Beginners in the podcasting arena can start broadcasting their shows with very little in terms of financial investment in the podcasting equipment. Most people can start with just the hardware that came bundled with their computer, but to get high quality podcast audio that people will enjoy listening to many podcasters will invest in more intermediate recording and editing components. This article discusses the equipment needed to use a computer as a podcast production workstation.
Basic Equipment Needs for Creating A Podcast:
In essence, all a person needs to record a podcast is a microphone and a storage device. The microphones that come with most computers are definately usable for this purpose, but most dedicated podcasters will want to invest in a headset and microphone combo unit or a dedicated USB microphone with higher quality components. The cheaper the microphone the cheaper the recording will generally be. It is far better to start with good audio than to try to fix noisy audio in an editing program. Other than the microphone, a computer user will need a software program to record the audio with and an editing program to polish the completed recording for broadcast.
Podcast Recording and Editing Software:
One of the most popular software programs available for amateur podcasters is the freeware audio editor known as Audacity. Audacity works on both Mac and PC, and will not only capture recorded audio but also allows the user to cut, paste, and acoustically modify the recording before publication. Using the tools in Audacity ambient room noise can be removed and the entire file acoustically compressed to make a much better sounding output file. Best of all, Audacity is free and available for download at any time!
By using the microphone that come bundled with most new computers a podcast producer can easily get the audio into the computer and proceed to the next step of editing.
Next: How To Record A Podcast
