Podcasts are talk radio on demand. If you're against podcasts, you're against talk radio. Or at the very least, you're against making talk radio more convenient and accessible.
I feel like podcasts are similar to, but not exactly the same as, talk radio. Most talk radio formats are built around listeners calling in, for instance, which can provide a degree of spontaneity that isn't possible in a prerecorded format like a podcast.
That being said, I do think the appeal of podcasts is pretty close to what people find appealing about talk radio: people like to hear other people talk.
I always hated it when listeners called in on talk radio. They very rarely had anything insightful to day, and even if they did, they general weren't able to convey it clearly.
I always inwardly cringe when they start going off topic and the host keeps trying to rein them in. But when it's someone who knows how to present themselves on radio, it's good.
There's this one show on CBC where listeners call in to a plant expert about their gardening problems, and he identifies them and suggests solutions on the spot. You get a wide variety of people who call in, but since the roles are reversed—callers are asking questions, not answering them—they tend to be much more to the point and willing to give up the floor. Despite not caring one whit about plants and gardening, I really enjoy this show.
If the expert doesn't know the answer, sometimes another listener will call in to save the day. One of my favourite ones is when a lady's tree saplings were starting to die after they got a new well drilled, and after a bunch of questions the plant expert was stumped. Well, a well driller called in a few minutes later and said it was almost certainly the oil coating used on the pipes to prevent rust during storage (totally safe for consumption, but apparently harmful to trees), and the solution was to wait until the oil wore off after a few months.
It sounds boring, but the plant expert is one of those old men who just have a way with words, and the CBC host is really good with prompting both the expert and caller with more questions or anecdotes.
There is a similar show in the Atlanta area where a professor from The University of Georgia answers gardening questions. I also find the callers on that show are a lot easier to listen to. I think you're right about them asking questions instead of just making comments.
Yeah, the whole "Long time listener, first time caller" thing where they take like a minute before they get to their question, if indeed they actually have one. To be fair, I see this sort of thing in person fairly often in scientific seminars where somebody "asks a question" but spends time first complimenting the speaker on the seminar, and then spends a couple of minutes just making comments rather than actually asking an answerable question.
Pretty much every conference with Q&A ever. You can't avoid it in some settings, and sometimes a question will hit some point that the speaker obviously deliberately avoided, but for the most part Q&A is an anti-pattern at events. Provide some forum where the speaker can interact one on one instead.
Long ago I listened to a once-popular talk show host whose name is something in the neighborhood of Tush Pinball. He pushed his callers to dispense with all of that "Long time listener, first time caller from the heartland hills of Indiana" stuff and just start the call by saying "Ditto." Easy and convenient, a really time saver, right? Except callers somewhat quickly started saying things like "Mega-dittoes from the heartland hills of Indiana..." and little, if any, time was actually saved.
Most podcasts I listen to record on a live stream and take corrections and questions from a chat room, which usually keeps me from yelling at the hosts "YOU FORGOT THIS ANGLE TO THE MATTER". Having it be a text chat room going on in parallel also avoids the say-nothing dud call-ins and the hemming and hawing of the general public.
Having listened to both I don't think this characterization is right. The sound of podcasts is heavily heavily inspired by the sound of NPR, but that is very different from what a lot of talk radio sounds like. The new-age analog of talk radio is streaming, it has a similar cadence and improvisation with the back and forth between rambling and participating with the audience.
I'm not sure what you're referring to (maybe the big names of current podcasting?), but I can assure you the rest of the world has podcasts too and may or may not have ever listened to NPR at all. This American Life isn't so old afaik, and I definitely listened to podcasts before that and never to any NPR stuff.
My apologies, I meant to say "This American Life in podcast form", or take Serial as an example that's often quoted.
But it basically stresses my point. It could very well be that it was a direct inspiration for the first podcasts, but nowadays it's used as "audio content, often episodic". Also people often name the production value and other criteria of the big ones. But my point is that podcasts are on average not high production value or even done by companies or in the type of certain radio programs. I'd even say a sizable chunk is just the same people talking about the same or related topic(s) - I don't think I've ever heard that format on a radio station. (Except the same person interviewing different people, if that counts as "the same topic".)
The on-demand feature changes the nature of the medium. With radio you are often joining mid-stream, whereas with a podcast you always get to hear the whole thing. Plus the live callers, as others have pointed out.
I was never really into podcasts until I started my current job and commuting regularly. After a while I noticed that listening to music was beginning to fuel my frustration with other drivers and I'd get to work already stressed out. I started listening to talk radio and podcasts and that has really improved my feelings on the road and my state of mind walking into the office.
I honestly don't think it has really impacted my music listening either. I'll toss something on at work and listen while I work through a problem or while reading. The type of music I listen has shifted to fit my purposes but it is still there and I don't see it going away either.
I too have a commute, and find podcasts a nice way to stay current with news, learn something new, or hear about new stuff in areas that are interesting to you.
I can't really listen to podcasts while working since I can't really focus on the the talking while thinking about what I'm doing, so music is perfect. It can help keep me focused and gives me plenty of time for exploring new music.
The author's stance on Podcasts is just so odd. That you somehow can't enjoy both? Seems like he has an axe to grind or something.
> Podcasts are bad because podcasts sound bad — and podcasts sound bad because podcasters aren’t thinking hard enough about what their talk sounds like.
But this is exactly why we should cherish podcasts! They're one of the last vestiges of the old, weird, free Internet that we have left.
Podcasts (mostly) sound bad because the people making them are (mostly) amateurs, which means they don't know the ins and outs of audio recording. They just hooked up a crappy USB mic to their laptop and started podcasting. And once they did that, there was no central corporate gatekeeper who could turn them off and tell them to come back when they knew what they were doing.
All of which, yes, results in a lot of crappy podcasts. But consider the alternative. Do we really want to see one more wide open indie publishing channel turn into bland, pre-digested corporate mush? Is the problem with podcasting that it's not enough like Facebook? Because that's the alternative: one more medium where all the weirdness has been wrung out, except for those random bits of weirdness that happen to tickle an algorithm that makes some corporate overseer another nickel.
Maybe that is what you want, I dunno. If so, don't worry! Now that people with money have taken notice of podcasts, there are plenty of would-be corporate overseers lining up to give it to you as we speak.
I don't know why you're talking about "the ins and outs of audio recording". The author makes clear that's not what he's talking about. In the very next sentence after your quote he writes:
>Forget the lousy microphones and the dinky interstitial stock music — the thing that derails most podcasts is the blab.
And later on he explains again.
>By “sound good,” I meant that I wanted podcasts to sound considered.
Anyway, I think this is just a matter of taste. I imagine the author also hates talk radio/sports radio. You know those 2-hour shows about the Philadelphia sports or whatever?
Much of podcasting is essentially the modern take on that. Of course, it isn't "considered". Of course it has "blab". That's kind of the whole point -- it is filling in a connection/emotional gap that people aren't getting in their day to day lives.
I, too, dislike the "eavesdropping on other people's tipsy pub conversation" genre of podcasts. I generally don't love the professionalized "least common denominator of an NPR listening audience's tastes, delivered in carefully rehearsed NPR voice" podcasts, either.
My solution is to not bother with those podcasts. There are so many others that I find to be more worthy of my time. Admittedly, it's probably a small fraction of all podcasts, but it still amounts to more than I could possibly find the time to listen to.
I'm sure people vary but driving/plane/etc. for me. I mostly don't listen at home unless I'm doing something fairly mindless that requires me to be using my hands.
ADDED: When I commuted regularly, I would often listen to audiobooks but they're less amenable to dipping in and out of than podcasts are.
For my part, I wonder something similar about how most other people seem to entertain themselves.
Podcasts and audiobooks are easy to consume alongside activities that occupy my hands or my hands and eyes. TV isn't compatible with other activities that need to occupy my eyes, and video games aren't compatible with anything that needs my eyes or my hands.
I did a bit of a study of this as I was involved with a podcasting related startup at one point.
It's really varied:
- Most podcast consumption is via smartphone
- A big chunk of that is on iOS (because default Podcast app placement is inconsistent across Android flavors)
- Heaviest consumption during commutes
- Significant consumption during the workday: white collar people listening in the background - often from their desktop/web while or blue collar in place of radio and music
- You also have people doing things like playing video games and listening to podcasts regularly.
I guess I've never really understood the background sound thing. It's not like I need silence; I have no trouble working in a coffeeshop for example. But I mostly don't even turn on music as background much less something like a podcast. And, when traveling with people, one thing that always drove me crazy was the person whose initial reflex on walking into a room was to turn on the TV as background.
> I guess I've never really understood the background sound thing.
I sometimes find complete or near complete silence off-puttingly artificial. It puts me in mind of an exam room. Any sound that does happen (including my typing) seems oddly exaggerated and therefore a little distracting.
If I'm properly concentrating I don't notice, so often I'll put on something short for background noise as I start a period of trying to get something done and don't replace it when it finishes as the need has passed.
If I'm out for a slow run (music or silence work better for a fast run, silence for a trail run as part of the point of that is enjoying the sounds as well as the sights of nature as I trundle around), pottering around the flat doing chores, sometimes on the train when I'm travelling.
Though some of what I listen to isn't really podcasts - it is panel shows and other radio output that gets mixed in with the podcast output of the BBC and other sources.
Usually I listen on the way to/from work (I have a short commute so it often takes a few days to finish longer material) or while working on my house/cooking/some other activity where I like having a story to occupy my mind.
Commute, plane rides, going for a walk, cleaning the house... pretty much any time I otherwise would listen to music or nothing, but instead I want to be entertained and learn a little something.
* cooking or cleaning (usually politics or culture stuff)
* working if the work isn't too intense (usually lighter stuff)
* on the treadmill (30 minutes of tech stuff)
* doing random stuff and just want a voice in the background, like some people keep a TV on.
I don't listen while commuting because my walking-and-public-transit commute requires that I stay alert and doesn't give me any sit-down time. Nor do I usually see anybody with headphones on during the tram ride. For longer stretches that would make sense, or maybe in a car.
I only take public transit rarely but I've never been able to adapt to wearing earphones while walking about--especially in a city. I just don't feel comfortable being isolated from my environment in that way. Probably a pretty minority opinion these days.
I remember when I started listening to stuff while walking around in public (classical music, at the time). It was like giving the world a soundtrack -- strange at first, but you get used to it.
I listen to them while I run or do house work. I don't have a commute and if I listen to podcasts while I do knowledge work I either don't retain anything or my work suffers.
I dislike the "hour of unedited rambling" ones, enjoy some of NPR, and find the over-produced stuff like Radiolab insufferable. I also enjoy a lot of recorded music. But the great thing about podcasts is that, like blogs, there are way more of them than you can ever consume, and they're just RSS feeds, not locked into some platform (yet). To each his own.
I don't like aimless blab, I don't like the NPR style, but I've still got a huge list of podcasts that I regularly listen to. A podcast is just an RSS feed of audio files. There might be fads and fashions like any other medium, but there is also limitless possibility to do mad and brilliant things. The accessibility of a decentralised online medium combined with the intimacy of radio has IMO sparked a creative renaissance.
I would hope that blab would not be the point. I've always thought to myself that, when I see a link to a video or podcast about some technical topic, I know that some large chunk of that cast will be "er, um, is this thing on?", stupid jokes and laughter, and I think to myself, "Are they incapable of writing this down?".
I don't have time to watch or listen to these things and ignore them.
Blab is definitely the reason I listen to some podcasts. It's real. I get tired of the perfectly edited videos and television shows. Even better are LIVE podcasts where the show could go off the rails at any moment :)
Yes. And this is the same reason people enjoy local bands who perform live, especially if they're performing at the edge of their ability (i.e. taking musical risks).
Hell, I can deal with shitty microphones, I just wish people would figure out that you need to record all speakers' audio independently and not rely on Skype or Discord or whatever relaying it to a single location. Robovoice is the worst.
Having worked in broadcast and film, I sometimes laugh when I see these people using high end microphones as if they knew what they were doing by buying them.
The snark isn't really necessary but it's probably fair that there are a lot of people who obsess about pro-level gear and studio setups when that last 1-2% of hardware is pretty much indistinguishable in the final product unless everything else is REALLY nailed down.
Yup. I have a small studio (for podcasting, among other things) and my go-to microphones are $99 sE L7 dynamics because to my ear they're cleaner than SM58s. I have a few others available, like the AT2035 that sits at my desk, but the difference is so, so marginal for any spoken-word stuff that I don't know why someone would bother.
(The above is with one major caveat: I'd kick a puppy for a half-dozen RE20s. I love the sound of them.)
Have you tried Monoprice's dynamic performance mic[0]? It's an SM58 clone with (if reviews are correct) great detail and a bit more high-mids/highs. It might be another alternative besides the sEL7.
I haven't, no. It looks like a competitor (if it isn't a rebrand) of a Behringer XM8500. Which are fine cheapo mics, and really good for stuff like on-stage performance or karaoke or whatever. But I, for my purposes, am using those sE L7s as something of a knockoff of a broadcast mic, with decent-to-good plosive handling and very strong off-axis rejection (they're supercardioid microphones). So, while they're more expensive, they exactly fit my needs.
Lots more interesting options exist in condensers, IMO, than in dynamics. The sE V7 is a standout in the space. Honestly, from my experience, the only real upgrade in the "quiet room, sitting down" dynamic microphone realm is an Electro-Voice RE20 (if I want "newsy" or a Shure SM7b (if I want "aggressively neutral"); both are amazing microphones but neither are as notably bright as a V7. There's one interesting option in the Beyerdynamic TG V70d for some stuff, because it has a dangerous amount of proximity effect, but it's more "interesting" than "good".
You don't need to necessarily have independent audio streams to have good audio, just independent sources. I did a podcast up until January, and as the person doing the editing, I found zero benefit to having one input stream per microphone, and ultimately I eventually just started outputting the multiple inputs as a single dual channel stream. Podcasts that aren't in person are rough to listen to though, for sure. The ability to read body language and respond without weird little timing idiosyncrasies just isn't there with Skype.
When I was doing a podcast, getting guests in the same room was always the limiting factor. Between lack of body language/other physical cues and technical glitches, I just never liked doing interviews remotely--although people obviously make it work.
Independent streams really helps me when editing. If I'm talking and one of the other guys' dog barks at the mailman, I know I can just keep talking and silence the dog later.
You're right, though, that the hardest part of recording remotely is avoiding collisions / incremental back-off problems. Then you have to cut out the "No, you go ahead" and people have a real bad habit of then following up with "I was just going to say, ..."
I think you missed the parent's point. Remote participants should be recorded locally. It's not about having multiple streams for flexibility in editing, it's about having high-quality sound instead of the compressed garbage that comes through a Skype feed.
I recently learned one of my favorite podcasts hires a local audio engineer to mic and record all their remote interviewees, which seems like insane overkill but obviously is one way to do it. Is there really not a product that's a dead-simple USB audio recorder you can ship out to your guests, have them plug it into their laptop, and lets them Skype/whatever you while simultaneously recording their audio locally and sending it out to your editor after the fact?
I just listened to an interview podcast that was clearly done on Skype. Interviewer on the left stereo channel, interviewee on the right. Despite the sucky sound quality of Skype and mics, the stereo separation made it relatively easy to follow.
Of course, this one is all about kitchen remodeling. I don't expect kitchen remodeling experts to also be audio engineers.
You're setting up a false dichotomy between decentralized & centralized, where the real concern here is quality vs. careless. The same technological advancements that have allowed everyone to have a voice have also made it trivially easy to obtain decent recording equipment and software to edit out the useless parts of the conversation. Not to mention the concepts of research and planning have been around since time immemorial, which are both free and the greatest contributors to producing a quality podcast. But that's more work than just using your phone mic to record a meandering hangout with your mates.
> Podcasts are bad because podcasts sound bad — and podcasts sound bad because podcasters aren’t thinking hard enough about what their talk sounds like.
Isn't this how most people get good at things... by doing them badly a bunch of times, and gradually improving?
I think this whole piece is a pretty bizarre exercise.
> I consider [podcasts] an enemy of music. [...] With all of the world’s unheard songs beckoning us with their endless mystery, why would anyone choose to waste their precious listening hours on a podcast?
This isn't just comparing apples and oranges, it's arguing that apples are the enemy of oranges. "With so many delicious oranges uneaten, why should anyone waste their time consuming a mealy, flavorless apple?" At least apples and oranges are both types of fruit. I don't think there is anything to be learned by debating the relative worth of two different types of media. He has his reasons for disliking podcasts, but they sound very personal. If he is annoyed by how podcast hosts talk, for example, that is simply how he experiences it. Others will have a completely different perception.
Is he though or is this an attempt to discredit a competitor? This guy is a journalism in a era when newspapers and other forms of tradition media are dying. Journalism is seen as a joke, partisan, propaganda, and even an enemy of the State by large swatches of the public.
The commenters over there are falling into the same trap hard. So many variations of "Why would I listen to this when I could just read the information quicker?" Who are these people who cannot fathom that people may want to listen to something mildly informative while they are otherwise unable to focus on reading? Or just have an easier time absorbing information audibly rather than visually? Or even that someone would listen to something because hearing another human voice provides a value beyond pure information?
Really though, I just wonder how valuable these people think their time really is? I assume their "I need to be absorbing optimal information at all times" shtick is supposed to come across as smart, but it just comes across as a little slow.
It's not solely about 'time value'. I have an inherent dislike for reiteration and meandering, which is easy to skip in written works by scanning ahead. But with podcasts I have to do a skip-dance without cues.
On the contrary I've found that listening to air traffic control recordings is relaxing and helps with task-concentration because it follows strict procedures and no-one wastes time blethering. It's like a verbal metronome. You really have to make your own if you want high quality, though, since LiveATC is an earsore.
It's part of the whole tech self-important "Always be hustling" schtick. The same people who want an abstract at the beginning of every article that isn't written in inverted pyramid style.
That said, I've never liked talk radio (or even radio in general) very much. And am certainly not a fan of meandering chit-chat style podcasts. A lot of podcasts could also probably stand to be shorter as could many presentations. But even a simple 20-30 minute interview conveys information and nuance in a way that a transcript or article doesn't necessarily.
ADDED: There are of course also produced shows that are more than just the words spoken just as a film is more than a paragraph synopsis of the plot.
It's not about valuable time, it's about the low bandwidth. That's why I also, in general, don't watch Youtube videos that try to explain theoretical concepts. It's like watching paint dry, when I could just read it in a small fraction of the time if the material is available in written form. At least Youtube videos are useful where the visual is important, e.g. repair instructions. Podcasts don't even have that. The only time (in my particular situation) where podcasts could be an alternative is when I'm driving my car, but my commute is very short, so in practice there's never a time where I would want to listen to a podcast. How each of us feel about bandwidth is, of course, completely individual.
I forgot to add that in addition to the bandwidth issue, it's also about the sequential nature of podcasts and videos. I like to move back and forth when I'm learning something. E.g. an explanation that I want to re-read after reading something more, for a better understanding.
So for me it's the slow input _and_ the sequential nature of audio and video that I don't like, for the most part. With some execptions, of course.
Just to provide a counter experience, there are so many moments in my life that I find more enjoyable now by "low bandwidth" consumption. Washing dishes, cooking, weekly and even daily yard work, dog walks, commuting of all sorts, exercise. I can fill all of these moments with news or laughter or critical thought or just another voice to have in the background keeping me company in what would otherwise be a very singular task.
With that said, I'm not a music person, I never have been, so I don't turn to music often for entertainment and don't really find much joy in it. I also learn extremely well from spoken word and visuals and much less-so from written (probably why I like youtube videos that explain things).
> "With so many delicious oranges uneaten, why should anyone waste their time consuming a mealy, flavorless apple?"
Well, you're not wrong, apples are a garbage fruit. And podcasts interviewing people via cellphone lines is a garbage podcast.
If any podcaster is worried about inconveniencing their guests by asking for quality recordings, consider that the viewership takes a lower view of their guests when audio quality drops: https://psychcentral.com/news/2018/04/14/scientists-often-di.... You practically owe it to your guests to insist on a quality line to avoid disadvantaging themselves in the marketplace for ideas.
I'm fine with the rest of your comment, but no, no NO you just don't get to say apples are a garbage fruit without contention, just no. Apples are great. Not all (I'm looking at you, Red Delicious), but I'd much rather eat an apple than an orange. (I'd much rather have fresh orange juice than any form of apple juice, if that takes the edge off my orange-hate.)
If you haven't had one yet, one of my recent favourites is an Ontario-grown Red Prince apple. There should probably just be a whole thread for apples as that's a subject I could get into!
Red Delicious is the American platonic ideal of an apple. When I think of all the apple's I've been given in childhood, they were all RD. Any vigorous defender of apples has to answer for the crimes against humanity that we call "Red Delicious". After all, one rotten apple spoils the bunch.
As if where you listen to some music the "first time" matters?
(Like the first time one has sex, which has rom-coms and romantic fiction instill on us that it has to be "special"?)
I've discovered and first heard all kinds of great music on the tube and other casual places, and didn't hurt my later re-listening and appreciation of them...
I dunno, I have an intense fandom for certain artists and when they release new music I like to listen with my higher quality headphones, at home in peace and quiet to really take it in as fully as possible.
Though this is only for maybe 3 projects a year so it isn't how I listen to all new music.
I like to do that too, but if you're anything like me, most of your early music, you listened in high school or college in whatever kind of crappy quality (e.g. downloaded mp3 or crappy cassette copy depending on age), random conditions, etc, but still connected fine with it.
I think they are actually apples to apples when you consider that the apples are 'attention' and that we live in an attention economy where every piece of media is trying to maximize the time you spend with it. So what he's saying is that your attention is being wasted on shitty podcast, instead of trying to find good unheard music. I disagree with this, because I find that knowledge should get more attention than art/entertainment. But that's not to say that there aren't shitty time-wasting podcasts, but you can say the same about music.
Huh, its funny because I always thought I hated podcasts because of the typical NPR sound. I love a ton of low budget podcasts now and feel like its a lot more normal/organic to listen to people on lower budget mics than the NPR style mic/sound production.
>Why does an experience so inherently intimate feel so alienating to me?
Because you're an obsessive extravert who's unable to enjoy a conversation you're not part of.
>so instead of treating podcasts as a convenient way to feel smarter
Author says that and then proceeds to do that the whole article. Every single podcast he tried was some hoity-toity artsy interview cast. I listen to podcasts to be entertained. I listen to people play Dungeons and Dragons, or narrate short stories, or improv comedy, or publish their own audio book.
>I’m anxious about music ceding all of that time and turf to the rise of “big podcast,
I love listening to goofy podcasts that are just a few friends shooting the shit. Middling-to-low production value is part of the charm. One of my recent favorites is The Greatest Generation [0], which is about Star Trek, mostly.
It's not technically a podcast, but I enjoy listening to James Rolfe and friends (The Angry video Game Nerd) discuss old movies on his youtube channel (cinemassacre)
I wonder how he feels about NPR or BBC?
I listen to a lot of podcasts but they are almost all round-table style shows. I very occasionally catch This American Life on NPR but I have very little interest in listening to all the scripted shows that seem to be imitating it and I have zero interest in true crime.
The Podcast v. Music angle is particularly weird given how many podcasts are about music. As someone whose not particularly plugged in to any music scene and mostly unaware of what's popular, podcasts are one of the top ways I discover any new music to begin with. If I was purely listening to music, it would just be all of the music I already know and have.
The difference between an edited and an un-edited conversation is night and day. Editing takes out all the stumbles, half-sentences, unfinished ideas etc.
The reason it's not more common? Recording a 2 hour podcast takes 2 hours. Recording and editing a 2 hour podcast takes closer to 10.
Forget the lousy microphones and the dinky interstitial stock music — the thing that derails most podcasts is the blab. There are two kinds, more or less. The first is that soft, inquisitive staccato popularized by Ira Glass on “This American Life,” the source from which so much pod-voice appears to have sprung.
The ubiquitous NPR Voice/Sound is really what turns me off from podcasts/audiobooks/etc. While I love NPR, their sound is absolutely grating to listen to. Too HD, rife with extremely loud and detailed plosives and sibilants. I don't want to listen to the speaker suck the spit back down their throats in excruciating detail after every sentence.
NPR's sound quality is too detailed. It's like if you watched a video of someone talking and could see the aftermath of a popped zit smack in the middle of your screen.
My understanding is that, more specifically, it's a sound that's very carefully tailored to the acoustic environment in which NPR is typically consumed: a moving car.
I once heard an interview with an NPR audio engineer where he related how he'd epoxy the studio microphones' bass roll-off switches in place because the setting that most people thought made their voices sound better also made them harder to understand over highway noise.
The U87 is a classic mic first made in 1967 and used on everything. Lots of famous pop song vocals are still recorded with a U87 to this day. And they're expensive, they cost $3200 new at Sweetwater.
The U87 is a Condenser microphone, while the RE20 mentioned in the article is a Dynamic - I wonder if maybe you don't like the sound of condensers mics in general. They typically have a crisper high-end that catch a lot of detail.
I imagine if you listened to the vocal stem it would sound as extreme. It's just masked by other noise or gated/sliced out most of the time. Some people make a feature of those noises; Muse is an obvious example and they certainly divide people.
So don't listen to NPR? I don't understand how any of this is a reflection of podcasts as a whole. There are so many different podcasters and organisations all doing it completely differently. It's one of the most democratic forms of media consumption that I'm aware of - you can pick any platform, you can pick whatever you want to listen to, you're not locked into a certain player or anything else. If you don't like the way one podcast sounds, listen another podcast.
I'm always surprised at the popularity of podcasts vs audiobooks. Seems podcasts have made the jump to "gen pop" but audiobooks, despite the increasing popularity of audible, still tend to be niche.
I'm biased because I'm an audiobook hound, but I'd take an audiobook over a podcast any day. Far superior production quality, better content, a beginning, middle and an end, professional narrators, researched analysis and not just random people spouting off opinions.
It’s weird that this article is upvoted but every commenter agrees that it’s worthless. Every point he makes falls flat, and it feels like pointless contrarianism. It’s fine if you don’t like podcasts, guy.
> With all of the world’s unheard songs beckoning us with their endless mystery, why would anyone choose to waste their precious listening hours on a podcast?
Podcasts vs music seems a matter of personal preferences.
I skimmed through this post in a few minutes. It would have been a much longer time if it were a podcast. I don't have that much time to invest on a single subject so I'm not into podcasts. I rarely watch technical videos for the same reason. I definitely prefer text: same content at my own pace.
However I don't commute anymore. When I did I listened to news and random music if driving or I read a book if I was on a subway train (much better than driving.) I could have listened to podcasts or audio books back then.
Listening a big chunk of my free time to various podcasts, I reluctantly come to the conclusion that the biggest enemy of podcasts is thinking and introspection. Where before I had moments in my day where I let my mind freely wander and think to the issues I'm currently working on or others, now I rarely have these moments anymore as I listen to podcasts more. I wish I reverted a bit, but it's difficult, listening podcasts has become a kind of addiction I guess.
My experience is the opposite. Every little external sound is distracting. It's only when I'm ignoring some audio that I can think about problems holistically.
I've commented about it before--I was listening to podcasts way too much and it destroyed my creativity. I've cut down to 3 shows, which comes out to about 3-4 hours of content a week, and I try to save it for washing dishes, cooking dinner, or driving. My suggestion: trim the fat, pick a couple podcasts you really enjoy and unsubscribe from the rest, then resist the urge to hit 'play' as you're getting dressed in the morning.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 242 ms ] thread(Which gives me an excuse to link to the classic Mr. Show sketch, "Pre-Taped Call-In Show": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhVbLJvYP8s)
That being said, I do think the appeal of podcasts is pretty close to what people find appealing about talk radio: people like to hear other people talk.
There's this one show on CBC where listeners call in to a plant expert about their gardening problems, and he identifies them and suggests solutions on the spot. You get a wide variety of people who call in, but since the roles are reversed—callers are asking questions, not answering them—they tend to be much more to the point and willing to give up the floor. Despite not caring one whit about plants and gardening, I really enjoy this show.
If the expert doesn't know the answer, sometimes another listener will call in to save the day. One of my favourite ones is when a lady's tree saplings were starting to die after they got a new well drilled, and after a bunch of questions the plant expert was stumped. Well, a well driller called in a few minutes later and said it was almost certainly the oil coating used on the pipes to prevent rust during storage (totally safe for consumption, but apparently harmful to trees), and the solution was to wait until the oil wore off after a few months.
It sounds boring, but the plant expert is one of those old men who just have a way with words, and the CBC host is really good with prompting both the expert and caller with more questions or anecdotes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardeners%27_Question_Time
P.S. I made up "the heartland hills of Indiana."
But it basically stresses my point. It could very well be that it was a direct inspiration for the first podcasts, but nowadays it's used as "audio content, often episodic". Also people often name the production value and other criteria of the big ones. But my point is that podcasts are on average not high production value or even done by companies or in the type of certain radio programs. I'd even say a sizable chunk is just the same people talking about the same or related topic(s) - I don't think I've ever heard that format on a radio station. (Except the same person interviewing different people, if that counts as "the same topic".)
I honestly don't think it has really impacted my music listening either. I'll toss something on at work and listen while I work through a problem or while reading. The type of music I listen has shifted to fit my purposes but it is still there and I don't see it going away either.
I can't really listen to podcasts while working since I can't really focus on the the talking while thinking about what I'm doing, so music is perfect. It can help keep me focused and gives me plenty of time for exploring new music.
The author's stance on Podcasts is just so odd. That you somehow can't enjoy both? Seems like he has an axe to grind or something.
I find Reggae to be the best music for commuting, some Bob Marley, Peter Tosh or Toots and I am way more chill.
But this is exactly why we should cherish podcasts! They're one of the last vestiges of the old, weird, free Internet that we have left.
Podcasts (mostly) sound bad because the people making them are (mostly) amateurs, which means they don't know the ins and outs of audio recording. They just hooked up a crappy USB mic to their laptop and started podcasting. And once they did that, there was no central corporate gatekeeper who could turn them off and tell them to come back when they knew what they were doing.
All of which, yes, results in a lot of crappy podcasts. But consider the alternative. Do we really want to see one more wide open indie publishing channel turn into bland, pre-digested corporate mush? Is the problem with podcasting that it's not enough like Facebook? Because that's the alternative: one more medium where all the weirdness has been wrung out, except for those random bits of weirdness that happen to tickle an algorithm that makes some corporate overseer another nickel.
Maybe that is what you want, I dunno. If so, don't worry! Now that people with money have taken notice of podcasts, there are plenty of would-be corporate overseers lining up to give it to you as we speak.
>Forget the lousy microphones and the dinky interstitial stock music — the thing that derails most podcasts is the blab.
And later on he explains again.
>By “sound good,” I meant that I wanted podcasts to sound considered.
Anyway, I think this is just a matter of taste. I imagine the author also hates talk radio/sports radio. You know those 2-hour shows about the Philadelphia sports or whatever?
Much of podcasting is essentially the modern take on that. Of course, it isn't "considered". Of course it has "blab". That's kind of the whole point -- it is filling in a connection/emotional gap that people aren't getting in their day to day lives.
My solution is to not bother with those podcasts. There are so many others that I find to be more worthy of my time. Admittedly, it's probably a small fraction of all podcasts, but it still amounts to more than I could possibly find the time to listen to.
ADDED: When I commuted regularly, I would often listen to audiobooks but they're less amenable to dipping in and out of than podcasts are.
I usually start something in the morning and lose focus as I'm working (which is kinda the goal).
Podcasts and audiobooks are easy to consume alongside activities that occupy my hands or my hands and eyes. TV isn't compatible with other activities that need to occupy my eyes, and video games aren't compatible with anything that needs my eyes or my hands.
It's really varied:
- Most podcast consumption is via smartphone
- A big chunk of that is on iOS (because default Podcast app placement is inconsistent across Android flavors)
- Heaviest consumption during commutes
- Significant consumption during the workday: white collar people listening in the background - often from their desktop/web while or blue collar in place of radio and music
- You also have people doing things like playing video games and listening to podcasts regularly.
I sometimes find complete or near complete silence off-puttingly artificial. It puts me in mind of an exam room. Any sound that does happen (including my typing) seems oddly exaggerated and therefore a little distracting.
If I'm properly concentrating I don't notice, so often I'll put on something short for background noise as I start a period of trying to get something done and don't replace it when it finishes as the need has passed.
Though some of what I listen to isn't really podcasts - it is panel shows and other radio output that gets mixed in with the podcast output of the BBC and other sources.
* cooking or cleaning (usually politics or culture stuff)
* working if the work isn't too intense (usually lighter stuff)
* on the treadmill (30 minutes of tech stuff)
* doing random stuff and just want a voice in the background, like some people keep a TV on.
I don't listen while commuting because my walking-and-public-transit commute requires that I stay alert and doesn't give me any sit-down time. Nor do I usually see anybody with headphones on during the tram ride. For longer stretches that would make sense, or maybe in a car.
[Edit: list format]
https://www.beefanddairynetwork.com/
https://www.imaginaryadvice.com/
https://athleticomince.com/
https://play.acast.com/s/blindboy
I don't have time to watch or listen to these things and ignore them.
(The above is with one major caveat: I'd kick a puppy for a half-dozen RE20s. I love the sound of them.)
[0] https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=600058
Lots more interesting options exist in condensers, IMO, than in dynamics. The sE V7 is a standout in the space. Honestly, from my experience, the only real upgrade in the "quiet room, sitting down" dynamic microphone realm is an Electro-Voice RE20 (if I want "newsy" or a Shure SM7b (if I want "aggressively neutral"); both are amazing microphones but neither are as notably bright as a V7. There's one interesting option in the Beyerdynamic TG V70d for some stuff, because it has a dangerous amount of proximity effect, but it's more "interesting" than "good".
You just need to know a few basics (which you can learn in endless e.g. youtube video tutorials, in 1 hour or so) and you're pretty much done.
You're right, though, that the hardest part of recording remotely is avoiding collisions / incremental back-off problems. Then you have to cut out the "No, you go ahead" and people have a real bad habit of then following up with "I was just going to say, ..."
I recently learned one of my favorite podcasts hires a local audio engineer to mic and record all their remote interviewees, which seems like insane overkill but obviously is one way to do it. Is there really not a product that's a dead-simple USB audio recorder you can ship out to your guests, have them plug it into their laptop, and lets them Skype/whatever you while simultaneously recording their audio locally and sending it out to your editor after the fact?
Of course, this one is all about kitchen remodeling. I don't expect kitchen remodeling experts to also be audio engineers.
Isn't this how most people get good at things... by doing them badly a bunch of times, and gradually improving?
> I consider [podcasts] an enemy of music. [...] With all of the world’s unheard songs beckoning us with their endless mystery, why would anyone choose to waste their precious listening hours on a podcast?
This isn't just comparing apples and oranges, it's arguing that apples are the enemy of oranges. "With so many delicious oranges uneaten, why should anyone waste their time consuming a mealy, flavorless apple?" At least apples and oranges are both types of fruit. I don't think there is anything to be learned by debating the relative worth of two different types of media. He has his reasons for disliking podcasts, but they sound very personal. If he is annoyed by how podcast hosts talk, for example, that is simply how he experiences it. Others will have a completely different perception.
Really though, I just wonder how valuable these people think their time really is? I assume their "I need to be absorbing optimal information at all times" shtick is supposed to come across as smart, but it just comes across as a little slow.
On the contrary I've found that listening to air traffic control recordings is relaxing and helps with task-concentration because it follows strict procedures and no-one wastes time blethering. It's like a verbal metronome. You really have to make your own if you want high quality, though, since LiveATC is an earsore.
That said, I've never liked talk radio (or even radio in general) very much. And am certainly not a fan of meandering chit-chat style podcasts. A lot of podcasts could also probably stand to be shorter as could many presentations. But even a simple 20-30 minute interview conveys information and nuance in a way that a transcript or article doesn't necessarily.
ADDED: There are of course also produced shows that are more than just the words spoken just as a film is more than a paragraph synopsis of the plot.
With that said, I'm not a music person, I never have been, so I don't turn to music often for entertainment and don't really find much joy in it. I also learn extremely well from spoken word and visuals and much less-so from written (probably why I like youtube videos that explain things).
Well, you're not wrong, apples are a garbage fruit. And podcasts interviewing people via cellphone lines is a garbage podcast.
If any podcaster is worried about inconveniencing their guests by asking for quality recordings, consider that the viewership takes a lower view of their guests when audio quality drops: https://psychcentral.com/news/2018/04/14/scientists-often-di.... You practically owe it to your guests to insist on a quality line to avoid disadvantaging themselves in the marketplace for ideas.
Red Delicious is the American platonic ideal of an apple. When I think of all the apple's I've been given in childhood, they were all RD. Any vigorous defender of apples has to answer for the crimes against humanity that we call "Red Delicious". After all, one rotten apple spoils the bunch.
(Like the first time one has sex, which has rom-coms and romantic fiction instill on us that it has to be "special"?)
I've discovered and first heard all kinds of great music on the tube and other casual places, and didn't hurt my later re-listening and appreciation of them...
Though this is only for maybe 3 projects a year so it isn't how I listen to all new music.
I like to do that too, but if you're anything like me, most of your early music, you listened in high school or college in whatever kind of crappy quality (e.g. downloaded mp3 or crappy cassette copy depending on age), random conditions, etc, but still connected fine with it.
Because you're an obsessive extravert who's unable to enjoy a conversation you're not part of.
>so instead of treating podcasts as a convenient way to feel smarter
Author says that and then proceeds to do that the whole article. Every single podcast he tried was some hoity-toity artsy interview cast. I listen to podcasts to be entertained. I listen to people play Dungeons and Dragons, or narrate short stories, or improv comedy, or publish their own audio book.
>I’m anxious about music ceding all of that time and turf to the rise of “big podcast,
Good god, what a fucking douchecanoe this guy is.
https://art19.com/shows/the-greatest-generation
The reason it's not more common? Recording a 2 hour podcast takes 2 hours. Recording and editing a 2 hour podcast takes closer to 10.
Forget the lousy microphones and the dinky interstitial stock music — the thing that derails most podcasts is the blab. There are two kinds, more or less. The first is that soft, inquisitive staccato popularized by Ira Glass on “This American Life,” the source from which so much pod-voice appears to have sprung.
The ubiquitous NPR Voice/Sound is really what turns me off from podcasts/audiobooks/etc. While I love NPR, their sound is absolutely grating to listen to. Too HD, rife with extremely loud and detailed plosives and sibilants. I don't want to listen to the speaker suck the spit back down their throats in excruciating detail after every sentence.
NPR's sound quality is too detailed. It's like if you watched a video of someone talking and could see the aftermath of a popped zit smack in the middle of your screen.
I once heard an interview with an NPR audio engineer where he related how he'd epoxy the studio microphones' bass roll-off switches in place because the setting that most people thought made their voices sound better also made them harder to understand over highway noise.
I'm looking at you, Roman Mars of '99% Invisible'.
https://current.org/2015/06/a-top-audio-engineer-explains-np...
The U87 is a classic mic first made in 1967 and used on everything. Lots of famous pop song vocals are still recorded with a U87 to this day. And they're expensive, they cost $3200 new at Sweetwater.
The U87 is a Condenser microphone, while the RE20 mentioned in the article is a Dynamic - I wonder if maybe you don't like the sound of condensers mics in general. They typically have a crisper high-end that catch a lot of detail.
I'm biased because I'm an audiobook hound, but I'd take an audiobook over a podcast any day. Far superior production quality, better content, a beginning, middle and an end, professional narrators, researched analysis and not just random people spouting off opinions.
Maybe some people don’t like music as much.
I skimmed through this post in a few minutes. It would have been a much longer time if it were a podcast. I don't have that much time to invest on a single subject so I'm not into podcasts. I rarely watch technical videos for the same reason. I definitely prefer text: same content at my own pace.
However I don't commute anymore. When I did I listened to news and random music if driving or I read a book if I was on a subway train (much better than driving.) I could have listened to podcasts or audio books back then.
An odd thing to be against (although indeed, it's hard to listen to ones with poor audio quality).
Maybe the author just needs to discover some like Hardcore History...