I had always dreamed of becoming a broadcaster or as we are sometimes known a radio DJ. I won’t bore you with the details here but after a long hard slog I finally made it, first onto in-store radio, then community radio, and finally the big time of commercial radio.
My thoughts on commercial radio are my own and probably best not shared here. Eventually, I found my niche in a really cool community radio station. I settled in and was airing a business show on a Monday evening for two hours. How lucky was I? I had my own show and relative autonomy in deciding what I wanted to do, who I wanted to interview, and the type of music I wanted to play. So a year or three ago I decided to turn my show into a Podcast and the Watts Involved Podcast was born. However, the Podcasting part still played a secondary role, very much a nice to have but not something I focussed on too much.
Phew, that was a lot of change so I settled comfortably back into my groove. I now had a radio show and I was a Podcaster. Let me point out that at that stage and indeed right up until the present I wasn’t making much money out of either. Then 2020 rolls around and Covid19 entered the picture, lockdown quickly followed. As a result, I had no show and no Podcast. The reason for this was I had relied on recording my live on-air interviews and turning them into a Podcast. Now I am kind of old-fashioned and believed that in order to produce a good show you needed bums in seats and to be able to look at your guests.
So I sulked and pouted for a few months and to my surprise, nothing changed. So bright and early one morning I decided to get off my ass and see if technology couldn’t help me to once more feel like a broadcaster. Now to be fair when I first looked into Podcasting 5 or six years ago to get a Podcast started was quite involved and you had to be fairly tech-savvy. To my surprise, things had evolved and Podcasting was now “A Thing”. Suddenly it was much easier to find a hosting platform and get your voice out there.
Podcast Equipment
However, now there were a few other challenges, first of those being a microphone which could plug into my computer secondly some sort of recording software and thirdly a half-decent internet connection. Once I had settled on a mic, ISP, and the software I was good to go, but now how to contact my guests and be able to see and hear them. Once again technology had caught up and there were several options available. I tried all of them and found out I am a bit of a technological dinosaur.
Eventually, I settled on Zoom and I was away, the first few times it felt very artificial and forced, however, practice makes perfect and I soon settled into my new routine. There was one huge problem for me, I don’t have a fancy acoustically perfect studio at home. In fact, I have two choices in my office I either have the sliding door open and sweat in summer or close the door and endure the rattle of the air con. Oh did I mention people walking into my office, cats meowing, and dogs barking? Not to mention the various sounds of tractors and lawnmowers etc. from outside.
Even with my best efforts, my recordings were not broadcast quality and the people I was interviewing often times sounded even worse than I did. After much searching, I came upon a solution. One I still use to this day and that I would highly recommend to anyone who spends any time on a mic whether as a professional or not. I will share what that solution is in a later blog, suffice it to say my voice and broadcast-quality are now top-notch and you can hear for yourself here. Oh and if you have any microphone, Zoom, or any such horror stories I would love to hear from you.
Until next time keep on keeping on,
D