Hello
I've had the great fortune of working on some truly inspiring projects while networking with many creative individuals along the way. I believe in the power of working together to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. For more information about my past projects and current work, get in touch today.
My Journey
When I started, I thought I knew what I was doing, which ended up being far from the truth. In fact, I barely knew what I was doing. I got myself another microphone, pop filter, and boom arm, and was ready to start recording. Little did I know, I had a lot to learn along the way.
Surprisingly, getting my podcast ready for distribution was quite easy. The Anchor platform made it very simple to get an account set up and ready to go, allowing me to release my content on Spotify with no problems at all. Canva worked great to create a piece of cover art that I liked for my podcast, and I was able to add it to the Anchor account and the YouTube channel I made as well.
When it came time to record my first episode with Matt, it was smooth sailing. We had all our ideas planned out ahead of time, which we reviewed before we started recording. Once we started, it all felt like a natural conversation and it flowed quite well. Before we knew it, we had recorded for almost two hours. It was only afterwards when I started editing the episode that I noticed all the issues.
The Issues
As it turns out, you're not supposed to constantly provide feedback to the speaker on the podcast. If you do, it makes for a rather distracting experience for the listener, who has to filter all of it out as they try to listen to who's speaking. This was the first big mistake I made during the recording of my first episode, and I was completely oblivious to it.
I also came to realize that the gain settings on my microphones were not thoroughly tested before recording, leading to uneven audio levels. This took some extra time in post-production to correct, so I knew I had to fix this the next time. Recording onto separate audio tracks is a MUST, which I quickly realized as the audio from myself and Matt combined to make for subpar audio quality.
Lastly, I had to figure out how to compress the file to fit the 250MB size limit from Anchor, as the edited version of the episode was a WAV file over 1GB in size. After doing some research, I found out I could use Audacity to convert the WAV file to MP3, which would also compress the file. Finally, I had a file I could actually upload and distribute to listeners.
Attempt #2
It was time to record the second episode of the podcast with Lucas. I fixed all the issues from last time, including the incorrect gain levels on the microphones, I set up multi-track audio in OBS and was ready to not interrupt Lucas while he talked. With these issues out of the way, this episode had a ridiculous improvement in quality compared to the last one.
However, new problems had decided to show themselves. I noticed there was a lack of variability in my vocabulary, which made for a bit of a bland listening experience. During the recording of the episode, I also noticed a need to write things down so I could refer back to them later, but I did not have a pen and paper ready. These were things I would need to work on for the next episode yet again.
When I began editing, I again was hit with a horrible realization. Some speech was muffled and certain words were completely inaudible in this recording. After spending some time trying to figure out why this was, I found out that Blue Voice, the signal cleanup software for both of my microphones, was in fact the culprit. It was making adjustments during the recording which led to disruptions in the audio. Now I had to either fix it or lose an over three-hour-long episode.
Editing, Editing, and More Editing
The Blue Voice dilemma led to me editing the podcast I recorded with Lucas for over 25 hours. In the end, I chopped up the clip and changed the audio level over 6,600 times to properly equalize the audio. The task itself was not difficult, but rather tedious and repetitive. This showed me the importance of turning off Blue Voice for good, as otherwise, I would be spending ages editing episodes.
I looked into improving the audio quality of raw audio from my microphones so that I could turn off Blue Voice and improve the quality in post-production instead. Armed with this information, I was ready to disable Blue Voice entirely during the recording of my third episode with Callum. I did have to adjust my gain levels to ensure it was at a level at which the speaker's voice was audible, but also kept the background noise to a minimum.
During this podcast with Callum, I improved upon my choice of words while talking and also kept a piece of paper to write while we recorded. The paper came in handy numerous times, as I was able to easily refer back to things Callum had said and comment on them after he was finished speaking. It also helped me queue up ideas, making for smoother transitions throughout the episode.
Episode Guests
The fourth episode I recorded by far had the most interesting start to it. I had Manraj on the podcast, who was beyond nervous about the whole process. He was the first guest to have never listened to a podcast before, so he was unsure as to how it all worked. Due to this, we spent around an hour talking beforehand as I tried to calm him down for the recording process.
Once we started recording, he almost immediately ended up sneezing. As he went to reach for a Kleenex, he spilled the cup of water he had all over the floor, so we had to stop recording. After spending another few minutes cleaning up the spill, we ended up restarting the whole episode, as we barely had any footage anyways.
The second try was much more successful, though I could tell Manraj was still quite tense about the whole situation. Thankfully, after a bit into the podcast, I noticed that he had relaxed and had forgotten we were even recording. He was now treating it like a casual conversation, which was the point he was missing from the beginning. I was glad to see he was finally comfortable and enjoying his time on the podcast.
What I Learned
Yet again, I was reminded of the importance of experiential learning while working on this project. No matter how prepared I was at the start, there was no substitute for simply trying it out and learning as I went. There were so many little details I overlooked, from the words I chose to use to the small dials on my equipment I thought would never make a difference to my audio. They all played a much larger role in the grand scheme of things, and I would have never realized had I not tried it myself.
I truly believe I achieved the goal I started with, as I was able to release multiple episodes, provide value to the listeners and received positive feedback from those listeners, including constructive criticism as well. It gave me insight into how podcasting works, and what work truly goes into making a podcast.
Podcasting also gave me a chance to sit down and talk with friends, mentors and those who inspire me. In today's day and age of hectically getting by, it's next to impossible to set aside three hours at a time and just have a conversation. This project allowed me to reconnect and gain valuable information along the way.
I still have a couple of episodes which are waiting to be edited, so I will continue to work on those and release them soon. Additionally, I have guests whom I reached out to previously who are still interested in coming onto the podcast, so I may be recording more episodes still.