I can see why people become podcasters. It’s the toys.

I bought some recording gear recently, my very first recording purchase, actually. I’d been trying to do some screencasts on another blog and just wasn’t satisfied at all with the sound quality. So I spent about $170 and bought a condenser microphone and a pre-amp/mixer combo and all the bits to connect things (a Samson C01 and Behringer 802 + accessories).

Another use I have planned is to record the children. The Girl loves to read and she’s missing several teeth at the moment and The Boy has a wonderful way of saying tongue twisters and, although I’m biased, I know they each have the cutest voices in the universe. So I want to record them as well (I’ll post some samples when I get them back—they’re on a week long vacation with their Aunt: goddess and deserving of all things good, may she attain eternal bliss, amen).

So, one gets a pre-amp, and a microphone, and a mixing board. And there are blinking lights and glowing consoles and billions of knobs. And it sounds good and it’s incredibly fun. And a funny thing happens. All that gear makes you feel like you need to do something incredibly creative with it. And not only that, it makes you feel like you can do something with it.

And so, despite the vast amount of evidence to the contrary, people start podcasts.

It might be a good idea if recording gear came with some kind of podcasting waiting period or warning. A week or 10 days. You need a buffer to let the novelty fade. Otherwise it’s possible you’ll just end up making a fool of yourself on the internet.

Comments

1. Jacqueline on 2007-08-26 20:13:23 wrote: “Otherwise it’s possible you’ll just end up making a fool of yourself on the internet.” But… I thought that was what the internet is for? At least most of the evidence seems to point that way. Your remarkably insightful blog and wickedly cool flickr toys being the exception, naturally.