Podcasters are doing it wrong and half assed

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09-22-2014, 08:15 AM
Podnutter

Podcasters are doing it wrong and half assed

Hi guys long time no talk.

I have been busy with work and have not had a chance to come on the forum but I am hoping to start my podcast again.

Here is my question. Why do Podcasters insist on doing everything half assed. I am a member of a Podcast community on facebook and constantly read the most insane suggestions and setups.

In one thread someone is suggesting having the guest record their own audio on their phone with a audio application and then send it to them. this was his " No need for mix minus" solution. Here is an example http://www.nealcampbell.com/2014/09/...han-mix-minus/ . In that thread over 40 people have commented and they are so excited to find a mix minus free solution. Only a few people who have some sort of understand of audio actually said that its dumb.

These solutions are overly complicated and not needed. You do not need to record both ends and then spend the time to edit. If Skype DOES NOT work for you there are plenty of other audio only solutions that sound great. There are some that even do 128k audio...

I do not know many if any who would agree to this. If i was asked to be a guest on a podcast and the host asked me to record the audio I would consider it amateur hour and turn it down. We need to stop half assing everything and just spend the time and a few dollars to do it right. I understand many podcasters don't have money but come on. If you want to record a show and want to make this into a hobby you are going to need to spend a couple of bucks!

Stop doing it wrong. Stop wasting time with all these dumb apps and bootleg setups. If you want to make some sort of impact you need to do it right.
09-22-2014, 09:02 AM
BradShoemaker

I can look the other way on this if they are in the testing phase, don't want to spend a lot of money while they find out if they are indeed going to enjoy podcasting for the long haul. I get that not everyone has the money to invest in solutions that work.... However, if you do want to be taken seriously, then it isn't that expensive to find a mixer that has the capability for mix minus and I absolutely agree.

The other day I had a podcaster ask me about a way to increase the audio quality between him and his co-host from another state. They are both in the radio industry, have the equipment and rooms to get good quality audio and he wanted to step it up from what Skype offered... In that case, the solution was to have them both record their end of the conversation and send it to the other where they can match it up and get a very high quality sound... So there is reason for doing it the hard way, but not from a phone app.
09-22-2014, 09:07 AM
Podnutter

Quote:

Originally Posted by BradShoemaker

I can look the other way on this if they are in the testing phase, don't want to spend a lot of money while they find out if they are indeed going to enjoy podcasting for the long haul. I get that not everyone has the money to invest in solutions that work.... However, if you do want to be taken seriously, then it isn't that expensive to find a mixer that has the capability for mix minus and I absolutely agree.

The other day I had a podcaster ask me about a way to increase the audio quality between him and his co-host from another state. They are both in the radio industry, have the equipment and rooms to get good quality audio and he wanted to step it up from what Skype offered... In that case, the solution was to have them both record their end of the conversation and send it to the other where they can match it up and get a very high quality sound... So there is reason for doing it the hard way, but not from a phone app.

I agree there will be times where you might need to do something like that but most can use a Web RTC solution or any number of audio communication tools that offer high quality audio (much higher than skype)

just curious would a solution like that have worked for you ?
09-22-2014, 09:17 AM
BradShoemaker

For me, I just use Skype... I know it isn't the greatest, but it is the best out there for what it does. They were looking to overly geek out and have the best sounding audio available. They said they looked into a few things, but didn't think of just recording their audio separately (they both record multitrack so their audio would just replace what was already there).
09-22-2014, 01:25 PM
yakk0dotorg

On my show we record our own audio locally and record the whole skype call as backups. I would wager that most podcasters are like me and aren't audio engineers. I'm likely the most technology savvy on my show, and I'm always trying to figure out ways to do things better, but with $0 incoming from the show we have to figure out how to do things free or cheap. I've been trying to work with Jack Router on my Mac to rig up my own mix-minus solution, but that doesn't help much when there are 4 hosts on the show since skype doesn't do multi-track output.
If you have a good solution for things like this where you say people are half-assing it, please let all of us that are not experts know. I'm sure we all want better sounding shows, we just don't know how to do it within our budget or skills.
09-22-2014, 01:30 PM
PaulSaunders

Quote:

Originally Posted by yakk0dotorg

On my show we record our own audio locally and record the whole skype call as backups. I would wager that most podcasters are like me and aren't audio engineers. I'm likely the most technology savvy on my show, and I'm always trying to figure out ways to do things better, but with $0 incoming from the show we have to figure out how to do things free or cheap. I've been trying to work with Jack Router on my Mac to rig up my own mix-minus solution, but that doesn't help much when there are 4 hosts on the show since skype doesn't do multi-track output.
If you have a good solution for things like this where you say people are half-assing it, please let all of us that are not experts know. I'm sure we all want better sounding shows, we just don't know how to do it within our budget or skills.

I think a lot of us here are "half assing" our setups. I think half assing is good if it works for your setup and solution. I dont make any money from my crappy podcast and only do it for fun.

@podnutter for me its not so much half assing but its the fact that many podcasters are saying things like " you dont need a mix minus" and stuff like that that bothers me.
09-22-2014, 02:02 PM
Podnutter

Quote:

Originally Posted by yakk0dotorg

On my show we record our own audio locally and record the whole skype call as backups. I would wager that most podcasters are like me and aren't audio engineers. I'm likely the most technology savvy on my show, and I'm always trying to figure out ways to do things better, but with $0 incoming from the show we have to figure out how to do things free or cheap. I've been trying to work with Jack Router on my Mac to rig up my own mix-minus solution, but that doesn't help much when there are 4 hosts on the show since skype doesn't do multi-track output.
If you have a good solution for things like this where you say people are half-assing it, please let all of us that are not experts know. I'm sure we all want better sounding shows, we just don't know how to do it within our budget or skills.

My problem is with blog posts like the one I posted making it seem like this is just as good as having a mixer and proper mix minus setup. There is no excuse for giving bad information.

There are a few services out there that can help with someone who wants high quality video/audio (better audio than skype) I would suggest appear.in as one of those.