Alright, so I finally took the plunge and got the first episode of my League of Legends podcast recorded and out there. It’s something I’d been kicking around in my head for a while, figured it was time to actually do it instead of just thinking about it.
Getting Started – The Idea Phase
First up, I had to decide what the heck I was going to talk about. League is massive, right? You can go in so many directions. I thought about deep dives into lore, or maybe focusing on esports. But for the first episode, I wanted to keep it manageable. Felt like talking about the current state of the game, the meta, maybe the latest patch, was a safe bet. Something most players could relate to. I decided to go solo for this first one, just to get my feet wet without worrying about coordinating with someone else. Less complicated that way.
Prepping for the Record
Didn’t have any fancy studio gear. Just my usual gaming headset. I knew the quality wouldn’t be top-tier BBC stuff, but figured it had to be good enough to start. Perfection is the enemy of done, right? I spent maybe an hour jotting down key points. Not a script, definitely not. I hate sounding like I’m reading. Just bullet points, topics I wanted to hit, maybe a funny anecdote or two about recent games. Just enough structure so I wouldn’t ramble aimlessly for 40 minutes.
- Topic: Current Meta & Patch Notes Feel
- Gear: Gaming Headset Mic
- Format: Solo talk
- Notes: Bullet points, key topics
Hitting Record – The Awkward Part
Okay, found a quiet-ish time at home. Fired up Audacity – it’s free, does the job. Hit that big red record button. And started talking. Man, it felt weird. Just talking into the void, you know? I stumbled over my words quite a bit initially. Lots of ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’. Had to pause, take a breath, and restart sentences. Realized quickly that my mic picked up everything. My keyboard clicks, the chair creaking, the faint sound of traffic outside. Note to self: find a better spot or invest in some sound dampening later. I tried to keep it conversational, like I was just chatting with a friend about a match. Covered my points, probably went off on a tangent once or twice about a particularly tilting game. Ended up recording for longer than I planned, maybe close to an hour for what I hoped would be a 30-minute episode.
The Editing Grind
Then came the editing. Listened back to the raw recording. Oof. Hearing your own voice is always a bit strange, isn’t it? Especially with all the little stumbles and pauses magnified. Spent a good couple of hours in Audacity.
My main tasks were:
- Cutting out the long silences.
- Removing the really bad stumbles or repeated sentences.
- Trying to level out the audio so it wasn’t super loud in one part and quiet in another.
- Got rid of a really obvious background noise where my phone buzzed.
- Found some royalty-free intro and outro music. Nothing fancy, just something simple to bookend the talking. Added those in.
It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was much cleaner than the raw file. Made it listenable, I hoped.
Getting it Out There
Exported the whole thing as an MP3 file. Then the final step: uploading it. Found a simple podcast hosting service, figured out their system, uploaded the file, wrote a quick description of the episode. Hit publish. Felt a strange mix of relief and nervousness. Relief that it was finally done, the first one was actually out in the world. Nervous about whether anyone would actually listen, or if they’d hate it.
Looking back, the quality isn’t amazing, my delivery could be smoother, and maybe talking about the meta gets outdated fast. But hey, I did it. I put the first episode out. Learned a ton just by doing it. The next one should be a bit easier. Hopefully.
