After nobody asked me to, I’ve decided to write a few posts about how I podcast. There might be an additional post where I talk about some other software I use on my computer in general, but we’ll start with podcasting because it really is the heaviest use of my computer.
In this post, I’ll focus on the software I use to record. In the next post, I’ll share some of the hardware I use. And finally, I’ll explain how I edit podcasts with the aim of having a screen recording of myself editing either OHAC or Comical Start.
The main reason I’m doing this now is because a few months ago I tested and confirmed my ability to do all of my podcast production entirely on Linux. Before, I always had a machine running Windows to make sure I could record everything correctly. On both of my podcasts I am the fail-safe who records everybody, both in case of dramatic sound issues, and also because I’m the one editing and I need everything in sync.
So, let’s get to it. Here is what I use.
Show Notes
First, for both of my podcasts I use Google Docs for show notes. Comical Start just has a single document containing the episode number, links to our comics, and a note about whoever is supposed to go first that week. For OHAC, we make a new Show Notes document for each episode, detailing the tentative topics for the episode, a section for topics that will be relegated to the next episode, and a section at the end for miscellaneous notes or hyperlinks we may generate during the episode.
The best (and worst) part about these documents is the Google Apps Script code I wrote for each a number of months ago. I had heard about Apps Script existing last November or so first time, and after some really frustrating experiences with the limitations of the language I was able to add some functionality. The Comical Start notes work the best, because it is a single persistent document. (There are permission issues whenever you add a script to a new document.) I added a "Comic" menu item that lets us quickly insert our comic hyperlinks with our names. I also added a "Time Stamp" option that lets me quickly make a note of an event’s time during a recording. This is most frequently used for accidental swearing.
A lot more effort went into the OHAC code, as the notes are more involved. There is the same "Time Stamp" option from the Comical Start notes, but also an "Add Link" function which does exactly what it sounds like: you give it a hyperlink and the text you want it to read, and it appends the hyperlink to the document. Finally, there is a "Next Show" function. This is the one I’m most proud of, even though it doesn’t cooperate with bullet points very well. What I do is highlight stuff in the our "Next Episode" section, click "Next Show", insert the episode number of the next episode, and it automatically creates a new document with our normal formatting, and the "Next Episode" contents are now in the "Topics" section of this new document.
It’s really sloppy, but it gets the job done.
Communication
We started with Skype as the obvious choice. It’s what is used by most of the podcasters I’m aware of, and for the most part it works. While I was still on Windows, it was possible to download a frequently updated Skype MP3 recorder which worked like a charm. It can record multiple tracks at many different levels of quality, and can be set up to autostart on a new Skype call. For the most part I didn’t have issues with it.
Upon my switch to Linux, Skype did not want to cooperate anymore. In particular, Skype wanted to monopolize the microphone on my system. It became quite a problem. This was exacerbated when Skype made me impossibly quiet, so those of us in OHAC made the quick switch to Google Meet and haven’t looked back. I use it as well for Comical Start, and have had no issues. It hasn’t crashed or disconnected on us, and allows us to set meeting times. Compared to Skype, it is close to perfect for my use case.It was a common occurrence that Jack would need to restart his computer because of a Skype issue. That doesn’t happen anymore, which has resulted in a significant improvement on his punctuality.
On the side, OHAC uses Slack for communication as well. It’s great for quickly sharing pictures or links or whatever.
Personal Recording
I, and all of my cohosts (with now the notable exception of Mikhail) use Audacity, which is one of the ugliest yet functional applications I’ve used. It’s use for me is quite straightforward. The default settings are all quite good for podcasting, so it’s just a matter of making sure you have the correct microphone selected and hitting the big recording button. After that, it can export to a variety of formats (we use WAV for editing purposes) and it’s never failed on me.
Of course the best part is that it’s free. It’s a fantastic open source piece of software available on every operating system. If you ever want to get into basic audio stuff, just start with Audacity to get a taste for it.
I’ll have a lot more to say about Audacity in my editing post, but in the context of this post it’s simply a great way to record myself each week.
Group Recording
This was the trickiest part. There actually used to be an excellent Skype recording utility on Linux, but it was rendered completely broken with a Skype update last Octoboer (or so). Between that and my subsequent move to Meet, I had to find another way to record generic audio that wasn’t tied to a specific application. Then I came across the aptly named Audio-recorder for Linux. It’s an incredibly straightforward application that just works for me. You can easily choose your source for the audio (which then allows for recording things like music as you play it, but don’t tell anyone I said that.) You can also define custom sources, which I do.
I need to be able to record everybody (i.e. the people in my headphones and myself) at once to sync things up for editing. I create my own source consisting of the speakers and my microphone, and record the start of each podcast. I can then export it to the folder of my choosing (shown above). It’s such a tiny understated application. The only annoyance is that it forces itself on top of every other application, but because it’s so small that hasn’t been a problem.
So there you go! That’s my general podcasting set-up. I know I don’t have a complicated way of doing things. As you’ll learn in my hardware post, I’m not using analog mics with an interface or anything, which simplifies the process a lot. In either case, I was surprised by how easy it was to get started with podcasting on Linux. I had been afraid for a while, and now I think it’s much easier than it was on Windows.