We ♥ Podcasting.

We’re learning as we go. And we’re here to share it with you as we DO.

It’s probably not a huge secret, but we love podcasting! As we write this today just a few weeks into launching our podcast - we have found this medium to be the perfect mix that allows us to make friends in the industry, share our own voices + stories, lift important topics + issues and (gosh darn it) have a lot of fun along the way.

Since we’ve launched the We Are For Good Podcast in August 2020, we’ve had friends reach out asking for the nitty gritty of what we use, how we coordinate the show.

And you know us - sharing is caring! So this page will be updated from time-to-time with all our favorite resources, hacks and lessons learned. We will update this page as we go - and of course, please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions or if we can be helpful to you as you are pursuing your own podcasting journey.

Please note: this page does include some affiliate links to the products and services that we love and use. What this means is we may make a small commission if you decide to click and purchase through our links (thank you!). We always want to be fully transparent - but please know we obviously wouldn’t endorse something that we don’t love. So this list comes from a place of service and friends helping friends do more. Ok, here we go!

Easy + Fun Hack: After each interview we take a picture with our guests! We cram around the tv and use our iPhone photo timer to snag it. This gives us great sharable content for social media and gives us an excuse to superfan and get a photo with each of our awesome guests! Win! Win!

Our Fave Podcasting Resources

Our podcasting setup is designed around our specific style of show and our goals for the distribution of the content we create. I’d encourage you to think through some of the factors of what you want your show to look like (both now and in the future) and to think through to what extent you want to share the content you will be creating. Each of these factors could impact the equipment you will need to accomplish your goals.

What type of show do you want to have? We really tried to think as longterm as possible so as to buy the equipment and create the type of setup that will scale with us. For us, here’s what we wanted our podcasting setup to entail and a couple of our goals for the show:

Have a show with 2 co-hosts both live in-person together (and the ability to do so remotely if needed)
Have a producer live on-site who has the ability to join the conversation on microphone
Have a predominantly interview-style show format by welcoming remote guests from around the globe.
Have the ability to record video + audio of the entire interview (both locally and virtually)
Create the highest quality possible show for all platforms
Create a turnkey setup and something that would minimize the post-production work

Each of these factors influenced our decision for the equipment we purchased. In essence we are producing a fully produced video of each episode in-house at the same time we are producing a high quality audio experience. So there are a few moving parts to be able to do this. But it’s not as complicated as it sounds!

The Equipment

audio equipment

SOUNDBOARD

RodeCaster Pro - Soundboard designed for podcasting. A Soundboard is a must if you are recording more than one local microphone. We love this board because of its simplicity (we aren’t sound tech experts!) and the ability to record in multi-channel format for post-production if you have a guest or host who was extra quiet - you can adjust this later because it records each audio channel separately.

Rode AI-1 - When we aren’t together in the same space to record - we each plug our mics into this before plugging in the computer. The audio quality is substantially better than just plugging in a mic via USB - so worth the investment! This also gives you a professional audio jack for some amazing studio headphones so you can pod in style :)

MICROPHONES, ARMS & CABLES

Rode PodMic - We have three of these. These mics get great reviews - they look great, sound great and are part of the Rode family, which we decided to stick with after selecting our soundboard. Keep in mind, these mics require some type of stand or arm to stand up.

H&A Broadcast Arm - We have one of these for each of our mics (so three total). It allows you to float the microphone in front of you and adjust the placement easily. There’s a ton of different options - but I liked how this particular model hides the cords within the arm just to make it look less cluttered.

Microphone Cables - you need to get cables (pick the right length!) to connect your mics to the soundboard. If you buy the broadcast arms above, those come with cable within the arm, so you will be fine if those are placed close to the soundboard. However, if there will be much distance beyond a couple feet - you’ll want to grab some extension cables.

HEADPHONES

B&O H4 Over-the-Ear Headphones - I love good design and wanted a comfortable headphone for each of us since we are sometimes recording 4 episodes in one sitting. Although you can totally find other cheaper options - we just loved the style and comfort factors. Keep in mind, to plug these headphones into the Soundboard you will need an adapter (see below). There are plenty of other headphone options that wouldn’t require this adapter - but just giving you the exact items we LOVE! :)

Headphone adapter to convert the small 3.5mm output on our B&O H4 headphones to the 1/4 headphone jack on the soundboard.

VIDEO EQUIPMENT

VIDEO PROUDUCTION HUB
SlingStudio - We record all our interviews from multiple angles within the studio and record the Zoom feed of our guest. SlingStudio allows us to bring all those feeds into one iPad app for on-the-fly production of video content. It does this by creating it’s own wireless network that your sources can join (see iPhone’s below) and then Julie is able to select the camera angle live and create a seamless produced video. It also has the capability to be done as Live Feeds for Facebook or YouTube - but we haven’t tested those waters yet.

VIDEO CAMERAS
iPhone SE - We have 3 iPhone SEs and set them up as our cameras around the studio. We selected iPhones because they can provide a wireless connection to SlingStudio and provide high quality 4k video

OTHER EQUIPMENT

COMPUTERS
Jon and Julie are Apple fan boy and girl - and they’ve convinced Becky of the ways over the years too. We all work from MacBook Pros and they provide the power and portability factor to handle all our client consulting work in addition to the capabilities to drive the podcast recording elements.

STUDIO FURNITURE & SETUP

DESKS, CHAIRS & TV
Our studio setup includes two CB2 Go-Cart desks on casters with bungee-style rolling chairs, a 32” Samsung Frame TV (for displaying our guests live from the Zoom call), and it’s centered on our custom-built pegboard gallery wall by my friend Daniel Daily.

Online Services

PODCAST HOSTING
Buzzsprout - We love this podcast hosting platform. Buzzsprout helps you setup accounts with all the main podcast platforms, and then creates a one stop shop for you to upload and release each episode. We upload the final audio of each episode into Buzzsprout, schedule it’s release date/time and it automatically distributes and syndicates it to all podcast platforms - easy peezy. We love geeking out to the stats it provides and the overall ease of use. Use this link to signup and when you upgrade to a paid plan after two billing cycles you will get an Amazon $20 gift card (and we will too!) Score!

PODCAST RECORDING SOFTWARE (ONLINE!)
Riverside.fm - We’ve recently made the switch to Riverside so we can have a fully virtual studio (each of us recording from different locations) and this platform makes it super easy (and great audio/video quality to boot!) The secret sauce here is Riverside will locally record the audio/video for each person on the recording. So this means even if someone cuts out because of bad Wi-Fi for a few seconds - it is still recorded locally as if nothing stopped! It really is magical, and we’ve found it to be worth the investment.

AUDIO RECORDING
Adobe Audition - There are some great free options for audio recording, however we opted for Adobe Audition because we already have an Adobe Creative Cloud membership and it offers a nice amount of features.

MUSIC
Audiio - This is the site we used to find our podcast intro music and music we use for mid-roll ads during our show. We LOVE it because it’s royalty free for life and compared to many others we find their selection high quality and not cheesy! We bought a lifetime membership because we knew we could use this for future videos as well.

WEBSITE
Squarespace - We use Squarespace to power our entire website - but it also provides an awesome, easy-to-use backbone for our show notes using the blog feature. The analytics are great and ease of use are second-to-none. Our website is built upon the Ghost Squarespace Theme called Ryder.

SCHEDULING
Calendly is a super easy solution instead of going back-and-forth 20 times with guests to find a time to record. This online service syncs with your calendar(s) and allows your guests to select a time to record that works with their schedule knowing the times they are selecting from are already available for your team. Win, Win!

PODCAST RANKINGS
Chartable.com is the place to find and track your podcast’s category and overall rankings (it’s like the box office of podcasting!). You can setup a profile to more deeply explore your metrics.