Making a Podcast For Free : A How to Guide
Are you looking for free ways to get started with podcasting? Podcasting is an exciting and popular way to share stories, ideas, and information with a wide audience. It’s also an excellent way to promote your business, brand, or blog. But getting started with podcasting can be intimidating and costly.
The good news is, there are a number of free tools and services that can help you get started with podcasting. Whether you want to create a podcast for free from scratch or simply record your existing conversations, you’ll find a number of free podcasting solutions available.
Can you really podcast for free ?
The answer is yes ! , you can actually create and host your podcast for free. All you need is your existing laptop.
Before going into the cost. Let’s first understand. What do we really need to start a podcast?
- Equipment: Microphone, pop filter, stand, audio recorder, mixer etc.
- Software: Recording and editing software
- Graphic design: Graphic artwork for your podcast episodes and logo
- Music: Background, intro and exit music for your podcast.
- Hosting: A place where you can put all your MP3 files and create a feed for the podcatches.
This may sound a lot for someone who wants to start a podcast for free , but then you don’t really need all of it as a beginner.
You need a microphone and recording software and hosting. If you have these three you are ready to publish your first podcast !
Lets see how to make an absolutely free podcast !
Equipment for recording a podcast for free
The first piece of equipment that you need is the microphone. If you have a laptop then you can use the inbuilt microphone to record your voice. One more way is to connect an existing headset or a Bluetooth headphones with mic to the laptop and then record the audio.
In both these cases the sound quality is not going to be amazing but it should still work well for a free podcast. A headset will certainly sound better than most internal microphones.
If you are a mac user then you have a better chance of recording good quality audio as Macs tend to have better inbuilt microphones.
Software required for creating a podcast for free !
Depending upon if you are a Mac or PC user , below are the two options for recording a podcast for free.
Audacity: Audacity is a free and open-source digital audio editor and recording application. It offers multi-track recording and editing capabilities, as well as support for a wide range of sound formats. It has practically all and more that is required to record a good podcast. You can also add music on a separate track in the background , remove noise and equalize the vocals as well.
GarageBand: GarageBand is an easy-to-use digital audio workstation from Apple. It’s designed for making music and podcast recordings, and it offers a variety of tools for recording, editing, and mixing.
Music for podcasting at no cost !
First cheap podcasting setup: Music
Since you are on a budget, you can try free music available online or you can buy a small piece of music online and use it as your intro music. You can also couple it with some free stock music to make some nice combinations.
There is plenty of free stock music available on the internet, though finding one for your podcasting niche can be a bit time consuming, but you will certainly find one for sure.
Some examples of free music online.
- Incompetech: One of the oldest.
- The Free Music Archive: Free songs for podcasts.
- 909 Music on Soundcloud
- Musopen
- Danosongs: Donation based music.
- CCMixter: Free remixes, samples.
- Purple Planet Music: Browse music by feel.
- YouTube Audio Library: Huge selection of royalty-free music.
- Soundbible: Library of free sound-effects
How to Host a podcast for free !
- Anchor: Anchor is a free podcasting platform that allows you to record, host, and distribute your podcast shows for free. It’s designed to be simple and easy to use, and comes with unlimited storage, powerful analytics, and easy to use editing tools.
- Spreaker: Spreaker is another popular podcast hosting service that is free to use. It comes with unlimited storage, an easy to use editor, analytics, and the ability to easily distribute your podcast to Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and more.
- SoundCloud: SoundCloud is a popular music streaming service that also allows you to upload and host your podcast for free. It’s a great option for those just getting started, as it has an easy to use interface and a wide range of features.
- Podbean: Podbean is a podcast hosting platform that offers both free and paid plans. The free plan includes unlimited storage, an easy to use editor, and analytics. It also allows you to easily distribute your podcast to major platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and more.
- Buzzsprout: Buzzsprout is another popular podcast hosting platform that offers a free plan. The free plan includes unlimited storage, powerful analytics, and an easy to use editor. It also allows you to easily distribute your podcast to major platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and more.
Summary
Its really easy to create your first free podcast and get going. All you need is a topic and some ideas to talk about.
Tools are available for free to record and host your first podcast for free !
