The Beginner’s Guide to Podcasting

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011

A Beginner’s Guide to Creating a Free Podcast This is a step-by-step guide that will teach beginner podcasters how to create a basic podcast without spending a cent.

1) Choose a podcatcher. a. One of the most popular RSS readers and podcatchers is Google Reader. Because we will be creating our podcast with websites related to Google, this reader will be our ideal choice. Head to www.google.com/reader to create a Google account. If you already use Gmail, you will not need to create a new account to use the Reader. b. Once you are signed up, you are ready to subscribe to an RSS feed of your choice. Click ‘Add a subscription’ in the top left corner of your browser window. c. In the search bar, type in the name of one of your favourite blogs, news websites, sports websites, etc. If you click the link that appears once you have typed this in, it will take you to the website’s RSS feed, which will provide links to the site’s updated content, from news articles to podcasts to videos. If this feed interests you, click ‘Subscribe’. d. In the bottom-left corner, Google Reader lists your subscriptions, and automatically updates their content at a predetermined interval. You can override this interval by clicking ‘Refresh’ within your subscription to reload the RSS feed instantly to check for updates. See Image 1. e. Google Reader also allows you to share content with friends or followers, or to follow other users to read their content (similar to Facebook statuses or Twitter). f. Now that we have set up a Google Reader account, we have a means to subscribe to our podcast RSS feed to ensure it is working properly once it is created. For now, close Google Reader.

2) Create a blog to act as a platform for your podcast. a. A blog is a website or part of a website updated regularly with new content in the form of ‘posts’, most often authored by an individual. Bloggers usually encourage their readers to reply to their content by commenting on individual blog posts. Thus, blogs can act as interactive platforms for individuals or organizations to communicate and engage with their followers. A podcast is essentially a blog that is updated with regular audio content and linked to an RSS feed. b. Perhaps the most popular blogging platforms for new bloggers are Blogger and Wordpress. Both sites are free to use and are very user-friendly. Today we will be using Blogger. Though less powerful and less design-oriented than Wordpress, Blogger is the easiest blog platform to use, and it does not require the download of any software. Once you are confident in your blogging abilities, I recommend looking into Wordpress.

1

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011 c. Head to www.blogger.com. To sign up for Blogger, you can again use your Google account. Pick out a name for your blog, and choose a template for its design. Later on, you can play around with the design of your blog and customize it for your purposes (under the ‘Design’ bar on your Blogger dashboard). d. At this point, your blog will have the address _____.blogspot.com. If you would your blog to have a custom domain, you can click on ‘Advanced Settings’ and link it to any domain that you own. e. Your blog is now online. Create a post to try it out. f. Now we will edit the settings on your blog to make it Podcast-compatible. Go back to the blog editor, and click the ‘Settings’ bar. Under ‘Basic’, you can edit the ‘Description’, which appears at the top of your blog. This description acts to briefly inform visitors what your content is all about. For example: “A Podcast About Dogs”. Click ‘Save Settings’ at the bottom of the page. g. Under ‘Formatting’ within the ‘Settings’ bar, scroll down to where it says ‘Show Link Fields’. Change the option to ‘Yes’, and then click ‘Save Settings’ at the bottom of the page. See Image 2. This option creates two new “fields” (places to paste URL addresses into) to be filled in when the blogger is publishing a new post. These two fields will be located below the “Title” field when you are creating a post within Blogger. (Note: These two new fields can be left blank until your audio content is ready to upload). i. The “Link” field is located just below the “Title” field, and turns your blog post title into a link to a chosen URL. ii. The second field is hidden. To unhide it, select the “Show enclosure links” option beneath the “Link” field. This will reveal the “Enclosure” link field, where you will be adding the URL address(es) of your podcast episode media file(s) once it is prepared. This is the link that the RSS feed will provide to podcatchers to use as a podcast episode. Until an address is entered into this field, podcatchers will not be able to download any media files, and the blog entry will not be read as a podcast episode. If you intend to post a non-podcast blog entry, you can leave this field blank.

3) Create an RSS Feed for your blog. a. An RSS feed is responsible for automatically updating your subscribers’ podcatchers with the new content from your blog or podcast. The next step is creating an RSS feed for our blog. b. We will be using Feedburner to create an RSS feed. Feedburner is a free, easy-touse, and extremely popular website for creating RSS feeds that is also owned and linked to Google. c. Head to www.feedburner.com. Create a Feedburner account using your Google account. d. Go back to your blog, and highlight and copy the URL (web address) of your main page. Make sure you highlight the address of the blog page itself, and not the address of the editing page. See Image 3.

2

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011 e. Paste the blog address into the bar on Feedburner that says ‘Burn a feed right this instant’. Feedburner takes your blog, and creates the RSS code required in order to create a feed that will check your blog for updates at a set interval.

After you paste the address, check the box that says ‘I am a podcaster!’

Feedburner will now offer you additional options that will help optimize your RSS feed for podcasting. Furthermore, by checking this box, you tell Feedburner to code information from your blog in a certain way that makes it intelligible to podcatchers (not just readers), and affects the way files are formatted.

Podcatchers like iTunes only accept podcast RSS feeds, and require specific tags within XML code. Fortunately, Feedburner takes care of all this with the checking of this box. See Image 4. f. After you click ‘Burn a feed right this instant’, Feedburner will give you two options for the feed. Both will work, but the first option ( - Atom) works better with Blogger (for complicated reasons not worth worrying about!). Choose the first option to continue configuring the feed. g. The next step involves configuring your feed and podcast to make it compatible with iTunes (creating ID3 Tags). These tags and settings will determine how your podcast will be displayed within podcatchers. These can be changed later, but are important. So go through them at this point and fill them out carefully. i. The first option determines what will be recognized as an episode by iTunes (audio, multimedia, etc). ii. Categories are very important for increasing the traffic to your podcast.

The more categories your podcast is linked to, the more possible ways there are for browsing users to find or stumble upon it. iii. The image you upload will be displayed as your artwork on iTunes. If you have copyright on your podcast, you can enter it here as well.

4) Link your Blog to your RSS feed. a. Your RSS feed has been created, and now it must be linked to your blog.

Feedburner offers assistance in doing this, but we are already steps ahead! Click on ‘My Feeds’ on your Feedburner dashboard. If you click on the name of your feed, it will take you to a page that enables you to edit its settings and view its statistics. To actually view your feed, click the RSS symbol to its left. See Image 5.

Whenever you see this symbol, you will open a feed by clicking it. What you are looking at is your feed as will be seen by anyone else who views it. It should have your first post listed.

Now to link your feed to your blog. First, highlight and copy the URL (web address) of your feed (not your Feedburner dashboard). Head back to your Blogger dashboard. Click on the ‘Settings’ bar and then click on the ‘Site Feed’ bar. Scroll down to ‘Post feed redirect URL’, and paste your feed URL. Click ‘Save Settings’. See Image 6. Now your feed is linked to your blog, and will direct users from your feed to your blog.

3

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011 b. Now post a couple of blog entries to ensure that your feed is properly linked to our blog. Take this opportunity to try out some of the features of your blog (changing fonts, adding links, adding images). c. Head back to your Feedburner and open your feed. Because Feedburner checks for updates on your blog in set intervals, and not constantly, it’s likely that your feed is not up to date. But fret not; there is a solution for this! d. Head to http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/ping. This feature, known as “Feedburner Ping”, forces your Feedburner to automatically update your feed.

Simply copy your feed URL (web address), paste it into the Ping bar, and ‘ping’ away. Re-check your feed; it will be updated with your new posts.

5) Create a ‘chicklet’ for your blog. a. Next, we need to make it easy for users to subscribe to your blog or podcast. We do this by using a chicklet. A chicklet is a button or a ‘widget’ that, when clicked, links the user to the blog’s RSS feed. Chicklets are often paired with the text “Subscribe!” or “Subscribe here!” b. To add a chicklet to your blog, go to your Feedburner dashboard and choose your feed. Click on the ‘Publicize’ bar, and then click ‘Chicklet Chooser’ from the column of options on the left. See Image 7. c. Choose the chicklet you would like to appear on your blog. I highly recommend the first option, which has become the standard chicklet in the blogging and podcasting world. It is the universal symbol for an RSS feed, and will not turn off viewers using a particular podcatcher. d. At the bottom of the page, you will see a lengthy string of XML code that you can copy and paste as HTML into your blog in order to embed the chicklet. This is not difficult to do, but Feedburner has made it even easier to embed a chicklet. Click on the tab at the bottom that reads ‘Use as widget in’ and choose the Blogger option. Click ‘Go’ and then choose your blog to add the chicklet. Blogger allows you to choose where to place the chicklet, but I recommend placing it in the default position, as is most common, for it is where readers commonly gaze when looking to subscribe to a blog. See Image 8. e. When the chicklet is clicked, the feed is opened, and there will be options that allow the user to subscribe to your feed with various different podcatchers. (At first, your RSS feed will only show a link to Google Reader, but click ‘more subscribe options’ to subscribe with other readers or podcatchers).

6) Test out you Blog and RSS feed with a reader. a. There are two ways to test out your Blog and feed with Google Reader. i. Click on your blog’s chicklet, and then the Google chicklet within the feed. You blog and its content have now been added to your Google Reader. ii. Go to your Google Reader account. Under the subscribe tab, search for your blog or enter your feed URL. Click ‘Subscribe’.

4

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011 iii. Click on your blog within your subscriptions, and make sure that your blog is ‘feeding’ your reader with your content.

7) Pingshot your feed. a. Feedburner has a feature that notifies subscribing podcatchers whenever new updates have been made to your feed. It ‘gives them a push’ so that your subscribers get access to your new content without having to wait for their podcatchers to check your feed on its own or having the subscribers manually refresh their podcatcher. b. Go to your Feedburner dashboard, click on your feed, and then click on the ‘Publicize’ Tab. In the left-hand column, select ‘Pingshot’, and activate the service. See Image 9.

At this point, you are a blogger, but not yet a podcaster. Next, we will be creating the media to upload to our blog that will eventually become episodes of our podcast.

8) Download audio recording software. a. There are hundreds of different audio recording software to choose from, and they range in price from free to thousands of dollars. If you use an Apple computer that has been purchased in the last 5 years, you will likely have a free copy of GarageBand already installed onto your computer. GarageBand is an excellent starter program. It is easy to use, versatile, and comes equipped with features made specifically for podcasting. This tutorial, however, will be discussing Audacity software, which is the best free option for PC users. Although not as pretty or as user-friendly as GarageBand, Audacity is easy enough for most beginners to master for podcasting purposes quite easily. b. Head to http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows. Download the program for windows. It is a small file, and will not take long to download. c. An mp3 is a digital audio encoding format that compresses audio files to a size suitable for most digital audio players. mp3 has become the standard for audio file storage and uploading. Podcasters will run into the least amount of trouble if they convert all the audio for their podcasts into mp3 format. Audacity, like many audio software programs, does not have an mp3 converter. You can use iTunes to convert audio tracks to mp3 format once they have been recorded. d. Finally, download a small file of podcast stingers/bumpers/sweepers to use in the creation of our audio files. These small sound bites will be used to demonstrate how music clips are integrated into Audacity. Head to http://stings.qarchive.org/, and download the first sample pack. e. Open up Audacity. Under the ‘Edit’ menu, click on preferences. i. Start with the ‘Devices’ menu within ‘Preferences’. Here you can choose the devices you will be using for recording and playback. Under ‘Playback’, it should be defaulted to your computer speakers or headphones plugged into the computer. This is fine. If you hook up external monitors your computer, this is where you would change the 5

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011 settings to ensure your audio is sent to them. Under ‘Recording’, choose the microphone you will be using. If you are using a microphone built into the computer, it is likely that you won’t have to change anything. If you are using a different microphone, check here to make sure that it is chosen to be used by Audacity. ii. Under ‘Channels’ within ‘Preferences’, switch to ‘Mono’. This means that the microphone will only record one channel of audio to be sent to both headphones or to both speakers. A stereo mix, which records two channels and distributes them to each speaker or headphone at a chosen proportion, can be used for aesthetic purposes, but takes up twice as much space, and thus is not recommended for beginnger podcasts. Since podcasts will likely be mostly conversation, mono will sound just fine. If your podcast will feature live music or something of the sort, consider a stereo mix. iii. The two above settings can also be altered in the toolbar at the top of the Audacity dashboard. f. Next, go to the ‘Start’ menu of your desktop, and open up the ‘Control Panel’.

Open up the ‘Sound’ menu, and click on the ‘Recording’ tab. Double click on the microphone you will be using. This will open a new window. Click on ‘Levels’.

Now you have a way to adjust your microphone volume in lieu of an interface.

Minimize this window until you are recording. You can adjust your microphone volume within Audacity as well, but within a range limited by the level chosen within the Control Panel. g. Take a moment to understand the purpose and function of the main buttons located at the top of the Audacity dashboard. See Image 10. h. Use “Append Record” under the “Transport” menu if you would like to record additional audio onto a track, rather than creating a new track every time you record something. If you press the “R” key. Audacity begins recording. If you press “Shift+R” (the shift key and the “R” key at the same time), Audacity begins to Append-Record. i. Familiarize yourself with the many tools located in the Audacity dashboard. (For Objects A-K, see Image 11): i. You can adjust the volume of the playback (A) and the volume of the microphone (B) within Audacity. Look for the speakerphone and the microphone symbol respectively beside adjustment bars to do so. The third adjustment bar at the top (with the green play button beside it), adjusts the speed of the playback (C). ii. The two meters on the far left of the tool bar displays the levels of your microphone (D) and the playback (E). We will talk about those more in a moment. iii. The horizontal bar at the bottom of the toolbar (F) shows the length of your audio tracks. If you select a section of the audio with the selection tool along this bar, it will play just that section.

6

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011 j.

Click Tracks from the top menu, and select ‘Add New’ -> ‘Audio Track’. This will open a new track onto which you will record audio. i. To rename the track, click the top left corner where it says ‘Audio Track’ and click ‘Name’. Naming your tracks keeps them organized and makes it easier to keep track of them. ii. The ‘Mute’ button (G) will silence this track when your audio is played. iii. The ‘Solo’ button (H) allows only this track play during audio playback. iv. The adjustment bar with ‘+’ and ‘-‘ (I) controls the volume level of the recorded tracks. v. The adjustment bar with ‘L’ and ‘R’ (J) controls the location of the track in the soundscape when one is creating a stereo mix. If you slide this bar to the left, the left speaker or left headphone will receive a larger proportion of the track’s audio (and vice versa with the right). vi. If you are dealing with a large number of tracks, click the arrow at the bottom left of the track (K) to minimize it, making it easier to keep track of the many tracks. k. You are now ready to record. If your microphone is set up, test it out by clicking on the meter with the microphone in your tool bar (E). To make things easier, drag the meter by its far left-hand bar to make it “float”. Then turn it so it is vertical. At this point, click on the microphone symbol. This turns on “input monitoring”. This allows you to check the level on your microphone without recording anything. Ideally, you want your microphone levels to be as high as possible without “clipping”. Clipping occurs when your level is too high, and our signal has gone out of range. If we clip, that means there will be digital distortion, which will make your podcast sound low-quality and unprofessional.

If the meter level reaches the top, representing a digital clip, a red bar will appear at the top to let you know. Click that bar to clear it once you have adjusted your level accordingly. l. Do a ‘sound check’. With input monitoring on, adjust your microphone level until you are metering at a ‘healthy’ level (metering as high as possible without ever clipping) when speaking as loud as you plan to during recording. Once you have completed sound checking, it is time to record. Click the microphone again to end input monitoring and to prepare for recording. m. Click the red ‘record’ button to begin recording. Do not worry about starting as soon as you have clicked record, you can edit out empty or unwanted space later on. Record some audio, then hit the brown ‘stop’ button. If while recording, your output level meter is clipping (topping out the meter, leaving a red line at its top), you should start over (if possible) to avoid recording unwanted distortion on your audio track. n. Now that you have audio recorded, you can add edit it and add effects. i. To delete a section of your audio, simply select the area with the selection tool, and hit the ‘backspace’ or ‘delete’ key on your keyboard.

7

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011 ii. If you would like to simply silence a piece of audio, so that the timing remains unchanged, select the area, and click ‘Silence’ from the ‘Generate’ menu. iii. Cut Preview: When you are editing your audio, you can hit the ‘C‘ key to hear one second before and one second after a selected piece of audio, simulating what your audio will sound like once you have cut the section out before you make the cut. iv. To slice your audio recording into separate sections, so that you can move around or add effects to different and distinct sections, select the point at which you would like to break up your audio, and select ‘Split’ under the ‘Edit’ menu. v. You can duplicate your audio by choosing a section, and clicking ‘Duplicate’ under the ‘Edit’ menu. You can also copy, paste, and cut sections of your audio, using the ‘Edit’ menu or the usual commands on the keyboard. vi. When you would like to join two separate pieces of audio together, it is recommended that you “crossfade” the two pieces, so that no “pops” or “clicks” can be heard that may be caused by splitting the audio or by combining two separate sections together. Crossfading, which involves a drastic fade out and fade in when joining two pieces of audio, can be done with the ‘envelope tool’. Simply use the envelope tool to fade quickly out of the first section of audio before the break, and quickly fade in to the subsequent piece of audio at its start. This will silence any unwanted noise where the sections meet without affecting the two sections in any noticeable way. See Image 12. vii. To amplify a section of your audio, select the section with the selection tool, then choose the ‘Amplify’ option from the ‘Effect’ menu. Choose the number of decibels by which you will amplify (or diminish) your audio.

This comes in handy if, during your recording, there is a point where the vocals for some reason become too quiet or inaudible. o. Compression i. Audio producers often use a compressor to alter the dynamic range of recorded audio. Often, a podcast or a song will have various peaks and valleys in amplitude throughout the duration of the audio. At times, speakers will speak louder or quieter, or someone will accidently move too close to the microphone, causing a spike in the volume. This can have an undesirable effect for the listener. A compressor smoothes out the dynamic range of your audio, creating a track that sounds more professional, and is easier to listen to. Often, compressors will boost your audio after compression to make your track louder. Thus, all audio is increased in volume, but the louder sections of audio are increased to a less extent. ii. A compressor sets a threshold for the amplitude of the audio. If the audio rises above the threshold, it is compressed by a chosen ratio. If the ratio 8

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011 is 2:1, the volume of the audio above the threshold will be halved. If it the ratio is 4:1, the audio will be compressed to a quarter of the amount above the chosen threshold. If the ratio is infiniti:1, sound will not cross the chosen threshold. Once your threshold and ratio are set, you can adjust the “output gain” to turn the overall volume up to make up for lost overall volume. In Audacity, there is no output gain adjuster within the compressor, but there are two options to be discussed below that allow you to increase your compressed audio’s overall volume. iii. Example: If your audio spikes 4 decibels above your chosen threshold, the compressor will apply a resistance of 4:1 to this peak, so that its output volume is only 1 decibel above the threshold. iv. Keep in mind that too much compression can make your audio sound overly flat (or “canned”), and strip it of any of its original and natural dynamic amplitude range. Compressors are complex, and can be used in many different ways. I recommend reading a bit about how to use compressors, then simply trying one out and learning through trial and error. Listen carefully to determine the point at which compression begins to degrade the quality of your audio. p. The Audacity Compressor: i. To use a compressor in Audacity, simply select the region to be compressed, and choose ‘Compressor’ under the ‘Effect’ menu. You will be able to adjust the compression settings, but using the default settings is a good place to start. Try adjusting the threshold level (the point at which audio will be compressed) and the ratio (the amount of compression or ‘resistance’ applied to audio above the threshold) to see how it affects your audio. This will help you understand how compression works. Compression is an important tool, but casual podcasters do not need to worry about it in the early stages. ii. See Images 13 and 14 for an explanation of the “Noise floor”, “Attack Time”, and “Decay Time features on the Audacity compressor. iii. The compressor will not boost any audio below the “Noise Floor” level, assuming that all below it is room noise that should not be amplified. iv. A good place to start is with a -12dB threshold, a 6:1 ratio, a nose floor at -80db, attack time at 0.5 seconds and decay time at 1.0 second. If with these settings, your recording still has sections you deem to be too loud, lower the threshold and/or raise the ratio, and if the louder parts are now compressed to a level you deem to be too quiet, raise the threshold and/or diminish the ratio. v. You can also adjust your compression by using or not using the “Compress Based on Peaks” or “Make-up gain for 0db” options. vi. (a) The “Compress Based on Peaks” option (upward compression) will amplify your entire selected audio, while compressing audio that exists above the chosen threshold (equivalent to adjusting output gain after compression with other compressors). Thus audio above the threshold is 9

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011 still amplified, but to a less extent than the audio below the threshold.

This option flattens out your audio and makes your track louder. vii. (b) If both “Compress Based on Peaks” and “Make-up gain for 0db” are selected, the compressor will amplify the track to a peak level of volume (0db) using upward compression (the entire audio is amplified as compression occurs above the threshold). The peak level of volume will be the highest level of volume before clipping occurs. This might result in a track that sounds too flat. When all audio is adjusted to be near the maximum volume, your dynamic range is lessened and it can make your track sound artificial. Loudness is not really important for podcast audio.

A lot of producers focus on loudness so that their tracks stand out amongst other tracks on the radio or on CDs. This has resulted in what has been called the “Loudness War”: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=loudness+war&aq=f. viii. (c) Podcasts are mainly composed of vocals or conversation, and loudness is not an important feature. Thus, podcasters may want to retain a dynamic range in their audio, yet still compress their tracks. This can be done by unchecking both the “Make-up gain for 0db after compressing” and the “Compress based on Peaks” option in Audacity, which compresses audio above the threshold while leaving audio below the threshold untouched (this is called downward compression, which is based on an average volume value rather than peaks). This option will retain much of the audio’s dynamic range, creating a more natural sound than the alternative option. This option is probably superior for podcasters, unless loudness is an issue. A more dynamic range sounds better, and volume can always be adjusted by the podcast listener on their media player. ix. (d) If producer is concerned about volume, he or she can also choose the “Make-up gain for 0db” while leaving the “Compress based on Peaks” option unchecked to boost the volume of the track to peak level after downward compression (based on average volume, not peak levels).

Thus, the audio above the threshold only is compressed, then the new audio is boosted in amplitude up to the peak level. x. See Image 15 for a visible representation of a single track compressed in the four different ways discussed above. xi. Visit the Audacity website for details on the Audacity Compressor. q. All other effects work in the same way as ‘Amplify’ and ‘Compression’. To add reverb, wah-wah, fade-in effect, fade-out effect, or to use any of the other effects offered by Audacity, simply select the region you would like to apply the effect to, and choose the effect from the ‘Effect’ menu. r. Reverb is an effect that emulates a room or a reverberant area. Sometimes, your audio may sound unnaturally flat or artificial. By adding a touch of reverb, your vocals will be subjected to artificial room space and echoes that can assist in creating a more ‘natural’ sound. If your vocals sound like they are being spoken 10

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011

s.

t. u.

v.

w. x.

into a microphone or to a computer to an obvious extent, a touch of reverb may provide a simple means to improve your audio’s quality or ‘naturalness’. Under the `Effect` menu in Audacity, choose the `GVerb` option to open a reverb effect that you can adjust according to sound and taste.

To add music, sweepers/bumpers/stingers, or other outside audio to your podcast, choose ‘Import Audio’ from the ‘File’ menu. Choose the file you would like to import, and Audacity will open a new track and import the audio to that track. Another way to do this is to simply drag the audio file onto Audacity.

Do not forget to make sure that the music you are using is “Podsafe” and that its use does not violate copyright law.

Once you have multiple tracks recorded or imported, you will need to ‘mix’ the various audio tracks so that certain tracks are not too loud or too quiet compared to the others, and so that the overall sound of our playback is just right. It is important to prevent louder tracks from drowning out quieter ones.

Click the ‘View’ menu, and select ‘Mixer Bar’. This will open a new window that has aggregated the volume meters of all your tracks together side-by-side so that you can adjust to them to proper levels. It is difficult and frustrating trying to mix by playing and adjusting at the tracks and their levels at once. This will make it very hard to reach a desired sound. Instead, mute all the tracks, and start with just one. Find a volume you like, and then unmute a second track. Adjust the levels until the two sound good together. Continue on, adjusting the levels of the subsequent tracks and making minor adjustments on previous ones until your audio sounds just right. If this process takes a long time, it means you are doing a good job! If you need to adjust volumes within tracks (rather than the volume of entire tracks), you can use the amplify effect to boost or diminish volume, or the envelope tool fade a track up and/or down at a desired slope.

If you would like to “loop” (play repeatedly) a section of your audio when mixing or listening back to your audio, simply select a region with the selection tool, use the “shift+spacebar” hot key (pressing shift and spacebar at the same time).

For more hot keys, tools, tips, and Audacity tutorials, check out the Audacity Wiki Manual at http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Main_Page.

Mixing narration and Music i. In podcasts, it is common to for music to be playing during parts of a narration, especially during introductions, conclusions, and transitions.

Often, the music begins at full volume, fades in volume once the narrator begins, and fades back to full volume once the narration ends. This can be achieved easily in Audacity. The narration and music are usually not recorded at the same time. Instead, a narration is recorded, music is imported, and the two tracks are mixed. Once you have your narration recorded and your audio imported, make sure that the ‘Sync-Lock Tracks’ is not selected under the ‘Tracks’ menu at the top. This unsynchronizes your tracks, allowing you to alter each one independently.

11

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011 ii. Now split your narration into separate regions where the transitions or breaks will occur. To do this, select the point at which the transitions will occur with the ‘Selection’ tool, and choose ‘Split’ from the ‘Edit’ tab. iii. Now ‘Solo’ the music track, and select the point at which the narration will begin with the ‘Selection’ tool. At this point, click on ‘Add Label at Selection’ from the ‘Tracks’ tab. This will open a new track at the bottom where you can label that point in the song. This will now be a reference point for you. For example, at the point in the theme song at which you plan to begin your narration, you would label “Narration Begins”. Un-solo the audio track. iv. Now line up the narration audio regions with their respective labels using the ‘Time-Shift’ tool. Audacity helps you align your audio up by providing a yellow “snap-to” line that allows you to place your audio exactly in line with your label. v. Now your narration regions are exactly where you want them to be in respect to the audio. The next step is adjusting the volume of the music so that your narration is not drowned. There are two methods for this. vi. The first method is by using the ‘Envelope’ tool to manually create fade lines that will guide the volume of your audio. Simply fade the music down track during narration, and fade it back up after narration is complete. vii. The second method requires the audio track to be located above the narration track in Audacity. Start by moving your tracks around so this is the case. Choose the area of the music that overlaps with the narration (and also a couple seconds on each side of this area) with the ‘Selection’ tool. Choose ‘Auto-Duck’ from the ‘Effect’ tab. This effect fades the volume in and out of the selected region at a set level for you. If this level is too high or too low, undo the effect and adjust the effect’s parameters.

The Auto-Duck effect is permanent, so make sure you are happy with it’s results before you move on too far to undo the action. viii. Visit http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Tutorial__Mixing_a_Narration_With_Background_Music for details on this process. y. Noise Removal i. Audacity provides a tool that can remove unwanted background noise from your track. This is an excellent tool for podcasters, because background noise can easily be heard when only vocals from a conversation are being recorded (there are no loud instruments drowning out background noise). Background noise refers more to a constant hum in a room from an air conditioner or a computer than the temporary and isolated sounds of people talking nearby or loud cars driving by. ii. Find a small section of your audio that is silent except for background noise. It does not need to be a long clip. Use the ‘Selection’ tool to select 12

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011 this region. Under the ‘Effect’ menu, choose ‘Noise Removal`. Next, choose `Get Noise Profile`. Audacity will now analyze this sample to determine a noise floor level. It will consider anything below this noise floor to be unwanted noise. iii. Now select the entire audio track or a section of an audio track that you would like remove noise from. Because the Noise Removal tool will affect the way your audio sounds, it is recommended that you apply the tool to entire sections of audio rather than pieces so that it does not sound disjointed and so it is not obvious that it has been altered. Once it is selected, click on ‘Noise Removal’ from the ‘Effect’ menu again and select `OK`. This creates a “gate” for your audio track, which remains “closed” to all audio at amplitudes below the noise floor determined by your noise profile. The closed gate silences or reduces the volume of all sounds below the noise floor. If audio is louder than the noise floor, the gate “opens” and the sound will be played. iv. If the noise removal alters your track too much, you can undo the effect and try again after altering the settings. If too much sound has been removed, reduce the amount by which the noise is reduced. If the noise is still there, increase the amount by which the noise is reduced, etc. If you are still not satisfied with the effect, you may want to apply the “Get Noise Profile” option to a different piece of audio to establish a new noise floor. v. The Noise Removal tool can be very helpful, but it is not perfect. If your audio is altered too much by its use, it may be best to leave your tracks unchanged. vi. For tips and details on using the Noise Removal tool, visit http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Noise_Removal z. Your track is now ready to convert to mp3. Click the ‘File’ menu, and select ‘Export’. Choose a place to save the file, and save it as a “.WAV” file. Enter in all of the track’s information carefully. The information will appear on your subscriber’s media player, and will determine how it is organized by their podcatcher. aa. We will be using iTunes as an mp3 encoder. Open iTunes. Under the ‘Edit’ bar, choose ‘Preferences’. Under the ‘General’ tab, choose ‘Import Settings’. Click on the `Import Using` option tab and choose ‘MP3 Encoder’. Select ‘OK’. Now open your .WAV file in iTunes. Select your song once it is in iTunes, and choose `Create mp3` from the ‘Advanced’ tab at the top. This will create a new version of your audio track that has been encoded and compressed into mp3 format. You now have an mp3 audio track to use for your podcast.

9) Embedding an interactive mp3 player into your blog and feed. a. Although podcatchers require mp3s to be loaded directly onto webspace to function (rather than simply embedded in a website), there are benefits to embedding interactive media players into your blog for use by visitors. First of 13

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011 all, they often look better! Second of all, they allow listeners who play the audio from your blog to comment on podcast episodes in a more interactive way.

Soundcloud allows listeners to link their comments to a specific time in the podcast episode, allowing other listeners to jump to that time in order to see specifically what that comment was referring to. See Image 15. b. Using Soundcloud is very easy, and the first 120 minutes of uploaded audio is free. Create an account at https://soundcloud.com/signup c. Click on ‘Upload’, and choose the mp3 file you would like to upload. d. Once your track is uploaded, play the file to make sure it works, and then test out the commenting feature. Simply click on the blue bar at the bottom of the player at the time when you would like to post, then type in your post. Your listeners will be able to do the same, on your blog. e. There are two ways to embed this media player onto your blog. i. Click share on the top left corner of the Soundcloud track. Under ‘Share’, click ‘More’, and choose the Blogger Option. This will link you to Blogger, where you can create a new post with this mediaplayer and audio embedded automatically. ii. Under ‘Share’, copy the provided ‘embed’ code. Use this code, and paste into any of your blog posts. The three advantages of doing it this way are (i) you have more control over where you would like to place the mediaplayer, (ii) you can add in other content in addition to it, and (iii) you can embed the player into older posts. f. Once you publish the post, the Soundcloud player will appear in both your blog and on your RSS feed, and your viewers will be able to comment on your uploaded material without ever having to surf to the Soundcloud website.

10) Formatting your audio for iTunes. a. iTunes is by far the most popular podcatcher, and it handles most of the internet’s podcasting traffic. iTunes automatically downloads episodes from the podcasts you subscribe to into your music library, and can format these episodes to be played by your iPod, iPad, iCat, or iPhone. iPhones, and other smartphones, now have applications that will download podcast episodes from iTunes to your phone without having to connect to a computer. Thus, if you want to increase the traffic to your podcast, it is essential to know how to make your podcast iTunes compatible. iTunes requires a specific set of XML codes and tags within your RSS feed to upload audio or video. b. Luckily, Feedburner takes care of the XML for us, though there are some steps to be taken in order to get your podcast into iTunes. Head to your Feedburner ‘Dashboard’. Go to the ‘Optimize’ tab, and then click ‘Smartcast’. The Smartcast feature formats your RSS feed so that it can be read by iTunes. i. Where it says ‘Create podcast enclosure links from:’, choose which elements of your blog you would like to add to your iTunes podcast.

Perhaps you only want the audio files, perhaps only the video ones, or perhaps all.

14

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011

c.

d.

e.

f.

g.

h.

ii. Fill out as many categories as you can that relate to your podcast. The more detailed your categorization, the more avenues that lead to potential listeners to your podcast. iii. If you would like your podcast to have an image on iTunes, load a direct image URL to the image box. The image must be JPG or PNG, and it is recommended that the image is 300x300. iv. Fill out the optional description boxes, which will appear within iTunes, and ‘Save’ your settings to activate the SmartCast feature. See Image 16. v. Your Feedburner will now tailor your RSS feed to the iTunes XML requirements.

This is where things gets tricky. In order for iTunes to read your audio or video, you must provide it with your mp3’s URL. This is not a URL to a website that has your audio or video embedded within it, but a URL linking directly to your mp3 or movie file. This means that your file must be loaded to directly to webspace.

This requires a web host. Most (non-free) podcasting hosts provide webspace for you, but if you have not purchased podcasting service, it is a bit more difficult.

There are free solutions, but they are often limited or take time to upload. If you own your own domain or website, it is likely that you have webspace available.

We will use a free webspace provider. Go to www.archive.org, and create an account. Now head to www.ourmedia.org and click on the ‘Upload’ tab. Type in your information from the archive.org account, and choose your mp3 to upload after carefully naming your file. Your file is now being uploaded to a public webspace. Because the service is free, this will take time to process (from a minute to hours). If you were to purchase webspace or use your own webspace, this step would be practically instant.

Once you have received an email notifying you that your mp3 has successfully been loaded onto ourmedia.org, follow the link to your upload. Click the link that says ‘download original file’. This will bring you back to the archive.org site. Once that page has loaded, click on the link to the ‘VBR MP3’. See Image 17 and Image 18.

Finally, you will be brought to a page where it is nothing but your audio clip playing on a basic media player. The URL address for this page, which should end in .mp3, is the golden ticket. Copy this address. See Image 19.

Head back to your Blogger dashboard. Edit the post you made that included the embedded Soundcloud link. Below the ‘Title’ bar, is the ‘Link’ bar. Type the mp3 URL address here to turn the title of your blog post into a direct link to your mp3.

Below the “Link” bar, add the same URL address to the “Enclosure” field. Your RSS feed will use the URL address in this field to determine which media file(s) are to be used as podcast episodes. If you do not fill in the “Enclosure” link, podcatchers will not be able to access your podcast episode media. Paste your .mp3 URL here. Republish the post.

Ping your feed!

15

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011 i.

Open iTunes. Open the Podcast library in your iTunes. Click the ‘Advanced Menu’ at the top of iTunes, and then choose ‘Subscribe to Podcast’. Enter your RSS feed from Feedburner and press ‘OK’. Your podcast will appear on iTunes, and will download your available episodes. iTunes will now act as a podcatcher for your blog, and download new content from your Blogger account. j. Once your episodes appear on iTunes, right click on them and select ‘Get info’.

Under the ‘Info’ tab, edit your information so that it includes a link to your website and all the other proper information that will lead listeners back to your website or blog, regardless of where they got your podcast episode from. You can also add artwork, lyrics, notes, additional information, etc. k. At this point, your podcast is not available in the iTunes store. You can submit your podcast to the iTunes Store, where it will be made public to all iTunes users.

I do not recommend doing this until you have a substantial amount of content, and you feel confident in your podcasting skills. You do not want to introduce your podcast to the world until it is truly ready! l. Go to the iTunes Store in iTunes. Under the ‘Podcasts’ tab, select ‘Submit a Podcast’ under the ‘Quick Links’ column. Submit your podcast feed. You will need to wait at least a day for the iTunes store to accept your podcast. It will be assessed to ensure that it is a legitimate podcast, that it does not contain explicit content, and that it is in accordance to copyright law. m. You will be notified by the iTunes store when your podcast is officially live!

11) Submitting your podcast to podcast directories. a. A podcast directory is a website that acts as a podcast library. Individuals search podcast directories to find specific podcast feeds to subscribe to or browse directories by category looking for podcasts that might interest them to subscribe to. As mentioned before, iTunes handles most of the internet’s podcast traffic. However, there are many other podcast directories that your podcast should be directed to in order to increase your audience size. b. Gather together your RSS feed URL, your blog URL, and all the information you want your subscribers to see when they subscribe to your podcast. Look online for popular or niche podcast directories and submit your podcast! c. Here are some other popular podcast directories to submit your podcast to: i. http://www.canadapodcasts.ca/ ii. http://www.podcastalley.com/ iii. http://rimpodcast.quickplay.ca/rimpodcasting/ iv. http://www.zencast.com/contactus/submit.asp v. http://www.podcast411.com/ vi. http://www.allpodcasts.com/ vii. http://www.podcastpickle.com/ viii. http://www.podfeed.net/ 16

ACGC Podcast Workshop, June 2011 d. The more podcasts directories you submit to, the more likely you are to direct traffic to your blog and to develop a substantial audience. This only takes a couple of minutes, so submit to as many as you can!

You are now officially a podcaster! Although there exist plenty of different websites and software downloads that can improve your podcast’s quality or simplify the podcasting process, the Blogger/Feedburner/Audacity trio equips you with all the tools needed to create a podcast that can compete with the professionals. Simply dedicate your time to developing your podcast content and establishing a relationship with your subscribers, and watch as your audience grows.

17