Follow this science fiction podcast up, up, up into the castle in the sky! If you climb high enough, you will reach Wanda, queen and dictator of Windfall City. Along the way, you will meet brothers Cas, Shaima, and Argus – orphans who lost their parents during the grounder rebellion. Welcome to a dystopian future where, after the outside world became uninhabitable, cities are contained to towers with the wealthiest residents soaring to the top while the poor are banished to the ground. 

From the start, listeners will know something is wrong in Windfall. If the eerie music is not enough of a hint, the background noises and impressive production lets listeners know they are following Cas, Shaima, and Argus into the sewer, looking for dinner. This podcast has something for everyone: organized crime, LGBTQ representation, identity questions surrounding family and self, and commentary on the wealth inequality gap. Start listening now and, if you are overwhelmed by the many, compelling characters, visit windfallpodcast.com to get a run-down on each. 

We were fortunate to talk with Raymonda about the podcast, how they differentiate from other podcasts, and their future plans in podcasting. See below for our full Q&A.

Listen: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | Podchaser

DISCOVER PODS: How’d you get into podcasting?

Raymonda: After years spent listening to comedy and narrative nonfiction podcasts, I stumbled into Welcome to Night Vale. I hadn’t heard serialized audio fiction in any form since I was a kid, listening to old radio plays on Satelite Radio with my dad, and this opened up a whole new world for me. That obsession spun out from there, listening to all of ars PARADOXICA, We’re Alive, and The Bright Sessions. I wanted to get my ears on all of the independent audio fiction that I could find.

At the time (February 2015), I had just started a literary magazine called Breadcrumbs. The way it works is that every piece published is inspired by a phrase, object, or image in one of the preceding pieces and links back to it. By this time, I’d turned my brother and co-producer, Adam, onto everything I was listening to and we told ourselves that we could do that too. I’d been writing fiction for many years and he was a talented composer and engineer who figured he could try his hand at sound design. We decided to put together our first audio fiction piece for Breadcrumbs, a short 5-minute monologue told from the perspective of a trucker, voiced by Josh Rubino, who would go onto play Captain Root in Windfall.

From there, we became hooked. Every 25 pieces for the first two years of Breadcrumbs became our routine for creating audio fiction. First with scripts written by either myself or my co-editor Dan Toy, but later with work written by other contributors entirely. By March of 2016, we realized we had enough of a backlog to start an ongoing podcast with our work. Breadcrumbs existed as a mix: a place to give our standalone audio fictions a wider audience, while also crafting alternate episodes where writers from some of our other submissions read their work aloud, supplemented by light sound design and scoring by my brother Adam.

We ran the Breadcrumbs podcast for two years until the idea for Windfall truly started to take shape. We loved what we were doing: but we wanted to go bigger. We wanted to tell a serialized story in a massive scope and decided to use a series of characters that I originally created for the magazine itself to do it. We spent two years on the script, during which time we brought on Christie Donato, a writer from my undergrad program who had submitted to Breadcrumbs in the past and whose work served as inspiration for the stories that would later make up the basis of our first season finale.

In the time since, we’ve fully produced one season of Windfall, formed our production company, Rogue Dialogue, piloted a nonfiction show that unfortunately never got off the ground, and are currently in post-production of our second podcast, Forgive Me!, and pre-production on the second season of Windfall

DISCOVER PODS: In your own words, why should listeners tune in to Windfall?

Raymonda: Windfall is a story that’s deeply rooted in dystopian themes and a fantastical world but stays grounded by a cast of deeply flawed characters. And, even though the story is one rife with interplanetary drama and follows a group of misfit aliens, it’s their ability to portray a vast array of real and complex human emotions that drives someone to want to complete the show. We pull no punches when it comes to rich sound design, and do our best to deliver an as cinematic/visual experience as possible, just short of actually being able to turn the story into the graphic novel it was originally conceived as.

DISCOVER PODS: What kind of feedback have you heard from your listeners?

Raymonda: The feedback has been staggering. People have fallen in love with our characters, both good and eveil, they’ve been mesmerized by Adam’s rich sound design, and really gravitate toward the incredible cast we have bringing the show to life. And though we didn’t win, we were nominated for 12 Audio Verse Awards in categories like acting, writing, directing, music, and sound design.

DISCOVER PODS: Describe your recording set up?

Raymonda: Note: I’m letting my brother Adam take over for the next few equipment-related questions.

I (Adam) have been working on building up enough recording/musical equipment of my own over the last 10 years to someday have a recording studio of my own. The way we recorded most of the first season was by having our primary/secondary cast members in the same room together. This way we can get performances that are all recorded on the same microphones in the same room together. Before recording season one, I went out and financed several more microphones to round out the last of what we needed to be able to record everyone at once. This was a big investment and one that I wouldn’t recommend unless you have a background in audio engineering and aspirations to have a studio of your own that stretches beyond the reach of your own podcast.

DISCOVER PODS: What equipment are you using?

Raymonda: Get yourself ready because this might get a little (read VERY) nerdy.

I’ve been using Macs for years. I’ve used Pro Tools and Adobe Audition in the past but settled into using Logic Pro X for Windfall Season 1. I’ve found Logic Pro X to be one of the most crash-resistant DAWs out there. For my work on An Arm and A Leg we use Reaper and I’ve been falling in love with how the Ripple Editing Mode (a way to effect subsequent audio regions when moving a track on the timeline) works. I’m thinking of even moving our second season. 

I use an Apogee Element 88 as my audio interface. I love Apogee’s analog to digital conversion and the sound of their pre-amps is super transparent. The only downfall is that they are only Mac-based (sorry PC users). I will say their products come with a big price tag. For full transparency, I work part-time for a giant corporation and get a hefty discount on their products. If you can afford it at the full price, it is still totally worth it in my opinion. 

For all of our vocal recording, we use Shure SM7Bs. They are an industry-standard broadcast microphone that is super versatile on just about any kind of voice. I like them because they have a nice low-end response that gives a level of warmth without being too muddy. They’re also built like a tank so I never worry about them getting damaged.

For the sound FX, foley, and sound design elements I used a bunch of different microphones, but the trusty go-to was a stereo pair of Oktava MK-012s. These microphones have interchangeable capsules so that you can capture different kinds of polar patterns (the microphone’s directionality) so they are a versatile way to capture different kinds of sounds in different applications. Do you need to record an acoustic guitar? They’re great. Do you need to punch yourself in the chest to get a “realistic” punch sound because you’re a vegetarian and you don’t want to go buy a ham to punch? They’re great for that too.

DISCOVER PODS: What’s the biggest challenge you face as an indie podcaster?

Raymonda: We’re trying to make a really BIG show. Going into season 2 we realize now why people don’t make shows this massive as an indie. It takes an immense amount of time, talent, and resources to make something this big come together in a way that’s ultimately satisfying. We’re hoping that we can do enough fundraising to actually compensate our huge cast for their time and try to bring on other people to distribute some of the workload on the sound design end of things. The amount of time and effort we put into the first season is not sustainable long term without being able to better offset the cost. Right now, we’re finalizing the new cast members that will be joining us in season two, and plan to launch an IndieGoGo later this spring to do just that.

DISCOVER PODS: Where do you want to take your podcast?

Raymonda: More than anything else, we want to be able to finish the thing. We have a planned three-season arc and hope to make it even bigger than ever before. We want more people to know the world of Proxima and Windfall City. There are more new characters to introduce, more voices to spotlight, and hopefully a lot more new sounds and music to bring to people’s ears. Beyond that: there are other stories that we’d love to tell in this world, should we find a big-enough audience to desire them. But more than anything else, we just want to connect with the people who this story has resonated with. Whether they’re drawn to the action, the suspense, or the grounded family drama. They are the people that matter most, and they’re who we’re ultimately doing this for!

DISCOVER PODS: What other podcasts are you listening to now?

Raymonda: Valence, Brimstone Valley Mall, Unwell, FanWars: The Empire Claps Back, Black Friday, The Truth, BBC Murmurs, Supernatural Sexuality with Doctor Seabrooke

DISCOVER PODS: Anything else you’d like to add?

Raymonda: Anyone interested in learning more about Windfall, or the cast and crew that bring it to life can find us at www.windfallpodcast.com. 

Anyone interested in helping us make season two can find us on Patreon at www.patreon.com/windfallpodcast

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