Part 3: Structure.

I think i was avoiding writing this last part due to the fact that we are all still learning how to do podcasting without sounding like idiots – and for anyone who has heard us – we still sound like idiots. So what i am going to do is go through all the tips and structure guidelines Charlie and i have been trying to follow. Of course they are not commandments sent down by Harper the Podcast God. These are just some loose guidelines and hints that Charlie and i both have had great success in using to create our awesome and somewhat insane podcast.

I want to jump right into the form and structure of a podcast. When i think about doing a podcast, a couple things really jump out at me.

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Part 2: The studio.

Building the skinnyCorp podcasting studio has been quite a journey. We started out by placing all of our equipment in a low traffic area in the back of our warehouse. It was nice because it wasn't busy and was far away from all the hustle and bustle that was Threadless' christmas sale. However we totally underestimated the mics ability to pick up ambient noise. Man, those first couple podcasts were FULL of ambient noise. We would be recording an interview and while wrapping it up and doing some post work on it – we would end up hearing an entire conversation in between pauses.

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skinnyCorp has been pumping out podcasts for the last couple months and have been getting a little bit of feedback and press. I figured since we are still learning the ropes, making mistakes and building out our studio – it was time that we let yall know how we go about making our podcasts.

As with most things, skinnyCorp does podcasting a little bit differently than maybe another group or person would do podcasting. We may have gotten some things out of order. The first thing we did was get a bunch of equipment, then we built a studio, and then we started to think intelligently about our podcast design and structure.

I will be breaking this up into three parts. Equipment, Studio and then podcast structure and design.

Part 1: The equipment.

Over the past couple months, Charlie and myself have been cobbling together a small easy to set up recording equipment to make podcasting as easy and robust as possible. We started using Apple's GarageBand software, a M-Audio USB interface, a couple of real mics and an Apple iBook. We choose the iBook on the basis of the strengths we saw in GarageBand and the ease we thought it would be to create podcasts. I had a t-amp laying around to use for amplification and Jeffrey had some ghetto studio monitors that we ended up using. Combining all this we were able to get started.

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Today, Jacob found out that his little mini DIY amplifier he made awhile back can be "circuit bent" to create amazingly annoying noises (as Jeffrey can attest). Anyway, we both started jamming with it and created this awesome little video. Check it out at youtube: here.

In the video, you see both Jacob and myself playing the amplifier with our fingers. We are shorting it out to make different noises and to create distortion. We are using an oldschool gameboy as our source noise and running it through one of the most ghetto speaker systems in existance: two 2 inch speakers using CDR spindle cases as the speaker case. In part of the video - we wrapped the speakers in shirts to muffle the noise. It was apparently really annoying.

For those of you not in the "know" - circuit bending is when you take an electronic something or another and short circuit certain parts of it to make it do something interesting. This is often done with various musical or audio toys; making them into awesome "instruments." For more videos and what not check out this dope gallery of circuit bent toys and whatnot.

Hi. My name is Harper Reed. I have been working here at skinny since august. here at skinnyCorp, I do all things tech - with a concentration in software. At this very moment, I have code open from ExtraTasty, a shell looking into our VOIP system, and a Verizon Kyocera k650 BSD tutorial for our stompbox. I enjoy hacking things and making stuff go that wasn't going before.

I am really excited to have a blog on skinnyCorp.com. I plan to post a lot of code and show what exciting and neat things we do here. I think yall will be excited. Stay tuned for some really great hijinx and interesting projects.

If you want to know about me, you can check out my personal blog, my photos and my homepage. I spend a lot of time on the internet. I have released a bunch of very random code on my media site.

Oh yea.. I am also a professional yoyoer.