Active Listener: Putting Podcasts To Work : Production and Post-ProductionNov15

Alex and John 0 comments

Production and Post-Production Issues

All that noise -- how do you filter it out? You can invest hundreds of thousands in a sound proof studio or you can do your recordings at your office. As you may imagine, most everyone does their shows in their office. Here's a shot from the Tartan podcast studio. Essentially, we are looking at a desk. Really, that's about all you need.

But really, most podcasters are working with what they have. Idea is to think about what you are doing. Ambient noise is ok for interviews at a conference. Doing an interview with a sales executive for an interview? Make sure you are in a quiet place. Check out the environment before you get started.

CC Chapman, who recently joined Crayon, a new marketing agency, talks about environmental concerns in this second part of the interview we did with him. CC says:

* Background music during your show can help a lot. But don't make it too loud. The music may be just right for the show. But if it's too loud and the music plays on a 15 second loop, then it's just distracting. You can tell when the music is starting the new loop.

How Feedia gets ready for a podcast
We go through the Feedia set up for podcasting:

Two Audio-Technica microphones
Inspire 1394

The Inspire 1394 connects through a firewire cable to Johnny's laptop. Mixer software is on the laptop. The microphones run through the Inspire mixer on separate channels.

We always do a back up with the M-Audio Microcontroller. Our two microphones are connected via USB port. The M-Audio is a two-channel microrecorder with a built in CompactFlash drive. We use a 4 gigabyte card to store recordings. Recordings are saved as .wav files and saved on the computer as mp3 files. Six gig cards are available. M-Audio is small and light. It has a lithium-ion battery that can be recharged by connecting the USB cable from the M-Audio device to the laptop.

Editing

Johnny goes through the process for collecting all different tracks and creating a master in Audacity.

We hear some more from CC Chapman, who says:

* The cost involved to do a podcast is next to nothing. it's a drop in the bucket compared to what marketing a company is going to do, be it print ads or other forms of traditional advertising. In essence, people should hire someone to help. Don't be afraid to ask!

We move on to publishing and the process for setting up id3 tags.

Blog platforms are discussed. Here are a few to check out:

Wordpress
Movable Type
Blogger

RSS: Why so important? Simply, without an RSS feed you can't get into iTunes.

Add a flash player so people may listen to the show directly from the site. Services to consider include Hipcast, which allows you to post directly to your blog.