Why Your Business Needs a Podcast in 2025

Sean Weisbrot: Welcome back to another episode of the We Live To Build podcast. I'm here today with Anthony Frazier, the CEO of a BF Creative, a webby award-winning, data-driven podcast network and production company that bridges the gap between culture and media. He also was formerly a producer for NPR. This guy is an incredible sound engineer.

Sean Weisbrot: He's an incredible founder doing some really cool things around audio and ai. The conversation I had with him is fantastic. We spent a lot of time talking about why your company needs to have a podcast, what the benefits are of having a podcast, how to get started on creating a podcast, what software you should be thinking about, what hardware you should be thinking about, what kind of content you should be thinking about.

Sean Weisbrot: How often you should be posting and some specific really cool hacks that he taught me about how to make sure your social media grows fast with that content you put out. I hope you enjoy this episode and I look forward to bringing him back another time to talk about how AI can be used with podcasts.

Sean Weisbrot: What is it you do, and then we'll get into more of it?

Anthony: Well, you know, podcast right now is, you know, now.

Anthony: A billion dollar industry. I would say it's one of the most effective, if not the most effective way to kind of get your brand story out there, especially for advertising and increasing purchase intent. Despite all of those facts, the podcast industry still remains as far as the people in charge of making podcasts and podcast networks still are largely run by white males.

Anthony: I enjoy some of that content, but at the same time, I feel like there's a big deficit in multicultural content that exists in the podcast world. Brands are missing out on this. And this is a $3 trillion audience. And not only is it a $3 trillion audience, but 41% of podcast listeners in the US are non-white.

Anthony: There's a big opportunity to make content that is truly authentic and culturally relevant to this audience. And that's where we come in. A BF creative was formed to create content that could fill in those gaps. for the most part, not just for. Everyday listeners, but even for brands who are looking to attract those everyday listeners.

Sean Weisbrot: What made you want to get into creating a company that helps people create podcasts?

Anthony: Well, just super consumers. You know, of audio content, of entertainment, of all forms. And I'm a big, big, big fan of storytelling. And so for me, the podcast was like, I can't go out there and build the next Wakanda on film, but I can build in an audio.

Anthony: So that was the idea, like, how can I create Wakanda in your ears if I can't create it in your eyes? And so, we wanted to create that in a lot of the urban, black, multicultural content that was coming out were mostly just conversations, you know, like talking to you about your latest business or late, you know, and these are my favorite podcasts, right?

Anthony: I'm on one right now, so these are some of my favorites. This is why I learned. But what about the stories? What about immersion? What about the ones that entertain and just, you just don't want to think, but you just want to be entertained and you want to hear a great story that was missing and we wanted to fill in that gap.

Anthony: And so that's the reason why I was like, you know what? I want to jump in. I wanna do this. This is something I have fun doing. I love stories, I love, you know, where the industry is growing. I'm gonna jump in.

Anthony: And to be honest, in 2019 when I decided to jump into the podcast industry, the outlook wasn't as huge as it is now. Now the outlook is humongous as far as I like. Now every television company is creating an audio department. Netflix just announced they're ahead of audio and they're creating an audio department. HBO Max just announced a few weeks ago that they're now allowing podcast streaming on their apps. And so this is just the beginning of audio entertainment and I'm, you know, I just got lucky planting my flag.

Anthony: It was mostly just out of passion, but now I'm happy that we're in the industry that's growing.

Sean Weisbrot: For sure. I mean, my team told me that they wanted me to be like a Twitter person. Like they're like, oh, you need to be this guy who you know is on Twitter and likes sharing your things, like other CEOs. And I was like, I don't want that.

Sean Weisbrot: That's not who I am. It's like, okay, well why don't you be a guest on people's podcasts? And I was like, why don't I just make my own podcast? It's been a year since I started and I've published 71 episodes already.

Anthony: Oh wow. Amazing man. Congratulations on that, man. That's a huge accomplishment.

Sean Weisbrot: Some people may not realize how much of an accomplishment that is, and I'm not tooting my own horn, but the statistics I saw were that the average podcast dies after 17 episodes.

Anthony: That is factually correct.

Sean Weisbrot: Before the pandemic, there were over a million podcasts that had ever been launched, but of which. Only a hundred or 150,000 of them passed that 17 episode mark.

Anthony: That is correct. You know, I'm not consistent with my own podcast, only because I'm building it for so many other people.

Anthony: I think I get a pass either way. People always ask me like, Anthony, I wanna build this podcast, and how do I get loyal listeners? How do I do that? I was like, just be consistent. Of course, there's always other extra marketing things that you can throw into the mix, but the first ingredient is always the consistency.

Anthony: Like that's the ingredient that it doesn't matter what other. Things that you add to the mix. If you're not consistent, then almost none of it matters.

Sean Weisbrot: Why should somebody not create a podcast? Who's the wrong person to make a podcast?

Anthony: The person who's not gonna be consistent does not want to take the time to learn how to use equipment.

Anthony: You know, a lot of people always come to me. I wanna do a podcast, but I don't wanna do any of the stuff that you are all technical, and that's just impossible. There's gonna be situations where you might have to be your own producer for a while, like that's just what it is. You know? Like you have to wear multiple hats, and so if you're that kind of person, then it's definitely not for you.

Anthony: If you don't have anything to talk about that's useful for another person, then podcasting isn't for you. If you can't find it. The lessons in your everyday life or your business or whatever it is that you do, then why would anyone listen to you? Nobody wants to hear about your day just 'cause you feel like you're super important.

Anthony: People are listening to podcasts to get something from it. Like what is, what are the listeners getting from this? Is it just to boost up your own ego, then it's probably not for you.

Sean Weisbrot: So what are the benefits of creating a podcast? Assuming you want to be consistent, you have something to talk about that's valuable for people, and you don't mind being your own producer.

Sean Weisbrot: Side note, I've been my producer for the last year, and I've probably put a thousand hours into this podcast between scheduling, recording, editing, producing, publishing, promoting. It's not easy.

Anthony: Right, but now you know how to give the job to someone else, and I think that's important. How can you give someone a job that you don't know how to do yourself?

Anthony: Especially if you are a business owner? I know how to do every job in the company. That doesn't mean I'm the person who should do it though. 'cause I know how to do every job. I'm able to communicate effectively about what it is that I want from certain individuals, and many times they do a better job at it than I would.

Anthony: But to answer your question. Why do people need a podcast? If you're a business owner, you are a media company, essentially. There's different types of media you can create. You can create a newsletter. Sean just mentioned it a minute ago. You can create a Twitter following if that's what you wanna do. You can create a YouTube channel if.

Anthony: That's what you wanna do, or, or you can create a podcast or a combination of both, or a combination of all three. I don't think business owners have time to do all three. So usually you have to kind of pick your poison for the most part. And if your poison is going to be podcasts, then what it does for your brand is astronomical.

Anthony: You get to build a one-to-one relationship with your potential customers or your customers who are already there. You get to nurture that relationship with your customers. You get to further drive your brand messaging, which is super important. You know, what is it that you stand for? Sometimes reading a paragraph on your website is just not enough for some people.

Anthony: They wanna dig in, they wanna know, do they identify the values of the CEO or whoever, COO of that particular company, her podcast also. Keep you top of mind. People might not be looking to purchase or work with what you have, but because you're providing value, they're listening every week. And then when their time does come for them to feel like, oh, okay, yeah, I remember that guy or that company, I'm just gonna buy it from them.

Anthony: 'cause I trust them. They establish expertise in a certain area and that's what podcasts do. The Food Network is the perfect example of this. You see these chefs every day, they got a show and you're not thinking, Hey, I wanna go out and buy Bobby flas kitchen set. But yet, every time he comes on television, he's driving home that he's an expert in cooking.

Anthony: So it's no different. When you go to the store and then you see a Bobby Flay kitchen set and you're like, you know what? I trust him. I trust that this kitchen set is the best kitchen set because every day I'm watching this guy and he's making the best meals. That's what a podcast or whatever form of media does for your business in the sense where like, now you are top of mind.

Anthony: You know, people are like, oh, I trust this guy when it comes to real estate. I know that this guy is on point. I'm gonna buy his book because he knows what he's talking about. He's talked to almost every real estate millionaire, you know, who's come out in the last 10 years, whatever. So it establishes that trust and that authenticity and that expertise.

Anthony: And the last thing it does is it increases purchase intent. Podcast listeners are listening to you for seven minutes on average, you go Tell me what ad people are gonna listen to for seven minutes. YouTube has to put a skip button there because they know people will pull their hair out if they listen to an ad longer than even 10 seconds.

Anthony: Sometimes podcasts have the benefit of really getting people there stuck to what it is that you're selling. For a long period of time and you're not gonna get that anywhere else, and so that's why you should consider making a podcast.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, I the reason why I created the podcast was I wanted to make it so that for these people that go on Twitter, it's very easy for.

Sean Weisbrot: People can scroll through your history and find reasons to try to cancel you or, or like they misunderstand maybe what you're saying sometimes, but when you have this audio component, you have this context to what you're saying and why you're saying it in this long form. And so it lends itself not only to establishing trust, but also in showing a deeper sense of the person's personality, whether it's the guest or the host.

Sean Weisbrot: I found that there's actually more benefits beyond what you've shared and what you shared is actually really great. I can develop a community around all of my guests because they're all founders. And what do founders need? They need support, right? And so I can introduce all of my founders, all of my guests to each other, and that just makes this fantastic thing that's kind of, it's online, but it's special for them.

Anthony: Just to piggyback off what you said, we had a podcast called The Fat Startup that we did years ago, and then we built a conference. We were able to get high profile guests at the conference simply because we had a podcast. We were able to talk and convince Gary Vaynerchuk, James Altucher, Ben Horowitz, Tristan Walker, Ryan Leslie, we're talking about the top of the Crop People Podcast.

Anthony: That's why I did it. There you go. You're right, you're, you're a hundred percent right.

Sean Weisbrot: So other things that I've thought about. That podcasts can be useful in terms of building an audience out of your potential customers or current customers that you mentioned earlier, is things like AMAs, where I've seen CEOs doing AMAs on Twitch or YouTube or whatever.

Sean Weisbrot: So there's a potential to do this kind of more video based communication if you want, or a way to share. without really promoting your future roadmap ideas for the company, the, the features that you want to create, as well as potential mentorship opportunities or investment opportunities, which is one of the things that I was thinking about during the podcast, because if an investor wants a way to know who I am without me preparing myself for a conversation with them, they can just listen to any podcast that they want, any episode.

Sean Weisbrot: And if they listen to enough episodes, they'll get a sense of like. This is a consistent guy. This is his, these are his values and I really like that idea. Another is like promoting, oh yeah. Like we know you're a customer of ours and we're partnering with one of these other companies we know you like, and it's like you could do these promotions, you know, inside of the episodes as well.

Sean Weisbrot: So I think it's tremendous. Benefit and opportunity that can be inside of the podcast or outside of the podcast, but having the podcast gives you that platform to start.

Anthony: It definitely does if you can be consistent. It's a cheat code for the community. I see podcasts doing it all the time, like my first million.

Anthony: I'm listening to them consistently now, and I'm starting to see that they have a really big growing community around their podcast. The School of Greatness, same thing. I've seen that happen. I remember when he started that podcast and I was like, man, this is interesting. But he was super consistent and looked at what happened.

Anthony: Like he got a book deal off the podcast. He's become a millionaire. I'm guessing the podcast will be super successful. But the thing is, it's just consistency. 'cause the thing is, in the beginning, you know, people may see like, oh, this isn't going anywhere, or they can lose steam, or they feel like they're not getting a lot of listeners.

Anthony: Sometimes you need that buildup. There's this rapper named Russ, I'm not sure if you're familiar with him. and I heard an interview with him and he was like, every day I was making songs on SoundCloud and I was putting it up, and nobody would listen. Nobody would listen. Then all of a sudden, one of his songs took off.

Anthony: People started listening, and then what happened was he had this huge catalog of music that he already created. Every single person that loved his song that blew up, they went back. And all of those albums that he released years before started to go platinum started to go gold. 'cause he built up that reservoir of content already.

Anthony: So if you feel like you have all of this content that you're recording and you think, oh, nobody's listening, just remember it only takes one. And once you get that one, people are gonna now go back and say, oh, now I can become a fan of this guy. 'cause he has so much I need to catch up on. He has so many interviews that I didn't listen to already.

Anthony: I need to go. 'cause now I'm a big fan of this guy. So, you know, a lot of people don't think about that though. Like you need that reservoir of content for people to become a fan of yours. If people discover you and they only see that you only have love. Two or maybe one other thing, they may be like, that's gonna be hard for them to become a fan, to become a loyalist, but if they discover you in on episode 100, which you're nearing now, they have 80 to 90 more things to go listen to, and now they become a fan.

Anthony: Now they become loyalists because they have more to consume from you. so there's benefits in that and I think sometimes people don't think about those particular things.

Sean Weisbrot: So you brought up really good points, and I want to go into them a little bit more deeply. How can someone determine what kind of content to publish and how often to publish it?

Anthony: You know, it's kind of hard to get that in the beginning because like you said, you don't have that community to get feedback from. And so. There are several ways. You know, number one, you can look at yourself and say, okay, what do I wanna know? Is this something that I would want to know? Like, are you the consumer of the product you're creating?

Anthony: Sometimes I feed off of that for myself. For instance, I would ask questions like, Hey look, I. Sometimes I feel really lazy. What's the science of laziness? Like, how do we get over that? I would assume there are many other people who would wanna know that too. So like I, I think I'm not alone in that.

Anthony: Look at the questions that you ask yourself. That's just one way. The other way is to hack other people's communities. There's sites like Quora where people are asking questions all day long. You know, that's all the site is built for, is for asking questions. Look up the subject matter that you are an expert in.

Anthony: What questions are people asking in your subject area? You can apply that same thing to Reddit. Same thing for Twitter.

Sean Weisbrot: How does a company determine whether to do video recordings, audio recordings, or live streams?

Anthony: It's really about where's the area where you feel like you're gonna be more consistent. If you feel like, Hey, I can turn on a camera and be consistently doing this every day, and that's like more of a live stream, then go for it. And if you're good, you can repurpose content, meaning take that audio from the live stream, put it on YouTube as a video, put it on Apple as an audio, you know, you can take a recording and repurpose it. Three, four different ways to end today. So you might wanna think about doing that for your content.

Anthony: That way you put it everywhere. Distribution is really key and I think I haven't said that. Earlier, but distribution is your best marketing. And what I mean by that is everybody's content is native to the platform that it's on. Gone are the days where you can post a link on Twitter and say, Hey, go subscribe to my podcast.

Anthony: Most people who subscribed to our podcast discovered us on the platform that they were on. So for instance, most of the Apple listeners who listen to us. Never saw us tweet. Most of the people who are on LinkedIn who look into, look at our videos, never click through to the other thing. So just keep that in mind.

Anthony: There is a small percentage of people who would convert from your social media to actual I. Being on the platforms that you're on, the best bet to get people to convert is through your email list or the actual customers of your business. That's usually the best way to get them to be subscribers to your podcast, et cetera.

Anthony: So just keep that in mind. So when you repurpose content, make sure that you're putting content on those platforms and you're fine with people only consuming it there. So there is stuff that I would put on LinkedIn and I just know that nobody's ever gonna click that and go to the further link and consume it elsewhere.

Anthony: They're gonna consume it right there on LinkedIn. So make sure you have complete thoughts there. But that's not a bad thing because if you can swell up a community in the places where you're repurposing your content, eventually people will start to move to the other platforms where you exist. So it's not always a bad thing.

Sean Weisbrot: That's a problem I've actually discovered for myself, because if you were to take a YouTube link. And share it on another platform. Chances are you can display that video in line. But when you take an audio podcast and you share the link, the preview doesn't have clickable audio.

Anthony: No. All of these platforms serve ads, and when you serve ads, the purpose of the platform is to keep people.

Anthony: On the platform. So anytime you're encouraging people to leave, the algorithms for social media will start to punish your account. This is something people don't talk about. So YouTube for instance, when you create a YouTube video and in the description, the first thing that you say is, Hey, go to my website.

Anthony: You are now telling YouTube the algorithm. You are sending people away from YouTube, which means no more ads, they can serve that person. So YouTube is gonna be like, no, we don't want people to watch this video. We are not gonna put 'em in the related channels. We're not gonna serve because you're telling people to leave.

Anthony: The same thing is the case for Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, whatever. So if you wanna train the algorithms to love you, then you have to make the content look native to the platform that it's on.

Sean Weisbrot: I don't know how to do that. I use Acast, which is a ho, a podcast hosting platform and syndication network. I provide a link to that and the audio file exists there.

Sean Weisbrot: Now, I also have the audio file in a clickable player on my website, but I don't get people going to my website, so I stopped promoting the website. I started promoting Acast, but. If I use the embed player link in the social media platform, it just has a clickable HTML link to that other platform. It doesn't show the episode playable with the click I.

Sean Weisbrot: I don't know of any platforms that offer clickable audio in social media.

Anthony: Audio's the tough nut, the crack when it comes to these other platforms. Video is much easier to have, 'cause you can put a. You can make a video, a vid, a Twitter video, video. You can make a video naturally, an Instagram video, but audio is just so much harder to convert.

Anthony: And this isn't just your problem. If you look at some of the larger audio kinds of players in this space, they all suck at audio engagement on Twitter and all these, rarely do you see it.

Anthony: You know, really taking off. Video is the best way to go. And so usually what you can do is kind of create a video where you're talking and you're saying, Hey, I got this new podcast on today's episode, we were talking about this.

Anthony: And you kind of give highlights. And if you wanna listen, check the link out in my bio. But you can't necessarily put a link in the description and say, Hey, go check it out. Like it has to be like. Are we getting value from this video that we are watching? Right? In the video where you're actually promoting the episode, it might be best to actually give five bullet points on things you've learned, and that way someone scrolling past can watch your video and say, oh, that was great.

Anthony: That was very inspirational. I'm gonna follow him. And then they'll go on about their day. But what you are starting to do is build trust. On the platform that you're on. And so that's really the goal, really. I'm gonna be honest, social media is not as easy as it used to be, where you can just say, Hey, I got this new thing, click here, go there.

Anthony: It's no longer that. Now you have to build trust. You have to build community relationships. Then the only way to do that is to make sure that you're providing value on the platform where it's at. So yeah, if you're tweeting.

Anthony: Maybe it might be best to just say, Hey, look, record a video, put it on Twitter, and just say, Hey, here are five things I learned from Anthony Frazier today that can help you boost your podcast.

Anthony: Number one, if you wanna learn even more, yo, check the link in my Twitter bio. If you do that consistently, then I think you'll start to see some results.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, I'll definitely try that because I've been looking at my Twitter. I post once a week, maybe twice a week, just whenever there's a new article or a new episode, so I don't post outside of that.

Sean Weisbrot: Is your LinkedIn bigger than your Twitter? Yeah, by about three times

Anthony: I would just negate Twitter all together. And then just do exactly what I just said. Do that on LinkedIn and see what happens.

Sean Weisbrot: The thing about Twitter is I started the account a year ago. I have a hundred followers as of yesterday on my one year anniversary on Twitter.

Sean Weisbrot: So almost every three days I have a new Twitter follower. And the only reason that happens is because when I have an episode or an article, I tell the guest or the people I'm quoting to share it on their social media. So they're sharing it with people, and then those people are following me

Anthony: slowly, slowly but surely.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my LinkedIn gets likes. 300, I like 300 followers on LinkedIn and like a hundred on Twitter. But I don't do anything other than post those things.

Anthony: Yeah, just repost it on LinkedIn. Like if you did that video that I just described and you did that and you repo, you posted on LinkedIn and Twitter, slowly but surely, yeah, you're gonna start to build trust amongst the community 'cause.

Anthony: What's gonna happen is people don't feel like they need to go listen to get value from you. Like I don't have to leave Twitter to get value from Sean. I don't have to leave LinkedIn to get value from Sean. If you do that consistently, what happens is they start to trust you and then they actually will feel like, well, let me go leave and see what else he has going on.

Anthony: Now, you know, now I can trust when he posts the link, I can trust it's gonna be valuable because he's given me so much value without even leaving this platform. People don't wanna leave. They wanna keep scrolling. They don't wanna leave. And I think that's what content creators don't necessarily get.

Anthony: You know, like people don't wanna leave Twitter to go listen to your podcast. They wanna keep looking at tweets, they wanna consume what you have, and then scroll to the next thing. So if you're stopping that, then you're not building trust with this is the way social media works. It's not gonna work any other way for a long time.

Anthony: This is just the way it is. It's a scrolling culture. Either you're part of the scroll or you're not. So be part of the scroll.

Sean Weisbrot: For every episode, I record an intro and it's usually one to two minutes long where I talk about. Why I like this guest, what we talked about, why this was important to me, why I wanted to talk about it.

Sean Weisbrot: Do you think if I were to make a video of that recording that that's good enough? Or do you think two, one and a half, two minutes is too long for people to sit there and listen? I

Anthony: don't think it's too long, but the goal is will they get value from what you are saying?

Anthony: That's the test. That's what you gotta keep iterating on. Because it's like if they watched a video and then never clicked on your link or never listened to your pod, will they still leave your video with some nuggets of wisdom creating value if you just gave me something useful. That's exactly the reason why branded podcasts work because you're not blatantly promoting your product.

Anthony: Or your business, you're actually giving value. So you have to meta that down to Twitter and just say, okay, it's the same thing. Am I actually providing something useful to the person who's scrolling? Or am I just blatantly telling them, Hey, you gotta go watch this video. I need to get value from the thing you are already giving me.

Anthony: And then maybe. If I like it, then just maybe I might go check out the podcast. Like you go to the supermarket and you see those guys out with the sample tables. They're like sampling meat. Hey, you wanna try this meat out? It's the same thing like you're in the supermarket. Social media is a big ass supermarket and people have their tables out.

Anthony: You have to make sure, like I have to taste it and it has to be like, oh, this is great. Let me go into the aisle and go buy a full box of this. That's what your videos are, literally the sample table. And if I don't consume something that tastes good, just from this three, two minutes, why should I go? Go buy a whole box of you.

Anthony: It's the same thing.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, it's pretty good insight. Thank you. I appreciate it. Before I was like, I don't know, but now I'm like, I'm definitely gonna try,

Anthony: But that's why it's hard.

Sean Weisbrot: The problem for me with videos is like, I'm not a video person. I much prefer audio.

Anthony: You'd be surprised the way you look right now, the way you're looking people take this, like if you did it just like this.

Anthony: Don't try to be. I think when you try to make a production, that's when you'll go wrong. Don't try to make a full on production. Literally look at the camera with the headphones on, with the mic, the same way you're looking at me right now. Record the video and upload it as is. If you do anything else, you make it hard for yourself.

Anthony: You are gonna stop doing it. You don't want to create friction. You want it to be as seamless as possible.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, it's brilliant. So let's, let's get a little bit into the equipment and all that. I did so much research trying to make my podcast. I already had Bluetooth headphones 'cause my phone didn't support a three by five, millimeter jack.

Sean Weisbrot: And so I just used it here. So there's wired headphones, there's Bluetooth headphones. Which ones do you think are better and why?

Anthony: I do believe wired headphones might be better, only because sometimes a signal can cut out. I have the Sony XM fours, the signal cuts out on them things at night sometimes, and I'll just be like, what the fuck?

Anthony: I just get mad. They're good headphones, but you know, like I just hate when it happens. You don't want that to happen in the middle of a production though. Like, so to me, I think definitely you should invest in some wire headphones, monitors, they call studio monitors. You know, make sure you are using that word when you're searching, but honestly, any headphones would do.

Anthony: But if you want to be super technical and super audio geeky, then look for monitor headphones.

Sean Weisbrot: Just to be clear, the reason why someone would use headphones. Is you wanna be able to hear the sound clearly and you wanna prevent the other person or people from saying something that goes through your speakers and then gets picked up by your mic.

Sean Weisbrot: And then you can't take it outta the audio track.

Anthony: You want the cleanest possible audio. And by using headphones, you allow both parties to have the cleanest audio possible. I can get feedback from your mic and you will bleed.

Anthony: They call it bleeding. Your audio will bleed into our minds, and that's where we would. You know, I have an issue. So you wanna prevent as much bleeding as possible.

Sean Weisbrot: All right, let's talk about microphones. So this is something I also did a lot of research on. I've heard of people saying, oh, you need this like $500 mic and this and that. I have a Samsung. Q2U microphone, it was $60 and this thing produces incredible quality sound.

Sean Weisbrot: $60. You could buy it on Amazon. I use the USB input to my computer. Okay. I've heard of people using this analog controller and pads and like getting really fancy and like, I just don't think it's necessary.

Anthony: So this is USB and analog, the one I'm using right now. So I'm using a short MV seven. I can turn it into an analog if I wanted to, but then I'm using a USB function right now just 'cause it's easier, you know?

Anthony: I think if I was doing a bigger production, I would use a more stable line to get the more full sound. It all depends on what your purpose is, I think for what you do. This is perfect, you know, if you're gonna do like a regular interview kind of style podcast, you're using the internet, great. But when you're doing heavier production in person, tape syncs, things like that, you kind of want a stable signal, and that's where the XLR cables will come into play.

Anthony: When I was working at NPR, they were using the $60 mic to record people, like it's really not that big of a deal. It really is all about the editing and the post-production. At the end of the day, unless you're a snob like me, I'm a proud audio snob, and I do go for really high-end mics, really high-end, you know, sound when it comes to like podcast stuff.

Anthony: Only because like we're obsessed with just immersive storytelling and sometimes you really do need high-end equipment to make sure things go well with that stuff. It's really about, your preference really comes down like we're in 2021, it doesn't cost a million dollars. To produce, produce something that's super high end.

Anthony: It just doesn't.

Sean Weisbrot: So let's go a little bit deeper into the differences between our microphones, from what I can see from here. You have a condenser mic. Am I right? I sure do. So I have a cardio microphone. Do you know the difference between the two? Can you explain it?

Anthony: The difference between a condenser mic is there's more of like a ribbon, microphone setup in a sense where it's like a lot more technology in it, you know?

Anthony: So there's a lot more happening inside the actual microphone. The sound is a lot fatter from a condenser microphone. So like the audio that comes from a condenser is, it's a lot thicker. if that makes any sense. When I'm recording and I'm recording to like audacity or whatever, there's a lot of bass in my voice.

Anthony: There's a lot of thickness in there, whereas. A cardio or maybe like a dynamic microphone. It's more of this even sound. It's not really an enhancement in certain areas unless you do that in post-production and then it's more versatile so your microphone can be adapted to many different things. Environments on the fly, on the go, whereas a microphone that uses XLR cables, you kind of, like I said, you need cables, you need a preamp.

Anthony: You need all these different things just to get the sound the way you want it. Whereas dynamic microphones are more versatile. You can kind of plug and play and be on your way. So, like I said, the lines are blurring, technology is getting smarter, and so a lot of those microphones are pretty much coming in ways where they can be adaptable to any environment.

Sean Weisbrot: So I was mentioning before that I have a cardiod microphone. Mm-hmm. And what that kind of means is like if you've ever seen someone singing on a stage, that's the kind of microphone that I have. Where it's really great closer to your face, and the sound can be brilliant. If you get too far away, the quality isn't very good.

Sean Weisbrot: Now let's talk about the pop filter and the wind filter and all of that real fast.

Anthony: Yeah. So I mean, windscreens and pop filters, pop filters are just kind of keeping you from doing that p closes. Or when you, when you're speaking, you like seeing your peas really, in a certain way, or you got a lot of, you know, spit coming out your mouth in certain ways.

Anthony: And, you know, pop filters are good to kind of filter that stuff through. And then wind screens are. Really just making sure like, you know, you don't hear like the fan and you know that annoying sound coming through your mic. So what I have right now is I don't have a pop filter on my mic, but I have a win.

Anthony: So this little Afro like thing on top of my microphone is, uh. Pretty much keeping a lot of wind coming through, you know, and making it sound really great. The pot filter would keep down the explosives and all of those different things from coming in through the mic.

Sean Weisbrot: So let's quickly talk about editing software.

Sean Weisbrot: You mentioned Audacity. It's what I use. It's an open source software. I've also tried Audition and a few other platforms and I ultimately decided they were not what I needed. Audition was actually. Gorgeous. There were features that audacity doesn't have that if you under, if you're like a top quality sound engineer, you would go, holy crap, this is gorgeous.

Anthony: Well, I'm a top quality sound engineer, so I love gorgeous interface. They call 'em digital audio workstations. And my favorite one right now is Reaper. So Reaper fm, it's an independent one. They are constantly updating. I love Reaper Man. Reaper is like my favorite one. The reason why you would want to use stuff like Reaper and Audition and all these different pro tools of, obviously Pro Tools is the most popular one.

Anthony: Ableton Live and all these other, because they take plugins, and plugins are, you know, digital tools to make your sound better. So you can put compressors and all these and. Audacity. Audacity has those two, but they're very complex ones that are out there. My favorite suite of digital plugins comes from a company called Isotope.

Anthony: So Isotope makes ozone. They make a whole bunch of other plugins that are really good that can help take your sound to the next level nectar and so many others. If you're not really into that and you're like, Hey, I want simple. I need simple, and I need. Just the basics of the things. Audacity is really good.

Anthony: I know people, I know whole studios that run on Audacity, like where they have no other program, but they have Audacity. So you're not in the wrong, you know, you don't have to feel like, Hey, I got this cheap, you know, free software. Audacity, is it good enough? Yes, it is. There are people out there working wonders with Audacity, so it comes back down to.

Anthony: Once again, what's your preference? I think if you're someone who doesn't edit, audio is not really deep into it. Audacity is your best bet, but you know, if you're someone who really loves audio and you really wanna get in and learn the more complicated stuff, then yeah, I would say go for like Pro Tools, Reaper, audition, those things

Sean Weisbrot: With Audacity there's five plugins that I use. They're all free, obviously. They're the things that I swear by which create consistent, fantastic audio, which are. I do them in this order. Noise reduction, compressor limiter, bass boost, treble boost, normalize. Holy crap. My audio sounds amazing every time.

Anthony: Yeah. I mean, you can get good, great results. Actually, I think Audacity has one of the best noise reductions plugins. Even better than some of the commercial shit, like, there have been plenty of times where I would literally take an audio, throw it into Audacity just to use the noise reduction and then go back into another program.

Sean Weisbrot: We've got two more quick things that I want to mention real fast.

Sean Weisbrot: One of them is. Recording platforms, so I use squad cast. There's also Stream Yard and there's a bunch of other ones where you can record audio, you can record video, you can do live streams, you can share them to other platforms. Do you have a preference for the squad cast, and I'll tell you why. When you're done.

Anthony: No, I don't have a particular preference. Squad cast and Riverside FM are the ones that people are using the most and Riverside is gaining steam, I would say, amongst the remote recording community. so I don't necessarily have a preference. I do know that these programs produce better Audio Zencastr as well.

Anthony: That's another. One I wanna mention, these companies produce better audio than Zoom. While Zoom, like a lot of people, likes to use Zoom for their recording. Zoom doesn't allow local recording the way that these platforms do. So if you're gonna do remote recording, I would rather you use a Riverside or a squad cast or Zencaster for that recording than to use Zoom itself.

Anthony: But Zoom is a good backup. I'll be honest. When things like squad cast and Riverside FM start messing up. They do quite often Zoom is that handy dandy backup that you know it's gonna work exactly how it's gonna work. Don't throw Zoom away. Zoom is a solid backup.

Sean Weisbrot: So the reason why I pay for squad cast is because it lets me have the video for us to share with each other, and then we have split audio tracks where the audio is recorded locally on our device and then uploaded to the internet.

Sean Weisbrot: So I can grab your audio and my audio at the same time. And even if you have internet trouble, I still get perfect audio from your side.

Anthony: So they all do those same things, but Zoom does not do that. Zoom doesn't do that, but Zoom is stable.

Sean Weisbrot: So the next thing is hosting platforms. I use Acast. There's like a ton of other ones.

Sean Weisbrot: I don't even, I can't even name all of them. Is there one that you prefer to use and why?

Anthony: There's nothing wrong with Acast. I actually have a few friends who work at Acast, so I think Acast is really solid. There's one that I'm really a big fan of sounder fm, and they're doing a lot with audio, SEO, which is gonna be humongous in the next, you know, year or two.

Anthony: So Sounder FM is a pretty solid platform. And I'm friends with the founder and CEO there too. I run a network and so for me, sometimes I have certain tools and certain things that I need. Sound is actually building out professional enterprise tools. Though actually we're considering moving all of our stuff over to Sound fm, but right now we use Megaphone, and Megaphone is an enterprise platform for audio.

Anthony: and that's how we distribute and use our hosting. For the most part, megaphones are not available to the public at large. You kind of have to buy an enterprise account for a megaphone. But that's the platform that we use and we love and prefer right now.