I’ve Been At This Far Too Long
Got everything set up? Think you’re ready to put your message out there to the masses? Ready to put this thing in motion? No. You’re probably not.
Podcasting, the act of talking into microphones and having a show on the internet, is the easy part. The hard part is making sure that it’s something people enjoy, and something you want to actually promote is the hard part.
Step 2. – Production
Set up your gear, and get ready. Podcasting requires a bit of foresight when it comes to the actual audio. Limit the amount of “things” that are running in your recording room. This includes, the fridge, your air conditioner, even PC fan noise. All of these may be innocuous to you while recording the show, but listening to the playback you’ll be shaking your fist at the number of things that will stand out. Limiting these will, in turn, limit the amount of and the intensity of editing you have to do later. There are a number of ways to filter noise out later, but too much of it can wreak havoc on the quality of the audio.
Consider your structural surroundings as well. You don’t have to be an audio engineer to realize that doing a podcast in a room full of windows will most likely create a TON of echoes. Smaller rooms are better, so long as they have enough in them to muffle or baffle sound reverberations. Pay close attention to your recording surface as well. Limit the amount of contact with that surface as much as possible. The number one rule we have while doing a show is; DON’T HIT THE TABLE. It creates a rumble that distorts everything being recorded.
Here is the best advice I can give anyone thinking of podcasting on the internet; don’t publish the first couple shows. My first show started back in 2009. I have gone back a couple times and listened to the first show we ever did, and it is terrible. I leave it as an example of how far we have come. I wish that we had taken the time and honed our craft a bit before going public, but there we go. Take your time, there’s no rush, practice makes (relatively) perfect. When we started our current show, we recorded an episode, and NEVER released it. Why? Because it was terrible. We talked over top of each other, we took forever to get to the point, we rambled on and on, etc. It wasn’t fit for anyone to hear, and it would have made a bad first impression.
One thing I forgot to mention in Step 1, but it kind of falls in with this as well, keep the number of participants to a minimum. Our show is only three people, and that is by design. On the old show, at one point we had as many as six people. For a bunch of dudes that love to talk, and sometimes tend to go off on tangents, this was ridiculous. Trying to edit a four hour show down to something more bearable was damn near impossible. Not to mention the more people you have the more sound created in the room. Both intentional, and unintentionally. Unless you are a professional, and all of your friends are as well, just try to avoid large numbers.
Step 3. – Post-Production
Now that you have a couple of recordings under your belt, things should settle into a rhythm. Start to feel out things that don’t really flow with the rest of the show. Start to pare those things down, or remove them completely. Now comes one of the hardest things about podcasting; listening to your recorded self speak. I, for one, honestly hate my own voice. Probably a lot of other folks hate their own voices as well. I don’t know what it is, but it’s almost unnerving to hear yourself talk. However, if you plan on doing a podcast regularly, you will need to get over this, pretty quickly.
Once you have a show that you feel is worthy of posting, the fun really begins. At least for me, editing is probably my favorite part of podcasting. Find a program that works best for you. Personally, I use Amadeus Pro, for my Mac. It does everything that I need it to do. However, it is $60, and if you aren’t sure of the longevity of your own show, it might be too pricey for you. There are a bunch of free options, but it seems that most people use Audacity. Most editing tools have a bit of a learning curve, but once you’re over that hump, it’s easy to make these programs run smoothly. Mess around with editing small clips or even messing with other mp3s or wavs so you get used to it.
Best advice I can give for editing may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s also easy to over look. Save a second copy, or at least an original, unedited, copy of the show. Two reasons. Best case scenario, you cut a segment you mean to have in the show. You at least have this to fall back on. Worst case scenario, you lose it all and have to start from scratch. Both have happened to me, and it’s nice to only have to worry about making up the editing part again, not recording an entire show again. I lost a show once, it felt terrible.
Step 4. – The Little Things
Once you have everything edited for the show, and you have a place to host, take care of the little things. Sure you have a cool name for your show, or an utterly ridiculous one (Flip Flop Slap Fight… come on) Take the time and make up a slogan. Something for your show to stand for. Ours (Chronicling the downfall of humanity) fits with the stories that we cover, and the tone we take with them. Don’t get too high and mighty with your premise, unless you can back it up. At the heart of our show is comedy. Brian and I are a pretty good balance of serious and intelligent, so we handle it well enough. Look at iTunes and see what kind of shows are in the category you are going for. Try not to be the same as them, but don’t get too far from your subject matter.
Everybody loves a good logo. With the old 3SMOV show, I never put much effort into coming up with a logo. It literally was the license plate that the show got it’s name from. With the new show, I tried to create a graphic that not only had the show name in it, but also visually stood for what we talked about. Also, no one likes to see a boring old generic text or image. Spice it up and you will most likely, at the very least, draw looks to your show.
Think about doing an original intro/outro song. In the early days, I used to just use what ever song I felt fit the shows overall theme, or just something I liked at the moment. I have never done a single bit of research into it, but I think it’s ok to use clips from actual recording artists so long as you credit them, don’t include the entire song, and don’t actually charge for your show. Thus skirting all kinds of legality revolving around licencing rights. Again, I don’t know this, and now that we have our own song, I don’t much care.
I hope that this is helpful to those of you out there that have followed the show, and might be thinking of starting your own. Remember that gaining an audience is NOT easy. Unless you have a million followers on twitter, are a well known comedian, or have your show in a well known podcasting network, gaining followers and listeners is not quick. I wouldn’t say we have a huge fan-base, but the loyal fans we have, download every show we make. I take that as a large victory for us. We are a couple of dudes that like to talk and make jokes, and don’t mind sharing it with others. Fame, no matter how big, has to start somewhere.
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