I have a show called Unsupervised Learning, where I do Content Curation as a Service. I consume 5-20 hours of books, podcasts, and articles per week, and then curate that into a 15-30 minute summary.
A number of people have asked me about my setup, so that’s what this is. Most of these types of posts are from super podcast / audio pros who are basically giving a reference architecture.
This isn’t one of those posts. I basically fumbled my way into a workflow that seems fit for purpose, but it’s not necessarily ideal. I would appreciate any pointers from people who know what they’re doing.
Colophon
- Computer: Mac Pro (16 Cores, 96GB Memory)
- Microphone: Neumann U87AI
- Monitors: Neumann KH 120A
- DAW: Hindenburg
- Plugins: DeVerberate
- Podcast Hosting: OmnyStudio
- File Format: WAV, 44Khz, 16-bit
The show is actually both a podcast and a newsletter, and the newsletter serves as my podcast show notes, so each podcast episode has an image and link to the newsletter.
Process
- Gather content throughout the week via Safari Reading List, and Feedly’s “Read Later” functionality. I gather content by either sharing to Reading List on iPhone, right-clicking links to send them to Reading List, or within Feedly I simply bookmark items
- Bring all that into the week’s newsletter (I use Mailchimp)
- Record the show by talking through the stories in the newsletter, using Hindenburg as the input software 4. I use DeVerberate to reduce echo in my small, hard floor room where I record.
- Export song to disk (44Khz WAV)
- Publish podcast in OmnyStudio
- Publish blog episode
- Publish newsletter
Recording takes 15-30 minutes, depending on how much content I have. I try to keep the shows short, but if I have something I go into depth on I can get up around 60 minutes.
A look at my view within Adobe Audition
Post production, i.e. steps 5 to 8, takes about 3 minutes or so. The vast majority of the time comes in steps 1 and 2, which happens throughout the week and probably takes 5-20 hours of collecting and organizing.
Takeaways
That’s my current process. Like I said, I’m not claiming it’s a good one, but I’ve been doing this since January of 2015 and this seems to be the best system I’ve had so far.
If I had to say one thing I’ve learned, it’s that sound production matters far less than:
- Content quality
- Show structure
- Consistency
People would rather have a bad-sounding show that’s super high-quality and that comes out every week, than a great sounding show about nothing, or one that constantly skips weeks or comes out at unpredictable times.
Anyway, I hope this all helps someone, and if you have tips on how to optimize or improve the process, do let me know.
Notes
- Nov 21, 2016 — Moved to Audition and OmnyStudio from Audio Hijack, Garageband, Blurbbry, and Soundcloud.
- Jan 15, 2017 — Moved from my Yeti mic to the Electro Voice RE27.
- Jan 10, 2019 — Moved to Hindenburg as my DAW.
- Jul 15, 2019 — Moved microphones from my Electro Voice RE27 to the Neumann U87Ai.
- Sep 15, 2019 — Added my Neuman KH 120A Monitor speakers.
