D1on1: Behind the microphone
Photos and Writing by Jennifer Forsmann
WSU sophomore Track and Field and Cross Country runner Andrew Cooper has always been passionate about running, and about having goals and striving to achieve them. He recently discovered a new passion, podcasting. Since last year, when he listened to his first podcast episode, Cooper began exploring the medium more, and specifically how he could start his own. Unsure of his topics at first, he purchased the equipment necessary and began brainstorming. Cooper spent approximately $300 on equipment for the podcast show. He purchased two Shure SM58 microphones, two windguard caps, a Zoom H4n recorder, and XLR cables. Finally, he chose to talk to other Division I athletes not about sports and their student athlete careers, but on what their passions were outside of sports and life at WSU. Cooper’s published podcasts have featured conversations with soccer player Chelsea Harkins, volleyball’s Casey Schoenlein, Track and Field runner C.J. Allen, Basketball player Jeff Pollard, WSU Rower Renee Kemp, BYU cross country runner Rory Linkletter, and Head Coach Ben Rosario of the Northern Arizona Elite professional running team.
Student Athlete Andrew Cooper pursues another hobby outside of his running career, podcasting.
Cooper currently has seven podcasts published and plans to finalize and publish three more by the end of the semester. He is currently limited to talking to other WSU students, he said, but hopes to talk to more Division I athletes once his seasons starts in the spring semester.
The Zoom recorder allows for both microphones to be plugged in are recording on two separate tracks.
For the quality, he said, he actually ended up buying an industry standard which was very affordable.
Cooper not only saves a copy of the original interviews, he keeps all the notes he takes during the interview, and plans out several introductory questions for his next conversation.
Andrew has two different 16 GB SD cards he uses to record conversations. Having two allows him to recorder multiple interviews back-to-back without having to worry about running out of storage.
Andrew hopes that his podcast show will give student athletes the voice they deserve, but also inspire listener to pursue their dreams and hobbies.
Each episode is only 30 minutes long but he records an hour long conversation with his guest. He prepares a only few questions to get the conversation started.
Each week he spends at least six hours editing the recorded audio from new conversations he records, using Adobe Audition.
It took him two weeks to design the logo for the podcast, most of which time was spent trying to decide on a three color palette for the logo and website.