Podiatrist's Guide to Audio Equipment

You're listening to podiatry marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.

Welcome back to the podiatry marketing podcast. I'm your host Jim McDannald. With me as always is Tyson Franklin. Tyson, how's things going today?

Fantastic today, Jim. Good to be here, and I'm loving this the the topic we're gonna talk about today. It's right up my alley.

No. I'm looking forward to it as well. I just, I hope the the audience, the the geeks, the the techies, the people that like gear are gonna be ready for what we're gonna talk about today.

I hope so too. It's gonna be one of those subjects. Well, today we're gonna be talking about audio equipment. So and this follows on from last week's episode where we were talking about podcast marketing. So I thought it'd be really good to sort of get a little bit geeky and talk about the type of equipment, mainly because when I talk to people about using audio, and it's not using audio isn't just about creating a podcast.

There's so many ways that you can use audio. First question people always ask me, oh, what microphone should I have? What should I do here? So I thought, well, let's let's go through the list of all the different things that you would need. And and if people are a little bit geeky like us, they'll sort of gonna go, oh, this is so good.

Well, people always jump to the gear. Right? They jump to the gear, like, what's the type different types of gear. But is there something people should be thinking about a little bit before that, before they just, like, dive deep into the, like, the endless amount of gear that's available out there.

Yeah. Because it's funny. Somebody said to me, I said, wanna get I wanna just start a podcast. I went, okay. They said, what microphone should I use?

I went, seriously, that's your first question, is what microphone? I don't care what microphone you get. There's a few questions you need to ask before. So that's to do with podcasting. But just in general, when it's coming to audio equipment, first thing you need to ask yourself is for what purpose?

What are you planning to use the audio for? So if you wanna do podcasting, there's a certain amount of equipment you need to have to create a good podcast. There's certain equipment. If you don't have it, you're gonna create a really crappy podcast, and I've heard a few of them. If you want to use audio for training in your business, so you may be creating manuals, but you're thinking, I wanna create some audio files so they can listen to what it is that I'm trying to explain.

It's a different setup. Again, if you wanna create an audiogram where you're combining pictures and audio together that you wanna use on social media, once again, it's different type of equipment. So that's what I wanna run through is, first off, think about what do you wanna use audio for, and then I'm gonna sort of run through this list of equipment that I think you should be be looking at anyway.

Excellent. I I can't wait to jump in here because obviously, us having a podcast together is definitely one category. Yeah. But what's what's what and we can jump into what the equipment we use as well. But, you know, when you're when you're talking about solo shows or, you know, guest recordings, what what is that kind of that first amount of equipment or what what kind of things do you use for that type of a setup?

Okay. So yeah. That and that's a really good way to start. So if you were thinking, oh, yeah. I do wanna have a podcast.

Okay. Do you wanna do a solo podcast or do you wanna do an interview podcast? So if you're gonna do a solo podcast, you need one microphone. And with microphones, you there's two couple of different ways of going. You can have what they call USB mic where a USB cable plugs in your microphone straight in your computer, and you can just record on certain software, which we'll get to software later.

If you wanna do an interview style podcast, then you need to and if you're gonna do it live, you need to at least have two microphones. So and you can't plug two microphones in your computer, so therefore, you need to have a mixer so the the microphones need to plug into that mixer. Now some people might say, okay. I, you know, I have a microphone at home that I plug into my amplifier for playing music. And you may find the connection on that microphone, if it's just got the three prongs, that's what they call an XLR microphone, you can't plug that in your computer.

That must go into a mixer, which then through USB cable will go into your computer. So I'm gonna assume most of the people listening to this, if they if they're thinking of starting a podcast, they need to probably dig into a bit more. But I'm I'm gonna talk about audio more as you're probably gonna do either solo or you're gonna use it in some form of your your marketing or for training manuals.

That's awesome. That's really helpful. Obviously, another another form of interviewing is this kind of remote format that you and I use. Obviously, like, we have to be on the same software at the same time, which is definitely something to consider as well.

Well, this is the thing. Like, if you're doing interviews live, you need two microphones, mixer, plug them into that. It goes in your computer. You have software there, and it what it's what they do. It's what you call splitting it into two tracks.

So when you're talking, it splits into one track. When I'm talking, it splits to another. So therefore, while I'm talking, you could be in the background carrying on like a complete pork chop. You could be clicking your fingers and singing and dancing, and I can just cut that all out. Or if I'm talking or if you're talking, my dog barks, who sits under the desk here, which has happened multiple times, then I can just cut that out.

So that's the advantage of having two tracks. What's really good now, even pro even software like Zoom, which everybody would know Zoom at the moment. It's a really simple one, but you can have two people talking on there. I could have one microphone plugged into my computer. You get a viewer computer plugged in, and we can actually record the whole thing on Zoom, and Zoom now splits both tracks.

So you it makes it really easy for editing, but you can't edit on Zoom. You then gotta move that into a different different software to do the editing. And that's why it comes back to, for what purpose do you wanna use the audio, and that will also determine not just the hardware, but it'll also determine the software that you use.

That's a perfect example. I think one other aspect of hardware that's obviously if if people watch the video of this this podcast, they can see that we're both wearing headphones.

And different types.

Do you wanna go over? Yeah. Different types. But do you wanna go over the benefits of utilizing a headphone as opposed to, like, a speaker on your computer? Or, you know, why would someone even consider having these big things on their head or just your earbuds?

Okay. Well, just one step back when it comes to microphones too. There are things called lapel mics, which is just that everyone would have seen them. Yeah. The news readers.

That's a lapel mic and you can yeah. I can actually I've through my mixer, I can use a lapel mic and plug it into my computer if I want to do it that way. But I don't. I choose to use my ATR 2,100. That's that microphone.

Mhmm. And but you can plug lapel mic straight into your phone. That's what they're they're fantastic for putting into your phone. Just another cable that you've gotta connect in there, but, yeah, Rodeo lapel mics are the best ones that I've found to use. But the headphones so you've got the big headphones that sit on your ears, whereas I'm just using the Apple headphones that that plug it.

Now the reason I use the Apple ones, I used to use the big muff ones like I was a radio announcer. Two reasons I changed. One, because I was doing a lot of traveling around and I would be doing podcast recordings on the run from motel rooms, I just wanted to travel light. So it was just one extra thing I had to pack. So I have a like, my podcasting kit that I would take with me, which is a small black box that I'd pack everything into.

And the headphones just took up room. So that was one reason I stopped using them. Second reason I stopped was I was listening to someone who was like a podcast expert, and they said when you're editing podcasts or when you're listening to a podcast, if you can use the same headphones that the average person in the street is using to listening yeah. Are gonna use to listen to your recording, then you get a true indication what it really sounds like. Whereas when you have really good headphones on, sometimes you're hearing this awesome sound, but that may not be what the other person's hearing.

And plus, I can fold these up and stick them in pocket. That's why I use that's why I use just the smaller Apple headphones. What do you what do you use the bigger ones? Other than it looks pretty good. It looks cooler.

Yeah. You look much cooler, but just the sound quality. Know, I work from home

Yeah.

You know, on my computer all day listening to music, and I wanna have kind of the best quality as possible. You know, I live not I live in a city, obviously, in Montreal. So, like, this helps with some noise cancellation as well. I'm not getting any outside interference if I'm riding or if I'm, doing a Zoom call or something like that. It's just it's a little less distracting to have that's on here.

I think one aspect that's important to bring up as well with utilizing either earbuds or with headphones is that sometimes if you're using a speaker or if you're using your own laptop, what will sometimes happen is you can have the sound from the speaker actually bleed into your microphone. So, like, if I'm if you're talking to me and then your voice comes out of my speaker into the microphone, it creates kind of a feedback loop, which can lead to, like, really, really bad and annoying audio. So that's that's one of the reasons why you'll see even, you know, someone doing a YouTube show or something like that. Sometimes they'll consider just utilizing that, especially a remote interview situation. If you're in person, you can have a conversation with someone, and you may not have to to wear headphones.

But it it can be a good way to monitor the audio and also make sure that that you're the person you're having that conversation with isn't coming back through the mic when it's your time when it's your turn to soft.

Yeah. And the other good part with the ATR 2,100 microphone that I use is that it actually has it's got an XLR cable on it as well, so you can use it both ways. Plus, it also has a headphone jack, so you can plug your headphone straight into it. So while you're talking, you can actually hear yourself and see how you sound. But some people may notice when I do a lot of my YouTube videos, I don't actually have headphones on.

They might see the microphone, but I don't have any headphones. But what I do is I test the sound everything beforehand. I I know how I sound, then I take them off because I don't need to hear myself when I'm actually doing a a video. But when you and I are talking, I constantly wanna be able to hear myself because it's also I'm paying attention to other background noises that are going around me, whether it's air conditioner. And we've had a few times where you and I have been talking, and the setup of my computer hasn't worked properly, and you've gone, oh, your sound sense is terrible.

And all of sudden, it was picking up through the comp it was picking up through the computer mic. The settings hadn't been set up properly.

Yeah. It's just good to monitor that audio. You you bring up some good points there. And I think when both people are monitoring, you can make sure it's as high quality as possible.

So the next part I want to talk about was bits of equipment that I think are really important is the little add ons that you use. Like, for example, I have a boom that I have set up on my desk here, I don't actually have to touch my microphone. Because some people will notice you'll listen to some audio recordings, and you'll hear this. That's not my heartbeat. That's the person talking, and they're tapping their microphone at the same time.

And a lot of people who are if you're doing an interview with somebody, and they've got a microphone, and you've got headphones on and this is the benefit of having headphones. If I didn't have headphones on, I'll be able to hear them moving their fingers. So some people just hear that? Just touching the microphone Right. Comes through the microphone.

And that's why it's really important. If you have a boom that you're not actually holding on to the microphone, your hands free, great for Italians because you can throw your hands around the air air while you're talking, and I do that as well. I'm very animated when when I'm talking. It works really well for me to have a boom. Another thing that people will find an advantage when they're doing recordings of the microphone, Some will have like a what's it?

I forgot the name of the name of the Pop pop filter. Yeah. So some people will have like a pop filter over it. So when they're when they're talking, sort of yeah. It stops all the things.

I used to have one of those on here, but I stopped using it because it used to get in the way. It used to annoy me. But I found I didn't pop a lot anyway. I just didn't pop pop. I didn't pop heaps when I was actually talking.

I use more of just a like a a wind thing over the top of it, which is just this foam Yeah. Foam thing. There's a lot of sound effects on this thing today.

I've got one too here, and my my microphone's on a boom. I think it's it just yeah. Just it's out of the way. It's not on desk, not gonna move. It's just right there.

It's actually right below me, so it's pointing directly at my mouth. Yeah. I think I have a shotgun mic unlike you have more of a condenser mic.

It's interesting you bring that up. I before you go any further, because you just said condenser mic, I actually have a dynamic mic.

Oh, dynamic mic. I'm sorry.

So for people who are thinking, okay. Now you can what's the difference? Dynamic mic is more it picks up loud sounds. So if I'm really close to it, it picks up my voice really, really well. And if there's some noise going on in the background like me clicking my fingers like I am at the moment, you don't really pick it up.

It only picks up the sound that's right in front of it. Whereas the condenser mics are a lot more sensitive, and they're the sort of microphones sometimes you'll see the professional guys in the studio where they're whispering, but it'll pick it up really crisp. Problem with that is if there's a little bit of noise anywhere, someone clicking on it, it just picks it up straight over the top of the voice. It it they're really they're a lot more sensitive sort of microphones. Great for radio announces in soundproof rooms that aren't picking anything else up.

But for the average person like you and I, dynamic mic's a lot better. There you go.

Well, one thing before I before I totally derail the conversation, if you do have, you know, a camera or you do have your your webcam for doing a remote interview, you might as well record it. You know, obviously, we use, our recordings more for kind of promotional of our podcast, but there's lots of different ways to repurpose the video of you doing your podcast, whether you're gonna release the entire thing as a video, use it for promotional purposes. But there can be some benefits of using different types of software to record the video along with the audio. And we'll we'll get into software now. I won't I won't turn this into a video podcast

Oh, no.

Tutorial, but but there's definitely, you know, having a a good a good camera just using your webcam is a good place to start.

But that's it's really interesting point you bring up there though. Even though we're talking about audio equipment, if you wanna produce better videos, you need to have better audio. Because if someone will only watch your videos for there's two things about video, lighting and and sound. You might have the greatest lighting and you look fantastic, but the sound is really irritating. People will switch off pretty quickly because we've gotten used to hearing things that that that are appealing to us.

So I think the power of audio is also it makes your videos better. And that's where you may you know, just using the lapel mic and knowing where you've got it positioned. And are you using the lapel mic through your phone or through through something else? Moving on to software. With all software, there's free and there's paid.

Once again, depends what your purpose is. If you're doing a couple of little solo things yourself, you might be doing some recording for training manuals. I reckon just use free recording and editing software like Audacity is a is a great choice. When I did my audio marketing workshop last year on the Gold Coast, which I do plan to do again at some stage, and there was, a full day event, heaps of fun. I had everybody just download Audacity, and I said, this is all I want you using today.

I want you just to learn the basics. But then I showed them the paid software that I use, which is Adobe Audition, and it's about, you know, $29 a month is what I pay, I can just do so many more things with it. And I've every now and gone, you know what? I'm just gonna try Audacity for this next podcast episode just to see how it goes. And I guess I I get about halfway through it.

I go, I'm going back to I'm going back to Adobe Audition. Because I can just there's there's just more bells and whistles to it. So it's comparing, you know, an old Datsun one eighty b to a new BMW. It's just it's just the way that works. Yes.

They're both cars, and they both get you from a to b, but one just does it so much better. And and that's what you're after if you're going to do a lot of recording on a regular basis. And if you're gonna record manuals, could could last, yeah, going for a while, you want something that is really easy to use, really easy to edit. And both those programs, you can actually record directly into and also edit on. So they're both really good programs.

What do you use?

For So when I first got it started, I'm a Mac guy. Right? So Apple provides a free Oh, Garage. Audio editing software called GarageBand. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

So Garage. So generally I use garage.

Sorry. Just just the way you say it. Garage. Sorry.

GarageBand. Yeah. Garage. Garage. GarageBand.

Yes. But, also, I've been utilizing, for our podcast purposes, for the audio and video as a backup. We're using, Riverside.fm, which is a, basically, like a web based, browser, application. So we can, get high quality video, but also high quality auto as a good backup. So, one thing I wanted to mention too is that, you do you do record your this podcast and some of your stuff on on a specific device.

Did you wanna talk about that device at all, or is that just beyond the scope of today's conversation?

I use so when when I'm when I'm doing a podcast, for example, I use Zoom for the video. The video quality is not as good as what Riverside is. However, I'm not chasing awesome video quality. I'm after the audio because that's what the podcast is all about. Even though I still use those videos and I put them onto my YouTube channel.

So I record on Zoom, so it's splitting the tracks. I get the audio and the video from Zoom. But at the same time, I actually record on a thing called a Zoom PodTrak p four. And it's a small little handheld device, which I'd pull it up and show you, but it will disconnect everything. Yes.

It's sitting here on my desk, but I've got all these cables sort of lying over the top of it. It's you got Zoom, which everyone knows it for webinars, but there's a company called Zoom who actually makes these small handheld audio recording devices. And they have a h two, a h four, a h six is what I used to use. And then they came out with this PodTrak p four, which what I like about it, it's got sound effects. It has you can put up to four microphones on there.

You can have a connection where you can have somebody phone in. So it's a really cool device, and that's where so when we're doing this now on Riverside, you're recording the audio, but I'm also recording the audio separately so that I can edit it afterwards.

Perfect. Yeah. That that's a great explanation. I think it just it's good to know to have, you know it's always good to have backups, whether it's software backup like Riverside when we do it, but also that hardware, you know, recording to a memory card like you do with the Zoom pod track.

Yeah. And it's one of those things. If people said to me, my whole podcast setup, if I looked at the equipment that I have and what it actually cost me, my microphone was, $90 at the time when I bought it. The boom was, like, 15. The pod track p four, which is the latest piece of equipment, which is the duck's nuts.

It's pretty good. And it was about $380, I think. And then with all your cables so my whole setup, other than my computer, is probably, yeah, $600, which is not a huge amount of money.

No. That's a solid investment.

Yeah. And even and I look at the quality of the sound that I get. Okay. It's not like Jay Rogan's podcast and the the quality of their sound, but the quality, it to me, is good enough that's appealing to the ear, and that's what you're after.

No. For sure.

So there are couple of other apps that I just wanted to mention too that if you wanted to record straight on your phone, you could be using just your Apple headphones that came with it or AirPods or whatever, or you get a lapel mic and hook it through to your phone. There's a an app that I use called Voice Recorder Pro, which is it's fantastic. Some of my podcasts have actually been released on that where I have done recordings somewhere, and I've just had an idea of thought. Some of my solo episodes, I had my lapel mic. I plugged it into my phone.

I was in a quiet setting, and I just recorded it and released it. And it you can get a free version and a paid version. It's, like, $4. But there's a free version and there's also a mob called rev.com where they have a thing where you can actually record straight into there. But once again, it's usually anything that's super free has its has its limitations, but I think what you pay is not huge amount.

So even when I mentioned Adobe Audition before, and I have a monthly fee for that, yes, it cost me a couple hundred dollars a year to have that. But to me, it's a really, really good investment. Other things I just want to touch on when it comes to audio because I just wanna wrap this up soon. So if you wanna put music over the top of some of your audio tracks or some backing music, the place that I use is called audiojungle.com. So go there and there's a whole pile of music that you pay a one off fee for.

It could be $5. It could be $20. But you can use that music as much as you want. So I highly recommend if you if you're gonna use music, use something that you've paid you know, that you're buying or that's free. Don't just steal other people's music because you will get your butt kicked for doing that.

And I think the last thing too that people gotta realize, you can't just record something and go and put it on the social media. It does it just doesn't work that way. It it must first be hosted somewhere, then where it's hosted, it will be uploaded. So, like, our podcast, this one, Podiatry Marketing, it is uploaded to Transistor is the the host that we use. And then from there, I can take it from Transistor, and I post it into the podiatry business owners club or other other pages where I wanna put it.

So the feed is actually coming from Transistor. I use a company called Libsyn. Everything gets posted to there, and and I download. So Transistor, it's not free, is it?

No. I think we pay, like, $15 a month or so. And like you said, what happens is that it creates that feed for the podcast, and then it basically will propagate it to places like iTunes, Spotify, all these different podcast providers. So it's basically one central place to to upload it, and then you you can choose all these other places for it to show up.

Yeah. And that and that's if you're doing the podcast. If you're doing a podcast like in Libsyn, I I upload to there, and then I set it up that this these are all the places I want it to go to, and it just does it automatically. However, you can get you can use a host that doesn't send it out as a podcast. You just host your audio there, and then just post it whether you're posting it on your website for patients to click on.

So I've done some blog articles on my website, and then on my blog article, I just have an audio file that I've written the blog, and then I've read the blog and recorded it. Places like Podbean, for example, and a lot of there's a lot of hosting places that actually have a a free thing that you can register for as well, and you'll get a certain amount of data that you can do for free so you can test it out. So Podbean is really good one to test if you wanna just check it out. What's it like to record something? Put it up there, transfer it from there, say, onto your website or use it in a training manual somewhere or on social media.

Another another one is Anchor. Yeah. Anchor.fm is like another free version. Obviously, there's certain restrictions, certain limitations, but it's definitely one way that people are just wanting to test it out or just to see what it what it's like to kinda, like, upload a podcast or a piece of audio.

Yeah. And that's the thing. That's why it comes back to that original question asked before. What do you want to do with it? So when I started using audio, I knew I wanna do podcasting, and I wanna do a bloody really good podcast.

And I wanted to be really professional, and I wanted to sound as good as what everybody else does. So I wanted to get a good microphone. I wanted to get good mixer. I want to have good editing software. I wanted to have a great host.

So that's why I use Libsyn. I'm not saying

Still still working on that. Still working on that.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Transistor, but that's why whereas I know people have set up a podcast and they use free editing software, They use a free host, and then they're they're going, oh, why isn't my show growing? It's because you you limit there's there's certain restrictions when you go free compared to when you actually pay for stuff. But if your goal is just to use it internally on your own website, training manuals, creating audiograms within your own marketing social media, then bloody stick free. You don't need all you don't need all the fancy stuff.

For sure.

And if you're loving this, please reach out to Jim and tell him and tell me. So therefore, if you want me to run another audio marketing workshop in Australia, I can do that. And Jim can run one over in Canada or in in The USA.

Yeah. No. I'm happy to provide educational and information for people who are excited about what podcasting can do and just to learn more about it for sure.

Yeah. Or you and I can get together over in The USA and do something together, which should be fun. We could do it. We have to do that. I reckon 2023, you and I need to put on a marketing workshop in The United States, and that goes for, like, two days, and we just blow it away.

It'll be fun.

I think that sounds like a plan.

I think so. So I think, like I said, we could talk I know you and I could talk on this for hours. It could be like a two, three hour show because we get off on all this sort of stuff. But I'm gonna wrap it up there. I think that's enough information to be dangerous, and now what people need to is take notes and then go and do the research themselves, and then reach out to us if they have any questions.

No. I think that sounds like a great plan. Thanks for sharing all that. Those insights and those details, Tyson. I'm sure it's gonna get people a lot to to start researching and seeing if they have an interest in starting a podcast.

This this is a great place to start.

Yeah. Or just using audio in general.

For sure. Okay. Talk to you later. Bye. Bye, Tyson.

Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDaniel. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.