A lot of study went into the answers. We've had some great advice from show guest, Michael Jackson, who turned us on to to a number of services. Below, we list them with some comments about their use and why we chose them.
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The choice here was rather simple. We wanted a great sounding board, with extra inputs in case we need them.
We chose this particular model for the USB interface and the on-board sound effects.
We still use the mic and mixing board for Hunter's sound.
A word about Mix-Minus setups. We did this quite easily once we figured out to use the line-in jack on the computer.
We found this YouTube video describing mix-minus set-up. Note the important point about where to plug in your headphones. Always the last link in the audio chain. In this case, it was the Tascam recorder. You want to know what the chip is recording.
After listening to many alternatives, and reading reviews, we chose Sony MDR-V6 studio "cans." Sadly, they're no longer sold by Amazon. However, the other choice is so close most people cannot tell the difference.
The simple reason was the fact they are an industry standard for studio work. You hear the details (and the flaws) in the audio. That's because they are not the typical Beats heavy bass bias. They are flat, which means the audio is as recorded with minimal enhancement, if any.
They are plenty comfortable on the head too.
For the money, they're tough to beat.
This was an easy choice. Hunter's wife is a professional singer, so her microphone was perfect for the set up. It's a dynamic mic versus a condenser, which captures more room and outside noises.
The only downside is your mouth needs to be very near the mic to keep outside noises out. Pop filter required!
Still, we researched it versus other mics and it suited the job just fine for vocal work.
Rock solid build quality too.
We bought the Tascam recorder for our mix-minus set up.
However, once we used Zoom and their separate tracks recording function, we aren't looking back. Great platform. What we like most about it is each speaker has a separate track, which makes editing MUCH easier.
The Tascam is still useful in other ways. We may fiddle with using it as a backup recorder.
We wanted simplicity and we got it. The only issue we had was Apple Podcast submission. We ultimately did that ourselves direct with Apple. Approval came in 36 hours. Apparently, that is very fast.
Still, Anchor provides a free hosting platform and makes the hosting side of podcasting easy.
We use Headliner to create the Snacks. We use Windows 10 Video Editor to create the file needed by Headliner.
Headliner transcribes the audio so we can add captions. It takes a bit of effort to learn the timing between words and audio, so do visit the help pages to learn how.
Once exported, we load that file up to our YouTube channel.