by Shortly after the first 50 episodes of the Macworld Podcast, I was tasked with producing (though hosting just every other week) these weekly spoken-audio efforts. While I have made adjustments to some of the tools I use, my workflow has changed very little.
Gear and location
We typically record from one of two locations. One is the in-office studio that we’ve dubbed the Podcave. That studio is equipped with four Shure SM58 microphones with pop-filters suspended from Heil HB-1 boom stands, Sony MDR-V6 headphones for each participant, a PreSonus FireStudio Project multichannel audio interface, and an iMac running GarageBand to record everything. The other location is my home studio where I use a vintage AKG 414 microphone along with an Apogee One USB interface plugged into my Mac Pro.
The locations have a measure of isolation and prophylaxis in common. The office studio is well insulated from outside noise, and we have made many efforts to keep people inside the room from adding unwanted noise. For instance, the table-mounted boom stands are padded at the base so that any table-top taps and whaps don’t travel up the stand to be picked up by the mic. Likewise, cables are strapped well out of the way. And the pop filters are placed far enough from the mic’s business end that it’s nearly impossible to be so close to the mic as to overdrive it.
Because my home is in the country, I have little outside noise other than the occasional rooster crow and horse whinny. A Do Not Disturb sign keeps family members out of the area. I use as many fan-less devices as possible. And I have a floor-standing tripod mic stand with the same kind of pop-filter arrangement so I don’t overpower the mic.
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