Audacity For Your Podcast
Grow your business, search engine optimization | Comments (1)
Image by wsellers
Previously, we discussed podcasting as a great way to deliver content to your target audience both as a new channel of distribution and as an add-on to supplement your Web site. To get the ball rolling, we started a series of posts that take a closer, more detailed look at how you can create content-rich podcasts for your demographic that would reflect your brand’s ideals to further your campaign. In that post we gave you the essential hardware you would need to get you started as a podcaster.
This week we bring you another very important tool to add to your podcasting arsenal: an audio recording and editing software. Sure, you can simply launch Microsoft’s Sound Recorder, but it doesn’t really have much to offer when it comes to flexibility with its lack of features. So if you want a professionally produced prodcast, you may want to start with something much more elegant and more open to your needs.
There are a lot of these applications available nowadays, you can either purchase any of them from your neighborhood electronics store or freely download them off the Web. They range from those carrying the basic functionalities in idiot-proof user interfaces to ones brimming with features and are easily the digital equivalent of recording studio soundboards.
For those using Macs, Apple‘s iLife suite contains GarageBand and it has become the default podcasting weapon of choice because they already come installed in newer Apple computers. If you’re using an older machine though, you can purchase the entire iLife suite separately as an upgrade. GarageBand is a potent application for audiophiles, fully optimized to work with the Mac OS and Apple peripherals and even most third-party accessories. However, if good ole Windows or Linux is at the helm (or if you prefer something other than GarageBand), Audacity would be a great tool to equip your PC with.
Though it’s not directly a podcast-specific application, Audacity has been the most popular audio recording and editing software podcasters are using today. While it does a fine job recording, it also offers a great selection of features and tools for post production.
Aside from being free, it’s been developed and distributed as an open source project under the GNU General Public License (GPL) which means it constantly gets updates and improvements from both in-house and third party developers. It offers a clean user interface for easy navigation and quick access to its features and settings which includes some of the most useful and interesting effects and plugins.
Recording is a walk in the park since all you need is to click on the record button, start talking and then hit the stop button when you’re done. However, as we mentioned last week, hooking up an external mic would be preferable especially when using a laptop to prevent your computer’s internal noises from making their way into your recording.
Your voice recording will then appear as a track layer on its workspace; additional recordings or imported audios will also show up as separate track layers for mixing. You can edit each individual track layer accordingly by cutting them into sections if necessary and then arranging them, perhaps to organize them into segments like intro, body and outro. Moreover, you can apply any sound effect from its expansive library to tweak their timings, pitch, tempo, volume and bass levels among a whole slew of others.
It supports a wide array of audio formats for importing, including .WAV, .OGG, .AU and both MP2 and MP3 though it doesn’t support .WMA or .AAC which are proprietary formats. This means that you can embed into your podcast nearly any soundclip from your library like previously recorded interviews or background music.
After you’re done recording and mixing your audio into a solid podcast, all you need to do is to save it. We recommend you save it twice, once as a project file in its own raw .AUP format and another as an MP3. Unfortunately though, Audacity by itself can’t encode to MP3, which is the preferred format for podcasts. Good thing though, Audacity provides a link where you can download its accompanying MP3 encoder, amusingly called LAME. Yes, it’s an extra step, but it’s a necessary one at that.
Overall, Audacity is a potent tool for your podcast. It provides you with a bevy of tools and functionalities that makes it very flexibility for your needs. Now that we’ve presented you with the essential hardware and software tools to get you started, stay tuned next week as we delve into the nitty gritty of conceptualizing a podcast and outlining your contents.
Popularity: 7% [?]
RSpears @ April 14, 2010
[...] we armed you with a list of essential hardware you’ll need in your podcasting armory and the software to go with them to be able to produce a good quality audio podcasts. This week, we dish out a few suggestions on [...]