inside the office

Over the summer, I had the pleasure of attending PodCamp Boston. One of the first presenters that I listened to was Guido Stein, passing on some tips to getting started in podcasting. There are more of the technical than creative vein, but good stuff, nonetheless.

Recording Audio

• GarageBand is great. Sadly, only available for Macs. However, the default file format is MP4. Go to “Share” and change for iTunes/MP3 for best results and most versatility
• Use Levelator to unify audio levels in the recording *before* doing any other editing. This is especially important if you have more than one person on the recording, and are not in the same location.
• Audacity is a pretty good and easy to use editing tool for getting rid of mistakes & deadspots.
• Speaking of mistakes, if you do make a slip up while recording, leave about 5 seconds of silence after, so it will be easy to find while you’re editing

Recording Options

There are many ways to get audio into a file on your computer. The key, though, is getting it the best format possible. I’ve suffered through podcasts that were obviously recorded over the phone or similar, and one person is LOUD and you can hear paper shuffling, sniffling, everything, and the caller is so soft that you want to turn it up to hear him/her, but you’re eardrums get blown out when the first person comes back on.

• Headset – with so much VOIP techonology being used, there are many headsets on the market these days. Find one that comfortable, with good sound quality. I use one that was actually designed for Sony Playstation, but it’s lightweight, comfortable, and delivers pretty good audio quality.
• USB Microphone – the cheap $7 versions probably aren’t going to give you the best quality but if headsets aren’t your deal, try a standalone microphone.
• Digital Recorder – this could be a great option if you plan to be recording your podcast when you’re not at your computer. You can transfer the recorded file to your computer later for leveling & editing.
• VOIP – some VOIP tools like Skype allow you to record a call, which could be an ideal solution if you have multiple people on the recording from different locations. Please remember to run the file through and audio leveling program, through, to be nice to your listeners.
• Another option is a service like drop.io, where (I’m told) you can call in and set it up to automatically post the recording to your podcast. Neat.

To test out a microphone, record something and play it back. Make sure the output levels are satisfactory, and quality is good – no scratchy noises, pop, background noise isn’t too loud, etc.

Next time, I’ll share some of the tips I’ve picked up for how to publish your podcast, and where to get it listed to maximize your exposure.

Until then, I’d love to hear how you currently or plan to record your podcast…

One of the great sessions that I attended at PodCamp Boston 4 was about Podcasting, led by Guido Stein. Guido covered many great tech tips about podcasting, from Recording to Editing to Posting and Interacting with your listeners. All of Guido’s great tips are available online. One of the things that was discussed is the importance of editing your recording before posting so that you are presenting a quality podcast to your listeners. All of these tips immediately sprang to mind when I was listening to a back issue of an SEO podcast. Seriously, those people needed to be at Guido’s discussion.

The podcast in question started out okay enough – catchy into music, brief description about what the podcast was about, and what they would be discussing in the episode. Then it went downhill. In that episode, they were interviewing the creator/spokesperson for Knowem.com, a web service for checking the availability of your branded or favorite username at hundreds of different social media sites. Great concept, and I was really interested in learning more about it. However, the podcast was filled with lots of dead air as the hosts were busy checking out websites and having a private tour of some of the enterprise level and soon-to-come features of the service. Hearing the hosts say “Wow” over and over made me want to know what they were looking at but since it was a sneak-peek that couldn’t be shared with the audience yet, it left me frustrated not knowing what they were so excited about. I think a better way for this to have been handled would have been to share the sneak-peek with the hosts off the air and have them talk about it during the podcast, and not spend/waste so much time with checking email and viewing websites that you can’t even describe and discuss with the listeners.

So, this brings me to my podcast point of the day: if you’re going to be intereviewing someone during your podcast, be sure to have your questions/topics outlined before you start, and be sure to edit out dead air before posting.