You're listening to Podcast Insider hosted by Mike
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Welcome. Let's dive in.
So, today, I've got Vern Hume
from,
well, tell you tell me about your podcast,
Vern.
Sure. No problem. The podcast is called Makeshift
Stories.
It is a science fiction podcast, all original
content.
Comes out once a month. Used to come
out twice a month, but that was a
little too much work to write everything and
produce it, so I've had to back off
a bit. My family wanted to see me
now and then. Yeah. That's always a good
idea
for sure. And,
Yeah. I I know you've been with us
for quite a while, and, you're
using all the stuff. You got,
you got our, PowerPress
plug in on a website that we host.
So,
yeah, that,
that probably works out pretty well, pretty stable.
Well, I yeah. It it's it's way better
than the one I was hosting by myself,
which is a little flaky and always required
updating.
And I eventually just got tired of updating
it and, you know, putting in new plugins,
just to make sure the thing wouldn't get
hacked.
So I want to turn that over to
you people and focus on the creation of
the podcast instead, and it's been awesome since
I've done that. Yeah. That's what we always
try to do around here is
make make things,
so
we worry about the tech and you worry
about the the production. So
what what got you into podcasting to begin
with?
Interesting story. I don't,
I always loved listening to
radio dramas,
growing up as a kid. And in fact,
I had built a crystal radio set. And
after
my parents told me I was supposed to
go to sleep, I couldn't go to sleep.
So I would stick on the headset and
find a radio drama and listen to it
until I fell asleep.
That so I've always liked the audio
medium for storytelling.
And
lo and behold, you know, after the turn
of the century and and we got into
the twenty first century,
I listened to my first podcast,
and
the idea kinda came into my head. Well,
I could tell stories
through podcasts.
So that's kind of where it started,
back in
02/2008.
And at that point,
I was doing stories
for kids. So the podcast would had a
young adult,
tinge to it.
Since then, it's moved away from that. It's
more adult, but it has always kept a
clean rating. That's always important to me, so
anyone at any age could, listen to these
stories. So So that's kind of where I
started out, and it's I don't know how
many years has that been now. That's
Yeah. I was just looking there. You're you're,
somewhere north of 300 episodes, I think.
Yep. Yeah. About 312
episodes right now,
and continuing to go.
I've cut back a bit. I had for
about four years in the center there. I
was doing two episodes a month.
That was to help keep
the audience engaged,
but it was a little hard on me.
And I didn't think the quality of the
writing and production was was there, so I
backed off of that recently.
It also gives me time to
work on a book, which I am working
on a book now because I've decided after
writing all those episodes, maybe I could put
those skills to use someplace else.
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Writing a book is, it's challenging. I know,
for sure.
And, we we have a little bit of
a product that'll,
it'll help you distribute
the audio version of your book.
So when you're ready,
let us know.
Well, I intend to I intend to finish
it. I keep telling the editor,
she keeps asking me, you know, what's your
deadline? And I say, well, I wanna get
this done before I die.
And I've kind of left it open, but,
you know, my hope is to get it
done before I die.
So Well, with a goal like that, you
you know, even if you don't get it
done, you won't care about it then.
That's true.
But,
yeah, it's, it's great. We we, selected you
as the podcaster of the month here at
Blueberry for August
2025.
Oh, Cathy from our marketing team, likes to
reach out to people that she finds interesting.
So, you you're it.
Well, well, thank you. I'm really I'm really,
you know, pleased, to be podcaster of the
month. It's it's fabulous. One of the things
I don't really have time to do and
I don't really have the skills to do
is to kind of promote the podcast. So
so far, the audience has grown organically, word-of-mouth.
They have been
podcaster of the month is
just an amazing opportunity for the podcast. So
thank you.
Yeah. Well, I sampled, one of your older
episodes, and, it's it's very well done. I
have to say,
let's get a little geeky. What what do
you use for, your recording setup? Anything special?
Well, okay. I cheated a little. My my
son was an audio engineer at one point,
so he kind of advised me on the
setup.
So, you know, we had it started all
in a room untreated,
and it was horrible.
You know, couple couple years in,
he got me kind of obsessed,
with audio equipment.
So
I love microphones. What can I say? I
have a big collection of microphones now because
of that.
Yeah. We're both So,
yeah, everything.
For my own voice, I I have a
ribbon mic that I like using,
mostly because I have a lot of mouth
noise usually.
And the ribbon mic is quite insensitive,
particularly in the higher frequencies, so I don't
have to clean all that out. And it's
just a nice warm mic.
Yeah. So the setup is,
it's got a little portable booth I set
up.
You know, I get my narrator to go
down and into the booth because it's easier
that way. I cannot I don't hear what
they're saying. I only hear what's coming through
the mic.
Mhmm.
Runs into an RME
interface. The mic itself depends on the, it
would depend on the narrator. So, I use
the standard mic that I think everyone uses
quite a bit with, you know, s m
seven b. Uh-huh. Yeah. And then I have
right now. Yeah. So it's the one I'm
using today too.
Then I tend I try to match the
mic to the,
to the narrator.
So it again, it depends which narrator is.
It runs through the runs actually, it doesn't
run straight into my interface. I have a
little universal audio,
preamp.
I run it through that and kinda warm
it up Yeah. Because it's a tube amp.
Right? You know, we get all this wonderful
crystal clear audio, and the first thing we
wanna do is, like, muddy it back up
so it's warmer.
Yeah. That's you know, a lot of lot
of podcasters,
turn into gear heads about,
microphones, and, you know, I've got a drawer
full of microphones here and same idea.
Well, I'd always go to, I'd always go
out, and anytime there's a sale on a
mic, I'd pick one up.
So I have a closet full of these,
right now. So you you use,
different people voicing this. Mhmm.
Okay. Very good. Do you have, like, a
a a normal bunch of different people that
do it? Or Yeah.
Yes. I do. They're they're friends. Well, the
first, first narrator, I used to like, the
really old ones, I used to do myself.
I don't
particularly like my voice, and I'm not a
great reader.
So the first person that I got who
wasn't myself to narrate
was my, son's friend
and Mitchell. And Mitchell
narrated from episode 100 to about 260.
So he was the voice of the podcast
for a long time.
Then Mitchell moved away. And in the last
two years, I've been just using two friends,
who come in and narrate for me once
once a month.
Yeah. Very nice. That's that's even better. You
don't have to do it yourself if you
don't want to. Well, yeah, it, again,
focus on the production
and
on the, writing as opposed to, you know,
having to perform it each time. And, also,
you get just get sick of the, the
story as you're writing it and readdining it
and listening to it and then hearing yourself
say it. You know, at at a certain
point, it's like, no. Somebody else should be
should be doing this. So, yeah, I have
two regular,
narrators right now, Kathleen and Steve.
They're family friends.
Again, they're not professional narrators,
so there's a fair amount of cleanup,
on their recordings.
But, I just allow for that in the
production schedule.
Yeah. Well, that's great. Yeah. I I used
to have a daily show, and I would
have,
guest
hosts on certain days. And so, you know,
like, I had one one guy that was
every Tuesday and another one that was every
Friday,
you know, that kind of thing. Plus, I'd
drag my wife in here and have her
do it. You know? So
I I've I've tried that. That doesn't,
you know, my partner here doesn't really like
doing narration, so I've had to look a
little bit further afield.
I had my son try it once, and,
he doesn't
he he wasn't
too keen on it. But, yeah, the real
the real thing is the problem, I actually,
is when you start listening to this stuff
is you start hearing things in the recording
that I'm sure most people wouldn't hear that
just drive you nuts.
So I I I've gone down the rabbit
hole a bit sometimes where I'm going through
and cleaning up things that I don't know
if people would really hear, but I just
can't stand them.
Yeah. Yeah. That's the way it goes. You
know, I said in I've I've edited really,
really heavy on certain ones, and and nowadays,
it's kind of, yeah, whatever happened happened. It's
fine. We'll just run it. You know? But,
with this podcast, we have, an editing team
that, well, actually, Kate. She goes in and
cleans us up, makes us sound smarter. So,
that's a good thing. That's awesome. And, you
know, certainly, I can use a little bit
of editing. And I Yeah. So that's great.
Yeah. But, you know, the you know, I
always tell,
you know, new podcasters,
don't over edit. You know? Don't you know,
breathing is normal for humans, and it sounds
weird if you take it all out. You
know? And, you know, people say once in
a while, and that's okay.
Yeah. No. That that's true. I think what
I got,
obsessed with, was I was comparing the podcast
to audiobooks.
Oh.
And, you know, they they I know they
really
heavily edit their their content and process it.
So,
when I'd listened to the two, originally, my
goal was, well, I, you know, I want
to have a similar kind of quality. You
know? So
I would take out umms and,
would take out, well,
a lot of the breaths, but I'd reduce
them manually
Mhmm. And go in and take out manually
cut out mouth clicks. I'll tell you, the
thing that saved my life,
I don't know if it's okay to mention
a product on here. Sure. Sure. Oh, okay.
It is,
iZotope RX,
11.
It's the current version, but it's iZotope RX.
It's a postproduction
audio
tool.
And, basically, it's like Photoshop for sound.
Oh, nice. Nice. Yeah. You can go in
you can go in and and locate that
little bump on the mic stand. You can
see the frequencies,
of it, and you can literally take a
paintbrush and get rid of it.
Yeah. Nice. Yeah. I I use a similar
thing from Adobe.
It's Audition.
Right. And, that does similar things, but I
I don't even know 10% of how it
all works.
But, you know, it can it can do
a lot of things.
And, you know, we have a automated one,
our media mastering, which can go in and,
you know, level everybody up to to the
same level if there's more than one person
on the mic. Or if you turn away
from the mic or something, it's pretty good
at that. And
but it doesn't really edit anything out,
per se. And Yeah. A lot of tools.
Always good to hear about another tool. I've
never heard of that one, so
I'll have to check that out.
Yep. It'll it's, it has some well, late
these days, like everything, it has some AI
settings in it. So it will assess your
audio track and go through and automatically remove
and
level
things.
I still have wanna go through and hear
the whole thing because sometimes
it makes a mistake.
It'll take something out that shouldn't be go
out or, it'll miss things.
So
when because I have to go through it
anyway,
I've just taken to doing it manually. So,
you know, go through, see a see a
pop on the mic,
you know, close-up or something, and, you know,
just go in and paint it out.
Yeah. That would that, that works. It's always
handy to have those kinda editing tools if
you're gonna get in there and edit. Yeah.
Yeah. For sure.
You know, like I said, I've tried, you
know, a bunch of them and, you know,
you know, either editing tools or these magic
things.
You know, like Auphonic is one that we
use
Right. Yeah. And, you know, they have a
lot of a lot more power than than
we usually use
for that. And they're getting they're getting better
all the time. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think
when I started,
there wasn't really any audio gear,
that was specifically made for podcasting. You know?
So I would go down to the,
music
local music place and
buy stuff and and sort of use it.
I've been amazed to see how far that
whole industry has flipped around and started building
gear specifically for podcasting, which is great.
Yeah. Hey. I'm running a, RodeCaster,
which is specifically built for podcasting. Although, I
know some broadcasters that use it now. So
but it's a it's a, you know, kind
of an all in one mixing board, recorder.
You know? Right. Right. It has sound effects
and all that stuff, and,
you know, it's just amazing what's available now.
You know? I started twenty years ago, and,
you know, back then, you know, we were
hand coding RSS feeds and and, you know,
recording on whatever you could get a hold
of to make sound. You know?
Remember FeedBurner?
Oh, I certainly do. Yeah. That's where I
started.
Yep. So we,
we we made a replacement for FeedBurner here
at Blueberry.
And that's what I moved over to it
and got rid of FeedBurner as soon as
I could. But, yeah, that's
there wasn't a lot of information that just
seemed to pop up. But, unfortunately, I bought
all my gear before all of this,
newer audio stuff came out for podcasters. So
it's like,
you know, just old studio gear that I
have sitting around. Yeah. But it all still
works. You know? I got a whole stack
of it in my garage. You know?
Yeah. I know. Roadcaster was available when I
started. That's all I woulda got. I wouldn't
have bothered with all the other stuff. You
know?
Me too. Absolutely. I wouldn't I wouldn't have
the the closet full of gear.
But,
yeah. So,
tell tell me a little bit about the
content of your stories. I mean, are is
it pretty varied?
Well, yeah, just right across the board. So
the most recent one
is about a senior who has to go
into assisted living.
And, basically,
it's an assisted living place run by robots.
So,
you know Wow.
Yeah.
You know? But it is sci fi. You
know? You gotta you gotta, you know, keep
it in that genre. And, Yeah. Yeah. So
that's one.
So it goes
right across the board. I
tend to
write what I'd call near
future fiction rather than, like, space operas and
that. So these are things that are set
somewhere into the future.
I never put a date because, you know,
who's gonna be right about when any of
this stuff will happen or even if it
does. Right. And it focuses on the characters
and how they adapt. A lot of the
themes are
around,
how humans interact with technology and how technology
is affecting,
humans in their lives.
Yes. That's that's coming a lot faster than
we think.
Oh, yeah. So stuff. And
The AI has featured in in quite a
few
episodes, and I try, yeah, I try to
make sure that not all about AI. But,
you know, sometimes there's just so much interesting
stuff happening Yeah. That yeah.
Oh, it's hard. One nice thing, you know,
about podcasting is that, you know, you can
you you can format the thing however you
want to. And, you know,
I think coming very soon, if not already,
is, people are gonna be looking for authentic
humans
on their podcast rather than AI voices.
Yeah. No. No. That's true. I mean, everything
can be,
generated, the rating. Everything can you know? So
it's just content.
But that's really weird
if if the whole thing is AI generated,
including the the initial writing.
Hopefully, that day will not come too soon,
but you never know.
And then, yeah, you're right. What will happen
is that, having an authentic human, will have
a higher value than anything else machine generated
content.
Yeah. I mean, there's a place for it
as well. I I listen to a a
daily news thing that it's you know, the
the AI picks the three stories at once
and then records it and puts it on
a podcast feed, and, you know,
it's somewhat interesting, and you find stuff that
you you never would have found. But, you
know, it's not like listening to
you or I or or your narrators,
actually reading something or, you know, speaking it
in you know? There's just something
something real about that where, with the AI
generated stuff, you know, believe me, we use
a lot of AI now for
for, you know, cleaning up grammar and stuff
and writing and, you know, that kind of
thing, and it's really good at that.
Yeah. Yeah. But,
you gotta get it to quit saying, in
conclusion,
That seems to be the the thing that
always ends,
an article or something that you want them
to rewrite. But,
anyway, it is interesting.
Well,
you know, my son's in, into well, he
switched careers. He's into computer science now. So,
he's kind of, you know, telling me that
you gotta learn how to use it.
And
that's the way the future is to use
it as a tool, not to replace what
you're doing. So, you know, use it to
enhance what you're doing.
Yep. And and, you know, like, we use
it now for, transcripts
Oh, yeah. Of podcast. You know? The
our current transcript engine is AI powered, and
it, it does a really good job, even
can suggest, you know, what what you wanna
write for your show notes and just all
kinds of things. And
and,
you know, if you use it for what
it's intended for, I think it's good. You
know, if you overuse it, it could be
bad. I don't know. You know?
And
as my boss, Todd always likes to say,
he goes,
we're we're using the worst AI that we're
gonna use
right now. That's that's true. It's only we're
designing it's only gonna get better. Yeah. So
we definitely,
you know, just,
use it, learn how it works, and,
then you can sorta,
you know, just, you know, take take from
it what you want, just like any technology.
You know?
You know, I find a lot of lot
of people are are hooked on their phones,
you know, because they do too much with
it. Yeah.
Well, I had a I I last month,
I did a
a flash fiction story, which is a story
on 2,000 words or under. Mhmm. I usually
don't do many of that. In fact, that
was the first one I did, but I
did it on AI. And so it was
about a
a programmer who got kicked out of their
job, creates an AI to go through all
the interview process,
and it gets them a job,
that they're not qualified for. So I won't
do a giveaway at the end, but, you
know That sounds like a good one. Yeah.
Which I could see happening. Right? You know?
Like,
going through an interview process, why why go
through all the preliminary interviews when, eventually, you're
talking to machines anyway?
Get a machine to represent you.
Interesting. I have to listen to that one.
Very, very good.
Yep. It's called no eye in the AI.
It's I think it was out in June
or July. So it's only it's only six
or seven minutes long. It's not it's quite
short.
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, definitely,
you should,
I'm talking to the listeners here. You should
do go check out makeshiftstories.com.
And, you know, Vern's got, like I said,
about 300 episodes there, maybe a little more.
And, yeah, and anything
any advice you would give to a prospective
podcaster? I always like to ask that question.
You have to be persistent.
Don't get too
crazy with your download numbers,
and think about
the reason you're doing the podcast.
Who is your audience?
Are you reaching them,
are you getting something back from it? Like,
I think I think if you,
focus too much on trying to get a
hit podcast, like, a deal with
tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of
downloads, It can be quite discouraging. It's better
to focus on your content
and who you're trying to talk to, and
then let the podcast grow organically.
Yeah.
A lot of people
obsess on their stats, and
and it's just not productive for the first
little bit anyway. I mean, you wanna keep
an eye on them, make sure you're getting
any you know, getting somewhere, but,
yeah, you don't need to, you know, you
don't need to watch it minute by minute
to it'll drive you nuts.
Yeah. And one of the one of the
things that was, has always been wonderful about
podcasting, and I think it's one of the
reasons I got interested in it, is it
does allow you to reach a distributed audience
that has a very niche interest.
And
so that you know, that's wonderful. So if
the audience if there's a thousand people in
the world that are interested in your subject
matter
and you can get a podcast going for
that group and you gather, you know, whatever
number of them, to listen to your podcast,
that you know, that's awesome. It's a success.
Yeah. You know? And and success is measured
differently by different people.
You know? That's that's the other thing. You
know? Just, you know, having
having a gazillion listeners and selling ads and
all this stuff is not everybody's goal.
No.
No. No. I sort of fell down that
rabbit hole a little a couple of years
ago,
and I was running some ads and that
on on that and was part of a
podcast network for a while.
But after that network closed down,
I had to make the choice about what
I was gonna do with the podcast, and
I decided,
no. I I'm not interested in chasing ads
and and downloads,
and I'd rather focus on
learning how to write better and
reaching the people who are interested in what
I'm doing.
Yeah. Well, looks like you're doing a great
job. And, again, congratulations
on being our podcaster of the month. And
to the audience, please go check out Verne's
show over at makeshiftstories.com.
Catch us next week for yet another episode
of Podcast Insider. Thanks, Vern.
Thanks for joining us. Come back next week.
And in the meantime, head to podcastinsider.com
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