Veronica Belmont
TV host, emcee, podcaster
Posted in emcee, mac, podcaster, television
Who are you, and what do you do?
Hello! I'm Veronica. My job is kind of hard to explain, but I'll do my best. My main gig is as a TV host and event emcee (typically for big corporate clients like IBM and Intel). I'm also a podcaster (both audio and video), and have been for the last eight years or so. I advise for startups and work with companies in the early stages of their products, too.
What hardware do you use?
My workhorse is a 2013 13" MacBook Pro. For my home studio, I use a Shure SM7B vocal mic running into a M-Audio Fast Track Ultra, and a Logitech HD Pro Webcam C910 for video and Google Hangouts. For lighting, I use Stellar Lighting Systems Webstar USB-Powered ring light. It's... ok. I need a better lighting kit.
For recording interviews on-the-go, I use a Sony PCM-D1 portable recorder. I also have the Apogee MiC Digital Microphone as a secondary podcasting mic when I'm not at my home studio.
And what software?
For audio podcasts, I record everything in Audacity, and have been for years. I use Audio Hijack Pro for grabbing sounds from other sources like Skype or Chrome. To balance the audio out, I use a tiny free app called Levelator, which is unfortunately no longer support by its creators (but it still works and is still downloadable from Archive.org).
For blogging we use Squarespace, and for audio hosting I'm a big fan of Soundcloud. We used to host everything on Archive.org as well because it's free, but it just went down too often (you get what you pay for!).
I use Google Hangouts for my video interview shows, and then rip the audio from the .mp4 file on YouTube to post as the audio podcast version. If I'm editing video, I use Premiere Pro CC.
What would be your dream setup?
That's a really good question, which I ask myself a lot. I'm happy with my audio gear right now, but I'd love for my video to look better (and lighting, too). I'd love for my home studio to be a little more soundproofed, but I haven't found a really attractive way of doing that yet. I'm open to suggestions!