yoslimbo

Many moons ago, I wrote a post about how I record and edit podcasts on a weekly basis. Over time I've evolved that process, learned about shiny new tools, spent a bit of money on new hardware and software, and also started brand new shows. It feels about the right time to update folks on what I do these days but also talk about how I would podcast today as a brand new podcaster starting out 2022.

But first, who the heck am I and why should you care? I started podcasting in 2007. (that's 15 years ago, wtf!) I've produced shows about comic books, fatherhood, movies, folk's favorite things, tech gadgets, and I still occasionally podcast about Tom Cruise movies. These days, I spend my time on two shows in particular. 70mm is a podcast focused on movies with a different theme every month. Danny co-hosts and produces a beautiful piece of artwork to accompany each episode. The Letterboxd Show features conversations with Letterboxd members, filmmakers, critics, actors, and movie lovers about their four favorite films. We also has a secondary show called Weekend Watchlist focused on new movies dropped that week to help you figure out what to watch. I oversee the recording and editing of both shows, as well as steer direction for both to varying degrees.

Recording and editing your first podcast in 2022

OK, with that stuff out of the way...how would I suggest producing your own podcast in late 2022 and beyond? I'm not saying this is the only way to start a pod, this is just the way I'd suggest doing so. Let's break things down below into a TL;DR and then take each section as its own topic:

Buy this USB Mic and tell your friends to buy it, too.

Chat (and record) with your friends on Zoom while also recording your own local audio on your computer, too.

Clean up the local audio if needed using free services like Audacity (optional).

Edit that audio together in a free app like GarageBand on Mac.

Upload your episode to a free hosting service like Anchor.

Buy this USB Mic and tell your friends to buy it, too.

If you're just getting into this whole podcasting thing and don't have a mic, you are going to have to spend some moolah. Don't get cheap with the mic.. please god in heaven. Maybe you have some rando mic laying around or Apple earbuds around or ..gasp.. a Yeti, but please just think about this. Do you want to podcast? Do you want it to sound decent? If you don't want it to sound decent then I suggest you not start a podcast. Like, what are we doing? You listen to podcasts every day and you get excited and you want to start one. I get that! It's the whole reason I started podcasting in the first place; I thought I could do it better than the shows I was listening to. If you don't think you can do it better than what is out there...why bother? At the very least you should want to sound as good as most podcasts out there that you like. You should have a baseline of quality for yourself because guess what, your friends and family aren't going to tell you that your podcast sounds like crap on a stick. They'll share some tweets at launch but man they will go silent and months later ask if you are still doing that podcasting thing. "You still doing that podcast thing about that whatever? Hey that's great." If you don't think you can sound as good or better than other pods, don't bother. That's my whole vibe for podcasting. Take it or leave it, bud.

You'll want to spend a few bucks on a dynamic microphone. Yeti mics are condenser mics and they pick up all sorts of background audio and mouth noises and it's just not pleasant, imo. If you get your room situation sorted and have perfect mic positional technique, you can get good audio out of a Yeti, but more often than not they just don't sound great to me. So help me god if you think it's good enough to be a podcaster and use Apple Earbuds I will slap you. I recommend using this USB-C microphone. It's $79. Both Danny and Proto use an older model of this mic and they sound great. They also use a mic arm and keep it about 3-6 inches from their mouth and don't record in a giant room. This will become a theme in this walk-through, and I get that you're excited and you want to get things off the ground, but it's relatively simple to make a podcast sound great. It's up to you to put in the work so people will want to listen...and keep listening. I've said it before and I'll say it again...your friends will not tell you they don't like your podcast. People that listen to your podcast will not tell you that your mic sucks. That's just the way it goes..let me be that person. Let me be Batman running off into the night at the end of the Dark Knight. Goofy metaphor but whatever.

I prefer to use a Shure BETA 58A dynamic microphone. I've tested a bunch of mics and I prefer how my voice sounds with this particular one. It costs ~$200. That XLR mic cable goes into a Cloudlifter C-1 ($179) to boost the gain which is plugged into a Tascam USB audio interface ($249), which is plugged into my Mac.

Chat (and record) with your friends on Zoom while also recording your own local audio on your computer, too.

There are multiple ways for you to video chat with your co-hosts and some of which offer free recording right in the browser. However, Zoom is pretty ubiquitous in this day and age and more importantly free/cheap. I'd suggest paying the $10/mo for Zoom Pro so you can have longer conversations and also record the audio of everyone in the call. There is a setting inside of Zoom where you can separate everyone's audio so you can download each person's audio as its own file. Before we get ahead any further, I would not use this audio as the files you'd edit for the show. This Zoom audio should be your backup audio. It will always sound of a lesser quality than your locally recorded audio. In case of some kind of disaster when recording locally, you'll always have your Zoom audio to fall back on. And boy howdy, you will encounter disaster. Might as well just get that in your head now and prep for the worst. "Oh shit I recorded my laptop mic instead of my USB mic!" You will do that one day. You think it won't happen, but it will.

In terms of recording your own audio locally, QuickTime lets you record audio right in the app. Open the app and go File > New Audio Recording, choose your Mic and hit record. You can also use a free app like Audacity, but you will need to double and triple check you are setting the app to record your USB microphone.

If your podcast is your Zoom call audio stitched together I'd love for you to ask yourself why. Is it because it's easier? Faster? Maybe it's faster...but is it better? I would say 100% no. If the show is you and one or two friends, just go the extra mile to have them record their audio locally. You are putting yourself out there and people are going to listen to you for the very first time and get one giant impression of your show. If you don't care about giving the highest quality audio when possible...why should they care?

Clean up the local audio if needed using free services like Audacity (optional).

In a perfect world, the audio you and your friends record locally will sound great! Or at least, "good." In some cases, maybe things don't sound great, or there is some background noise, or someone's nose is whistling and maybe you want to clean it up a bit. What I wrote in 2020 still stands in terms of using a free app for cleanup, so I'm going to paste it here again:

Since none of my hosts/guests have audio studios, there is inevitably going to be some random background noise happening in the audio files they send you. That could be nose whistling, your own audio coming through someone else’s headphones by accident, and maybe even a fan in the corner of their room that you asked to have them turn off but they still wont listen to you.

Knowing this, I add the audio file into Audacity and run a Plug-in on the entire thing called Noise Gate. This essentially lets me tell Audacity, “hey man remove any audio in this file that isn’t the person talking or laughing.” It’s incredibly helpful! More technically said, it can lower any audio beneath a decibel level that you set. I run that Plug-in on the file, and export that file as an .mp3. I do the same thing for the other host’s files as well. Here are what my settings look like for Noise Gate plug-in below:

Again, you might never need to do this, but worthwhile knowing these tools are available to you. If you need to raise the levels of you or your friends audio so they sound the same and don't want to use Audacity, this site offers that for a small fee.

Edit that audio together in a free app like GarageBand on Mac.

I've used GarageBand for years and years to edit my podcasts. It's free and super easy to use. Some of my friends are on PC and they use Audacity, but tbh I don't really have any experience editing there. Below is what an older project looked like in GarageBand. (Evergreen comment, but YouTube is a godsend for anything podcast related. You can legit teach yourself everything with some good tutorials.)

Upload your episode to a free hosting service like Anchor.

If you're just starting out, you're probably already annoyed that I recommended a $80 microphone but calm down, ok? Anchor is free and since Spotify owns them, it's super easy to get your show onto Spotify, too. You'll need to submit your show to Apple as well so follow this guide to submit your RSS feed that Anchor will provide to you. If you're cool with spending some cash monthly, I love Simplecast, too.

Once you have your show edited, exported, and uploaded into Anchor, publish! Tell your friends! Have fun! That's the main thing after all, ya know? Most podcasts don't produce more than 7 episodes and kinda stall out for whatever reason and the top 50% of podcasts in the US average 120 downloads after 30 days, give or take. Maybe one day I can get into the nitty gritty of pulling together an entire plan to launch a podcast and why you'd want to start a podcast, and how to keep a podcast growing but for now let's stick to the production side.

Recording and editing my podcasts in 2022

Now that I've laid out how I would start a pod in the year of our lord 2022, let's chat about how I produce and edit 70mm and The Letterboxd Show every week.

Video chat and record using Riverside.fm

Clean up local audio in Izotope RX 9

Edit and export episode using Logic Pro

Upload episode to Anchor, etc

Video chat and record using Riverside.fm

Riverside is a website that lets you video chat and record your own local audio right in Chrome. It's also $29/mo sooooo just saying. But it's so good that I don't even asks my co-hosts to record their audio locally anymore. Riverside takes care of everything right in the browser. I click record, and your guests audio starts being recorded and uploaded into the cloud right then and during the entire recording. Once I hit stop, it finishes uploading the last 1% of the audio and from there I can download it to my computer and get ready for editing. In rare cases, something went wrong with the file, where I've heard some kinda funky background audio, or my audio coming from their headphones that were turned up too loud that I didn't catch while chatting, etc etc. The nice thing is that even if their local recording is kinda crap for whatever reason, you can still download the lower quality "call audio" that you heard while chatting. There are a few other similar web apps like Riverside but I don't have experience with them.

Clean up local audio in Izotope RX 9

This past year or so I finally jumped in head first and spent some real money on audio cleanup software. When I started working for Letterboxd and chatting with guests without a good mic, you'll sometimes just get what you get in terms of audio. Maybe they are using ear buds, maybe they are using their laptop mic, and maybe they are using the biggest room in their entire house. After that call, I need to do what I can to clean up that audio as best I can to make sure that people have an OK time listening to that episode. RX Elements is $99 and comes with tools like de-hum, de-click, voice de-noise, de-reverb, and de-clip. It's a legit magic tool that has been an absolute lifesaver sometimes. I use voice-de-noise a lot. Sometimes you're editing and you hear a click and you have no idea wtf it is, RX can help you remove that noise. There is even a setting in RX Standard called "de-bleed", where if someone's headphones were too loud and another person's audio was bleeding into their mic, you could have the app learn those tracks and do its best to remove the bleed. RX Standard has that larger suite of tools and costs $299. Yes, I bought it, and yes I would do it again.

This section I wrote about Auphonic years ago still stands as well. It's possible that my guests audio levels are kinda funky so after recording I put their audio through Auphonic ($89) to level their audio to around the same levels before I edit to save time. It's possible I could do this step using RX 9 but I haven't really investigated. Here is what I wrote years ago:

Background on Auphonic: A few years ago I finally sprung for Auphonic Leveler for Mac ($89). When you’re recording a podcast with others, or even on a H1N Zoom recording device with more than 1 mic, it can be difficult to make sure everyone’s voice sounds the same and comes across at the same audio level. You could even get an audio file from a host/guest and their audio could be super duper quiet. Throw the audio files into this app, adjust the settings to what you want, and it exports new audio files where each one is set to the same level. Even if you weren’t recording in the same room, this helps create that atmosphere.

I’ve recorded a podcast using a Zoom using 2 XLR mics plugged in where there are 2 guests, one speaking quiet and one speaking loudly on the same audio file. Auphonic saved my bacon big-time and brought us both to the same audio levels.

Once I have the audio files from my guests, I throw them into Auphonic with these settings screenshotted below. That brings everyone to an even playing field in terms of audio levels.

Edit and export episode using Logic Pro

I've used GarageBand for 99% of my editing career and it's great! Many "legit" podcasters still use it. Whatever floats your boat, ya know? During the pandemic I wanted to up my game a bit. I wanted to improve the overall sound of 70mm, add some equalizers, add some filters, remove echo, adjust compression, and pretty much just make us sound legit. Like, I know we sounded good before, but I wanted to go higher. Logic Pro X from Apple is pretty much GarageBand Pro and costs $199. It let's me do some fancy keystrokes to save time moving clips around, remove dead-air sections. Below is a recent episode of 70mm and you'll notice lots of blank space where that host is not speaking. I can remove all that dead air or anything under a certain Db level and that makes it super easy to move stuff around if needed. I also use a few different plug-ins to reduce echo on someone's audio track. If you're ever curious about deeper details about how I edit, feel free to reach out with questions. I'm always happy to help!

Here is a screenshot of me adjusting the EchoRemover too.

Upload episode to Anchor, etc

Listen you've seen how much I've spent on software so far, let me live a little and pay $0 for Anchor, OK?

With 70mm, there are several other check-boxes I need to complete depending on what episode we are about to release. We have Patreon, Apple Subscription episodes, and also Paid Episodes on Spotify. Anchor lets me take care of those paid episodes on Spotify right in the dashboard but everything else requires its own upload. When we do a supporter-only episode, that means I have to upload it to Patreon, Anchor, and Apple. When we do a regular episode, I have to upload it to Patreon so our supporters listen to it first and then Anchor.

One of the perks to our 70mm Patreon is access to our VHS Village Discord. Every Thursday, we stream our recording directly into Discord so folks can listen along together. Patrons also get access to that uncut recording right after we get done. That gets uploaded to Patreon only. Initially, I was super hesitant to have a loosey goosey unedited episode floating about but tbh folks love it the three of us have hit a nice groove in our convos and there is not much overlap while talking if any.

As I mentioned earlier, too, Danny creates a beautiful piece of artwork for each episode and there is an important step I need to do to ensure it shows up in Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Cast, etc. Here is what I wrote years ago:

Forecast is free and very easy to use for Chapters. It does other things like encode your show into an MP3, but I don’t really use that. Below is a screenshot, but I right-click on my audio file and Open With Forecast. I type in all the info and then add in my Chapters for the show and drop the podcast image on each one. Apps like Logic Pro and Audition allow you to add markers as you edit, but for now I’m still using GarageBand, and it’s not that big of a pain to just add the few segments 70mm does have. If you have custom artwork for each episode, this ensures podcasts apps will show it as they listen, but it also will let your listeners easily find specific segments. If you do convert to MP3 using Forecast, it may default to exporting at 64kbps, so be sure to change that setting for a higher level of audio quality.

Update - October 2022: I wrote a whole new article on how I podcast for 2022!

Update - September 2021: Just a quick note, I finally bit the bullet and moved to Logic Pro so this is a bit out-dated. I don’t recommend that you skip GarageBand and go right to Logic, but depending on how comfortable you are editing inside of GarageBand, etc, it’s worth the $200 imo. Moving to Logic has allowed me to skip the Audacity and manual Forecast steps. It took many hours of YouTube research, but I am in a good spot doing most/all of the heavy lifting inside of Logic. Again, you absolutely do not have to move to Logic, GB is free and a great app. I’ll write a new article sometime down the line. We also finally moved from Zoom to Riverside.fm for podcasting recording! More expensive than Zoom, but worth it for us. For now, if you’re just starting out this remains a good how-to!

Years back, I wrote about how I record and edit podcasts in 2016. Not a ton has changed, but there are some mini-steps that makes my life easier. I still edit in GarageBand, but I now do some post-processing tricks in both Audacity and Auphonic Leveler that makes everything sound a bit better. 

You can hear an example of a finished product in the most recent episode of 70mm: finally a podcast about movies. Here is a list of the equipment that I use to record as well.

This is where I’m not saying I’m doing the best possible podcasting method and other ways stink, but this is how I do it and it works pretty well.

The quick breakdown looks like this:

Record podcast with friends

Raise levels for audio files using Auphonic

Clean up audio files using Audacity

Edit podcast using Garageband

Level episode using Auphonic

Upload and share with the world!

Record podcast with friends

When recording a podcast with guests or co-hosts, I now call them using Zoom Pro ($14.99/) and record their audio using Zoom as well, but only as a back-up if their local recording fails. Both myself and any of my co-hosts record their audio locally on their own machine. Audacity is a free app and is what they use to record their mic’s audio. They also do a backup recording of their audio using QuickTime. This may sound like overkill, because it is, but I personally really value locally recorded audio. 

If Audacity craps out for whatever reason while they’re recording, then phew, we have the QT backup audio! If both fail, phew, I have the sub-par Zoom call audio, better than nothing! You’re probably thinking “geez man that’s like once in a lifetime app failure can you relax!” Listen, I like the podcasts I produce to sound great and I take great pride in that, so let me have this!

On my end, I record my local audio using Audio Hijack from Rogue Amoeba ($59). This app has many uses, such as recording any app’s audio, Skype, etc. There are also plenty of web-services, such as Riverside.fm (~$20-40/mo) takes care of both video chat and locally recording the audio of your hosts/guests, but this is just how I like to operate. If I had it in the budget, I would more than likely move everything end-to-end with Riverside.fm. With that said, I have no experience with them as of writing.

On the 70mm podcast, we play listener voicemails and audio files that get sent to us. I play Google Voice voicemails and play the audio files right inside of Chrome, and my c-hosts can hear them when that’s happening. This is all due to using an app called Loopback from Rogue Amoeba ($99). This allows me to create a brand new mic that gets recorded and my co-hosts can hear. 

Think of it this way: I have my normal microphone and I have audio from an app that I want to combine into one super mic. Loopback lets me take Mic 1 + Chrome Audio and call it Supermic 1. I can now tell Skype and any audio recording app I use to look for and use Supermic 1. This way, any audio I play in Chrome as well as my mic will now be heard by my guests and my locally recored audio will include the voicemails I play, so I don’t need to add them into the file later while editing. Remember drive-time radio where they play caller audio or sound effects? It’s kinda like that. 

After we’re finished recording, the hosts/guests share their audio files with me and then I get to work.

Raise levels for audio files using Auphonic

Background on Auphonic: A few years ago I finally sprung for Auphonic Leveler for Mac ($89). When you’re recording a podcast with others, or even on a H1N Zoom recording device with more than 1 mic, it can be difficult to make sure everyone’s voice sounds the same and comes across at the same audio level. You could even get an audio file from a host/guest and their audio could be super duper quiet. Throw the audio files into this app, adjust the settings to what you want, and it exports new audio files where each one is set to the same level. Even if you weren’t recording in the same room, this helps create that atmosphere.

I’ve recorded a podcast using a Zoom using 2 XLR mics plugged in where there are 2 guests, one speaking quiet and one speaking loudly on the same audio file. Auphonic saved my bacon big-time and brought us both to the same audio levels.

Once I have the audio files from my guests, I throw them into Auphonic with these settings screenshotted below. That brings everyone to an even playing field in terms of audio levels.

Clean up audio files using Audacity

Since none of my hosts/guests have audio studios, there is inevitably going to be some random background noise happening in the audio files they send you. That could be nose whistling, your own audio coming through someone else’s headphones by accident, and maybe even a fan in the corner of their room that you asked to have them turn off but they still wont listen to you.

Knowing this, I add the audio file into Audacity and run a Plug-in on the entire thing called Noise Gate. This essentially lets me tell Audacity, “hey man remove any audio in this file that isn’t the person talking or laughing.” It’s incredibly helpful! More technically said, it can lower any audio beneath a decibel level that you set. I run that Plug-in on the file, and export that file as an .mp3. I do the same thing for the other host’s files as well. Here are what my settings look like for Noise Gate plug-in below:

Edit podcast using Garageband

Garageband is a free app for Mac that can allow you to easily edit audio and then export as an .mp3. It’s very simple to use; start a new Project and simply drag and drop your audio tracks from you and your hosts. Here is what my setup looks like for a podcast with 3 hosts, intro audio, and movie clip audio. I’d love to give Logic Pro a try, but it’s not in the cards just yet for me. (makes money motion with fingers)

Level episode using Auphonic

Once I’ve finished the entire episode and have exported the file. I make one small change in my Auphonic settings and run this full episode through the app. This time, I enable “Adaptive Leveler”. This means Auphonic will go through the entire file and adjust any somewhat quiet moments that shouldn't be too quiet and bring them up to a normal level of audio to the rest of the file. Yes, you theoretically did this already in Garageband but you may have missed a spot or added a quiet movie flip that you forgot to raise up in Garageband, etc etc. This gives me the peace of mind that now the overall podcast episode will sound normalized.

Various Bonus Stuff

I recently had an issue with the Pocket Casts app not showing Danny’s beautiful artwork so I went digging into potential solution. I finally came upon the Forecast app which allows you to add custom Chapters into your podcasts so that listeners can skip around to their preferred segments if need be. (Shout out to the Letterboxd Show for reminding me about this podcast feature) Granted, not every podcast app supports Chapters, but I felt like it may solve the issue. And it did! Not only that, but it also allowed Danny’s artwork to appear inside of Apple Podcasts for the first time.

Forecast is free and very easy to use for Chapters. It does other things like encode your show into an MP3, but I don’t really use that. Below is a screenshot, but I right-click on my audio file and Open With Forecast. I type in all the info and then add in my Chapters for the show and drop the podcast image on each one. Apps like Logic Pro and Audition allow you to add markers as you edit, but for now I’m still using Garageband, and it’s not that big of a pain to just add the few segments 70mm does have. If you have custom artwork for each episode, this ensures podcasts apps will show it as they listen, but it also will let your listeners easily find specific segments. If you do convert to MP3 using Forecast, it may default to exporting at 64kbps, so be sure to change that setting for a higher level of audio quality.

And that’s it! You can now upload the file to Simplecast ($15/mo) or a free-hosting alternative like Anchor. (I host most of my shows with Simplecast)

Again, there are countless other ways to record, edit, and release a podcast. Many of which are far easier than this! (But potentially more costly) You should find what works best for you. 

In case you missed it, my dear friends and I started a movies podcast together called 70mm. Danny is creating artwork for each episode and Proto is providing his spiritual guidance. 

Remember the good times, like The Color of Money, The Firm, and Mission: Impossible?

Your dear friends are back in 2019 for the monthly retrospective following the filmography of Tom Cruise. Find us in Apple Podcasts and wherever podcasts are available.

I started a new podcast

Like many people, I started podcasting because I thought my friends and I were hilarious. Back in 2007! How wrong we were.

Since then I’ve done podcasts about comics, Tom Cruise, fatherhood, technology, and friendship in general. After retiring my work podcast and Paperkeg around the same time, it felt good to take some time off. I’d been doing weekly-ish shows for years(!).

During retirement, I started to get the itch to spin up a new show, this time focused on conversations about things that make us feel feelings. More specifically, speaking with people about topics they feel passionate about. I also wanted to do things in a way that wouldn’t tie me down to a weekly schedule. I’d position the show as a seasonal format; record a handful of episodes over time and then begin to release them weekly so I had a head-start. This way I didn’t really have to worry about burnout and if the show stunk I had an out.

That show became LINK IN BIO and the first guest was my dad. The response has been tremendous(!) and I’m stoked people are digging it.

The second guest was of course my former podcasting partner to discuss her feelings toward Darth Vader.

The third guest was my dear friend Chuck Forsman. We talked about the movie MARTY (1955) and video games.

In the past, I’ve compiled a bunch of (snarky) articles talking about how you can podcast quite easily/cheaply and not sacrifice sound quality.

It’s been a few years since I’ve talked about what I use on a daily basis to record, edit, and host. Let’s do that now!

Hardware

My friends and I have retired our very large mixing boards and downsized to this smaller USB audio interface. We plug our single mic into this little box, and that goes into our Mac. We use these Behringer XLR mics and I have one of these fancy little stands. 

If I were starting from scratch, I would just buy this USB mic and plug that right into my computer for podcasting. 

Software

While I edit podcasts in GarageBand, I do not primarily record our shows in there. I use Audio Hijack Pro from Rogue Amoeba. That app not only allows you to record mic inputs, but also audio coming from specific apps like iTunes, and Chrome. For instance, we all record our own audio ourselves, but I also record Chrome (Since we use Hangouts) inside of Audio Hijack Pro in the event one of their recordings fail.

I still record my audio inside of Garageband, but only as a backup file, in the event of a disaster.

When recording interviews over the phone with creators and the like, I do use Skype. The likelihood that they have their own podcasting equipment is next to nil. Call Recorder is an app that hooks into Skype and records the audio of the person or persons on the other end. That way, they don’t have to worry about recording their audio and you can just start editing once the call is finished.

Editing

Once I have the audio from my co-hosts, I drop them into GarageBand to being editing. While I can adjust levels of each track, if for whatever reason I’m not happy with the audio levels even after editing, I export that audio file and drop it into Levelator. That automatically adjusts the audio levels of the file to normalize as much as possible. That app has proved invaluable for local recordings all done on the same line. Fair warning, it can take some hardcore Googling to figure out how to get that app to work on modern Macs.

Hosting

A few years ago, I moved all of Paperkeg and comiXology off of Libsyn and onto Simplecast. Simplecast is extremely easy to use and a pleasure to look at. It’s $12/mo for your first podcast, and $8/mo if you device to add any others. Once you upload your show on Simplecast, you can submit the RSS feed that you’re given to iTunes, Google Play, etc. They also include very easy to read walkthroughs.

BONUS Hardware

When I go to conventions, you need to be mobile and record just about anywhere. I use this ZOOM recorder at conventions to record interviews, and plug my XLR mics into it. This recorder is definitely able to record audio without adding in any XLR mics, but I do like to replicate the studio feel as much as possible. SPOILER: we also use this to record most of the Wednesday episodes on comiXology. 

Where do I start with pro wrestling?

This is pretty much the greatest question a guy like me can hear, honestly. Pro wrestling has been a part of my life since I was a kid, but figuring out where to start can be pretty daunting.

Getting into pro wrestling is a lot like getting into comics. If you pick the wrong book, or the wrong volume, or the wrong series, you can be met with, “no no no no, things didn’t get good until Volume 2. No, oh god why did you pick that, you need to check this out instead.” It’s very hard, is what I’m saying. Pro wrestling is essentially living comic books anyhow.

WWE is the most mainstream wrestling company out there with a weekly 3 hour Monday Night Raw, weekly 2 hour SmackDown!, and a monthly wrap-up event shown on Pay Per View and their own network/app (think Hulu). You’ve probably seen Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, The Undertaker at least once if your lives on TV or on a cereal box.

While I grew up watching WWE(F) and their shows are readily available on TV, I wouldn’t have you start watching those shows I just mentioned just yet. I would have you start with something called NXT.

NXT is the WWE’s version of the minor leagues. It has just a weekly 1 hour show and a bi-monthly wrap-up event only available on their own network/app (first month is free). They use this “brand” as a way to train, create, and promote new younger starts for the future of the WWE. It’s just like WWE and Monday Night Raw with characters, matches, storylines, the whole 9 yards. It’s just that at some point where a wrestler does all they can do in NXT, they likely will move up onto the major leagues with WWE and RAW. If you even have a passing knowledge of wresting from your friends, wrestlers like Seth Rollins, Paige, Dean Ambrose, Charlotte, and Kevin Owens have all previously been stars in NXT.

Over the past year or so, NXT has becomes SUPER popular. In some cases like myself, folks often prefer watching NXT to the main WWE shows. The easiest way I can explain it is that NXT is a call-back to the wrestling of yesteryear. It has a focus on characters and wrestling. WWE has a ton of hours to fill each and every week and it can be very difficult to craft awesome stories with a huge roster. NXT has 1 hour of TV each week and one big blow-off show every two months.

Before we get into the recommendations themselves, a quick plug for the WWE Network itself. It’s $9.99/month, and the first month is free. The easiest way to think of it is the pro wrestling version of Netflix/Hulu. If you can run either of those apps, you can do the WWE Network. You can have it on your Xbox, PS4, Smart TV, phone, tablet, computer, etc etc. NXT plays exclusively on the WWE Network, and you can get every WWE Pay Per View EVER, and all the new ones that come every month. Monthly WWE PPV’s like WrestleMania are around $50. It is an absurd value, there is no way around it.

OK, let’s get to my recommendation list. (It would be great if The WWE Network allowed me to make public and share my list, hint hint.)

NXT Takeover: R-Evolution 12/11/2014

Probably the time-frame where I started to watch NXT. The main event is Neville vs Sami Zayn. Zayne is like this everyman kind of wrestler and has lost sooo many times trying to win the NXT title. How far will he go to finally win the big one? Will he...gasp...cheat to win?? The end of that match is like whoa. If you skip around this event, watch the main event and the promo videos for it. Don’t leave until the entire show is over, FYI. NXT Takeover: Rival 2/11/15

Fallout from the previous monthly NXT event. It also has pretty much the best women's match I'd seen at that point. The women at NXT are on equal footing and often times their matches are better than the men’s. If you skip around, watch the Women's Championship match and the men's title match.

NXT Takeover: Unstoppable 5/20

Rematch from the main event of the previous big show, BUT the Women's Championship match is hot as shittttt. Sasha Banks is freaky good (she has since been promoted to WWE and RAW.). If you skip around, watch the Women's title match. Bayley is fascinating because she fills the magic WWE demographic of young girls. John Cena has the young boy demo, and Bayley has these young girls following her around and it's pretty amazing to see. Beast in the East: LIVE FROM TOKYO

The one match to watch is Finn Balor vs Kevin Owens. The Japanese crowd and environment are amazing to witness. My son’s favorite wrestlor is Balor thanks to his entrance. During BIG matches, he wears face and body paint like that of a demon. On normal matches he wears a sick leather jacket. He’s pretty much a badass. NXT Takeover: Respect 10/7

This is the rematch between Bayley and Sasha Banks and they were the main event! First women's main event in NXT history, and if you want to say, pretty much first in WWE modern history, too. There you have it. I will say that I have at least converted ONE person due to this list and have sent it to two others. My buddy Dave watches the NXT shows with me and has started to watch their weekly shows to catch up in-between. The WWE Network has gotten him even more hooked to their wrestlers thanks to a new weekly show they produce called Breaking Ground. It films in the WWE Performance Center and follows wrestlers as they train, work on promos, buy houses, and in general act like normal people instead of their characters. It’s very well produced and feels like something ESPN would make.

Step 1. Create a WWE account at this link and start your WWE Network trial. 

Step 2. Add the shows I mentioned to your Watchlist and get going. 

Step 3. With your newfound pro wrestling comfort, absorb as much wrestling as you can inside of the WWE Network and learn about other companies like NJPW, EVOLVE, Lucha Underground, over on YouTube and Twitter. Maybe even ask @deadpresidents for some retro recommendations as well.