Speaker 1: When you're just starting a podcast, it can be confusing. You see a recommendation and it seems like it's a high-end microphone, then another one costs 12 bucks. In this video, we're gonna get you the best podcast setups that won't break the bank. ♪ Rock music ♪ So before we get into the recommendations, let's talk about the criteria we're using. We're gonna do three. First has gotta be ease of use. Everything's plug and play and should be able to get right into it. Second is we want something that grows with you. I know I'm gonna get a bunch of angry comments if you start off with one setup and later on you add a co-host and you have to start from scratch. So everything builds upon each other so that it all works no matter how many people you have on any episode. And last but not least is price. There are some awesome $1,000 microphones, but I'm not gonna recommend those to you. I wanna talk about a microphone that'll get you 90% of the way there for 10% of the cost. So we're gonna start this video off with the recommendations for the Solo Podcaster. All right. And what we're gonna do here is, this is two things you need to buy. The first is the Audio-Technica 2100. In our opinion, this is the best value of podcasting. It will get you 90% of the way towards a studio level recording and you can consistently get it for like 85 bucks. It comes with this stand. The only other thing I want you to buy is this $3 foam cover. And what this does is it doesn't just look cool, it will take out a lot of those popping P's and harsh S's that you hear in some recordings. Now, the best thing about this microphone, this is why we recommend it for the Solo Podcaster, is this is all you need. You don't need to run it through some sort of mixer or anything. You plug it right into your computer and you're ready to go. So now we're gonna jump into our recommended setup if it's you and a friend. The first, we've gotta get a friend. Okay, well, now that we've got a friend, let's get into the equipment a little bit. What have you got, John? Some microphones and a Focusrite. So we got the ATR2100s that we had in the first setup. And then we've got this Focusrite 2i2. This is a USB interface. This will take the audio from both microphones and run it into the computer. So let's plug this in, John. A little help over here, buddy? You got it. You're the professional. So flip the mics on and we're ready to go. So what we've done is we've plugged the computer into the audio mixer. We've got that into these XLR cables, into our microphones, and we're ready to record. How's it sound? Pretty good, if you ask me. All right, so now we're gonna do our recommendations if you've got three or more people. So for those of you who are lucky enough to have two friends and they're both into podcasting, you're in luck. All right, so what are we doing, Priscilla? We've got this fancy guy right here. All right, so this is our Zoom H6. And what the H6 does, it replaced that Scarlett 2i2, and it's a field recorder, so it doesn't need to be plugged into power. And we're gonna hook in all the XLR cables and all of those are, again, so we've added another Audio-Technica. So just to recap, we've got three Audio-Technicas. They all come with these stands. We've got three of the foam balls, three of the XLR cables. They all plug into the Zoom H6. We're gonna do a quick question. Priscilla, if we were to add a fourth person, what else would we need to add? Another microphone.

Speaker 2: And XLR cables.

Speaker 1: And... XLR cable. And cable, and yeah, so just, you'd add another cable, foam ball, and microphone if we had a fourth person. Really easy to plug it all in, make sure the mics are on, and now we're ready to record our podcast. So who's hosting this bad boy?

Speaker 2: I'll host it. Okay. Hey guys, welcome to Priscilla's Pop Culture Corner. I got a question for ya. What's your favorite Taylor Swift song of all time? She's releasing new music, so what's your favorite?

Speaker 1: Pass. Stairway to Heaven? That's a good one, Byron.

Speaker 2: It's not Taylor Swift.

Speaker 1: All right, so maybe you wanna get two co-hosts that know about the podcast and are into the same things as you. Might help. But yeah, that's our setup for three people. Pretty easy to do. And it would grow with you to four. All right, so some of you are wondering why we haven't talked about the Blue Yeti. It's a common recommendation, and if you've been watching other videos, it's probably popped up. The Blue Yeti is really easy to plug into a computer, but it's also really easy to not record correctly. Most people know, record right into the microphone. We've watched enough Britney Spears concerts, am I right? So some people have the thought that they should be recording it like this. That's not correct. You're supposed to record from the side. Next is price. Tell twice the price. It actually can record multiple people, but it makes the editing a lot harder. So two of the things that make it tougher, it's gonna record everybody to one track. So if you've got like a loud talker and a quieter guy, now you're gonna have issues. And it's more sensitive. So it's gonna pick up more background noise, kids, dogs driving by. Dogs driving by. Whereas the ATR2100, really just gonna catch my voice. And that's much more important if you're at home and there's actually some ambient noise around. All right, so now that we've run through everything and you've picked out the setup and you know how many people are gonna be recording, we've got a couple extra things that might help out. Is your mom tired of holding your microphone up like this for cool YouTube shots? First I wanna show you is a boom arm. So why do you even need a boom arm? That's this piece right here. Earlier, you probably saw when we were recording, we were kind of hunched over a little bit and that's not gonna give us the best mic technique. We wanna speak into the mic. We're compressing our chest. We're not able to project our voices. Plus it's not really a natural way to sit. Now a boom arm, you can adjust it up, down. You can move it out and it's gonna be at the perfect spot for you. So that's why I really like this boom arm. This is one of the best. This is the PSA1 by Rode. And what's really great about it is, wherever I put it, it's gonna stay put. A lot of other ones you kind of have to crank, twist down to actually get them to stay in the right spot. Second thing I want you to see is the shock mount. This is the MY420. Let's take a look at that. So what a shock mount is, is basically a bunch of rubber bands that are suspending the microphone. So if I were to take some notes, write something on the table, the movement would be dampened by those rubber bands. And so you wouldn't have any spikes in your audio, especially if you've got, maybe someone's a little nervous jiggling the table. You'll really notice the difference when you're doing your editing. And then the last thing is not really optional. So we need to have a set of headphones for you to monitor your voice throughout the recording. Any headphones with a three and a half millimeter jack will work. So you can use a set of earbuds or Apple headphones if you have them around the house. But if you want to upgrade from those, or maybe you don't have these left over, you can use the M20X. And these are headphones that we really like. So I would plug these into the back of the microphone, and I would monitor my voice throughout the whole recording. This is gonna allow me to notice when maybe I get a little too far from the mic, or I'm starting to speak a little too loudly. If I'm on one of those two or four person setups, we're not gonna plug into the back of the mics. Instead, we're gonna plug in to our audio interface. So on our two person setup, we were using the Focusrite. We'd set two set of headphones, we'd plug those in here. Both of the people recording would hear both voices. All right, so let's do a quick run through and check out some of these prices. Our favorite boom arm is the Rode PSA-1. And this is $100 boom arm. And honestly, I think this is probably your first go-to purchase. The second is the shock mount. This is the MY-420. It's about 35 bucks. And then these Audio Technic headphones, the M20X, these are 50 bucks. All right, so now you know what you need to get high quality audio without breaking the bank. One last thing before we go, just since we've talked a lot about gear today, it's really easy to get kind of concerned about audio equipment, whether or not you have the perfect setup. In the grand scheme of things, you wanna get a good recording, but it's really important that you have an authentic voice, you're speaking to your audience, and you're really bringing yourself. And so while all this is important, it's really not why we get into podcasting. If you are a podcaster and you enjoyed this video, we'd love for you to subscribe to the channel. So we do lots of gear reviews, we talk about different podcast strategies, how to do all the editing and how to get that stuff done. Hope you enjoyed the video, you got something out of it. See you next time, and as always, keep podcasting. Maybe we'll set up a more natural next time. �Outro Music�