015 - Podcasting Infrastructure, Hardware and Software




Writer and Geek Show show

Summary: <h3 id="podcasting-infrastructure">Podcasting Infrastructure</h3> <p>We continue our discussion on podcasting and get into the technical aspects of recording and producing a podcast.</p> <p>{<a href="#t=00:01:00">01:00</a>} Podcasting is huge in North America. But the similar growth isn’t seen in Europe and Asia. This is mostly attributed to the fact that English is the primary language in North America whereas there are a wide variety of languages spoken in Europe and Asia.</p> <p>Apart from this, most people in North America use apple devices whereas Android is more popular in Europe and Asia.</p> <p>{<a href="#t=00:03:30">03:30</a>} Walkthrough of the podcasting equipment and software used for Writer &amp; Geek Show. We started with a <a href="https://www.amazon.in/Samson-Meteor-Studio-Microphone-Chrome/dp/B004MF39YS" target="blank">Samson Meteor Mic</a>. But this being a condenser mic, we had to record late nights due to the ambient noise that came through.</p> <p>{<a href="#t=00:06:00">06:00</a>} We use <a href="http://www.audacityteam.org/download/" target="blank">Audacity</a> for our software processing. Audacity is a free software that can very well handle the processing required for podcasting. ALong with Audacity we used <a href="https://www.vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/index.htm" target="blank">Voicemeeter</a> as a virtual mixer for combining the inputs from two <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Knox-Gear-Cardioid-USB-Microphone/dp/B012BAX738" target="blank">Knox USB/XLR</a> mics which we use now. We also use a software called Levilator which helps in levelling out the audio volume throughout the episode.</p> <p>We also purchased <a href="https://www.amazon.in/Yamaha-MG10XU-10-Input-Stereo-Mixer/dp/B00IBIVL42" target="blank">Yamaha MG10XU</a> mixer. This is very versatile entry-level mixer and has helped us drastically improve our audio.</p> <p>{<a href="#t=00:12:35">12:35</a>} Podcast can be managed using CMS like WordPress but for our podcast, we use Jekyll as the CMS. A custom rss feed is created and submitted to iTunes. For submission, an Apple ID is required and the podcast feed is submitted to iTunes. Once verified, the podcast will be available on iTunes.</p> <p>{<a href="#t=00:13:55">13:55</a>} There are many apps for listening podcasts for mobile phones and desktops. Our favourite is Pocket Casts. It has an Android app and a web player. It is lightweight and very user-friendly.</p> <p>{<a href="#t=00:15:32">15:32</a>} Media file hosting has to be separate from the web hosting. We use Libsyn for media files. there are other services like SoundCloud and Simplecasts etc.</p>