How To Podcast – Shortman Studios

December 10, 2020December 10, 2020

6 Steps To Lead A Really Great Podcast Interview

You have a podcast, you’ve decided you want to speak with different people, and you have booked great guests. Congrats! Now you just have to do the damn thing and interview someone you don’t know.

Interviewing a podcast guest can be very rewarding. You’re talking to someone you respect about topics you care about. For the same reason, it can be intimidating. There are ways to prepare for the interview to overcome the intimidation and to ensure that the guest, you, and your audience all enjoy participating in the conversation, making it a success.

Here are items for you to consider when preparing for a podcast interview, based on what I’ve learned conducting podcast (and non-podcast) interviews over the years, and from listening to a lot of podcasts. This advice is mostly geared towards interview or conversational interviews, rather than say reporting for documentary podcasts.

Before the Interview – Setting the Table

As we discussed on our booking great guests blog, you should do your research before you reach out to someone. That research will help you get the guest on board, but it will also prepare you well for the interview itself. Once they agree to join, I’d suggest listening to or reading any interviews the guest has done, or reading any of their work. Listening is great because you can get a sense of how they handle questions and how they come off, but any of this research will give you an idea of what else they have talked about online. It’s not great to start your interview with the same question that the guest has heard and answered on three other podcasts. Focus on how you can add value to the conversation for your guest as well as your listeners.

Follow up with your guest after you confirm a time and share what your audience is like – both size, if you’d like, and especially the type of people who listen (or who you want to listen) – and what your planned conversation is meant to cover.

You may consider sending the guest a set of questions beforehand as well. The benefit is that the guest can get a full idea of what the scope of your conversation will be. Some guests also don’t want to be surprised. The downside is that they may come to the podcast a little more rehearsed than you want. It really depends on what type of conversation you are aiming to have.

One last thing for those of you recording podcasts with a co-host (or more). You can decide whether or not to collaborate on preparing the questions, but you should definitely discuss how you plan to handle the interview itself with your co-host(s). Do you each ask the questions you came up with, or is someone taking lead on a conversation? You want to have your dance steps worked out with your co-host beforehand so you don’t step on one another’s feet.

Preparation makes all the difference. Source: Canva

On The Call – Pre Start

The time has come and you and your guest are on the call, whether a video call on Zoom or an all audio call on Zoom or Zencastr or similar. Whether this is your first time meeting the guest or you’ve talked before, you want to achieve a few things before starting the recording.

Check to make sure their sound and their connection is good. If there’s any issues with the connection, they may need to reconnect or experiment on their end. With the sound, just make sure it’s natural, clear, and not choppy. If they have a professional mic, great, but if not a phone or laptop mic, when paired with your full sound, will be good enough. You should suggest they wear headphones to prevent any noise canceling from blotting out sound, unless you plan to use the video and don’t want that in the visual.
Check once more to see how much time they have to speak. Maybe something has changed since you emailed previously, and you want to make sure you tailor the conversation appropriately to their needs, time-wise.
Ask if the guest has any questions or concerns about the topic at hand or the recording or anything else.
Give the guest a heads up on how you expect the conversation to go (more thoughts on which in the next section). You want them to feel as comfortable as possible about the recording and everything else, so that the focus is on the conversation.
And amidst all this, don’t rush the warm-up chitchat. It’s good to get a feel for the guest’s rhythm and to establish some rapport. If they don’t care and just want to start, or if time is short, you just start recording asap, but if not, it’s valuable to spend some time with the guest before formally starting.

I’ve found that when speaking with someone for the first time, there’s a 10-15 minute period of warming up before the conversation flows. If you can spend those 10-15 minutes before the recording starts, your listeners will get more of the good stuff.

Recording and Directing The Interview

When you’re actually speaking with the guest, you want to keep two goals in mind. One is to conduct a fun, enjoyable, informative interview. This is the most important goal. The other is to direct the recording – make sure you cover what you want to cover, that you don’t abuse your guest’s time, that the sound remains high fidelity.

I’ll start with the directing aspects. For the sound, don’t be shy to interrupt if something is going wrong. Maybe they’re fidgeting too much, maybe the connection gets bad, whatever – jump in and let them know, and ask them to repeat. Editing will allow you to clean this up after the fact, but it’s much harder to turn bad sound into good sound. (I confess – I don’t do this enough! It’s not easy to interrupt or derail a conversation. But it’s often worth it).

One thing to think about with the directing is whether to read an introduction on air. An introduction is easy to record separately, especially if you are the sole host, and this will save time for your conversation. The trade-off is it flows less organically into the episode. I have transitioned to recording intros separately, as a rule.

Keep your questions handy and an eye on the clock and you should be able to keep the conversation moving. Pay attention to a chat if there is one available in your call system, in case the guest gets in touch with you that way to not interrupt the convo.

If you do have a co-host, it’s a good idea to have a chat channel of some sort – Slack, texts, whatever – open so you can coordinate as the discussion evolves.

And with the guest, you can do some signposting along the way – ‘one more question on this topic’, ‘now I want to talk about this’, ‘we’re almost done,’ etc. – but it’s worth saying that, and then pausing and jumping into the question so that you can cut out the stage directions in the editing process if you want.

It may be a while before in-person interviewing is the norm again. Source: Canva

Conducting the Interview

A good podcast is basically just a conversation, and you have plenty of practice talking with people. But because there is a third party in the room, so to speak – your eventual audience, there are a few adjustments you may want to make to your normal conversational style, both trivial and meaningful.

Don’t feel a need to affirm the guest’s comments. Hmm, mmhmm, yes, whatever it is we often say to encourage a guest can be distracting on a recording. You will be able to edit these noises out to an extent, but it’s still good practice to listen silently.
Similarly, when going from one question to the next, we can cut out some of our normal conversational cues. “I totally agree”, “No, but that’s totally normal”, etc., things that we say in conversation but that when you are listening, get in the way of the dialogue.
Take pauses in between when one person speaks and the other does, and take your time with your speaking. Pauses and repetitions are easy to remove in editing, and will allow you room to get whatever it is you want to say right. It will also help you avoid stepping on your guest or co-host’s lines. And in a remote recording environment, where you have less (or perhaps no) body language to go on, pausing gives space to your guest.
At the same time, figure out what your interruption style is. There are times where an interruption is natural and helpful. I would suggest interrupting rarely – the audience is usually there to listen to your guest – but being more forceful than you otherwise might be when you do interrupt. You need your guest to stop and recognize that you want to chime in, and interruptions should come when there’s a good reason to stop and dig deeper or change directions.
Allow the conversation to flow. You have your questions and key topics to cover, but if something interesting comes up, pursue it. It’s easy as an interviewer to get locked in on what you want to ask, but don’t forget to listen. That’s what your audience will be doing in the end.
Make note of whether there are any points the guest makes that need to be explained further. They might use abbreviations or they might say something about themselves that you know about but that listeners might not have context for. If it makes sense in the discussion, ask the guest to explain further, but if not, you can always add in an explanation after the fact.

An example of remote interviewing in action, and a preview of Shortman Studios posts to come. Source: Shortman Studios

Wrapping up the conversation

You’ve reached the end of the conversation, and it’s time to wrap. This should be straightforward. If you want, you can ask if the guest has anything else they want to add. It’s also a good idea to give them a chance to say where they are on social media, or what listeners can do if they want to hear more from the guest.

I usually thank the guest and do a formal ‘bye’ sign-off while recording, though it’s really up to you. Sometimes a conversation can just end on whatever the last point or question is.

It’s also worth letting the guest know before you start that they can stick around to de-brief after you stop the recording if they would like. It can be nice to say ‘that call went well,’ to thank them without the recording running, etc. But, some people like to just hang up and leave and that’s fine too.

Listen back and reflect

The last thing for interviewing guests on your podcast is to listen back to your interviews closely. If you edit your own podcasts, you’ll get a chance to listen that way, but even if you don’t it’s worth reviewing. Think about what you thought went well, whether you got to the questions you wanted to get to, and whether there is room for improvement. Chances are, your podcast will not be the type of production where you can ‘re-do’ whole interviews, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from each conversation.

Podcast interviewing is the art of performative listening. Listening is one of the most important skills a person can have, and podcast interviewing forces you to do that listening on a stage, albeit not live so you have a chance to clean things up. I hope these tips will help you feel confident going into an interview and pleased with the final product.

Any questions or anything we missed? Let me know at Daniel at shortmanstudios.com or comment below. And good luck!

November 9, 2020November 8, 2020

How To Book Great Guests For Your Podcast

We’ve mentioned that there are several different podcast formats. Podcasting is still a young field, and there’s room for experimentation and mixing of formats and styles as well. But there are also common points or conventions. Some are trivial – most podcasts will read credits at the end of the episode and ask you to leave them a review or follow them, for example. Some are more meaningful, like the presence of guests.

Whatever the format, a given podcast is likely to feature new voices. It could be a conversational podcast between two hosts where a guest joins to change up the dynamic. It could be an interview podcast where the whole aim of the show is to feature guests. Reporting or documentary podcasts often feature multiple guests. There are exceptions, but think about it this way: unless you feel that you have enough to say week in and week out to keep listeners engaged on your topic, you are going to need fresh voices to both engage with your listeners and attract new ones.

Booking guests can be intimidating, however. If you go beyond your friends and acquaintances, you’re cold calling/emailing a person to ask them to spend their time with you. I find this to be one of the most terrifying things I do in my day-to-day, normal life. And yet, outreach is also a must for podcasting (as well as just about any job or passion project) and a skill you can build up. Here are a few tips for you when you want to book guests for your podcast.

Do your research

You know you want to book person X for your show. They are an expert on your subject, or they have a good following, or you like their social media presence, whatever. You know why you want to book them.

Before you reach out, develop that ‘why’. What topics do you want to discuss? What expertise or perspective do they bring to your discussion? How does this person connect to your podcast, and will it be easy for them to understand that discussion? How do they broaden the conversation you’ve had on the podcast already?

Then, look into their online presence to see if they do this sort of thing. Spotify’s search allows you to find episodes where the person may have guested, for example. Their twitter or Linkedin or Instagram feeds will also hint at their media presence. You can get a sense from the sorts of appearances they’ve made in the past of whether they might be open to joining your podcast. That’s not to say you shouldn’t reach out if you can’t find that they’ve done a podcast before. It just helps to calibrate your expectations, the same way you might for their degree of celebrity or reputation.

Be Polite and To The Point

Once you have an idea of what you want to talk about with them and what your chances are of getting your potential guest to join, you have to write the actual email. There are a few things to emphasize here:

Make the subject line clear – “My Podcast – Guest Appearance” is perfectly fine as a template. Something that makes the ask evident without being too long of a subject line.

The email itself should be polite but to the point. You are asking for their time, so keeping the email concise is important. I usually start by introducing myself in the first sentence, explaining why I am emailing the person in the second, and then making a clear request to start a second paragraph (Would you be interested in joining our podcast?)

Make your request very clear – how long will you talk, what do you expect to talk about, and how do you want the person to follow up? It’s a little aggressive to send a Calendly or Schedule Once or similar link in a cold outreach email, but it can be done. I usually just ask that they reply if they’d like to do this or have any questions.

If you have an audience to boast of, boast! – Let the potential guest know who will be listening to this. If you have stats to brag about, share them here. But at the same time, if you don’t yet have that audience, don’t try to gussy things up – it’s ok to say ‘we’re a newer podcast and would love to have you on to explore this topic,’ for example.

If you have a connection to the person’s work, share it at the end – i.e. if you’re a fan, or listened to their podcast or to them on another person’s podcast, mention it (without going on too long!). It’s a good way to bring the message home to your potential guest.

I’ve included a couple examples at the bottom of this post for reference.

Don’t Be Shy About Following Up

We’re all busy, especially in a work from home, 2020 sort of world. While we all hope for an outreach target to get back to us immediately, and that they’re as excited about joining our podcast as we are about hosting them, that usually doesn’t happen. Not getting a response doesn’t mean you never will.

After a few days, or even as much as a week, it is a good idea to send a brief follow up email. Reply to the email you sent with something like:

Hi <guest>,

I hope you’re having a great week. I just wanted to check in to see if the idea of coming on <My podcast> might interest you. No problem if not, but I know things can get lost in the shuffle so I just wanted to check again.

If you are interested, please just let me know when a good time is for you. Thanks!

Daniel

The follow-up email should be short – you have the longer email below it to remind the guest about what you’re looking for – and not pushy. I’ve been on the other side of outreach emails, though, and know that a second email often works – I know this is a real effort and not just a mailing list email, and the second email strikes on my empathy nerves, or at least the feeling of giving consideration. Even if the response to a follow-up is a polite no, it’s worthwhile as a way of opening a conversation.

Be Flexible And Consistent

You’ve reached out to someone and they say yes. Congrats! Now, keep in mind that they’re doing you a favor by taking time out of their day to speak on your podcast. That means you should be as flexible as you can be in terms of arranging the interview. Maybe they want to speak at a weird hour, or maybe they can only give you 15 minutes instead of 45. There are some stretches that are too hard to make, but do what you can to make it work.

Once the scheduling challenges are resolved, facilitate things for your guest as much as you can, and deliver on what you’ve promised. Show up on time, send out the invite with plenty of advance notice, and send questions in advance if relevant. You want to respect your guest’s time, and to make it as easy for them to join your podcast. That includes confirming how much time they have before you begin the podcast, and tailoring the discussion to stay in that timeframe.

If you do things right, including asking good questions and holding a good conversation, you might be surprised to find the guest will stick around longer than planned.

(We’ll write a separate post about the actual interview part of the podcast).

Thank Them And One More Ask

Follow up after the call to thank the guest for their time. That’s obvious. But it’s also a good idea to let them know when the podcast will be published – and you can email a second time when it is posted, for example, or when you know for sure what the publication date is – and to ask them to share the podcast with their followers or friends. This is both a trivial ask and, because they took part in the discussion, something they may want to do anyway. Which is a great way to raise your podcast’s visibility.

Don’t Be Precious

A bonus tip – sometimes a person will reach out to join your podcast, or a listener will suggest you book someone as a guest. It’s possible that person is not a good fit, but it’s still worth being open to booking unplanned guests. You’ll find a lot of great conversations from people you didn’t expect to have on your podcast. That only happens if you’re open to going off your original script.

Summing it Up

Reaching out to people you don’t know to invite them on your podcast can be intimidating. It’s also the best way to get beyond your own perspective on your podcast, and will open doors both with those guests and with your listeners. And it’s a skill that applies to the world beyond podcasting. I’ve included a couple emails I’ve sent (details changed to anonymize them) that draw on some of these tips. Get in touch if you have other tips for getting people to join your podcast, or if you find these ideas useful. And good luck!

Example 1

Hi <X>,

I host the podcast “ABC”, we just interacted on social media around the topic. Would you be interested in joining us on our show for an episode on that topic in more depth? We’re focused on this aspect of the topic, so we could talk about what you think about that part of the topic and your expertise. We’re happy to go as in depth on the part you focus on in your podcast if you’d like, or we could just talk about the topic at a high level.

I listened to your interview with these people and really enjoyed it, the podcast looks great! We’d love to get a chance to chat with you, let me know if you are interested, my email is [email protected] and my DMs are open on Twitter.

Have a great day,
Daniel Shvartsman

Example 2

I hope you’re well. We emailed a little over a year ago when I was at Seeking Alpha, we were talking about inviting <Person YZ> to join us as a guest on our podcast Behind the Idea.

I’ve since left Seeking Alpha to start a podcast company, and one of the podcasts we have is called The Razor’s Edge, a more tech focused investing podcast that has built up a bigger following – we have over 4000 downloads an episode on average. I co-host the show with Akram’s Razor, who is a leading tech investor/trader.

We’ve been talking a lot on our podcast about collaboration software and companies like Slack, PagerDuty, Atlassian, Zoom, Microsoft, etc, and I wanted to see if <Person YZ> would like to come onto the podcast to speak about this area. We’ve been following their work on these companies as well, and think it’d be timely to chat if they were interested. We just spoke with the CEO of Superhuman for example, so it’d be great timing to go further.

Please let me know if you’re interested in this or if you need any info from me. I’d be happy to speak about this or provide any other details.

Thanks for your time, and have a great week,

Daniel

August 21, 2020August 20, 2020

The Equipment You Need For Podcasting

2020 is an exciting time for podcasting in part because everyone is staying at home more, and there are fewer social or cultural outlets – concerts, parties, social gatherings, even restaurants – available. Podcasting is something one can do from home that is social, creative, and a link to the world. And, compared to most mediums, podcasting is easy to do.

To get a podcast to sound good, you do need some equipment. The right tools – both on your computer or phone and physical equipment – will save you time later in editing or publishing podcasts, and will allow your audience to focus on your content instead of how it sounds. Which seems like something that shouldn’t matter, but 88.3% of negative podcast reviews* fixate on sound.

*We’re making this up. But it feels like the truth – people really care about the sound of a podcast as much as the content, and if your podcast sounds amateurish, you might lose a listener before you have the chance to win them.

So, what equipment do you need to be a successful podcaster?

Microphone

This is the most obvious piece. You need to record your voice on a podcast. Most desktops come with a built-in mic, but a USB plug-in mic is the easiest way to upgrade your sound.

I use a Blue Yeti mic. It records a full, rich sound. I always record on ‘cardioid’, the setting that focuses on what is directly in front of the mic. The mic is still quite sensitive, and there is other equipment out there to help control for noise that might leak into your recording.

Another mic colleagues have used is a RØDE. They even have a mic called the podcaster, and it seems to deliver a good sound.

Shure is a legendary microphone maker, and they have mics with USB inputs as well. These can come in handy for reporting driven podcasts where you are looking to interview people outside of an office/home studio setting.

The Blue Yeti retails for $130 right now, just to give you a ballpark range.

Yeti microphone image — Elegant, and gets the job done

As a quick aside, if you do go for a Blue Yeti, it makes sense to buy extra USB cables – the cable that comes with the Yeti isn’t very long and is set in a way where it often breaks after a bit of use. Backup cables are $5-10, and will come in handy.

Mic Stand

A mic stand allows you to set the mic directly in front of you, so that it’s not prone to vibrations from you touching the desk it sits on or otherwise (see common recording mistakes). I’m not aware of any relative differences in mic stands – I bought a “Tencro Professional Microphone Suspension Boom Scissor Adjustable Arm Stand ” off of Amazon for 26 euros, and found that to be perfectly adequate. Open to suggestions, though I think your aim is to make sure it adapts to your recording environment, whether that involves standing, clamping to your desk, or otherwise.

Shock Mount

I found it useful to also get a shock mount, which screws onto the base of the microphone, between the mic and the mic stand. This finally took out all of the reverberations that came from touching the microphone. I selected the YOUSHARES Shock Mount for a Blue Yeti; it’s a little challenging to get the USB cord through the shock mount’s ring to plug into the Yeti, but otherwise, it does the job.

Pop Filter

A basic pop filter can help clean out the ‘plosives’ from your speaking, the puh sounds when you say the letter P. It can also filter out a little bit of your breathing from the recording; some producers like a really natural sound on their podcast, while others prefer the words to be clean so the listener doesn’t get distracted. A pop filter is one way to get you closer to that clean sound.

Mic shield

Related to a pop filter, you can consider a mic shield or portable vocal booth. What these do is block out other sounds from your microphone; even though the blue yeti cardioid setting is meant to capture only sound directly in front of it, if someone else is talking in the house it will bleed onto my recordings, for example. I don’t have personal experience with this but am planning to try one in the coming months and will update this post accordingly.

That pretty much does it for physical equipment. Headphones are useful but not a must, and you may already have plug in headphones that do the job. That leads us to software.

Samson RC10 Studio Microphone Mic Isolation Shield Vocal | Reverb — The idea of the shield is to, well, build a wall around the mic so it’s only getting your sound.

Recording software

You need to capture the sound as an mp3, m4a, wav, or other easily convertible/transferable/editable file, so that you can turn your recording into a publication.

If you are recording in person, whether on your own or with a co-host/guest, a recording software is all you need. Audacity is effective and works on Windows or Mac; GarageBand is an Apple native software for Macs that also works well. ProTools is a higher-powered software we’ll touch on in the next section.

If you are recording remotely with a guest or co-host, we recommend Zoom for simplicity, or Zencastr if you don’t have the budget for a Pro level Zoom account. Zoom recording offers a generally high standard – the sound is pretty good, there are only occasional audio glitches (and that is often a result of internet connection), and there’s no audio drift, so your track and your guest/co-host’s track are the same length, which will be a blessing in the editing process. If you do put on the video, it also makes it easier to read one another’s body language to know when to jump in or not. (That said, we record most The Razor’s Edge episodes and about half of our first season of A Positive Jam without video).

Zencastr offers good audio quality, but is subject to some audio drift, and the calls themselves sometimes drop or get cut out. I should say I haven’t tried this since switching to Zoom at the beginning of 2020, and I liked what they were doing as a business.

I’ve tried CleanFeed, Skype using an mp3 call recorder, and Ringr (not the Bill Simmons website, an app for recording calls), and found Zoom and Zencaster a cut above.

Editing software

Once you have the files, you may want to add sound effects, clean up the conversations, remove filler words, sweet or level the sound in post production, etc. This can be a tedious process, but it also lets you sink your teeth into your recordings so you really control what you are putting out.

Audacity is a free tool, but it’s also a really good one. It offers multi-track editing, basic post-production effects to boost sound, stereo and mono, and is fairly intuitive.

Adobe Audition is one that comes recommended by many podcast experts. I do not have personal experience with Audition, but it’s one of my planned tests in coming weeks, to upgrade to it and try it out. It’s a paid software at $20-31/month, depending on the term you pay for.

ProTools is considered industry standard. I find the software itself super clunky, and editing on it at least on my PC was not intuitive at all.

Hindenburg is another software that comes up on a lot of podcast editing job postings. I’m less familiar with it as a tool, so I can’t say much.

GarageBand, pre-installed on Macs, should substitute for Audacity effectively as well.

Hosting platform

You record the podcast using a microphone, with some tools to make sure the sound is as clean as can be. You record on a software. You use that or another software to edit the file to its final format. The last piece of the puzzle – you need to host the podcast somewhere, so that the podcast gets distributed to the main channels – Apple, Spotify, Pandora, a number of podcast apps, etc.

The way to do this is through a company dedicated to hosting podcasts. We are currently using Podbean, for example – $14/month for each podcast to host unlimited amount of audio. We’ve used Libsyn in the past as well, for $15-$20/month.

There’s not a ton to distinguish sites from one another. Unlimited storage is a plus because it removes headaches. Some of these hosting providers charge on a # of listens basis, for example, which probably only affects really successful podcasts but is also sort of a tax on that success. The level of support is important, and I’ve found both Podbean and Libsyn to be satisfactory. There are companies providing more service, like Megaphone or Art19, but that is meant for serious advertisers; for the nuts and bolts of hosting a podcast, they’re not much different from the first two.

Your podcast host provider will also be the best source of stats for your podcast, as it collates stats from all of your channels. Podbean is slightly better than Libsyn in stats provision (though I’ve been off Libsyn for almost a year, to be fair), but that’s another vector to consider.

Anchor is a Spotify owned platform, and Spotify has more ownership over the podcast, which I think is mostly a matter of ads and how the podcast appears. It’s also free. To this point, I’ve viewed the platform as a ‘you get what you pay for’ deal, but would love to hear what other people’s experiences have been with it.

That’s it. You pull all that together and you’ll have the tools and equipment needed to make your podcast a success.

That doesn’t mean the podcast will be a success. You need to decide what success is, and how much preparation, thought, and development you want to put into the content, the guest list, the editing, and so on. But, having the right equipment makes it a lot easier to get there.

July 30, 2020July 26, 2020

The Tricks To Recording Podcasts Remotely

2020 has been a year of working from home. Ok, it’s been a year of a lot of things, most of them not great. But one of those things has been working from home, and that’s come in for mixed reviews.

As someone who’s worked from home for nearly a decade, I’ve watched people’s reactions to this change with interest, bemusement, and a bit of embarrassment. If something this natural to me has thrown off so many other people, what does that say about my taste?

Working from home also means recording podcasts from home. As with the other aspects of working from home, podcasting is doable but requires adjustments. Podcasters have to master their home studio, but also the variable of having a conversation with someone who is not in the room with them – no body language to cue in to, no recording console to manage everyone’s volume levels.

Having worked from home for nearly a decade, I’ve also been recording podcasts from home for the past few years. While I don’t have everything perfect or on par with live radio studio, I have learned a few tricks to the process that are key to success.

The Importance of Getting Your Sound Right

When I started podcasting, someone with more experience in the field gave me a great piece of advice: “As long as the host sounds clear and solid, listeners will be able to adjust to a guest’s sound more easily.” We’ll talk about maintaining good sound with your guests, but it’s of utmost importance that you control your own sound. That means having the right equipment, making sure there’s not too much noise in your surroundings, having a good internet connection, and more. I covered potential recording errors more in detail in this post, so refresh on the topic there.

Find the right recording software

Recording a conversation with someone who is not in the same physical location is not an easy task, but fortunately there are many programs that simplify it. I have used several over the years trying to get the right sound. The challenges and variables to watch out for include:

Audio drift – the possibility that your guest’s recording will get out of sync with your recording due to varying computer speeds
Glitchy connections – if the voice over internet protocol (VOIP) aspect of the software isn’t good, the call can get robotic or the line can just drop
Storage – Most software programs allow you to record on the cloud, but you want to make sure you have secure access to the recording
File type – Different programs record different types of files. While it’s relatively easy to convert files from one type to the other online, the more conversions you make the more you run the risk of the audio deteriorating. Ideally, you can record in mp3, m4a, or wav for easy conversion or editing.
Video – I’ll discuss the value or challenge of having video for recording, but it’s certainly a variable that affects both the internet connection quality and the connection you have with your guest or co-host.

As I mentioned, I’ve used several programs over the year. For a free service, I recommend Zencaster. It allows you to record your guest or co-host on a separate track, there is separate back-up recording, and it’s a good audio quality. There is some risk of audio drift, and I found the VOIP quality to be lacking to the point where I would prepare guests to refresh the screen if things cut off. But it was a mostly effective recording platform. I am curious to see what their video recording feature is like (currently in beta), and with the onset of the pandemic, the company has removed any restrictions on number of guests you can have or recording volume in a month.

I currently use Zoom, which you’re likely familiar with. While the videoconferencing software has had some security concerns – many of them since resolved – I ultimately find the call quality to be the most consistent of any of the alternatives I’ve tried, and the audio quality to be more than satisfactory. There are a few tricks to maximize the quality, including recording on your computer to get separate tracks and turning on original sound. The cost is $15/month on the PRO plan, and there’s a possibility of upgrading to also get transcripts. The ability to see my co-host or guest is also a plus, as it makes it easier to go back and forth, and it makes it possible to easily produce videos of the conversation too, if that’s of interest.

(One small thing about Zoom – try to avoid muting anybody, including yourself, from the program. I believe this leads to Zoom not recording that person while they’re muted, which means their track gets out of sync with the others. We’ll mention the importance of recording on separate tracks which mitigates most of the need for muting anyway, but if you need to mute, try to do so by muting your microphone hardware itself, rather than doing so in Zoom).

Prepare for your podcast beforehand

It’s always a good idea to prepare for a podcast before you start recording, but this especially is the case before recording remotely. With a co-host, this could mean working out an outline and a plan of attack for a given episode. With a guest, sending questions or talking points in advance is a great idea.

Even once the call starts but before you start recording, it’s good to check in with the guest or co-host. That allows you to make sure everyone sounds good. You can also refresh on what you plan to discuss, check if your guest has any time limits to their availability, and prep them for how you end the podcast – usually, I will sign off with my guest or co-host, stop the recording, but continue the call so we can debrief.

Give Your Guests/Co-Hosts Space To Talk

One of the biggest differences between online recording and in-person recording is that lack of body language I mentioned above. Video helps to a degree, but it’s still harder to read a person through a screen than it is across the room.

This matters for the flow of a conversation, where you may not know when a person has finished their piece and when they want to keep going. So as a rule of thumb, give the person space to finish their thought – wait a couple seconds before following up with your next comment or idea. And prepare your guest or co-host for this possibility.

The nice thing about recording podcasts is that you can always go back and edit to remove unnatural pauses. But building these spaces into the conversation gives you more margin for error to make those edits, and also allows your interlocutors time to develop their arguments or ideas fully.

We record The Razor’s Edge without video. Our most recent guest was Rahul Vohra, the founder/CEO of Superhuman, and he’s been on several podcasts before. That experience showed, as he adapted without question to the no video format and had no trouble pausing and flowing in our conversation.

There was a bit of interruption on all parts, and it is both ok and natural to interrupt other speakers on your podcast if you have a point to make or want to interject from time to time. Which is what makes the next point especially important…

Record On Separate Tracks

Whether using Zencaster, Zoom, or a software program that does not begin with a Z, make sure you are recording each speaker on a separate track. In Zoom you want to go to your settings and then recording, and make sure to record a separate audio file for each participant who speaks.

*Source: My desktop – that second checkbox is the key one.*

You also need to record to your computer rather than to the cloud – the cloud won’t enable multi-track recording, at least last I checked.

Why is this so important? First, it allows you to edit in post-production and control for the ambient noise on each person’s end, without unduly affecting someone else’s track. It also allows you to take out, say, a phone ringing on your track while your guest is speaking (much harder to do if it happens while you’re speaking, but that’s why we had the recording rules at the beginning). And as far as interrupting goes, some interruptions don’t actually need to stay on the final version. So again, multi-track recording enables a much finer final product.

As a sub-item here, it can be a good idea to record your track separately on a desktop software (Audacity or GarageBand, for example), and to ask your guests to do the same. While I prefer to edit off the Zoom versions because those are locked in place with one another, and Zoom provides as good latency as any call service, there will be the occasional robotic moment where your guest or co-host’s voice sounds unnatural. If they are recording on their end and backing up the audio, you can use that back-up audio to smooth out the conversation.

Don’t Be Shy To Produce While On The Call

One last bit of advice is to be proactive during the recording. If your guest or co-host doesn’t sound clear at the beginning of the podcast, tell them. If their volume suddenly drops, interrupt to ask them to repeat themselves after they fix the sound. If they make a point poorly or you want them to flesh something out, jump in.

With post-production editing, you can remove the ‘first attempts’ as much as needed. And while sometimes asking someone to explain what they mean is naturally part of a conversation, there are other times where the second version is just better. The same goes for audio – as ‘natural’ as I like conversational podcasts to sound, for example, the listener won’t necessarily know or need to know if you had to take two tries at something because a dog started barking, and all things being equal they’d rather not hear the dog anyway.

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These tips reflect things I’ve learned over the past few years, and I am sure there are many more techniques left to learn. Some of these items are common sense, and some apply to in-person recording as well (which, hopefully, will become a regular thing again before too long!). And there are things that can be corrected after the fact in the editing process, or by re-recording bits.

A common theme in my posts, though, is that while you can do a lot to dress up a conversation after recording through the editing process – or you can turn to a service like ours for help – it’s really important to get the recording itself right. As you bring on guests you respect and admire in your field, you want to make sure you respect their time, which means getting the recording right and avoiding the need to repeat. That’s why getting the techniques of remote recording down are so important. And fortunately, they’re not that hard to do with a little practice and, hopefully, learning from people who have already made their own mistakes for you.

Anything I missed? Let me know below or get in touch here.

June 23, 2020July 16, 2020

So You Want To Start a Podcast…

It’s 2020, and a podcast is the new blog: everyone you know or follow seems to have one. It sounds easy enough to do. The category is growing. You’d like to get on board.

That’s great! We’re a believer in podcasts and think that anybody who applies themselves to the category can succeed. But jumping into it without a plan is like showing up at a potluck with no dish – it’s nice that you made it, but you’re going to raise some eyebrows fast.

Here are a few questions you want to answer to decide if this is the right path for you, and how to go about things:

What’s the goal of your podcast? Why do you want to produce a podcast?

Podcasting can do a number of things for hosts. They can be a way to network, or to meet people in a field of interest. They can be a way to practice public speaking and interviewing skills in a relatively safe environment. They can be an outlet for a passion or a creative project. They can tell a story. And podcasts can make money if they are successful enough to attract a sponsor or feed into a subscription model, though that takes a lot of work and dedication.

Your goals may change over time, but you want to have a sense from the beginning of why you’re getting into it. Only you can determine the right answer to this question, and it should be one that keeps you going in terms of recording and producing the podcast over time. This helps answer the next question as well.

What sort of investment do you want to make in this podcast (time & money)?

Our most precious resource is time, and money doesn’t come cheap either. When thinking through what you want out of your podcast, you should think about how much of these key resources you want to put into the podcast.

For example, it is possible to host a podcast for free. Buzzsprout offers a free plan with 2 hours of audio a month but the podcasts get erased after 90 days; Podbean offers a free plan with 5 total hours of audio. Soundcloud is also a free platform to start. All of these are acceptable if you want to experiment, but if you’re planning to produce an ongoing podcast, you’re probably going to have to upgrade (and many plans are around $15/month, so it’s not a huge expense).

The same goes for things like recording equipment and editing quality. The better your recording equipment – microphone, mic stand, pop filter, software for recording remote calls, etc. – is, the better your podcast will sound. And a good sounding podcast will matter to listeners. We’ll cover equipment more in detail below.

For editing too, you can just record and post with a very basic mix to sweeten and balance the sound and filter out noise. But if you want to structure a conversation or recording, to remove mistakes and repetitions, and to cut down on the podcast time – so as to respect your listeners’ time – you’ll need to spend more time or money on editing. A good rule of thumb is one hour of recorded audio takes two hours to edit fully. Another option is to go with a service like ours.

Again, only you can determine the right answer to this question (and the others on this list), but it’s worth keeping in mind the potential costs from the beginning, so you don’t spend time on a project you don’t want to pursue. You can’t get that time back.

What do you want the podcast to be about?

Once assessing your commitment, this is the most important question. What is the topic or theme that ties your podcast together? What will be the hook that gets listeners to subscribe and share the podcast with friends?

One doesn’t have to be too prescriptive or self-restricting in their selection of a theme, but the more focused you can make the podcast, the easier a time it will be finding an audience. Joe Rogan or Terry Gross might be able to run a general interview podcast that focuses on their personality or interviewing style, but they are special. You may be special too, but think about what your goal is and who you want to reach. The old elevator pitch model – the ability to explain why someone should listen to your podcast in the time it takes to go up in an elevator – is worth keeping in mind here.

What format do you want to have?

Once you have a topic, you want to think about your format. Podcasting is an open medium, and there are a number of different common formats you can apply, as well as new ones you might be able to discover. For example, the podcast could be conversational, where you and a co-host or two go back and forth, with guided topics but room to improvise and build chemistry with one another and with your listeners. Or the podcast could be an interview podcast, where you have a different guest each week and ask them questions, so the conversation is more focused on what they say rather than you. To the contrary, it could be an essay podcast, where you are sharing your own opinions on a given topic, whether already written out to the word or more improvised (you can even veer towards a ranting podcast). And of course, some of the most famous podcasts tell a story, whether a fictional one or a deeply reported non-fiction story. This is not an easy format to just wade into, but it may appeal to you nevertheless.

There are great podcasts in each of those formats, and that list isn’t all-inclusive. Podcasts can also switch between styles – I’ve had success in the past running a conversational podcast but one where we interview guests on alternative episodes, to flesh out the conversations we had between the co-hosts. The Razor’s Edge is an example of this, while A Positive Jam is more of a cross between conversational and story telling.

A sub-question to this is do you want a co-host or two? Is there someone you have a good rapport with who wants to join you on this project? Are you close enough in common interests that you can work together on a regular basis, but apart enough that the collaboration will push you further than you would go on your own? Do you think it would be more fun to just have someone you can talk to each time? These are things you want to think about. Like with every collaboration, having a co-host involves some compromise, but it can also advance your efforts in a way that is tough to do alone.

What equipment and tools do you need?

We touched on this briefly, and the answer depends in part on earlier questions, especially your goals and how much time you want to spend. Built-in laptop or phone mics, for example, capture a decent enough sound quality if you just want to share your podcast with friends or colleagues. At the same time, a base level of investment can go a long way. Here are the items you want to consider:

A high quality microphone. A Blue Yeti mic is around $120, for example, and captures a full and clean sound.
Headphones – you don’t need to get fancy, but it’s a good idea to have a set of headphones on hand for recording and editing purposes.
A mic stand – this allows you to avoid common recording mistakes because you can set your mic in front of you without risking touching it. A shock mount and a pop filter are two other items you can buy to protect the sonic fidelity.
Recording software – if you are recording physically, Audacity is free software that captures audio well. GarageBand on Apple computers is also a good option.
If you are recording remotely with a guest or a co-host, options range from free ones like Zencaster to specialized paid options like Cleanfeed to recording Skype calls or recording via Zoom.
Editing software – If you plan to edit this on your own, you’ll need something that you can cut audio, splice in music if you want it, add intros/outros as relevant, and clean up the sound. Again, Audacity or GarageBand (for Apple) are free options that do just about everything you need. Adobe Audition is a paid software if you want to upgrade. And of course, there are companies out there that can edit for you.
Hosting service – To get your podcast out to Spotify and Apple Podcasts, the two main platforms for listening to podcasts, you need to host the podcast with a company that will push out the podcast via an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. The best platforms will automatically ‘apply’ to list your podcast on those two main channels, Apple and Spotify, though you will also want to set up accounts with each platform to monitor stats. That said, the hosting company – Podbean, Blubrry, Libsyn, AudioBoom, Megaphone, BuzzSprout are among the options – will also provide cohesive stats on your podcast.

These are the bare bones for recording and releasing your podcast. For added promotion or distribution, for example, you want to consider your social media options. But you should expect to at the least address each of these items if you want to succeed.

How do you get feedback and how do you measure success?

That last point feeds into this last question – you have a goal, you have a podcast set up, you’re putting time and money into it, so how do you determine if it’s worth it?

Podcasting offers raw stats like listeners, downloads, listen to end %, devices, and so forth. The Apple app includes reviews, which allow you to get more qualitative feedback. The best podcasts evolve with their listeners, so think about how you want to incorporate them – it could be a request for them to leave a review or to email you, it could be that you build a strong social media presence and get responses that way, it could be that you find a test audience to share episodes with.

The openness of podcasting is the source of its strength, in this case because you can solicit and gain feedback, and then iterate to improve what you’re doing and engage with more listeners. This can help you re-answer the questions above as far as your goals, your investment, and how you want to execute your podcast.

There are plenty of resources out there as far as a checklist of tips for getting started running a podcast. We will write one soon as well. But this post is aimed to help you think through the whole process and what you’re getting into. We believe in the power of podcasting, and believe it is a great format for tons of people. But it’s better to go into something like this with eyes wide open, and to learn from others’ experience rather than making all the same mistakes on your own. And if you need help, you can get in touch with us.

June 14, 2020July 3, 2020

The Mistakes You Can Make Podcasting – Recording Errors

Podcasting can be broken down into three stages.

What you have to say
How you say it
How you present that to audiences

Each of those stages require practice, thought, and care to get right. Each stage entails multiple aspects as well. What you have to say includes the type of podcast you want to host, topic, length, guests, format, and more. How you present your podcast includes promotion, the introductions/outros, video, whether you have music, among other things.

How you say what you want to say is a matter of technique. That entails interviewing technique if you have guests, or conversational techniques if you are speaking alone or with a co-host or two. It also entails recording technique, which is what we’re focused on here.

The great thing about podcasting is it’s open, and it’s accessible to many more people than traditional radio or audio broadcasting. But, listeners are still used to clear, high quality audio. It’s easy to lose someone’s attention or to have them stop listening because the sound is distracting or uneven. If the sound obscures what you’re trying to say, in other words, you’re going to lose your audience. And while there are things that can be done after the fact to clean up the sound, your recording technique is going to make the biggest difference in the quality of your recording.

Here are a few common recording mistakes I’ve heard or made over the years, and ways to fix them.

Touching the mic or nearby surfaces while talking: I use a Blue Yeti mic for podcasting, and I recommend it to others. It produces a high-quality sound. It is, however, very sensitive. That means touching your desk or the mic or even the mic cord will show up on the recording as a little rumbling sound. And if you do so while talking, it’s very difficult to take that out of the podcast.

The first thing you can do to prevent this is be very conscious of your hands and position, especially when you’re talking. Focus on speaking without your hands, and also make sure you don’t speak so close to the mic that you touch it!

I also bought a mic arm, which means the mic now sits in front of my face and not on the desk, so if I forget to stay away and touch the desk, the reverberations don’t bleed onto the recording. And as a last piece, not pictured below, I bought a shock mount, which further blocks the reverberations from getting on the recording.

Hanging the mic can prevent mic touches, just keep the cat away. Source: my wife

Bad connection: This is relevant if you’re recording remotely. As much as having the right mic, the right software, and the right techniques in the room matter, your internet connection is going to make or break a remote recording with someone else. And their connection will too!

Before recording, make sure you have a good connection – use a speedtest for example to check that you’re at normal capacity. If you can record closer to your router, do so. If you have a lot of internet usage in your house or office to the point where it eats at bandwidth, see if you can schedule your recording for a time when usage is low (or ask others to tone down their usage while you record).

It’s more important that the host sounds good, as they set the baseline for the podcast, but you should check with your guest or co-host to make sure they have a similarly clear recording set-up.

This is also where selecting the right recording software counts, which we’ll address in a separate post.

Noisy background: You may not be trying to produce a professional podcast. You could argue the authenticity of the recording even helps. And in 2020, we’ve all gotten used to family members, pets, or other ambient disruptions to our work meetings as home and work meld together.

It is still distracting, though, to listen to a podcast and hear a background conversation or noise when someone is talking. And if that’s happening on your end while you are talking, it’s very difficult to edit it out of the sound.

A lot of people record in closets or small closed spaces where they can block out external noise. That’s fine if you have it available. Beyond that, take steps to talk to your household or to otherwise create a recording space that is quiet and as pristine as possible. For example, consider drawing the blinds or the shutters on your windows, or putting pillows up, to block out external noise.

Inconsistent Mic Distance: The microphones we recommend are stationary. You set them on your desk or recording space and leave them alone, especially to avoid the issues I mentioned above with touching the mic.

That also means that you should try to be consistent in your recording stance and posture. A consistent position will ensure that the recording volume is also consistent, with fluctuations only when you naturally change your volume level.

Experiment before recording to see how you sound, by reading or speaking for 10-15 seconds, long enough for you to have to take a breath. If you’re too close to the mic, your breathing will register loudly – and some podcasts leave these in, but it’s something of an aesthetic choice. If you’re too far away, you’ll find that your normal volume is weak. And you need to be comfortable where you are sitting, because you’ll need to stay in or around that position while recording. Otherwise, the editing process becomes much more difficult as you have to balance out the different levels that come from your own end, let alone balancing with your guest.

Mouse Clicks: This is an obvious issue, but still a regular one. If you are recording on a computer via an online call, you may have reason to click around. And if you’re having an interesting conversation, you may want to look things up while recording.

All that’s fine, but do try to be conscientious about when you click with your mouse, because it can be super distracting to listeners. I try to only click when my co-host or guest is talking, so that I can edit it out of my track later, or to hold the mouse down and away from my body, so that the click at least is quieter.

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The way things should work is that your podcast covers an interesting topic, and you have a great guest or co-host, and your listeners judge you only by the quality of your conversation. But that’s not how things actually work – in my experience, a vast majority of negative podcast reviews revolve around the sound quality.

Some of those can be attributed to other issues, whether with the voices themselves or the editing, but a lot of them start with how you record your podcast. And while someone like Shortman Studios can help you with the editing or your vocal techniques, you need to make sure you avoid these mistakes to get the most pristine sound available to you.