Podcasting with Aaron

Watch the video version of this episode here.

Welcome back to another episode of Podcasting with Aaron.

I hope you're having a good week so far. I know I certainly have. This past week has been one of the better weeks in recent memory. Possibly the best week since 2016, actually.

Last week I talked about the importance of getting good sound for your podcast. I talked about why good sound matters, what it means when something sounds good, and why you should get yourself that nice podcast microphone you've been looking at.

This week I want to talk about something that might seem basic to you if you've been podcasting for a while. I want to talk about connecting your microphone and headphones, and making sure you have your microphone (or audio interface if you're using one) set as the input source for whatever recording software you're using.

I remember the first time I bought a microphone and a little audio interface. I probably spent close to an hour trying to figure out how to record an audio file because I didn't know that I was supposed to set the audio interface as the input source for the recording software I was using, and then also that I needed to select the channel my mic was plugged into (channel 1) as the audio source for the audio track in the program.

You'd be surprised at how many podcasts are recorded where someone forgets to set their good microphone as the input source, and ends up with a recording that was made with the built-in microphone on their desktop computer. Which makes them sound far away and thin and not good.

And the goal here is to sound good.

The Essentials: Connecting Your Microphone and Headphones

Step 1: Is everything plugged in and turned on?

USB Microphones

If you're using a USB microphone: Is it plugged into your computer? Yes? Good.

Now, which program are you going to use for recording? You need to make sure your microphone is set as the audio input source for that program. Usually you select your audio input source in the settings, or the preferences area of the software.

If you're having a hard time finding how to set your mic as the input source for your recording software, do a quick search on Google or YouTube.

Next: Does your USB microphone have a headphone port on it? (A place to plug in your headphones.)

If so, plug your headphones into that. This is a good idea because it will allow you to hear what you sound like in real time. You'll hear people refer to this as "monitoring yourself".

You'll also need to choose the audio output source for whatever recording software you're using. Essentially, where should the audio from your computer go?

If you're interviewing someone, and your headphones are plugged into your USB mic, you don't want the audio from your computer going to your computer speakers. You want it to go to your USB microphone.

Quick recap:

Make sure your recording software is using the right mic before you start recording, and also that your software or computer is sending audio to the right place.

It's pretty easy once you've gone through this a couple times, but I've seen many podcasters struggle with this set up when they're first getting starting, and also it's important to get in the habit of double-checking your input and output settings before you start interviewing someone or recording an episode.

XLR Microphones + Audio Interface

If you bought an XLR microphone and an audio interface (like I'm using here), the set up process is going to be similar, but there's a few additional things to keep in mind.

Step 1: Plug your microphone or microphones into your audio interface using an XLR microphone cable.

Next, plug the audio interface into your computer. Your interface should have come with a right cable for your computer, but it's possible you might need an adapter.

Like if the cable for your audio interface is a USB-C cable, and your computer only has USB-A ports and no USB-C ports, then you'll need to buy a USB-C to USB-A adapter. Make sense? Google has answers for you if you're not sure what kind of adapter you need.

Quick note here: If you're using a Windows computer, I've heard that sometimes you have to update the driver for an audio interface before your computer will "see" and be able to use the interface.

A driver is just a little bit of software that tells your computer how to work with a piece of hardware like an audio interface. So if you open up your recording software and you don't see the option to select your audio inte...

If you only need to record your own voice, or maybe a couple people in the same room, you won't have a hard time ending up with a podcast that sounds good.

However, if you want to record interviews or episodes with guests or co-hosts that are in different locations, getting good sound becomes harder. You won't have any control over which microphones the other people are using, if they use good mic technique, if they know how to set input gain levels correctly, what kind of room or location they're recording in, and so on.

It's always a good idea to have a conversation about someone's recording setup before you sit down for an interview or start a new podcast with a friend who lives in a different place, and that's something I'll be talking more about in the next episode.

But the the software you use to record the interview or conversation is going to play a big role in whether or not you end up with audio that sounds good.

You have three options for recording audio for a podcast:

1. Talk with your guests or co-hosts using a chat app like Zoom or Skype, and have everyone record audio locally on their computer or phone, then put the audio files together afterwards for editing. This is easy enough for shows with the same co-hosts every time, but not always an option if you're doing interviews with new people every week. Your guests might not be willing or able to record an audio file to a computer or phone.

2. Use the recording functionality from a chat app like Zoom or Anchor, where you end up with a single audio file that has everyone's voice in it. This is easy, but often causes issues with sound quality (more on that in a moment). This was very common in years past because there weren't any good apps that made it easy to talk to and record multiple people at the same time and get an individual audio track for each person.

3. Use an app specifically made for podcast recording, like Squadcast or Zencastr. This is the best option for most people in my opinion, as these apps allow you to talk to multiple people and will also record an audio file for each person on the call that you can put together and work on in your audio editing software later.

The pros and cons of recording everyone to a single track

Pros:

• It can be simpler, easier
• Less friction or work for your guest(s)
• Editing is less complicated (this isn't always a good thing, though)

Cons:

• Less control over editing and mixing
• You can't adjust the volume levels for each speaker without doing lots of editing to move them to their own tracks

The pros and cons of recording a track for every person

Pros:

• Far more control and flexability
• You can edit out more
• You can adjust any person's gain level (how loud they are)
• You can do unique audio processing on each track if you need to

Cons:

• It's a little more time consuming and complicated to edit three audio tracks at the same time instead of one
• If you do want to do processing for each voice, you'll need to know about EQ, compression, noise removal, and limiting (although I'd recommend learning about those things anyways if you're going to be editing your podcast)
• Good software costs money ($20/month for Squadcast, plus whatever software you use for multi-track audio editing, Logic Pro or Audition)

So which should you choose?

I believe Squadcast is currently the best and easiest way to record conversations remotely. It's not free, but it's worth the cost.

If you disagree or if you have a different solution you like (there are many remote chat and recording options, like Zencastr, Cleanfeed, Zoom Pro, and so on), leave a comment on the YouTube video and let the other listeners know, or send me an email, [email protected].

Thanks for watching or listening, be sure to subscribe if you'd like to get future episodes as I publish them. If you're finding this show useful, please tell a friend about it or leave me a rating and review in Apple Podcasts.

You can find more at podcastingwithaaron.com.

Next time I'll be talking about what you should discuss with your guests and co-hosts before you start recording.

Till then, be well and happy podcasting.

Aaron

I've been obsessed with things that sound good for as long as I could remember. I've always loved music and the effect it has on my body and brain, so I got interested in the process of creating and capturing sound when I was young.

The first podcasts I started listening to back in 2008/2009 were professionally produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered by folks who had been working in radio for a long time. So they sounded really good.

Then I started listening to some shows produced by normal folks, what you'd call independent podcasters. I liked the content just as much, but I noticed that the sound quality was usually a lot lower, and sometimes so bad it made me stop listening to the show.

So I started wondering, can you make a podcast that sounds good even if you don't have a lot of money to spend? Is it possible?

I figured out that there were a few key things that made a big difference. So I'm going to make a series of episodes where I share what I've learned about audio recording and sound quality, and how to make a podcast that sounds good.

Q: Does it really matter how good you sound?

Yes! The quality of an audio recording affects how trustworthy and credible listeners think you are.

As a podcast host, you want people to be able to hear you clearly and understand you. If they have a hard time hearing and understanding you, they're not going to stick around for very long. The same goes for any co-hosts or guests you have on your show as well.

There's a research article by Eryn Newman and Norbert Shwartz from the University of Southern California published in 2018 that demonstrates the importance of good sound quality.

The articles references a study in which two groups of people were shown a video of a scientific talk and asked to rate the credibility and trustworthiness of the presenters.

The first group got a version of the video with high quality audio.

The second group got a version of the video with low quality audio.

When the video was difficult to hear, viewers thought the talk was worse, the speaker less intelligent and less likeable and the research less important.

“As soon as we reduced the audio quality, all of a sudden, the scientists and their research lost credibility.” - Eryn Newman

The quality of audio influences whether you believe what you hear - news.usc.edu

It's important to learn how to record and publish audio that sounds good.

Q: When you say something sounds good, what does that mean?

I use to talk a lot about sounding good, but I never really broke it down in a way that was easy to understand.

I know because I got a 2 star review in Apple Podcasts last year from Red84604.

Red wrote:

I can appreciate that the podcast dude is a musician. So am I. But his obsession with audio quality made me look for another podcast to reach me how to podcast. Even if I came to this podcast exclusively for advice about audio, it wouldn’t be useful for that because, from the very beginning, his advice assumes that the listener already knows a whole lot about the subject (more than I know and I actually was a professional musician for a while). I couldn’t follow it. And he went on for episode after episode. I want to produce a podcast with great audio. But even after listening to several episodes I am still not sure how to do that because his advice was so technical. And his snobbery on the topic was off-putting. Sorry.

That's fair criticism. So really, you can thank Red for this whole 7 part series I'm about to make and share with you.

When I say a podcast sounds good, it means each voice that you hear in the episode is clear and easy to understand, and not difficult to listen to because of distracting background noise or other factors that make it hard to hear and understand someone who is speaking.

Let's break that down even further.

Clear and easy to understand means:

You've got a microphone that works well for recording a human voice, and you're relatively close to that microphone when you're speaking.

Your voice doesn't sound muffled, or far away, or distorted in any way.

The volume level of your recording is loud enough, but not too loud.

That volume level doesn't change dramatically during the recording. It's consistent, or gets louder when you get speak louder, and quieter when you speak quieter.

Your audio recording is free of distracting background noise (hums, buzzes, pops, beeps, echos, reverb that makes it hard to understand you, etc).

The volume level of your voice is roughly the same as the other voices in the recording (if there are other voices).

There's other things that can enhance the quality and impact of an episode, like sound design, music, pacing, and so on, but ...

Today I’m sharing my process for writing outlines. If you've never written an outline for your podcast before, I'm going to teach you how today.

What does a podcast outline do for you? It helps you stay focused. It helps you make sure you cover all the topics you want to cover, or ask or answer the right questions. It helps you keep the episode on track.

Listeners want to know what they’re going to get from a show. You may have recorded an epic episode with tons of great advice and takeaways, but if you don’t tell the listeners in advance what they can expect, they won't know what's coming. People will tune out if they don’t know to expect or what the point of the episode is.

In this episode, you'll learn how to outline your episodes and explain the content of your episode at the start of your episode so you can keep people listening (and subscribing) to your show.

Highlights, Takeaways & Quick Wins

• The purpose of outlining is to keep you focused on the big picture things before you dive into the small details.
• Start your outline with your big idea. This will be the main topic of the episode.
• In your intro, tell your listeners what they can expect. Explain to them why this topic matters and why they should care.
• You don’t have to do any real writing inside of a mind map outline. It’s just for laying out the main sections and big ideas of the episode.
• Invest some time every week doing additional research on your topic.
• Find out what other people are saying about your topic.
• Find and address any counter-arguments.

Why Outline?

If you’ve never done outlines before for your podcast, I recommend trying it.

If you don’t have an outline, you won’t have structure. Your show won’t feel like it has direction. You might forget important things.

If you’re doing an interview, you might miss important questions or forget to talk about certain things.

While doing an interview, it’s ok to go with the flow and the conversation, but your listeners will appreciate if you prepare topics to talk about with your guest.

The purpose of outlining is to keep you focused on the big picture things before you dive into the small details.

If you try to write out an episode from start to finish, it’s easy to get bogged down in the details of one section and lose sight of the big picture.

But don’t take my word for it. Listen to what these folks have to say about outlining:

Scotty: I’ve been doing mind mapping to begin my process of outlining. I select the main takeaways that I can focus on and then prepare the outline. Sometimes my mind goes off the outline but that’s alright. Mind maps have been huge to stop me from staring at the cursor blinking wondering where to start.

Garrett: Outlining definitely benefits me. It helps me get my thoughts organized in advance so I can just start typing away and get the rough draft finished. I do think it’s important to not stick strictly to the outline. Sometimes you’re writing and you realize the order should be different, or you need to add something, or remove something, and that’s okay. The outline isn’t the definitive.

Let's start by walking through the sections of a typical episode outline, and then dive into more detail about each piece.

Please feel free to adapt this outline to meet your needs. This is how I outline and I hope it will give you a nice starting point but it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution.

How to Start a Podcast Episode Outline

Scotty asked: Do you have your headline set before you plan your attack? Or do you start to write your outline then form an engaging headline from there?

Now, Scotty said headline, but I think he means title. I always start with the Main Topic or the Big Idea.

This can also be the title of your episode, but you don’t have to have the title before you start writing the outline. You can change the title later if you want.

Start your outline with your big idea. This will be the main topic of the episode.

After you have your main topic, what is your hook? What perspective or opinions do you have that are unique or interesting about this topic? What are your listeners going to take away from the show?

After you have your topic and hook, start writing your intro. Think about how you’re going to introduce this topic or idea to your audience.

After you have your main topic and intro, start thinking about the main points related to that topic that you want to make. These will be your headers. These are the main sub-topics or ideas that will make up the meat of your episode. You should also address counter arguments after you’ve made your main points, but I’ll talk more about tha...

Have you ever wondered what it takes to make a podcast? What the steps are? This week, I’m going to walk you through my process, step by step. I'm going to give you a better understanding of what it takes to make a podcast, take some of the mystery and scariness out of podcasting, and give you actionable steps to follow to make your own podcast.

Couple quick updates to this episode: I now use MP3 chapters instead of writing time stamps for each paragraph. My show is also now hosted on Simplecast, so my workflow has gotten a lot faster/easier.

Want the cheat sheet? Here's an updated PDF of my podcast production workflow.

Key Takeaways:

• Post-production seems to be the most difficult and time consuming part of podcasting. Fortunately, it’s also the easiest to outsource. Consider hiring an editor or assistant to take care of it for you.
• If you don’t have much free time to invest in your podcast, keep it simple. Share something valuable in 3-10 minutes.
• Mind mapping is a great creative exercise that helps me capture all the things I want to talk about related to my topic.
• Create presets and templates for your tracks and use them every week.
• Be ruthless about editing both before and after recording.
• Creating an email newsletter for every episode can be time consuming, but it’s important if you want to build an list of people that you can sell to later down the road.
• Don’t be afraid to share your older episodes on social media. Grab a takeaway from the episode and post it with a link to the episode.

In this episode I’m going to walk you through my entire podcasting process, but I want to start with a question from a listener.

Emily Carlton asks: How long did your entire process take when you first started, and how long does it take now? In what areas have you become more efficient to save time?

When I first started, each episode was taking me around 5-10 hours (sometimes more). It feels like it takes less time now, but not by much.

The time it takes to produce a podcast depends on the format and how much work you want to put into it to make it awesome. If you’re ok with your episode being a little on the short side, if you don’t want to super detailed or lengthy episode notes, then you could probably record and publish an episode in an hour or two.

A few things that saved me a lot of time: Learning how to edit quickly in Logic Pro X, how to save plugin settings as defaults, and how to create channel strip and project templates.

The Three Parts of Podcasting: Preperation, Recording, and Post-Production

My podcasting process can be broken down into three parts; Preparation, Recording, and Post Production.

Preparation includes things like researching what people are interested in learning about, coming up with topics, researching those topics, and writing an outline for the episode.

Recording is making sure your audio gear is setup, connected and ready to go, then hitting record and doing the show (and live streaming if that’s a thing you do).

Post-production is editing the audio file (or files, if you have guests or co-hosts), bouncing it out to an MP3 file, tagging the file, writing show notes, uploading those things to the website for publishing, creating the email newsetter, then promoting the episode on social media.

What’s the Most Time Consuming Part of Podcasting?

Robert Guzzo asks: Can you estimate the percentage of time & effort you devote to each: preparation, recording, post-production & publishing? I’m asking more for an estimate on which parts of the process take the most time–does prep take up the majority of the overall effort for an effort, or is post-production the biggest slice of the pie?

You can either do the bulk of the work up front or later in post-production. For example, when I’m doing solo shows, I write out almost the entire show before I record it. Then I don’t have as much work on the editing or the show note writing section.

If I’m doing an interview, I have an basic outline but I don’t know what’s going to be said, so I write the show notes afterwards. It’s very time consuming but that’s just how it goes.

As I told Robert in the chat before the show, it depends on when you want to do the work. If you do more work up front, the post-production work of writing show notes will require less time.

Pre-Production

There are three main parts to pre-production:

1. Choosing a topic for the episode
2. Mindmapping (brainstorming)
3. Writing the outline

1. Choosing a Topic

Choosing a topic involves a lot of research. When searching for topics for my show, I’m asking myself:...