No Studio, No Problem: Starting a Podcast with Basic Equipment in the Digital Age

Whether you're a technical whiz or a novice , just starting out the technical elements of podcasting can seem like a complex puzzle . But don't worry , it's not just about knowing the tech lingo . It's about harnessing the power of the right tools to create a polished , captivating podcast .

From understanding microphones and sound mixes to navigating editing software and choosing the right hosting platform , we're here to break down the tech jargon and help you with the knowledge to produce a podcast that rivals the best in the business .

Podcasting is emerged as a powerful marketing tool for your speaking business , offering a unique platform to showcase your expertise , build your personal brand and connect with a wider audience . It allows you to share your insights , experiences and knowledge in a format that is easily accessible and engaging for your listeners .

Podcasts can be consumed anywhere , anytime , making them a convenient way for potential clients to get to know your speaking style , your depth of knowledge and your unique perspective . Moreover , they provide an opportunity for you to establish a deeper connection with listeners , who often feel the personal bond with a host due to the intimate nature of audio content .

This can lead to increased trust and credibility , which are crucial in your speaking business . Furthermore , podcasts can easily share and have the potential to reach a global audience , providing an effective way to expand your reach and influence . So how easy is it to produce and share one ?

Well , in today's digital age , recording , producing and sharing a podcast has become incredibly accessible . You no longer need a professional recording studio or high-end equipment to start your podcast journey . With a decent microphone and quite space on a computer , you can record high-quality audio right from your home or your office .

When it comes to production , there are numerous user-friendly software options available , many of which are free or relatively inexpensive . These tools are there to edit your recordings , add musical sound effects and fine-tune the audio quality .

Even if you're a complete beginner , there are plenty of online tutorials and resources to guide you through the process , making it easier than ever to produce polished and professional sounding podcasts . Promoting your podcast is also a breeze , thanks to the various podcast hosting platforms .

These platforms not only host your podcast files , but they also distribute your episodes to popular podcast directories like Apple Podcasts , Spotify and Google Podcasts . This means your podcast can be easily accessed by listeners all over the world . Social media platforms provide excellent avenue for promoting your podcast and engaging with your audience as well .

You can share episode teasers , behind the scenes content and engage in discussions with your listeners , further enhancing your podcast's reach and impact . In essence , the barriers to entry into podcasting have been significantly lowered , making it a viable and exciting option for anyone looking to share their voice or ideas with the world .

So let's have a look at some of the things you need to produce a podcast . Number one is a computer . Basically , anything with a USB input or an audio input can be used to record a podcast these days . So it doesn't matter whether you've got a Chromebook , a Mac , a PC , an iPad , a tablet or even a phone . You can record a podcast .

There's either an app or software that's built in or you can download , or you can use through the browser in the case of a Chromebook , to record a podcast , and I'm going to have a look at a few of those along the way .

Once you've got your device , your computer , for recording , then you need a microphone , and my personal opinion is the easiest microphone to use is a USB microphone that pretty well plug into anything And you can get adapters for different devices . So if you're using an iPad with an old lightning port , then you can get an adapter to plug into those .

Obviously , the most common you would see is the desktop microphone . So this one is sitting in the stand or maybe in an arm attached to the desktop , like the one I'm currently using . But also you've got wireless mics and you have lapel mics , all of which work just as well .

No-transcript , even if you don't have the best quality mic , if you can get a good sound level , the software these days will make it sound really , really nice . Personally , i like to use Broad mics RODE . They're an Australian company . They make exceptional good equipment . They have the Pod mic , which is one specifically podcasting .

Mine is the NT USB And it has like a stand , a filter , has a headphone jack and you can put it into an arm as well . And I've had that NT USB for I reckon it must be seven or eight years or maybe longer . I mean , a good mic is worth , you know , three to $400 , i suppose . But they last forever if you buy a good one .

And the good thing about USB is it's a standard , it's going to be around for a long , long time . And as we switch from USB A , b , etc to USB C , you just buy an adapter . So pretty simple , nothing really changes there . Some of the other brands you've got you know the Yeti brand , so you got Blue Yeti and all of those you see .

Envato make one , so they guys that do green screens and all sorts of streaming software . They also make a mic that you can get now a really nice one , samson . I have a little tiny Samson one which is about five centimeters high . It's only little , perfect for traveling . And of course you have Shure , which make really high end mics .

Now you can pay top dollars for a mic and I mean top dollar , thousands of dollars or you can start out with something simple . My recommendation is , you know , anywhere between $100 and $500 , depending on what your budget is , what you can afford .

So , for example , if you wanted to just get a little lapel mic , you can get a road lapel mic that plugs into the audio port for around $60 or $70 . And that will more than do the job for you . Quite frankly , you can record straight into your phone these days without a mic , because the mics are so good on the phone .

But it's up to you Do your research , read the reviews , work out how much you're willing to spend . If it's a new podcast , don't go out and spend thousands of dollars .

Just start off with something simple And then , once you get into the swing of things and you're recording regularly , maybe then think about investing some more money If you're turning your podcast into a stream of cash . Now what about mixes ? We always see people talking about using a mixer with a microphone . Well , personally I don't use one .

A USB mic plugs straight into the computer And with the software you can mix it directly on the computer . But I am thinking about maybe getting the RodeStreamer X , which is actually a little tiny mixer . It allows me to mix audio and video input straight into my computer via USB .

So you know that's a $700 investment roughly , and I'm still not convinced that I really need it . So for now I'm just going to keep using my RodeMic , just plugged into USB , and it's nice and simple . If you've only got one person in your podcast , you really don't need to mix . There's no need for it .

Mixing is normally done because you're pre-amping , so you're increasing the signal strength from a mic that's plugged into there so that then you can push it into the computer . But when you're using USB , you don't need to do that .

Now , if you've got two people and you're doing a podcast the Rode PodMics , you know you can buy two , three , four in a set and plug them all into the computer . Okay , so you don't really need that .

The other thing is too sometimes when you're doing two people on a podcast , one person's at a different computer in a different part of the world , so you really still only need one . You just need to have good recording software . Which brings us to the next part . The recording software is so many options available to you here .

I tend to keep it pretty simple . I use GarageBand because I have a Mac and GarageBand is free . It's a very high quality program . It's very simple to use . It's really nothing to it . You just choose a new audio input and press record for voice and then save it and export it as an MP3 .

There's nothing difficult about that And the instructions are all over the web so you can find instructions . But there is a range of other things available . So , from the app perspective , you've got Riverside FM . It allows you to record directly through the browser , and also there's an app available for phone , tablet etc . You've got the recorder app .

If you're using an Android phone , the recorder app is exceptionally good . They even transcribe for you as you speak . Rode has Rode Reporter , which is a free app for iOS and Android , so you can download that . Use that for free . Audacity is the one that's been around forever for editing audio .

It is again free and you can put plugins in to do different things if you want to , but I like Audacity . I'll talk about that in a little bit more in a few minutes . You can use Zoom even to record it .

If you want to do a face-to-face with someone , come together in Zoom and then edit the audio after that in , say , audacity or GarageBand where you want to import it into . One that I'm particularly enjoying is Descript . So D-E-S-C-R-I-P-T . Descript is growing really , really fast .

It started out as an editing software for audio and then video , and now it actually allows you to record straight into it . You pay a monthly fee and it has all these facilities , but they are constantly improving it And I love it because it even will allow you to export straight to your podcast host .

One of the things that's just about to come out is actually the iFollowing software . So you may have seen the video showing the software that no matter where you look on your screen , it looks like you're looking at the camera .

Well , descript has actually built their own version of that that works on Mac or PC and it's part of the software and it's coming out soon . It's part of the season four release . Also , with Descript , you've got Overdub , where you can record your own voice and it will create an AI voice of your voice and replace words .

You can type a replacement word and it will say it in your own voice And there's all sorts of other tools . There's some very , very good AI integration to allow you to do things . I highly recommend you go to YouTube and do a search for Descript season four Nice and simple , hey And watch the video . Just get an idea of what they're doing .

And if you want to learn more , have a look at the rest of their YouTube channel . It's really good software . It's 30 US dollars a month . I'd highly recommend it .

I'd really recommend it because I want to end up switching over to it to do everything soon , because I want to start doing this podcast as a video and audio podcast so that I can put it up on YouTube . So once we record it , we need to edit .

Okay , because there's all those bits and pieces you want to pull out of the software , or should I say pull out of the recording . So the first one is Audacity . As I said , it's free . You can see the audio track and you can see the sine wave of your voice as it goes up and down . Where I really like it is . There's lots of little tricks .

So one of the things I do is I breathe quite deeply . It's just one of those things . I think it comes from swimming . I tend to hold my breath and speak a lot and then breathe again .

So on my podcast you'll hear me breathing quite often and It annoys me even when I'm listening to my podcast , which I do sometimes to make sure that you know I'm on the right track .

So , audacity , you can actually select a bit of , you know , the sound track where you can see the breathing sign-wave and Teach it under the noise removal software that when it sees that , to remove that or to turn it down , and so You can automatically do that through the whole of the audio . There's lots of other things it does .

You can cut and paste and you can cut out dead spots and you know all that sort of stuff . But for me , the the breath removal thing is actually a really , really cool trick , and so that's very good . Obviously , d script , d script . You actually take your MP3 that you might have recorded in GarageBand , in my case and Import it into D script .

D script will then automatically transcribe it . Then it has tools to remove all the Rs So's and those sorts of things for you automatically , and And also it can remove dead spots in it . So it does a lot of stuff using AI and Then you can , once that's done and you're satisfied with it , you can obviously edit the , the transcript .

When you remove words from the transcript , it actually removes your voice from the podcast . So you kind of edit that , the text to remove the actual sound , which is pretty cool , to be honest , with you and a lot of software starting to do that now , like Adobe podcast and things like that . They all have that feature built in .

But then you just export as an MP3 Well , sorry , as a wave file , actually a higher quality file or you can export directly to your hosting . Another piece of software I use , which is not quite for editing but it's for the Transcriptions , is cast magic .

Now , cast magic was an app sumo deal , quite reasonable , and What it does is you load your MP3 up to there , it goes through and it gives you a nice transcription , tidies up transcription , gives you possible titles , it gives you short little social media blurbs , does all sorts of things for you because you want to transcript and you also want the Timing

breakdown to add to your podcast hosting . And Finally there's buzz sprout , which is actually my podcast hosting . But you can do a range of things actually up on Buzz sprout . So that brings me into the hosting side of it . So once you record a podcast it has to be hosted on the web . You don't host it on your website because it's a large file .

You can physically do that and set out an RSS feed that Apple podcasts and people like that can you read . But for $12 a month you can have your own , you know , hosted up on the web super fast for podcast and , you know , not deal with all that storage , which is quite a large amount , not to mention all the band with this .

People download it Because every time someone downloads a copy of it you know it's two meg , three meg , whatever . So I use buzz sprout . There's a range of different hosts . I like buzz sprout because they are actively involved in improving their service . They work closely with Spotify and all those organizations .

They have an exceptional podcast called buzzcast Where you can hear about , you know , as they improve things or as things change in the industry . They're talking about it . So it's really good . As I said , 12 US dollars a month , absolutely worth it .

Now , a couple of things I really love is that you can upload your introduction and your outro that go on the front and the back of Your podcast saying hey , welcome to the profitable speaking podcast and all that sort of stuff and It . All you need to do then is upload the actual bit of you talking for this episode .

It will automatically add the intro and the outro , which is Sounds easy . I mean , i can drag and drop that on my editing software . But What you can do with this is if I change my outro and my intro and I upload new ones , it automatically merges it with all my old Podcast episodes .

So just say I wanted to put an ad in the first intro says hey , welcome to the podcast . You know , sign up for my newsletter now and then in three months time I want it to be hey , welcome to the podcast . You know , join me for this course . I , when I upload the new intro , it changes every previous episode .

So it says join me for this course rather than say sign up for my email downloads or whatever . So you don't have to re-merge everything and re-upload them . So your front and back of your podcast are actually dynamic , which is brilliant . It's so smart .

One of the other things I now add is if your podcast is a certain length , you can actually put inline ads , so you can record an ad and it will automatically insert it into your podcast . And then if you change the ad and record a new one and upload it , it will automatically insert the new one .

So if you listen to podcast episode 10 today and then in a month's time I change the ad and you go back and listen to 10 again , it'll have the new ad in it . So pretty cool stuff , really easy to use .

Certainly , there's other tools that you can get , so you can pay for an upgrade to Magic Mastering , which is a tool that actually improves the sound quality And , to be honest with you , it's better than what you can do yourself , even with the right tools . That's all done , and then I got a new one called Cohost AI , which is a bit like Cast Magic .

It does transcriptions and all sorts of stuff for you automatically within the podcast software . So while you pay a little bit extra to have access to these I think it's $6 for Magic Mastering and 10 for Cohost It saves you going somewhere else to do it . It does it for you in the back end . Now something else it does , and there is a pile of things .

So go and have a look . It's visual soundbites . So it'll actually make a little visual soundbite of your actual podcast for you And then you can send that out via social media as a little video , et cetera . Now , descript also can do this , but you've got to do it manually , whereas with Buzzsprout it does make one completely automatically for you .

So once you've got your podcast up on the hosting , it's all about sharing . Now one thing I have learned is that you should direct your sharing links Whenever you share your podcast .

Send people to Spotify to listen if you're on Spotify , because Spotify one of their main ranking things is the number of people who are going to actually listen to the podcast , not necessarily the number of subscribers . So do that . You can actually do the sharing from within your hosting .

They normally are linked up with all the different places , but you may need to manually add some . So , for example , with Apple Podcast , you've got to create an account there to actually be able to add your podcast . So think about that . Again , most of the podcast hosting software places have links to where you've got to go and instructions on how to do that .

So , very , very simple . Again , try and get it onto every podcast platform that you can , because you want to reach as many people as possible , as effectively as possible . Now , the last thing I'd like to talk about is building a separate website for your podcast , and I think this is a separate thing to do . I think it's important . You don't have to .

You could always just add a podcast page and there's some embed code , that kind of butch cast , and all of those have . That displays all your podcast episodes on your own website . You just put the code on the page and they all show up .

I'm building one for this podcast at profitable speaking dot co And I'm slowly putting it all up there and doing different things . So what I'm doing is I'm turning the transcriptions into articles and then I'm adding episodes with a short intro and a player .

So basically , i'm able to leverage the content that I'm creating here through the transcription , so that I've got a post about each episode of the podcast and then a completely separate article , which is contains the information in the transcription but written as an article .

So that helps me from an SEO perspective and it gives you an SEO asset that you can link to your main website . Okay , also , because it's specifically focused to the podcast , you can have courses and sell books and etc . On your website there .

As always , it's up to you what you do , but you know , i think it's worth building a second asset around that one particular thing . But it also depends on whether the podcast is part of your business or whether your podcast is something entirely different , about an entirely different topic .

For example , you know your business might be you know something to do with leadership , but you actually have a podcast about you know sport . Well , in that case , why not make a separate site ? In the world of podcasting , perfection is not the goal . Okay , authenticity is .

Your podcast doesn't need to sound like it was recorded in the high end studio or be free of every minor flaw . In fact , some of the most popular podcasts have a raw , unfiltered quality that listeners find relatable and engaging . The most important thing is to start to get your voice and your ideas out there .

Don't let the pursuit of perfection hinder your progress . Instead , focus on improving incrementally with each episode . Listen to the feedback from your audience , learn from your experience and continually refine your processes . Remember that every great podcast has started from scratch and improved over time .

Embrace the journey of growth and learning that podcasting offers and you'll find that your audience appreciates your authenticity and commitment to delivering value rather than a flawless production . Take this podcast . It's never going to be perfect , but I'm not so I can live with that . I just do my best to bring you great and helpful tips , hopefully .

Well , i hope you found this episode of our podcast on the technical side of podcast production Interesting . If you did , i have a challenge for you . Please hit the like button and subscribe to the podcast right now and then share this episode with another speaker who could use the tips and strategies I've shared .

Let's help each other grow our businesses and make an impact in the speaking world . Together , we can reach even more people and make a bigger difference . So don't wait . Take action now and share the love . Thanks for tuning in and get ready for more exciting business building tips in our next episode .