In This Episode
I share the tools I used to get started with podcasting.
Links

* Top 5 Budget Mics Under $50 (video)
* Podcast Consumer 2017 Report

Show Notes
This episode is hosted, edited, and scored by Mark.

Transcript
Intro
Welcome to ApexThis.Podcast. A chronicle of my journey to start a publishing side business. This will be a behind the scenes look at what I’m doing to make that happen. I’ll share tips and best practices that I learn along the way. Tips that you can use to start your very own podcast and share your voice with the world.
Coming up…news
News
In the last episode in which I shared my news headlines, I listed the Podcast Consumer report by Edison Research. This report was from 2016.
During recording, I thought it seemed odd to have a 2016 report in 2017 but I justified it that it could have been a study conducted over a long period of time and they just compiled all the results.
I was wrong.
Just last week, the 2017 report was released and I realized the error in my way.
This 2017 report shows that there has been a 5% increase in the awareness of the term “Podcasting” to 60% when compared against the 2016 report.
The report shows that podcasts are most listened to at home. This holds at 51%, followed by in a car at 22% and at work with 14%.
Podcast listeners are also very astute social media users. They are more likely to use social media and follow brands with the top brand usage being between Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
You can read all this and more at the link in the show notes.
Coming up next…Tools
Tools
I debated whether or not I should do an episode regarding tools, or the equipment I use for podcasting. For starters, it’s not advanced or interesting.
But what I can do is share what I have used for those that are just now getting started and give you a possible path that you can follow.
We will split this into two parts, first we will talk about hardware, and then software. First up, hardware.
Hardware
When it comes to podcasting you have to ask yourself, what is your level of commitment. Or at least, that is what I had to ask myself when first getting started.
I knew I WANTED to get into podcasting but I didn’t want to spend a lot of money to get started. I mean, who wants to spend a few hundred dollars on something that they may not like?
With that in mind, I looked around and made my first investment. I bought a Blue Snowball microphone for $50. It is a USB microphone and had good reviews. My thought was that, if I didn’t like podcasting, then I was only out the $50.
Interestingly enough, the first projects I used the microphone on were two youtube videos for Google Play Music reviews.
This was great as it got me behind the mic, even if it wasn’t for the podcast.
The mic had three settings to choose for audio input. Each directing where to receive input for the microphone such as the omnidirectional setting where I would use to gather input from in front of and behind the mic.
The quality was decent and I found that I had to be pretty close to the mic for it to pic up a decent sound.
Suffice to say, I enjoyed podcasting. As I continued I wanted a better sound that editing couldn’t give me. And so, I upgraded.
Hardware Upgrade
I went from a single USB mic to an AKG dynamic microphone with a Focusrite Scarlet audio interface.
The sound quality between the previous mic and the new setup was a big jump.
Not only did I jump to a better sounding microphone,