Ever since I recorded my REST With Spring course – audio quality was always top of mind.

You can tell a lot about the production quality of a course by the audio it’s using. If it sounds warm, rich and crystal clear – it has a high impact and helps get you in the right mindset for learning. If however it sounds choppy and has a lot of echo or harsh highs and lows, it’s probably just thrown together with a 5$ build in mic on a laptop.

So, obviously, I wanted to go for the high-quality sound – which is why I invested in studio level equipment now that I’m recording again.

Here we go.

Shure SM7B Microphone

You can feel that the SM7B is a great mic by simply picking it up – it’s heavy, super high quality and very well put together.

+ on Amazon

Focusrite Scarlett 6i6

The Scarlett is a fantastic preamp, but the SM7B is a very gain-hungry mic, so in order to drive enough gain into it, I also had to get a CloudLifter to go along with it.

+ on Amazon

Cloud Microphones Cloudlifter CL-1

Simplicity itself – works exactly like it should, by driving an extra 25dB of clean gain to the mic.

+ on Amazon

RØDE PSA1 Boom Arm

This boom arm is a solid but also remarkably easy to set up. I used the stand grip, not wanting to drill a hole in my desk – and it stayed there ever since, with no discernible movement.

+ on Amazon

Sony MDR7506 Professional Headphones

My normal headphones aren’t meant to let you hear the raw audio – you need studio focused gear for that. They’re of course not great for normal use, but for recording, you’re able to hear yourself perfectly – which is very helpful.

+ on Amazon

Other Components

The final piece of the puzzle are of course the cables – good balanced XLR cables to connect the microphone to the Cloudlifter and then that to the preamp.

Total Investment and Results

The audio quality I’m getting from this setup is incredible. It really surprised me the first time I played it audio that requires very little post-processing and a simple way to record, given the boom arm can be safely tucked close to the wall when I’m not recording, and comes right in front of me when I am.

The total investment was just over of 1000$ (1049$ including shipping), but my courses sound like they’re professionally recorded, because they actually are

The post My Recording Studio first appeared on Meta Baeldung.

I also started a mastermind, committed to working with external authors, went on and hired a technical editor for the site and – right at the end of December – put out the job description of my next hire – a high level video person.

And now, with the year filed and closed, it’s time to take stock and have a good at last year as I’m mapping out 2016.

The Q4 Numbers

Let’s start with the traffic numbers for Q4:

And the referrers that sent me traffic last quarter:

As you can see, there are a few interesting differences here, compared to Q3. First, there’s just more referrer traffic overall – about 25% more.

Second – Facebook is definitely picking up steam. I had written Facebook off before but after pouring a whole lot of money into Facebook advertising for the course (more on that later) – the organic reach of the page has grown as well to where it is actually making the top 10 twice. It’s still not a whole lot of traffic overall, but it’s not negligible any more either, so I’m really curious how that will play out.

The 2015 Numbers

Before we move to the more interesting stuff, here’s a quick look at the full year in terms of traffic numbers:

The Course Numbers

When I announced the course in early August, I starting pre-selling it as I was creating it – first at 50% off and then, as I started releasing portions of it, at 25% off.

And last time I reported numbers about the sales of the course was back in October, in my previous quarterly reports – which meant that I only had a few weeks of actual sales.

Now, with more than fours months of sales, the course just surpassed 600 students and 50K in revenue – which I’m very happy with. It means that I can invest back into Baeldung most of that during 2016 to really grow the site and help the community.

Next Steps

And the plans for 2016 are quite ambitions as well. I’m still writing out the full plan and the goals – here are a few highlights of what the year is going to bring:

• a full brand redesign
• 2 new courses
• an aggressive content calendar
• and a lot more video

It’s going to be a big year.

The post 2015 for Baeldung first appeared on Meta Baeldung.