I ’ve been doing a lot of podcast of late . In the last year I ’ve probably edited and post something like 85 unlike podcast episodes , between my half - metre duties on the Macworld Podcast and the podcasts I do in my personal time . During that time I ’ve learned a whole raft about what to do — and just as significantly , whatnotto do — to make a podcast that go estimable .
In 2009 our own Christopher Breen detail his methods for producing the Macworld Podcast as well as our favourite appurtenance for podcasting . Those articles are both great , and worth reading if you ’re thinking of becoming a podcaster or are a podcaster calculate for ways to improve .
Get a microphone
Call me a podcast snob if you will — I certainly call myself one — but I just ca n’t turn out to take heed to a podcast with speculative audio recording . And there arelotsof them out there . Good audio starts with the recording itself , and that means everyone on the podcast demand a beneficial mike .
Blue Snowball . At dwelling I ’ve got aBlue SnowballUSB microphone , which sounds majuscule , amount with its own tripod stand , and is reasonably priced—$62 on Amazon.com as I write this . In talking this over with Chris Breen , I ’ve get word some tales of Snowballs gone bad — as luck would have it , there are other good - sounding , low-priced USB microphones out there , such as the MXL USB006 ( $ 81 atAmazon ) and the Audio - Technica AT2020 ( $ 91 atAmazon ) .
At workplace I ’ve got a $ 149Samson G - Track , which adds fancy features like a headphone seafarer so I can get wind myself talk . ( Blue offers a similar mike , theYeti , which I found for $ 90 on Amazon . )
Blue Snowball.
Some people importune on using headset microphones for podcasting , but I ca n’t say I ’ve ever been impress with the sound they make . Many of them are of modest quality , the sound is often overmodulated , and they excel at pick up breathing noises . I do n’t recommend them . I ’ve also done a few podcasts with people using their iPhone headset plugged into a MacBook ; the reasoned quality is n’t terrible , but it can be pretty noisy unless you hold your foreland absolutely still .
Some audio purist will assert that you put your microphone on a boom arm clamp to a desk , with some sort of shock absorber in the eye . We ’ve got such a rig in the Macworld Podcave , but at abode I just carry the Blue Snowball in my script and it sounds fine .
Bottom line : if you ’re planning on podcasting with someone who does n’t have a USB microphone , pressure them into corrupt one .
Ecamm’s Call Recorder.
Everyone records
Ecamm ’s Call Recorder . Since most of the podcasts I do involve citizenry who are not present in person , I use Skype to record most podcast sessions . It ’s relatively honest , works across political platform , and the sound quality is better than iChat ’s audio chats . That said , I strain to use the audio I record from Skype for syncing purposes only , and only use it in my actual podcast in compositor’s case of a catastrophe . ( Those occur more often than you ’d remember . )
When you record your own remainder of the conversation , your audio recording is doubly pristine : your interpreter is on its own path , and it has n’t been intemperately press and degraded by Skype so as to send it across the Internet in real fourth dimension . It sounds a set better .
As detail by Chris Breen earlier this class , Ecamm Networks ’ $ 20Call Recorderis a must - have add - on for Skype . Call Recorder is enceinte because it memorialize your own microphone and the audio come in from Skype on disjoined tracks , mechanically .
Syncing tracks in GarageBand.
I make trusted that everyone on my podcasts is recording their end of the conversation . If they ’ve got Call Recorder , that ’s best — use the AAC Compression / High Quality options so that the leave files are n’t mammoth . If your subject does n’t have Call Recorder , QuickTime Player will suffice . ( Choose File - > New Audio Recording , tap the triangle and make certain your microphone is selected and quality is put to High , and then conjure the Big Red Button . )
Before you press Record , though , take everyone to speak one by one , so you could check on their audio grade and listen to the quality of their strait . Chris Breen and I have both save a few podcasts by telling someone using a headset to push it away from their mouth . It ’s also useful to remind mass to not fiddle with stuff on their desks , bang on the tabular array , or play with the microphone corduroy . And , of course , prompt them to still their phone and put them in Airplane Mode .
To aid make indisputable that everyone ’s remembered to record their end , recite your panelists to take off recording just before you start your seance , and call for them to say the word “ immortalize ” right after they press the push . Even if your panelists bemock you for it — and mine do!—it makes syncing up the audio later a lot easier .
Using SoundSoap in GarageBand.
And here ’s a tip I cause from Chris Breen about putting your panelists at ease : If someone is not very experient and clearly unquiet , let them know that they can stop and paraphrase at any time . I ’m editing this podcast , after all — I can ( and will ) prepare it later . This often cast them enough at ease , so that they do n’t mess up . I will usually write down ( on paper or even with the name of a new folder in the Finder ! ) the fourth dimension when the error encounter , so that I can be sure to fix it later .
Once we ’re done with a academic session , everyone saves their transcription and sends them to me . ( By far the most popular method acting of transfer these large audio files is by dropping them in Dropbox and mailing me the file cabinet ’s shareable URL . )
Preparing the files
As Chris noted , Call Recorder files are really QuickTime movies with two separate rails : your sound and the Skype sound . The usefulness come with a small app called Split Movie tracks , which splits that file in two . Once I ’ve got all my guests ’ audio Indian file in hand , I ’ll split out their vocal track and drag them all into GarageBand , along with my vocal running and my Skype track . Since my outspoken path and my Skype track are already synced ( because they were part of the same Call Recorder Indian file ) , I make certain they ’re both run along up at the very beginning of the GarageBand file .
Syncing tracks in GarageBand . Then I involve to get all the tracks in sync . If we all started our recording at approximately the same clip , sync is n’t too difficult , but it takes some concentration . I turn on GarageBand ’s track solo feature ( the headphones ikon right below the track name ) for my Skype racecourse and one of my guest ’s solo tracks , and start playing the audio . It should become well-defined just how out of sync the tracks are ( the same voice says “ transcription ” doubly , but one is a few seconds after the other . ) I drag the soloed outspoken track around until it syncs up , with petty or no echo . ( If I get really do-or-die , I will go back to the Finder and open that person ’s Call Recorder file in QuickTime Player : then I can hear the setting of what everyone else was saying when they started record , which can supply a cue as to when their transcription in reality set off . )
Once a track is synced , I turn off the soloing on that cart track and turn it on for the next track , and repeat the process until all the tracks are synced . At this point I can usually turn off all solo and erase the Skype track I used for sync purposes . Though sometimes there are disasters which will require the enjoyment of the Skype rails afterward on : If someone forgot to record their death of the conversation , or fare in of late , for object lesson . To be on the safe side , mute the Skype track but keep it around and make certain it stays in sync with all your other tracks , splitting and moving it with the other data track as necessary .
The aftermath.
Filtering out noise
Using SoundSoap in GarageBand . The elbow room where I record most of my podcasts at home is middling quiet , but not everyone is so fortunate . When you pile four or five audio tracks on top of one another , there can be a lot of stochasticity . There ’s the faint hiss of way noise , the occasional electronic hum , the sound of the other panelists coming through one player ’s noisy earbuds , and gentle but hearable noises like breathing ( those headsets again ! ) and typing .
To start off , set your vocal cut to use GarageBand ’s No Effects preset , or ( if you favour ) the Male or Female Narrator presets . Any of the telling presets will make you sound like you memorialise your podcast in a armored combat vehicle of water .
If you care about getting rid of noise , I highly commend BIAS ’s $ 129SoundSoap 2 . To expend SoundSoap , you clack on a rail in GarageBand and press theiicon in the humiliated - right corner , then click Edit . This display the essence area of GarageBand . Move your pointer over one of those empty grey-headed rectangles and you ’ll see the textual matter , “ flick here to add an effect . ” Click and choose SoundSoap . Then clack on the SoundSoap icon , and you ’ll see the SoundSoap interface .
SoundSoap is middling easy to utilise : solo the track you ’ve got selected and bump a place where that soul does n’t talk . Then click Learn Noise in SoundSoap and turn ( or the spacebar ) in GarageBand . SoundSoap will listen to that sound recording , take the ambient sound of the audio data track , and automatically remove it . If the path has an electric hum ( often due to electrical interference ) , you’re able to remove that too by clicking on the 50Hz or 60Hz buttons .
you’re able to get a decent amount of randomness - gating features — which muteness caterpillar track when there ’s no haphazardness above a sure volume — from GarageBand itself . In the Edit tab on the veracious side of the screen where you ’ve been work , the top force is Noise Gate , and it ’s off by default . select the odd side of its rectangle to turn it on , then try out with using the slider to inhibit extraneous noises from the room without swallowing your speaker system when he or she is actually verbalize .
Depending on your preference , you might also want to contract the vocal music a bit . I will often use the Compressor nag - in , set to Vocal Compression Basic , to smooth out difference in the loudness of the various recording setups of my fellow podcast panelist .
Of course , every immortalize setup is unparalleled , so you ’ll ask to repeat this stone’s throw for every audio track . Hey , I said it would make your podcast sound good — I did n’t say it would be easy .
Moving things around
The number one reason to have your participants record their end of the conversation is because the transcription will be of much eminent lineament than a Skype track . But a nigh second is this : once you ’ve induce everyone on their own audio track , you could actuallyedit the conversationto make it flow better .
Now , this is an even more sentence - consuming process than apply noise reduction . I ’ll be honest : you could pass 20 hours editing a one - 60 minutes podcast if you tried . I do n’t do that , but I do attempt to help my podcast conversation along by edit out break , put on starts , extraneous bits , and a whole lot of over - verbalise that happen when five people all attempt to mouth at once on Skype . To save time , I rarely edit anything when a single person is talking ( other than removing an periodic telephone ring , meowing cat , or heavy breathing from a panellist with allergies ) . Instead , I pay aid to each track ’s wave shape in GarageBand and usually interpose only when several people are hear to talk at once .
The well-heeled gash are the false - start and failed interruptions : I just practice the Edit- > Split program line in GarageBand to chop up the cartroad and edit those bits as if they never exist .
For more complicated stuff , I will actually slide part of the conversation around . This is tricky , since you have to move all your track carefully or endangerment getting them out of sync . by and large my edits of this form happen when several the great unwashed are all saying something valid , but it all overlaps . I use the Split dictation to chop the central parts up . For the racecourse I ’m leaving in place , I will split the clip after they ’re finished verbalise . For the rail I ’m moving , I ’ll split them allbeforethey start talking . Then I can pick out all the caterpillar track after the split I ’ve made and pull the conversation apart .
This is kind of hard to visualise , so I made a video recording of this operation in action , using three unlike Speaker who all say thing that overlap . In the TV , you ’ll see me split the conversation into pieces and drag on it apart , all the while being measured to select all the tracks on the right side of the screen door so that I do n’t lose sync .
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There are lots of advanced tricks to habituate here to make edits seem more natural . GarageBand lets you adjust the size of a particular snip by holding your pointer over the sharpness of a clip until it wait like a strange bracketed arrow , then clicking and dragging the clip left or right . This can be useful in having one soul ’s last word trail off while the next person starts speak , even if those two event occurred several second ( or hour , if you ’re removing a foresighted digression ) later . Like I say , you’re able to do this forever and a day — if you ’ve got the clip . I only tend to use these techniques to make necessary edits vocalize more natural .
The consequence .
Exporting and the rest
When you ’re done editing , soar up out in GarageBand and eyeball your timeline . I ’ve had a couple of occasions where I made edits to path where more than one segment was spotlight by accident , which lead in Brobdingnagian sections of track being moved to the wrong place . When I count over the timeline , I see the empty quad and was able to deposit it before send it out .
When I ’m done editing a podcast , I broadly speaking export it as an uncompressed AIFF ( to do this , you must blot out the podcast data track if it ’s visible ( Track - > Hide Podcast Track ) , then opt Share - > Export Song to Disk … and export the Sung dynasty to disk “ in compact disk quality ” by making certain Compress is not chequer . Then I drag and drop the Indian file onto the excellent loose Levelator public-service corporation , drag the output signal file into iTunes , and employ iTunes to encode the podcasts . If you do n’t want to use the Levelator to care the meretriciousness of your podcast , it ’s even easier : just employ GarageBand ’s built - in encoding options . I incline to use 56kbps or 48kpbs glandular fever , but what you choose depends on how much you care about sound character and how much bandwidth you ’re willing to pay for .
If you have the time , I highly recommend take heed to the total podcast once it ’s exported . I ’ve had a twain of instant when something got muck up ( one of those sorry edits ) and I was able to bring through it before it saw the light of twenty-four hours . And I ’ve had time when I ’ve exported a podcast with two moment of secrecy in the midway — oops . unenviable .
The last frontier
After a yr of producing , hosting , and recordingThe Incomparable Podcast , I ’ve watch a lot about redaction podcasts … but I ’ve also study what I care about podcasts , because it ’s what I ’ve tried to do with my own . Everyone has unlike tastes , so I ca n’t tell you these are formula you should stick to . They ’re just the one I follow .
Every episode is an accounting entry point . I hear to podcasts indiscriminately , often weeks after they ’re posted , unless they ’re highly news driven . Every episode of the Macworld podcast is timely , but every episode of The Incomparable is intended to be timeless and accessible to anyone who want to heed . Listeners do n’t necessitate to know who we are or what we mouth about last week or last month . Running laugh are maintain to a minimum and are n’t allow to detract from the literal content of the show . Ourshow about “ Raiders of the Lost Ark,”recorded in November 2010 , should be just as listenable today as it was when we recorded it . It ’s not prefaced by 15 minutes about the top - gross films of that month or anything like that .
Have great panelists . I am prosperous to know some wise consumer of geeky amusement who also are quite well spoken . They are a great chemical group , so great that when masses keep asking me if they can guest on The Incomparable , I usually have to turn them down because we have too many hoi polloi already ! It ’s a luxury to have so many near panelists .
stand by to a agenda . With a couplet of holiday breaks as exceptions , we ’ve posted a podcast every hebdomad for the last year . I ’m lofty of that — it read we ’re serious about doing it . I ’ve been usingdoodle.comto schedule our podcast recording sessions , which has been a huge helper — it ’s a simple , free website that lets you quickly chance upon the availability of groups for particular times .
seek to make the podcast sound upright . Which brings us back to where we started .
