September 19, 2023 • 26 mins
This week, we are sharing our podcasting process. We'll get into our past and current podcasting practices, as well as the apps and tools that we use and love! Whether you are interested in podcasting for yourself or with your students, this episode is packed full of great tips and tricks to get you started.
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Featured Content
**For detailed show notes, please visit our website at https://edugals.com/131**
- Nerves, giggles, bloopers, and more
- Started with easily accessible tools - GarageBand, Audacity
- Recording tools - GarageBand, Hindenberg Pro ($, great for editing too with voice profiles)
- Editing tools - Hindenberg Pro, Descript ($, creates transcripts, uses AI for editing, decreases editing time, voice regeneration)
- Transcripts - Descript, can hack with Google Read and Write, etc
- Remote recording now built into Descript with SquadCast
- Other remote recording tools - Zencastr (free option), Riverside.fm, SquadCast, Zoom
- End-to-end recording - Google Meet and individual recording
- Microphones - Samson Q2U, condenser vs dynamic mic, Rode PodMic (XLR, requires interface)
- Cloud Lifter to amplify sound
- Interface - Rodecaster Pro
- Just starting out? Find royalty-free music, dynamic USB microphone
- Hosting - Buzzsprout ($, Ads, magic mastering, cohost AI), Anchor/Spotify (free)
- Posting to social media, newsletter - using Chat GPT for idea generation
- Website - Wordpress ($) for blog post "shnotes"
Connect with EduGals:
- Twitter @EduGals
- Rachel @dr_r_johnson
- Katie @KatieAttwell
- EduGals Website
- Support the show
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Rachel (00:41):
In this episode, we are talking all about podcasting.
Katie (00:46):
We are going to share the process that we use as well as
all of the apps and tools.
Rachel (00:51):
Let's get started.
This week Katie and I are doingsomething a little bit different
and we want to kind of talkabout our podcasting process and
journey a little bit, because weoften get a lot of questions
(01:12):
about it.
Katie (01:13):
Yeah, I've had a few teachers ask whether it's
interest in doing.
podcasting with their students,et cetera.
They always wonder like whattools we use and how we edit and
how we go about this wholeprocess.
I guess it's kind of a how muchwork am I getting myself into
type of a question.
Um, but we've definitely changedover the years and so I think
(01:34):
it's worth kind of sharing wherewe started, and also where we
are now.
Rachel (01:37):
Yeah.
We knew absolutely nothing whenwe first started.
Katie (01:41):
Do you remember those days?
Like it was like, we were sonervous.
It was, it was very frightening,but uh, we found a rhythm.
Rachel (01:50):
We did find a rhythm and you know, I, I kind of fondly
look back on those times wherewe would giggle for, you know, a
good 10 minutes before we couldactually start speaking and
recording because we were justthat nervous.
Katie (02:03):
Yeah, and we had so many bloopers.
Do you remember those?
Oh my goodness.
Rachel (02:07):
those were fantastic.
Katie (02:11):
It is interesting how, even the idea of talking into a
microphone now isn't so scary,or getting in front of people
and talking now because ofpodcasting is no longer such a
scary thing.
Rachel (02:21):
Yeah.
No, it's, it's been great fordeveloping all of those, all of
those public speaking skills forsure.
Katie (02:27):
But, uh, so when we first started, we were brand new to
this, obviously as you werehearing.
and we hadn't really recordedmuch of anything, and so we kind
of went with the tools that wereeasily accessible, and that we
kind of had heard about, so tospeak.
Rachel (02:43):
So we both started with GarageBand because we're both on
Max.
No, actually, Katie started withAudacity, didn't you?
Katie (02:50):
Yes.
I didn't have a Mac when wefirst started, so I was using
Audacity, um, which I didn'tlove, and it was very kind of,
what's, what's the word for it?
It was very temperamental andthere were so many times where
sometimes it would work, right?
And other times I'm like, whatis happening right now?
but I, maybe it's just a versionof the program.
I had no idea, but it was not myfavorite.
Rachel (03:12):
I remember you having a lot of issues with it and Yeah,
it, it was not very good.
You know, even GarageBand, well,it's great and it's free if
you're on a Mac and that's allyou have available, like it will
do the job.
But even that, like it's, it'sdesigned for creating music and
(03:33):
not necessarily just a voicekind of.
Podcast.
So you know, it works and it'sgreat.
It's, it, it was just, it wasstill a bit clunky too, and I'm
the one who goes through andedits the episodes, so it took
me forever when I first startedediting, and especially in
(03:53):
GarageBand, it was, it was a bittemperamental.
Katie (03:55):
Yeah.
Now disclaimer, I still recordusing GarageBand because we are
separate when we do it.
So recording with it, if you'rejust recording is okay.
But the editing part, yeah.
Rachel (04:06):
Yeah, for sure.
Recording with GarageBand isgreat.
If you could then take it into adifferent editor, it will make
your life a lot easier.
I've upgraded my recordingsoftware now just because I was
editing in this program forquite some time when I had
upgraded.
Now it is a paid program, sothere is a cost to that, but
(04:31):
it's called hindenberg.
And it's fantastic.
it is actually designed forvoice, so that's kind of really
nice in terms of what it does.
And it, it's got a lot of reallygreat, um, little plugins and
add-ins and stuff like that thatcan make your voice sound really
good.
So, fantastic for editing for.
(04:53):
When I started using it, um,I've moved on now for editing
too, but I still record inHindenburg.
Katie (04:59):
Yeah, and remind me, because I'm not the one that
does the editing, I get to kindof let Rachel take the reins on
that one.
But I think you could alsocreate settings for each voice.
So for me, you had a setting orlike a something to kind of
clean up the audio, audio a bit,and then you had one for you as
well.
Rachel (05:15):
Yeah.
Well, what's really neat inHindenburg is you can, like,
once you have a section of audiothat you.
You've tweaked and you really,really like, and it sounds
really, really good.
There's a voice profile or, kindof app or or thing in
Hindenburg.
And so you get it to basicallyjust read this section of your
voice and create a voice profilefor each person, and so then
(05:39):
when you go through and edit.
Okay.
Just at the end, instead ofhaving to do all those tweaks
again, which can take a lot oftime to get, audio to sound
really, really good, you justapply the voice profile and it
makes you sound exactly the sameevery single time.
Katie (05:53):
So, yeah, so that was, um, we, how long did we use
Hindenberg for?
Rachel (05:57):
I was editing with Hindenberg for probably a good
year and a half or so.
Katie (06:03):
Yeah, and I think it was just recent, well, recent ish, I
guess, that we've switched.
Rachel (06:08):
My process changed, in terms of the editing last year,
last school year because I knewI was going back into the
classroom and while editing withHindenburg can be fairly quick,
like it's faster thanGarageBand, it still was taking
me.
Several hours to edit a podcastepisode.
(06:30):
You know, maybe about threehours in total.
And, um, so I found thisprogram, it's called DS Script.
And if you have not experiencedthis, it's amazing.
Again, it's paid, it's a, it's asubscription kind of plan, but
when you go in, it will createtranscripts automatically for
you.
(06:51):
You can, you can do somemagical, magical stuff with it
right off the bat so you can getready rid of any spaces between
speaking.
Just with the click of onebutton, you can also get rid of
all the ums and ahs with a clickof one button.
Now it doesn't do a fantasticjob.
You do have to fix a lot ofthose, but, um, can, can really
(07:13):
sort of bring down some of thatediting time.
So I would say now it takes meabout an hour to, at most two
hours to edit an episode.
So it has brought down myediting time and I get a
transcript out of it.
Katie (07:28):
Yeah, and I think that was one of the biggest selling
features.
We had a couple of inquiries or,or questions about, transcripts
of our podcast.
And whenever I, I saw thosecomments, I was like, oh, I, we
don't have one.
And, and we looked at someworkarounds to figure out is
there an easy way to get one?
(07:48):
But there really wasn't.
Like, remember when I even likeput it through, Google, read and
write or like a, a voice to texttype thing to try to see if it
could pick up everything.
It wasn't great.
And so accessibility isimportant and, and it, really
bothered me that if we couldn'tdo it easily, so DSS script came
around at a really great timebecause then we could have that
(08:09):
built right in.
Rachel (08:10):
And they keep adding features and really sort of
building it up.
So what's neat is they justpartnered with Squad Cast, which
is a remote podcast recordingstudio.
And so you can now do yourremote, remote recording in
there and then bring it rightinto DS script so it, it
actually.
(08:31):
Like, we haven't tried it yet interms of our podcasts.
That's, that's on our, our nextthing to, to try out.
But that can actually take, youknow, a good 10, 15 minutes out
of my process just from, youknow, using those tools in
there.
And then they're also adding allthese new features based on ai,
(08:51):
which is so exciting.
Katie (08:54):
I know it makes me nervous.
It makes me excited.
I'm just not sure what to think.
I know AI is here to stay, so Ihave to like wrap my head around
it and embrace it, but, uh, Idon't know man.
Rachel (09:04):
Well, there's one little neat thing.
So like if you take out an, um,for example, but it, it doesn't
quite sound right, likesometimes we say, um, and like
we will link them kind oftogether.
Then they have this new sort ofAI feature now where you can go
on that split where you've doneit and you can actually get it
to regenerate your voice overthe, those couple of words.
Katie (09:27):
Oh man.
Rachel (09:28):
Yeah, and I tried it with one of our episodes, like
just in one spot, just to seehow it works.
It's not bad.
It's kind of scary.
Katie (09:37):
Right, because AI does that, right?
Like you can create videos andas long as you have a sample of
a voice, it can create a videoof a person saying things they
didn't actually say.
That to me is actually a littlebit frightening because of the
power that that may have.
Rachel (09:52):
Yeah.
One podcast I listened to that'sall about health and fitness and
stuff, they changed theirpodcast artwork that now says a
hundred percent human made.
Katie (10:05):
I like that.
Rachel (10:06):
Yeah.
Yeah, it is.
It is quite funny.
Katie (10:08):
So, the squad cast.
So in few of our episodes,particularly when we've had
guests join us, we've usedZencaster.
And so that's like where you canhave video and audio and see
each other, and it's like aweb-based recording studio.
So is squad cast similar tothat?
Rachel (10:24):
Yes, it's, it's exactly like it.
And there's quite a few of thosesort of programs out there, so I
know Riverside fm, there'sZencaster Squad cast.
I'm sure there's a million morethat I'm forgetting.
They are all paid sort of appsfor you to use again, like
costing money, right.
But like, you don't have to useapps that are paid.
(10:46):
You can record like right inZoom.
I know lots of people use Zoomwhen they're doing podcasting
and recording with guests.
we do what's called, um, oh, Iforget what it's called.
It's something like end-to-endrecording.
And so we just kind of jump on aGoogle meet and then we both
record on our own ends.
and so we don't have to worryabout the internet flaking out
(11:08):
or anything else happening.
so it's, it's really good thatway.
Katie (11:13):
Yeah, I, I like the, I don't, maybe reliability of
knowing.
I have a separate file that isbeing recorded regardless of my
internet.
So if something were to happen,we still have what we have
recorded so far.
Rachel (11:27):
Well, and when we first started out too, we wanted to do
everything as cheaply as wecould.
You know, any, any of the freetools, like that's what we were
gonna do.
So our recording is, was doneall free.
Katie (11:39):
Yeah, like this was a hobby and we were like, who
knows how long this is gonnalast?
Like, let's not spend too muchmoney.
We already had to buy mics, soit was like, Hey, but like let's
talk about progression of micsbecause I feel like we're very
happy with where we've settlednow.
Rachel (11:55):
before we jump into Mike's though, just kind of
talking about some of thoseother remote recording apps, the
reason we kind of went toZencastr is because you can sign
up for.
A free account and it does giveyou a limited amount of
recording time.
So, two hours of audio and videorecording, gives you the audio
(12:19):
in MP three format, which isactually still pretty high
quality.
We tend to record and, and doeverything in wave, which is
better quality, but like, youcan't tell the difference
between the two.
So like, if you are looking forsomething, Remote and you wanna
record with someone else, butuh, you don't wanna spend any
money.
Like I would say Zencastr is agreat place to start.
Katie (12:41):
Yeah, I have liked it when we've used it.
Like it's, it's very convenientwhen we have people joining us
and the audio is fine.
Like it's great.
Rachel (12:49):
Okay.
Microphones?
Katie (12:50):
Yeah, I don't even remember the brand of my first
one.
How bad is that?
But it was something I found onAmazon and it was fairly
affordable, and I knew nothingabout Mike's at that point.
Enough said.
Rachel (13:02):
I had a Samsung Q to you, and the reason I got that
one was because I went and didsome research and looked at for
podcasting mics, and that onegot really great reviews and it
wasn't very expensive.
So that one was great.
did its job and I don't reallyhave any complaints about it.
Katie (13:21):
Mine, well, you remember I was in a plastic bin for the
first little while,
Rachel (13:26):
You were.
Katie (13:30):
so, so it wasn't the best microphone because it was
picking up so much from aroundme and in my house, and it was
very echoy.
So I had to kind of line a bigRubbermaid bin with some
blankets and pillows, and Iwould hide in the bin during
recording and it made for reallyfunny videos.
Rachel (13:48):
Yeah, I know we should have, we should have just made
this a video podcast'cause thatwould've been hilarious.
Katie (13:53):
Yeah, that would've been awesome.
Rachel (13:55):
But you had a condenser mic and.
I had a dynamic mic.
So the, the sort of differencethere, the condenser mics,
they're often used more bymusicians because they pick up
all the sound around it.
And you kind of want that whenyou're a musician, but when
you're wanting just.
(14:16):
Voice recording a dynamic mic isreally the way to go because it
just picks up what's in front ofit.
So you do have to have, and youdo need to practice like really
good microphone skills.
Like you need to sit, and Katieand I are both sitting like
about four or five inches awayfrom our microphones talking
into
Katie (14:35):
it's true and you have to otherwise, like, the further you
get like it, it becomes veryquiet.
Rachel (14:40):
Yeah, so it is, it's a little weird getting started
and, and it feels a little bitawkward, but eventually you get
used to it.
Katie (14:47):
Yeah, I don't even think of it anymore, which is
interesting to me.
Rachel (14:50):
Now, we both did upgrade.
Katie upgraded first because shewanted out of the bin.
Katie (14:55):
I want it outta the bin.
It was time and so I went with aroad pod, mic, and I love it.
It's beautiful.
It looks really fun.
Now I do cover it, obviously,but, um, it's, uh, it's a really
neat mic.
It's not terribly expensive.
and so it made sense.
Rachel (15:14):
And then I upgraded to the same microphone so that.
Katie, Katie liked it.
It sounded great.
And so we wanted to have alittle bit more consistent sound
between the both of us.
We figure we might as well havethe same equipment
Katie (15:26):
Now, I did need a cloud lifter on its own.
My, my waveforms weren't verybig, so I did need, a cloud
lifter to kind of amplify the,the
Rachel (15:36):
Yeah, and I, I got one of those as well.
And then this microphone is an XL R microphone, so it's a
special cable, which means thatyou need an interface to go with
it.
So we're, we're very high techat the moment.
Katie (15:52):
Well, do you remember my first interface?
It was like the little road one.
It was the very small one thatwas kind of designed for the pod
mic, but it gave out after Ithink a year and a half.
And so then we went crazy andit's beautiful.
Rachel (16:08):
so we both have road caster pros, and it's a bit
overkill honestly, in terms ofwhat I need, but.
It's great and it's, what's kindof nice about this, it's got
four sort of inputs where youcan plug in four different
microphones.
You can also connect to yourphone to us, uh, Bluetooth, you
(16:29):
can also add in.
Any kind of audio, sort ofrecordings and stuff like that
too.
So there's some stuff in therelike laugh tracks and I don't
know, all sorts, sorts of sillystuff.
like I, I haven't really usedany of it, but it's there.
Katie (16:44):
I played with it quite a bit when I was, um, getting my
students to record.
'cause we just used the oneinterface with multiple mics
and, um, it has like presetsounds, which was amazing.
So even like intro, outro music,like it has some already built
in you could use.
but uh, it's really neat.
It's a powerful board and so.
I'm looking forward to reallykind of taking advantage of
(17:07):
everything it has to offer thiscoming year.
Rachel (17:09):
Now that being said, if you are starting out with any
kind of podcasting, you don'tneed this fancy equipment.
Katie (17:16):
Oh, no, not at all.
Like we didn't have the fancyequipment and in order for us to
find, um, our intro outro, wejust looked for royalty free
music.
and you can get little clips ofit.
There's lots of websites outthere.
and then.
We kind of just pieced ittogether.
Rachel (17:31):
and there are like, if you want a good quality mic,
there are lots of microphonesavailable.
You could go on Amazon.
Anything with, that's U Ss b,that's a dynamic mic, you're
probably gonna, you know, bepretty happy with.
Katie (17:43):
We started out that way and it was just fine.
We just got, I.
Rachel (17:48):
We went a little overboard.
Katie (17:51):
We really did.
But it was like this excitement.
It was something we lookedforward to every week and we
wanted it to be fun and crazyand and we're nerdy.
So there you go.
Rachel (18:02):
So I guess once we've kind of got our podcast in that,
like, let's talk about ourprocess, about getting it
published, getting it reco, likegetting it out there to the
world.
Katie (18:13):
so in terms of hosting, we use buzzsprout and so
essentially we create ourepisode, edit all that good
stuff, and then we upload it tothis hosting program or site,
and then release it to the worldfrom there.
Rachel (18:27):
Yeah, and we can also include a link to Bus Sprout.
Now the link will include is ouraffiliate link.
We've never put an affiliatelink in anything before, but um,
I think it does get you some.
Something off or some, I, Idon't know what, what sort of
deal it is, but, gets you alittle bit of something and then
(18:48):
gives us a little bit somethingback to the show.
So like, if you're interested,that is a worthwhile link to
use.
you know, it, it, it can helpsupport us.
Katie (18:57):
Mm-hmm And when we first started, we just did the, the
free account.
Because it was enough time permonth in terms of what we were
uploading and releasing.
and it made sense.
As we continued on, we then kindof made that decision to, to pay
the subscription cost, becausewe were going over, we're
getting really, really tight interms of how many minutes we
(19:19):
could actually upload.
but it was worth it.
Rachel (19:21):
Now a bit of of a disclaimer.
Now they're free accounts.
You can upload two hours amonth, but like it has changed,
the episodes are only hosted for90 days and you have a limited
amount of storage.
So in order to make sure thatyour episodes are hosted
indefinitely, you do have tohave a paid plan, but, You know,
(19:43):
they've been great in terms ofhosting and we've had no issues
whatsoever.
We love it.
We pay for just the cheapestplan and gives you up to three
hours of uploading each month,which is perfect for us.
Yeah.
Katie (19:57):
and it's easy to navigate, which I kind of like
about this one.
and then right from this hostingprogram or site, you can
actually then, Get your podcastpushed out to various, apps
where people can access yourcontent.
Rachel (20:11):
they've added lots of really cool things over the
years.
So they brought in Buzz Sproutads, which we don't use.
Uh, we decided that we didn'twanna put ads in our podcast
just because, you know it.
We have ads on our website.
We, we wanted to keep thispretty clean, but you can earn
(20:31):
money.
From your podcast as well, andmaybe we should, you know, think
about ads somewhere down theline.
But, uh, we're, we're not reallythere yet.
So they have that, and that'sreally neat.
And then they've brought outsome really neat sort of editing
tools that we haven't tried yet,but sound really, really
interesting.
So they have this magicmastering, which will make your
(20:54):
audio all sound consistent.
Now the editing programs I usedoes that, so we never need
that.
and then they just brought outco-host ai, which is like using
AI to come up with all of theother stuff that comes with your
podcast, which I don't know,sounds entertaining, but, um, we
have not tried it yet.
Katie (21:12):
No, it's, it's a, it is a paid subscription and part of us
is like, it would be nice to tryit with one and see what it
looks and sounds like and whatthey do with it, but, I don't
know that I wanna commit toevery single one of them.
And what if we don't like it?
And yeah.
All that good stuff.
Rachel (21:28):
Yeah.
So there are lots of placesthough that I, I can think of
one offhand is Anchor, which youcan upload your podcast for free
and host them for free.
Katie (21:40):
Yeah, there's lots out there.
This just happened to be one.
We did a bit of research, lookedat a few different options, and
this kind of fit with what wewere looking for.
Rachel (21:48):
So again, you can do everything for free.
Like really all if, if you weredoing a podcast for a hobby or
you know, because there's someinformation you wanna get out
there.
Really, you just need a goodmicrophone and away you go.
There are lots of free programsand frees to get the rest of the
content out there.
If you're doing it withstudents, you don't even
(22:10):
necessarily need the goodmicrophone, you just need a
device to record on.
Katie (22:15):
Yeah.
Lots of kind of options outthere, and it can be as simple
or as complex as you want it tobe.
Rachel (22:20):
So once we've got our episode uploaded and ready to go
in Buzz Sprouts.
There are some other pieces thatkind of go with it in terms of
our process as well.
So we post to social media, wedo a newsletter, we do a blog
post.
there like, there's a, uh,several other like little bits
(22:41):
that can be kind of timeconsuming, but do really sort of
add to our podcast.
And I've been kind of exploringlately using chat G P T for some
of it.
Now, I don't take everything forface value from chat g p T, but
it is kind of useful for thingslike coming up with ideas for
(23:02):
episode titles when you're stuckor trying to think of, um, a
great way to, to summarize and,and create social media captions
and things like that.
Katie (23:14):
Yeah, we are, what?
This is episode 131, and afterthe first, I don't know, 50, we
started to be like, what do youwanna call this?
What do you wanna call this?
Because we, we tended to havelike phrases or, or terms that
we would always lean towards,and we were like, no.
We need to stop.
Rachel (23:33):
yeah.
Katie (23:34):
So chat g BT was kind of nice because then giving us
suggestions, we could just belike, Ooh, I like that.
Rachel (23:40):
or you can take, you know, you might, you might ask
it to spit out 10 differenttitle suggestions based on a
description.
You give it, and then you canmix and match pieces of them
together, or it could spark anentirely different idea.
And that's what I think I likeabout it.
Katie (23:56):
It definitely kind of does the grunt work and gets
your brain, I don't know, moreinspired to use some of that
different terminology thatperhaps we wouldn't have right
off the bat.
Rachel (24:06):
then Katie writes a lovely detailed blog post to go
along with our episodes.
So, you know, I kind of do allthe, the grunt work with the
editing.
And then she does all the gruntwork with the blog post.
Katie (24:18):
Yeah.
And we try to link ineverything, put everything
together.
Yeah.
It's um, I like the balance andI like having that blog post or
my sh notes as I call them, itkind of gives that extra,
feature.
It's not just a podcast.
We're more than just a podcast.
Rachel (24:33):
And we host our website on WordPress.
so again, that does cost a bitof money, but there are lots of
ways to create free websites.
Katie (24:42):
I think that's kind of it in terms of our process, things
we use, what we do.
Rachel (24:47):
Yeah.
So on that note, we'll wrap upour conversation here today.
So hopefully you've learned abit about podcasting and our
process and, and how we dothings.
And so what we'll do is we'llinclude any of the links or
resources we talked about heretoday in our show notes.
You can access our show notesfor this episode@edugal.com
(25:07):
slash 1 3 1.
That's edu G a l s.com/ 1 3 1.
Katie (25:13):
And if you like what you heard today, then feel free to
share it with a colleague or afriend.
And don't forget to subscribe onyour favorite podcast app so
that you don't miss out on anyfuture content.
Rachel (25:22):
and if you still have questions about podcasting or
want to learn more, then let usknow what your questions are.
It it'll be great for us to thentake those ideas and be able to
create more episodes for you.
So you can do that by going ontoour flip at edu.com/flipgrid and
leaving us a video messagethere.
(25:45):
Or you can go onto ourwebsite@edu.com and leave us a
written response.
Katie (25:49):
Thanks for listening and see you next week.
In this episode, we are talking all about podcasting.
Katie (00:46):
We are going to share the process that we use as well as
all of the apps and tools.
Rachel (00:51):
Let's get started.
This week Katie and I are doingsomething a little bit different
and we want to kind of talkabout our podcasting process and
journey a little bit, because weoften get a lot of questions
(01:12):
about it.
Katie (01:13):
Yeah, I've had a few teachers ask whether it's
interest in doing.
podcasting with their students,et cetera.
They always wonder like whattools we use and how we edit and
how we go about this wholeprocess.
I guess it's kind of a how muchwork am I getting myself into
type of a question.
Um, but we've definitely changedover the years and so I think
(01:34):
it's worth kind of sharing wherewe started, and also where we
are now.
Rachel (01:37):
Yeah.
We knew absolutely nothing whenwe first started.
Katie (01:41):
Do you remember those days?
Like it was like, we were sonervous.
It was, it was very frightening,but uh, we found a rhythm.
Rachel (01:50):
We did find a rhythm and you know, I, I kind of fondly
look back on those times wherewe would giggle for, you know, a
good 10 minutes before we couldactually start speaking and
recording because we were justthat nervous.
Katie (02:03):
Yeah, and we had so many bloopers.
Do you remember those?
Oh my goodness.
Rachel (02:07):
those were fantastic.
Katie (02:11):
It is interesting how, even the idea of talking into a
microphone now isn't so scary,or getting in front of people
and talking now because ofpodcasting is no longer such a
scary thing.
Rachel (02:21):
Yeah.
No, it's, it's been great fordeveloping all of those, all of
those public speaking skills forsure.
Katie (02:27):
But, uh, so when we first started, we were brand new to
this, obviously as you werehearing.
and we hadn't really recordedmuch of anything, and so we kind
of went with the tools that wereeasily accessible, and that we
kind of had heard about, so tospeak.
Rachel (02:43):
So we both started with GarageBand because we're both on
Max.
No, actually, Katie started withAudacity, didn't you?
Katie (02:50):
Yes.
I didn't have a Mac when wefirst started, so I was using
Audacity, um, which I didn'tlove, and it was very kind of,
what's, what's the word for it?
It was very temperamental andthere were so many times where
sometimes it would work, right?
And other times I'm like, whatis happening right now?
but I, maybe it's just a versionof the program.
I had no idea, but it was not myfavorite.
Rachel (03:12):
I remember you having a lot of issues with it and Yeah,
it, it was not very good.
You know, even GarageBand, well,it's great and it's free if
you're on a Mac and that's allyou have available, like it will
do the job.
But even that, like it's, it'sdesigned for creating music and
(03:33):
not necessarily just a voicekind of.
Podcast.
So you know, it works and it'sgreat.
It's, it, it was just, it wasstill a bit clunky too, and I'm
the one who goes through andedits the episodes, so it took
me forever when I first startedediting, and especially in
(03:53):
GarageBand, it was, it was a bittemperamental.
Katie (03:55):
Yeah.
Now disclaimer, I still recordusing GarageBand because we are
separate when we do it.
So recording with it, if you'rejust recording is okay.
But the editing part, yeah.
Rachel (04:06):
Yeah, for sure.
Recording with GarageBand isgreat.
If you could then take it into adifferent editor, it will make
your life a lot easier.
I've upgraded my recordingsoftware now just because I was
editing in this program forquite some time when I had
upgraded.
Now it is a paid program, sothere is a cost to that, but
(04:31):
it's called hindenberg.
And it's fantastic.
it is actually designed forvoice, so that's kind of really
nice in terms of what it does.
And it, it's got a lot of reallygreat, um, little plugins and
add-ins and stuff like that thatcan make your voice sound really
good.
So, fantastic for editing for.
(04:53):
When I started using it, um,I've moved on now for editing
too, but I still record inHindenburg.
Katie (04:59):
Yeah, and remind me, because I'm not the one that
does the editing, I get to kindof let Rachel take the reins on
that one.
But I think you could alsocreate settings for each voice.
So for me, you had a setting orlike a something to kind of
clean up the audio, audio a bit,and then you had one for you as
well.
Rachel (05:15):
Yeah.
Well, what's really neat inHindenburg is you can, like,
once you have a section of audiothat you.
You've tweaked and you really,really like, and it sounds
really, really good.
There's a voice profile or, kindof app or or thing in
Hindenburg.
And so you get it to basicallyjust read this section of your
voice and create a voice profilefor each person, and so then
(05:39):
when you go through and edit.
Okay.
Just at the end, instead ofhaving to do all those tweaks
again, which can take a lot oftime to get, audio to sound
really, really good, you justapply the voice profile and it
makes you sound exactly the sameevery single time.
Katie (05:53):
So, yeah, so that was, um, we, how long did we use
Hindenberg for?
Rachel (05:57):
I was editing with Hindenberg for probably a good
year and a half or so.
Katie (06:03):
Yeah, and I think it was just recent, well, recent ish, I
guess, that we've switched.
Rachel (06:08):
My process changed, in terms of the editing last year,
last school year because I knewI was going back into the
classroom and while editing withHindenburg can be fairly quick,
like it's faster thanGarageBand, it still was taking
me.
Several hours to edit a podcastepisode.
(06:30):
You know, maybe about threehours in total.
And, um, so I found thisprogram, it's called DS Script.
And if you have not experiencedthis, it's amazing.
Again, it's paid, it's a, it's asubscription kind of plan, but
when you go in, it will createtranscripts automatically for
you.
(06:51):
You can, you can do somemagical, magical stuff with it
right off the bat so you can getready rid of any spaces between
speaking.
Just with the click of onebutton, you can also get rid of
all the ums and ahs with a clickof one button.
Now it doesn't do a fantasticjob.
You do have to fix a lot ofthose, but, um, can, can really
(07:13):
sort of bring down some of thatediting time.
So I would say now it takes meabout an hour to, at most two
hours to edit an episode.
So it has brought down myediting time and I get a
transcript out of it.
Katie (07:28):
Yeah, and I think that was one of the biggest selling
features.
We had a couple of inquiries or,or questions about, transcripts
of our podcast.
And whenever I, I saw thosecomments, I was like, oh, I, we
don't have one.
And, and we looked at someworkarounds to figure out is
there an easy way to get one?
(07:48):
But there really wasn't.
Like, remember when I even likeput it through, Google, read and
write or like a, a voice to texttype thing to try to see if it
could pick up everything.
It wasn't great.
And so accessibility isimportant and, and it, really
bothered me that if we couldn'tdo it easily, so DSS script came
around at a really great timebecause then we could have that
(08:09):
built right in.
Rachel (08:10):
And they keep adding features and really sort of
building it up.
So what's neat is they justpartnered with Squad Cast, which
is a remote podcast recordingstudio.
And so you can now do yourremote, remote recording in
there and then bring it rightinto DS script so it, it
actually.
(08:31):
Like, we haven't tried it yet interms of our podcasts.
That's, that's on our, our nextthing to, to try out.
But that can actually take, youknow, a good 10, 15 minutes out
of my process just from, youknow, using those tools in
there.
And then they're also adding allthese new features based on ai,
(08:51):
which is so exciting.
Katie (08:54):
I know it makes me nervous.
It makes me excited.
I'm just not sure what to think.
I know AI is here to stay, so Ihave to like wrap my head around
it and embrace it, but, uh, Idon't know man.
Rachel (09:04):
Well, there's one little neat thing.
So like if you take out an, um,for example, but it, it doesn't
quite sound right, likesometimes we say, um, and like
we will link them kind oftogether.
Then they have this new sort ofAI feature now where you can go
on that split where you've doneit and you can actually get it
to regenerate your voice overthe, those couple of words.
Katie (09:27):
Oh man.
Rachel (09:28):
Yeah, and I tried it with one of our episodes, like
just in one spot, just to seehow it works.
It's not bad.
It's kind of scary.
Katie (09:37):
Right, because AI does that, right?
Like you can create videos andas long as you have a sample of
a voice, it can create a videoof a person saying things they
didn't actually say.
That to me is actually a littlebit frightening because of the
power that that may have.
Rachel (09:52):
Yeah.
One podcast I listened to that'sall about health and fitness and
stuff, they changed theirpodcast artwork that now says a
hundred percent human made.
Katie (10:05):
I like that.
Rachel (10:06):
Yeah.
Yeah, it is.
It is quite funny.
Katie (10:08):
So, the squad cast.
So in few of our episodes,particularly when we've had
guests join us, we've usedZencaster.
And so that's like where you canhave video and audio and see
each other, and it's like aweb-based recording studio.
So is squad cast similar tothat?
Rachel (10:24):
Yes, it's, it's exactly like it.
And there's quite a few of thosesort of programs out there, so I
know Riverside fm, there'sZencaster Squad cast.
I'm sure there's a million morethat I'm forgetting.
They are all paid sort of appsfor you to use again, like
costing money, right.
But like, you don't have to useapps that are paid.
(10:46):
You can record like right inZoom.
I know lots of people use Zoomwhen they're doing podcasting
and recording with guests.
we do what's called, um, oh, Iforget what it's called.
It's something like end-to-endrecording.
And so we just kind of jump on aGoogle meet and then we both
record on our own ends.
and so we don't have to worryabout the internet flaking out
(11:08):
or anything else happening.
so it's, it's really good thatway.
Katie (11:13):
Yeah, I, I like the, I don't, maybe reliability of
knowing.
I have a separate file that isbeing recorded regardless of my
internet.
So if something were to happen,we still have what we have
recorded so far.
Rachel (11:27):
Well, and when we first started out too, we wanted to do
everything as cheaply as wecould.
You know, any, any of the freetools, like that's what we were
gonna do.
So our recording is, was doneall free.
Katie (11:39):
Yeah, like this was a hobby and we were like, who
knows how long this is gonnalast?
Like, let's not spend too muchmoney.
We already had to buy mics, soit was like, Hey, but like let's
talk about progression of micsbecause I feel like we're very
happy with where we've settlednow.
Rachel (11:55):
before we jump into Mike's though, just kind of
talking about some of thoseother remote recording apps, the
reason we kind of went toZencastr is because you can sign
up for.
A free account and it does giveyou a limited amount of
recording time.
So, two hours of audio and videorecording, gives you the audio
(12:19):
in MP three format, which isactually still pretty high
quality.
We tend to record and, and doeverything in wave, which is
better quality, but like, youcan't tell the difference
between the two.
So like, if you are looking forsomething, Remote and you wanna
record with someone else, butuh, you don't wanna spend any
money.
Like I would say Zencastr is agreat place to start.
Katie (12:41):
Yeah, I have liked it when we've used it.
Like it's, it's very convenientwhen we have people joining us
and the audio is fine.
Like it's great.
Rachel (12:49):
Okay.
Microphones?
Katie (12:50):
Yeah, I don't even remember the brand of my first
one.
How bad is that?
But it was something I found onAmazon and it was fairly
affordable, and I knew nothingabout Mike's at that point.
Enough said.
Rachel (13:02):
I had a Samsung Q to you, and the reason I got that
one was because I went and didsome research and looked at for
podcasting mics, and that onegot really great reviews and it
wasn't very expensive.
So that one was great.
did its job and I don't reallyhave any complaints about it.
Katie (13:21):
Mine, well, you remember I was in a plastic bin for the
first little while,
Rachel (13:26):
You were.
Katie (13:30):
so, so it wasn't the best microphone because it was
picking up so much from aroundme and in my house, and it was
very echoy.
So I had to kind of line a bigRubbermaid bin with some
blankets and pillows, and Iwould hide in the bin during
recording and it made for reallyfunny videos.
Rachel (13:48):
Yeah, I know we should have, we should have just made
this a video podcast'cause thatwould've been hilarious.
Katie (13:53):
Yeah, that would've been awesome.
Rachel (13:55):
But you had a condenser mic and.
I had a dynamic mic.
So the, the sort of differencethere, the condenser mics,
they're often used more bymusicians because they pick up
all the sound around it.
And you kind of want that whenyou're a musician, but when
you're wanting just.
(14:16):
Voice recording a dynamic mic isreally the way to go because it
just picks up what's in front ofit.
So you do have to have, and youdo need to practice like really
good microphone skills.
Like you need to sit, and Katieand I are both sitting like
about four or five inches awayfrom our microphones talking
into
Katie (14:35):
it's true and you have to otherwise, like, the further you
get like it, it becomes veryquiet.
Rachel (14:40):
Yeah, so it is, it's a little weird getting started
and, and it feels a little bitawkward, but eventually you get
used to it.
Katie (14:47):
Yeah, I don't even think of it anymore, which is
interesting to me.
Rachel (14:50):
Now, we both did upgrade.
Katie upgraded first because shewanted out of the bin.
Katie (14:55):
I want it outta the bin.
It was time and so I went with aroad pod, mic, and I love it.
It's beautiful.
It looks really fun.
Now I do cover it, obviously,but, um, it's, uh, it's a really
neat mic.
It's not terribly expensive.
and so it made sense.
Rachel (15:14):
And then I upgraded to the same microphone so that.
Katie, Katie liked it.
It sounded great.
And so we wanted to have alittle bit more consistent sound
between the both of us.
We figure we might as well havethe same equipment
Katie (15:26):
Now, I did need a cloud lifter on its own.
My, my waveforms weren't verybig, so I did need, a cloud
lifter to kind of amplify the,the
Rachel (15:36):
Yeah, and I, I got one of those as well.
And then this microphone is an XL R microphone, so it's a
special cable, which means thatyou need an interface to go with
it.
So we're, we're very high techat the moment.
Katie (15:52):
Well, do you remember my first interface?
It was like the little road one.
It was the very small one thatwas kind of designed for the pod
mic, but it gave out after Ithink a year and a half.
And so then we went crazy andit's beautiful.
Rachel (16:08):
so we both have road caster pros, and it's a bit
overkill honestly, in terms ofwhat I need, but.
It's great and it's, what's kindof nice about this, it's got
four sort of inputs where youcan plug in four different
microphones.
You can also connect to yourphone to us, uh, Bluetooth, you
(16:29):
can also add in.
Any kind of audio, sort ofrecordings and stuff like that
too.
So there's some stuff in therelike laugh tracks and I don't
know, all sorts, sorts of sillystuff.
like I, I haven't really usedany of it, but it's there.
Katie (16:44):
I played with it quite a bit when I was, um, getting my
students to record.
'cause we just used the oneinterface with multiple mics
and, um, it has like presetsounds, which was amazing.
So even like intro, outro music,like it has some already built
in you could use.
but uh, it's really neat.
It's a powerful board and so.
I'm looking forward to reallykind of taking advantage of
(17:07):
everything it has to offer thiscoming year.
Rachel (17:09):
Now that being said, if you are starting out with any
kind of podcasting, you don'tneed this fancy equipment.
Katie (17:16):
Oh, no, not at all.
Like we didn't have the fancyequipment and in order for us to
find, um, our intro outro, wejust looked for royalty free
music.
and you can get little clips ofit.
There's lots of websites outthere.
and then.
We kind of just pieced ittogether.
Rachel (17:31):
and there are like, if you want a good quality mic,
there are lots of microphonesavailable.
You could go on Amazon.
Anything with, that's U Ss b,that's a dynamic mic, you're
probably gonna, you know, bepretty happy with.
Katie (17:43):
We started out that way and it was just fine.
We just got, I.
Rachel (17:48):
We went a little overboard.
Katie (17:51):
We really did.
But it was like this excitement.
It was something we lookedforward to every week and we
wanted it to be fun and crazyand and we're nerdy.
So there you go.
Rachel (18:02):
So I guess once we've kind of got our podcast in that,
like, let's talk about ourprocess, about getting it
published, getting it reco, likegetting it out there to the
world.
Katie (18:13):
so in terms of hosting, we use buzzsprout and so
essentially we create ourepisode, edit all that good
stuff, and then we upload it tothis hosting program or site,
and then release it to the worldfrom there.
Rachel (18:27):
Yeah, and we can also include a link to Bus Sprout.
Now the link will include is ouraffiliate link.
We've never put an affiliatelink in anything before, but um,
I think it does get you some.
Something off or some, I, Idon't know what, what sort of
deal it is, but, gets you alittle bit of something and then
(18:48):
gives us a little bit somethingback to the show.
So like, if you're interested,that is a worthwhile link to
use.
you know, it, it, it can helpsupport us.
Katie (18:57):
Mm-hmm And when we first started, we just did the, the
free account.
Because it was enough time permonth in terms of what we were
uploading and releasing.
and it made sense.
As we continued on, we then kindof made that decision to, to pay
the subscription cost, becausewe were going over, we're
getting really, really tight interms of how many minutes we
(19:19):
could actually upload.
but it was worth it.
Rachel (19:21):
Now a bit of of a disclaimer.
Now they're free accounts.
You can upload two hours amonth, but like it has changed,
the episodes are only hosted for90 days and you have a limited
amount of storage.
So in order to make sure thatyour episodes are hosted
indefinitely, you do have tohave a paid plan, but, You know,
(19:43):
they've been great in terms ofhosting and we've had no issues
whatsoever.
We love it.
We pay for just the cheapestplan and gives you up to three
hours of uploading each month,which is perfect for us.
Yeah.
Katie (19:57):
and it's easy to navigate, which I kind of like
about this one.
and then right from this hostingprogram or site, you can
actually then, Get your podcastpushed out to various, apps
where people can access yourcontent.
Rachel (20:11):
they've added lots of really cool things over the
years.
So they brought in Buzz Sproutads, which we don't use.
Uh, we decided that we didn'twanna put ads in our podcast
just because, you know it.
We have ads on our website.
We, we wanted to keep thispretty clean, but you can earn
(20:31):
money.
From your podcast as well, andmaybe we should, you know, think
about ads somewhere down theline.
But, uh, we're, we're not reallythere yet.
So they have that, and that'sreally neat.
And then they've brought outsome really neat sort of editing
tools that we haven't tried yet,but sound really, really
interesting.
So they have this magicmastering, which will make your
(20:54):
audio all sound consistent.
Now the editing programs I usedoes that, so we never need
that.
and then they just brought outco-host ai, which is like using
AI to come up with all of theother stuff that comes with your
podcast, which I don't know,sounds entertaining, but, um, we
have not tried it yet.
Katie (21:12):
No, it's, it's a, it is a paid subscription and part of us
is like, it would be nice to tryit with one and see what it
looks and sounds like and whatthey do with it, but, I don't
know that I wanna commit toevery single one of them.
And what if we don't like it?
And yeah.
All that good stuff.
Rachel (21:28):
Yeah.
So there are lots of placesthough that I, I can think of
one offhand is Anchor, which youcan upload your podcast for free
and host them for free.
Katie (21:40):
Yeah, there's lots out there.
This just happened to be one.
We did a bit of research, lookedat a few different options, and
this kind of fit with what wewere looking for.
Rachel (21:48):
So again, you can do everything for free.
Like really all if, if you weredoing a podcast for a hobby or
you know, because there's someinformation you wanna get out
there.
Really, you just need a goodmicrophone and away you go.
There are lots of free programsand frees to get the rest of the
content out there.
If you're doing it withstudents, you don't even
(22:10):
necessarily need the goodmicrophone, you just need a
device to record on.
Katie (22:15):
Yeah.
Lots of kind of options outthere, and it can be as simple
or as complex as you want it tobe.
Rachel (22:20):
So once we've got our episode uploaded and ready to go
in Buzz Sprouts.
There are some other pieces thatkind of go with it in terms of
our process as well.
So we post to social media, wedo a newsletter, we do a blog
post.
there like, there's a, uh,several other like little bits
(22:41):
that can be kind of timeconsuming, but do really sort of
add to our podcast.
And I've been kind of exploringlately using chat G P T for some
of it.
Now, I don't take everything forface value from chat g p T, but
it is kind of useful for thingslike coming up with ideas for
(23:02):
episode titles when you're stuckor trying to think of, um, a
great way to, to summarize and,and create social media captions
and things like that.
Katie (23:14):
Yeah, we are, what?
This is episode 131, and afterthe first, I don't know, 50, we
started to be like, what do youwanna call this?
What do you wanna call this?
Because we, we tended to havelike phrases or, or terms that
we would always lean towards,and we were like, no.
We need to stop.
Rachel (23:33):
yeah.
Katie (23:34):
So chat g BT was kind of nice because then giving us
suggestions, we could just belike, Ooh, I like that.
Rachel (23:40):
or you can take, you know, you might, you might ask
it to spit out 10 differenttitle suggestions based on a
description.
You give it, and then you canmix and match pieces of them
together, or it could spark anentirely different idea.
And that's what I think I likeabout it.
Katie (23:56):
It definitely kind of does the grunt work and gets
your brain, I don't know, moreinspired to use some of that
different terminology thatperhaps we wouldn't have right
off the bat.
Rachel (24:06):
then Katie writes a lovely detailed blog post to go
along with our episodes.
So, you know, I kind of do allthe, the grunt work with the
editing.
And then she does all the gruntwork with the blog post.
Katie (24:18):
Yeah.
And we try to link ineverything, put everything
together.
Yeah.
It's um, I like the balance andI like having that blog post or
my sh notes as I call them, itkind of gives that extra,
feature.
It's not just a podcast.
We're more than just a podcast.
Rachel (24:33):
And we host our website on WordPress.
so again, that does cost a bitof money, but there are lots of
ways to create free websites.
Katie (24:42):
I think that's kind of it in terms of our process, things
we use, what we do.
Rachel (24:47):
Yeah.
So on that note, we'll wrap upour conversation here today.
So hopefully you've learned abit about podcasting and our
process and, and how we dothings.
And so what we'll do is we'llinclude any of the links or
resources we talked about heretoday in our show notes.
You can access our show notesfor this episode@edugal.com
(25:07):
slash 1 3 1.
That's edu G a l s.com/ 1 3 1.
Katie (25:13):
And if you like what you heard today, then feel free to
share it with a colleague or afriend.
And don't forget to subscribe onyour favorite podcast app so
that you don't miss out on anyfuture content.
Rachel (25:22):
and if you still have questions about podcasting or
want to learn more, then let usknow what your questions are.
It it'll be great for us to thentake those ideas and be able to
create more episodes for you.
So you can do that by going ontoour flip at edu.com/flipgrid and
leaving us a video messagethere.
(25:45):
Or you can go onto ourwebsite@edu.com and leave us a
written response.
Katie (25:49):
Thanks for listening and see you next week.
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