The Quest for the Most Indispensable Podcasting Tool
You can produce a quality broadcast with the right equipment

Apps Mentioned in Video
Click on an app to see more detailsTable of Contents
App Reviews Mentioned In Article
-
Best 10 Apps for Listening to Podcasts
Download, subscribe and listen to your favorite top podcasts on the go using the best podcasting apps on the market.4+2.1K+36
About the Appventurer
After 5 years of writing the nationally lauded, Denver Private Investigator Blog as Chief Content Officer of Ross Investigators Susanna Speier is transitioning to health care journalism, freelance content writing and multimedia scripts.
Prior to covering the Rocky Mountain Region private investigator industry, Susanna wrote feature articles for the Poynter Institute, Daily Beast, Scientific American, SpaceDOTcom and The Denver Post. She also has a handful of theater and film industry bylines and earned her BA at Hampshire College and her MFA at Brooklyn College, C.U.N.Y.
App-wise Susanna likes to think of herself an early tester and a late adapter. As an AppGrooves Enterprise Reporter, she gravitates to stories about apps designed to maximize time management and productivity. She is also interested in apps to empower women, freelancers, minorities & people living with chronic medical conditions. Susanna is also a cat mom, reluctant runner and handwritten letter writing enthusiast.
Latest Articles by Susanna Speier
-
What Science Says About Turning Your Home into a Haven
If you’re working from home now and the foreseeable future, how do you plan to improve your home in ways to maximize safety, health and productivity?May 22, 2020 -
Can Yoga Apps Keep You Fit as You Shelter in Place?
With shelter in place in many states, gyms, trails, and parks are closed. Can a yoga app provide the same fitness benefits?Mar 27, 2020 -
The Quest for the Most Indispensable Podcasting Tool
How do you find the tools to tell your story? Here’s what some of the best storytellers out there have to say.Mar 19, 2020 -
Using Apps to Supplement PTSD Treatment
The question is what does the medical world think of apps being used to treat PTSD?Mar 19, 2020 -
Coronavirus Creates New Landscape for Some Businesses
Many companies who deal directly with the public, such as Uber and Lyft, are coming up with policies on the fly to do what's fair and safe during this pandemic.Mar 18, 2020 -
Get Past the Jitters & Use Apps in Speech Preparation
Whether you’re preparing to deliver a presentation to a small conference room or to a large stadium, experts agree that preparation is critical.Mar 13, 2020 -
Before You Say 'I Do,' Can Couples Ease Financial Anxieties?
Two-thirds of cohabiters who want to get married someday cite either their own or their partner’s finances as the reason they’re not engaged or married.Mar 11, 2020
Theoretically, anyone with a phone and WiFi access can produce, create, edit, upload, and promote a podcast. Thanks to the abundance and accessibility of tools and distribution channels, audio storytelling is flourishing.
So how are the cutting edge audio storytellers researching, organizing, recording, editing, distributing, and promoting their shows using podcasting apps? And, for that matter, are podcasting apps being used at all?
Sony & Three Uncanny Four’s Coronavirus Podcast
The Brooklyn, New York-based venture Three Uncanny Four was launched by renowned podcast producers Adam Davidson and Laura Mayer. The new joint venture with Sony Music Entertainment recently launched Viral: Coronavirus.
According to host and Senior Producer T.J. Raphael, they regularly drop current, compelling, and quality episodes by “constantly checking the latest news from the CDC, WHO, John Hopkins and other reliable sources as we move into production. We are interviewing experts in the field who can give us the latest,” Raphael says.
In fact, VIRAL, a podcast covering the coronavirus pandemic, also meets the challenge of staying “on top of the changing news landscape while ensuring the medical and health care policy information being reported is accurate” with ProTools. “Whether we interview someone in our studio, via the phone or Skype, we assemble our sessions in ProTools every time.”
Advice for a Podcaster Who Has an Idea & a Yeti Mic
“Hit the phones!” Raphael says when asked to advise someone with resources as basic as a yeti mic and a smartphone should do. “Anyone can create a podcast, but the difference between a valuable news podcast and one that is simply rehashing other sources is talking to people first hand.”
Related Articles
Must-Have Apps for Making Your Own Podcast
With that being said, there are firms out there who can do the leg work for you as far as operating podcasts for their clients.
“For early podcast planning, stickies, sharpies, and my giant whiteboard are go-to essentials,” says Podcast Allies co-founder Lindsey O'Connor, “My business partner in Podcast Allies, Elaine Appleton Grant, and I also collaborate and manage podcasts for our clients from planning to launch and promotion with project management software, and a variety of online file-sharing tools, like Dropbox for sharing audio files and Google Docs for collaborative scripts.”
If You Have Some Money, Here are Good Things to Spend it On
When you start getting very serious about producing a quality podcast, it’s much more than just talking into a microphone and going. If you want to make an investment into doing podcasts, be it large or small, you will need to go shopping for some quality equipment.
“For an individual starting a podcast on a budget, there are so many places to spend money, but one category that's an important place to invest in is a good quality microphone,” O’Connor says. “There are some decent USB mics that plug directly into your computer but we recommend using XLR mics (quality, versatility down the road). We plug that into an interface that connects your mic to your computer (like a Scarlett Focusrite) and record directly into a digital workstation, or into a digital recorder.
“The latter is my preference, and I use a Marantz 661 (easy to use, large buttons, can use it blindfolded practically) and the MixPre3 which is my new favorite. It's incredibly quiet (used by many folks in the film industry) and records pristine audio. Very high quality and worth the money if you can afford it. Use a pop filter too.”
Storytelling from the Ivory Tower
For Dr Sam Illingworth, Senior Lecturer in Science Communication at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK, he has opportunities combining scientific research (he used to study greenhouse gases in the Arctic) with storytelling through poetry that translates to the perfect podcast ingredients.
Illingworth explains that his “research interests include studying why some famous scientists wrote poetry, and investigating the public perception of what scientists actually do” combined with teaching “undergraduates and postgraduates how to effectively engage with a variety of audiences” creates the perfect landscape from this.
Illingworth’s podcast, The Poetry of Science, is created with podbeancom, oceanaudio, and Audacity, a laptop software. He says his “most indispensable tool is definitely my Samsung meteor mic. Really helps with sounds quality,” and he uses three apps because “each one does what I need exactly and there is not a single app that can yet do all three as well.”