From Idea to Air: Mastering Your Podcast Prep

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Boomer Podcasters, the podcast that is here to help baby boomers, Gen X, Gen Z, Gen Y, and anyone else start a podcast.

We will help with everything you need from equipment like microphones, programs to record your audio and video.

If you are going to do a video podcast from Start to publishing with a host, this podcast is for you.

Podcasting is a great medium as well as a lot of fun.

So sit back and get ready to learn about the podcasting world.

Now, here is your host and podcaster himself, Gray Hair Dave.

Well, well, well.

What did you think of her, folks?

That is a voice from 11 Labs IO.

I'm going to keep using her for a while.

I want to have consistency in my intro.

There's all kinds of different intros.

I want you to know about that now.

But, hey, thanks for being here.

My name's Gray Hair Dave.

Now, Gray Hair Dave has a couple other podcasts out there.

One of them is Five Minutes with Gray Hair Dave.

That's the number, Five Minutes with Gray Hair Dave.

Another one that I'm very, very proud of, I did with my brother.

It's called Poetry of Christian Faith.

My brother, as a Christian poet, has three published books, and we talk about faith and we talk about his poetry and life and things that have gone on in our lives eventually.

And it's very, very interesting out there looking for something good to listen to, clean.

It's not explicit.

Check them out for me.

I think you'll enjoy them both.

So I let you know that I use AI for my intro for a reason.

I want to be consistent.

I want you to hear consistency from me.

That's the reason I'm using that intro now on Five Minutes with Gray Hair Dave.

Sometimes I use an intro, sometimes I don't.

It depends on me and my feelings that day and whether or not I want to use one.

It just.

I don't need to be consistent in that one.

I've got 136 of them out there.

People aren't expecting that kind of consistency with the beginning.

So now we had an intro to Poetry of Christian Faith that was the same every time, but it was a musical intro.

And I want you to think about those types of things, too.

Do you want an intro to your podcast?

If you do, I think that's a great idea.

Okay.

If you do not, I think that that's a fine idea, too.

Don't get me wrong.

An intro is something that brings people into the beginning and they know it.

There's a couple of podcasts that I listen to that, have intros.

Some of them will talk for a second or two and then go to the intro and then come back out of it and go into what they're doing.

It's.

It's up to you.

It's your show, okay?

So no matter what goes on, remember, you make the decisions here.

Not me, not your host, not your partner.

Unless you have a partner.

So today we're supposed to talk about episode prep and what to do for that and how to prepare as well as audio interfaces.

I'm going to leave audio interfaces till the end.

But let's recap on what we've talked about so far.

We talked about what is a podcast, right?

We've talked about what is a daw, a digital audio workstation, which is where you record your voice into so that you can then edit it and put it out into the world.

Next.

We talked about microphones, the different kinds of microphones, condensers, mic condenser microphones, dynamic microphones.

And today being episode prep and interfaces.

I want you to be prepared for this, just like a teacher would if they were, you know, still teaching or if they are still teaching.

I think teachers make great podcasters to a point.

Not to a point where they're grading me on whether or not I show up every week to listen, but they're prepared, they really are.

If you listen to five minutes of gray haired Dave, that's a solo podcast.

It's just me for about 10 or 12 minutes a day, two or 12 minutes at a time.

It's me rambling about whatever I want to talk about that day.

It's not structured to I where I have written down notes, I used to write down outline for it, and every time I did it never went there.

And that's okay because it's my podcast or it's your podcast.

You do it the way you want to do it, but it works for me.

Do I have a huge following?

Yeah.

Now, yes and no.

Depends on the day.

I do have people who listen to me all over the world.

I have people from Russia, from Mexico, from Germany, Great Britain, from Australia, from Canada.

I even got one in Austria who listens.

I think that's pretty cool.

And that's something we're talking about next week, which is hosting.

Hosting is probably going to be a little bit longer podcast because there are so many different choices out there and I want to run through them really quickly with you each one.

So just want you to know about that.

That's next week, but Preposo prepisode episode Prep.

I could call it prepositing, couldn't I?

That's prepisode.

I like that word.

I'm going to keep it preposoting for your podcast is getting prepared.

There's all kinds of different ways to do this, but first of all, let's talk about the top seven most popular podcast formats.

First, there's interview podcasts, the Joe Rogan's of the world.

A lot of the actors or former actors who are produced by bigger companies are doing interviews where they'll bring in guests.

If that's something you're going to do, that's an interview show and there's different kinds of ways to do that.

An interview shows where you do the interview for, you produce it, right?

You're going to interview the person and you're going to go ahead and you're going to take outtakes from that, from your questions and say, well, Joe, what do you think about this?

As you, you're going to say that and you're going to pull out of that recording that you have what they said about that, but not all the fluff or the other things that went on in between.

There's that way of doing it.

There's also just, hey, open it up.

And that's more of a narrative kind of a interview process.

But it's, it's important.

But there's also the ones where it's just, and I see this a lot also with a lot of actors out here who are doing video at the same time.

And they will, you know, they'll bring a person in for an hour and they'll chat and there'll be three of them there.

They've got a, there's a, you know, there's the main, the main podcaster and then there'll be the producer sitting there with them and the guest and they're all sitting there with SM7B microphones and they got somebody back in the booth watching all the numbers and all, you know, watching everything.

That's not.

Unless you got a bunch of money.

That's not how we are going to start out.

If you can.

That's fantastic though.

I mean, that's a great way to go.

So there's the interview kind of broadcast podcast.

Then there's a conversational Poetry of Christian Faith was a conversational podcast.

That's where my brother and I, we would talk back and forth.

We would have a conversation of the day, as it were.

He would read a couple poems, we would talk about it.

And it always brought up memories, which we would talk about too.

Those are conversational.

Those I personally find likable.

Most of the ones that I listen to, not all, but most of them are conversational.

Next, you've got educational podcasts.

Educational podcasts are exactly what they say.

I'm going to talk today about how to podcast, how to, how to prepare or prepisode your podcast, right?

Which means we're going to plan it out.

Here's how it goes.

Step by step by step by step by step.

As I do a golf swing, right?

Step by step by step by step.

Here's how you build a model train.

Step by step by step by step.

Those are educational podcasts.

We've already talked about solo podcasts.

And not all solo podcasts are seat of the pants, as it were.

Not flying off handle about this or that.

Or maybe you are.

Maybe that is your stick or maybe that is your, your, you know, your, your catch, right?

You're just, you're ranting and raving about whatever you want to rant and rave about.

Then there's a nonfiction storytelling, right?

There's a couple of them out there on True Crime or one out there I know of for sure where the guy talks about a different movie that was released the same week that he's producing and putting his episode out there.

And he talks about three different movies that were released that week in the past.

And he breaks them down.

And you'll have clips from those, audio clips from those, which means he's putting a lot of time and a lot of effort into that.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

Nothing at all.

Now, the sixth one is, excuse me, is podcast theater.

Have you ever thought about putting on a show on a podcast?

You can, you can bring a cast of people in, or it can be just you and your, you and somebody else, or can just be you reading a play, reading a novel, whatever, however you want to do it.

Then there's a bite size or limited run podcaster.

Say you, you want to talk about how to make french fries, right?

Well, that may only be a 10 podcast series.

Or you want to talk about how to gap a spark plug the proper way.

Well, that might only be a one or a two podcast series.

You know, those are, those are the types of different things and they're usually bite sized because it is.

Once you get most of it out, you've gotten most of it out, right?

Now that's just a bit of them.

That's not all of them.

But I want you to think about it.

If you're going to have a podcast, I want you to have some goals.

So I need you to start writing these things down.

What are your goals?

You know, what's your one month goal, what your first goal should be.

What is this going to be about?

What kind is it going to be?

I think your second goal is what am I good at talking about for more than two or three minutes.

Okay.

And after that, I think you ought to go into what is this going to be mean?

What type is it going to be?

Conversational, nonfictional, Solo podcast?

Do you want to bring in friends?

Do you want to be those four guys sitting in the basement drinking beer, having a podcast?

Hey, go ahead, that's fine.

It's great.

Do whatever you want to do.

But what are your goals?

Where do you want to be?

What do you want to have it?

What do you want to have it do?

I guess is the one way to say, what do you want to have it do?

Okay.

Also in that, preparing, in that one to three months, how often do you want to produce?

Right.

Poetry of Christian faith?

I'm going to go back and reference these ones that I've had before.

We did 100 shows over two years.

We did it every week.

We took a month off one year, rebranded, because we weren't getting the numbers that we both wanted.

So we tried a different tack and it helped.

But, you know, after 100, my brother got and we came to a decision and preyed upon it a lot and decided that that's where we were going to end.

He wanted to end around 98 or 99, and I talked him into 100, but that was a weekly show.

Now, five minutes with Gray Hair Dave started out as an experiment for me.

I wanted to do a podcast five days a week and make it short, make it sweet.

And I did that.

I did that for 100, and I did it for 100 episodes.

No, I did it for 120 episodes.

And it got to be too much to where I wasn't consistent.

I couldn't come up with something to say or I had things going on, or it was.

It doesn't matter.

So I decided that I was going to change the way I was doing things and I went back to a weekly process, you know, a weekly format where it's still the same thing.

It's still me chatting about whatever I want to chat about as a baby boomer.

But it's.

It's weekly now.

And a lot of the reason behind that, as I was getting prepared for this show here, this show just didn't pop into my head.

I've been preparing for this show for over a year.

Do you need to prepare for over a year?

No.

Part of mine was, I think about it for a couple minutes here or there, put it down for a week.

Right.

Something else would pop into my head.

I'd write it down.

I have a notebook that I keep on my desk, and it's just for this podcast, what I want to do with it.

You know, notes about kinds of this or that, you know, microphone types or.

Right now, the show is running off of an outline.

I've had to decide what I'm going to talk about each week and make that an outline.

And then in that outline, I put another outline.

Right.

So I want to talk about prepisodes and how to do them.

So let's get into that, and then we'll get into something else.

Right?

But for each episode, I want you to think about a couple things.

If you're going to have hosts and interviews, you're going to do that kind of a show.

Do yourself a favor, get a couple of interviews recorded before you go ahead and put the podcast out to the world, because you've got to do all the editing and make it sound right.

Am I right?

Sorry about that.

I was turning a page.

See, I have notes.

So also, I want you to know this.

On all of these different types of podcasts, you can do it three different ways.

Scripted, outline, or just by the seat of your pants.

There's many variables in between.

I want you to know that.

But if you're going to script, it means you write it out in advance or you type it out in advance, put it on your laptop.

However you do it, and you just, you just read the words off, and after you practice more and more and more, they'll flow better.

But it's just like giving a speech and you're right there and you're.

Or whatever, and you're going on with it.

Now, some of this might need to be scripted.

If you're doing a, A, an outline show, which is what this is I'm going to do, I'm going to talk about this one and this one and this one and this one in the subject, subject, subject.

And it's.

It was that way last week when I was talking about microphones and microphone types.

Next week, when I'm talking about editing programs, it'll be this program, this program, this program, this program.

And what it, you know, I can't go through and script that.

That's too hard for me.

That's not how I'm.

That's not how I am built.

Okay?

And then there's the one who.

They're all just off the wall, like five minutes of gray hair day.

So once you've made those decisions, the prep is very important.

If you're going to be informational or educational, you need to have your references ready.

You also probably should be putting your references in your show note.

Show notes are very, very important.

We're going to talk about show notes.

Show notes are something that are.

Are just as important as the podcast itself, in my mind, because what it is, it's not just the transcript of what you said.

It's the thoughts of what you said.

It's the breakdown of what you said.

So show notes are very important, too.

And we're going to.

I'm going to show you how I do them, I'm going to show you an easy way to do them, and I'm going to show you a hard way to do them.

You pick.

So here's what I do for this show.

I write down what the theme is going to be about, right?

So today, prepisodes.

Basically, it's preparing for your episode.

And then I'm going to talk about what kinds, which I've already done.

Then I'm going to talk about references.

So again, if you're using references, and I do.

I use references a lot.

You're gonna.

You're gonna go down through.

Now, where did I get these three types of.

I'm sorry, seven types of podcast structures from the Internet?

I got.

I got it online right now.

There's lots of places you can go.

I got this book from Amazon a year ago.

It's called an episode planner.

It basically says.

And it's.

It's got different pages.

You know, it's probably about 100 pages long.

And it's tells you say, do an introduction, do a topic, 1, 2, 3, and 4, and the conclusion.

Or if you're an interview, here's an interview planner.

The guest's name, their date, the phone number and email you're going to talk to them about what are your topics and what are the questions.

It gives you that to prepare for your guests.

You know, what are your talking points?

What are you going to talk about?

What are your times?

You know, all these fun things.

You can go to Amazon, just type in podcast planner.

It's cheap.

I think it was like 10 bucks.

And I'll be honest with you, it doesn't even tell you who wrote it.

I really don't know who wrote it, which I find interesting because there's nothing in here, all it says is made in the United States, Orlando, January 17, 2022.

It doesn't say anything else.

Maybe Amazon made it.

Maybe Amazon made it up after I asked for it.

I don't know.

It don't matter.

If that's something you're interested in, go look it up.

Okay, but I'm going to put some.

I'm going to put in the PDF in this weekend.

The whole PDF is going up about everything.

It'll be on the website.

Boomer, podcasters.com all right, but plan it.

If you're going to, if you're going to outline it, outline.

If you're going to write it out, write it out.

If you're going to go off the wall, start with at least a topic, please.

Topics are important.

I personally don't come up with the show name until I've done the podcast.

As I'm editing and I'm listening, I am then determining what the name is going to be.

For years, that's how I did it.

I now have other ways.

I will explain other ways as we get further along.

But I want you to realize, if you want to make, if you want to start out your podcast by going with a name.

So today's podcast is going to be Sally's how to Make French Soup or French Onion Soup.

There's your show, and you go from there.

That's a great way to do it.

If you're going to do educational or you're going to do.

Excuse me, if you're going to do nonfictional, if you're going to do bite size or even.

Excuse me, Interview.

Because interview says, hey, folks, today we're talking with Joe Sams from XYZ Company.

There's your, there's your, there's your, your.

Your podcast name for the show.

Name for the show.

And you go from there.

Me on Five Minutes with Gray Hair Dave.

I go backwards to find it, read it.

I, you know, I record it.

I edit it.

From that editing, I decide what it is.

I want to say, okay, now, when we were doing, when we were doing Poetry of Christian Faith, we talked about what we wanted the name to be after the show.

So we recorded both audio and video on that one.

And video recording is going to come after editing, after, after hosting and editing.

I might move that up, but we were doing that on a video.

So afterwards we end the recording and you go into a green room, because there's programs out there, like Riverside, where you start in a green room, you record, and then at the end you stop recording.

And you stay in the green room, which is what they call it, which is, if you think about it, you got to remember there's new terminology you're going to need to know.

Green rooms are one of them.

I mean, and you are now in an entertainment world.

An entertainment world has a different genre of names or a different dialect.

It has a different kind of talking way that you know the words that they use.

You need to get used to some of these.

Like the word latency.

I mean, that's just the delay from you talking to it being to you hearing it bouncing when you edit.

You don't you do on some programs, on some of these editing programs that I'm going to show you on your daw.

You.

Some have it exporting.

Most they call it bouncing.

I want to bounce it out from here onto wherever I want it to go.

Do we need to know why that name is there?

Some people are going to need to know.

I'm not always going to have that answer.

I'm just going to tell you this is what it is and this is what you need to do.

Okay?

That's all that matters.

It's all that matters.

So let's move on.

We're almost at 20 minutes here, or 25.

Let's move on to.

And I hope that I answered your questions on preposition or preparing for your episode.

It depends on how you want to do it.

But you need to have a little bit out there and ready if you're going to talk about nuclear fission today.

Have some notes ready.

Okay.

Have it prepared.

If you're going to just talk about whatever's on the popular top of your head, it don't matter.

All right, so let's move on to audio interfaces.

So, so great here.

Dave, do I need an audio interface?

Probably not.

You have a dynamic microphone.

It probably has USB cables that came with it.

Now, if it's just an XLR microphone, it can still be dynamic.

You need to go into an XLR cable, won't go into your computer.

So you need an audio interface.

Well, what's an audio interface?

Basically, it takes the.

It takes the waves, the sound waves from your microphone and transfers them to your computer through electronics.

They also have 48 volt Phantom power.

They are also a preamp.

They.

They do a lot of different things for you.

You can also get some that, you know, you can adjust the gain.

Gain is what you and I would normally would call volume.

Right.

On some, you can adjust the gain.

There's some that, like there's a focus.

Right.

Scarlet Solo where you can adjust your gain and you can adjust the pan.

Pan means side to side.

It's $99 now.

Is that a lot?

Could be.

Mine's a zerringer and I have faders and I have, I have reverb on it.

All kinds of extra things that I didn't really need in the beginning.

Get one, you plug it in, you do the volume and it does the rest.

For you.

Behringer you, you, for you.

It's a, it's a USB interface.

You plug your XLR in, you can adjust your gain, you can adjust your output to your headphones and then you can plug it into your computer and it's great.

And then there you go.

Now if you have a USB microphone, you don't need an interface.

A lot of these you can use an interface if it has the right kind of port for you in the back.

Some of these interfaces you can go out there and buy now.

Like there's one out there by fee.

Fine.

And it's 40 bucks or it's 50 bucks.

And it gives you faders, it gives you different options for changing your voice.

You can put in, you know, extra things like if you want that kind of a thing or cheering or whatever.

Make sure that if you have an XLR microphone, which is a 3 pin XLR, not a USB that it accepts it in the back.

Because this, this fifine or F I F I N E gaming audio mixer for 50 bucks does not have a USB in.

It has a line in with a quarter inch receiver but it doesn't have usb which means you would need to find a different way to do that.

So be careful what you buy.

If you're going to do XLR to xlr, that's great.

If you're going to do XLR to usb, it's hard.

You gotta, gotta do a little bit of research or send me an email and I'll talk with you about it.

Now if you don't have a, a microphone or anything yet, let's talk about that.

And you wanted to buy a all in one kit, right?

You said Dave, what?

I just, I don't want to have to deal with this or that.

I want it to all come together and be, be taken care of.

All I do is just plug stuff in.

So let's say you want to do that where you get the microphone, the interface and the headsets.

The Focusrite Scarlett 4th Generation is about $219.

It comes with the interface, a condenser microphone and a headset and the cables.

Again, condenser microphones.

Unless you're in a very, very well treated room for sound, you're going to pick up everything you really want to start out inexpensively.

There's a bunch of different ones out there.

Like here's one for $39.

It's a condenser microphone again by a Powell, a Lpowl.

There's just all these names I've never, ever heard of.

If you're paying $39 for a microphone and interface, XLR cables and make sure you also get the cable that goes from the back of the interface over to your computer.

Do yourself a favor and don't get the $39 one, okay?

Just don't.

You're not going to be happy with it.

Here is a fee.

Fine.

I think that's how you spell it.

Fifine.

I don't know.

Podcast equipment Bundle set for 80 bucks.

It's got a Dynamics Micro Dynamic microphone, a USB audio mixer with XLR input.

Okay.

This one doesn't have a whole lot of bells and whistles, which you don't need in the beginning because sometimes XLR interfaces give you more buttons and knobs and you need to.

Don't.

All of a sudden you're playing with stuff and you don't know how to get it back to where you belong.

Start simple, right?

There's that old phrase, keep it simple, right?

There's a word after that that I don't want to use.

So there's that.

Okay, These will all be.

I'll put the links in show note or not in the show notes, but I'll put them on the website.

So I'm suggesting to you, if you're going to do it, if you're going to do condenser microphone with an XLR cable or a dynamic with an XLR cable going to an interface, Start out with one that, that's.

That's simple.

Start out with a Scarlet.

Start out with a fifi.

Now they're a very good company.

I have never had a problem with theirs.

There's a couple of them that I don't hate.

There's also a Presonus, which I think is very, very good.

But you can get just that.

Fifine audio mixer for 54 bucks, right?

There's a gainy one they've got.

That's 50 bucks and it's got all the little extras there for you.

It's.

It's cute.

There's a Moano podcast bundle for 95 bucks, which isn't terrible.

It gives you everything you need.

Gives you, gives you some Latitude to try different things with it.

But it comes with a 3.5 microphone input, which isn't that easy to find sometimes.

This looks like it goes from an XLR to a.

A 3.5 millimeter or it goes from a night they give you the cables for 3.5 to or 3 to a USB C or B or A, sorry, USB A or USB C, which is good.

And it comes with a pop filter.

Folks, I cannot tell you enough how much a pop filter does for you.

They may.

You may think, oh, I don't.

I don't need that.

Yes, you do.

Just you do.

Put it on there.

It helps you with the plosives, the P's, the B's, the D's, the T's and the S's.

Okay, so that's what I got for today.

Let's recap.

Really quick prepisoding.

I like that word.

We're going to prep a sode.

Make sure you prepare.

Be ready.

If you're going to be an outline, be an outline.

If you're going to be a scripted podcast, be prepared.

Write it out, read through it before you go ahead and start recording.

Remember, guys and girls, your first recording is probably not going to be your best work.

You will get better.

You will.

And you'll get better at editing.

Or you'll send your editing out to a guy like me.

And if you want to send your editing to me, I'm willing to do it for you.

It just know that the first one is not always going to be the best.

There's an old saying, do five, throw them underneath your bed and then keep going because they're not going to be any good.

You never know.

Those first five might be gold.

You never know with me.

I like showing the first vibe to show how I'm growing and how I'm getting better at it anyways.

Be prepared.

All right?

If you're going to have a guest, be prepared with a guest.

Have the questions ready.

Make sure that they're going to be there that day.

You are constantly in contact with them, saying, hey, here's what we're going to do today.

Don't forget, today's the day we're recording.

If there's a link you're going to use, like ECAMM Live or squadcast or Restream or Riverside or even if you're going to use Zoom, make sure they have the link and that they're prepared.

Send them a couple of sample questions if you can, just to get an idea.

Make sure they know what you're trying to do.

Okay, so that's being prepared as well.

I'm trying to say, folks, is be prepared.

You wouldn't go on a 3,000 mile trip without looking at a map first, right?

Or putting it into your navigation on your, on your vehicle.

Right?

Well, that's preparing.

Am I right?

I'm right.

Okay, good.

Thank you for, for agreeing with me.

Next is audio interfaces.

I don't use one right now.

I really, really don't.

I don't use one.

I'll try it again in a few episodes.

I'll put, I'll use a different one.

I use.

I'll put the audio interface back on and I'll go that route for you just so you can hear the differences.

The problem being you're not going to know the differences without me showing them to you.

Because I'm editing it and when I'm editing it, I edit it to get it sounding a certain way.

So there's a recap.

Hopefully you're okay with all that.

A couple of things.

If you like this, please subscribe.

Please follow.

Sorry.

If you've got any thoughts, please go to boomerpodcasters.com leave me a message.

You can either do it through the contact me page or you can, you can leave me a message, a voicemail on the website.

Either way, you got to put in your email address.

And I am not the type of person who sells their email addresses to anybody.

I'm selfish.

I keep them for myself.

I may send you info about what's going on.

I may send you options for four deals like hey, I've got T shirts or whatever, let me know.

Talk to me.

Also folks, don't forget, if you know somebody who doesn't know what a podcast is, doesn't know where to find one, doesn't know how to play one, subscribe or follow.

Doesn't know the different genres.

Help me out, tell them where they are, where to find them.

Also, don't forget, smile at somebody today.

You don't know.

You will make their day and they will make yours, whether you believe it or not.

So on behalf of Gray Haired Dave here over at Gray Hair Productions, I've been excited to get this one out today and I hope you enjoyed it.

And we will talk next week and next week.

Don't forget, next week is hosts and hosting companies.

So that one ought to be fun.

Actually, I'm looking forward to that one a lot.

So you all have a great day and we will talk next week.

Bye.