EPOS B20

A Beginners Guide To Starting A Podcast Or Streaming

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Thinking of starting a podcast or getting into live streaming? They’ve never been so popular. It’s awesome to see so many fellow gamers getting creative, recording weird and wonderful shows of their own.

Making a podcast has never been so easy. Chances are just some minor tweaks and upgrades can turn your workplace or gaming setup at home into a broadcast-quality audio studio.

To make your podcasting or live streaming dreams a reality, we’ve prepared this handy guide for getting started with the help of gaming audio experts EPOS.

Once you’ve nailed the audio basics, you’re then able to use the EPOS Gaming Suite in order to fine tune both what’s going into your microphone, but also have great control over what’s coming through your headphones. Here’s what you’ll need to get started. 

Microphone And Audio

First and foremost, your podcast or stream has to sound good. It’s one of the most important elements of your podcast/stream and will instantly upgrade the quality of your content from amateur to professional.

EPOS’s brand new B20 Streaming Microphone is a fantastic example of a high-quality microphone. Besides looking the part, it sounds the part, with top-notch audio quality at an affordable price point. It’s also a USB mic, so plugs straight into your computer without the need for a complicated and costly audio mixer. But, with its integrated audio control knobs, you can still adjust audio settings on the fly.

EPOS

Even if you don’t have the quietest space to record in, the four pickup patterns let you tailor how the mic works so you still sound crystal clear. These settings will also help you use the same mic in different situations, be you gaming in your bedroom, or live streaming some cooking content from the kitchen. The bidirectional and omnidirectional settings allow you to pick up audio from multiple directions too, which makes this a great mic for recording multiple people and bringing guests onto your podcast.

An included desk stand is also super handy (don’t expect that with every professional mic you might look at), but the EPOS B20 is also compatible with industry-standard boom arms, should you wanna keep the desk uncluttered. The EPOS Gaming Suite software (available as a free download) lets you dig even further into the microphone’s settings, EQs and more to finesse your sound.

Make sure to pair your microphone with some headphones. If you’re after a wireless headset, the EPOS GTW 270 Hybrid is a great versatile pair of in-ear headphone, but to go with the B20 microphone we recommend the EPOS H3 gaming headset. It’s a great all-rounder headset that will not only suit your gaming audio needs but will also be perfect for podcasting or streaming. You can plug these straight into the EPOS B20s in-built headphone jack, which can even support 7.1 surround sound if enabled through the software, to monitor audio levels in real-time and avoid any audio playback bleeding into your microphone.

Software

Every podcaster’s best friend is Audacity. The free software has become the staple of quickly and easily recording a microphone into your PC. A USB mic, like the EPOS B20 Streaming Microphone we mentioned earlier, hooks up to it no problem. It’s also suitable software to edit your podcast if you want to avoid splashing out on something like Adobe’s Audition, available via a monthly subscription.

If you’re recording your podcast via Discord or the like, OBS is a great way to capture both your audio, but also everyone else’s coming through the Discord chat.

OBS is well known for its streaming use, but you can also configure the Desktop Audio capture to record the sound coming via Discord, and add another audio source to record your microphone. Hit ‘start recording’ and you’ll save a local video file with the audio you need.

The good news is you don’t need a beefy PC to do any of this. Chances are, whatever desktop or laptop you’re currently using will be able to manage this all just fine.

Video

If you want to incorporate video into your podcast or live stream, you will of course need a camera.

The easiest way to add video of yourself is via a USB webcam. Simply plug in one of those bad boys, and add it as a source in OBS to capture it, or screen record Discord with your webcam enabled for a video podcast.

If you really want to take your video quality to the next level, we’d recommend investing in a DSLR camera. With the right software and connection, you’ll be able to use your DSLR as a webcam, which provides a really high-end solution. You may be able to use a capture card to record the HDMI output of the camera as an alternative, assuming you can turn off all the information/settings overlay you often see on the camera’s screen.

Lighting

A decent camera will only be as good as your lighting setup. Making sure you’re well lit will dramatically improve the look of your video. You don’t need to go all out with custom neon lighting setups either, a couple of cheap LED studio lights off Amazon will more than do the job. I swear by these lights, and just have one to the left and right behind my monitor attached to some shelves with a magic arm.

Game Capture

Steaming and want to include gameplay? You’ll need a capture card from someone like Elgato or AverMedia. Multiple options are available, just be mindful of the resolution and frame rate you want to capture, and what you want to pass through the capture card. If you’ve got a next-gen console, be mindful nothing supports HDMI 2.1 yet, so you’ll have to settle for 4K 60fps at best when passing through a capture card.

With it all hooked up, it’s again another input you can add to OBS to then output to your stream. You can use OBS to also capture a game running off your PC, but be mindful this will be taxing on performance, and should only be attempted if you’ve got a powerful enough CPU that can both render the game, and encode/upload video.

Non-Essentials

That’s really all you need to kick off your podcasting/streaming career. Tempting as it may be, a swanky Stream Deck, fancy gaming chair and custom RGB smart lighting can wait until you amass millions of listeners/viewers. You’re money’s much better spent early on a good quality microphone and some decent camera/lighting equipment.