Jumping Headfirst Into Podcasting
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In essence, audio podcasts are practically traditional real-time talk radio taken off the analogue transmission signals and jammed into the Internet. As a new media platform, it features almost every imaginable topic that ranges from popular fields of interests such as tech, entertainment and the news, to niche topics that cater to a more specific type of audience. Most podcasts you’ll find on iTunes today have been pre-recorded with post-production effects for quick and easy consumption on a wider distribution channel that is the Internet. As such, we can easily download them and either play them on the computers or drag-and-drop them into a portable multimedia player for listening on-the go.
Podcasting is one of many ways you can present content on your Web site or blog. Since it features an actual human speaking voice, it gives your brand a personality and offers a much richer and potentially more immersive experience for your target demographic. These let you and your brand reach out to your core audience on a personal level, allowing for more dynamic relationships flexible enough to take in new potential users or clients and sustainable enough to keep them.
Aside from serving as an extra avenue for repurposing your contents, podcasts can also be offered as add-ons to supplement your Web site’s actual contents. Also, consider today’s trend among podcast listeners where a majority of them are road warriors or people on-the-go where they prefer to get their podcasts right off iTunes instead of going to the source Web site. In this case, you can develop podcasts as separate outlets where you can deliver your message while driving traffic to your site. This can easily be done by announcing new products or services, site updates, new features, and contests and promotions on the podcasts and inviting them to go online to seek you out. Even the simple “visit us at [Web site] for more details…” in the middle of the podcast proper will prove effective.
Entities like CNET and Leo Laporte’s TWiT Netcast Network are great examples to look up to as they have spent years developing and producing consistently good audio podcasts. Both churn out professionally produced outputs, backed up by years of experience, a staff of experts and expensive dedicated audio equipment.
But before you start getting intimidated, you don’t have to start with such an entourage of podcasting bells and whistles. In fact you can easily start podcasting with just the basics on a decent budget and you’ll have fun while you’re at it. To help you get started, we’ll be doing several how-tos on developing contents for podcasts and we’ll also provide you with detailed views at some of podcasting’s components and even offer rough suggestions you can consider along the way. This week though it’s Podcasting 101 as we start with today’s quick pointers to make sure you’re equipped with podcast-ready hardware.
You may already have some or all of these stashed somewhere in your home office but if you don’t, get ready to shell out some dough. If you are going to buy any of these, it’s also important to think ahead to make sure you get the bang for your buck and it may actually save you from unnecessary expenses in the long run.
Computer
This is an essential component as this is where you will be doing a bulk of podcasting duties such as mapping out your program outline, the actual recording perhaps, audio editing, publishing and of course archiving.
For starters, let’s begin with what you have. Primarily, you’re good to go as long as it has both audio in and out ports, good internal storage and a decent enough Internet connection. If you’re using a relatively new machine (released and bought within the last three years), you should be fine since nearly all processors can run most editing applications. Computers today come with a minimum 1GB of RAM and this is just fine but more would be preferable since we assume you’ll also be doing a bit of multitasking on the side.
A safe starting point for available internal storage would be 20GB, and though this may seem way more than enough at this point, it may not really be sufficient in a few months or so since podcasts can go from around 19MB for 30 minutes of audio and can easily stretch up to more than 109MB or more for over an hour of recording. Also consider the space used by various reference clips you may use from time to time, like opening & closing music, interviews to be embedded and your archives of previous episodes of your podcast. Keep in mind too that you may have to invest on an external hard drive with a hefty capacity in the future to have a dedicated storage for all these.
Another good question that comes to mind is the form factor. While a desktop computer would be able to do just fine, a laptop offers a lot more in terms of convenience and mobility. This will prove valuable for audio editing and publishing on-the-fly especially if your chosen topic requires you to travel from time to time.
Headphones
While most people will argue that using the computer’s built-in or external speakers are sufficient for editing and playbacks, they won’t help at all during recording. Your microphone can even pick up your speakers’ output which can result in the unnecessary distracting noise in the recorded audio you won’t be able to clean out during post production.
As part of your basic podcasting gear, any pair of headphones would do as long as they can produce clean and balanced audios. Sound quality may be subjective, but clarity can be gauged so will definitely help if you first test your existing pair by listening to a professionally produced podcast, an audiobook or even your own voice recording. Also, consider comfort when selecting a pair since you will be spending a majority of the recording and the editing process with them latched onto your ears.
Microphone
Built-in microphones in most laptops may be adequate for VoIP calls and for accompanying the Web cam during video recording but they offer average to below-average sound quality, not necessarily the kind you would want in your podcast. And since it’s embedded into the laptop’s body, it can also erroneously mesh your recorded tracks with the computer’s internal noises like the humming caused by the hard drive or the system fan’s whizzing. So your best bet is an external microphone connected either to the audio in 3.5 port or a USB plug.
Sure it’s easy to pick one up from any electronics store, but if you really want to invest for the future, you have several options in hand and, as expected, as the output quality progresses, so will the price.
Digital Audio Recorder
It’s not exactly part of the essential podcasting stable, but a digital audio recorder will prove very useful when your chosen topic calls for utmost mobility. Its miniscule form factor allows you to easily maneuver around an event, conduct man-on-the-street interviews and cover more ground without having to lug around a laptop.
You can also use a mobile phone or an MP3 player with an audio recording feature or even one of those microphone attachments you can pair with an iPod. After you’re done recording, you can just drag-and-drop your recorded clips into your computer via a data cable (or wirelessly through a Bluetooth 2.0 if this connectivity option is offered) and edit them into your podcast using a multitrack audio editing application.
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RSpears @ April 1, 2010
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