My Current Podcast Gear

I got my first question via email this week! Sandra Hertzeg asked "What equipment and software do you use for your podcast".

I'd love to talk about with a disclaimer: My current setup is a lot more than you need to start a podcast. However, if you have a budget to start out with a great setup, this one has been working great for me for a couple years.

I've actually refreshed my entire podcast setup 4 times in the last 7 years and I feel like that barring any equipment failure, I'll keep this one until the next great podcast technology is introduced. I do admit I'm a bit of a gadget geek!

Let's start with my microphone. I chose a Rode Procaster as my current mic for the balance of cost and quality. You'll see Rode equipment come up a lot in podcast articles and discussions as they produce quality gear with one exception I'll discuss later. The Rode Procaster is a big, heavy mic with a built in pop filter. A pop filter helps filter out plosives which are the popping sounds you make with your teeth and lips while talking. It can be annoying to your listeners so the fewer plosives the better for the show. If you have a mic without the built-in pop filter, you can get one for just a few bucks on Amazon.

Besides the built in pop filter, the Procaster has a great warm sound in capturing my voice and because it's dynamic, it doesn't pick up any of the noise going on inside or outside my room when I'm recording. This mic is an XLR mic which means you can't plug directly into your computer like you can with a USB mic. You'll need a sound board which i'll talk about in a bit. The Procaster is currently selling for around $229 and the reviews say it outperforms many more expensive mics for podcast recording. If you've got the budget, the Rode Procaster is a great choice. If you want a great mic for less than half the cost of the Procaster, Rode also makes the Rode Pod Mic which is another XLR mic that comes in at about $99. You'll see a lot of podcast hosts using the Rode Pod Mic and it's a solid choice if you want to spend less and still get great quality.

The next piece of equipment that I use in tandem with my pic is the Cloudlifter. Enplaning the Cloudlifter is a little involved and I'll say that you don't need one of these to start and it's unnecessary for some mics. Some folks say it's not needed with my Procaster but I think it was a good idea. I plug my mic into the Cloudlifter and then plug the Cloudlifter into my sound board. Why? Because the Cloudlifter increases the volume coming from my mic without me having to increase the gain on my sound board. Again Why? Well, while the Procaster is a great mic, becuase it's dynamic, when it captures my voice, the volume can be a little low, In order to compensate, before I got the Cloudlifter, I had to increase the gain on my sound board to get my volume where I wanted it. Increasing gain is artificially boosting the volume of the mic output and can cause some distortion. I was experiencing just a touch of distortion so I tried the Cloudlifter. With the Cloudlifter, I didn't need to increase the gain much at all and my voice sounded cleaner on the podcast. Now, nobody complained about my voice before the Cloudlifter but all the time I spent editing my shows made the distortion very evident to me. I want to sound the best I can so the Cloudlifter was a good choice for me. The Cloudlifter runs about $149 and works with any XLR mic. I recommend trying your setup without the Cloudlifter first and then trying it out if you hear distortion in your edit.

Okay, now I'll cover the boom arm I use for my mic. You can either mount your mic to a stand which will sit on your desk or on a boom arm which clamps to your desk and allows you to position your mic exactly where you want it. You can also fold the boom arm in to get the mic out of your way when You're not using it.

I've gone through 5 boom arms in 7 years podcasting. In my experience, this is one piece of equipment that you should spend some extra money purchasing. Boom arms can cost anywhere from $12 to $300. I'll tell you that the $12 models will end up in the trash in most cases. There are three things you want from a boom arm. One is the ability to hold the weight of your mic, the Procaster is very heavy and I learned that the hard way. The second is that it needs to be quiet when you're positioning your mic. You'll do that when you're recording and you don;t want the squeeks and creaks to come through in your recording. The third is that it needs to be long enough for you to be able to position the mic exactly where you want it.

After trying cheap boom arms and a couple that were more expensive than my current arm, I ended up with a iXtech boom arm and I finally found perfection. It's the perfect size for my desk, it's very quiet, and it easily handles the weight of my Procaster. Now I paid $99 for my iXTech boom arm but I'm seeing it for $89 with 5% off on Amazon. When you're choosing a boom arm, don't settle for one that doesn't meet your needs. The iXTech is great for me but may not work for you. Keep looking until you find one that allows you to sit comfortable when recording and meets the other criteria I discussed.

My last piece of hardware is my sound board. I've actually gone through 3 soundboards since I started. I'll remind you again that if you don't have the budget, you don't have to spend what I spent on my current board to create a great sounding podcast. With that in mind my current board is a Rodecaster Pro. This was not an inexpensive purchase and ran me about $600 when I first go it. They are selling new for about $428. The Rodecaster Pro is a sound board made specifically for podcasting and live streaming. It has a slot for a micro sd card so you can record directly to that instead of using your computer. That means you don't have to worry about any computer glitches when you're recording and still have the files to easily transfer to your computer and edit. The Rodecaster Pro has 4 XLR mic inputs and you can add your computer, phone, and any bluetooth device for input as well. This makes it easy to do a remote interview via Zoom or any other video conferencing service you might use. With the phone and bluetooth inputs, you can also use your phone for an interview. I've done that and it works very well. The Rodecaster Pro separates all the audio tracks from mics and other inputs into their own individual track which helps you to edit each track for specific issues like noise or low volume. The Rodecaster Pro also has a ton of professional audio processing features that help make your voice sound great in your recording. The last feature of the Rodecaster that you may or may not use is the prerecorded sound bank that will hold 24 different recordings. You can upload your podcast intro into the bank and play it at the beginning of your recording or add any music or sounds that you'd like to use to make your show more entertaining. One way I use it is to record the intro for my guest prior to the interview so that I get it just right and don't have to edit it for the finished episode.

The Rodecaster Pro was a huge help to all the podcasts I record. It's super easy to get sound levels where I want them, the onboard recording works like a charm, and my podcasts sound better because of it. Now, since i bought my Rodecaster Pro, the Rodercaster Pro 2 has been introduced. Do you remember that I said Rode's build quality is great with on exception? Well, word on the podcast street is that the Rodecaster Pro 2 has some quality issues. The reviews are mixed but the second version of the Rodecaster Pro. Some love it and some have returned them due to serious issues. There were a lot of enhancements to the Rodecaster Pro 2 that a lot of folks like, especially live streamers. I personally believe the original Rodecaster is more than enough for my needs. Make sure to do your research before you make an investment in either of these. I love my Rodecaster Pro but if it doesn't fit your budget, there are plenty of less expensive sound boards that will work just fine.

The last tool I use for my podcast is an application called Descript. I've mentioned Descript in other episodes and they are a sponsor for Your Pod Guy. I'll only allow sponsors for this podcast that I can endorse and I can heartily endorse Descript. Descript is an all-in-one audio and video editor that has more features than you ever imagined for an audio or video podcast. First, editing your podcast or video is just like editing a word document. Descript generates a transcript of your audio and to edit, you just delete the words you want to remove and they disappear form the audio and video. It's so much easier than trying to highlight blocks of audio or video and deleting them that way. Just this feature has saved me hours in editing every week. Descript also has great audio editing features. Many time's when I have a remote guest for an interview, they don't have a professional mic. I sound great and they sound like they're well..using a cheap mic. Descript has a button called Studio Sound that makes that poor guest audio sound a lot more like mine. Remember, that's one click of a button. Other programs do the same thing but you have to fiddle with it for a long time before you get that guest audio to sound great. There are a ton of other features to Descript like voiceover, adding a music track, auto removal of filler words like umm and uh, and so many more. The only downside to Descript is that if you've used traditional editing software, Descript looks totally different which means it will take some time to learn. The learning part is easy as they have a huge library of instructional videos and articles that walk you through every process you want to use. The folks who developed Descript are always adding features and it has become a way more powerful tool than when I started using it a year ago. I cann;t imagine what they'll bring next but I'm sure it will be something that I didn't know I needed and it turns out I did.

I've said this before but if I could only keep one tool I use for my podcasts, it would be Descript. This was a long one! If you made it this far, thanks for sticking around. I'll do another episode soon to talk about some budget friendly podcast setups that will work great for a new podcaster.

Thanks to Sandra for the question!