Producing a podcast on a budget
So you’re currently bored and have decided to produce a podcast in all the free time that you have. Fair enough. If you get good at it your new hobby could eventually generate income. Plus, producing podcasts are fun! I can’t say that I’m an expert at producing podcasts, but for the last few months Liz and I have been making our own. Hopefully, some of the things we’ve learned and had taught to us can get you started.
At each level I’m going to offer free, low budget and more professional options. Podcasting may not be for you, so I strongly suggest taking your time. There are really good pods produced for practically nothing and really bad podcasts that cost hundreds of dollars an episode to produce. Content is king.
Recording your pod with a hand held device
This Winter at Podcamp a workshop a presenter pulled out a fairly expensive digital recorder and suggested to us that it was the most inexpensive way to produce a podcast. Yes, using a handheld voice recorder is easier than using a DAW in many cases, but it’s not the most inexpensive way to start. For most of us, the most inexpensive handheld device is our phones.
Most of us own phones that can record audio. All you need to produce a podcast is a silent place to record your thoughts. A good microphone to upgrade your phone can cost between $40 — $200.
Our friend The Nerdy Pothead uses a Zoom H1n to record his podcast. It’s between $100-$200s cheaper than the recorder that our camp presenter suggested we purchase. He records interviews with little effort with it. We’ve recorded interviews for the We’re Still Cool podcast with Liz’s phone. You don’t have to spend $300+ on a digital recorder when you start out.
Handheld recording devices
Free option: Your personal smart phone
Inexpensive option(s): Purchase a microphone for your phone, or buy an audio recorder for less than $150.
Using a DAW
DAW is an acronym for Digital Audio Workstation. You’ll need some form of audio editor on a computer if you wish to improve the production quality of your podcast at some point. There are DAWs available as phone apps, but I will not discuss them here. Using a DAW gives you the option of recording your podcast on your computer, adding music, and editing mistakes out of your podcast. There are multiple free and inexpensive options for DAWs.
Free DAWs
Probably the easiest DAW to learn is Audacity. It also happens to be free. There are issues with Audacity. It can create corruptible recordings or crash. But for ease, with a quick learning curve Audacity is a great option.
Similarly, Wavosaur is a simple, easy to use free DAW. Considered a free mastering software, it’s more stable than Audacity and is great for improving the sound of your podcast.
At the high-end of free DAWs is Cakewalk. In the early 2000's, Sonar by Cakewalk was a direct competitor with Pro Tools (often considered the professional standard in DAWs). When Cakewalk dissolved as a company the rights for their programs were purchased and offered for free. Cakewalk should be considered a light version of Sonar. It’s best used by musicians and tech-savvy users. You’ll need to register with the current owners to gain access to it. However, it’s the best free DAW available for none Apple computer owners.
If you have GarageBand on your Apple computer you arguably have the best free DAW available. Very well known albums have been recorded on Garageband. If it’s good enough for world-class musicians, it’s good enough to produce a podcast.
Inexpensive DAWs
Before we go any further, some love has to be given to Logic Pro X. The current professional standard in recording software. The full version can be purchased for $280. Not a watered down version that will mean trips to a recording studio to finish a project. The FULL VERSION is available for less than $300. If you have a Mac product and want to upgrade from GarageBand this is the obvious choice.
However, most professional level DAWs can be purchased in tiers. The lowest tier is often free, or suspiciously inexpensive. These products are incredibly limiting, and are usually used to get email addresses from people who download them.
Then there is a $200-$300 tier. For most hobbyist, and a number of pros using a DAW, this is more than enough. You can make your music, podcast, or audio book recording with little trouble. If you want a professional mix of your project, or a proper master mix you’ll need to go to a studio to get that done.
Back when I was producing music part-time this is the level of DAW I was using. I would work with my clients at my home, prepare a track and then take it to a pro studio to record vocals and polish it up with help from a professional recording engineer.
So obviously, there is a higher tier for most DAWs. A top level tier for a pro engineer DAW can range from $400-$3000. Some DAWs are now offered as subscriptions. This makes top tier DAWs more available, but if you have to be online to use them (like Pro Tools) that makes your DAW impractical for a podcast producer who may be on the go. It’s also an untenable option for an audio book producer in a similar situation; who has to travel to a voice talent’s home that may, or may not have easily accessible internet.
That said, there are some pretty extensive, professional level DAWs that can be purchased below $200.
The 2 inexpensive DAWs that I recommend podcast producers look at are Reaper and Ardour.
Technically, Ardour is free. Getting the source code for Ardour is free. However, if you’re not savvy on the programming side of things, you’ll need to donate to the cause. If you’re not enthusiastic to work on source code, expect to donate around $80 to get regular updates. Ardour is mainly used in film, and has all the bells and whistles any professional or amateur podcaster should need. However, it’s not a professional endeavor. The programmers provide the software as a tool. They do what they can to help users, but it’s not their job. If you’re someone who regularly needs customer service this might not be a product for you.
The DAW that I currently use is called Reaper. There’s a fairly steep learning curve to Reaper. It’s not the easiest to use when producing music. It comes with no virtual instruments, and lacks some important plugins for a DAW meant for music production. But most podcasters should be licensing music for their podcasts, few will produce their own. I decided to buy Reaper for a number of reasons:
It costs more than $100 less than similar tiered DAWs from most pro DAW creators (It’s currently available for either $60, or $225 US). It is an incredibly stable DAW — I’ve had no weird glitches, it never crashes, and I can record for incredibly long periods of time without worrying that I’m using up my computer’s RAM. The plugins that come with it, are more than enough to get a podcast sounding professional.
If you’ve heard our podcast you could argue that it doesn’t sound professional, but that has more to do with the learning curve using Reaper than its potential. Our next 2 pods sound better than our last 2, and hopefully that improvement continues. If you’re comfortable with a learning curve, I strongly recommend using Reaper to produce your podcast.
Licensing music
One of the reasons for using a DAW when producing a podcast is to add music. It could be theme music or atmospheric. There’s tons of places you can license music, some for free, others charge a fee. I think it’s best to pay for music whenever possible — especially if you plan to use the same music on multiple podcasts as a one-time expense.
First, reach out to friends in bands, etc. If that’s not possible, or they want more than a fair price to license their music, you should be able to find high quality music for license between $35-$300 a song. Options to buy music include online licensing companies, or gig websites like Fiverr where you can contact musicians directly. It’s best to probably pay a one time license for your podcast’s theme, and use free royalty free music for things like atmospheric music to keep the cost low.
Remote interviews
Let’s say you, or your interview subject is currently out of town. You’ll need a way to record them for your podcast. There are people who make a living visiting podcast guests’ homes and recording their side of an interview. However, there are more inexpensive ways to record them.
The most obvious is Skype. You can now record Skype calls. Zoom conferencing apps also allow you to record audio and video. If you have multiple computers, or an audio recorder you could probably use Instagram, Facebook, or even Discord. However, there are companies offering free and inexpensive VOIP audio recording services for commercial use that produce better results.
We use a free account with CleanFeed, but there’s also Zencastr and Ringr. I believe Ringr has been around the longest. We’ve found a significant difference in audio quality using CleanFeed. Zencastr also appears to be a fantastic option. I’m sure that there are even more companies in this space worth investigating. However, the three I’ve mentioned have free(CleanFeed, ZenCastr), or low-cost (Ringr)tiers.
What’s important, is that you don’t have to settle for poor sounding podcasts because of your budget. So where is the expense in producing a podcast?
Microphones and audio interfaces
You can use your phone to record your podcast. You can use a free DAW to edit it. You can find free or inexpensive royalty free music. You can even use free services to record guests remotely. However, if you’re using a cheap microphone for segments of your podcast meant to sound like they’re in studio, that will catch up with you. It’s the reason why many gamers who stream do not use headphone microphones.
Headphone microphones add static, distort sound if you get loud or move around, can sound muffled, and are generally inconsistent. This is where you HAVE to spend money to get your podcast rolling. Your first option is buying a USB microphone.
If you use a USB mic, your setup becomes incredibly mobile. The most popular brand, the Blue Yeti I’ve seen for $75 US. Major microphone brands like Audio-Technica, Apogee, Shure and Rode also sell USB mics. However, if you want to be able to use the highest number of recording studio microphones available, you’ll need to use some sort of USB, Firewire or Thunderbolt audio interface.
There are some excellent budget audio interfaces that you can buy for around $50, but most high-quality, affordable interfaces retail for around $200. It’s a one-time expense. But if you have access to good, working microphones it’s worth it. If you have some old dynamic microphones from a bar or, more preferably, condenser mics from a recording studio or friend who makes music, you’re guaranteeing yourself a more consistent quality of audio. That means you have less work post-recording.
Most podcasts make pennies, if any money. You should want to produce a podcast with high sound quality. In most cases, you don’t want them to actually take hours to produce — just sound like you put hours into it.
