
The Best Podcasting Equipment for a New Podcaster - deviio
https://www.indiehackers.com/@collin/the-best-podcasting-equipment-for-a-new-podcaster-a35e9a0daa
======
eropple
So this is neat. I disagree with a good bit of it, though:

\- I wouldn't go with a Yeti (which, despite all the idiotic memes around it,
is _fine_ for a starting microphone). A condenser mic is generally going to be
more touchy and more susceptible to room noise issues, which you'd probably
rather avoid. Instead I'd go with something like the AT2005USB[1]; its DAC is
fine and it provides an XLR output as well (and you can use both, which I do
for some tasks such as voice comms in games plus routing audio to my mixer).
Knox also makes a good knockoff[2] with similar characteristics.

\- Audition is a good call, especially at $20/month, but IMO (and this is all
totally subjective, don't take my word for it) Logic Pro X is my jam. However,
these days, live-shows-to-podcast seem to really taking off, particularly on
Twitch; to that end, you're probably going to be mixing in either
OBS/Xsplit/vMix (eww) or mixing in your audio app and routing to the video
compositor, so be ready for that.

\- Zencaster, Skype Call Recording, etc. are all fine, but they all have one
really big drawback: they're most useful for _offline_ shows. The work
required for Skype/VOIP guests in _online_ shows, unless you're happy letting
Skype mix the voices for you (and you shouldn't), is nontrivial. I'd try very,
very hard to stick with in-person podcasts with local people until you can
really hack it, because VOIP'd casts are noticeable and often have a big hit
to both flow and to audio quality.

[1] - [https://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-AT2005USB-Cardioid-
Dyn...](https://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-AT2005USB-Cardioid-Dynamic-
Microphone/dp/B007JX8O0Y) [2] - [https://www.amazon.com/Knox-Gear-Cardioid-
USB-Microphone/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Knox-Gear-Cardioid-USB-
Microphone/dp/B012BAX738)

~~~
zbuf
I run a system called Cleanfeed, which is VOIP designed for live radio
broadcasts. Sounds like it might be a good fit for your needs:

[http://cleanfeed.net/](http://cleanfeed.net/)

It handles all the audio routing for 3-way (or more), and recording too if you
want it. VOIP interviews can be unnoticable -- in practice you have probably
heard remote interviews on the radio done with systems like this, and may not
have even realised it.

~~~
eropple
The problems with remote casts are not just audio ones, but yes, you can do
good point-to-point audio. Very few people do.

I've looked at Cleanfeed and it looks like a really cool beta product, but it
doesn't feel like the product appreciates how existing audio stacks and
production flows work. And that's not entirely Cleanfeed's fault, because
there are browser limitations, but at the same time the browser is not a good
audio production platform (only Chrome seems to recognize the existence of
multi-track audio devices, and that seems to be more of a "here's a 5.1
surround sound system") and that's a problem too. Like: I run a US-16x08
locally. It has eight mikes and eight line-ins. Cleanfeed (and this is
probably Chrome) gets confused and says there's no microphone unless I go into
Chrome's settings and force-pick the US-16x08, and then it just gives you mic
one? It's mixing down the remote, too, so I just get back a single audio
stream. This isn't acceptable; I 100% need to feed this into my _mixer_ , not
just splat out the audio. If I just wanted to mix down, Discord provides
acceptable-not-great audio quality (and it appears there's probably a way, if
one is a wizard, to rip audio streams out of it _separately_ and push them
through something like Soundflower).

If Cleanfeed was a local server that connected to you guys and had VSTs I
could drop on instrument tracks in Logic to get individual voices out, I would
pay you nontrivial money for that.

Also, video is pretty important. If Cleanfeed supported video at a
size/quality that I could cap it out of a browser window I'd probably pay for
it despite having to rework _everything else_ ; that would be a killer-app
feature to compete with vMix Call.

Feel free to ping me offline if you'd like to chat--my email is in my profile.
I think Cleanfeed has potential and I'd be happy to talk about this more in-
depth.

------
equivocates
My co-host wrote a better guide.[1] Can say there's some overlap, but I
definitely think my co-hosts pick of mic is way better, after having
experience with both.

[1]: [http://smull.net/podcasting-equipment/](http://smull.net/podcasting-
equipment/)

~~~
eropple
++ on the AT2100USB. I mentioned the AT2005USB elsewhere but this is a very
similar mic (the sound profiles are basically interchangeable). And it's
cheaper. And it's not a condenser. And it supports XLR without having to buy a
"pro" model.

------
radiowave
No surprise that there are better options than Audacity, but for those that
don't already have the Adobe subscription, Audition is going to be a bit
expensive. I don't do podcast editing, but I'd probably recommend people take
a look at Reaper, particularly if you quality for the discount licensing price
of $60. (Commercial use bringing in < $20k p.a.)

[http://reaper.fm/](http://reaper.fm/)

~~~
gglnx
If use Reaper, try Ultraschall.fm
([https://github.com/Ultraschall/REAPER](https://github.com/Ultraschall/REAPER)).
It's an open source extension for Reaper for podcasting. It's extrem popular
in the German podcasting scence (you know that one obsessed with chapter
marks).

------
llccbb
Missing the important piece of a sound dampening room. Record in a closet with
a bunch of clothes and the audio quality will be noticeably better than in
your living room.

~~~
cat199
Absolutely..

And no mention of headphones or speakers for yourself either.. Which then ties
into the A/D converters which were earlier dismissed as superfluous..

My bet is that even if the mic is not quite as good, something like the
focusrite scarlett solo studio pack (~199 - comparable to the 'pro' mic cited)
will net overall better results since you get a full loop of prosumer/pro
grade audio rather than just the input side covered.. not to dismiss the high
importance of a good source track..

don't know this kit though; check sound on sound and soforth if someone is
serious. I do have focusrite USB IF and it sounds great.

~~~
radiowave
I think a small podcasting setup is maybe the only situation where the
simplicity of a USB mic makes sense. I don't have first-hand experience with
Blue mics, but I'd have no hesitation in buying one of the Audio Technica USB
mics and not bothering with a separate audio interface, _if_ that's all that
my requirements were.

~~~
eropple
Most of the AT USB mics, except (I think) the 2020, support XLR to keep using
them later. And, as I mentioned elsewhere, you can often drive both USB and
XLR in most (all?) of them, if you play and record games.

------
tjr225
Why the author would choose to not use REAPER in a budget recording scenario
is beyond me.

------
gravypod
Does anyone who podcasts with multiple people in the room, or interviews or
whatever, have experience or pointers for setting up digitally phased array of
microphones? There are commercial systems that do this [0] but I haven't seen
much example code online. I'm assuming with ~5 very cheap microphones [1] you
could get a crisp sound and filter out localized noise in post processing.

[0] -
[http://www.clearone.com/products_beamforming_mic_array](http://www.clearone.com/products_beamforming_mic_array)

[1] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjVmMvmQFOM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjVmMvmQFOM)

~~~
eropple
I don't understand--why would you need or want a "digitally phased array of
microphones"? What problem is it trying to solve that normal multi-track
recording doesn't? Get five reasonable dynamic microphones (elsewhere I linked
the AT2005USB for $79 and a Knox knockoff for $59), sit people about four feet
apart (you can do closer if you have to), and treat the walls a little.

Professionals will do basically the same thing, only upgrading the mics to
ElectroVoices or something.

~~~
gravypod
It's more difficult to perform such a setup on the go. You can't bring 5
expensive mics to some places. You can't bring audio insulation to most
places. You can bring a laptop, a device to multiplex recording devices, some
stands, and a few cheap lapel mics to most places.

Maybe you want to, or have to, record audio outdoors.

Maybe you need to record somewhere where construction or work is happening in
a single direction.

Many reasons

~~~
eropple
What you're describing doesn't really parse to me. A laptop, an audio
interface, and a few pretty-cheap dynamic mics are my usual setup in the first
place, and audio quality, even in relatively hostile rooms, is pretty okay.
Outdoors recording has never presented much of a problem (but that's what
shotguns are for anyway, yeah?), either. Maybe you're dealing with more
specialized stuff than I run into, but something like single-direction noise
seems kinda corner-casey to me?

------
humanrebar
The Logitech H390 is recommended for podcast guests. I do video conferencing
from home, and I am dissatisfied with the quality of my home headset. This
looks like it might be a good candidate for me to invest in.

Does anyone else have other recommendations for my use case?

~~~
jszymborski
Other than being just about the comfiest pair of headphones I've worn, the
Kingston HyperX Clouds have a detachable mic with great quality. Also
reasonably priced, regularly go down to $50 on sale.

[https://www.amazon.com/HyperX-KHX-H3CL-WR-Gaming-
Headset/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/HyperX-KHX-H3CL-WR-Gaming-
Headset/dp/B00JJNQG98/)

------
projectramo
This may not be the perfect guide, but I appreciate that they

1\. made a good choice for the everything you need

2\. went ahead and picked a solid choice.

For someone starting out, it would be better to just make these choices than
have to suffer the tyranny of the paradox of choice.

------
Alex3917
If you look at the side-by-side comparisons on YouTube, the Audio Technica
AT2020 USB+ sounds much better than the Blue Yeti. Note that you need to watch
in high res with headphones to fully hear the differences.

~~~
alexnewman
Depends on how many people you are recording. Also it's generally twice as
ecpensive

~~~
eropple
It is a rare situation where you want to be recording multiple people off of
one mic.

~~~
alexnewman
Want to or have to. But I agree anyway

------
gmemstr
I just want to throw my podcasting hosting solution Pogo into the comments (I
know I'm a little late but I digress) - if you'd prefer to host your own feed
on your own servers it's a fantastic solution - especially considering I
haven't seen anything like it (hence the reason of creation) -
[https://github.com/gmemstr/pogo](https://github.com/gmemstr/pogo)

~~~
senorsmile
Not knowing anything about podcasting, please excuse my ignorance. Using pogo
to host your own podcast episodes, hoe would you then 'advertise' your feed
for people to find them when searching on a popular Android or Apple mobile
device?

------
The_DaveG
For some reason, I always click on these podcasting equipment links. We just
cut episode 001, so we'll go live after we cut a few more.

I think we'll have to put together out list of varying equipment as we cast
from very remote places.

------
diimdeep
Samson C01U Pro USB
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01Eezdu7OGw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01Eezdu7OGw)

------
alexnewman
SE radio has a guide

------
architek1
I'm pretty sure from this article and a Google search this person might not
have the best advice. He scoured the Internet so you don't have to, seems
laughable. Maybe he should've searched for his podcast first because I can't
find his podcast show anywhere on the webpage or the Internet.

As an audio professional for over 30 years I have one question for you. What
is one thing that people will stop watching/listening before any other? Yup,
it's bad sound. Google did some research on this in the beginning of youTube.
People are more likely to stop a video with bad sound than bad video quality.
So my recommendation is to spend some money on a decent mic and interface
(ADC/DAC) than buying a usb microphone. So as I'm recently starting a podcast
of my own I decided starting off I wanted an EV RE20. Standard radio mic for
like 50 years or something. For a good reason, high quality sound and the
proximity effect is minimal. Which is important when talking on a mic, saves
time in post eq because of variable distances guests or you when speaking into
the mic during an interview. Now not everyone has $499 to drop on a mic right?
So they've also made a cheaper version for $260 called the EV-RE320. That
sounds pretty freggin good. There's also the Shure SM7B for $399 which is a
pretty damn good standard. Standards are there for a reason because that is
literally what you're competing against and what your listeners are expecting.
You can check out the comparisons on the web that helped me make a decision
other than an erroneous article that seems to be way off base to me.

I have found Audition to be extremely limiting is how I would like a DAW
workflow to operate. There are too many problems for me to take it seriously
but I really don't have the time to go into at the moment. I would however
recommend Reaper after using it for the past 3 years on and off. Although it
may not have the prettiest UI it sure can do some amazing things with audio
routing that kinda makes it ahead of the game in a lot of ways. I have spent
many years in front of Protools and although I still have a soft spot for its
ease of use, they kinda just started pricing themselves out of the market for
me upgrading towards my needs as I'm not a professional studio engineer
anymore.

So here's my suggestion within the author's cheap equipment budget of
$369-439: Take the $240/yr you're going to spend on Audition and buy the EV-
RE320 and Reaper. That leaves you with $40 towards your mixer (if you plan on
having multiple guests in your studio) and audio interface which will cost you
around another $200. Just my brief ideas of how to spend the money better and
get a better sound. Now as far as the content well that's up to you!

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U1S4YY4/?tag=lookjar-20](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U1S4YY4/?tag=lookjar-20)

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KCN83VI/ref=oh_aui_deta...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KCN83VI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002E4Z8M/?tag=lookjar-20](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002E4Z8M/?tag=lookjar-20)

