![The Tools I Launched With in 2016 [Day 11 30 Days of Podcast Notes]](https://images.beamly.com/fetch/https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.rss.com%2Fstreamlined-podcaster%2Fpodcast_cover_20260916_122857_a7aaeae9723ee3f8a0758f9d13809543.jpg?w=365)
The 2016 stack, as best I remember it: Skype for the call with video on so I could read body language, Ecamm Call Recorder capturing the Skype audio, and QuickTime recording my side locally — with a guest notes page asking every guest to do the same. I edited in Audacity, later GarageBand, and my first mic was the Blue Yeti, which sounds bad mostly because people talk into the top of it instead of the front. I was going to host the files on my own site until my friend Jackie Delia talked me out of it, which is how I ended up on Libsyn. Were they the best tools? No. Were they the ones I had? Absolutely.
Resources & Links
- Ecamm (affiliate link) — joec.pro/ecamm
- Also mentioned: Skype, QuickTime, Audacity, GarageBand, Blue Yeti, Libsyn
- Join my newsletter for solo business owners: streamlined.fm/join
- Podcast hosting by RSS.com (affiliate link): rss.com
Disclosure: this episode description was generated with AI.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 All right. Welcome to day 11 of 30 days of podcast
00:00:06 --> 00:00:09 notes. Yesterday, I talked about the format for
00:00:09 --> 00:00:12 how I built it. And today I want to talk about
00:00:12 --> 00:00:16 the tools. Now the tools back in 2016 were not
00:00:16 --> 00:00:22 as advanced as we have today. And so this was
00:00:22 --> 00:00:26 my general process to the best I can remember.
00:00:27 --> 00:00:32 I think Zoom surely was around, but Zoom was
00:00:32 --> 00:00:34 not the popular thing to use at the time for
00:00:34 --> 00:00:37 podcast recordings. And so I used Skype. Skype
00:00:37 --> 00:00:41 was still around and free for voiceover IP, or
00:00:41 --> 00:00:46 not voiceover IP, but for internet -based video
00:00:46 --> 00:00:49 calls. I didn't record the video. I liked having
00:00:49 --> 00:00:53 the video on because I wanted to see, I wanted
00:00:53 --> 00:00:57 to read the body language of my guest. and I
00:00:57 --> 00:01:06 would record two ways. I would have the app Ecamm
00:01:06 --> 00:01:10 Call recorder record the audio in Skype. I know
00:01:10 --> 00:01:13 that this is something a lot of people used audio
00:01:13 --> 00:01:18 hijack for. I never got into audio hijack, probably
00:01:18 --> 00:01:22 for a reason I'll mention in a minute, but. I
00:01:22 --> 00:01:25 recorded the Skype call with Ecamm call recorder,
00:01:25 --> 00:01:27 but then I recorded my side of the audio with,
00:01:27 --> 00:01:29 oh my gosh, my New York accent just came out,
00:01:29 --> 00:01:34 with QuickTime, and I would ask my guest to do
00:01:34 --> 00:01:38 the same thing. And so in episode eight, I talked
00:01:38 --> 00:01:40 about learning from others. And one of the things
00:01:40 --> 00:01:42 that Shop Talk Show did was this exact thing.
00:01:42 --> 00:01:45 People would book the call and then they'd get
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 redirected to a guest notes page. I still have
00:01:48 --> 00:01:51 a version of the recording notes page. up, even
00:01:51 --> 00:01:54 though I don't do interviews anymore. But on
00:01:54 --> 00:01:57 that page, it had instructions for how to get
00:01:57 --> 00:02:00 the best quality recording and how to do the
00:02:00 --> 00:02:03 recording via QuickTime. It also had reminders
00:02:03 --> 00:02:05 like always use headphones, which is something
00:02:05 --> 00:02:11 I still feel very strongly about. I know that
00:02:11 --> 00:02:13 that editing, I mean, I don't want to get on
00:02:13 --> 00:02:15 a on a high horse rant here, but I still feel
00:02:15 --> 00:02:17 very strongly that you should wear headphones
00:02:17 --> 00:02:21 every time you record. So That was the recording
00:02:21 --> 00:02:26 setup. I would edit with Audacity before I moved
00:02:26 --> 00:02:29 things over to an editor. If I had to do something,
00:02:29 --> 00:02:32 I used Audacity for a very long time before I
00:02:32 --> 00:02:36 decided to just do GarageBand. So like always
00:02:36 --> 00:02:39 free editing tools. And then as far as the hardware
00:02:39 --> 00:02:45 goes, my very first microphone for podcasting
00:02:45 --> 00:02:50 is the Vaunted. Uh, maybe vaunted is not the
00:02:50 --> 00:02:54 right word. It has the dubious honor of uh being
00:02:54 --> 00:03:00 a uh Infamous Podcasting mic it was the blue
00:03:00 --> 00:03:03 yeti. I bought it because everybody had it. The
00:03:03 --> 00:03:06 thing is though. I knew how to use it the the
00:03:06 --> 00:03:11 problem with the blue yeti, uh is Most people
00:03:11 --> 00:03:13 talking to the top of it, even though it is a
00:03:13 --> 00:03:16 front address microphone. So you talk into the
00:03:16 --> 00:03:20 side you should be looking directly at the blue
00:03:20 --> 00:03:25 logo when you talk into it. And it is a microphone
00:03:25 --> 00:03:29 that offers multi -directional input. So most
00:03:29 --> 00:03:32 people will have it accept input from all sides,
00:03:32 --> 00:03:34 which makes everything echoey when you should
00:03:34 --> 00:03:39 have it as a cardioid microphone, which means
00:03:39 --> 00:03:41 that you can only talk into the front of it.
00:03:41 --> 00:03:44 So you're talking into... the wrong part of it
00:03:44 --> 00:03:46 and it's picking up everything in the room and
00:03:46 --> 00:03:48 that's why people hate it but you if you have
00:03:48 --> 00:03:52 a blue yeti you can sound good so that was my
00:03:52 --> 00:03:54 first ever microphone plugged it directly into
00:03:54 --> 00:03:56 my computer i didn't need a board or anything
00:03:56 --> 00:04:00 like that very very soon after i upgraded multiple
00:04:00 --> 00:04:04 times uh i got you know the an interface and
00:04:04 --> 00:04:09 a mixer and all that fun stuff i maybe will do
00:04:09 --> 00:04:12 a later episode about my current gear but That
00:04:12 --> 00:04:14 is that was everything and then I used my my
00:04:14 --> 00:04:22 trusty Audio Technica M 150s Or 150 X whatever
00:04:22 --> 00:04:24 they were called. I still have those They're
00:04:24 --> 00:04:29 plugged into my record player now but those super
00:04:29 --> 00:04:32 trusty headphones and So that was the whole thing
00:04:32 --> 00:04:34 record with Skype record with QuickTime get the
00:04:34 --> 00:04:39 guest to record on their side and Then I used
00:04:39 --> 00:04:43 the Blue Yeti and I had headphones and I edited
00:04:43 --> 00:04:47 with Audacity. So those are the tools I used
00:04:47 --> 00:04:49 to launch my first podcast. Were they the best?
00:04:49 --> 00:04:52 No. Were they the ones I had? Absolutely. I guess
00:04:52 --> 00:04:56 I should also mention I hosted. So shout out
00:04:56 --> 00:04:59 to my friend Jackie Delia. I was in a mastermind
00:04:59 --> 00:05:02 group with her and a few other people and I was
00:05:02 --> 00:05:05 just going to upload my audio directly to WordPress.
00:05:05 --> 00:05:07 I was a WordPress developer. I built a great
00:05:07 --> 00:05:09 WordPress site and a bunch of plugins to help
00:05:09 --> 00:05:12 me. And I was just going to upload the audio
00:05:12 --> 00:05:16 to WordPress. And Jackie did her due diligence
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 for me. She was launching a podcast at the same
00:05:18 --> 00:05:23 time. And she was like, you can't do that. She's
00:05:23 --> 00:05:25 like, you got to use a host for a bunch of reasons.
00:05:26 --> 00:05:27 And so I signed up for Libsyn because it was
00:05:27 --> 00:05:31 cheap and more. It wasn't the only game in town,
00:05:31 --> 00:05:35 but it was the biggest game in town. So Libsyn
00:05:35 --> 00:05:37 was my first host, I'm sure, like many longtime
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 podcasters. But that's the whole stack. And that's
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 it for this episode. I hope you are enjoying
00:05:43 --> 00:05:45 this series, 30 days of podcast notes here on
00:05:45 --> 00:05:48 the Streamlines podcaster. If you are, be sure
00:05:48 --> 00:05:51 to subscribe. And if you are a solo business
00:05:51 --> 00:05:54 owner who is struggling to find the right tools
00:05:54 --> 00:05:58 or waste time and money on the wrong tools, I
00:05:58 --> 00:06:03 can help you by by building your solo ops. If
00:06:03 --> 00:06:05 you want to learn about solo ops, that is taking
00:06:05 --> 00:06:09 things off of your plate. without hiring a team
00:06:09 --> 00:06:12 or relying too much on AI, you can join my mailing
00:06:12 --> 00:06:16 list over at streamlined .fm slash join. There'll
00:06:16 --> 00:06:18 be a link in the show notes, but that's it for
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 this episode. Thanks so much for listening and
00:06:21 --> 00:06:22 I will see you tomorrow.