Someone recently reached out to me to share a podcast they'd "made" that clearly used AI characters and voices. And I have to say, my first reaction wasn't positive at all. The more I think of it, the more I believe that the use of synthetic voices for podcasting is completely contrary to the whole medium.

Podcasting evolved as a conversational medium, where people spoke authentically and gave their authentic views--and a lot of the appeal of the podcast is the parasocial relationship a listener forms with a host. We attach value to somebody's reputation and personality, and simply fabricating that out of thin air is... well, bad. I don't know how else to say it.

When I find out that a podcast has used a lot of synthetic voice tools, it undermines my trust in other aspects of their work. If they're willing to cut corners there, where else did they decide to save a few bucks?

But I don't know if I'm normal or not. What do y'all think? Are there applications where a synthetic voice or character is useful?

I'm looking to turn my personal podcasting skills into remote/freelance work as a podcast producer/editor. Has anyone had luck finding this type of work, and if so, where?

It is tempting to solve every audio problem by buying a new microphone or processor.

However, echoes, hard surfaces, traffic, fans and poor microphone technique can limit even expensive equipment.

Simple changes such as moving closer to the microphone, recording away from bare walls, softening reflective surfaces and monitoring a short test may improve the result before any major purchase is necessary.

Which inexpensive change made the biggest difference to your podcast audio? Was there any equipment you bought before realising the room was the real problem?

Looking to start a podcast and needing a second personality who would complement me! Looking for a daily show with a camera and we can stream from our separate locations. I'm located in OH.

So I was approached by a lady named “Yvonne” in her 60’s. who wanted to do a podcast related to victims advocacy and I would be the outreach/research guy.

It has been a fun and fulfilling project. We have raised awareness for a lot of victims. But it’s had its challenges.

Now my issues with guests are some get very exited at first then have cold feet and flake. There is a victim whose friend recommended we cover the case but she didn’t want to come on. Neither did another friend or his brother so now I have to track down both of his parents who were divorced.

Another one the victims daughter and she has me going down a rabbit hole of finding the suspects ex girlfriend. It leaves me wondering if she’s just using me as a free private investigator instead of actually wanting to come on the show. So I found out the outreach stuff can take weeks.

On the social media side the only other person doing the podcast with us is Yvonne’s friend “Amy.”

I got the impression me and Amy would be collaborating on social media. Amy was working on TikTok, Yvonne posted on Facebook and I posted stuff on Twitter.

Yvonne gave me Amy’s email and I reached out and we had a good convo. I’ve been creating posters and imagine the last 6 months for each episode and emailing them to her. She never used any of my images.

I did tag Yvonne, Amy and another lady we know into a email where I showed 10 clips I made for my own separate Tik Tok project I am working on with my friend “Reggie.”

The reason I shared is this is my first ever video I am
making and wanted feedback and I was also hoping that it could help Amy more as I was told she was learning this content creation process for the first time.

Amy ended up calling Yvonne and was like “you want me to stop doing the TikTok?” She also made it clear she only wants to communicate with Yvonne going forward.

Yvonne thought I was doing this content for her podcast instead of my own separate project. This despite me telling her 24 hours earlier about my project with Reggie and if she wanted to see what was working on. She agreed but I think she misunderstood.

Now 1000% I will respect their wishes. I really feel this was all miscommunication but I think it’s an important lesson to learn.

When working on a new project to avoid awkward situations like this I think we all need to be upfront and more clear in communicating. Had I had known Amy wanted to work independently I’d have never reached out. I incorrectly assumed she wanted to collaborate because Yvonne gave me her email and presented her to me as this person who was like me new to podcasting and the social media end.

I also think another mistake I made was asking people on one project what they thought of an outside project. I feel like it’s best to keep projects separate. We all get busy and there is too much confusion.

I’ve made the decision going forward that I will only focus on the outreach and research avenue of the podcast going forward. My social media posts for the podcasts did not gain traction anyway. So I will let Amy handle it 100% going forward. I think it’s better for my sanity to just simply things.

For context none of us are being paid to do this podcast. It’s just a volunteer passion project. So I don’t have a contract.

I will only do social media stuff with my project with Reggie going forward. I am really exited to be collaborating with him. I thrive off collaboration environments and bouncing ideas off each other.

And another lesson on the outreach stuff. Unless a guest is really worth it I would recommend not chasing people. That’s exhausting.

I also am grateful to have had this opportunity because it taught me a lot about the podcast industry and I will stay on the podcast for as long as Yvonne wants to do it. It’s a wonderful networking opportunity and I feel it’s going to lead to great things down the line.

And I want to also add the best lesson as always is never stop learning.

I’ve been thinking about the balance between being financially responsible and actually investing in growth.

When starting a podcast, there are so many free or affordable tools available that it’s easy to rely on them for everything. Things like free editing resources, design tools, tutorials, and online communities can take you pretty far.

At the same time, I wonder if being too cautious with spending can hold creators back. It can be difficult to tell the difference between a smart investment and something that is just an unnecessary expense.

For experienced podcasters, what was the first thing you spent money on that genuinely improved your workflow or quality?

Yes, we all know that the format is flawed, but that’s not the main problem. It’s that they can’t build a listener community, because they record too far in advance.

If they were recording episodes once a fortnight, say, we could have listener emails that lead to running jokes and new format points (à la playground shaggers).

I’m sure they know that it would be a fresher, more entertaining show if they recorded more frequently. Therefore it’s hard not to feel like they’ve sold out; the ads that last days, the live shows, all off the back of a week’s recording once a year.

Bah.

We are setting up our podcast studio and wanted some advice? We have Rode PodMics and we were wondering if we could just use these or do we need headphones? If yes, what do you suggest? We are recording in a garage that we have soundproofed with acoustic panels. Thank you in advance 🙏

This is a weekly thread to ask for and give feedback to the r/podcasting community

Post a podcast episode you would like feedback for, and try to give as much constructive feedback as you can to other members of our community. Please provide links to your podcast, a detailed description of it and clear questions you would like answered by the community. Try to remember the following:

​

• Users who give feedback are usually the ones who receive the most feedback in return. If you are not contributing, you should not expect any helpful advice in return. We would aim for giving two pieces of feedback for every one piece you wish to receive. If you are looking to simply promote your podcast, you may do so here

​

• Try to be specific with your feedback requests. Questions like:

-What can I improve?

-Was it good?

-Would you listen again?

Are very difficult to answer for anyone listening to your show for this first time. Good questions might be:

-What improvements could I make to the audio quality?

-Can I make adjustments to my speaking or hosting style?

-How could I improve the pacing and structure of my podcast?

​

• Keep it focused on podcasting techniques and objective improvements. Many podcasts that are posted may not be your particular genre or preferred content. When giving feedback, focus on the things you do enjoy and the things that can be changed, not the content of the show itself.

I will reiterate. If you do not give feedback, you should not expect any feedback in return. This is a reciprocal community. If you haven't gotten any comments yet, try listening to another podcast and giving some feedback. Our users are very friendly and responsive!

Thank you to everyone posting, we look forward to hearing your work!

Hi everyone,

I am the host of a podcast on technology and politics launching this September and have so far interviewed lawyers, academics, and politicians across North America.

If anyone here has expertise in a certain field related to my topic and is interested in coming on, leave a comment or DM me, and I will get back to you whether it is a good fit or not.

I run a solo-monologue podcast and want to, at some point, bring on guests and co-hosts who'd be comfortable podcasting. I don't want to put that pressure on my personal friend groups so think I need to look for channels to meet other podcasters who speak to my target demographic. Are there any good websites, reddit communities, or methods you've found to network your podcast.

I run a movie podcast, which I think would help due to how much of a saturated space that is.

Let me know your experiences.

PS: This is not a post requesting podcast co-hosts so please don't reply with that intent!

I'm helping book guests for a small podcast centered around the idea of turning pain into purpose.

We're not looking for celebrities, influencers, or people with huge followings. We're looking for real people who have walked through something incredibly difficult and found meaning, growth, or a new purpose because of it.

The goal isn't to sensationalize trauma, it's to explore healing, resilience, and hope.

You don't need to have a book, business, or social media following. If you have a story that might encourage someone else, we'd love to hear from you.

Hey there!

I created a podcast for someone. She expressed no interest for months. Never talked to me about it. This week, out of nowhere, she announced she will be doing my show. She announced it like it was her idea and having never spoken a word to me about it. It had been removed from her folder for months.

Anyway, have any of you sold a podcast? I’ve essentially made her a play by play of exactly what to do to make this work. I feel like I want to request an upfront fee and a percentage in perpetuity. If that will fly,

Does anyone have any kind of experience with this? I don’t even need any kind of expert advice. I will be so happy with, “watch out for this one thing I did wrong.”

Okay, let me see if I can explain myself well so I can get some help. Unfortunately searches for my answer all give me the answer for the PodTrak P4 and the P4Next has different buttons and toggles.

Here is what I want. I like to record directly to Zoom which will record my audio for me. It's not perfect, but I don't care at this point. Or, I want to do a live to YouTube. My problem is that I want to use my nice audio technica microphone. So, I have the Zoom PodTrak P4Next which provides phantom power to my microphone.

I do not have an SD card in because I was going to be recording to my computer, to zoom cloud, or simply to youtube. I suppose this could be part of the problem, but I don't think so. I wanted to add this in just in case.

My setup is:

Microphone is in XLR port. 48v is set to on. PodTrak is plugged in for power, although changing it to battery does not make a difference. Setting is to Stereo. Mix Minus is on. Headphones are in the headphone jack. The PodTrak is connected to my desktop with a cord.

With this setup I can hear my voice in the microphone in the headphones. The microphone is working. I can change the volume and it changes what I hear throuth the PodTrak.

So what happens is, I go to Zoom or YouTube and test the audio. I do not get any option for microphone or speaker. The PodTrak doesn't come up as an option. My settings in Windows say that apps can use microphone.

On the PodTrak P4- not the one I have, there was a setting on input 4 to switch to USB. This one doesn't have that option. I feel like there is an easy answer that I am missing. It's probably explained in a youtube video, but the search engines are having a hard time differentiating my device from the older model.

If anybody has the answer, or a question that would help me solve it, I would love the help, this is the dumbest thing to keep me from hitting record. I will probably just use my webcam mic for a little while, but it's not the quality I'm looking for.

Edited to add that of course it was an easy answer that I discovered as soon as I wrote a long reddit post asking for help. I kept changing cords and finally found one that was high enough quality to connect from the PodTrak to my desktop. I think the other cords were from other devices and they were too cheap for audio to travel through. I had that thought in the back of my mind and kept looking until I found one that I knew was higher quality.

I just started a podcast and I asked someone to make me a cover but they clearly used AI :(

Do you guys have any tips or suggestions I could use to create my own cover art? I have some experience with Canva but I love getting outside feedback before diving into a project like this. Thanks in advance! 💗

UPDATE: thank you so much for all of the responses!! This has given me so much inspo

Hey all!

I’ve been running my podcast weekly for a year and a half putting out weekly episodes without a miss so far. So up to 72 episodes by this point and some decent success with a growing fan base. My podcast currently is between 25 to 40 minutes an episode focusing on philosophical content. I’ve done a few specials (for the year anniversary and Halloween) that changed up the format for fun and had some good success, especially my two part year anniversary that did a historical exploration of the lives of a handful of philosophers I talk a lot about.

Anyway! Though this would be much further out from now, I wonder what you all think of format changes to podcasts that have been running a while. For instance after at least 100 episodes I thought about maybe changing things up for a bit. Possibly doing 2 episodes a month or maybe even 1 but pouring A LOT more time and effort into them (at the moment because I work full time and do it all on my own, each episode is more like a fun conversational lesson). I was thinking picking major topics and going into possibly 2 hour long episodes of depth I haven gotten to do before. Just an example of an idea.

I mostly just really enjoy making this podcast and know at some point I’d love to mess with different styles and ideas.

What do you all think of major shifts like this? Bad idea? Fun?

This is a weekly thread for podcasting related product, service, and tool providers to post their capabilities and updates to the r/podcasting community.

*Post a podcasting related product, tool, or service that is relevant to the r/podcasting community. If you are in beta or development for your capability please state at the top of your comment: *"Feedback Requested."

For all comments/replies to this post thread: please provide a detailed description of what your product, tool, or service does and post a link to your product, service, or tool including relevant pricing information. **

*Try to remember the following: *

• You must disclose your affiliation to the product, tool, or service in the comment

• Posts by accounts with little or no Reddit or r/podcasting subreddit history will be considered suspect by many members of this subreddit and receive little or no attention.

• If you are asking for feedback be specific and ask questions like: What can we improve? Would you consider using this capability/service? Is the graphical interface/web presence adequate? What capabilities are missing?

*Examples Of Appropriate Comment Topics: *

• Editing/production services

• AI Tools

• Hosting Services

• Advertisement sales services

• New Podcasting Software

• Connecting/Recording Services

• Guest Connection Services

• Podcast artwork creation services

• Podcasting Scheduling/Calendar Services

• etc

If you are posting for a personal service like editing or social media management keep these thoughts in mind (free or paid):

• You are basically applying for a job with the podcast; your experience, qualifications, and past employment history matter to your future employer so information about you is important

• List your current available skills and tools. What DAWs are your capable of operating in? Have you used existing collaborative spaces before? What social media platforms do you have experience in?

• If you are offering services for social media management show either examples of past work or at least offer up your personal accounts for review

• What time zone do you live in? If I'm a podcast producer and need to get in touch with you about an emergency situation I need to know what hours I can contact you

• What is your strategy or philosophy for doing the work you propose?

• What are your rates? (If free how long will you offer that rate?)

• What is your goal and/or what are you trying to accomplish?

Thank you to everyone posting, we look forward to reading about what you are doing to help podcasters!

*All subreddit rules still apply. If you violate the subreddit rules your comment will be removed and your account can be given a temporary or permanent ban. Excessive or unreasonable requests for personal information in order to access the tool or service will also be treated as a rule violation. *

The r/podcasting Moderators do not endorse or approve of any of the tools and services posted here unless explicitly stated as such by the moderators.

Is anyone posting full episodes to their Youtube channel along with shorter/topical excerpts or chunks? I'm not talking about under-3 min vertical shorts, this would be longer segments, 5-15 minutes posted in the regular feed.

This approach wouldn't work for many types of podcasts, but if you're, say, a multi-topic news podcast that moves through 6-8 topics in an hour, I think this could make sense. You only get one stab at a headline and thumbnail with the full episode. The topic of interest for someone may be buried deep in the show and they never find it. Or sometimes people see your headline and click, but if that topic doesn't come up right away, they leave. If you make 6 single topic posts and release them separately with their own headlines/thumbs, it might reach a different audience.

These clips would be great for casual or new viewers who don't know the show, are interested mainly in a specific topic, and aren't ready to commit to an hour long program. But there's an algorithmic paradox here: in order to reach that new audience's browse/suggest pages, Youtube needs to receive strong early engagement/watch times from your core audience. And if your core audience has already seen the full episode, they're not going to stick around for a repeated segment. When they bail, Youtube thinks the video is a bomb, and decides not to show it to the people who might actually want to watch it. In other words, you need to please your core audience to reach a new audience, and these longer clips aren't likely to make your loyal viewers happy.

I know some big channels have separate clip accounts that exclusively post this medium form content, but the idea of starting a new account from scratch seems daunting.

TL;DR Is anyone posting medium length sections of their podcast along side full episode on Youtube? How's that going?

I have several scripts written and I'm trying to record, but I don't know how to balance my dark humor without forcing it . I don't want my podcast to be just analytical so it needs humor. Ideas?

I’ve barely written on Reddit before but a couple of months ago I was made aware of a person in the UK selling AI modified podcasts (using AI to remove commercial breaks) on his site

(https://www.reddit.com/r/podcasting/s/tYjM16MgIk)

The person is now doing it again, but this time on an app called Podtastic. I tried reaching out to this app via email asking to have my podcast removed from their app to no avail.

Is there anything we can do as a community? This person is selling subscriptions to allow people to listen to podcasts free of ad breaks thanks to AI - a huge copyright violation.

It affects us all since our podcasts are included in this service and someone is making money off of them, whether or not we have commercial breaks in them.

The premise of my podcast is every episode me or one of my friends finds one of the worst people in modern history(original premise I know) but it's been a lot of fun researching and writing about obscure historical events and politicians life stories and shit. My working title for the series is "The People Who Ruined The World" which I don't think is taken. Is that an attention grabbing name?

I’ve wanted to start a podcast for about two years, and last month I finally went for it. I didn’t buy brand new gear. I went a little crazy on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist, and now I have a pile of stuff that I honestly don’t fully know how to use yet.

What I have:

1. Windows laptop, Dell Inspiron, I think it has 2 USB-C ports and 1 USB-A port, maybe 2

2. Two 4K monitors I got for about $120 each, both 60Hz, both HDMI

3. Shure SM58 with an XLR cable that the previous owner threw in for free

4. Some Scarlett audio interface, the small one with 2 inputs

5. External hard drive for storing episodes

6. Wireless keyboard and mouse with one of those little USB receivers

7. My iphone17pro, which I want to keep charging on the desk because I use it as a backup recorder

The problem is pretty obvious. I have like 8 things and only 3 ports on my laptop. I tried using a cheap $15 hub from Amazon and it kind of worked, but after about 20 minutes my mic started making a weird buzzing sound, and the second monitor would randomly go to sleep. I’m guessing the hub just isn’t strong or stable enough.

What do I actually need to connect all of this? What are you guys using that’s stable? Thanks everyone.

If you're a podcaster with a website, and you use photos on your site, you may be a target for this scam that really looks legit.

For my website, I commonly use images that I obtain from Unsplash.com. In fact, I have an Unsplash+ account which gives me extra access to additional photos owned by Getty Images (Unsplash has some kind of arrangement with Getty). (To avoid violation of the self-promo rule, I have removed links to my website from the communication below.)

I recently received a very official-looking email from attorney Alan Young of Commonwealth Legal Services. This is what they sent:

Dear owner of <my website page that displays a picture of someone riding a snowmobile>

We're reaching out on behalf of the Intellectual Property Division of

a notable entity, in relation to an image connected to our associated

client: Cheap Snow Gear.

Image Reference: https://i.imgur.com/VvvS4p2.png

Image Placement: <the page on my site that displays the picture of the snowmobile>

We've observed the above image being used at the above specified

placement. We are emailing you to insist our client is correctly credited. A

visible link to https://cheapsnowgear.com/ is necessary, placed either below

the image or in the page's footer. This needs to be addressed within the

next five business days.

We're sure you recognize the urgency of this request. Kindly

understand that simply removing the image does not rectify the issue. Should we

not see appropriate action within the given timeframe, we will reference

case No. 84531 and implement legal proceedings as outlined in DMCA Section

512(c).

For your convenience, past usage records can be reviewed using the

Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org, the main recognized digital web

archive.

Take this communication as a formal notice. We value your swift

action and expect your cooperation.

Regards

Alan Young

Trademark Attorney

Commonwealth Legal Services

3909 N 16th St, 4th Floor

Phoenix, AZ 85016

Alan@<website for the law firm>

I was immediately suspicious for a variety of reasons:

1. Photo usage in violation of copyright usually results in a letter asking for removal and payment. This letter did not ask me to remove the image, and it only asked for a prominent backlink.

2. I know that my photo usage under the Unsplash license is legal and does not require any attribution of any kind.

3. The email included the word "kindly", which is often a giveaway that the scammer is not from the US (certainly not an attorney in Arizona).

I forwarded the email to Unsplash, and they responded to "Alan" and CCd me as follows:

Hello Alan,

We've had a report from one of our users that you have been in touch fraudulently claiming ownership of a photo that you do not have ownership of, in a frankly unethical attempt at creating backlinks.

Any further attempts at contacting our users with fraudulent claims and requests, or claiming ownership of our community photographs will result in legal action.

We have assured our users that your claims are illegal and under no circumstances to comply with any requests you make.

If you wish to discuss this further, I can be contacted at [email protected].

If I had to guess, I would say this is being generated by a sleazy SEO company who is looking to get backlinks for their clients' websites. Just something to be aware of.

I launched a true crime podcast a week ago with seven episodes and it has about 5,000 listeners so far overall. It’s niche in its narration and covers a current case.

For now, I have a tip jar in my show notes and in my outro and I haven’t received any tips so far.

I’ve read a little about affiliate marketing but it doesn’t seem like it would be a good fit for me. I’m generally opposed to subscription based podcasts or “premium” content. This is not my first business endeavor and I know from experience not to commit myself to something I’m half hearted about.

The last option is dynamic ads. I don’t have a problem with this option because listeners can just skip the ads. I’m just wondering if it’s possible to make money through advertisements?

**NOT PROMOTION I ACTUALLY HAVE A PROBLEM WITH OUR SOUND AND NEED HELP**

My friend and I record every other week. We have an unchanging setup and haven't had an issue with these microphones so I just think it must be some recording settings but I don't change any of those either. Ever.

We were able to change my friends gain and where he was speaking into the mic because of the directional whatever it is. But it didn't work on mine.

I don't know what caused it to sound like I am speaking twice at the same time. We don't have speakers playing anything back. No sounds or anything.

I was honestly hoping to insert a short video but Here's the whole episode on spotify

please help, we're pretty new and I just can't figure it out because nothing was different on our end when this happened.