237: Max Flight and Your Mid-summer Podcast Re-evaluation

The Podcast Engineering Show

Returning all-star guest Max Flight helps me cover 17 ways to re-evaluate your podcast this summer, and we also discuss Max's latest podcast production workflow, equipment, software and more.

Max has been producing aviation podcasts since 2008:

• Airplane Geeks (now over 700 episodes!)
• The UAV Digest (looking at unmanned aircraft or drones)
• Check out his main site — http://thirtythousandfeet.com/
• He was previously on episodes 20 and 39 of this show
• Check out his equipment, software, services and more below...

We discuss these 17 ways in which you can re-evaluate and improve your show this summer:

1. Update your goals
2. Change the format
3. Start using chapters
4. Personal focus on eliminating verbal crutches. (A short duration of intense focus will provide years of good results)
5. Change and/or add equipment
6. Sell old equipment
7. Treat yourself to that mic you've always wanted
8. Sound absorption and diffusers
9. Add a new segment
10. Cover new yet pertinent subject matter topics
11. Publish in video format as well
12. Publish better shownotes
13. Revamp your marketing
14. Evaluate the shows overall effectiveness
15. Hire a VA
16. Bring on a cohost
17. Decide to end your show???
18. Perhaps decide you want to become a professional podcast engineer/producer and earn a great living producing podcasts for clients - from home?!

And here's a lot more detail on Max's production:

Big changes since PES 20 and PES 39 mostly involve a simplification of the signal path:

• Skype and cohost multi-enders replaced by Riverside.fm
• Behringer mixer (still going strong since 2009!) replaced with MixPre
• The MixPre handles all mic pre-amplification
• Sound clips and pre-recorded segments played through Riverside, replacing an iOS soundboard
• Backup recording is handled by the MixPre

Current equipment:

• Sound Devices MixPre-6
• Also use a MixPre-3 Gen 2 for field recordings
• Zoom H5 for field recordings, too
• Heil PR40
• Sennheiser MD46 interview mic
• Dell XPS 16 and MacBook Pro 15-inch, 2018 model, 2.9GHz i9 32 GB laptops
• Audio Technica ATH-M50x headphones
• Yamaha HS5 monitors

Software:

• Riverside.fm (was Skype then Squadcast)
• Hindenburg Journalist Pro
• Audacity (yep!)
• iZotope RX 8 Advanced
• ID3 Editor for tagging

Services:

• Media hosting: Blubrry and Libsyn
• Website hosting: Bluehost and SiteGround

Notes from Max:

• I'm retired and traveling more which makes weekly podcast production a bit more difficult.
• Biggest current problem: At the home studio I mix/master with my Yamaha monitors, which I love. I can't master properly with the Audio Technica headphones when traveling.

Other Notes:

• If you ever have questions please reach out!
• You can sign up to receive Daily Goody’s in your email a few times per week or a weekly roundup. Sign up here.
• The start date for the next PES semester is Sep. 13, 2022! (fyi, the course is delivered once per quarter)
• If you’d like to share this show with any of your podcaster friends, feel free to send them a message saying, “Btw, here’s a show about podcast audio production you may find helpful” with this link: https://podcastengineeringschool.com/subscribe/)

Let me know if you have any questions or need any help with anything, ~Chris