Podcasting is shit.

I like listening to podcasts. It makes my work day go by faster and I feel like I can learn something while I update spreadsheets or whatever. I love things that can make me feel real emotion, be it anger or sadness, humor or compassion. I love to discover new music and books, and to hear people talk about my areas of interest.

I respect people who have the dedication, planning, and lack of other hobbies that allows them to create something that is like an hour long every week, and then spend the time to edit it. Or not, as the case may be.

But I really fucking hate podcasts with poor sound quality. I understand that not every podcaster can have radio quality sound and... actually no. I don't fucking understand, because they CAN. It is possible, and even affordable. There are a million tutorials and shit out there.


Knitting podcasts are often terrible. I just downloaded several new ones after a hiatus and didn't really find one I felt like I could commit to.

Podcast #1: ECHO Echo echo... some people use the echo function. I am not sure what it is supposed to accomplish, but it sounds like I am in an auditorium. Alone. Listening to one person talk for 15 minutes about their favorite snack food. WHERE IS THE FUCKING KNITTING. I don't mind asides, but seriously this person just rambled about snacks and diet aimlessly for a full third of their weekly podcast and the whole time ECHO ECHO ECHO.

Podcast #2 : Put out by a yarn retailer. This one waffles back and forth between someone who can't manage to not breathe into the mike constantly and some. who. speaks. like. she. is . reading. very. carefully. Extremely poor sound management during interviews, the breathing into the mike on one side and the hollow far-away sound of the interviewee, or the poor underwater quality skype/phone recording. Inconsistent and irritating.

Podcast #3 : A spinoff from another popular knitting podcast. I include this one because the first episode was actually fine, then it kind of went to crap,  and then a couple episodes later said "better audio", and it was actually true! So this is proof it can be done!

Podcast #4:  Another extremely hollow sounding podcast. Two host sound like they are sharing a mike. STOP IT. Get your own!! Even in the same room!!

Podcast #5: Besides having a trite theme song that I can't believe is podcast-safe (ie, not under copywrite), the sound is not too bad. But it is like digital photos... almost too clear and lets us hear all the mouth noises a person normally makes while talking, that are super amplified by the mic. In addition, a self-proclaimed SNL NPR ladies skit type of dialogue makes it difficult to listen to.

Podcast #6: Not great sound, the biggest problem is that it is very inconsistent one show it is fine, then echoy, then background noise, then muffled. It begins with the theme song, which is custom and clever but horrible sound quality. Generally poor enunciation also makes this a difficult listen. Interviews on terrible phone audio.


All of these podcast have many episodes. All but one over 50, a couple over 100. That is a long time to get this stuff figured out. (If you have a weekly podcast, 52 episodes is a whole year...long enough!!)

This doesn't address the actual content of the podcasts for the most part because it is really subjective. Some people are not bothered by hearing about someone's snacks, or by hearing about someone's summer plans at length, or hearing twee stories about bike rides in the evening with their beau as if it is a fucking musical.
That crap bugs the shit out of me, but I am cynical and abrasive.

I listen to podcasts through iTunes on my work laptop, and HP Elitebook, with some moderate quality Panasonic noise cancelling headphones.