S2 E2: Bonus: How this podcast comes together.

0:00Hello and welcome back to this bonus episode of the podcast.

0:04As we promised, we're going to talk briefly about how we record the show and how we host the

0:10the podcast.

0:11We decided to split this out because we ended up talking for a little bit longer than we planned.

0:15So sit back and enjoy.

0:18Cool.

0:19Okay, so uh recording a podcast.

0:22This is actually really interesting because I think I think uh it's really difficult to nail down what it is about a podcast

0:32that someone who does a podcast might enjoy.

0:36Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:37I think we we we briefly talked about why we did this one.

0:40I think it was mainly because it was almost like we wanted to archive what we talked about if in that makes sense.

0:45Exactly.

0:46And

0:47I often want to write as much as I talk, but I am atrocious at writing.

0:51So I can't write to save my life.

0:54Um I really struggle with.

0:55You can be a perfectionist, right?

0:57Exactly.

0:57Um, you know, for various reasons, I really struggle with blogs.

1:01I I think they're hard to digest.

1:02And so my bit to sort of the date of his community is a podcast.

1:07And so what does it take to have a podcast?

1:09I think

1:10The key thing is content, actually.

1:12I think too many people think that it's a really big technical hurdle, and you'll understand why it's not in a second.

1:17Um it's really it's really actually straightforward.

1:21Um if you're someone who works in the dataver space, then you already have the skills you need to be a podcaster, if I'm briefly honest, the technical skills to host a podcast and you know

1:31get it out to the world.

1:32You already get it.

1:33Um I'll explain why in a second.

1:35But the main thing is content and having uh something that you can talk about passionately because I think it's also obvious when you're you know in front of a microphone just talking

1:45for the sake of it, right?

1:47Yeah.

1:47Right, exactly.

1:48And then you know, like sitting in a room and just sort of having these thoughts and almost saying what comes to your head because very like again let's let's break down the wall a bit more.

1:56Like we we sort of we have a we have like

1:59brief plans and we make our own notes and stuff, but the rest of it is just ad lib.

2:04Like we we don't really exactly plan the exchanges and and whatnot, right?

2:08So like

2:09But and and and then tech start is even even less high tech than you can imagine.

2:14Exactly.

2:14And I think the important thing here is that for me and Ravi, the content is is not just our thoughts.

2:21um my thoughts or Ravi's thoughts.

2:23The content that we're sort of providing is actually the discussion between the two of us, right?

2:27If we both independently wrote a blog post or something or did a monologue, it wouldn't be anywhere as interesting as the to and fro between

2:35you and me, right?

2:36And and and and actually that's that's what what I mean by content.

2:40It's not always just the body of what you're saying and the body of what you produce.

2:43It's also the the rapport that you have between you and the other person.

2:47And actually it's that sort of having that is actually quite a nice thing.

2:51And it also doesn't have to be someone else.

2:53Some people are really good at doing monologues.

2:55And it actually gives you a license to do a different type of content.

2:59So I think focus on the content, number one.

3:02That's the st by far the the most important bit.

3:05And I think in a world where

3:07There's so many different perspectives.

3:09It doesn't matter if you're talking about something that's already been done before.

3:12Um do it again, but do it from your perspective and how you see it.

3:16Uh the great thing about podcasts is sometimes they last that you know

3:23But other times we might revisit this Viz literacy topic in two years' time because we have evolved our thinking of it and uh just

3:30discussion of it.

3:31And and the world will change around it as well.

3:32Exactly.

3:33Exactly.

3:34Yeah.

3:34So if we move to technology setups, now I I'll be up front and say this.

3:39This has evolved over time.

3:41So the setup we have today was not the setup that we

3:44started with.

3:45I think the very first podcast I recorded with you, I was sat in my car.

3:51Yeah you were, yeah.

3:52Yeah, I was sat in my car because a very simple reason.

3:55That was the only place where I could isolate sound.

3:58from my environments.

4:00And I think I was between two sofa cushions.

4:02There you go.

4:03And uh the cushions in the car were really good sound cushions.

4:08So

4:09Um I wasn't getting echo as much as anywhere else in my home.

4:12So that was a really interesting sort of um thing.

4:15But now I'm re I'm recording a podcast from my desk um with a microphone that's plugged into

4:21my MacBook and that is that is it.

4:24I've actually got a phone on my desk which is recording the backup audio and in most cases that's actually even fine.

4:31It doesn't have to be a high quality setup

4:33For the very first few podcasts, the most important thing is just recording.

4:39Exactly.

4:39And and my current setup is uh very similar to what we had within when we first did it because

4:43I've not upgraded my tech at all.

4:45So um right now what's happening is I'm on a call with Tim.

4:50Um and that's plugged into my

4:52It's a FaceTime audio call, yep.

4:54And it's plugged into my Bluetooth headset.

4:56Um so I can hear what he's saying.

4:58Um but my microphone on my MacBook.

5:01is picking up my audio track.

5:03Exactly.

5:03And then and then the magic happens when I send all this over to Tim and I walk away from the process.

5:08Yeah exactly.

5:08So we're both remotely recording our own voices.

5:12So I'm recording uh my own voice

5:14uh here um and then you're recording your voice and you actually send me your recording to me and the reason is is that that recording is much higher quality than the audio that we get if I try to record the um

5:27the audio from FaceTime or Skype, as it were.

5:30Okay.

5:31So you don't get that sort of tinny effect.

5:33When I put the two tracks together, it sounds like we're in the same room.

5:36Okay.

5:37So that's that's a first sort of uh secret.

5:40Ravi and I have never been in the same room during any of the discussions.

5:45It's an editing uh

5:47sort of uh after after effect as it were.

5:50Exactly, exactly.

5:52Um now what is interesting as as you do this more and more your setup evolves.

5:58So

5:58Uh Ravi's setup has stayed broadly the same.

6:00Mine has changed over time.

6:01So I used to record into a dictaphone and then I'd take the recordings from the two.

6:06I'd whack them together and record.

6:08But what is actually going on now is I'm actually recording my microphone, which is connected to my Mac.

6:14So that's taking the input from my microphone.

6:17What also is happening is that I've got a piece of software recording the FaceTime audio into a recording.

6:24So I'm also recording Ravi's audio.

6:26And the reason that is is because you want a backup.

6:28If something happens to

6:30his computer or my phone or something like it did one time.

6:33I don't know if you remember our first podcast.

6:35I do.

6:36I failed to have a backup recording and that meant that we had to re-record the whole entire thing.

6:41Exactly, exactly.

6:42And um I that that's yeah, and that's such an important point, like having that

6:48Obviously we've both mentioned that we're doing this on all pure Apple devices.

6:52Um obviously wind uh and w what I'm recording on is QuickTime on on the on on the MacBook.

6:57Um obviously you can do this on on Windows PCs as well.

7:00I actually this is the first time I'm recording on my MacBook.

7:03Right.

7:04Right, exactly.

7:06I've been I've been recording it on Windows the whole time.

7:09Um and then the other thing is, okay, so we get we get f four audio tracks.

7:15Um

7:16Two original recordings at source and then two backups which are done on sort of lower quality devices.

7:23Uh but it in most cases if if the content is good, people won't care so much about the audience.

7:28Now the magic really happens in post-processing, so uh I happen to be quite comfortable with um Adobe um

7:35sort of creative software so I actually use a tool called Adobe Audition but you can use free tools like um Audacity which is like

7:45a free audio sort of mp3 editing tool.

7:47There are various other tools that you can have garage band on the Mac if you have a Mac.

7:52There's so many free audio editing tools out there that you can use to sort of

7:56of do what you need to do.

7:57And I just recommend you watch a YouTube video on how to edit audio.

8:00It's a very, very simple thing to do.

8:02Once you understand sort of the three or four principles

8:04about how to do it.

8:05It's really, really straightforward.

8:07The only thing is time.

8:08So when it comes to editing, what I actually do when I edit is I I listen to the recording at one and a half times the speed.

8:15So

8:16The reason is if we record a one-hour uh podcast, I don't want to have to spend one hour listening to it whilst I edit it.

8:23I'd like to spend 45 minutes if possible.

8:27So as an efficiency thing, I listen to it almost faster than normal.

8:31Um and so I'm able to find mistakes and cut and edit.

8:34And for the record

8:36A l every single podcast we do has a lot of editing just to make the conversation sound smooth.

8:43So the conversation isn't always smooth.

8:45In fact, even whilst we've been doing this section.

8:47We've re-recorded bits of it so that when we're trying to convey the point across, it comes it comes through.

8:53And that's actually a really useful thing because it takes pressure.

8:57off you.

8:57It means you don't have to get everything right the first time.

9:00And actually, the more you do that, the the better you get at doing things right the first time because you don't have that pressure on you.

9:07Yeah, and it's not just about the pressure, it's also it reminds you what you need to prepare and what need to be have in your pocket before you start like um you know, if you've i if you I think what was it the the last podcast on hyper, you had to

9:20sort of repeat that long yes hyper phrase um three times before you got it right.

9:25I forgot more's law um twice.

9:29Yes I completely forgot what Moore's Laws was

9:34twice once mid mid mid mid describing it second time mid explaining it and you listener you had no idea exactly um and so that that's one thing and then

9:48This I'm saying this is now the easiest part.

9:50So let's say you have an or uh an editor track and that's actually the hard bit, you know, actually listening to yourself, editing it again.

9:57Then you have an MP3 file.

9:58That's all Parkas are.

10:00It's just a it's like an audio, like a song file, but it lasts 40 minutes rather than you know three minutes.

10:05Now the way podcasts work is uh there's something called RSS feeds, where they simply just tell podcast players where the content is.

10:14And in our case, we don't use a podcast hosting service.

10:17We used to.

10:18Um, I'd actually recommend not doing this when you start out.

10:21We used to use a service, it costs ten pounds a month.

10:24uh sometimes maybe 20 pounds a month in in today's money and what they did is basically allowed you to upload the content fill out a form and basically that would create your RS

10:35It turns out the RSS feed is actually very easy to do.

10:38The simplest hack I can recommend is find the podcast you like.

10:42Uh and go to their RSS feed and copy it.

10:46And copy it.

10:47Just simply copy, copy all the tags because they've done all the hard work of explaining how the RSS feed works.

10:52and just replace the headers and the sort of little bits of text.

10:56And if you're if you're sort of comfortable working with data, you'll find this incredibly easy.

11:01You look at the XML and you'll immediately understand how podcasts

11:04are actually formatted.

11:06And then the only only challenge is where you put your MP3 file.

11:10And in our case, we use Amazon.

11:13So we have an Amazon S3 bucket.

11:16It's actually yeah, if I if I I um I could put like a long link to the S3 bucket.

11:21It's just a public uh bucket and the reason it's public is because you you guys need to be able to listen to it.

11:26But when you click download on a podcast

11:30uh your Apple Podcast or uh iTunes or whatever goes to this S3 bucket, gets the MP3 file and downloads it.

11:37That's all that happens.

11:39Exactly.

11:42And um it's it's again, like I said, all all of this post-processing work, I just turn up, I record, and

11:49I listen I listen back to the finished edit.

11:51Exactly.

11:51And and Tim does all the heavy lifting in between.

11:53And and there are even tools now that do this for you for free.

11:57So there are even apps now that allow you to record podcasts

12:01even group podcasts on device without doing any work and host it for you for free.

12:06It's it's it's the world of podcasting is so much so much easier.

12:09Um I just like to have some control.

12:11So some of those uh apps might add adverts on your behalf.

12:14Um I don't like adverts in the middle of our content, so I don't do that.

12:18But um I think

12:20If I if I summed up the total cost for the last six months of of hosting a podcast, I think it's come to about 12 pence.

12:29So far.

12:30Because um the pricing model we're on on on an Amazon means we only pay for an individual download and for that we're talking I think it's zero point zero

12:39zero five pence per download and then in terms of storage you're paying something really low like 0.

12:4500 um six pence per per gigabyte per month or something like that

12:52So in real terms, the invoice I get at the end of the month, as long as we don't have millions of listeners, is actually quite low.

12:58Now, if we suddenly got really popular, then we might change the format and then go to service, which caps the cost at a certain rate.

13:05Which is uh easier to front.

13:07But when you're starting out, you don't need any of that.

13:09You can use a range of free services.

13:11Even we use SoundCloud initially, right?

13:14Remember we use SoundCloud.

13:15Yeah, but we ran out of space so quickly.

13:17Yeah, we ran out of space within four shows that we can

13:19use of free.

13:20But it's really good just to try it out and point people towards something and actually just get a test going.

13:25Yep, exactly.

13:27And that's it.

13:27That's that's how the magic happens is it

13:29it were so we highly encourage people to sort of get involved.

13:32Um if you if you want some help by all means reach out on tableau um on tableau on twitter um reddit wherever wherever you're listening from

13:40from just reach out to us.

13:41We're more than happy to share our uh learnings as we go.

13:44Um the great thing is as a community is that the more people that sort of uh converse and talk in the community, the less of an echo chamber it becomes, right?

13:53So um the more people that can get onto podcasting and and do this kind of stuff, the better and the more sort of um perspectives we have.

14:02Yep, exactly, exactly.

14:04Okay.

14:04Fab, so that's that's a wrap for this week.

14:07Absolutely