Necessary And Optional Podcasting Gear

Podcasting is becoming more popular everyday. Besides the commercial uses for podcasting such as in education and advertising, many people have discovered that producing their own “radio shows” is an enjoyable hobby. Obviously, in order to make your own digital recordings you have to have the proper podcasting gear. What most of us don’t know is that we already have most of the necessary equipment. By simply picking up a few accessories we can all have enough podcasting gear to get started making our own digital voice recordings.

Start With The Basics

The key to a beginner’s podcast is to use the equipment you already have and add only additional pieces as needed. Most of us have a personal computer (or Mac) that can handle the job. To properly produce a podcast you should gear up your present computer to have minimum requirements including 512 MG of RAM, two to three gigabytes of hard drive space, a soundcard and in/out jacks for the headphone and microphone. Using Windows XP on your personal computer or OS 9 or X on your Mac will ensure that you will be able to record a podcast. The simplest and most important podcasting gear is the RAM. This will make a noticeable difference in the quality of your recording.

Other podcasting gear that is essential is a microphone and headphones or a headset. The microphone is the method by which you record your voice and the headphones let you listen to what you have recorded. Although microphones and headphones can be bought very inexpensively, purchasing a headset makes recording a podcast more convenient. A pop filter is an optional piece of podcasting gear that can help make your recordings clearer by eliminating the popping sounds made when you say letters such as “p”. A pop filter can be homemade with just a few supplies you can find around the house.

High-speed Internet service is mandatory podcasting gear. A slow Internet connection will make uploading and downloading podcasts impossibly time consuming. This means that you must have a DSL, cable or T1 Internet connection to manage your podcasts properly.

To take your podcast on the road with you a valuable piece of podcasting gear is a portable MP3 player. Podcasts take up quite a bit of storage space depending on the length of the recording; so don’t skimp on this feature when selecting an MP3 player. Of course this is completely optional podcasting gear and is not absolutely necessary to get started.