I’ve been slowly amassing equipment for use in producing podcasts.
Over the summer, I acquired a small mixing board and a decent dynmaic microphone to use for recording Almost Friday for the Blogathon. That worked out reasonably well. I hooked everything through the mixing board into the guitar monitor and out to an M-Audio USB audio capture box. The sound produced wasn’t bad.
For Christmas Berta got me a Fostex MR-8 8-track digital recorder. It’s a fine little piece of equipment, and very portable, since you can run in from batteries.
The kit it came in provided a bag, another dynamic microphone, and some cable, which was plenty to get started recording things on the road. I was considering doing a kind of live-recorded podcast from the next meetup in Philly, in which anyone who wanted a turn talking could say great things about themselves, or Philly, or their blogs.
But there has got to be more to this podcasting thing than people blithering on about stuff that has no interest, right?
Well, I piled on some more equipment lately. I got a new Roland sampler/sequencer, which can create nice sequenced patterns of sampled sound, but could be used very well during a live program for inserting sound effects and sweepers. It, too, is possible to power by battery, so it is quite versatile.
There is also a brand-new microphone for my home studio setup. This one is a condenser microphone, which means it requires power. This is not a problem because the mixer has phantom power. I hooked it up last night and put on the headphones - wow! It’s like night and day. It hears everything. Adjusting the EQ on the mixer now actually does something to the sound. Anything coming out of the old microphones sounded kind of muddy compared to this. This is also the detriment, since before this it was like my voice was wearing clothes, and now it’s standing out there naked.
I’ve gotten a few books on podcasting, too, which have been quite helpful in showing me how my little setup - which at first glance looks like more than any common podcaster would ever use - is so far from a real studio that I almost want to cry.
Still, there are a few good things to take away from my reading. First, I’m going to have to listen to more podcasts, just to get a feel for the sound and format of the medium.
If the general content hasn’t changed since the last time I was out listening to podcasts, then I have no interest in that. When I was last listening, shows fell into three categories: Two geeky guys chatting about tech topics that I had already read about elsewhere, a guy and a girl chatting/kvetching about stupid stuff that happened to them that day or that they found on the net, or a some lonely guy/girl talking over the ends of a few tracks of music that isn’t my style. Suffice to say, nothing I want to listen to.
I spend a lot of time these days listening to audio drama on XM. I think it’s a lot of fun to listenalong, and if the stories and acting are good, there are times when I would rather listen to it than watch something similar on TV.
So I was thinking of doing more Almost Friday, and spreading out the episodes a little. Perhaps I would release a weekly episode at a slower pace. Perhaps each one would be 20-30 minutes long.
What would be awesome is to get an actual cast, instead of having to do all of the voices myself.
And that’s the thought that sends me back toward a WordPress-oriented news podcast. Goodness knows we need one, but I’m not too enthusiastic about spending my entire life working on WordPress-related stuff. It would be nice to actually use WordPress to blog out other interests.
So I guess I will start by picking up a few podcasts. My Podcast Hacks book suggests a site for “best of” podcast episodes, where producers can select their best episodes for display. Hopefully there will be something there worth listening to.
If you have any suggestions for what sounds good to you, or for what kind of podcast I should produce, please comment. I’m anxious for more ideas.
