I probably should have written this up earlier, but I’ll go ahead and toss it up now because … well … I’m lazy.
Over a year ago my friend, Phil Wels, and I started a podcast called This One Podcast. I just posted Episode 55: Unjump the Shark and it is crazy to think we have 55 episodes out there for the world to listen to.
Frightening because we keep doing it and we still have no idea what we are going.
We’ve added another host, Jonas Leyrer, and have also upped the quality of the program’s audio by having Phil handle the editing. He has a lot more experience than I do and I think he’s done an admirable job handling out audio that we toss at him.
We have also been working with a multiple-Skype setup recently to see if we would be able to centralize the recording at a single station where the mixing can happen instead of each of us recording out own audio and then sending it, via Dropbox, to Phil where he needs to import it into his editing program of choice (I think either Garageband or Pro Tools) where he can edit things for us.
I’m using a Blue Snowball microphone for most of my recording and it has worked very well. I would like to purchase something a little more “high end” in the future, but money is too tight for that right now.
The hardest thing for us has been keeping the topics lively, especially because we need to record in the evening when we have all put in a full day of work. While every show hasn’t been phenomenal, we continue to record because it is fun to get together with your friends and see where things go.
If you are considering trying out your own podcast here are my recommendations:
- Start with what you have because you can always get something better. If you have a microphone on-hand, just go for it.
- Amazon S3 has been really nice for hosting the files. I don’t have to worry about transfer speeds because that is on Amazon and using Transmit, from Panic, to upload the files couldn’t be easier. The only problem is that I haven’t been able to figure out how to let Phil also upload the files.
- If there is more than one host, just try out having each person record their own audio and then mixing it together in Audacity or Garageband. You don’t need to get too fancy.
- Download Levelator and use it.
- Keep at it. Set a schedule and keep to it as best as you can.
I don’t have any affiliate links or anything because this is mostly a brain dump. I’m hoping, though, that within the year I’ll be posting about Episode 100 and the delicious cake my wife is going to bake for us.