Podcasting with Aaron

Hello friends! I need to republish an episode for work stuff, so I thought I'd share this one from 2021 again and say hello! Also I'd love to hear any questions you have about podcasts or podcasting, please visit this Google Form I set up and fill it out if you'd like to share your question(s)! Hope you've been well! Aaron Dowd, Fort Worth Texas November 16, 2023 --- My goal for this episode is to...

94: How to Get Good Sound for Your Podcast, Part 6: Talk Through Audio Gear with Your Guests and Co-Hosts Before You Start Recording Good sound quality isn't the only thing you need to be successful in podcasting, but bad audio quality will cost you listeners. It only takes a few minutes to talk to your guest or co-hosts about their recording setup, but it can help you identify and prevent potenti...

If you only need to record your own voice, or maybe a couple people in the same room, you won't have a hard time ending up with a podcast that sounds good. However, if you want to record interviews or episodes with guests or co-hosts that are in different locations, getting good sound becomes harder. You won't have any control over which microphones the other people are using, if they use good mic...

Last episode I talked about mic technique and how to set gain levels. This week I'm going to talk about how the room you're recording in might affect the quality of your sound. The most important thing is to pay attention to how you sound in your room. The room you're recording in is probably only going to cause problems if there are a lot of hard surfaces that reflect your voice back enough to ma...

Last week I talked about how to connect your microphone and headphones and make sure you're ready to start recording. This week I'm going to walk you through the basics of microphone technique and how to set the input gain levels (or recording levels) so you can sound good anytime you want to record some audio. Just a heads up: If you're listening to this episode in a podcast app, I'd recommend sw...

Watch the video version of this episode here. Welcome back to another episode of Podcasting with Aaron. I hope you're having a good week so far. I know I certainly have. This past week has been one of the better weeks in recent memory. Possibly the best week since 2016, actually. Last week I talked about the importance of getting good sound for your podcast. I talked about why good sound matters,...

I've been obsessed with things that sound good for as long as I could remember. I've always loved music and the effect it has on my body and brain, so I got interested in the process of creating and capturing sound when I was young. The first podcasts I started listening to back in 2008/2009 were professionally produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered by folks who had been working in radio for a lo...

My goal for this episode is to give you a big picture roadmap for how to start a podcast. You give me 30 minutes of your time, I'll tell you everything I know about starting a podcast. This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive guide that covers everything you’ll need to know (that would take awhile longer and I'd like to keep this pretty short), but my hope is that it gives you enough information to he...

Why are you procrastinating? This is an important question, and is worth considering, reflecting on, and writing about. It could be a few different things. You've decided that something else is more important. What are you doing (or what should you be doing) that's more important than your podcast? Maybe a podcast isn't what you're supposed to be focusing on right now. That's ok! You can come back...

Hey friend! Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you're having a good day wherever you are. If this is your first time hearing or seeing me, welcome! I'm glad you're here! My name is Aaron Dowd and I'm here to help you learn about podcasting and connect you with other great podcasters in the podcasting community. If it's been awhile since you heard from me, I'm sorry I've been absent for...

Juleyka Lantigua-Williams shares her strategy for audience growth and how it's put her shows on the path to reach 1 million downloads by the end of the year. Here's what I learned in this episode: Audience growth isn't something that magically happens once you start publishing episodes.  If you want to grow your audience and get more listeners and fans, there's three important questions to ask you...

In this episode, Sean and I discuss his new mobile recording setup, the challenges of the paid membership model for podcasts, Spotify's recent moves in podcasting (Joe Rogan, etc), how to grow an audience for a podcast, the best ways to make money with a podcast, what most podcasters get wrong about podcast promotion on social media and what they should do instead, and so much more. If you'd like...

Topics: When is the right time to start looking for sponsors for a podcast? How does having a niche audience help you with finding sponsors? 3 things you should include in a proposal to a sponsor Why getting brands excited about sponsoring podcasts needs to be a community effort Questions to ask yourself before you start looking for sponsors What Podcorn is, and how it works And more If you'd like...

My guest today is Steph Colbourn, founder of Edit Audio, a podcast consultation and production company. In this episode, we discuss how she got into podcast editing and production, how she connects with and on-boards new clients, her process for working with them and helping them be successful, what she's learned about launching and marketing shows, how she manages money and scheduling, why she's...

Cool Stuff to Check Out: podjobs.net Without Fail: Ira Glass: The Man Who Launched a Thousand Podcasts (That Gimlet podcast interview I mentioned, real good) Most Jobs Don't Have An Official Job Posting Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. - Anton Ego, Ratatouille The best jobs are never advertised. - Unknown The jobs I linked to in that Twitter thread...

Q: What is an RSS feed? An RSS feed is a formatted text document that contains all the important information about your show. It's hosted on a server somewhere (usually public) and has a URL so anyone can view or access its contents. It contains info about your show and your episodes: Things like your show’s title, description, episode titles, and links to the audio files for the episodes. It is p...

Questions Discussed in This Episode: How do you find your first clients? Do you need a website and/or tutorials to attract clients? What are people hiring podcast editors looking for? Should we be making tutorials and content to attract clients? Should you invest time in trying to convince people to start podcasts? Should you only work with shows that are aligned with your goals and values? How mu...

My guest this week is professional audio engineer Ryan Monette. Ryan graduated from Berklee College of Music with a degree in Music Production & Engineering. For the last 4.5 years he's been the Post-Production Audio Engineer on staff at Elevation Church, in Charlotte, NC, where he mixes their global TV show, and has many other responsibilities (boom operator, field recorder, sound designer, audio...

Highlights, Takeaways & Quick Wins: For big projects, you need long stretches of uninterrupted time to think and work. Work on building your focus muscle. The first five minutes of focus time are the hardest. Pick a task, pick a time, and do the task at that time. Show up every day and do your best creative work. If you can’t overcome fear, push through it—fear is a sign that you’re doing somethin...

Shawn Blanc is a writer, small-business owner, productivity coach, and creative entrepreneur living in Kansas City with his wife and their three sons. Shawn has been teaching and learning about creativity, diligence, and focus for over a decade, and his online courses have helped thousands of people do their best creative work while learning to thrive in the midst of life’s tensions. A while back,...

Martine Ellis joins me to share her podcasting journey and how she created a detailed checklist to help streamline her podcast workflow. We discuss how niching down can help you attract a dedicated audience and how to spend less time creating a podcast without sacrificing quality. We also walk through Martine’s 9 step podcast workflow checklist and discuss our favorite podcast tools and tricks. Yo...

I’ve been watching an online audio mastering course on Creative Live called DIY Mastering (by Jesse Cannon). In it, he was talking about how he always checks his work on cheap speakers and Apple earbuds, since that’s what most people use to listen to music. It got me thinking about the importance of good headphones, and how much they really matter. Are expensive headphones really necessary for mix...

I got a question from a Community member about recording audio away from home, so I grabbed my Zoom H4N and a few mics and headed to a local Starbucks to test out the different mics in a real world setting. If you’d like to invest in an affordable, portable recording setup, this episode will help you get started. Links: Recommended Gear: https://kit.co/PodcastingwithAaron Podcast: https://podcasti...

Your podcast description is one of the first things people see when they come across your podcast online or in a podcast app. This is your chance to catch their attention and sell them on your show. It’s your opportunity to convince them to listen. The ideal podcast description answers two questions for your potential listener: Is this show for me? What am I going to get out of listening to this?...

Dan Powell is one half of Dead Signals Production, creator of the popular Archive 81 and Deep Vault found sound, radio drama podcasts. In this episode, we talk about his recording process, how he designs sound, and his editing process. He shares some of the hurdles he overcame while producing podcasts and what advice he’d give to anyone interested in making a modern radio drama. Key Takeaways: Don...