Helping Jake: What Equipment Should I Buy?
Helping Jake: What Equipment Should I Buy?
Appears in this episode
Jake Edell has listened to my podcasts for a while, and it has inspired him to begin his own! In this series, you'll get to sit in on my coaching calls with him as he develops his show. In this episode, we talk through what equipment he should purchase.
Transcript
Chris Spangle 0:00
Welcome to podcasting platforms. Thanks so much for being here. My name is Chris spangle. And I am the host, and you can check out more about us at podcasting platforms.com. And this is a special new series that we're going to be doing called Helping Jake. Jake is ready to get started on his podcast. And he just doesn't know exactly where to go from here. So we're going to help him out. So stay tuned for helping Jake here on podcasting and platforms. Jake, tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from? What do you do? How did you find out about podcasting platforms?
Jake Edel 0:31
I'm from San Antonio, Texas. I'm a rule letter carrier at the post office.
Chris Spangle 0:36
You must listen to a ton of podcasts, then a
Jake Edel 0:39
ton of podcasts. And that's actually how I came across your original. We're libertarians podcast Ah, now the Chris spangle show. And then you started talking about the pat down. So I started listening to that. A lot of the rest of the network boss hogs of liberty, everyone like that. So I started wanting to get into it, because I've been involved in politics before kind of got out of it for a while and wanted to get back into it. And that's when I started listening again.
Chris Spangle 1:08
Okay, so you're going to start a political podcast. And you have made that like, Are you kind of thinking through whether or not you want to start the podcast? Or how did you come to the decision to start it, if you are ready to start a podcast,
Jake Edel 1:22
I came across a decision because I think right now, especially with the way things are so divided, it's been getting worse and worse over the past years. It's simply because we don't listen to each other. And I wanted to create a podcast where I actually sit down, listen to everyday people, my next door neighbors, you know, the person across the street, grocery store workers, whoever is around me that wants to join in on the podcast, my community, just come on in, we can talk about whatever you want. That way you can at least feel heard. And we can start going from there and seeing where we all have commonalities.
Chris Spangle 1:55
Okay, awesome. And, you know, how much time do you think you can devote to it a week?
Jake Edel 2:01
I can do about three hours a week, especially on the weekends.
Chris Spangle 2:05
All right. Yeah. So you're you're looking to really talk to people in your community do interviews, one on one. And what's going to be, you know, the, the central rule, as I always like to tell people is like audiences are very selfish. So you've got to have a very clear, definite vision of what they're going to get out of it. So if I tuned into your podcast, what am I going to get out of it?
Jake Edel 2:31
You're going to get a perspective of where someone else got their ideals from and why they believe what they believe, and what led them to those conclusions and where they're at in their life.
Chris Spangle 2:43
Okay, very good. And so, so you got the idea? You know, you're gonna commit to it, you know, you're gonna, you've answered a lot of those early questions pretty well. And when are you looking to get started?
Jake Edel 2:59
Here in the next month or two?
Chris Spangle 3:01
Okay. All right. So we got a lot of work ahead of us now. What kind of equipment do you have? If you bought equipment? Do you know what you need? How are you going to record the interviews? How have you thought much about that kind of stuff?
Jake Edel 3:13
Well, that's why I reached out to you. As far as equipment goes, I all I have is the Audio Technica 2100
that you recommended. I mainly use it for when I'm streaming with video games and stuff like that. But yeah, other than that, actually, like going down and meeting with someone and having recording equipment there. That's where I don't know where to start, other than what she recommended in the equipment podcast.
Chris Spangle 3:38
Okay, so And are you doing audio only are you going to do any video?
Jake Edel 3:43
Eventually, I would like to move to video. But I can kind of see why that might be a problem for some people if they don't want their faces seen because they don't want to be judged by their political views. So probably be mainly mainly audio.
Chris Spangle 3:55
Yeah, it can be very expensive to do video and especially if you're doing something like this, where you might be on site recording it can get it can get hairy and it's easier to get better interviews sometimes with audio only because they people don't want to know they'll they like talking about themselves but they don't want to have to put on pants, right? I don't want to have to put on makeup or you know like there's there's just an inconvenience factor in some ways with video that even if you're doing it on zoom that people don't don't particularly like, okay, so audio only and do you want to do these on in person? Do you want to do them online like this, we're using a program called stream yard, which you know, I think looks pretty nice. It's a little bit better than a zoom, you know, and you don't have to have a lot of production skill to go and add things later in Adobe Premiere or something like that. Have you thought about how you want it, how you're going to conduct the interviews.
Jake Edel 4:54
And originally it was going to be all online, especially with COVID that was going on at the time that I was thinking about But if people want to meet in person, so at least they can see eye to eye that I'm being honest and truthful with them that I actually want to hear their story. I think that brings a little bit more relatable response and helps people open up more.
Chris Spangle 5:13
Yeah, so I think that is a better way to do it is in person. So you could do it. I mean, you sound great. And your camera looks good. The sound of the audio 2100 Audio Technica 2100 is great. It's, you clearly can sound how clear mind is like a $500 microphone, going into a $600 board with $100 cable. And He sounds just as good as me through USB cable, right? So Correct. For 100 bucks. But once you start getting into more in person stuff, you're gonna have to buy more equipment. Right? So have you thought about your budget at all? Do you know what kind of budget you have for equipment?
Jake Edel 5:57
hadn't really put a budget to it? And I would say probably no more than 1200
Chris Spangle 6:01
Oh, well, you're good then. Okay. All right. Hmm. How many people do you think you'd have on at once.
Jake Edel 6:10
Usually, I try to do one on one, maybe every once in a while, went on to like couples, especially if like they're married and stuff like that. Other than that, I don't think I would have like a whole group or more than two at a time.
Chris Spangle 6:27
Okay, so let me tell you what I use in the field when I'm recording stuff. So I'm using the Rode Podcaster pro at $600. I really like it. But it's, you know, it's it's big, right? So I don't take it with me because I don't like to tear down things. So in the studio here, I've got three lights, you know, and then I've got the above light, you know, the hair. And then I've got in front of me this is a teleprompter with a camera inside of it and a little, you know, if you can see this. And then at all runs into my board with my microphone. And so I just don't want to have to take this stuff and set it down because the more you tear up and set down, the more it starts to break apart. Some people will buy the Rode Podcaster Pro, I always recommend waterproof cases, they've saved my bacon more than once. So, you know, this is a $600 piece of equipment. And then the case is like another $120. And then you've got microphones so you you'd be at $1,200 pretty much with the Rode Podcaster pro
Now the benefit of it. And I can't show it to you on camera. But it's I can't show it to you on camera, but I can maybe splice in some video here to kind of show people what it looks like. It's got four inputs for microphones. It's got a USB cable. So I'm connecting you know with your voice is coming through the USB connection on this, you can add your phone via Bluetooth. You can add your phone via Bluetooth, you can also you also have like sound effects, you got a sound effects, you've got your headphone jacks on it, you can put it into a speaker. So it does everything you know can connects to your computer. But it's like I said $600 It's a great piece of equipment, it's what I recommend to most people.
Now, I don't take that out into the field, what I take with me is my Zoom h6. This is about 350 bucks. I've recorded hundreds of podcasts on this for clients for the pat down for the Chris spangle show. It sounds amazing, it's got great preamps. And essentially, it's got your mic inputs here. And you can control the inputs there. And you've got, you have the ability to connect this to your computer, if you had four people over your house, you could run a USB port here into the computer, it's just a little it's not as user friendly as this. It only has the one headphone jack, which I don't think is a problem. Like I don't tell people to buy headphone jacks when they're out in the field because one person needs to listen to this to make sure it sounds good. Everybody else gets distracted. But you know, it's it's an absolute beast. And like I said, I mean I've used it weekly for probably five years. And it's it's just worked great but you know that's that's what I take with me because right like, like here's my my cell phone. You can see it's the same size as my iPhone max right so it's nice and compact and you can get that comes with a case. I have like a big you know, bigger case with all the attachments. It's got these little attachments on it. And so you can put a shotgun mic, you can put different mics on it. I've never used those, I wasted my money on them to be candid. But I'm a completist. If there's one, if there's attachments to be had, I need to buy it.
And then what I always recommend is the Shure 58, or 48. This is a Shure says an SM 48. And it's built like a 58. Because they used to have basically, you know, the newer ones that 40 eights have, I think, a plastic handle on it to save money. And this is like metal. But there's a reason that every rock musician uses the Shure SM 58. They're 100 bucks. And they're built just like tanks. They're built like Nokia phones, like you can drop this thing from the top of a building, and it will kill somebody. The SM 58 is $100 they have an SM 48 that I recommend to people usually because it's about 4050 bucks. Now it comes with a cable. And it sounds exactly like this. It's built almost as tough. It does have a plastic coating, but it's strong plastic. And so I say why not save yourself 50 bucks and get a cable thrown in. Now a word about cables.
The cheaper the cable, the more noise line noise you're going to get. Alright, so this is a monster performer. You know, they they like gold plated doesn't mean anything. But you can see this is a pretty thick cable compared to you know, like a $10 cable that you buy at Guitar Center. Early on, I bought the $10 cable a Guitar Center, and guess what broke after three uses. And then the other one was a hum, there was a hum you this one I got on clearance for 50 bucks 12 years ago, I've taken it to hundreds of podcasts. It sounds great. It's still you know, in good condition. You got to wrap your chords, right? See how that's like a nice little circle. You got to really, you know, let gravity do that quarter turn for you. And if you keep your nice cable nice, you're not going to spend a lot on it. But you can feel the difference in just the thickness of the gauge. The amount of insulation, that insulation does matter. You know if you've ever been around, especially in the early days of cell phones that did that you'll hear through like a speaker or some sort of wire. This has insulation to kind of help protect some of that. But I you know, and this is a 30 foot cable. So I have two of these and then I have three sets of little I use Mogami cables which are kind of upscale cables.
The Mogami Silver's are what I take out and they're 15 foot and then I've got 30 foot cables, but you never know if you're doing a recording. If you're going to be at a long table like you're you go to interview Vladimir Putin, you're going to need to bring the 30 foot to get across the table right. And if you're if you're having you know, an intimate conversation with somebody sitting next to you, you just need to bring the 12 foot but sometimes it's better to just get the 20 foot cable have the option. And then as you kind of grow you may want to add on different types of cables and then obviously you need headphones I use I started in radio on 2004 and the studio had the AKG K 240 studio headphones and everybody in radio uses either the AKG headphones or they use the Sony headphones that you've probably seen that are like really tight on your head. These were like 50 bucks 40 bucks at the time. And the other ones were like 80 So I got these plus. The reality is these are the only headphones that sound good to me. If I do broadcasting with the Sony's or in a sense in hyzers or any other kind of headphone It doesn't sound right to me. Because this is the first four years of my broadcasting career. This is what I used. You may not be as picky. So you may not need to spend the money you could probably get the $20 Sony headphones or use the ones you've got on there for your gaming and take those with you but you do need headphones you do need to make sure that you listen to the recording when you do it. This I use rechargeable batteries. These are not rechargeable because these were Oh my rechargeable batteries died because I forgot to recharge them. Let me keep some good batteries of the case for when I'm stupid. As you can see they're in there. But you always want to have I like the rechargeable batteries because it saves me on batteries in the long run because I use this so much. And then it also runs on an SD card. It comes with a two gig SD card. I think I've got a 16 in here. Yeah. And that's hundreds of hours. And yeah, so
That's the gear that I would recommend, because you've already got the microphone to talk, if you're doing a zoom call like this, you've already got that microphone. So you kind of don't need the zoom, or the Rode Podcaster ProHD. Say, so you could go with the zoom, which is a different company than the Zoom we all think of right? This is an audio brand. So go with the small, compact, cheaper option. It's a workhorse, it's built tough, you know, that's hard plastic right there. And get yourself some sm 40, eights built tough. And some good cables. So 350, you're probably going to want to get at least three microphones probably for there's four inputs on this. And so that's 200 in microphones, and they come with cables. So that's 205 50. And then a pair of headphones and some batteries, and you're good. So you're looking at around six $700 total, once you do shipping and taxes and all that stuff. And that's what you pay for just the board. Now you may down the line, want to upgrade, because you will. It never stops. There's always more equipment that you covet. And that you need and want. I have an entire I have the cable cave in the basement. I had a couple of podcast hosts come and raid the cable cave two weekends ago. Oh, any cameras? Oh, yeah. Here's a couple cameras that I bought that I never used. And my wife walks down there and goes, Oh, this is where your savings when I said yes. But it's an investment, Deere and investment. So So yeah, I mean, five 600 bucks, and you're good. And you can go out and do those interviews, and succeed at it and do really well. It's gonna sound great. You know, on the Zoom, keep it at seven. The thing about recording is if it's too hot, you can't fix it. If it's too low, you probably can save it. So you always want to make sure that it sounds good. But we can go through the zoom and how to work that once you get it. And, you know, put it up there and then walk you through it. And we could do a test recording with it. So but that's what I'd recommend. I mean, do you have any questions like i i monologue there for a while, I probably should have let you talk like a good podcast host when you're doing an interview. But once I get started talking about this stuff, I just can't stop. I get I love it.
Jake Edel 17:24
I know. And that's why I love listening to you. Because you're really informational. It's great that I can go with kind of the the lesser option, but it's yeah, it's not lesser. It's cheaper. Yeah, it's just it's just the less expensive because it's not as you know, obviously doesn't have the soundboard on there for the intro and everything like that. But that can be added once I am uploaded to my computer. And I can do that in editing later. So I don't need that right now. But yeah, that's, that's a very informative for this first one. So that way I know which equipment to get, and then start formulating what questions I'm gonna ask people and see where they want to take their topics.
Chris Spangle 18:03
Yes. So I say we quit there for the day and then get the equipment, make sure you get it through the toolbox at podcasting platform comm those are Amazon affiliate links, which means I get a kickback from Jeff Bezos, he's not going to be able to buy a second rocket based on all the equipment that you guys buy through the toolbox, because he sent me 10s and 10s of dollars in kickbacks. But if you would support the show, please go over there and use the toolbox website to sign up for you know, various services that I use and love. And then you can also buy your equipment, like the h six and you know, go click that link and you if you buy groceries through them, they send me a kickback. So it's pretty cool. Now, so yeah, you can find all the links at podcasting platforms.com/toolbox for all the stuff that I just talked about Jake. And then once you get it in, then let's talk. Let's do another episode walk you through how to use it. And we'll go from there. Sounds great. All right. Thanks, Jake. We're really appreciate your time.
Jake Edel 19:08
I appreciate you,
Chris Spangle 19:09
Thanks so much for tuning in to podcasting platforms. Again, my name is Chris spangle. Thanks to Jake for coming on. We're gonna have more conversations with Jake as he gets his podcast started. Remember podcasting platforms is all about helping you get started, right. And we've got the toolbox over at podcasting platforms.com which you can go and grab that right now and get recommendations on gear and equipment and services that I love. And you can also sign up for coaching. And I'll personally help you in one on one sessions much like I'm doing here with Jake. And you can also become a member of the website where we have a monthly show where we invite you as a member to come on the podcast and talk with other podcasters it's like a facilitated conversation kind of giving you helping tips so go check that out right now at podcasting platforms.com
Find the links to the recommended equipment in The Toolbox.
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Email: chris@podcastingandplatforms.com