When starting out in the world of podcasting there are a few things to consider when purchasing your podcasting equipment for your podcast.
Consider, what type of podcast you're recording, what style from solo dialogue to multiple presenters or one on one guest or multiple guests.
Each type of podcast requires different equipment and this is an equipment guide to help you get started.
Podcasting Equipment Breakdown
For any podcast you will need an input, a mixer or audio interface and then something to record on like a computer or audio recorder.
The same flow path is used for any recording situation whether it is a solo show or multi person show.
Pop Filter
First thing to get is a pop filter! For the cheap investment on eBay this will get rid of the harsh P sounds from yoru recordings straight away. I highly recommend any pop filter!
I purchased my own from eBay for $15 including shipping.
Microphones
A fantastic starter microphone of my choice would be an Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB Cardioid Dynamic USB/XLR Microphone. This is a great quality microphone that you can plug straight into your computer or into a audio mixer depending on what stage of podcasting you are at. Perfect starter microphone and very cheap.
My own personal choice fo microphone for my own podcasts is the Sennheiser e840 XLR Microphone. Again it is a high quality dynamic cardioid microphone that allows for great vocal recordings but doesn't break the budget.
Last but not least is the Heil P40 XLR Microphone which is supposedly the holy grail of audio voice microphones. This mic is a high quality dynamic mic with a very large vocal range to better capture the lower bass tones in a voice, especially in a male's voice for a better produced sound.
If you're using your using your smartphone however for recording your audio, a simple microhone such as an iRig Microphone that you can purchase from almost any Apple store is a great start. Cheap and comes with software to start recording straight to your iPhone.
Mixers and Audio Interfaces
The mixer or audio interface is where you plug your microphones into before it goes to the recording device. For my own personal podcasts, I prefer to us a small portable audio interface that connects directly into my computer. Having it small and portable means that I can travel and visit the people that I'm interviewing in the podcasts at their office or on location. It isn't as portable as a handheld digital recorder but I use my iPhone for situations like that.
If you're setting up a recording studio however, a mixer might be a good choice. The mixer will allow you to amplify your sound of your microphone as well as other adjustments to the audio signal making it better even before it hits the recorder. It helps create the professional studio sound.
The audio interface that I use is called a Focusrite Forte USB audio interface. It works on both PC and Mac computers which was crucial for my own personal use.
A brilliant small mixer is the Behringer Xenyx 802. It allows for multiple inputs and is great for podcasting. You can however get larger mixers but for most situations you will not need so many inputs.
Monitoring Headphones
To make sure that your audio recording is going well and that the audio that is being produced is soudning right, you'll need good quality headphones that will block out any background noise to that the audio recording is isolated.
My choice of headphone for podcasting is the Sennheiser HD380 Pro headphones. They're a great passive noise cancelling headphone that naturally blocks out the sound from your surroundings. You can get an active noise cancelling headphone but they do cost a fair bit more.
Recording Devices and Software
For my own podcast I record straight into my laptop of PC where I edit and produce the audio of the podcast as well. I love using Adobe Audition for recording and producing the podcasts as it is one of the easiest pieces of software I've used to record audio. It does cost money though and there are free wave recorders such as Audacity that will do almost the same thing and will allow you to record your podcasts on your computer.
You can also use an audio recorder which works very much like a tape recorder but is all digital. You can even purchase a high quality digital recorder with inbuilt microphones for recording on the go such as a Roland R05 portable digital recorder. From the digital recorder you can export it back to your computer where you can use audio software to fine tune and produce your podcast.
Need Some Help Setting Up a Recording Studio?
If you need a hand in setting up your podcasting studio, please give us a call and we'll get working on the perfect podcasting studio for you.
If you don't want to purchase your own podcasting equipment and want to instead book some studio time, we can also arrange that too in our Sydney office.
Either way, enjoy your podcasting journey!
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