It’s a challenge. A struggle. A quest of Herculean proportions. The constant strive to never rest on your laurels and achieve the best-looking set for podcast production in Glasgow.

While our studio is backed by unparalleled experience (did you know we’ve been producing podcasts since 2005 and helped pioneer the medium in the UK?) and the highest grade of audio and video equipment, our podcast sets need to be spot on.

We believe we’ve nailed our table set. It’s classic. It’s traditional. It’s familiar.

Up to 4 people can sit around the table and talk into Rode Procaster mics, have the podcast logo displayed on a 4K TV and benefit from overhead flat panel LED lighting, plus customisable LED RGB accent lights, and a couple of flat panel LED lights set to 3300K to bring a bit of “warmth” to skin tones (this is the stuff we obsess over). It’s a great set. It works well. It looks great, and more importantly for a podcast, it sounds incredible.

A key consideration for any podcast set structured around a tabletop discussion is space. It shouldn’t feel claustrophobic, in our opinion. The participants should have space to “breathe”. And we think we’ve achieved that.

Listen, we’re not deluded enough to believe it’s perfect. It isn’t.

But we believe it’s the best tabletop podcast recording set in Scotland.

However, the plan for this space was always, from day 1 over 18 months ago, to have 2 podcast recording sets in the Podcast Studio Glasgow. So, while we’d nailed one set, the second set was like a stone in the shoe. A constant niggle.

We’d tried 2 configurations before settling on the one we’re sticking with.

The first featured our big, black leather sofa and armchair. And it was fine. It was ok. It did the job. People liked it when they visited us. But it relied on using floor-standing mic stands. And we’re not fans. You need to be careful with this type of mic stand when you’re also shooting video.

You run the risk of 3 problems:

1. the arm of the mic stand cutting across the speaker’s face

2. the mic cable can look messy

3. the mic being too heavy for the mic arm (we use Electro-Voice mics in this set, and they’re very heavy, compared to the hand-held mics that they’re designed to hold)

We got rid of the armchair and moved the sofa out of the set completely and replaced both with 3 mid-century design armchairs from Ikea, spotted one day on a shopping trip. These chairs are great. They look boss and they’re comfy with just enough informality coupled with timeless classiness to look superb on camera. We also picked up a black bookcase from Ikea which we placed in the corner and we mounted 4 acoustic panels to the wall, 2 on either side of the bookcase.

BUILDING THE PERFECT PODCAST RECORDING SET IN GLASGOW BECAME AN OBSESSION

This configuration allowed 3 people to sit comfortably and record their podcasts. I mean, it looks ok, right?

Again, this set was ok, but it still wasn’t quite right. I did say this was a challenge and a niggle. Some may even call it “an obsession”. We hadn’t properly routed the cables for mics so it was always a pain to get the mics routed in, we didn’t have a headphone amp in this set should participants want or need to wear them, and it just sort of felt a bit off.

So, while we had all the gear and experience, it was a headscratcher to know how to create a second informal podcast recording set that looks and sounded premium.

SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO START WITH THE BASICS

First things first, we changed up the lighting. We completely reworked the lighting for the table set to simplify it, which then freed up some grip equipment that could be used to upgrade the informal set’s lighting. Once that was complete it was a case of stepping back from what we had an reimagining it.

The resultant idea was to use the acoustic panels and a spare 42” monitor we had to build a feature wall, in front of which the easy chairs could be placed. Then we properly routed the mic cables to the mixer, ran a very long audio cable to a headphone amp, added more RGB lights and repurposed 2 floor-standing acoustic partitions that weren’t being used.

With the help of a friend who has all the required tools, we got the monitor and panels mounted and built it up from there, and we put the mics on Elgato mic arms.

And now we have a “talk show” style podcast recording set in the Podcast Studio Glasgow!

We have to say, we’re pretty happy with it, and it has certainly added to the “wow-factor” that the Podcast Studio Glasgow gives our visitors. I mean, people genuinely say “wow!” when they step inside. You should try it yourself, pop along and visit us!