July 16, 2024 • 39 mins
Ep. 174 In this episode of Black Tech Green Money, I dive into the essential gear you need to start a highly rated podcast. Whether you're a beginner or looking to upgrade your setup, I’ve got you covered with recommendations for every budget. I’ll walk you through the best recording software, hardware recorders, microphones, audio interfaces, storage solutions, hosting services, and communication tools to ensure your podcast sounds professional and runs smoothly.
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Links to the items I mentioned in the episode:
Apple Logic Pro X [LINK]
Adobe Audition [LINK]
Audacity [LINK]
Zoom H6 Six-Track Portable Recorder [LINK]
RODECaster Pro [LINK]
Tascam DR-05 [LINK]
Shure SM7B [LINK]
Rode NT1 [LINK]
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
It is important to put the effort into sounding good.
Not just your voice, which should sound good, but also
the recording of your voice should sound good. People will
forgive lower quality video than they will lower quality audio.
(00:23):
Going to do a solo episode today, I know you
guys seem to enjoy when I do these solo episodes,
and I'm looking forward to this one because this one
is kind of a pickup of a blog post that
I wrote back in twenty eighteen on will Lucas Co,
which is my website, check me out. Yeah, so I
(00:44):
wrote this blog post entitled the gear you need if
you wanted to build a highly rated podcast, and I'll
even link that in the show notes, the link to
that blog post, and I'll link everything I'm about to
talk about in the blow in the show notes as well.
But today I wanted to update that list, so we're
(01:07):
going to talk about the gear you need to make
a highly successful, highly rated podcast. And so I've been
privileged to be podcasting since about twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen,
and previous to that, I did radio since I want
to say nineteen ninety nine, back in the nineteen hundreds,
(01:28):
nineteen ninety eight, I think actually so I've been doing
this for a long time.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
It sounds wild to say that I've.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Been doing some since the nineteen hundreds, but I guess
I've been doing it since nineteen hundreds, So.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
You know, those things correlate.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
So podcasting is a lot like radio, and so having
all those years of radio experience translated super duper well
into podcasting. And it's not that I want to say
this because I don't want people get confused like you
have to have that sort of radio background to be
good at podcasting, because you obviously don't. There's so many
people who are successful at podcasting that have never been
(02:06):
in a radio studio, and so I just wanted to
clear that up before I went further. So I talked
about a lot of things in that blog post that
I will rehash today because a lot of the gear
that I'm using I still like to use. And there
here's what I will say about podcasting, or actually i'll
start with me and equipment, and so there are three
(02:30):
four you know, there are certain levels of equipment or
software I will talk about today that will and I'll
provide options. So if you want to have the expensive option,
I'll provide that the middle of the row option, I'll
provide that, and the inexpensive option, I will write that
or say that also. And so, but what's important to
know at least about me. I don't know how you work,
(02:51):
but this is how I work. I struggle to produce
creative product, creative outcomes with cheap stuff. It's just really
difficult for me to do that. And so I remember
when I was learn I'm a musician, so when I
was learning to play drums, I needed to learn on
a quality drum set. Because I'm playing on a cheap
(03:13):
drum set. I just couldn't get it. And so maybe
you don't have that issue. But if I'm learning how
to do something, I need quality tools to learn how
to do it.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Now.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Once I got it, then I can go use whatever
and I can do it the thing on whatever. But
it's difficult for me to learn using cheap stuff. And
not to say that everything that's inexpensive is cheap, I'm
just saying that. There are a whole lot of blaw posts,
a whole lot of podcasts about you know, you can
do certain things just using your phone, and you can
do certain things, you know, going completely free. And while
(03:45):
that may be completely true, I don't learn that way.
It's difficult for me to produce a podcast just using
my phone, although that is extremely popular, I see need
to say popular. It's possible you can produce a podcast
just using your phone. Now, with that said, I don't
know anybody who has a super successful podcast and just
(04:07):
does it using their phone, and so you can start
that way. And I think it's necessary to get reps
in by using the tools that you have at your
disposal and not investing a whole bunch of money or
a whole bunch of things into something that you're not
going to be serious about anyway. So I do think
there's value in using the tools that you already have
(04:28):
at your exposal. But I think it's more important to
prove to yourself and to the world that you are
serious and that you're going to do this thing before
you have all the dollars invested into it.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
So I think it's.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
More important to do it that way, and more so
proving that you are in this to win it, versus
thinking that you're going to scale a big podcast just
using a limited amount of tools. I just don't know
people who do that, and so I'm just being honest.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
With y'all. So we talk about that, talk about us, you.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Know, setting up your phone and doing things, you know,
talking into the audio recorder. Start that way, completely fine,
and I encourage you to do that. I will advise
people to do that, But it's not necessarily again to
belabor the point, and unintentionally, it's not necessarily because I
believe that you're gonna win that way.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I just think that it.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Is an important step to proving that you are serious
about this. So what I'm saying that all that to
say is I did mention I have a radio background,
and so I had the privilege or else. I have
a marketing and video production company, so I have the
privilege of already having a lot of the equipment. When
I decided to go and start doing a podcast, already
(05:43):
had a bunch of equipment. I already had computers, I
already had keyboards and instruments, and I already had recording devices.
And so for me, like that's just a playground that
I have the privilege to play in. And so not
everybody has that. And so again we're gonna talk about
all these tools. So I want to start here talking
(06:04):
about just that very thing, recording software, and so I'm
going to give you a couple of different levels. Most
of all of these things that I'm going to talk
about today, I have, and I'm even gonna do a
video version of this podcast, so you'll be able to
check this out on YouTube and actually see all the stuff.
But I record, I'm start with the higher end stuff,
(06:25):
and then I'll talk about the middle of the row,
and then I'll talk about the inexpensive end or free options.
I record using Apple Logic Pro, and so I record
using that because I learned how to record using things
like pro Tools and Apple Logic, and so if I
were to start over again, there are way more tools
available on the market today that you can use to record,
(06:46):
especially recording yourself and or you know, guests, if you're
going to have a guest podcast. There are way more
things on the market today because podcasting is way bigger
than it was when I started that. Are you know
these things are available to you, and are you know
you can amazon it? You'll have it tomorrow. But Apple
Logic Pro is one of the things that I record,
the only thing I pretty much record or I should
(07:09):
say edit with, because I records using a couple of
different things but editing, particularly I record using.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Apple Logic Pro is powerful.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
It does way more than than it's necessary to podcast
because it's designed for you know, audio production in a
big way, So you can do everything from scoring movies
on it to doing you know, music making beats on it.
But just to be clear, it's very powerful also for
(07:38):
recording your voice and voices of people you may be
interviewing on your show. So what's important to me is
that I have an interface that is very easy to use.
And so sometimes, because I've been doing this for a
long time, I will go through and you know, when
I'm recording, I can see the waveform of my voice,
and so I've been doing this so long, I can
(07:59):
look get the waveform and find things that don't make
sense because I know how a voice should look in
wave form. And so when I see a quick little
spike in the audio and there's not something anything to
the left or right of it, that's probably either a
click in a voice something like that, or something like that,
and I can just go and quickly edit that out
super duper fast without even listening back to it, cause
(08:21):
I know what it looks like. Is I've been doing
this for a long time. So Aple Logic Pro I
believe right now is like two hundred bucks.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
You can get it.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And what's cool about it is it's not like most
software anymore where you're paying monthly for. It's like a
subscription that never ends. Like once you buy Apple Logic,
you have Apple Logic and you don't have to have
a subscription necessarily. So I'm actually, you know, in I
kind of don't like that about today's world, especially as
a consumer, maybe a producer, but not as a consumer.
(08:52):
Having you can't just buy software you know, so often anymore,
y there's a subscription for which is whack.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
But I digress.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
So if you don't want to spend that much on
an audio editor and or recorder, because you can do
both in Apple Logic. You have things like Adobe Audition,
which I also have, I just don't use it because
I don't love I shouldn't say because of people from
Adobe listening to this. I just I'm not a big
(09:20):
Adobe fan, and I kind of see Adobe a lot
like I see a lot of Microsoft products. They just
don't work for the way my brain works. Apple products
work way better for the way my brain works. But
with I said, I do have Adobe's Creative Cloud because
my video production team works a lot in Premiere and
it's the only reason I have Adobe Creative Cloud because
(09:43):
even like the designs I want to have anymore, I
can do a lot of that in Canva. And so
Adobe Creative Cloud comes with Adobe Audition, which is a
doll which means digital audio workstation. Adobe Audition is a
doll which you can can use to record and edit
(10:03):
your voice and the voices of your guests, and you
can do that very easily. Again, it comes as part
of the Creative Cloud. So if you have Adobe Creative Cloud,
you can probably already download this as part of the
suite of tools you have. So I mean you get
Adobe Premiere, you get Adobe Photoshop Illustrator, all these things,
(10:23):
and an audition depending on which level of the Creative
Cloud you subscribe to from Adobe Audition from Adobe. I'm sorry,
but as part of the Creative Cloud. There's different versions
of this, especially if you're in school, you can get
a discount for the Creative Cloud, but you know there
are versions where you can get like twenty one dollars
a month and you can get Adobe Audition for that.
(10:44):
On the free side, there's programs like Audacity, which I've
used before. Again, it's kind of a scaled back version
of both Apple Logic and Audition, but for the most part,
for most people, it will work and it's free. And
so it's an open source audio editing you know software,
and so it's free to use. You can learn it
(11:06):
pretty quickly, and you can export your audio edit your
audio record into it, you know, and we'll talk about
the tools you'll need to record into it in a moment,
but you can do all that with Audacity and it's free.
And then going from there we talk about hardware recorders.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
So I mentioned.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Recording software when I'm talking about Apologic, Audition and Audacity,
but I pretty I don't record into software often. Right
right now, I'm recording into software because I'm not interviewing anybody.
But if i am interviewing somebody, I'm going to use
an external recorder just because of the way my setup
is designed. And if you ask twenty different people on
podcasting setups, you will get twenty different answers. I'm telling
(11:47):
you what Lucas does, and so I've been doing this
for in my own experience for a long time.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
This is what I do.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
It works for me, and it probably would work for
you also, But external recorders. The most important thing you
learn when you start recording audio or video or writing documents.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Is saving it. Because what you.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Will find is when you have a machine that is
doing you know where you input the work into the machine.
If you don't save it, you will lose work. And
it raised your hand. If you've ever lost work, you
see technology before. And so I like to use external
recorders because if I'm recording directly into matter of fact,
(12:30):
while I'm saying that I'm gonna save this, which I
can do while I'm recording, and then I have to
stop and actually even to the program crash, it will
likely save an AUTOSI, an auto save version. So it's
less likely I will lose it if my computer crash
right now or the software crash, but it's still possible.
So going back to hardware, I personally am a big
(12:53):
fan of recording into a dedicated device. And the reason
why is because again I'm gonna say this a hundred times,
I've been doing this a long time, and when you've
been doing certain things for a long time, there you
develop these habits or ticks because of the things you've
experienced to where you don't like to do things other ways.
And the reason I don't like to record directly into
(13:15):
computers is because computers do crash. Not that other hardware
does not crash, but through hardware is probably only doing
one thing. It's just accepting your audio and it's recording it.
That's probably all it's doing. Your computer is doing probably
twenty thirty forty one hundred other things at the same time,
is trying to record your stuff. Hear your stuff, record
(13:38):
your stuff, display your stuff, all all of those things
and even more stuff. You probably got tabs open in
the background, and all these things open up more gateways
for things.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
To go wrong.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
And so I prefer to record using an external device
that is just doing what I'm asking you to do.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Record.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
So I record, for the most part, especially when I'm
doing an interview, I record using a zoom Age six,
which is a six track portable recorder. I can carry
it with this little case. It's like a size of
a book, and the case of the size of a book.
The device is half the size of a book with
wise at least, and I can plug different microphones into it,
(14:21):
so I can add six different tracks, and so if
I'm interviewing somebody, I can be interviewing several different people
at one time, and each of them have their own volume.
So let's say I'm sitting in front of three other
people and one person talks really really loud, other person
talks really really quietly. I can turn the person whose
voice is really quiet up louder and while keeping the
(14:45):
person who talks loud their volume down lower, recording them
that way because you know you want independent So I've
used to it when I was didn't have a lot
of money. I was trying to record using you know,
one singular input, and you can control the various volumes
people talk at because everybody's being recorded to one channel
(15:07):
and so you can't like splice out one person's voice
from another. But if you're recording on different tracks and
then you import that audio into a doll like Adobe
or you know final cut sorry Logic like I use,
then you can see everybody's voice on their independent channel,
and I can make tweaks to your voice without touching mind.
So it's super super important and also has phantom power,
(15:29):
which means I can plug a microphone into it that
is not necessarily powered itself. It's not like I can't
unplug it into a wall. But this microphone is just
a microphone and it needs power from some source. And
so the Zoom eighty six has phantom power on it,
which is what it's called when you need the power
(15:49):
a microphone, so it will provide the power your microphone
needs to be able to accept your voice. And you're
recording directly to an SD card, so the audio is
not being record record it to the device. You are
putting in another SD card into the device which it's
recording to.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
So it's another.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Level there of security for the audio that you are
interested in capturing. The device I don't have, but I
think it is a really really cool device. Is a
road Caster Pro. I've used it, I've seen other people
use it. It's amazing for podcasts recording. It's pretty much
a whole podcast studio in one. And what I love
about the road Caster Pro is not only can you
(16:31):
you know, use Bluetooth with it, but it has programmable
sound pads. So let's say you are, you know, recording
a podcast where you want to have sound effects. You know,
these are just pads that you can trigger at any
moment and give yourself like an audience clap or laugh
or you know, a trumpet or a fire truck horn,
and you can program all these sound effects into it
(16:52):
and trigger them, you know, at the push of a button,
and all of that stuff happens in the recording in
real time.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Suber super cool. And then the inexpensive route, I mean.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
So I should go back. Actually, so the zoom A
six which I use, is about three hundred and fifty bucks.
The road Castered Pro a little bit more expensive. That's
about six hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Today.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
There are different versions of it, so you don't have
to have the Pro, but the the task Cam DRO five,
which I have, also is one hundred dollars. And the
task Cam what's cool about it, it's compact, it's more affordable.
It's about one hundred dollars, and it has microphones built
into it, so stereo microphones which are built into it,
(17:35):
so you can legit, just pull out the device, hold
it in your hand, and record people right into the device,
so you don't even need an external microphone because they're
built into it. And it also records into a Nest card.
So it's a great choice for people who are beginning
and just trying to figure out if podcasting is for
them or if you just don't want to spend a
(17:55):
bunch of money on this equipment and you just got
something saying you gotta get it out. Rove is a
good solution for you. So let's talk about microphones, because
I did talk about this on.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
The blog posts. Because the each.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Of the microphones I'm about to mention to you I
have now, and the first one, which is the more
expensive one, I did not have when I wrote the
blog post, but it is the Sure SM seven B.
It's like a four hundred dollars microphone, and I love
this microphone. It's my favorite microphone out of everyone that
I have. It is because it's excellent for vocals spoken word,
(18:31):
and it's not necessarily designed for much anything else than
that it is.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Designed for voices.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
I'm actually not even using that microphone in this moment,
but I love the microphone not only because it sounds amazing,
but it also looks amazing when you are recording and
recording video at the same time a low profile, it's
kind of stocky. It's just it's a beautiful microphone to
look at. And then the one I'm actually recording on
right now is a microphone I've had, almost, if not
(19:00):
since I started doing podcasts at all. I think I've
had this microphone since like the the two thousands, like
the first decade of the generation. So the road in
T one, which I'm recording on right now, is the
studio microphone.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
It's super dupe.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
I mean, I've had to think for a long time.
Its super duper durable. I don't beat it up, cause
you know, I take care of my stuff. But it's
also good for musicians. So I talked about the uh
SM seven B, which is great for vocals. The NT one,
which I'm recording to right now, is versatile, so you
can use it for audio I'm sorry now audio. You
can use it for vocals and if you're trying to
(19:42):
sing into it, if you're trying to record UH acoustic
instruments into it. You can use this NT one also,
But it sounds amazing too. It's just not it's a
it's a studio microphone, so it's not as necessarily designed
for people who are just doing podcasts like the SM
seven B is. If you're doing spoken word, that'sh your microphone.
(20:03):
But you can also do this with the Sindheiser E
eight thirty five, which you also have, and we actually
use that microphone as the general house microphone.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
For Lucille's, which is my jazz club that I have.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
And so the eaight thirty five is a vocal microphone also,
but it's super duper rugged. I cannot tell you how
many times that I've seen that microphone dropped. I mean,
we have like ten of them, but I've seen them dropped,
beat up, you know, these things get dinged up. They
are great for live performers and even in person interviews
(20:36):
because if you're out on the streets and you're doing
in person interviews, you're probably gonna beat the mic up.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
A little bit. But the EA thirty five, so.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Like one hundred dollars microphone, still sounds amazing, travels super
duper well, and it just it just handles rough environments
way way well, way more well than like they rolled
in T one ever would because it's just not designed
for traveling that way. It's a studio microphone. It's designed
to be mounted and left alone. So that's it on microphones.
(21:06):
And again, I will put all this stuff in the
show notes, and I'm probably even update the blog post
to to give you a new version of that since
it was sick. Ke here, since I did the last one.
So let's talk about interfaces because sometimes people believe, hey,
I have a computer and I have a microphone, I'm
ready to rock. Well that depends because certain microphones, your
(21:28):
computer can't read the audio, and so we're gonna talk
about that because you need an audio interface. You need
something that goes that sits in between the microphone and
the computer, and that's called an audio interface. It converts
the analog signal of your voice, which your microphone can accept,
into a digital signal that your computer can process. Often
(21:52):
they also improve sound quality. But the point of the
interface is to translate. It's the translator. It's the person
that if you go to a different country, they speak
a different language. The translator is the person that sits
in between you guys, hearing what you say, translating it
for them to understand. So the interface is the translator.
So I'm speaking, and I'm speaking analog because my voice
(22:15):
is an analog tool and then or analog sound maybe
that's a better way to say it. Analog sound. My
computer can't read my voice, and so the interface does that.
The Focus right. Scarlet two I too is a device
that I have. It's popular, it's easy to use, super
high quality sound. I can put two microphones into it.
(22:38):
I can put instruments into it, and it's super great
for podcasters people who are recording at home, and it's reliable.
You know, it's very hard to not get right because
it's designed to be simple and it has fanom power
on it, which I also mentioned about the Zoommate six.
(22:58):
But if I'm recording directly in my computer, which I
want to do sometimes like today, I can just use
the audio interface and it can translate the NT one
which I'm using as a microphone, into something the computer
logic can read. So to I two, which is the
(23:20):
Focus by Scarlet super duer popular. This one's like one
hundred and fifty bucks. Then there's like the Bearringer Euphoria.
I particularly talk about the UMC two zero two HD.
And the reason I'm bringing this one up and there
are other options Barringer provides, is because I want to
kind of give it like an Apple to Apple. So
this one also has the two inputs, so I can
put two microphones into it if I'm talking to somebody
(23:42):
on my episode. I like Bearringer products for beginners because
they are designed pretty durably, pretty simple, and they try
to give you the bells and whistles that more expensive
tools give you, just without the costs. So obviously they're
not made with as high grade mechanicals or materials, I
(24:05):
should say.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
But they're good. They're really good.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
And so if you don't want to spend two times
the price a beer injury product will work super well.
And that doesn't mean that they're not quality things, they're
just not you know, their budget contest.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Okay, then we could talk about this also because I
mentioned the point of a an interface is to give
you the ability to translate. It's the mediator between your
voice and the computer. There are some microphones which are
digital microphones, and I have the Blue Yetti also which
(24:41):
I like that microphone a lot. I don't use it
when I'm recording the guests, but I use it if
I'm just talking into the computer and just need to
record something real quick. It's more of like my you know,
on the fly, Hey I got to record something.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Keep it moving. And so the U it's a USB microphone.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
It eliminates the need for interface altogether because it's just
got a USB connection and it's plug and play. You
don't have to download any software to use it. You know,
you plug it in, it's ready to rock. And it
was double bato YETI is. It also has a headphone jack,
so you can hear directly what's coming out, and so
(25:21):
you you could plug your headphones into the computer and
hear what it's hearing. But you can also plug right
into the microphone to hear what you can your microphone
is hearing super dope and that you ADDI YETI is
somewhere like one hundred and thirty bucks somewhere around there.
And again for I said this about five times. I'm
gonna put all these links in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Storage.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
I mentioned saving to you a minute ago, and it
is saving. What is the point of creating if you
can't save it? And there have been many heartaches I've
had because I produced something that was beautiful and it
did not save and it's lost forever. Reliable storage solutions
is of utmost importance. And you don't want to just
(26:07):
store things in equipment or on a computer that is vulnerable,
and so you want to record things in this stored
preferably in more than one place, because just to have
less points of fault. And so if anything ever happened
in your computer, or you ran out of room, or
you need to free up space or all the other things,
(26:29):
you have your media your content stored on a device.
So even if you are using the computer to store
your stuff, highly recommend also recording it off the computer
in a device like the Lace Rugged USBC drive, which
I use. I have a four teara byte one. I
think I have a couple four teara byte ones. There
(26:49):
are bigger ones.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Like eight terabytes. I just have a couple of four.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Teabyte ones because that's really all I needed for I'm
not personally storing a lot of video online. My team
does on their but they have NAS devices. But I
am storing most of my audio files on one of
these Lacey Rugged devices. Now, the important thing is this space, obviously,
(27:13):
and typically when I'm recording an audio only podcast, the
audio each my voice and the guest voice might each
be If it's a half an hour thirty five to
forty five minute podcast, my audio might be one hundred
and eighty megabytes. Their audio may be one hundred and
eighty megabytes. I got plenty of space for several seasons
of a podcast in afford hereabout device and it's rugged
(27:38):
and so there are no moving parts in a Lacey
rugged device. You know, hard drives back in the day
used to have a little you know, disc in them
that would spin and you could hear them when you
plug them in, and they would store your stuff pretty
much on a CD. That's pretty much like what it was.
These Lacey devices are a solid state there SSDs, so
(28:01):
there are no moving parts in the laceys, which makes
it way more secure and less vulnerable. And as a
byproduct of being having no moving parts, it's also faster
and so highly recommend.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
The lace rugged drives.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Then we can talk about things like Dropbox and Google Drive,
which are both sweet. I have subscriptions to both which
over time I will probably move all my.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Stuff over to the drop Box. I just had Drive
for a very long time, so it's lots of to
move over.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
But I like Dropbox because a lot of version control.
I can set a configuration for who can do what
inside the drive, and I can reverse back in history
to see, you know, if somebody change something, I can
go back to the previous version. I like, I'm giving
you versions drawn by two different ways, but you get it.
I love that also, automatic backups, file sharing, all those things,
(28:57):
obviously because it's in the cloud that can so synchronized
things between devices.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Google Drive is.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Also dope too, and it integrates into your other Google services,
so if you're using you know, Google Email or Google Calendar,
all these different things.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
It's easy to use.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
So you just take your pick whichever one you like better.
I'm not here to you know, k for either one
of them, but whichever one you find that you like,
Trybox or Google Drive. I support them both because I
have subscriptions to both. And then you know, you have
things like just a regular SD card which you can
store your stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
On very cost very affordably. Pretty much.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
What I would say is you don't want to leave
your stuff on an SD card. They are small, and
there is something to say about things being too small,
especially when you're trying to store them for a long time.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
It's a lot easier to lose it.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
So I would recommend using an SD card to save
things only for a short term. Just don't recommend saving
things for a long time on a SD card. So
now you got this amazing podcast recorded and you gotta
distribute it to the world. How're you gonna get it
out there? And so from there, I for a long
time used libsn to host and distribute my podcast And
(30:17):
so when I started up ten Podcasts, which was the
one I had before Black Tech, Green Money i S,
I used lipsyn And so Lipsen has a variety of
different plans, from plans that are you putting out one
episode a month, you know, very small size, to ones
where you putting it out daily and you need analytics.
Lipsyn has all of that stuff, and it starts like
(30:38):
five bucks a month, just again depending on which one
you wanna use.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
And it's also easy to get.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Integrated with Google, Google's Podcasts platform and Apple Podcasts, cause
it kind of walks you through how to get Just
cause you put it on lips it doesn't mean you're
automatically on those platforms. You have to connected them, and
lipsn makes it easy to do that. One I have
not used is Podbean, and I only mention it because
(31:04):
I know other people who have used Podbean. I just
don't know a lot about it, but it is I'm
sure a lot like lipsyns. From when I'm told very
user friendly, but that's pretty much all I can say
about Bobby because I don't use it. The other one
I have used also is SoundCloud. It's probably good in
(31:24):
the way that you have access to a directory and
so you're part of a community with other people podcasting.
So it's probably easier to be found on SoundCloud versus
like libsn because there's like not a community of people
searching on Libsyn. That's more of like a distribution platform,
(31:45):
and so SoundCloud people are going there to find things
that they didn't produce. So I don't want to go
listen to stuff, So let me go to SoundCloud and
type in podcasts on politics, podcasts on technology, and you
will find podcasts on politics and podcasts on technology. If
you go to SoundCloud, it's not just a platform, but
also you can be part of a community of people
(32:08):
and be found there. And so Libsyn, pod being, lips
and pod being and SoundCloud. You know, I'm a Lipson
fan and SoundCloud fan, just depending on what you're trying
to do. But today we use a platform that's more
developed for corporations that have advertising partners, So I heart
(32:29):
handles all that stuff for me today. But Lipsyn is
super dope if you want to go that route, and
I highly recommend it. For video, Let's say you are
going to actually I'm only going to talk like for
a second about video because most of the stuff I
talked about today has to do with audio podcasts, and
so if you want to talk about video, well, let's
(32:50):
do that for like one minute. And so today we
record videos, especially if I'm doing if I'm recording with
somebody remotely. We no longer record via Zoom, which we
used to do, which that's also one of the options.
You can get a Zoom account for like fifteen bucks
a month, but we use Riverside.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Now.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
We use riverside because riverside allows the video file to
be taken from the device. So here's what happens. So
when you are on like a Zoom call, you might
look amazing to yourself because you're not looking at yourself
via the Internet. You're looking at yourself from your camera,
(33:28):
and the person looking at you, who's in another house,
another office, another state, is looking at you, however, via
the Internet, which means what you see is not what
they see. You look super clear to yourself. You don't look, however,
how you look to them. Riverside is different. The riverside
what happens is it's recording on your local device. So
(33:53):
what you are recording is what your computer camera or
your external camera sees, not what is uploaded the web
or streamed, I should say, so you get a much
higher quality audio I mean video feed. And so before
you close down a riverside recording, you gotta wait before
(34:14):
all the video gets uploaded, because again it's recording from
your device, not from the stream. That makes sense, Okay,
I think you got it. So riverside is dope in
that way. And your guests also they have they're being
recorded on their side, so it's dope that way. Then
if you just want to see somebody, but you're not
(34:34):
necessarily recording.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
But it's you get a better.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Audio recording if you guys can see each other, because
there's other context clues you get by seeing their face.
So Google meet is free, I mean, is you can
use that just because if you want to.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Get good quality.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
You can also screen share and do stuff like that,
but I don't I've never used screen sharing in a podcast,
but you can do it. I've actually never even recorded
a Google Meet, so maybe you can record a Google meet.
I don't know, but it's free and you can see
each other and you can at least you capture the
audio from there. So those are your options. On the
(35:15):
video side, we can have another podcast on.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
An actual full video.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Podcast if you want to go that route, which I
recommend if you can do it. So I say all
this to say, you know, it is easier than ever
to have a podcast, a beautiful podcast, and one that
people want to listen to. And so the important thing
I mentioned this at the start and I will close
with this also is the sound matters, and no matter
(35:45):
what people say about you can start using any tool
in front of you. It is important to put the
effort into sounding good, not just your voice which should
sound good, but also the record of your voice should
sound good.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
People will forgive lower.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Quality video, then they will lower quality audio. If you
have a video that is not the best quality in
video clarity production, but the audio is still good, you
will continue watching if the content is there. Now, if
the video is amazing but the audio sounds terrible, you
(36:26):
may actually turn it off a lot faster because the
audio sounds like garbage. And so it is important to
put the work in to get high quality audio even
before you put the work into getting higher quality video.
And so I admonish you to do the work in
(36:47):
that respect. Again, you can use all of these tools. Again,
I don't know big podcasters who record using a lot
of the tools they tell y'all that you can use.
The point is not that, though. The point is that
you can start and you can get going doing these things.
But there is a graduation that happens inevitably if you
(37:10):
start to get good at it and you start to
get more invested in it. And so if you are
just starting, I encourage you highly to just start with
the tools in front of you. Start with your audio
recorder on your iPhone, Start with you know, one of.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
These subscription services to just software.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Online that you can edit and use AI and all
these things to edit your stuff down. I encourage you
to do that. As the bigger your podcast get, at
least today, not in a year from now when AI
gets even more crazy, I would probably have to change
this whole episode. But for today, there are things that
you should need to do. Things you need to do
well in order to have your podcast be coveted by
(37:47):
the masses. So with all that said, I appreciate y'all
listening again. I will put all of these links in
the show notes. You got any questions, you know where
to give me. I'm at Will Lucas on IG on
all them things, but I G is probably the best
place to find me at Will Lucas, W I.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
L L l U c A S.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Encourage you to send me a DM, drop a note
in the comments because I want to talk about this
on my feed and so yeah, it's good talk to y'all.
(38:31):
Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blavity Afro
Tech on Black Effect podcast Networking Nightheart Media, and it's
produced by Morgan Debond and me Will Lucas. The additional
production support by Kate McDonald and Jada McGee.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Special thanking to Michael Davis since Sarah Ergan.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Learn more about my guests and other technist others an
innovators at afrotech dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Enjoying Black Tech Green Money. Share this with somebody, Go
get your money. Pace in love
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Can do to me
It is important to put the effort into sounding good.
Not just your voice, which should sound good, but also
the recording of your voice should sound good. People will
forgive lower quality video than they will lower quality audio.
(00:23):
Going to do a solo episode today, I know you
guys seem to enjoy when I do these solo episodes,
and I'm looking forward to this one because this one
is kind of a pickup of a blog post that
I wrote back in twenty eighteen on will Lucas Co,
which is my website, check me out. Yeah, so I
(00:44):
wrote this blog post entitled the gear you need if
you wanted to build a highly rated podcast, and I'll
even link that in the show notes, the link to
that blog post, and I'll link everything I'm about to
talk about in the blow in the show notes as well.
But today I wanted to update that list, so we're
(01:07):
going to talk about the gear you need to make
a highly successful, highly rated podcast. And so I've been
privileged to be podcasting since about twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen,
and previous to that, I did radio since I want
to say nineteen ninety nine, back in the nineteen hundreds,
(01:28):
nineteen ninety eight, I think actually so I've been doing
this for a long time.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
It sounds wild to say that I've.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Been doing some since the nineteen hundreds, but I guess
I've been doing it since nineteen hundreds, So.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
You know, those things correlate.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
So podcasting is a lot like radio, and so having
all those years of radio experience translated super duper well
into podcasting. And it's not that I want to say
this because I don't want people get confused like you
have to have that sort of radio background to be
good at podcasting, because you obviously don't. There's so many
people who are successful at podcasting that have never been
(02:06):
in a radio studio, and so I just wanted to
clear that up before I went further. So I talked
about a lot of things in that blog post that
I will rehash today because a lot of the gear
that I'm using I still like to use. And there
here's what I will say about podcasting, or actually i'll
start with me and equipment, and so there are three
(02:30):
four you know, there are certain levels of equipment or
software I will talk about today that will and I'll
provide options. So if you want to have the expensive option,
I'll provide that the middle of the row option, I'll
provide that, and the inexpensive option, I will write that
or say that also. And so, but what's important to
know at least about me. I don't know how you work,
(02:51):
but this is how I work. I struggle to produce
creative product, creative outcomes with cheap stuff. It's just really
difficult for me to do that. And so I remember
when I was learn I'm a musician, so when I
was learning to play drums, I needed to learn on
a quality drum set. Because I'm playing on a cheap
(03:13):
drum set. I just couldn't get it. And so maybe
you don't have that issue. But if I'm learning how
to do something, I need quality tools to learn how
to do it.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Now.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Once I got it, then I can go use whatever
and I can do it the thing on whatever. But
it's difficult for me to learn using cheap stuff. And
not to say that everything that's inexpensive is cheap, I'm
just saying that. There are a whole lot of blaw posts,
a whole lot of podcasts about you know, you can
do certain things just using your phone, and you can
do certain things, you know, going completely free. And while
(03:45):
that may be completely true, I don't learn that way.
It's difficult for me to produce a podcast just using
my phone, although that is extremely popular, I see need
to say popular. It's possible you can produce a podcast
just using your phone. Now, with that said, I don't
know anybody who has a super successful podcast and just
(04:07):
does it using their phone, and so you can start
that way. And I think it's necessary to get reps
in by using the tools that you have at your
disposal and not investing a whole bunch of money or
a whole bunch of things into something that you're not
going to be serious about anyway. So I do think
there's value in using the tools that you already have
(04:28):
at your exposal. But I think it's more important to
prove to yourself and to the world that you are
serious and that you're going to do this thing before
you have all the dollars invested into it.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
So I think it's.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
More important to do it that way, and more so
proving that you are in this to win it, versus
thinking that you're going to scale a big podcast just
using a limited amount of tools. I just don't know
people who do that, and so I'm just being honest.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
With y'all. So we talk about that, talk about us, you.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Know, setting up your phone and doing things, you know,
talking into the audio recorder. Start that way, completely fine,
and I encourage you to do that. I will advise
people to do that, But it's not necessarily again to
belabor the point, and unintentionally, it's not necessarily because I
believe that you're gonna win that way.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I just think that it.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Is an important step to proving that you are serious
about this. So what I'm saying that all that to
say is I did mention I have a radio background,
and so I had the privilege or else. I have
a marketing and video production company, so I have the
privilege of already having a lot of the equipment. When
I decided to go and start doing a podcast, already
(05:43):
had a bunch of equipment. I already had computers, I
already had keyboards and instruments, and I already had recording devices.
And so for me, like that's just a playground that
I have the privilege to play in. And so not
everybody has that. And so again we're gonna talk about
all these tools. So I want to start here talking
(06:04):
about just that very thing, recording software, and so I'm
going to give you a couple of different levels. Most
of all of these things that I'm going to talk
about today, I have, and I'm even gonna do a
video version of this podcast, so you'll be able to
check this out on YouTube and actually see all the stuff.
But I record, I'm start with the higher end stuff,
(06:25):
and then I'll talk about the middle of the row,
and then I'll talk about the inexpensive end or free options.
I record using Apple Logic Pro, and so I record
using that because I learned how to record using things
like pro Tools and Apple Logic, and so if I
were to start over again, there are way more tools
available on the market today that you can use to record,
(06:46):
especially recording yourself and or you know, guests, if you're
going to have a guest podcast. There are way more
things on the market today because podcasting is way bigger
than it was when I started that. Are you know
these things are available to you, and are you know
you can amazon it? You'll have it tomorrow. But Apple
Logic Pro is one of the things that I record,
the only thing I pretty much record or I should
(07:09):
say edit with, because I records using a couple of
different things but editing, particularly I record using.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Apple Logic Pro is powerful.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
It does way more than than it's necessary to podcast
because it's designed for you know, audio production in a
big way, So you can do everything from scoring movies
on it to doing you know, music making beats on it.
But just to be clear, it's very powerful also for
(07:38):
recording your voice and voices of people you may be
interviewing on your show. So what's important to me is
that I have an interface that is very easy to use.
And so sometimes, because I've been doing this for a
long time, I will go through and you know, when
I'm recording, I can see the waveform of my voice,
and so I've been doing this so long, I can
(07:59):
look get the waveform and find things that don't make
sense because I know how a voice should look in
wave form. And so when I see a quick little
spike in the audio and there's not something anything to
the left or right of it, that's probably either a
click in a voice something like that, or something like that,
and I can just go and quickly edit that out
super duper fast without even listening back to it, cause
(08:21):
I know what it looks like. Is I've been doing
this for a long time. So Aple Logic Pro I
believe right now is like two hundred bucks.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
You can get it.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And what's cool about it is it's not like most
software anymore where you're paying monthly for. It's like a
subscription that never ends. Like once you buy Apple Logic,
you have Apple Logic and you don't have to have
a subscription necessarily. So I'm actually, you know, in I
kind of don't like that about today's world, especially as
a consumer, maybe a producer, but not as a consumer.
(08:52):
Having you can't just buy software you know, so often anymore,
y there's a subscription for which is whack.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
But I digress.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
So if you don't want to spend that much on
an audio editor and or recorder, because you can do
both in Apple Logic. You have things like Adobe Audition,
which I also have, I just don't use it because
I don't love I shouldn't say because of people from
Adobe listening to this. I just I'm not a big
(09:20):
Adobe fan, and I kind of see Adobe a lot
like I see a lot of Microsoft products. They just
don't work for the way my brain works. Apple products
work way better for the way my brain works. But
with I said, I do have Adobe's Creative Cloud because
my video production team works a lot in Premiere and
it's the only reason I have Adobe Creative Cloud because
(09:43):
even like the designs I want to have anymore, I
can do a lot of that in Canva. And so
Adobe Creative Cloud comes with Adobe Audition, which is a
doll which means digital audio workstation. Adobe Audition is a
doll which you can can use to record and edit
(10:03):
your voice and the voices of your guests, and you
can do that very easily. Again, it comes as part
of the Creative Cloud. So if you have Adobe Creative Cloud,
you can probably already download this as part of the
suite of tools you have. So I mean you get
Adobe Premiere, you get Adobe Photoshop Illustrator, all these things,
(10:23):
and an audition depending on which level of the Creative
Cloud you subscribe to from Adobe Audition from Adobe. I'm sorry,
but as part of the Creative Cloud. There's different versions
of this, especially if you're in school, you can get
a discount for the Creative Cloud, but you know there
are versions where you can get like twenty one dollars
a month and you can get Adobe Audition for that.
(10:44):
On the free side, there's programs like Audacity, which I've
used before. Again, it's kind of a scaled back version
of both Apple Logic and Audition, but for the most part,
for most people, it will work and it's free. And
so it's an open source audio editing you know software,
and so it's free to use. You can learn it
(11:06):
pretty quickly, and you can export your audio edit your
audio record into it, you know, and we'll talk about
the tools you'll need to record into it in a moment,
but you can do all that with Audacity and it's free.
And then going from there we talk about hardware recorders.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
So I mentioned.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Recording software when I'm talking about Apologic, Audition and Audacity,
but I pretty I don't record into software often. Right
right now, I'm recording into software because I'm not interviewing anybody.
But if i am interviewing somebody, I'm going to use
an external recorder just because of the way my setup
is designed. And if you ask twenty different people on
podcasting setups, you will get twenty different answers. I'm telling
(11:47):
you what Lucas does, and so I've been doing this
for in my own experience for a long time.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
This is what I do.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
It works for me, and it probably would work for
you also, But external recorders. The most important thing you
learn when you start recording audio or video or writing documents.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Is saving it. Because what you.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Will find is when you have a machine that is
doing you know where you input the work into the machine.
If you don't save it, you will lose work. And
it raised your hand. If you've ever lost work, you
see technology before. And so I like to use external
recorders because if I'm recording directly into matter of fact,
(12:30):
while I'm saying that I'm gonna save this, which I
can do while I'm recording, and then I have to
stop and actually even to the program crash, it will
likely save an AUTOSI, an auto save version. So it's
less likely I will lose it if my computer crash
right now or the software crash, but it's still possible.
So going back to hardware, I personally am a big
(12:53):
fan of recording into a dedicated device. And the reason
why is because again I'm gonna say this a hundred times,
I've been doing this a long time, and when you've
been doing certain things for a long time, there you
develop these habits or ticks because of the things you've
experienced to where you don't like to do things other ways.
And the reason I don't like to record directly into
(13:15):
computers is because computers do crash. Not that other hardware
does not crash, but through hardware is probably only doing
one thing. It's just accepting your audio and it's recording it.
That's probably all it's doing. Your computer is doing probably
twenty thirty forty one hundred other things at the same time,
is trying to record your stuff. Hear your stuff, record
(13:38):
your stuff, display your stuff, all all of those things
and even more stuff. You probably got tabs open in
the background, and all these things open up more gateways
for things.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
To go wrong.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
And so I prefer to record using an external device
that is just doing what I'm asking you to do.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Record.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
So I record, for the most part, especially when I'm
doing an interview, I record using a zoom Age six,
which is a six track portable recorder. I can carry
it with this little case. It's like a size of
a book, and the case of the size of a book.
The device is half the size of a book with
wise at least, and I can plug different microphones into it,
(14:21):
so I can add six different tracks, and so if
I'm interviewing somebody, I can be interviewing several different people
at one time, and each of them have their own volume.
So let's say I'm sitting in front of three other
people and one person talks really really loud, other person
talks really really quietly. I can turn the person whose
voice is really quiet up louder and while keeping the
(14:45):
person who talks loud their volume down lower, recording them
that way because you know you want independent So I've
used to it when I was didn't have a lot
of money. I was trying to record using you know,
one singular input, and you can control the various volumes
people talk at because everybody's being recorded to one channel
(15:07):
and so you can't like splice out one person's voice
from another. But if you're recording on different tracks and
then you import that audio into a doll like Adobe
or you know final cut sorry Logic like I use,
then you can see everybody's voice on their independent channel,
and I can make tweaks to your voice without touching mind.
So it's super super important and also has phantom power,
(15:29):
which means I can plug a microphone into it that
is not necessarily powered itself. It's not like I can't
unplug it into a wall. But this microphone is just
a microphone and it needs power from some source. And
so the Zoom eighty six has phantom power on it,
which is what it's called when you need the power
(15:49):
a microphone, so it will provide the power your microphone
needs to be able to accept your voice. And you're
recording directly to an SD card, so the audio is
not being record record it to the device. You are
putting in another SD card into the device which it's
recording to.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
So it's another.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Level there of security for the audio that you are
interested in capturing. The device I don't have, but I
think it is a really really cool device. Is a
road Caster Pro. I've used it, I've seen other people
use it. It's amazing for podcasts recording. It's pretty much
a whole podcast studio in one. And what I love
about the road Caster Pro is not only can you
(16:31):
you know, use Bluetooth with it, but it has programmable
sound pads. So let's say you are, you know, recording
a podcast where you want to have sound effects. You know,
these are just pads that you can trigger at any
moment and give yourself like an audience clap or laugh
or you know, a trumpet or a fire truck horn,
and you can program all these sound effects into it
(16:52):
and trigger them, you know, at the push of a button,
and all of that stuff happens in the recording in
real time.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Suber super cool. And then the inexpensive route, I mean.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
So I should go back. Actually, so the zoom A
six which I use, is about three hundred and fifty bucks.
The road Castered Pro a little bit more expensive. That's
about six hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Today.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
There are different versions of it, so you don't have
to have the Pro, but the the task Cam DRO five,
which I have, also is one hundred dollars. And the
task Cam what's cool about it, it's compact, it's more affordable.
It's about one hundred dollars, and it has microphones built
into it, so stereo microphones which are built into it,
(17:35):
so you can legit, just pull out the device, hold
it in your hand, and record people right into the device,
so you don't even need an external microphone because they're
built into it. And it also records into a Nest card.
So it's a great choice for people who are beginning
and just trying to figure out if podcasting is for
them or if you just don't want to spend a
(17:55):
bunch of money on this equipment and you just got
something saying you gotta get it out. Rove is a
good solution for you. So let's talk about microphones, because
I did talk about this on.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
The blog posts. Because the each.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Of the microphones I'm about to mention to you I
have now, and the first one, which is the more
expensive one, I did not have when I wrote the
blog post, but it is the Sure SM seven B.
It's like a four hundred dollars microphone, and I love
this microphone. It's my favorite microphone out of everyone that
I have. It is because it's excellent for vocals spoken word,
(18:31):
and it's not necessarily designed for much anything else than
that it is.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Designed for voices.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
I'm actually not even using that microphone in this moment,
but I love the microphone not only because it sounds amazing,
but it also looks amazing when you are recording and
recording video at the same time a low profile, it's
kind of stocky. It's just it's a beautiful microphone to
look at. And then the one I'm actually recording on
right now is a microphone I've had, almost, if not
(19:00):
since I started doing podcasts at all. I think I've
had this microphone since like the the two thousands, like
the first decade of the generation. So the road in
T one, which I'm recording on right now, is the
studio microphone.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
It's super dupe.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
I mean, I've had to think for a long time.
Its super duper durable. I don't beat it up, cause
you know, I take care of my stuff. But it's
also good for musicians. So I talked about the uh
SM seven B, which is great for vocals. The NT one,
which I'm recording to right now, is versatile, so you
can use it for audio I'm sorry now audio. You
can use it for vocals and if you're trying to
(19:42):
sing into it, if you're trying to record UH acoustic
instruments into it. You can use this NT one also,
But it sounds amazing too. It's just not it's a
it's a studio microphone, so it's not as necessarily designed
for people who are just doing podcasts like the SM
seven B is. If you're doing spoken word, that'sh your microphone.
(20:03):
But you can also do this with the Sindheiser E
eight thirty five, which you also have, and we actually
use that microphone as the general house microphone.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
For Lucille's, which is my jazz club that I have.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
And so the eaight thirty five is a vocal microphone also,
but it's super duper rugged. I cannot tell you how
many times that I've seen that microphone dropped. I mean,
we have like ten of them, but I've seen them dropped,
beat up, you know, these things get dinged up. They
are great for live performers and even in person interviews
(20:36):
because if you're out on the streets and you're doing
in person interviews, you're probably gonna beat the mic up.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
A little bit. But the EA thirty five, so.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Like one hundred dollars microphone, still sounds amazing, travels super
duper well, and it just it just handles rough environments
way way well, way more well than like they rolled
in T one ever would because it's just not designed
for traveling that way. It's a studio microphone. It's designed
to be mounted and left alone. So that's it on microphones.
(21:06):
And again, I will put all this stuff in the
show notes, and I'm probably even update the blog post
to to give you a new version of that since
it was sick. Ke here, since I did the last one.
So let's talk about interfaces because sometimes people believe, hey,
I have a computer and I have a microphone, I'm
ready to rock. Well that depends because certain microphones, your
(21:28):
computer can't read the audio, and so we're gonna talk
about that because you need an audio interface. You need
something that goes that sits in between the microphone and
the computer, and that's called an audio interface. It converts
the analog signal of your voice, which your microphone can accept,
into a digital signal that your computer can process. Often
(21:52):
they also improve sound quality. But the point of the
interface is to translate. It's the translator. It's the person
that if you go to a different country, they speak
a different language. The translator is the person that sits
in between you guys, hearing what you say, translating it
for them to understand. So the interface is the translator.
So I'm speaking, and I'm speaking analog because my voice
(22:15):
is an analog tool and then or analog sound maybe
that's a better way to say it. Analog sound. My
computer can't read my voice, and so the interface does that.
The Focus right. Scarlet two I too is a device
that I have. It's popular, it's easy to use, super
high quality sound. I can put two microphones into it.
(22:38):
I can put instruments into it, and it's super great
for podcasters people who are recording at home, and it's reliable.
You know, it's very hard to not get right because
it's designed to be simple and it has fanom power
on it, which I also mentioned about the Zoommate six.
(22:58):
But if I'm recording directly in my computer, which I
want to do sometimes like today, I can just use
the audio interface and it can translate the NT one
which I'm using as a microphone, into something the computer
logic can read. So to I two, which is the
(23:20):
Focus by Scarlet super duer popular. This one's like one
hundred and fifty bucks. Then there's like the Bearringer Euphoria.
I particularly talk about the UMC two zero two HD.
And the reason I'm bringing this one up and there
are other options Barringer provides, is because I want to
kind of give it like an Apple to Apple. So
this one also has the two inputs, so I can
put two microphones into it if I'm talking to somebody
(23:42):
on my episode. I like Bearringer products for beginners because
they are designed pretty durably, pretty simple, and they try
to give you the bells and whistles that more expensive
tools give you, just without the costs. So obviously they're
not made with as high grade mechanicals or materials, I
(24:05):
should say.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
But they're good. They're really good.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
And so if you don't want to spend two times
the price a beer injury product will work super well.
And that doesn't mean that they're not quality things, they're
just not you know, their budget contest.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
That makes sense.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Okay, then we could talk about this also because I
mentioned the point of a an interface is to give
you the ability to translate. It's the mediator between your
voice and the computer. There are some microphones which are
digital microphones, and I have the Blue Yetti also which
(24:41):
I like that microphone a lot. I don't use it
when I'm recording the guests, but I use it if
I'm just talking into the computer and just need to
record something real quick. It's more of like my you know,
on the fly, Hey I got to record something.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Keep it moving. And so the U it's a USB microphone.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
It eliminates the need for interface altogether because it's just
got a USB connection and it's plug and play. You
don't have to download any software to use it. You know,
you plug it in, it's ready to rock. And it
was double bato YETI is. It also has a headphone jack,
so you can hear directly what's coming out, and so
(25:21):
you you could plug your headphones into the computer and
hear what it's hearing. But you can also plug right
into the microphone to hear what you can your microphone
is hearing super dope and that you ADDI YETI is
somewhere like one hundred and thirty bucks somewhere around there.
And again for I said this about five times. I'm
gonna put all these links in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Storage.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
I mentioned saving to you a minute ago, and it
is saving. What is the point of creating if you
can't save it? And there have been many heartaches I've
had because I produced something that was beautiful and it
did not save and it's lost forever. Reliable storage solutions
is of utmost importance. And you don't want to just
(26:07):
store things in equipment or on a computer that is vulnerable,
and so you want to record things in this stored
preferably in more than one place, because just to have
less points of fault. And so if anything ever happened
in your computer, or you ran out of room, or
you need to free up space or all the other things,
(26:29):
you have your media your content stored on a device.
So even if you are using the computer to store
your stuff, highly recommend also recording it off the computer
in a device like the Lace Rugged USBC drive, which
I use. I have a four teara byte one. I
think I have a couple four teara byte ones. There
(26:49):
are bigger ones.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Like eight terabytes. I just have a couple of four.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Teabyte ones because that's really all I needed for I'm
not personally storing a lot of video online. My team
does on their but they have NAS devices. But I
am storing most of my audio files on one of
these Lacey Rugged devices. Now, the important thing is this space, obviously,
(27:13):
and typically when I'm recording an audio only podcast, the
audio each my voice and the guest voice might each
be If it's a half an hour thirty five to
forty five minute podcast, my audio might be one hundred
and eighty megabytes. Their audio may be one hundred and
eighty megabytes. I got plenty of space for several seasons
of a podcast in afford hereabout device and it's rugged
(27:38):
and so there are no moving parts in a Lacey
rugged device. You know, hard drives back in the day
used to have a little you know, disc in them
that would spin and you could hear them when you
plug them in, and they would store your stuff pretty
much on a CD. That's pretty much like what it was.
These Lacey devices are a solid state there SSDs, so
(28:01):
there are no moving parts in the laceys, which makes
it way more secure and less vulnerable. And as a
byproduct of being having no moving parts, it's also faster
and so highly recommend.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
The lace rugged drives.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Then we can talk about things like Dropbox and Google Drive,
which are both sweet. I have subscriptions to both which
over time I will probably move all my.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Stuff over to the drop Box. I just had Drive
for a very long time, so it's lots of to
move over.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
But I like Dropbox because a lot of version control.
I can set a configuration for who can do what
inside the drive, and I can reverse back in history
to see, you know, if somebody change something, I can
go back to the previous version. I like, I'm giving
you versions drawn by two different ways, but you get it.
I love that also, automatic backups, file sharing, all those things,
(28:57):
obviously because it's in the cloud that can so synchronized
things between devices.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
Google Drive is.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Also dope too, and it integrates into your other Google services,
so if you're using you know, Google Email or Google Calendar,
all these different things.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
It's easy to use.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
So you just take your pick whichever one you like better.
I'm not here to you know, k for either one
of them, but whichever one you find that you like,
Trybox or Google Drive. I support them both because I
have subscriptions to both. And then you know, you have
things like just a regular SD card which you can
store your stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
On very cost very affordably. Pretty much.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
What I would say is you don't want to leave
your stuff on an SD card. They are small, and
there is something to say about things being too small,
especially when you're trying to store them for a long time.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
It's a lot easier to lose it.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
So I would recommend using an SD card to save
things only for a short term. Just don't recommend saving
things for a long time on a SD card. So
now you got this amazing podcast recorded and you gotta
distribute it to the world. How're you gonna get it
out there? And so from there, I for a long
time used libsn to host and distribute my podcast And
(30:17):
so when I started up ten Podcasts, which was the
one I had before Black Tech, Green Money i S,
I used lipsyn And so Lipsen has a variety of
different plans, from plans that are you putting out one
episode a month, you know, very small size, to ones
where you putting it out daily and you need analytics.
Lipsyn has all of that stuff, and it starts like
(30:38):
five bucks a month, just again depending on which one
you wanna use.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
And it's also easy to get.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Integrated with Google, Google's Podcasts platform and Apple Podcasts, cause
it kind of walks you through how to get Just
cause you put it on lips it doesn't mean you're
automatically on those platforms. You have to connected them, and
lipsn makes it easy to do that. One I have
not used is Podbean, and I only mention it because
(31:04):
I know other people who have used Podbean. I just
don't know a lot about it, but it is I'm
sure a lot like lipsyns. From when I'm told very
user friendly, but that's pretty much all I can say
about Bobby because I don't use it. The other one
I have used also is SoundCloud. It's probably good in
(31:24):
the way that you have access to a directory and
so you're part of a community with other people podcasting.
So it's probably easier to be found on SoundCloud versus
like libsn because there's like not a community of people
searching on Libsyn. That's more of like a distribution platform,
(31:45):
and so SoundCloud people are going there to find things
that they didn't produce. So I don't want to go
listen to stuff, So let me go to SoundCloud and
type in podcasts on politics, podcasts on technology, and you
will find podcasts on politics and podcasts on technology. If
you go to SoundCloud, it's not just a platform, but
also you can be part of a community of people
(32:08):
and be found there. And so Libsyn, pod being, lips
and pod being and SoundCloud. You know, I'm a Lipson
fan and SoundCloud fan, just depending on what you're trying
to do. But today we use a platform that's more
developed for corporations that have advertising partners, So I heart
(32:29):
handles all that stuff for me today. But Lipsyn is
super dope if you want to go that route, and
I highly recommend it. For video, Let's say you are
going to actually I'm only going to talk like for
a second about video because most of the stuff I
talked about today has to do with audio podcasts, and
so if you want to talk about video, well, let's
(32:50):
do that for like one minute. And so today we
record videos, especially if I'm doing if I'm recording with
somebody remotely. We no longer record via Zoom, which we
used to do, which that's also one of the options.
You can get a Zoom account for like fifteen bucks
a month, but we use Riverside.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Now.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
We use riverside because riverside allows the video file to
be taken from the device. So here's what happens. So
when you are on like a Zoom call, you might
look amazing to yourself because you're not looking at yourself
via the Internet. You're looking at yourself from your camera,
(33:28):
and the person looking at you, who's in another house,
another office, another state, is looking at you, however, via
the Internet, which means what you see is not what
they see. You look super clear to yourself. You don't look, however,
how you look to them. Riverside is different. The riverside
what happens is it's recording on your local device. So
(33:53):
what you are recording is what your computer camera or
your external camera sees, not what is uploaded the web
or streamed, I should say, so you get a much
higher quality audio I mean video feed. And so before
you close down a riverside recording, you gotta wait before
(34:14):
all the video gets uploaded, because again it's recording from
your device, not from the stream. That makes sense, Okay,
I think you got it. So riverside is dope in
that way. And your guests also they have they're being
recorded on their side, so it's dope that way. Then
if you just want to see somebody, but you're not
(34:34):
necessarily recording.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
But it's you get a better.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Audio recording if you guys can see each other, because
there's other context clues you get by seeing their face.
So Google meet is free, I mean, is you can
use that just because if you want to.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Get good quality.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
You can also screen share and do stuff like that,
but I don't I've never used screen sharing in a podcast,
but you can do it. I've actually never even recorded
a Google Meet, so maybe you can record a Google meet.
I don't know, but it's free and you can see
each other and you can at least you capture the
audio from there. So those are your options. On the
(35:15):
video side, we can have another podcast on.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
An actual full video.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Podcast if you want to go that route, which I
recommend if you can do it. So I say all
this to say, you know, it is easier than ever
to have a podcast, a beautiful podcast, and one that
people want to listen to. And so the important thing
I mentioned this at the start and I will close
with this also is the sound matters, and no matter
(35:45):
what people say about you can start using any tool
in front of you. It is important to put the
effort into sounding good, not just your voice which should
sound good, but also the record of your voice should
sound good.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
People will forgive lower.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Quality video, then they will lower quality audio. If you
have a video that is not the best quality in
video clarity production, but the audio is still good, you
will continue watching if the content is there. Now, if
the video is amazing but the audio sounds terrible, you
(36:26):
may actually turn it off a lot faster because the
audio sounds like garbage. And so it is important to
put the work in to get high quality audio even
before you put the work into getting higher quality video.
And so I admonish you to do the work in
(36:47):
that respect. Again, you can use all of these tools. Again,
I don't know big podcasters who record using a lot
of the tools they tell y'all that you can use.
The point is not that, though. The point is that
you can start and you can get going doing these things.
But there is a graduation that happens inevitably if you
(37:10):
start to get good at it and you start to
get more invested in it. And so if you are
just starting, I encourage you highly to just start with
the tools in front of you. Start with your audio
recorder on your iPhone, Start with you know, one of.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
These subscription services to just software.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Online that you can edit and use AI and all
these things to edit your stuff down. I encourage you
to do that. As the bigger your podcast get, at
least today, not in a year from now when AI
gets even more crazy, I would probably have to change
this whole episode. But for today, there are things that
you should need to do. Things you need to do
well in order to have your podcast be coveted by
(37:47):
the masses. So with all that said, I appreciate y'all
listening again. I will put all of these links in
the show notes. You got any questions, you know where
to give me. I'm at Will Lucas on IG on
all them things, but I G is probably the best
place to find me at Will Lucas, W I.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
L L l U c A S.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Encourage you to send me a DM, drop a note
in the comments because I want to talk about this
on my feed and so yeah, it's good talk to y'all.
(38:31):
Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blavity Afro
Tech on Black Effect podcast Networking Nightheart Media, and it's
produced by Morgan Debond and me Will Lucas. The additional
production support by Kate McDonald and Jada McGee.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Special thanking to Michael Davis since Sarah Ergan.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Learn more about my guests and other technist others an
innovators at afrotech dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Enjoying Black Tech Green Money. Share this with somebody, Go
get your money. Pace in love
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Can do to me
Host
Will Lucas
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