The Joys of Podcasting - A Beginning
So I have been setting up and practising for recording the podcast as Virginia (my erotic fiction alter ego 😘)- which has been fun and a total headache at the same time! 😂I am using Audition since I have the Adobe suite of applications and I have never used it before, so that's a learning curve. Nothing Adobe ever makes is intuitive, so I've been checking out all the tutorials etc, but their products are very powerful.
I recommend Audacity to those who do not have Audition - it is fabulous and free and I have used it in the past a lot. The only reason I am using Audition over it is that the Adobe suite had full support if I run into anything I or Rob can't solve.
We put up a bunch of anechoic foam above my desk, because my office is in the converted loft which has a sloping roof, so bounce back was a bit of a problem. It's surprisingly warmer in my little spot now too 😁.
Rob also kindly bought me a foam protector for the mic to prevent reflection from behind, and it keeps out ambient noise quite well too. This is what it looks like at the moment. and yes, the pop guard is held on with bluetac - we couldn't clip it anywhere safely.
Yes, that is also a cat tunnel you can see through underneath it 😂.
So far I have tried three mics:
- My old ProSound Podcasting USB microphone
- A Blue Mic Snowball ICE USB microphone that I am borrowing off my sister
- A posh mic with pre-amp, that was not USB
The best sound by far I can get on my PC is with the Blue Snowball mic. It had a lot more gain than the ProSound and can be set up so it doesn't have a horrible background hiss like the posh mic.
Tip: When connecting a USB mic, plug it straight into the motherboard, not a USB hub or anything similar - it will pick up background noise as a hiss.
All the mics had a horrible hiss on them to begin with, but Rob used a spectrum analyser on the output and figured out it was power supply noise and plugging directly into the motherboard got rid of it. The posh mic, because it wasn't being converted to digital straight away picked up so much background interference from the rest of the equipment. No doubt it is wonderful with a proper sound desk. 😂
Tip: Don't use really posh, sound enhancing headphones when editing - they will mask problems.
As you can see in the piccie above, I started off using my Bose headphones (originally purchased for flying to help with my air-sickness - I can't take all the low level vibrations), but I discovered a problem. Bose headphones make everything sound amazing! When looking for issues in a recording, this makes them difficult/impossible to spot 😂. I have now borrowed a pair of Rob's phone style headphones until I can get a pair of my own.
The really fun part has been practising Virginia's voice. She does not speak like I do. She has a lower, sexier voice, whereas my voice just gets higher and higher the more excited I get 😂. It's been quite a giggle trying to get her right. So far I have recorded an intro, but I can't start the main part of the podcast yet, until I am sure the set-up is perfectly right. This is the initial music and welcome - LMK what you think!
Anyone else been podcasting? How have you found it? Or do you have a favourite podcast to share?
As join me as Virginia on: Twitter | Wordpress | Blogger | Podbean | Facebook
Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Moonlight Hall" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
If I ever get the energy to do a podcast, I will refer to this.
ReplyDeleteIf you do start podcasting I wish you the best of luck. If I discover any more wisdom I will definitely share it 💖
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