
16:10
Kevin: There's the Rodecaster Duo, which is a smaller version of it.
16:14
Kevin: What that does is the whole thing with all these different mixers and audio interfaces is it gives you a way to plug an analog device into something digital, so that you can plug it in your computer, which is digital.
16:24
Kevin: That's the basic thing that they're all doing.
16:27
Kevin: And then they all have a bunch of different fancy things that they add on top of that.
16:31
Kevin: So, like the Rodecaster does a lot of different stuff.
16:33
Kevin: Let's you connect a cell phone.
16:34
Kevin: It lets you has like a little sound panel, lets you adjust the mix, lets you do some pre-processing on your audio.
16:40
Kevin: That's coming into the device, as opposed to like a Vocaster, which is the Scarlett device.
16:44
Kevin: There's a Scarlett 2i2.
16:46
Kevin: There's the new one, which is the Vocaster and the Ducaster.
16:48
Kevin: They're all audio interfaces.
16:54
Kevin: They don't do as much but they're smaller.
16:55
Kevin: But they do the same thing in allowing you to plug an XLR microphone into something that then gives you like a USB output to plug it into your computer.
16:59
Kevin: Zoom makes some of these devices.
17:02
Kevin: Zoom is another company that makes mixers and audio interfaces not the web conferencing company, not the website there's.
17:09
Alban: there's two companies called Zoom in the audio space.
17:13
Alban: Not useful, not helpful.
17:15
Kevin: So anytime you hear the word mixer or audio interface, like and you're talking about podcasting you can kind of put those in the same category.
17:21
Kevin: Also, like soundboard, you can put that in the same category.
17:24
Kevin: It's just allowing you to put a more professional, higher level right Like microphone and plug that into your computer somehow.
17:30
Kevin: That's the simplest way to think about it.
17:32
Kevin: Do you need it?
17:33
Kevin: No, Do some people want it?
17:35
Kevin: Yes.
17:36
Kevin: Does it make you feel, I don't know a little bit more like I'm a real podcaster because I have a roadcaster or something like, with a bunch of colored buttons on it sitting on my desk?
17:44
Kevin: Yeah, it is fun.
17:46
Jordan: Does it make my kids think I'm cooler than I am?
17:48
Jordan: Maybe I don't know.
17:50
Kevin: I would never tell anybody like oh, you don't need a roadcaster, You're silly for buying that.
18:00
Alban: No, if you have the money to buy it and you like of the buttons with one of the pre-recorded sound, right, they always get edited out by Jordan.
18:08
Alban: She never leaves my button hitting in, but you feel cool.
18:13
Kevin: Right, so the next thing in the chain.
18:15
Kevin: So we're starting and I should have said I actually probably should start at the computer.
18:18
Kevin: You need some sort of computer, mostly, unless you're doing like all mobile recordings.
18:23
Kevin: But usually most people will record into a laptop or a desktop computer Mac or PC doesn't really matter.
18:29
Kevin: Chromebooks you run into some additional difficulties on what is compatible with a Chromebook, but typically Mac and PC work with almost everything.
18:37
Kevin: So start there and usually whatever you have is totally fine.
18:41
Kevin: You don't need a super high-end laptop or desktop computer to be able to record a podcast.
18:45
Kevin: If you do video work, that's different.
18:48
Kevin: But we're not talking about video work, we're talking about audio podcasting.
18:51
Kevin: And pretty much any laptop or desktop computer that I would say generally is like less than five to seven years old is going to work just fine for you.
18:59
Kevin: As long as it's in good operating condition, as long as you can browse websites and check email on it, it's probably going to work fine for recording audio.
19:05
Kevin: Next in the chain the audio interface, the mixer, the soundboard, which we've already covered, and now we're going.
19:10
Kevin: You know what's the next piece connected to that is some sort of microphone and some sort of headphones.
19:16
Kevin: So headphones.
19:18
Kevin: I always say just wear whatever you're most comfortable with.
19:20
Kevin: Over the ear blocks a lot of external sound, but if you're recording in a quiet environment, maybe you don't need to worry about that and maybe you find earbuds a little bit more comfortable.
19:28
Kevin: Something in the air you can do that.
19:30
Kevin: You might just have something laying around the house.
19:32
Kevin: Typically would be just fine.
19:34
Kevin: Again, if you want to spend a little bit more money, if you have the budget for it or if the thing that you currently have isn't that comfortable for extended recording sessions, like if you listen to music or if you have earbuds in, maybe you just do that for 20, 30 minutes at a time when you're doing a workout, but now you're recording and it's like hour or more per recording session and you find these are actually uncomfortable.
19:54
Kevin: So you might want to get something a little bit more comfortable.
19:56
Kevin: And then the microphone.
19:57
Kevin: Now we're the microphone we probably shouldn't just gloss over, because there's a lot to cover in microphones.
20:03
Jordan: Yes.
20:04
Kevin: So I'm going to table that for a second and then I'm just going to gloss over boom arms, real quick.
20:09
Kevin: Boom arms or microphone stands.
20:11
Kevin: Again, this is just a preference and, depending on your setup, you need something to hold your microphone like a good, comfortable distance from your mouth, and this is actually really important.
20:21
Kevin: Microphone technique.
20:22
Kevin: You could have great gear.
20:23
Kevin: You could have a great microphone, great headphones, great audio interface, great loud Everything else is perfect Great XLR cables and you have poor microphone technique and your audio is not going to sound really, really good.
20:33
Kevin: Yeah.
20:34
Kevin: And so the stand or the boom arm does a good job of keeping that microphone in a consistent position to where you're speaking from, from your mouth, and typically that's about four fingers away from your mouth, so it's a little bit closer than most people are comfortable with, but it's important to be pretty tight to the mic If you're going to use the type of microphone that we're going to ultimately recommend, which is a dynamic microphone.
20:56
Kevin: Again, you have more leeway if you use a condenser, but we'll cover that in a second.
21:04
Jordan: I want to press pause on the mic technique too, because that will save you so much headache when you're editing.
21:07
Jordan: I've actually talked to, I want to say, three or four podcasters just in the last six months that have told me that they have an issue with plosives.
21:15
Jordan: So plosives are when your P's and B's and stuff like that are punching the microphone.
21:20
Jordan: It's creating like this really bassy, like boom sound, and it is a huge issue for podcasters.
21:26
Jordan: And one of the things that's so hard is you do want to keep your mouth four fingers away from the microphone, but what happens is then the air from your mouth is hitting the microphone and punching it to make that really horrible sound.
21:40
Jordan: And so one tip that I've given to everyone that has completely remediated this whole issue is that instead of placing the microphone like directly facing your mouth and even off to the side a little bit, you'll still get those plosives actually put it under your chin, facing upwards, because you're not going to put your head down to talk and then hit the microphone.
22:02
Jordan: So if you have it facing up towards your mouth, like towards your chin, you won't be getting that air punching the microphone.
22:09
Kevin: Right, you typically want your microphone at roughly a 45 degree angle from your mouth, so you're speaking into it, but across it, not directly, like at it.
22:17
Jordan: Yeah.
22:17
Kevin: Something that you could visualize, to sort of think about how these microphone capsules pick up audio is imagine holding up like a thin piece of tissue paper in front of your mouth and as you talk, that thing is going to move around, it's going to vibrate, right.
22:31
Kevin: That's what's capturing the audio.
22:32
Kevin: And if you held up a piece of tissue paper directly in front of your mouth and started talking, you would like be blowing that thing over, right, like especially every time you said a B or P or punchy sounds.
22:42
Kevin: It would be like totally knocking that thing over.
22:45
Kevin: That's going to wreck your audio.
22:46
Kevin: But if you held it at a 45 degree angle and spoke, even if you did a powerful punchy type sound, it's not going to blow it over, it's going to go right across the surface of it.
22:55
Kevin: That's where you want to have your microphone.
22:57
Kevin: So just think about your microphone like a piece of paper.
22:59
Alban: We're trying to capture everything without having certain aspects of your voice be amplified so much.
23:05
Alban: So, kevin, you kind of touched on this for a second.
23:08
Alban: Microphones come in a few different flavors dynamic condenser what's the difference between those two?
23:14
Kevin: I'll do two things I'll save you the trouble of hearing the boring technical difference of what is actually the difference between a dynamic and condenser microphone, and I'll also save me the embarrassment because I'm not expert enough in these two technologies to explain it well.
23:25
Kevin: So I'll avoid that altogether, but I can tell you the best use cases for each.
23:30
Jordan: That's what matters.
23:31
Kevin: Right, and so typically there are different flavors of all of these things, but I'm just going to speak in broad strokes.
23:38
Kevin: A dynamic microphone is designed to capture audio from one single source and and that source should be close to that microphone, and it does a really good job of rejecting other noises that are not coming directly into it.
23:51
Kevin: So anything that's to the sides or to the back, it does a really good job of rejecting or not capturing, and it does a really good job of picking up whatever's coming directly into it, and typically that is the setup for a podcaster.
24:04
Kevin: In order for that to work really well, you need to have that good mic technique that we spoke about.
24:09
Kevin: You need to be close to it.
24:10
Kevin: It's intentionally rejecting a bunch of noise that doesn't feel intentional and it's capturing what's directly coming in.
24:15
Kevin: So that's why mic technique is important with these dynamic microphones.
24:18
Kevin: Condensers, on the other hand, are again typically designed to be used in like highly treated spaces where there's not a lot of noise that needs to be rejected, so they're really good at capturing environments.
24:32
Kevin: So if you were recording in a podcast conference and you really wanted to make it sound like you want the audience to hear all the noise that's going on around in this noisy environment.
24:40
Kevin: A condenser would be great.
24:41
Kevin: It would pick up all that room noise from everywhere, like you want the audience to hear all the noise that's going on around in this noisy environment.
24:44
Kevin: A condenser would be great.
24:46
Kevin: It would pick up all that room noise from everywhere, not just what's coming directly into it.
24:50
Kevin: Yeah.
24:51
Kevin: When would a podcaster want a condenser microphone?
24:54
Kevin: There are some use cases where I guess you could make it work, Like if you were in a small treated room and you wanted one microphone in the center but multiple people all talking and none of them having to be particularly close.
25:06
Kevin: Like everyone wanted to be able to sit back in a chair and just speak and have a microphone that captured the whole conversation and it sounded more conversational and you wanted some of that like ambiance of sort of a room in the recording.
25:20
Kevin: I guess you could kind of make that work.
25:22
Jordan: It would have to be very treated.
25:23
Kevin: You would have to be very treated and very intentional about making that work.
25:27
Kevin: Which is why when people say I have a two or three person setup and we're going to record in this room and I'd like to do a one microphone setup, since it is so difficult to get that to sound exactly right, we don't recommend it.
25:38
Kevin: We recommend that you put a microphone in front of each person, put headphones on each person.
25:43
Kevin: And you put a microphone in front of each person, put headphones on each person.
25:45
Kevin: And it's a little bit of an adjustment for people to get used to speaking with a microphone in front of them and headphones on and hearing other people through their headphones, hearing themselves through their headphones, but you can typically do that, like in the first 10 or 15 minutes.
25:54
Kevin: Usually you start to get comfortable with it and that the annoyance or weirdness of having a microphone in front of you and headphones on goes away and the audio is great.
26:03
Jordan: Yeah.
26:04
Kevin: So I would say, like, press into the traditional setup and don't try to take the more complicated route of using a condenser to capture two or three people just on one mic.
26:14
Kevin: Yeah, ultimately it's going to be really hard, but people do try to use, like, the Blue Yeti to solve that problem and I don't know that I've ever heard it sound great.
26:23
Jordan: No, I've never heard it sound great.
26:24
Alban: No, I've never heard it sound good yeah it, it feels like it was a nice idea that I have not ever seen in practice workout.
26:32
Alban: It's nice to think I'll buy one mic that can do everything, but it kind of does none of the use cases particularly well and often gets misused and and I think that just ends up meaning I recommend like don't use the Blue Yeti because it almost always will give you a worse sound, just because people get confused on which setting it needs to be, on how to talk into it.
26:55
Alban: It just doesn't make sense for them.
26:57
Jordan: Also, the people that are buying the Blue Yeti are usually the ones that don't have the professional studios like required to make it sound good, so you're usually like recording in your garage or around the dining table or something like that.
27:10
Alban: Another thing we could talk about here would be the connectors.
27:13
Alban: So you can either have an XLR or you could have like a USB connector from the microphone to whatever the next source ends up being.
27:22
Alban: Xlr is going to be for an analog device.
27:26
Alban: I mean that is an analog cable, which means it needs to be turned into a digital signal.
27:33
Jordan: Yeah.
27:33
Alban: And to do that you need it to run through an audio interface.
27:36
Alban: So more money, yeah, More money, more complication.
27:39
Alban: If you have a USB output from your mic, it can go directly into your computer because it's already a digital signal which will simplify your whole setup.
27:49
Jordan: And honestly, like in the last few years, there have been so many hybrid models coming out that you can start with USB and then move up to an XLR.
27:59
Jordan: So, like Samson Q2U, for example, we recommend all the time it has a USB plug in but it also has an XLR plugin.
28:07
Jordan: So if you are just starting out and you're like you know what, I'm just comfortable plugging this directly into the computer and going from there, that's great.
28:14
Jordan: But in the future, if you go, you know what, I think I'm going to tinker with an audio interface and start doing mixing and you know DSR and all this processing on my voice.
28:23
Jordan: You can upgrade to that later.
28:26
Jordan: So it's kind of cool that now these hybrid models are coming out where they can, like, grow with you as you grow as a podcaster.
28:31
Kevin: Correct and I mean it sort of leads into a good question of why would I want to introduce an audio interface or some sort of mixing board or something into my setup?
28:41
Kevin: And, jordan, you touched on this a little bit A lot of them do have some really great features, like processing, for example.
28:47
Kevin: So, like the Rodecaster which I use, it has some built-in filters that you can turn on, has a compressor that you can turn on, has a noise gate, has a de-esser, and I don't think we need to go into what each one of those things do.
29:00
Jordan: Not in this episode, no.
29:05
Kevin: Not in this episode, but they can save you some time in your post processing, yeah.
29:07
Kevin: So if you know that you like to run a certain series of filters on your audio before you publish and you have to do that manually every time in your editing software, maybe there's an opportunity to save a little bit of time in your workflow by just having your audio interface do that for you before it's actually captured to your recording device.
29:26
Kevin: That's why you would want to introduce something.
29:28
Jordan: Also, if you have like multiple people recording, cause it's really hard, I think I think you can plug multiple USB microphones into your computer, but it is like nearly impossible.
29:41
Jordan: I have personally tried to figure it out a couple of times and I gave up.
29:45
Jordan: And so if you have multiple people it's so much easier just to plug a few microphones into one audio interface and plug that one USB cable in your computer and have it record.
29:55
Jordan: That way it's so much easier.
29:57
Kevin: You are 100%.
29:58
Kevin: You are 100%.
29:59
Kevin: There are ways to plug multiple USB microphones into the same computer and then have them record to their own separate tracks, which is important because when you edit or when you do leveling and stuff like that, you want to be able to have each voice on its own track.
30:14
Kevin: Okay, there are ways to do it.
30:15
Kevin: It is finicky, it is difficult to set up and it is like it breaks all the time.
30:21
Kevin: So, even once you get it honed in and it works great for one recording, when you come back next time, no guarantees it's going to work the same way.
30:28
Kevin: And so can you do it.
30:29
Kevin: Yes, will you like it?
30:31
Kevin: Long-term?
30:31
Kevin: Probably not, and so at that point, at a minimum, it's worth just grabbing like a Scarlett 2i2 or something they're like a hundred dollars so you can plug in two XLR microphones, plug that Scarlett 2i2 into your computer one time, one plug, one USB plug and then whatever you're using to record the audio, like Audition or what's the other one that a lot of people use, audacity.
30:52
Kevin: You would then be able to select input one or input two.
30:56
Kevin: Record the two mics on separate tracks.
30:58
Alban: Yeah, all right.
30:59
Alban: So we've kind of laid the groundwork, we've set the landscape, we've got all these different options, and what I'd love to do now is just kind of share the basic setup that we use a lot.
31:13
Alban: I'm actually using it right now because I'm not at home, and that setup is the Samson Q2U.
31:16
Alban: I'm using the little mic stand that comes with the Samson Q2U.
31:21
Alban: It's got a little foam ball.
31:22
Alban: It's got a cable that plugs into my computer.
31:25
Alban: It's the $70 thing you can buy on Amazon at any time and get it in two days.
31:32
Alban: And then the basic Apple earbuds.
31:35
Alban: Those are not like AirPods, these are the ones that actually plug in.
31:39
Alban: You really want something that plugs in, and I'm plugging it into the back so I can self-monitor and also so I can hear both Kevin and Jordan.
31:47
Alban: So that's the recommendation that we have for really everybody who starts.
31:52
Jordan: We're saying just get some wired headphones and get this Samson Q2U and you're good to go that listeners of this episode wouldn't have even known that you had swapped from your super fancy studio to the hotel room version that you have here.
32:10
Alban: Yeah, I'd be interested if anybody did hear that or thought that might be the case before.
32:14
Jordan: Yeah.
32:15
Alban: I'd said that.
32:16
Jordan: All right.
32:16
Jordan: And then we also asked our listeners what kind of gear that they love for podcasting.
32:21
Jordan: So we got a few responses on that.
32:23
Jordan: First, kevin from Grit.
32:24
Jordan: We got a few responses on that.
32:24
Jordan: First, kevin from grit, grace and inspiration said that he uses the focus right Bowcaster audio interface which we mentioned a little bit earlier, and that one's really nice because that is like plug and play, so it does auto leveling and all that kind of stuff for you.
32:39
Jordan: It's really nice.
32:40
Jordan: And then he also uses the Elgato wave low profile boom arm, which I think is actually a really nice substitution for the OCY Ultima.
32:49
Jordan: That's the low profile one that you see on like Joe Rogan and it's like 450 bucks.
32:53
Jordan: But the Elgato version of it, which is, I would say, comparable, is like $100 up to 180 for the pro version of it.
33:02
Alban: So yeah, that's a good looking boom arm for sure, yeah.
33:05
Jordan: And then Damien the DM.
33:06
Jordan: I love this recommendation because Damien runs a five person in person TTRPG show, so he's got like five people sitting around a table, you know, playing this role playing game, and so you're going to have Mike bleed, I mean there's there's so much room for issues here.
33:24
Jordan: So Damien recommends a zoom ZDM one and he says it does a great job handling five of us around a table without much Mike bleed, and those are $70 and usually $50 on sale.
33:37
Jordan: And then he also uses the zoom L 12, but wants to get the pod track P8, which I think has a little bit more bells and whistles to it.
33:46
Kevin: Okay, I will just tell you that the Zoom L12 is very intimidating.
33:51
Kevin: Oh really.
33:53
Alban: Did you look it up?
33:54
Alban: I did Holy smokes.
33:56
Alban: This is like there's like hundreds of knobs and dials here.
34:00
Alban: Oh man, please, Jordan, please put this as like the chapter artwork, so people can look at it this is intense, it's a monster.
34:09
Jordan: Oh my gosh.
34:11
Kevin: Great.
34:11
Kevin: So I have a feeling that Damien has some experience in audio production or was a musician or something to jump into.
34:18
Kevin: Something that sophisticated, looking Lots of knobs and dials and stuff on that.
34:22
Kevin: The PodTrack P8, which he says he wants to get, looks less intimidating but still a little intimidating, but it's very similar to like a Rodecaster.
34:30
Jordan: Yeah, a little bit cheaper.
34:31
Alban: It's interesting, this Zoom ZDM1, the XLR dynamic mic that Damien is using, was also recommended by Devin, and Devin said hey, I got a phone number so now I can text directly.
34:43
Alban: So watch out, jordan, you have no more excuses.
34:45
Alban: Oh boy, devin, we're happy to hear more from you and this is good.
34:49
Alban: The Zoom ZDM1 XLR dynamic mic is their recommendation, but also the SE Dynacaster DCM8.
35:01
Jordan: I had never heard of this one, which is a mouthful.
35:04
Kevin: Gosh the names of these, like who names microphones.
35:06
Kevin: These are so crazy.
35:08
Alban: Okay, when it has a name like this, you know it was named by the person who created it, who was like, oh, I'm so proud of this amazing technical achievement.
35:17
Alban: But when they get a simple name like PodMic, you know that it was passed over to the marketing guy who was like, oh, it's a mic for podcasters, podmic Good Got it.
35:29
Alban: The SE Dynacaster DCM8, which sounds like an airplane, is supposedly like the Shure SM7DB but $200 less.
35:39
Alban: So $300 mic looks good and it's got Devin's recommendation.
35:46
Jordan: So the SM7B, which is a really popular microphone.
35:47
Jordan: That's one you see on like all the professional podcasts.
35:50
Jordan: It is notoriously gain hungry, so it's really quiet and you usually have to use a cloud lifter for it, which just makes the audio a little bit louder while still sounding good.
36:01
Jordan: So Shure came out with this SM7DB, which has a built-in preamp, so you don't need the cloud lifter, but it's also like a hundred bucks more.
36:10
Jordan: So having an option that has that built-in preamp but it's $200 less is great.
36:16
Jordan: I'd rather spend 300 than 500 on a microphone.
36:20
Alban: Yeah, so thanks to everybody who wrote in and gave their recommendations.
36:23
Alban: Can we all three of us run through kind of quickly what our setups are?
36:27
Alban: I think Kevin and I have almost the exact same one.
36:30
Alban: So, kevin, I'll let you go first.
36:32
Kevin: Sure, so the microphone is a Earthworks Ethos.
36:35
Kevin: It is actually a condenser mic but it is tuned very much to work more like a dynamic mic.
36:42
Kevin: And so when we first saw this mic, alvin was like, oh, I love the way this microphone looks, I think I want to get it.
36:49
Kevin: I was like no, you're going to hate it, condenser, stay away from it.
36:55
Kevin: And I avoided it unnecessarily for like a year until somehow it was on sale or something and I'm like I'm just going to get one to test it because it does look so good.
37:00
Kevin: And then Alban got really mad at me because he saw me recording with it.
37:04
Alban: He's like we have this clip somewhere where I'm like, what are you doing?
37:08
Alban: You have the mic.
37:12
Kevin: But at the end of the day it is a condenser mic but it actually works really well.
37:15
Kevin: It's very it's actually more like a dynamic than a condenser.
37:18
Kevin: It works great for podcasting.
37:19
Kevin: It is pricey, it is fancy, it is unnecessary, but I like it.
37:23
Kevin: That is on a OC white Ultima low profile boom arm.
37:27
Kevin: Again, more than I need, but this is my job and work paid for it.
37:32
Kevin: So, thanks, buzzsprout.
37:33
Kevin: And it is plugged into a Rodecaster the newer one, the Rodecaster 2, which again is set up for four or more people and it's just me here.
37:43
Kevin: So, again, more than I need, but yeah, so at the end of the day I've overindulged in my podcasting setup and I probably sound no different than Alban who is working with the simplest setup today.
37:54
Jordan: Yeah, what headphones do you use, kevin?
37:57
Kevin: These are one Odeo A71s.
38:00
Jordan: Oh, okay.
38:01
Kevin: So I think these are just like $30 from Amazon.
38:04
Kevin: They're very comfortable, very cheap over the ear, amazon headphones that last about a year and then all the foam around my ears starts falling off and then I buy new ones.
38:15
Kevin: I spend $30 on them at a time and everything else that I've looked at is, you know, hundreds of dollars, and to my ear it doesn't sound any different.
38:23
Kevin: So I just keep buying the cheap ones and just replace them when they wear out.
38:26
Jordan: Yeah, alan, what's your setup at home?
38:29
Alban: All right.
38:29
Alban: So almost identical to Kevin's Earthworks Ethos microphone.
38:33
Alban: Friends of the show, steven Robles and Marcus DePaula, I think, both recommended it and eventually we got them.
38:41
Alban: Kevin bought his first I lost my mind and I got one too.
38:44
Alban: And I got to be clear that's a $400 microphone that used to be 800.
38:49
Alban: So we got it when it dropped, but that's still a lot of money.
38:53
Alban: Yeah, and it's only because both of us had been recording all the time and we're testing new things all the time.
39:00
Alban: It's part of our jobs.
39:01
Alban: I would not have paid for that if it was just out of my own pocket to get you know a really to me, pretty microphone.
39:08
Alban: It's probably one of the most beautiful microphones I've seen.
39:10
Alban: Then we both have the same boom arm that OC White Ultima low profile.
39:17
Alban: It's got the cable management built in.
39:18
Alban: It's like a $400 boom arm.
39:21
Alban: Again, it's over the top.
39:23
Alban: It's too much using.
39:24
Alban: I think it's a pig hog XLR and those are just the ones that we bought when we would go to conferences and they never broke.
39:34
Alban: And that's kind of what you want out of XLR cable.
39:37
Alban: You're not thinking about it.
39:39
Alban: Basically is the highest compliment you can give an XLR cable.
39:42
Kevin: Right, like push pause on that for a second.
39:43
Kevin: I can't believe I just said that sort of word.
39:45
Kevin: Weird corporate talk.
39:47
Kevin: Is that push pause right there?
39:48
Alban: Let's double click on that, Kevin.
39:49
Kevin: All right, let's double click on the XLR cables.
39:51
Kevin: When you go to Sweetwater or Amazon or whatever site you're buying, or B&H you're buying your gear from, you're going to type in six foot XLR cable and you're going to see them from two, 99 up to like 1499 roughly for a six foot one.
40:06
Kevin: Just get the 1499 one.
40:08
Jordan: Yeah.
40:08
Kevin: Just get the one that has some sort of name brand behind it.
40:12
Kevin: Pig hog is a weird name brand, but it is a name brand, exceptually strange name.
40:18
Jordan: I have bought many and Amazon basics XLR cable right and I've bought one.
40:24
Jordan: I don't know what the name of this is, but it even feels nicer.
40:28
Jordan: So I think you actually save money in the long run if you go a little bit more expensive.
40:33
Kevin: Yeah, really, what you are talking about at the end of the day is a analog cable.
40:36
Kevin: It has, like, copper wires inside of it and they wear out and they break.
40:41
Kevin: And the more expensive ones use higher quality materials so that they wear out slower, they break.
40:44
Kevin: And the more expensive ones use higher quality materials so that they wear out slower, they last longer.
40:47
Kevin: It's a simpler way to say that.
40:48
Kevin: And if you're plugging them in and taking them out and moving them around and you got them like locked into your boom arm and that's constantly getting swiveled this way and that way, like the cheap ones will wear out quickly and you'll be pulling your hair out in the middle of a podcasting interview because you won't know what all this like staticky noise is getting like.
41:03
Kevin: Where's it coming from?
41:04
Kevin: It's coming from your two 99 cable.
41:05
Kevin: So just buy the $15 one and save yourself the headache.
41:08
Alban: Yeah, there's nothing more frustrating in having a really expensive setup that is held back by the $2 and 99 cent budget cable.
41:17
Alban: So go for the one.
41:18
Alban: That's 10 bucks, you're fine.
41:20
Jordan: Yeah.
41:21
Alban: I'm using a roadcaster duo I.
41:22
Alban: I used to use a Rodecaster Pro but got the other one because it's smaller.
41:27
Alban: I like that.
41:28
Alban: It's smaller.
41:28
Alban: I've run at least two of the built-in processings on there, which is why I use the Rodecasters.
41:35
Alban: I think I run a de-esser and big bottom EQ on my voice, which I think sounds better and I think Jordan enjoys it more when I don't have all the S's in the audio recording.
41:46
Alban: I think it works a little bit better with my voice.
41:48
Jordan: Yeah, and then what about headphones?
41:50
Alban: Apple ear pods.
41:51
Alban: I know that over the ear would probably be a little bit better for mic bleed, but mostly I play the audio pretty low and it just feels better in my ears.
42:02
Alban: So this is more a what's comfortable for you.
42:04
Alban: What's comfortable for Kevin is there's one audios, for me it's ear pods.
42:09
Alban: But notice, both of us are spending sub $30.
42:13
Alban: I think mine I just had around the house, so we're not looking to spend money on the headphones section.
42:18
Alban: That's really useful to avoid mic bleed and so we can monitor our voices in real time.
42:24
Alban: Besides that, I don't think much of a benefit in upgrading because I'm not mastering the episode.
42:31
Alban: I'm not in a professional recording environment where I'm listening for the tiniest nuance and making tweaks on a giant board similar to what Damien has.
42:41
Alban: I'm just listening to make sure I didn't get way too far away in the middle of the recording.
42:47
Jordan: Yeah, all right.
42:48
Jordan: So my setup that I have here I have the SM7B microphone and I used to have a Rodecaster Pro just the first version and so I had to have a cloud lifter.
42:59
Jordan: So I saw that Rodecaster Duo released a white collection and I jumped on that and it looks so beautiful on my desk.
43:07
Jordan: It's a lot smaller than the Rodecaster Pro and the preamp built into it made it so that I don't have to have a cloud lifter, so I only have to have one XLR cable plugged in from my SM7B to the Rodecaster Duo, to the Roadcaster Duo.
43:29
Jordan: And Alban also recommended that I get the OC Ultima White or Ultima OC White Co.
43:32
Jordan: Ultima low profile boom arm Golly, some of this stuff and at first I was like I don't really want that, like that's a little too like fancy for me, and now I'm never going back.
43:41
Jordan: It's low profile, boom arms all day for me.
43:44
Alban: Yeah, we should say low profile boom arms.
43:46
Alban: The benefit is really for like video podcasters that there's not something in your face because they stay below your head and they raise the mic up to your mouth, whereas the typical boom arms are up high and they lower the mic down to your mouth.
44:02
Alban: For me it's really nice, and the reason I think Kevin uses as well is because they are easy to like, slide out of the way and so they sit on the edge of the thing we're all talking about is it looks really good.
44:29
Alban: I like the look because it makes my desk feel nice, and that's where a lot of the selling points are.
44:35
Alban: If we're just talking about audio capture, I really think you could go with a much cheaper setup.
44:42
Alban: If this was a hobby, I would never have graduated beyond the Q2U.
44:46
Alban: That would be what I used all the time.
44:48
Jordan: Absolutely All right.
44:50
Jordan: So we talked about our setups, our listener setups.
44:52
Jordan: Let's pop into podcasting remotely versus in person.
44:56
Jordan: So this is for the person who is not the solo podcaster.
45:00
Jordan: They have a co-host, they have a guest, something like that.
45:02
Jordan: So what are the differences in the podcasting setups when you're in person versus if you remotely record through recording software?
45:11
Alban: Yeah.
45:11
Alban: So if you record remotely like we do, everybody needs headphones Absolutely To prevent echo and mic bleed.
45:18
Alban: That way, when I'm listening to Jordan, her audio doesn't show up on my track.
45:23
Alban: You'll get an echo.
45:24
Alban: That way it's just, it's impossible to edit, or it's not impossible, it's very, very painful.
45:29
Alban: I really recommend just using a basic setup for everybody, so USB microphones and it's an easy way to get everybody on the recording for cheap.
45:40
Alban: So you use Riverside, you use Zoom, you use Squadcast, something like that, to get everybody's audios on their own computer remotely and then you bring them all together for the editor.
45:53
Alban: That's how I'd run a remote recording In person.
45:56
Alban: You have a few more options.
45:57
Jordan: Is one of those options throwing a condenser mic in the middle of the room and letting everyone talk.
46:01
Jordan: It is an option.
46:03
Kevin: I don't think it's the easiest option and it might not be the best option, depending on your skill level of setting all that up.
46:09
Kevin: Yeah.
46:09
Kevin: What I recommend anytime people are going to record in person is everybody gets their own microphone.
46:15
Kevin: That that be a dynamic microphone and it doesn't have to be expensive.
46:18
Kevin: It could be something like the Samson Q2U.
46:20
Kevin: It could be something.
46:21
Jordan: The Zoom ZDM1 sounds like it's a good option.
46:24
Kevin: Zoom ZDM-1, which was recommended.
46:26
Kevin: There's plenty of options there.
46:28
Kevin: As long as they're dynamic, they're all going to work pretty well for this setup.
46:31
Kevin: Everyone should have their own headphones.
46:33
Kevin: Everyone should have their own mic stand or boom arm to keep that microphone tight to their mouth.
46:37
Kevin: Yeah.
46:39
Kevin: And because this setup is multiple people in one place, you want to be able to plug all those microphones into the same computer to record, and so the easiest way to do that is to run it through an audio interface or a mixer or a sound board, whatever you want to call it, and so it just depends now.
46:57
Kevin: It just depends on how many people you have.
46:58
Kevin: If you have two people, you have options like the Scarlett 2i2, the Vocaster 2, the Rodecaster Pro Duo and Zoom also make some boards like this.
47:09
Kevin: If you have more than two, then you have to get the bigger versions of these things.
47:13
Kevin: So I think Focusrite makes an interface that has four inputs or more, and Rodecaster has a Rodecaster Pro that I think has four inputs or more.
47:22
Kevin: Yeah.
47:23
Kevin: That's going to be dictated by the number of people you have in that same location.
47:27
Jordan: Yeah, that's going to be dictated by the number of people you have in that same location.
47:29
Jordan: Yeah, and then another thing that people might run into podcasting is sometimes you got a podcast from your vacation spot or from a conference center or something like that.
47:38
Jordan: So I felt like this was very timely.
47:41
Jordan: James Crinland actually highlighted one of his articles on pod news in the pod news newsletter this week and I was like perfect, because this is the topic we're discussing.
47:51
Jordan: And so he talks about how he records pod news on the move and he says that he uses the Shure MV88 plus and that is a about $280 mini microphone, which is astronomical in my opinion, but it does sound good.
48:10
Jordan: I've heard his episodes where he's recording from outside the studio and it does sound good, but I don't know.
48:16
Jordan: I think for even podcasting like on the go, I would still recommend the Samson Q2U because it's USB and you can just plug it in.
48:23
Alban: Right, the nice thing about that Shure microphone is that it's meant to be used often for somebody recording onto a phone.
48:31
Jordan: Yeah.
48:31
Alban: And so it can plug directly into the phone and your iPhone can use it as the input.
48:36
Alban: It's a little bit more natural because it's so tiny for travel.
48:39
Alban: I mean, it's hard for me to justify upgrading.
48:42
Alban: I think I used the first in the 88 and it was good, but it didn't play nicely with my phone back then, but that was years ago the Q2U.
48:53
Alban: I'm literally using the exact same Samson Q2U that we bought 10 years ago, like the same one, and it still works well about I don't know.
49:07
Alban: We have a world of where everything has like planned obsolescence and it goes out of style and you can't get the old thing anymore and everything breaks after the warranty period.
49:12
Alban: And there's this like one mic in my life that the exact same mic has been working perfectly for 10 plus years and we have beat it up, We've dropped it so many times.
49:22
Alban: So if we sound like we're talking about the same mic over and over, it's because it's done right by us and I want to make sure that the companies that do build products like this are rewarded.
49:32
Kevin: Yeah, it also depends a lot on what you're trying to do.
49:35
Kevin: I know when I see James walking around podcast conference and doing Pod News Live, he's usually walking around, he's usually holding a laptop and he's got a microphone.
49:45
Kevin: He's got that microphone in his hand and he's talking with Sam Sethi, his co-host, remotely through some remote recording software and then he's walking around interviewing people.
49:54
Kevin: So then he'll move the mic from his mouth to their mouth as he does interviews and Sam is in there also.
49:58
Kevin: That's a pretty complicated setup and he's a professional podcaster who does this as a career.
50:04
Kevin: If you don't need that remote deal but you want to record remotely but everyone you're interviewing is going to be in person, then you can just grab the mic that Alban's talking about, like a Samson Q2U and a PodTrack P4, which you just plug into that thing, hit record, slide it into your pocket and now you're just walking around with just a microphone and it's recording to an SD card in your pocket.
50:25
Kevin: That works really well too.
50:27
Jordan: You know, I actually have a recommendation for happy to help.
50:30
Jordan: Priscilla went to a conference in Denver and she wanted to interview some people and so we did some research and we found we didn't want to spend like a ton of money and we found a zoom H1 essential and it's like a hundred bucks.
50:43
Jordan: It's one of those ones where it just it looks like the standard handheld things that everyone has in like true crime documentaries, you know what I'm saying?
50:51
Jordan: And it has like the screen on it and it actually records the files onto the device but the microphone's attached to it and she was in the conference center recording with people interviewing them and she sent me the files and I could not hear anyone else around them and I was shocked at how good the audio is, especially for a device that's like a hundred bucks.
51:12
Jordan: It was very good.
51:14
Alban: And the zoom H one essential is used, I think, by like journalists who want to be able to record people in bad environments so they can actually use that audio.
51:23
Jordan: So yeah, I think it's usually like the H five N or something like that.
51:25
Jordan: So I think this is a more basic version of that.
51:28
Alban: Well, yeah, that's a.
51:29
Alban: It's a great tip for people who are going to be recording in person, but maybe even at a conference or noisy environments.
51:35
Jordan: Yeah, all right.
51:36
Jordan: So just to put a big bow on this, our final thoughts, our ultimate recommendations, and I can link to these in the show notes too.
51:45
Jordan: There's gonna be a lot of links.
51:45
Jordan: So, and I can link to these in the show notes too, there's gonna be a lot of links.
51:47
Jordan: So if anything piqued your interest, I will make sure that you can find it.
51:49
Jordan: So our beginner setup recommendation I think that we have nailed this on the head a few times Samson Q2U dynamic mic, usb plugin and wired headphones cheap wired headphones 30 bucks or less.
52:01
Jordan: You don't need anything more.
52:19
Alban: Pro level rig.
52:20
Alban: What did we land on here?
52:22
Alban: C white Ultima roadcaster and then something to listen to with.
52:27
Alban: You know some headphones and you could pick whichever ones feel best on your head.
52:31
Alban: I think that would probably be the main thing I'd be looking for.
52:34
Alban: But again, that's really if you're doing, you know you're really spending money and you're enjoying spending the money, you have to kind of enjoy that part.
52:42
Alban: So look at all these mics and pick something out that you enjoy.
52:46
Alban: Yeah, if that's the way you're going to go.
52:48
Jordan: All right.
52:48
Jordan: So for our next episode, we're going to be discussing podcast cover art.
52:53
Jordan: I'm real excited about this.
52:55
Kevin: Okay.
52:56
Kevin: Well, I would tell anyone who's listening then that this is going to be a pretty visual episode.
53:00
Kevin: I think we're going to have lots of examples of cover art, and so, of course, we'll link to them in the description, the show notes.
53:05
Kevin: But it might be beneficial for you to go ahead now and download a podcast app that supports chapter art, because we could link them all as chapter art.
53:14
Kevin: So, as we're talking about the cover art for whatever song exploder, it's just going to display automatically for you in your podcast app.
53:21
Kevin: You know a lot of people don't use it, but I think this would be a great time to show off the feature and show how it works, and so we will say, like, for the best listening experience, listen to this episode in, and we'll list a couple apps so you can all see the chapter art as we're talking about it.
53:33
Alban: I could say that this morning I was listening to a podcast and they were talking about a visual and I looked at my phone and, because I'm on Overcast and because they use chapter artwork, I was able to see the visual and I'm like it is really nice.
53:49
Alban: You know I'm not watching a video, but if they want to show a picture they're talking about once an episode I can see it and go okay, that makes sense for what they're talking about.
53:59
Alban: Move on.
53:59
Alban: You know, if someone wants to show a graph or something, I totally agree.
54:02
Kevin: There's a podcast that I'm listening to right now that I'm not seeing the images.
54:06
Kevin: There's a podcast that I'm listening to right now that I'm not seeing the images.
54:08
Kevin: It's a long episode.
54:09
Kevin: It's Lex Friedman interviewing DHH, six hour episode, and there's visuals and somebody suggested go watch it on YouTube so you can see the visuals.
54:17
Kevin: I'm like I do not want to watch it on YouTube.
54:19
Kevin: No, this is six hours.
54:21
Kevin: I'm not sitting in front of a computer watching a screen for six hours.
54:25
Kevin: I want to listen to it when I'm driving around.
54:26
Kevin: Yeah, but I do want to see like the code examples and stuff that they're talking about, so I wish they use chapter art.
54:30
Jordan: Yeah, well, I mean, on that note, how about we have listeners send us in what they think are really great examples of podcast cover art, what's something that you think is like really stunning, or your favorite podcast cover art?
54:44
Jordan: Do not be cheeky and send in your own.
54:46
Jordan: I will look it up and I will know that it was you.
54:50
Jordan: So just send us some stuff and then we'll put them in the chapter artwork and talk about them.
54:56
Alban: Yeah, and then if you have questions, if you have hot takes, if you have opinions about artwork, feel free to send those in as well.
55:02
Alban: It's fun to incorporate those into the outline as we go, but I know we have lots of thoughts about it and opinions on how you can create great podcast cover art, so feel free to jump in and help us do that.
55:14
Jordan: Yeah, and to do that, go ahead and tap the Texas show link in the show notes to send us some fan mail.
55:19
Jordan: So until next week, thanks for listening and keep podcasting.
55:23
Jordan: Okay, I have been seeing everywhere on my socials, like you know, how the algorithm just picks up something you'd be interested in and it just feeds it to you over and over and over again.
55:37
Jordan: Yes, all right.
55:38
Jordan: Yes, this week has been that a Las Vegas casino is implementing Uno into the casino.
55:49
Kevin: Do you play against the dealer, like the house?
55:51
Kevin: Are you playing against other people?
55:52
Jordan: I assume it would work similar to poker.
55:56
Kevin: Yeah, where you play other people.
55:57
Jordan: Yeah, I would think so.
55:59
Alban: There's like a buy-in with some kind of rake so that they take some of the money out of there.
56:04
Alban: This is a terrible idea.
56:05
Alban: By the way, I don't like this.
56:08
Alban: I've seen way too many.
56:09
Kevin: I was going to go the other way.
56:10
Kevin: I was going to say because Uno has some strategy.
56:13
Jordan: It does.
56:14
Kevin: Yeah, it's not just a straight luck game, so it feels like poker in that you could get better at it if you play some strategy.
56:22
Jordan: You know my kids cannot beat me at Uno and that gave me the confidence to go.
56:27
Jordan: Maybe I should go to Vegas.
56:28
Jordan: I feel like I could really clean up there.
56:31
Alban: Oh no, jordan, the problem with I've seen I'm sure you have too People get in real arguments while they're playing Uno, because you always feel like I'm getting close, I'm getting close, and then the person right before you drops the draw four and people are like you're always doing this to me, you pick on me, you wait till it's coming my way, yeah.
56:50
Alban: And now if money's at stake on top of it imagine like a thousand dollar pot and you're sweating it and you go, I've got it, the next card is going to be mine and I'm out and then a person drops a like draw four on you.
57:04
Alban: You're going to be furious.
57:06
Kevin: That is interesting because in Uno you can team up on people oh yeah, for sure and press them out.
57:11
Kevin: That's kind of hard to do in poker.
57:13
Kevin: Right, like poker, you are playing against other people, but you can't really work with another player to get somebody out.
57:19
Alban: And if you try to bully someone in poker, if they have the hand, they're going to take the chips from you.
57:23
Alban: Where Uno, I don't know, I feel like this.
57:27
Alban: It's always the person next to you, too, who does it.
57:29
Alban: So it was the person who's next to you.
57:31
Alban: I feel like you've got a real opportunity for some like physical altercations in these casino environments.
57:38
Jordan: Well, and what about like house rules too?
57:39
Jordan: Because we all grew up with our own version of what you can do in Uno.
57:43
Jordan: I think the number one argument I get into with people is I play where you can stack the plus twos so that the last person to not stack a plus two they have to draw like eight cards or something like that.
57:55
Jordan: And then you get all the people are like you can't stack those.
57:57
Jordan: No, you can't do that.
57:58
Jordan: It's usually the one getting you know the bad end of the stick.
58:08
Alban: But I just don't know if that's like official rules or I mean I don't know.
58:10
Alban: So I'm sure you have to have like the house rules written there on the felt around the table.
58:12
Alban: Well, Jordan, maybe if the next, there's been at least one podcast movement that was in Vegas, so maybe if they get another one you could go down there and take your paycheck and see how you do.