Let’s take a look at my Podcast setup using the 13″ MacBook Pro that is easy to travel with by re-purposing several of my video and photography items I already am already carrying in my bag. By keeping the setup simple, I use it a lot more.
Rode Video Mic Pro – https://amzn.to/2NXcqWU
Rode Micro (cheaper option) – https://amzn.to/2NTX1GI
Manfrotto Tripod – https://amzn.to/2mVLPxX
USB Mic Adapter – https://amzn.to/2v1iOoP
USB Type C Adapter – https://amzn.to/2vkdf4j
Podcast Setup Video Transcription
Hey guys, how’s it going? It’s Robb Sutton and as you can probably tell from that intro today, we’re talking about podcasting and my setup that I use for podcasting that might be a little bit different than what you’ve seen and that’s for one main specific reason. Since I travel a lot, I need my podcasting setup to be a dual purpose set up with when I’m actually using it to shoot video and photos. So before we dive in to what I’m actually using and how I set it up, let’s talk about podcasting in general a little bit and why it is that it is actually intriguing to me at this point in time.
Why I enjoy using Podcasting for Content Creation
For those of you that don’t know me, I started creating content back in 2007/2008 with Bike198.com which was a bike review site. It got to the point where I was daily writing 1400, 1500 words a day and it was a really large undertaking as far as time goes because it was all original content and it was really the days before social media for the most part. I mean there was some Facebook promotion, but it was all the way back to where I used to use biking forums to get my leg in the door when it came to getting people to see my content before, you know, the SEO would really picked up or anything like that. So it was a lot of time creating content that was all basically taking over what old school newspapers and magazines had been doing in a digital format.
Fast forward to now and you have to be everywhere, whether it be Instagram, Facebook, podcasts, video, website. It’s really become a more centralized format to publish things digitally and beat into multiple different avenues that people can digest on the run at home, at their computer, on their devices and it’s been a really cool thing to watch. So where podcasts come in, for me at least as far as my content creation goes, is an easy way to create content in more platforms.
So back when the Bike198 days, I’d have to sit there and write for hours and hours and hours. And then if I did some kind of audio interview or something like that that I actually wanted to have transcribed, it was really expensive and you had to hire someone to do it, and even when I used to use offshore writers to listen to the interviews and have them transcribed, there were some accuracy things she had to deal with and you were paying them by the hour.
Fast forward to now their services online that are basically ten cents on the per minute for transcribing. Of course it’s automated. You still have to go through and read it, but at the same time it’s so much better than it used to be in the past.
So what am I doing now? I’m starting up a podcast that I could use to actually create content and be on the podcast platform at the same time. So record a podcast, get it transcribed immediately for ten cents a minute, and then have it published as content on the website as well so you can listen to podcasts. Then you can have your content. It’s great for SEO. It’s great for website content and it takes a lot less time and now used to have two writing, 1500, 2000 word articles, so that is what I’m loving about podcasting currently. We’ll kind of see where it goes from here, but let’s go into my setup a little bit.
My MacBook Pro Podcast Setup
So like I said, I need to be portable, so I’m using my 13 inch MacBook Pro with Audition from Adobe since I’m already using the creative suite for Premiere, Lightroom and Photoshop. It’s an easy just download and run. It’s also incredibly easy to set up and it does a great job of recording audio and if you do need to edit some of that audio does a great job of that as well. Now since the 13 inch MacBook Pro only has USB-C connections, you have to do a couple of little dongle things here to actually get to a microphone port that works.
Now using a 13 inch MacBook Pro has two very specific limitations. One, the earphone jack is no longer a microphone jack. You can’t just put in a mini connection right into the side and actually have it detect your microphone and bringing in audio, so what you have to do is actually go to a USB setup that brings up problem number two.
The 13 inch Mac book pro only has USB type C connection, so you’ve got to get one of these j5create adapters. It plugs in right to the side of the MacBook Pro and it gives you a USB charging cord as well as a regular USB slot to plug in your adapter. Then I found this ugreen adapter, it has your typical USB plug and then on the other end it actually gives you a microphone port and an earphone port, and then when I plugged into that is actually my Rode video mic. It’s the one I’ve had for forever. I actually bought this one off a craigslist I think like 4 years ago, but it’s the microphone I’m currently using all my camera for video, so being able to use that in the podcasting setup makes it more convenient, especially on the road.
Now, ideally, what I’d rather have a one direction microphone that is more for speaking than an unidirectional that is more made for video. Absolutely. However, I don’t want to carry multiple things around me with me, so I’m trying to make use of what I have without having to add more to what I have to put in a bag and take with me and to make it stand like a mic that’s easier to talk to. I put it on this little fixed Manfrotto tripod and it sits there right in front of me. Great for the setup. I’m already carrying this from my video and photo use. So again, I don’t have to carry anything else so far. It’s turned out to be a pretty good setup. I’ll link to a couple of the podcasts we’ve done it in the past and you can check them out. Let me know what you think of the setup or if there’s anything you would do differently. I’ll link all the products that I was using down in the comments are down in the description below so you can see that. And like I said, we’ll just be doing more of these, so check out the links to the podcast below as well. Thanks guys for your time. Thanks for watching and we’ll see you on the next one.