Audival - Podcasting Tips & Tricks » Tutorials

External factors to ensure noiseless podcasts

Karli — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:22:03 +0000

I’ve talked about how to minimize noise in your podcasts by using different equipment and tweakingthe usage of these equipment. But one factor that also plays a big part in the production of noise in recordings is the environment itself.

Look around the room where you record your podcasts. Most likely you will identify things inside the room that produce noise that can be picked up by your microphone. For example, the air conditioner emits a hum that can be an annoying background noise. Turn it off when recording and just turn it back on when you’ve finished recording your take.

Refrigerators are another appliance that produce noise. Make sure that the room that you record in doesn’t have one inside. The hum of some refrigerators are not particularly loud but it can still be heard by people who have sensitive ears so give them a break and don’t record near a refrigerator.

preparations before an interview

Karli — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 07:46:26 +0000

Before you even begin an interview, you should make preparations to ensure that everything runs smoothly. A good interview is something that has been painstakingly prepared even the interview happens.

One of the things that you should do is to answer some questions yourself. How long do you plan to hold the interview? Are you going to let the interview play out or are you going to edit it? How will you edit it? You should also be ready to give your interviewee information — like who the audience will be and what are the expectations for the interview. You should also provide this information in the pitch letter that you will send your potential interviewee.

There are interviewees who may ask for some of the questions beforehand. This is a perfectly safe request for most “friendly” interviews. A good tip is to start off the interview with a killer question — one that immediately grabs hold of the audience’s interest. After a couple of intriguing questions you can ease back and ask background questions afterwards.

The phone interview

Karli — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:03:44 +0000

An integral part of making content for your podcast is sourcing information from various sources. This often means interviewing people. An interview face to face while recording your podcast is a great way of making your podcast very interesting. But unfortunately, sometimes this is not possible. The only way to do the interview would be to do it over the phone.

You can still use the phone interview if you like by recording your phone call. Unfortunately, phone call interviews can be hard because you have to be constantly vigilant to keep your interview focused. After this you have to edit the conversation to reduce the amount of gaps.

One of the simplest ways of recording is to just record the speakerphone using your mic. It may sound crude but surprisingly, the quality can be quite good. Take note to mute the speaker of your computer in order to reduce or eliminate feedback.

Minimizing background noise during recording

Karli — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:42:57 +0000

One of the problems of podcasting is noise. During the recording process, noise would usually creep into the finished product. Ambient noise from many different sources that you will find in the environment can find its way into your recording and it can be irritating to hear distracting noises while listening to a podcast.

Unfortunately, even if you record your podcast in a studio, noise can still creep into your podcast if you do not take care about how the recording is set up. For example, background noise can be caused by something as small as the computer fan.In fact, it’s the most common source of background noise in podcasts — almost 20 percent of podcasts suffer from computer fan background noise. The solution for this is as simple as moving the microphone away from the computer. A distance of six feet is sufficient enough to prevent the microphone from picking up computer fan noise. Another good tip is to use a directional mic and then point it away from the computer so that it won’t pick up any sound or noise that the PC produces. Of course, the most radical solution is to use fan-less computers or laptops. If you’re planning to upgrade your hardware then you can go this route to eliminate noise while recording your podcasts.

The Beercast option

Karli — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:10:57 +0000

It is the rare individual who takes to podcasting immediately. Sometimes the best way to ease into a new skill is to ask for a little company. Add some alcohol into the mix and what you have is cool and fun way of podcasting that will surely be entertaining and spontaneous.

Beercasts are gaining a lot of fans in the podcasting community because it is a lot of fun and a relatively easy way of making a podcast. the setup for a beercast is quite simple. All one needs is a few microphones, a Behringer mixer and an MP3 recorder.

A beercast is actually round table discussion. A topic is presented to the participants and the discussions begin. It’s an easy setup and when it gets going, it is so much fun. A discussion like this will be energetic, free-flowing and, if the participants are witty and eloquent, quite a great show of verbal repartee. Of course, introducing some alcohol into the mix could result in even more free spirited discussions.

Beercasting is a great way to get your feet wet in the world of podcasting simply because conversations come naturally, unlike a monologue. A podcaster is more likely to feel more comfortable when he’s talking with other people rather than just talking on his own while on the microphone. Conversations will allow you to actually think about what you will say next when the other participants in the beercast are talking. Beercasts and multiple host types of podcast are so popular and more engaging to audiences that you will notice that in any ranking of podcasts, there’s more multiple-host formats in the list.

If you’re interested in trying out a podcast, try to read the excellent resource Podcasting Hacks.

The talking bit -things to remember when podcasting

Karli — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 09:52:22 +0000

Talking is an art and hosting a podcast is an extension of that art. To make an effective podcast there are some things that you should remember when recording.

One of the most common pitfalls of beginner podcasters is talking too quickly. You should watch how you pace your talk when you do your podcast. Talking at a fast pace usually happens when you’ve done a run through of your material a few times. The familiarity with what you’re going to say may result in you trying to “breeze” through the whole show. Slow down. Give yourself the opportunity to actually take a breath and check how fast you’re going.

You will also have a tendency to speed up when you are tense. The whole podcasting setup with the microphone, headphones and hearing yourself talk is quite a strange experience that not everyone will be immediately used to. Try to do relaxation exercises before recording. Avoid caffeine which can make you more tense. You will also usually get tense when you put such high expectations on your performance. Remember that practice makes perfect and it is the rare person who takes to podcasting like duck to water. Take comfort in the fact that there is also a learning curve here and that you will continually improve as long as you take note of what aspects you should improve on.

Preparation is key

Karli — Mon, 18 May 2009 07:33:17 +0000

One thing that distinguishes a really good podcast from the one that is ho-hum is how smoothly the podcast flows in terms of how the people talk. Nothing’s stilted, there are no awkward pauses, no unsure lulls in the conversation and no grasping for what will happen next.

How do you ensure that what you’ll make a podcast where you sound sure of yourself? Simple. Make the right preparations.

The secret to an effective podcast is preparation. Don’t go recording your podcast with just a general outline in your head. All of the great podcasters prepare notes for their show way before they start recording. The notes give them a roadmap of how the show will go. They can easily look at what topics to discuss and the information they want to impart for each topic. One thing that you should is that being a podcaster will not come naturally to a lot of people. Most of you will really have to work to make yourselves good podcasters and preparation is one tool you can use to improve your performance.

When it comes to notes, a general outline of information is usually better than actually preparing a script. Using a script is a sure way your podcast will sound stiff. You will find it hard to resist just reading the script and because you’re reading it, the natural cadence of speech will be lost.

Interview Podcasts

Karli — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:30:54 +0000

The interview is a bit more complicated than your normal, personal, off the mill podcast especially if you will be conferencing over the internet or live even, face to face. First, study the set up and get down to planning a few setup’s trying to figure out what works best. For teleconferencing, you can record the questions and answers separately, editing them together with your editing software later. Background noise is a killer so search and silence all noisy stuff, equipment (if you love to use your computer, you’re sure to have more fans that the store bought PC casing so use something else and shut it off, the hum of the fans are louder that you think) and appliances all over the place you will be recording in. If possible, give the interviewee a copy of your questions so answers can be prepared ahead of time, even mentally, a few minutes before the recording session. Have separate mics for you and your subject to avoid the distraction of having to move the mic back and forth often resulting in noise which we don’t want. Use the background as effects for very creative sound structure and have some digital effects ready on a player for predictable use in your podcast. Be creative and find ways to improve or embellish the podcast with the many available digital effects over the internet or through the many built-in functions that came with your software.
Combine studio and free recorded podcasts to give the impression of tele-interviews with your subject on the go an you in the studio (or most probably inside the illuminated closet you favor). Hang-up the phone so no ringing from your phone can be heard (but remember to re-hook it afterwards). Making the podcast special is all with the one making the recording, may it be formal or not. Have fun and don’t be too fussy about noise if it is beyond your control, just be creative enough to use them as if they were designed to be in there with the rest of your work!

Zune – iPod Contender

Karli — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:46:36 +0000

Being one of the many contenders for podcasts, Microsoft’s Zune should be a target for your podcasts as well as the all-present iPod. The Zune is a portable digital music player that has an added wireless feature with a whopping 80 GB or memory with a specific and continuously expanding market as the iPod. With the Zune selling as of latest figures, over a million units, the market is truly an enticing target for your podcasts should you want to expand your audience. There are some pre-requisites to setting up Zune to market your podcasts, the software and account which is free from the Zune download site. It is, as with iTunes quite hefty at 31-35 MB depending on your choice of download which could be 32 or 64 bit (OS dependent).
Your audience (which you should already have if you have a following on iTunes), might or might not have submitted your podcasts to the Zune software which will be evident if your work is already present in the directory. You can use the search box to find your podcast or you can suggest a podcast if you can;t find it through the provided window. To do this, you have to browse the podcast marketplace by clicking on the “Marketplace” then “Podcasts” that you can find at the top left part of the Zune software you’ve just installed. Having done so, you may just find your podcast in the directories so you’d want to find the direct URL pointing to your podcast within the Zune Directory which unfortunately was not quite clear from Microsoft(trade secret?). You open the page where your podcast is located which would allow you to access the specific page where you select “tell a friend”, then fill out the email form to in effect sell your own podcast to your email which you then retrieve to look for your podcast within the marketplace(which would give you the detailed location of your podcast on the Zune server/s). Having done that, your podcast is now also available to the Zune community which expands your whole market, thus hitting two birds with one stone or podcast in your case (iTunes and Zune).

Podcasting on a budget

Stiff — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:18:26 +0000

Time for another ‘gear roundup post’. Or perhaps I should categorize this as a ‘getting started post’? Whatever you call it I thought it was time for another one of those. I’ve decided to split it up into two posts. This first one will as the name suggests deal with what you need to start out podcasting if you’re not looking to spend any larger amounts of money. The second part in this serious will deal with more ‘high-end podcasting’ if such a term exists.

Because of my intention to separate this into two posts, this will be rather short. Fortunately for you that’s a good thing! Because that means that you don’t need a lot of gear to start podcasting. Good huh?

First off, if you’re going the cheapo-route and will record any voice at all then I suggest a USB microphone. Go to the USB microphone list and look.

Next of you’ll need a application to record and edit your podcast in. If you’re on Mac and don’t use GarageBand for this then you should really give it a go. It doesn’t get much simpler than that. If You’re on PC or Linux, check out Audacity.

That’s all some people will need. Others will want to do a little more, for instance record interviews on the field, or do a video podcast.

For video editing, try iMovie on Mac. It’s really easy to work with. Not surprisingly it’s the GarageBand of the video world.

As for field recording, I often report about new handhelds. This is what comes up if you use the search on this blog and type in “handheld”.

There are a lot of other useful tools out there that don’t really fit any of these categories. In the past I have for instance reported about

Audio Hijack – record what comes through your computer.
Snapper (and more Snapper) – a very clever sound browser. Also Audio Finder which looks like it does a similar thing.
There are many other cheap audio editors out there besides Audacity and GarageBand. Wavelab Essentials by Steinberg and Acoustica for instance.