The Audacity to Podcast - A "how-to" podcast about podcasting and using Audacity
By Noodle.mx Network
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Podcast Description
Learn about podcasting, Audacity, and WordPress. Podcasting is a exciting and personal way to share your message with others, but how do you do it? What equipment, software, and skills do you need? We give you answers to these and more podcasting questions. Almost every episode contains a helpful Audacity tip, and many episodes focus entirely on Audacity.
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CleanTAP067: 11 Ways to Use Twitter to Promote Your Blog or Podcast | Twitter can be a tool to find, grow, and mature your audience, as well as a great way to promote your blogging and podcasting. Here are eleven ways to help you succeed! Links and shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/67 FEEDBACK Call (903) 231-2221 Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com Send a voice message from http://TheAudacitytoPodcast | 2/6/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP066: Live Calls, Chatrooms, Audacity Plugins, and Podcast Cards [Feedback] | How to take live phone or Skype calls, managing Audacity plugins, effectiveness of podcast cards, live-streaming a Skype conversation, how to get a chatroom, and multiple USB mics/inputs on Windows. Links and shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/66 FEEDBACK Call (903) 231-2221 Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com | 1/30/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP065: Audacity Compressor Showdown | The contestants: Audacity's built-in compressor, Chris's Dynamic Compressor, C3 Multiband Compressor, and Levelator. I was personally surprised by the winner. Links and shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/65 FEEDBACK Call (903) 231-2221 Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com | 1/23/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP064: 13 Ways to Be a Great Podcast LISTENER | As podcasters, we should be setting the examples of being great listeners and encouraging our audiences to be the same. Links and shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/64 FEEDBACK Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com Call (903) 231-2221 | 1/16/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP063: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) vs. Blogging and Podcasting | This is a hot topic for Internet content-creators: bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers—almost anyone with a presence on the Internet could be affected. Links and shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/63 FEEDBACK Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com Call (903) 231-2221 | 1/9/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP062: 11 Ways to Improve Your Blog or Podcast in 2012 | While everyone is making New Year's Resolutions in their personal lives, think about how you can improve your blogging and podcasting passions in 2012. Full shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/62 FEEDBACK Email feedback@TheAudacitytopodcast.com Call (903) 231-2221 | 1/2/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP061: What’s New in Audacity 1.3.14 | See what's new with the latest 1.3.14 update to the free audio-editor Audacity and whether podcasters will need it. Full shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/61 FEEDBACK Call (903) 231-2221 Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com | 12/19/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP060: How to Record and Edit a Podcast with Audacity | Back to basics! Learn what you need to edit your first podcast and some tips you may have missed if you're already podcasting with Audacity. Full shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/60 FEEDBACK Call (903) 231-2221 Email feedback@theaudacitytopodcast.com | 12/12/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP059: Should You Podcast in Mono or Stereo? | 5 things to consider as you decide whether stereo or mono is best for podcasting: 1. File size 2. Bandwidth 3. Download speed 4. Audio quality 5. Listeners SHOWNOTES: http://theaudacitytopodcast.com FEEDBACK Call (903) 231-2221 Email feedback@noodle.mx | 12/6/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP058: How to Start a Blog or Podcast Website and Hosting Recommendations | 5 simple steps to get your own website, install WordPress, and start blogging or podcasting: 1. Pick a domain 2. Get web hosting from either http://noodle.mx/site5 or http://noodle.mx/bluehost 3. Install WordPress. 4. Install plugins 5. Publish content Full shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/58 FEEDBACK Call (903) 231-2221 Email feedback@noodle.mx NEED DESIGN WORK? Hire me to design website or podcast stuff for you! Email Daniel@DJosephDesign.com | 11/29/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP057: How to Find Content for Your Blog or Podcast | Learn twelve things you can do to get content for blogging or podcasting. Full shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/57 FEEDBACK Call (903) 231-2221 Email feedback@Noodle.mx | 11/14/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP056: 9 Things Audacity Doesn’t or Can’t Do | Audacity, like any program, has its limits. There are workarounds to some of these, or alternatives to others. | 11/7/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP055: Top 7 Deadly Fears of Podcasting | We chase away the undead ideas that scare away many people from podcasting or blogging, or frighten even seasoned podcasters or bloggers. Full shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/55 FEEDBACK Email feedback@Noodle.mx Call (903) 231-2221 | 10/31/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP054: 9 Tips for How to Grow Your Audience by Attending Social-Media Events | In-person social-media events are a lot of fun and can be opportunities to grow your audience. Learn 9 tips for taking advantage of these events without being a spammer. Full shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/54 FEEDBACK Email feedback@Noodle.mx Call (903) 231-2221 | 10/24/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP053: How to Setup and Use Feedburner for Blogging or Podcasting | Feedburner provides useful subscription stats and powerful overrides that any blogger or podcasting can use. Learn how to setup Feedburner with your WordPress website for your blog or podcast. Full shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/53 FEEDBACK Call (903) 231-2221 Email feedback@noodle.mx | 10/10/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP052: How to Properly Add ID3 Tags to Audio Podcasts | Learn what ID3-tagging software you can use (most free), how to enter ID3 tags, and taking advantage of iTunes fields for podcasting with PowerPress. Links and shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/52. FEEDBACK Call 859-353-4332 Email feedback@noodle.mx Comment on http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/52 | 10/3/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP051: How to Pick the Best Time to Live-Stream or Publish a Podcast | Whether live-streaming or only offering a download, your timing is important! Learn some tips on picking the best time for you and your audience. Links and shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/51 | 9/26/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP050: How to Improve Your Voice from a Cheap Microphone with Audacity | Learn three easy Audacity tips for making your voice sound better, regardless of what microphone you use. http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/50 | 9/19/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP049: 9 Steps to Better Podcast Shownotes and 7 Benefits | Your shownotes are the life of your Internet home for your podcast. Writing and posting them effectively will give you several benefits. 1. Start with your outline first (yes, redundant) 2. Include all links and references 3. Use headings for hierarchy 4. Represent your content with summaries 5. Insert illustrations for appeal and understanding 6. Write an excerpt 7. Don’t repeat yourself 8. Make your shownotes easy to get to 9. Remind listeners how to connect and respond with feedback Follow links: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. Subscribe links: iTunes, RSS, email newsletter, etc. Feedback options: phone number, email address, etc. Read Mashable's 7 Best Practices for Improving Your Website’s Usability. 7 benefits of good shownotes Having good shownotes: 1. makes your content accessible and more consumable, 2. provides the resources your listeners want (plus opens opportunity for making money through relevant affiliate links) 3. draws listeners back to your website (your Internet home), 4. cross-promotes your other content, 5. increases the life of your content, 6. encourages listeners to respond, and 7. improves findability with search engines and within your site. PodCamp Cincinnati's registration just opened. http://podcampcincinnati.com Ask your questions or share your feedback Call (903) 231-2221 to leave a voicemail Email feedback@Noodle.mx (audio files welcome) Fully shownotes at http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/47 | 9/12/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP048: Productivity Tips for Podcasters, with Stever Robbins (@GetItDoneGuy) | Stever Robins has 180,000 listeners to his personal-productivity podcast. He shares several tips and tricks for podcasters to be productive in their podcasting. | 8/29/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP047: 9 Must-Haves for a Live-Streaming Page | Your podcast's live page shouldn't be merely another page on your site. This page needs special content and optimization to be effective. Learn nine things you should include on this page. | 8/22/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP046: How to Put a Live Chat Room on a Podcast Website | Encourage viewer-participation with a chat room during your live-streaming, podcast-recording sessions. | 8/15/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP045: How to Embed Live-Streaming Video on a Podcast Website | Once you have your podcasting equipment setup, it's time to pick your live-streaming service and embed it on your website! | 8/8/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP044: How to Live-Stream and Record a Podcast with Others | Learn how to setup your basic to advanced equipment for live-streaming your podcasting sessions with cohosts. | 8/2/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP043: How to Live-Stream Yourself While Podcasting | Basic equipment recommendations and then different setups for live-streaming just yourself with the equipment that you already have. | 7/25/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP042: How to Podcast Live: 5 Reasons, 4 Cautions | This is the launch of a miniseries about live-podcasting. Before we get into the "how to podcast live" specifics, it's best to answer why you should podcast live. | 7/18/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP041: WordPress Plugins for Podcasting (or Blogging) | My favorite WordPress plugins that enable me to effectively podcast. This is not just another list of plugins that all do the same thing, but each plugin has a special purpose and all work together. | 7/11/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP040: 10 Tips for How to Keep Audacity from Crashing | I have almost never had problems with Audacity, except when I did something stupid. If you'd like similar success, try these and share any suggestions and experience you have. | 6/27/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP039: 5 Ways to Make Money from Your Podcast or Blog | Whether you have a small or large podcast, you can make money from it. While this is not an exhaustive list, Daniel J. Lewis shares his top five ways to monetize the content you're posting on the Internet in your podcast or blog. | 6/13/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP038: Recording Skype Calls, Multiple USB Mics, Soundboard 2.0, and Video Podcasting [Feedback] | Listeners share their software and tricks for podcasting, as well as get their questions answered. | 6/1/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP037: 5 Steps to an Effective (Podcast) Website | Your website is the Internet home for your podcast. Here are several easy things you can do to make your website appeal to gain more listeners and make it easier for current subscribers. I'll use my own recent design of The Audacity to Podcast™'s website as an example. The new website is built and designed over the powerful and easy Genesis Framework. I used CSS3, which will make the site beautiful on modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 9), but it gracefully degrades for older browsers (Internet Explorer 7–8). 1. Use the front page Quickly tell new visitors what your site and podcast are about. This helps them know whether they should stick around. Give them something to do with a call to action, like "subscribe," "buy," or "download." 2. Explain yourself and your content in the about page The "about" page is your second-most-important page because this is where you can explain in more detail who you are and what your content are about. 3. Make it easy to contact you Don't hide your contact information or make it a puzzle to read your email address. A couple simple WordPress plugins can simplify your life, maintain your privacy, and be friendly to your visitors. CryptX to encrypt your email address but show in plain writing for human visitors. Contact Form 7 to embed a contact form on a page. 4. Make your podcasts (or whatever you offer) visible Put it in the navigation menu, have an icon for each episode, or include your media player in excerpts so they'll appear on the front page. 5. Put repeatable, accessible stuff in your sidebar Your sidebar is for stuff that should appear on every page of your site. In order of important, this could be any of the following. Search form (or put this in your header) Subscription links (iTunes, RSS, etc) Follow links (Twitter, Facebook, etc) Contact information Latest or popular posts Affiliate links You can do these yourself, or hire me These steps are easy and I'm confident you can do them yourself. But if you'd like me to do them for you, I provide a variety of website services tailored for podcasters: simple design changes like a header, background, and color scheme; complete website design; subscribe and follow widgets, and podcast cover art. If you'd like to hire me to design stuff for you, email Daniel@Noodle.mx and I'd be delighted to help. PodCamp Cincinnati on October 22 PodCamp is a social-media "unconference" and I would love to have you attend, or especially sponsor or volunteer for PodCamp Cincinnati on October 22 near Cincinnati. If you're interested in sponsoring, please email Daniel@PodCampCincinnati.com. Ask your questions or share your feedback Comment on the shownotes Call (903) 231-2221 to leave a voicemail Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com (audio files welcome) Please connect with me Subscribe, rate, and review in iTunes Join the Facebook Page Follow me on Twitter If you enjoy The Audacity to Podcast™, please subscribe to our other podcasts on Noodle.mx Network: Are You Just Watching?™, the Ramen Noodle™, and Christian Meets World™. Find more podcasts about technology on the Tech Podcasts Network. | 5/16/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP036: 3 Ways to Record Multiple Onsite Podcast Hosts | Learn how to effectively use three ways of recording more than one person in a podcast, and how to avoid ineffective ineffective applications of the same three ways | 5/3/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP035: What’s New in Audacity 1.3.13 (with screenshots) | I share the full list of changes in Audacity 1.3.13 and personal experience with several of them. Ron Eastwood shared a fun special effect in Audacity. | 4/18/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP034: How to Apply Special Effects with Audacity or a Mixer | Make your voice or music sound crazy with these special effects that you can apply post-process (after recording) or in real-time with a mixer. | 4/6/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP033: HTML5 Audio and Video Players and Blubrry PowerPress 2.0 | It's now possible and easy for you to upgrade your podcast website to support an HTML5 audio/video player, but not leave Flash Player behind. Adobe Flash Player solved many problems Websites and media are maturing faster than web browsers and web standards. So in order to support the vast amount of media appearing online, sites had to rely on third-party technologies like Adobe Flash Player or Microsoft Silverlight. Without these plugins, the web browsers wouldn't be able to directly (or "natively") play these media files. But this was mostly all right because Adobe Flash Player was almost ubiquitous on all computers. A "new" problem: iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads (iOS) Because Apple mobile devices (based on iOS) do not run Adobe Flash Player, this meant that the "whole Internet" that Apple wanted you to experience did not include all of the prominent interactive and media-rich content. Apple's mobile devices (iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads) do not support Flash, so any website media, such as audio or video, would not play on these devices. The popular solution: HTML5 Although not a set standard yet, Apple has embraced HTML5 and has been pushing (or maybe even forcing) others to conform—in fact, they prefer their own proprietary standards (H.264 and AAC). However, HTML5 presents wonderful opportunities in that it presents a media-rich experience without requiring website visitors to install plugins to make it work. To better understand HTML5, in simple terms, I recommend reading "What is HTML5, and Why Should You Care?" or the HTML5 entry on Wikipedia. Blubrry PowerPress 2.0 supports Flash and HTML5! I've previously praised Blubrry PowerPress and version 2.0 brings a load of new features. Most notable is that you can now select an HTML audio and video player, which will fallback to FlowPlayer Classic for Flash on browsers that don't support HTML5 media. Read the PowerPress 2.0 announcement for more information. Ask your questions or share your feedback Comment on the shownotes Call (903) 231-2221 to leave a voicemail Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com (audio files welcome) Please connect with me Subscribe, rate, and review in iTunes Join the Facebook Page Follow me on Twitter If you enjoy The Audacity to Podcast™, please subscribe to our other podcasts on Noodle.mx Network: Are You Just Watching?™, the Ramen Noodle™, and Christian Meets World™. Find more podcasts about technology on the Tech Podcasts Network. | 3/21/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP032: Truth about iTunes Subscriptions and Dropped pingPodcast | What you've heard about iTunes's auto "unsubscribing" and pingPodcast is probably wrong. Hear some truth plus two new launches for podcasters. | 3/7/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP031: Rethinking and More Podcasts about Podcasting | I'm rethinking the "podcaster's theme" for WordPress, the podcast megasite, and weekly podcast schedule. I also share more podcasts about podcasting. Rethinking the podcaster's theme for WordPress Although well-meaning, I've decided to no longer pursue my pursuits of programming my own WordPress theme for podcasters and instead design on top of a WordPress framework. I'm currently leaning toward Genesis, but there are also Standard Theme and Thesis. Read my original blog post here. Rethinking the podcast megasite After my original blog post and great discussion, I've decided to split the Noodle.mx Network podcasts back into separate sites, but this time run by WordPress Multisite. Switching to biweekly podcasting In order to keep up with my life, I'll be switching The Audacity to Podcast™ to be a biweekly podcast, with the Ramen Noodle™ in between. So the next The Audacity to Podcast™ will be on March 7, then March 21, and so on. More podcasts about podcasting Just because I'm dropping to biweekly doesn't mean you'll miss your podcasting fix! Here are the other podcasts about podcasting, which I enjoy and recommend (listed alphabetically). The Audacity to Podcast™ with Daniel J. Lewis—in-depth explorations of topics, only podcast to feature Audacity Podcast Answer Man with Cliff Ravenscraft—questions and answers about podcasting Podcast Quick Tips with Ray Ortega—short tips for improving your podcast Podcast Starter with James Kennison—podcast tips for the hobbist podcaster Podcasters’ Emporium with Australians James Williams and Dave Gray—thorough overview of topics, presenting lots of options The Podcasters Studio with Ray Ortega—more discussion on topics with some questions and answers Podcasting Advisor with Andy White—in-depth explorations of topics Podcasting from Scratch (possibly podfaded) with Hank Davis—how to podcast from start to finish (listen chronologically!) School of Podcasting with Dave Jackson—covering multiple topics Ask your questions or share your feedback Comment on the shownotes Call (903) 231-2221 to leave a voicemail Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com (audio files welcome) Please connect with me Subscribe, rate, and review in iTunes Join the new Facebook Page Follow me on Twitter If you enjoy The Audacity to Podcast™, please subscribe to our other podcasts on Noodle.mx Network: Are You Just Watching?™, the Ramen Noodle™, and Christian Meets World™. Find more podcasts about technology on the Tech Podcasts Network. | 3/2/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP030: How to Have an Effective Podcast Intro/Opening | How you open your podcast episodes could be turning people away from your podcast. I share elevent potential elements of an opening/intro, examples, and my suggestions for an effective podcast opening. Hi, Daniel My podcast listening has increased considerably while in the car commuting to the office and on walks. In most situations, I cannot look at the display on the player in the car on iPod in my pocket. I would like to hear an intro that is the same format as the podcast episode and title described in TAP021. It should be in the first 10-15 seconds of the recording, so I can identify it and move to the next episode if I heard it already. Yes, I'm asking for something I didn't do with my recent podcasts but now that I'm listening more, hearing the podcast title, episode number and short synopsis or title is becoming more important. Cheers, Bob What is a "podcast opening" (intro)? Although most people will call them "intros," I think the best name is "podcast opening." Your opening is how your start your podcast. Everything the listener hears from when they press Play to when you start sharing your content. 11 potential elements of a podcast opening Podcast name—how else will people know what podcast they're listening to? Episode number—gives chronology and easy redirecting to shownotes, if you make your shownotes easy to get to. Episode title—if your title explains the content of your episode, which I recommend (unless you're doing comedy), then include it in your recording. Music or sound effects—use something that other podcasters aren't using (so avoid GarageBand's music). This helps brand your show. Listen to How to Insert Background Music or Sound Effects in Audacity to help mixing your intro. Hosts' names—listeners should know who you are. I suggest introducing yourself as "I am ___" rather than "My name is ___." Podcast tagline/explanation—don't assume every listener knows what your podcast is all about. Explain the purpose of the podcast or its tagline, which should be a shortened version of your purpose. Summary/introduction—tell your audience what you're going to talk about, if appropriate. Network ID—if you're a member of a network, you are probably required to state this in some way. Recorded date—I suggest mentioning the recorded date only if your content is time-sensitive or current-events related (like a news podcast). Sponsors—the people who help you pay the bills, or your own product or service. Disclaimer—if your content is for a mature audience, you want to share a spoiler-free or spoiler-filled review of a movie, or other reasons mandate putting a disclaimer as early as possible. Of these eleven potential elements, I would say that only the first six or seven should be in your opening for every episode. Examples In the following examples, listen for how each host uses some of the above eleven elements. Kimberly shared three of her favorite podcasting opening. Knitmore Girls: Music, podcast name, episode number, sponsors, summary, content Marketing over Coffee: Music, podcast name, hosts' names, welcome, sponsors, content Ready, Set, Knit: Music, podcast name, host's name, summary, content Valente shared three of his favorite podcast openings. Smart Passive Income: Podcast name, episode number, music, prerecorded explanation, explanation, content Trafcom: Episode title, music, podcast name, date, episode number, host's name, content Going Linux: Podcast name, episode number, episode title, music, host's ame, explanation, summary, content Sean requested that I consider his podcast. I Am Spirituality (video): Episode title, summary, music, explanation, content Drew suggested a podcast I listen to already. Comedy4Cast: Podcast name, episode number, episode title, prerecorded introduction, sponsors, content Four more examples that I pulled. Podcast Answer Man: Podcast name, episode number, network ID, music, welcome, host's name, explanation, summary, content | 2/2/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP029: How to Record and Mix Multiple Hosts in Audacity (Double-Ender) | If you want to highest-quality audio in your podcast of two more more hosts, then you have only two options: Record in-studio with multiple microphones and a mixer Record separately and combine in post production (called a double-ender) “Double-ender” comes from the pre-satillite days of television when two personalities would be recorded with audio and video in their separate locations and then the two videos later combined. Sometimes, they would even edit to make it appear as if the two personalities were in the same studio. Although the technique is no longer used for television broadcasts, it still works great for podcasting when you want the highest-quality audio without bringing all of your hosts in-studio. Set up for best quality The best microphone you can get for each cohost (even the cheapest mics will produce better quality than Skype) Audacity or other means of recording for each cohost Record your podcast Skype, Google Voice, or even a phone call between cohosts Clap as you count to ten to synchronize Share the files Dropbox to easily synchronize folders, or other file-sharing services (Box.net, Senduit, Ge.tt, and more) to transfer the recordings to the producer (probably you) Mix it together Import all the separate recordings into Audacity or your program of choice Align the clap-offs Listen to random points throughout your podcast to ensure the dialog is not overlapping Edit and export as normal! Fishy Behringer mic on Amazon Maybe this is from when Maxwell Smart started podcasting. Amazon.com has a photo glitch on their Behringer B-1 Large-Diaphragm Cardioid Condenser Mic. Read the funny reviews and post your own (share them here, too). Free calling in Gmail extended through 2011 When you combine Google Voice and Gmail, you can make free computer-to-phone calls right within Gmail. This has been free for 2010 and Google announced it will be free for 2011. I'll talk more about this in a future episode, but it present another free way to bring in live phone calls for your podcast. New podcast: Christian Meets World™ We're happy to have Jason Rennie join Noodle.mx Network with his podcast that connects the Christian worldview to the everyday. Subscribe to Christian Meets World™. Ask your questions or share your feedback Comment on the shownotes Call (903) 231-2221 to leave a voicemail Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com (audio files welcome) Please connect with me Subscribe, rate, and review in iTunes Join the new Facebook Page Follow me on Twitter If you enjoy The Audacity to Podcast™, please subscribe to our other podcasts on the Noodle.mx Network: Are You Just Watching?™ and the Ramen Noodle™. Hire me to design stuff for you! Make your message look great by hiring Daniel to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view his portfolio and request an estimate. | 1/25/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP028: Sports Sounds Pro, Giving Back to Podcasters, and Making Friends [Feedback] | I comment on feedback regarding another sound cart manager (soundboard), friends made through podcasting, listeners giving back to podcasters, and a podcasting goal for 2011. Audacity tip: importing M4A (AAC), WMA, FLAC, and other special audio files. | 1/11/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP027: 5 New Year’s Resolutions for Podcasters | Don't forget your podcast in planning your new year's resolutions! I share five suggested goals to improve your podcasting in 2011. | 1/4/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP026: 10 Ways to Give Back to Your Listeners | In the spirit of Christmas, I want to inspire you find new ways to give back to your listeners, if you aren’t already. After talking about Christmas gifts for podcasters, I was inspired by Elise from Knit Misadventures to talk about giving back to your listeners. 1. Be a linchpin and giver I’ve been reading Seth Godin’s Linchpin. While Godin primarily seeks to inspire employees and would-be entrepreneurs to be indispensable artists. The chapter “The Powerful Culture of Gifts” stood out to me regarding podcasting and my work. Art is a gift. A real gift, not part of a deal, not a transaction entered into with reciprocity in mind. The culture of gifts has a long history on this planet, and understanding how it brings people together is a critical step in becoming indispensable. [Seth Godin, Linchpin, page ix] What makes us podcasters stand out is our ability to give more personally than any TV-network show can. I fully believe Jesus’s words, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35, NASB) and “Give, and it will be given to you” (Luke 6:38, NASB). When we give and create a “culture of gifts,” we build relationships of trust and gratitude. 2. Be passionate Enthusiasm breeds enthusiasm. Unless you’re “big media,” you can’t build loyal following without giving enthusiasm. Be passionate over what you’re podcasting about! If you’re not passionate about it (or getting paid a ton of money), then find something else to podcast about. Yes, sometimes the passion will wane, due to current stress, difficulty for developing content, and other reasons. But passion is renewable and contagious. Give your enthusiasm and your listeners will get excited, too. 3. Respond and interact One thing that sets us apart from “big media” is our ability to personally interact with our audience. Don’t forget this! Remember the POD of podcasting (passion, organization, dialog)? Give to your listeners by interacting with them. Share and respond to feedback within your podcast Converse with blog commenters Respond to personal communications: email, tweets, etc. 4. Invite listeners as guests Have you ever considered inviting one of your loyal listeners as a guest? I relied on my loyal listeners to my clean-comedy podcast the Ramen Noodle™ when I was getting married and going on honeymoon. I invited several listeners to join us as guest cohosts and we had a great time and strengthened the community. Yes, you may not have the technology to support an offsite guest cohost, but look for other ways to incorporate your listeners, especially their feedback. 5. Make leaving feedback easy You should already be inviting feedback from your listeners. Although this is something you ask from them, be generous by giving your listeners easy ways to contact and interact with you. Install the CryptX WordPress plugin so you can clearly write your email address instead of “feedback [ at ] noodle.mx” (I hate that!). CryptX will encrypt your email address so bots can’t harvest the address for spam. Avoid Captcha or other cumbersome spam-prevention. Instead, use effective spam-filtering like Akismet, Disqus, or IntenseDebate (my preference). Clearly and slowly speak phone numbers. Clearly and slowly spell ambiguous or difficult-to-spell URLs. Many names and words may not be obvious in their spelling: too, to, two, and 2; effect and affect; John and Jon; etc. Do not require moderation before comments appear. 6. Listen to feedback When someone provides constructive critical feedback, the greatest gift you can give them is your attention and effort to change when necessary. You don’t have to change every detail of your show when someone complains, but consider constructive critical feedback as valuable as gold. Those people have taken time out of their day to generously share something with you (perhaps even one of their “secrets”) that can improve yourself or your work. Respect and appreciate others’ opinions, | 12/23/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP025: 10 Christmas Gifts for Podcasters | We're in the midst of the holidays! Thanksgiving has already passed and Christmas is just a short time away. If you're looking for the right gift for your podcasting friend or family member, or you're a podcaster trying to figure out what you want for ... | 12/14/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP024: How to Make Your Podcast Shownotes Easy to Get To | The accessibility of podcast shownotes is important, but forgotten by most podcasters. Learn how to make short, easy-to-use URLs with Pretty Link for each of your podcast episodes. Hire me to design stuff for you! Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Additional sponsor: visit gotomeeting.com, click the Try It Free button and use promo code "Podcast." Don’t make it hard for your listeners You have heard many podcasters—or maybe even yourself—say, “Get the links in the shownotes at mypodcast.com.” That may seem all right, but what if they’re listening to an old episode? Many podcasters will at least mention the episode number, “Get the links in the shownotes for episode 35 at mypodcast.com,” but they still aren’t making it easy for listeners! Subdomains are not effective Subdomains are supposed to be a segregated section of a website (like testing.mypodcast.com), or a completely different website that is a member of a main site (like most of the WordPress.com or BlogSpot.com sites). Using subdomains as redirects (redirecting visitors from one place to another) can be effective for technical, back-end stuff (like making media.mypodcast.com redirect to your separate media server), but I recommend against basic redirects. Unless your website server is setup right, visitors may have problems visiting your subdomain. Do you know how many people still type “http://” or “www.”? Will your subdomain work if “www.” is prepended? Keep your complicated URL … As I shared when I talked about shownotes URLs for search-engine optimization (SEO), let your complete URLs be based on your episode/post titles. Don’t shorten it by changing WordPress’s permalinks. … but simplify with Pretty Link Never speak your long URL; no one will remember it. Instead, make short, easy-to-remember URLs with free Pretty Link (Lite Version) plugin for WordPress. If you run only one podcast on one website, then this is easy to setup. Install Pretty Link (Lite Version). In the lower-left of your WordPress admin, go to Pretty Link > Ootions. Expand Link Options Defaults and ensure that Track Link is enabled and Default Link Redirection Type is “Permanent (301).” When writing the blog post for your shownotes, click Get Shortlink. This button will not be visible until either you have saved a draft or published. Copy the URL, which will be your domain with “/?p=” and a number appended. This is the absolute URL to your post and it never changes, even when you rename your post or change the permalink. Access either Pretty Link Quick Add from your WordPress Dashboard, or Pretty Link > Add New Link in the lower-left. Paste the shortlink into Target URL. Type something short into Pretty Link. If you’re running a single podcast on your website, then I recommend the super-simple method of a number (1, 15, 130, etc.). The title and description fields can be left blank, but the title will be automatically pulled from the post title. If you URL parameters (the stuff following a question mark in a URL, such as “?utm_source=tap024&utm_medium=Tweet&utm_campaign=tap024”) for advanced Google Analytics or anything else, you must turn on Parameter Forwarding in the Link Options for every Pretty Link. Click Create. Do this for all of your podcast episodes, and your listeners can easily get to your shownotes by typing in mypodcast.com/24. Why you should upgrade to Pretty Link Pro While Pretty Link offers “Lite Version” for free, there are some great benefits to upgrading to Pretty Link Pro, which I do recommend. Skip almost all of the above steps by enabling Create Pretty Links for Posts in Pretty Link > Pro Options > Page and Post Options. This creates a new widget in your Edit Post page where you can create a Pretty Link without leaving the page or copying anything! Under these sam | 12/8/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP023: How to Insert Background Music or Sound Effects in Audacity | I focus completely on Audacity in this episode! This time, I share a brief explanation of copyright laws for podcasters, where to get music and sound effects, and three ways to work with background music or sound effects in your podcast. Hire me to design stuff for you! Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Music copyright laws and podcasters I am neither a lawyer nor play one on TV. The safest thing to do is never use copyrighted music. However, you are allowed certain rights under fair use exceptions: 30-second previews if accompanied by a comment, or parodies of the song. Unless you have explicit permission from the copyright-holder to use copyrighted music or sound effects, don’t do it. Look for royalty-free or podsafe music. Where to get podsafe music http://www.magnatune.com/ http://musicbakery.com/ http://www.opuzz.com/ http://www.iodapromonet.com/ http://sounddogs.com/ http://www.soundsnap.com/ http://opsound.org/ (free) http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/ (free) http://www.jamendo.com/en/ (free) http://www.findsounds.com/types.html (free, but use with caution as you may find copyrighted content) http://arielpublicity.com/ (free) http://www.musicalley.com/ (free) Where to get sound effects http://sounddogs.com/ http://www.soundsnap.com/ http://opsound.org/ (free) http://www.freesound.org/ (free) http://www.findsounds.com/types.html (free, but use with caution as you may find copyrighted content) Insert your music or sound effects into Audacity Audacity presents three options for inserting audio into an open project: drag the audio file into your project window, or Audio menu > Import > Audio …, or use the keyboard shortcut Cmd-Shift-I (OS X) or Ctrl-Shift-I (Windows). Position your audio where you want it by dragging with the Time Shift Tool (F5) and clip it as necessary. Adjusting volume with track gain If you want to adjust the audio’s volume without changing the audio itself (which would be a “destructive edit”), drag or double-click the Gain slider in the Track Control Panel. But this will adjust the volume of everything in the entire track, which may not be your desire. Adjusting volume with Auto Duck Audacity contains a handy tool, Auto Duck, for automatically reducing your background audio when you have speaking in another track. This is called "ducking" (because the background audio ducks whenever the there's audio in another track). Before you try Auto Duck, make sure that your background audio is immediate above your vocal track. When you're ready, select the portion of the music that you want to edit (or the whole track, after you're sure you have the right settings), then go to the Effects menu > Auto Duck. Threshold (default -30 dB) sets when Auto-Duck engages. When the audio in the vocal track (the track directly below your background music) is above the threshold, Audacity will duck the background audio (the audio you selected when you ran Auto-Duck). Duck amount (default -12 dB) sets how much Audacity will reduce the background audio. Maximum pause (default 1 second) sets how long Audacity will wait before returning the background audio to normal volume. This is the setting responsible for the up-and-down you may hear in background audio while someone is speaking. If you pause for 1 second or longer, Audacity will raise the background audio's volume. This is an important setting to avoid weird ups and downs. (4–7) Fade length sets how quick the fade down and fade up will be. A small value means a fast fade (default 0.5 second outer fades). Outer is how quickly the background audio fades before and after your vocals, with no overlap. Inner is how quickly the background audio fades during the vocals, at the beginning and end. As great as this feature is, it makes destructive edits, | 12/2/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP022: Podcasters, Podcasting Equipment, and Podcasting Software that I’m Thankful For | Happy Thanksgiving! I share a bunch of resources and inspirations for which I'm thankful. This is almost a "how I podcast" episode, but not quite. In full honesty, some of the following links are affiliate links. Purchasing these products will financially benefit Noodle.mx Network. However, this list was generated on personal preference and experience, before even considering any potential affiliate income. This list is truly honest. Hire me to design stuff for you! Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Additional sponsor: visit gotomeeting.com, click the Try It Free button and use promo code "Podcast." Podcasters who have inspired me Leo Laporte and TWiT podcast and Matthew Jordan's You Suck at Web Design podcast (podfaded) Cali Lewis and GeekBrief.tv podcast (retired) Cliff Ravenscraft and GSPN.tv James Kennison and Nobody’s Listening podcast Erik Fisher and WBR Show (previously a comedy podcast, now WellnessBreak Radio) Podcasting equipment I’m thankful for Heil Sound PL-2T overhead broadcast boom ($120, MusiciansFriend.com | Amazon.com) Mic shockmount ($30–$100, selection from Amazon.com or search MusiciansFriend.com) Zoom H4n Handy Portable Digital Recorder ($299) Dell UltraSharp 24" LCD monitor ($556) Logitech Wireless Performance Mouse MX ($83) Websites or web technologies that help me podcast WordPress PowerPress Wordpress plugin and Blubrry Podcast Stats (both free and neither requires the other) Twitter (via TweetDeck) DropBox and Mozy (10% off and up to three months free with promo code NOVEMBER) Google Reader Site5 web hosting Podcasting software I’m thankful for TextExpander (OS X, $34.95) / PhraseExpress (Windows, free for personal) Audacity (Windows and OS X, free) and Chris’s Dynamic Compressor PodProducer (Windows, free) / Soundbooth 2.0 (OS X, $49) CamTwist (OS X, free) / ManyCam (Windows and OS X, free) Code Weavers Crossover Mac (OS X, $54.95) / Parallels Desktop 6 (OS X, $62.98) What you're thankful for David: I'm a big SciFi fan so i like Starship Sofa and Escape Pod. They have great stories and very good editorials. Starship Sofa even won a Hugo this year. Mainly I like to listen on my way to work during the commute which is about 40 minutes. What's cool is that's about the length of a lot of podcasts. I like your Audacity to Podcast because it focuses on mainly on a single subkect rather that trying to cover to many products. I like more in depth types of subjects. Dave Thackeray: The Zoom H4n. Love it. I could probably go on the road with this dude and need nothing else. Apart from a voice and PC! Vickie: Kodak Zi8 mini HD camcorder. Amazing quality in the palm of my hand. Skype for video chatting with my 70-year-old parents in Florida. Thank you for nominating us on PodcastAwards.com We're waiting to see which nominations are accepted. When voting opens on December 1, please vote for all of our podcasts listed in the Podcast Awards. TRON: Legacy poster giveaway We're giving away some really cool posters for TRON: Legacy. To enter, simply subscribe to our email newsletter from the bottom of any webpage on Noodle.mx. Limited to the contiguous United States. Hurry! This giveaway expires on Thanksgiving day. Read this for more details. Got questions or feedback? Please ask your questions or share your thoughts here in the comments, email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com, or call our listener voicemail line at (903) 231-2221. Also follow me on Twitter and please consider leaving a five-star review for the show in iTunes. You can contact me through the same methods if you're interested in my design, production, or consultation services. If you enjoy The Audacity to Podcast™, please subscribe to our other podcasts on the Noodle.mx Network: Are You Just Watching?™ and the Ramen Noodle™. | 11/23/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP021: Shownotes URLs for Search-Engine Optimization (SEO) | Regardless of whether you use WordPress or a different blogging platform or content-management system, how you title your blog posts and, by extension, your podcast episodes greatly affects your searchability and even your usability. These steps will assume that you are using WordPress and heavily rely on permalinks (called "friendly URLs" and similar in other systems). Whether I say "blog post" or "podcast title," I am referring to essentially the same thing. Hire me to design stuff for you! Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Additional sponsor: visit gotomeeting.com, click the Try It Free button and use promo code "Podcast." 1. Full episode titles Imagine you downloaded a podcast episode called "Episode 5." Does that tell you anything about the general or specific theme of the episode or the topics covered within it? No! It only tells you that it is an episode and what number it is. Instead, include a full title. Titles can be relevant, like "Shownotes URLs for Search-Engine Optimization" for this episode, or they can be fun and spark curiosity, like those of the Ramen Noodle™ and other light-hearted podcasts. If yours is a more formal podcast covering specific topics, consider a title that reflects this. The title is the first thing people will see about that episode and will influence how they prioritize their listening to your episode. Thus, "Important Announcement" (as I'll reuse later) also tells your listeners nothing about the episode. Why not include the announcement in the title? 2. Front-load the titles I have seen podcasts follow the format, "My Totally Awesome Podcast, SPECIAL EPISODE 5: Important Announcement." Although it may be okay to speak this format within your podcast, it is not good in writing for a couple reasons. Displays poorly and hinders usability Nearly all portable digital audio players don't have enough screen space to display a full episode title, so they probably scroll it. When I have episodes titled as above, then my device will probably dim the screen before it gets to telling me even the episode number, let alone the episode's title. The same goes for computer displays, such as the columns in iTunes, where it may be cut off. Hurts searchability Search engines read content very much the same way that newspapers are written: headline first, first paragraph, subsequent headings. Having an episode title as above means that Google and other search engines will see "My Totally Awesome Podcast" more prevalent than "Important Announcement." Instead, move the title to the front Front-loading titles means moving the important stuff to the front. Like newspaper articles in which the first paragraph is a summary of the article to follow. Treat your titles and blog posts like that. I get emails from mystery shopping places that use a format similar to the above episode title for their subject lines. The problem is I have to always open the email (or just delete it) before I even know what kind of shop is available to perform. You could list your episode title as, "Important Announcement (My Totally Awesome Podcast, Episode 5)," which is nicely front-loaded (of course, make the title more relevant), but that presents another problem, which we will solve next. 3. Abbreviations and episode numbers Sometimes abbreviations are good, many times they are not. However, I think they would be preferred in podcast titles when you need to communicate which podcast it is and the episode number. Instead of "My Totally Awesome Podcast, Episode 5," try "MTAP005: …." This provides chronological sorting for devices that may not properly sort your episodes (my iPod frequently does that) and it tells your listeners which show and episode number it is without taking up a lot of space to do so. 4. Include important, relevant keywords | 11/17/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP020: Soundboard 2.0, Podcaster’s Theme for WordPress, and Pasting in Audacity | Ambrosia Software released the much-needed Soundboard 2.0 and I share a brief review, I'm developing a WordPress theme designed specifically for podcasters, I answer Alan Bunt's question about using a compressor/limiter/gate on a Behringer 1204 mixer, ... | 11/9/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP019: 6 Tips for Picking a Good Domain for Your Podcast or Website | Your domain is one of the most-important parts of your branding, and it’s how people will get to your website from anything other than a hyperlink. I share six tips for creating your domain. | 11/2/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP018: New Feedburner, Facebook RSS Graffiti, GarageBand ’11, and More | Google updated Feedburner with mostly real-time stats, Apple released GarageBand '11, easily get your podcast into Facebook with RSS Graffiti, TechPodcasts Network, Podcast Awards, and a fellow podcaster launches Podcast Starter. Audacity tip: finding answers in the Audacity Wiki. | 10/26/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP017: How Long and How Often Should You Podcast? | Subscribe to enough podcasts and you'll see lengths from thirty seconds to two hours and frequencies from multiple times a day to once a month. I share some tips on determining the right balance for your podcast. Audacity tip: how to switch playback and recording devices within Audacity. Hire me to design stuff for you! Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Feedback I have a lot of emails and voicemails to go through; I promise to respond to them all, but it's taking a little while to sort them out. How frequently should you podcast? Determining how often your podcast (your frequency) is very dependent upon your content. If you talk about a weekly TV show, then it's probably obvious that you should have a weekly podcast. But have you also considered a semiweekly (two a week) episode? Perhaps an initial-reactions episode immediately after the TV show airs, and then a later, more thought-out episode with feedback. Cliff Ravenscraft's Weekly Lost Podcast followed this format. Or maybe you want to be among the first to talk about the latest tech news. Then maybe you should be daily. The late GeekBrief followed this format and did very well. Wall Street Journal Tech News Briefing actually podcasts twice a day, because their information depends on what happens overnight before the business day, as well as what happens within the business day. Some podcasts are biweekly, while others are even monthly. Subscribe to any monthly podcast, such as Children's Ministry Monthly, and you'll see that episodes are not released on a consistent schedule. First determine how timely your content must be, and then set a schedule and try to stick with it. A weekly format seems the most popular and easiest to hold with consistency. Once you've picked your frequency, then your can choose your optimal episode length. How long should each podcast episode be? The length of each episode greatly depends on your frequency. Unless you have an extremely loyal following, releasing one-hour episodes every day (under the same podcast, that is) seems overkill. If a subscribe goes on a one-week vacation, they'll return to five hours of that show's content, which can be very hard for catching up. But on the opposite side, a monthly podcast should not necessarily be a two- or four-hour-long episode. It's all right if you record that much content, but break it up into smaller episodes to make it easier on your listeners. The more frequently you update your site, the more Google will love you and the easier it can be to build a faithful audience. Effective splitting Are You Just Watching?™, one of our other podcasts on the Noodle.mx Network, is recorded approximately monthly, but each main episode is split into two parts. We do this while recording by watching our timer and verbally closing the current topic and ending the episode. This is very smooth and friendly on the ears. But you can still look for ways to break up very long episodes by interjecting a split and releasing the episodes separately. Recommendations for episode length The following are my personal opinion, based on what I have heard from many other listeners as well as what seems to work among the most popular podcasts. Podcast frequency Episode length Semidaily 1–5 minutes Daily 1–15 minutes (sometimes 30) Weekly 15–60 minutes (with exceptions) Biweekly 60 minutes Monthly 60–90 minutes Annually This isn't podcasting! As you can see, I highly recommend podcasting no longer than one hour (60 minutes). The sweet spot seems to be 30–45 minutes. It's short enough that many can probably listen during their commute (either one-way or round-trip). However long you decide to make your episodes, have a good reason! Don't let yourself ramble on for two hours in one episode if you regularly release half-hour episodes. | 10/19/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP016: How to Prerecord Episodes with Audacity and WordPress | During my honeymoon, I had several episodes of the Ramen Noodle™ and The Audacity to Podcast™ automatically post. How can you prerecord and schedule your episodes to magically post while you are away? I share some tips for workflow, Audacity, and WordPress. This week's Audacity tip is the power of the pause button. Hire me to design stuff for you! Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Feedback Brian from Small Biz Kaizen shares some constructive critical feedback and raises points that I neglected to mention when I spoke on the need for verbal organization in episode 15. Scott shares a success from advice I gave in episode 12 about getting an analog-to-digital converter for reducing digital interference noise. Scott bought a Syba SD-CM-UAUD USB Stereo Audio Adapter for $10 shipped (now $14 + shipping) and it worked perfectly. Tips for prerecording podcast episodes Be organized and plan ahead. Consider bringing guests onto the show to provide content. When you're in "the zone" could be the best time to prerecord. Name your episodes and write your shownotes immediately after recording. Try to have your shownotes written ahead of time. Keep it simple! The less editing you perform, the quicker you can prerecord your episodes. Consider even allowing a few more "glitches" than you might normally allow. Don't feel like you have to release episodes while you're gone, unless you have contractual obligations. Sometimes a break is nice, and it ensures your listeners won't fall behind (especially around holidays). In fact, iTunes will pause (not unsubscribe) your listeners' subscriptions if they fall behind. Schedule your post in WordPress to automatically post while you're away. Audacity tip: pause while recording Don't forget the power of the pause button! Use it wisely, and you may not need any postproduction! The keyboard shortcut on Windows and OS X is P (for pause). Do you have questions or feedback? Please ask your questions or share your thoughts here in the comments, email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com, or call our listener voicemail line at (903) 231-2221. Also follow me on Twitter and please consider leaving a five-star review for the show in iTunes. You can contact me through the same methods if you're interested in my design, production, or consultation services. If you enjoy The Audacity to Podcast™, please subscribe to our other podcasts on the Noodle.mx Network: Are You Just Watching?™ and the Ramen Noodle™. | 10/5/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP015: Podcasting without Passion, Organization, or Dialog? | I'm back from my wedding and honeymoon, but still settling in with my wife. This is another prerecorded episode that started with a question about podcasting without passion. Please support our content We have expenses for our podcasts. Please look at these options for how you can support us by supporting our sponsors (or outright hiring me). Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Hold your meetings online for just $49 a month Try GoToMeeting free. Save money by shopping at Amazon.com. Question from Minnie I am getting involved into blogging, video blogging and soon podcasting, but I wonder what I can talk about passionately and not lose motivation. How do you decide on what to podcast about. The POD of Podcasting If you don't remember POD (passion, organization, dialog), then go back and listen to episode 1, "You Need POD to Podcast." Podcasting without passion? Podcasting is all about passion. Unless you're getting paid big bucks, podcasting without passion is doomed to fail. Listeners will like you for your passion, whatever it is. Think about the best salesmen—they're so passionate about their products that it makes you interested, too. That's because enthusiasm breeds enthusiasm. Take the P out of the POD of podcasting, and you'll get just OD—odd to podcast without passion, isn't it? Podcasting without organization? You can have all the passion and dialog in the world, but lacking organization in your thoughts, flow, and even your website can prevent you from growing or even keeping your audience. This doesn't mean edit out all of your mistakes—sometimes a podcast is a whole lot more personal if you leave in the spot where your cat jumped on your computer and it set off all of your sound effects! Spontaneity is wonderful, but you can never been good preparation and organized thoughts. Don't always "wing it." Also try to overcome your verbal crutches to make it easier for people to listen to you. If you podcast without organization, you may be very hard for listening. Podcasting without dialog? People love to talk, especially about themselves. If listeners send you feedback appropriate to share, then share it! Also don't forget direct, personal communication. This whole episode is in answer to Minnie's excellent question. Thus, I am dialoging with one of my listeners. Your show doesn't have to be driven by dialog with your listeners or depending on a cohost, but if you take the D (dialog) out of the POD, then your listeners may just get PO'd. Audacity tip: show clipping Clipping (or peaking) is when your audio is too loud and overloads the system. This causes audio distortion. Fixing this can be tricky, but it's first important for you to see where your audio is clipping. To reveal your audio clipping in Audacity, go to the View menu and click Show Clipping. When audio exceeds the limit and gets clipped, it will now be marked with red. Do you have questions or feedback? Please ask your questions or share your thoughts here in the comments, email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com, or call our listener voicemail line at (903) 231-2221. Also follow me on Twitter and please consider leaving a five-star review for the show in iTunes. You can contact me through the same methods if you're interested in my design, production, or consultation services. If you enjoy The Audacity to Podcast™, please subscribe to our other podcasts on the Noodle.mx Network: Are You Just Watching?™ and the Ramen Noodle™. | 9/25/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP014: Interview with Fred Castaneda of Struggling Entrepreneur, Part 2 | While I'm on my honeymoon, I have a two-part conversation with Fred Casteneda, a podcasting machine! We talk about his passion, organization, and dialog in his podcasting empire. This is part 2 of our previous conversation. Please support our content We have expenses for our podcasts. Please look at these options for how you can support us by supporting our sponsors (or outright hiring me). Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Hold your meetings online for just $49 a month Try GoToMeeting free. Save money by shopping at Amazon.com. About Fred Castaneda Fred Castaneda is an Entrepreneur in the area of Podcasting, New Media, Social Media, as well as Personal Productivity and Time Management. He is currently the President of Matrix Solutions Corporation and has been a marketing consultant for the Small Business community. After retiring from IBM, with over 31 years of experience in Marketing, Sales, Training, Podcasting, Video, New Media and Integrated Marketing Communications, he has also led several start-up firms since 1981. Fred has several podcast series, including The Struggling Entrepreneur, as well as a Personal Productivity Course called Gain Control of Your Day. He also has also done audio narration of several published books at www.PremiumCast.com. Fred is currently the Managing Director for the program Finance-For-Startups at www.finance4startups.com. He is also a senior partner for the Joint Venture called Entrepreneur-Tools-Online. Fred has been a speaker at the 2009 Social Media Telesummit, as well as the 2009 and 2010 ProductCamp user-generated conferences (aka “unconferences”), as well as various PodCamps and e-lance-Camps since 2006 in Arizona, San Antonio, California and other venues. He is a currently a PhD. Candidate in International Business, and he received both his M.B.A and B.A. degrees at Loyola University of Los Angeles. In the past 25 years, Fred has taught and spoken at various universities and colleges in subjects ranging from Foreign Currency Devaluations of International Business to high-tech directions in Personal Computing. A veteran of the U.S. Army, Fred served several tours as an Airborne Infantry paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division. He was later an educator and instructor for the Airborne’s Recondo School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after a combat tour of duty in Vietnam. In addition to business-, productivity- and Entrepreneur-focused podcasts, Fred also publishes free podcasts to support the community of veterans’ organizations, as well as disadvantaged combat Veterans (such as http://www.cibaustin.org and http://www.82ndabndivalamo.org). In addition to his military, technical and sales careers, Fred also taught Dance at Loyola University and was the director of the performing Grupo Folklorico there. His free educational podcast of Arriba! Folklorico music and dance of Mexico covers the music and dance of the native and mestizo themes with a mixture of culture and entertainment. Fred's podcasts Struggling Entrepreneur Gain Control of your Day (companion podcast) Gain control of your day PREMIUM podcast (6-month course seminar) Arriba! Folklorico Music and Dance of Mexico Austin Podcasters Meetup podcast Entrepreneur iPad users meetup podcast Community of Five podcast and main blog Entrepreneur Tools Online and main blog Jungle Warriors (premium content like an audiobook from the published work by Bobby Briscoe) Casablanca to VE-day: A paratroopers' memoirs (premium content like an audiobook from the published work by Darrell G. Harris) Finance for Startups free companion podcast Finance for Startups premium podcast (7-week course seminar) 82nd Airborne Division Association podcast Combat infantrymen's Association podcast No live shows for a while I got married! | 9/16/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP013: Interview with Fred Castaneda of Struggling Entrepreneur, Part 1 | While I'm on my honeymoon, I have a two-part conversation with Fred Casteneda, a podcasting machine! We talk about his passion, organization, and dialog in his podcasting empire. Please support our content We have expenses for our podcasts. Please look at these options for how you can support us by supporting our sponsors (or outright hiring me). Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Hold your meetings online for just $49 a month Try GoToMeeting free. Save money by shopping at Amazon.com. About Fred Castaneda Fred Castaneda is an Entrepreneur in the area of Podcasting, New Media, Social Media, as well as Personal Productivity and Time Management. He is currently the President of Matrix Solutions Corporation and has been a marketing consultant for the Small Business community. After retiring from IBM, with over 31 years of experience in Marketing, Sales, Training, Podcasting, Video, New Media and Integrated Marketing Communications, he has also led several start-up firms since 1981. Fred has several podcast series, including The Struggling Entrepreneur, as well as a Personal Productivity Course called Gain Control of Your Day. He also has also done audio narration of several published books at www.PremiumCast.com. Fred is currently the Managing Director for the program Finance-For-Startups at www.finance4startups.com. He is also a senior partner for the Joint Venture called Entrepreneur-Tools-Online. Fred has been a speaker at the 2009 Social Media Telesummit, as well as the 2009 and 2010 ProductCamp user-generated conferences (aka “unconferences”), as well as various PodCamps and e-lance-Camps since 2006 in Arizona, San Antonio, California and other venues. He is a currently a PhD. Candidate in International Business, and he received both his M.B.A and B.A. degrees at Loyola University of Los Angeles. In the past 25 years, Fred has taught and spoken at various universities and colleges in subjects ranging from Foreign Currency Devaluations of International Business to high-tech directions in Personal Computing. A veteran of the U.S. Army, Fred served several tours as an Airborne Infantry paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division. He was later an educator and instructor for the Airborne’s Recondo School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after a combat tour of duty in Vietnam. In addition to business-, productivity- and Entrepreneur-focused podcasts, Fred also publishes free podcasts to support the community of veterans’ organizations, as well as disadvantaged combat Veterans (such as http://www.cibaustin.org and http://www.82ndabndivalamo.org). In addition to his military, technical and sales careers, Fred also taught Dance at Loyola University and was the director of the performing Grupo Folklorico there. His free educational podcast of Arriba! Folklorico music and dance of Mexico covers the music and dance of the native and mestizo themes with a mixture of culture and entertainment. Fred's podcasts Struggling Entrepreneur Gain Control of your Day (companion podcast) Gain control of your day PREMIUM podcast (6-month course seminar) Arriba! Folklorico Music and Dance of Mexico Austin Podcasters Meetup podcast Entrepreneur iPad users meetup podcast Community of Five podcast and main blog Entrepreneur Tools Online and main blog Jungle Warriors (premium content like an audiobook from the published work by Bobby Briscoe) Casablanca to VE-day: A paratroopers' memoirs (premium content like an audiobook from the published work by Darrell G. Harris) Finance for Startups free companion podcast Finance for Startups premium podcast (7-week course seminar) 82nd Airborne Division Association podcast Combat infantrymen's Association podcast No live shows for a while I got married! Although I will have prerecorded episodes still released on a schedule, | 9/9/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP012: How to Remove Noise with Audacity | Noise is probably the most-common problem in amateur podcasts. Professional podcasts sound great not just because of the equipment, but also because of techniques. Learn some ways to reduce noise before and after you record. Please support our content We have expenses for our podcasts. Please look at these options for how you can support us by supporting our sponsors (or outright hiring me). Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Hold your meetings online for just $49 a month Try GoToMeeting free. Save money by shopping at Amazon.com. Reduce noise before you record Turn off noise-makers Fans, air conditioners, refrigerators, computers, and more can all cause background noise in your recording; try to turn them off if you can. I turn off my air conditioner whenever I start recording because I have a loud vent right above my studio equipment. Consider a different room If you can't turn off noise-makers, such as an air conditioner or refrigerator, consider switching rooms. Pay attention to the carpet, walls, and furniture in the room. The less "flat" you can make the room, the less the sound will reverbrate. Reduce computer fan noise Turn your microphone away from the computer and place as far away as possible. If you use a notebook computer, try to minimize your running software to prevent the fans from activating. Switch to a dynamic microphone Condensor microphones can capture a beautiful range of audio, but they're more sensitive to noise from the room (great for ambiance recording). Dynamic microphones are traditionally not as good with the audio range (such as the low pitches), but are more focused in what they capture and aren't as sensitive to room noise. There are cheap dynamic microphones, but they won't have the wide dynamic range of audio that they can capture. There is also my prized Heil PR40 for $325, and it sounds beautiful. Reduce the gain and get closer to the mic The microphone won't eat you! Get closer to it! You may think this will distort your audio and you're right, but that's why you reduce the gain, which is the mic's sensitivity. The more sensitive the mic, the more noise it will capture. Imagine it like a bubble around your mic. Gain makes the bubble bigger, which captures more sound. Make the "bubble" smaller and get inside it! Get a compressor/limiter/gate (CLG)? Not really. I shared in-depth settings for Chris's Dynamic Compressor for Audacity, and also just discussed software and hardware compressors. CLGs are only effective at not allowing any audio in the spaces between your talking. It won't remove noise while you record. Plug everything into one power outlet When you get electronic interference with your hardware (as I still have in some of your recordings), keep all your hardware plugged into the same outlet via surge protector. Also ensure your hardware is not in close proximity with other pieces (like audio cables sitting on power adapters—I made this mistake recently). Use a USB adapter If you record directly into your computer, converting that analog audio signal to digital before in reaches your computer has proven an effective method for reducing computer interference noise. Get either an adapter with 3.5 MM jacks or a Behringer U Control UCA202 USB Audio Interface for RCA jacks. This works great for desktops and notebooks. Removing noise after you have recorded Do everything you can to reduce the noise before you record. It's possible to easily reduce it so much, that you won't need to removal the noise afterward. There are probably some of these steps you can implement to get better recordings. If you still need to edit things after you recorded, here's how to remove noise with Audacity. Select the "silent" section of your audio, where it's just noise. Go to the Effects menu and click Noise Removal. Click Get Noise Profile. | 9/1/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP011: Podcasting with Software Compressors vs. Hardware Compressors | Compression, expansion, noise gate, threshold, ratio—what does it all mean? Should you use a software audio compressor, or a hardware compressor? | 8/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP010: Audacity and iTunes—Making Not-LAME MP3s | LAME is still the best MP3 encoder, but further tests and conversations reveal that it just may not be the best for podcasting. Please support our content We have expenses for our podcasts. Please look at these options for how you can support us by supporting our sponsors (or outright hiring me). Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Hold your meetings online for just $49 a month Try GoToMeeting free. Save money by shopping at Amazon.com. Variable bitrate (VBR) MP3s and LibSyn Bob Jordan wrote in to point me to LibSyn's PDF on their Podcast Companion App, which reveals an incompatibility with VBR MP3s. Avoid using VBR (Variable Bit Rate Encoding) as it is not compatible with our system. I exchanged several emails with top people at LibSyn and they confirmed that VBR files are absolutely not compatible with the iOS app they offer as part of their larger hosting packages. Extensive study revealed a few portable digital audio players that have trouble with VBR, and even some minor issues in iTunes. LAME versus Fraunhofer As I explained in more detail in episode 6, LAME is the best MP3 codec for quality, that is, when you use it with variable bitrate (VBR). LAME is terrible at constant bitrate (CBR). However, Fraunhofer, the creator of MP3 compression, has an MP3 encoder that is the best at CBR. Fraunhofer's MP3 encoder is not free—it's usually included in expensive audio-editors like Adobe Audition. However, Fraunhofer IIS's own site tells how you can get their MP3 encoder for free. If you are an end user and would like to use the Fraunhofer mp3 encoder or decoder, please use Apple iTunes or Windows Media which integrate the Fraunhofer mp3 software. Please note, that although mp3 was developed at Fraunhofer IIS, we do not sell any mp3 products to end users and do not provide end user support for mp3 devices and software. [Emphasis added] I've known that Fraunhofer was credited in iTunes, but didn't realize until reading this that iTunes does use his actual MP3 encoder, not just parts of his technology. So if you don't already have iTunes, download it now for free. Encoding MP3s: convenience and potential incompatibilities vs. speed and hassle The method I'm about to show you for encoding Audacity projects into MP3 via iTunes is more of a hassle, with several additional steps and some cleanup. But when you have everything set right, it may be a whole lot faster. 45-minute stereo podcast in Audacity on a Core i7 MacBook Pro: Export from Audacity as LAME, VBR quality 5, joint stereo: 8 minutes, 10 seconds Export from Audacity to uncompressed WAV, use iTunes to convert to 128 kbps CBR, joint stereo: 2 minutes Although it's a little more of a hassle to use iTunes, the above test revealed a 75% savings in time and produces a file guaranteed to work everywhere. How to make an MP3 from Audacity and iTunes 1. Export as WAV In Audacity 1.3 (beta), go to the File menu and click Export, name your file, change your format to "WAV (Microsoft) signed 16-bit PCM," and then click Save. There are no options for WAVs 2. Drag into iTunes I suggest for creating a playlist or smart playlist to hold your new files. But however you drag the WAV into iTunes is fine. 3. Configure iTunes for MP3s Go to the Edit menu (Windows) or iTunes menu (OS X) and click Preferences, click Import Settings… under General, set Import Using to "MP3 encoder," Setting to "Good quality (128 kbps)," then click OK and OK. 4. Convert Right-click your imported WAV and click Create MP3 Version. 5. Find the MP3 Search your iTunes library for the new MP3 file, drag it out of iTunes back into your folder, and now it's ready to be tagged and uploaded. You can also delete the uncompressed WAV and delete the files from iTunes if you want. Although this is many more steps and leaves a little cleanup behind, | 8/18/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP009: Four Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Use Audacity? | I get a little controversial in the episode as I address four of someone else's reasons why you shouldn't use Audacity. Don't worry, I remain loyal. I also share news about the BlackBerry Podcasts app for BlackBerry Smartphones. Please support our content We have expenses for our podcasts. Please look at these options for how you can support us by supporting our sponsors (or outright hiring me). Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Hold your meetings online for just $49 a month Try GoToMeeting free. Save money by shopping at Amazon.com. Bradley Bradwell's four reasons against Audacity From Brad's World of Online Trends (part of Chris Pirillo's network) comes his blog post, "4 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Use Audacity." Although Bradley Bradwell makes some good points, I argue that they are mostly invalid and he even concludes that Audacity is "the best on the market in terms of free audio editing software." What do I think? Check out his blog post and listen to my responses! 1. "You need to download the LAME" Yes, it's disappointing that LAME (for encoding MP3s) cannot legally be included with Audacity, but I explain that it really isn't hard to find because it's linked from the Audacity download page, and Audacity 1.3 even gives you a link straight to the instructions for Mac and Windows. The installation process is actually simple enough that you don't even have to find the program you installed, just try to save the MP3 again and Audacity knows where LAME is. 2. "It’s unstable" Although Audacity can crash and it has on me, I know exactly what I did to cause it. Usually, I tried to cancel a heavy process or I got impatient. During the live show, one of the chatters reported that he has used Audacity for six years and never saw it crash. Make sure you're using 1.3 (beta)! A lot of problems may be due to using an old version on new software and hardware. 3. "It has difficulty handling longer track" This can make sense if you don't have much RAM, are running an intense process, or have several other programs running at the same time, but I have never had problems with long tracks. I have even recorded for more than two hours and edited the file! No problems there. Again, make sure you have the latest beta version. It's always a good idea to save often. 4. "The user interface can be challenging for beginners" Interestingly, Bradley says within this point that Audacity is simpler than Garageband and concludes by saying, "Audacity is a great program for the everyday user." I actually think that the best programs start with a blank "canvas" for you, the artist—or would you rather have Clippy? As long as you know base select, cut, copy, paste, and delete commands, you can do decent stuff with Audacity. Also consider that it's the most-popular free audio-editor, so there are loads of video tutorials and step-by-step instructions on the Internet. I'll be producing some video tutorials myself! I still stand by my recommendations of Audacity and will continue to use it until I have put my money first into equipment. Even then, I may buy something else instead of replacing Audacity. Podcasting news: new BlackBerry Podcast App Research in Motion (RIM) have released a free BlackBerry podcast client so you can find, subscribe to, and listen to podcasts on any BlackBerry smartphone. This is great news for consumers and us podcasters! To submit your podcast to the new app, sign up for a free account (your username/email will be case-sensitive), go to the Podcasts menu in the upper-right, click Submit New, complete the simple form, and then Submit. It may take a little time to be approved, but I recommend that you jump on this right away. UPDATE: One of my listeners, Rob Robideau, quickly made an excellent blog post with screenshots to show you, step-by-step, | 8/11/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP008: Website Stats and Feedburner’s RSS Subscriber Stats | You have probably heard a lot of false things about stats, especially Feedburner's RSS stats. I'm here to tell you the truth! Make sure you listen to the episode because I explain everything in much more detail than I'm writing in the shownotes. Please support our content We have expenses for our podcasts. Please look at these options for how you can support us by supporting our sponsors (or outright hiring me). Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Hold your meetings online for just $49 a month Try GoToMeeting free. Save money by shopping at Amazon.com. What are stats? Stats (common abbreviation for "statistics") tell you information about your audience. Thank you to Robert from It's Just Us podcast for asking the question to explain the differences between different stats and why he should care. Are stats important? Yes! But please don't fall into focusing on the numbers. The only people that need to care about numbers (or at least think they need to) are advertisers. However, you should watch your statistics to get a better understand of your audience and what content is more popular. Hits are not accurate website stats In the '90s, it was common to show off how many hits a site would get. Consequently, the term "hits" is still used, but the information is useless. A "hit" is anytime something is loaded from your site. If your webpage has ten images, that's ten hits for that one visitor (plus other files that are loading). Instead, you should look at your website visitors and the pageviews. A visitor is a person who visits your website. Pageviews tell you how many pages were viewed (cryptic, I know!). For website stats, I recommend the extremely thorough Google Analytics or the real-time Woopra. They're both free, but Woopra offers some premium editions, which popular websites would require. I'll explain advanced website stats in a future episode. Feedburner RSS stats are real Feedburner has been labeled a useless stats tool, but useful for syndicating your content and ensuring compatibility. But I'm here to defend Feedburner! It is simply misunderstood. When you publish an RSS feed, people can subscribe with a podcatcher (like iTunes or Miro Player) or RSS aggregator (like Google Reader or NetNewsWire) and will automatically receive updates, including new podcasts, from your website. Feedburner reports how many people are thus subscribed, which is reported based on when their program (like iTunes) checks the RSS feed. If someone is subscribed to your podcast through iTunes but doesn't load iTunes on a particular day, they won't be counted as a subscriber. This is why your Feedburner subscriber numbers fluctuate daily. Read Feedburner's documentation for more to understand subscribers. Feedburner's "reach" stats are even further misunderstood. These are the number of RSS subscribers who click something from the RSS feed, like a manual download, a link in your shownotes, or more. Read more on "reach" from Feedburner. Blubrry and LibSyn podcast stats Although some web hosting companies offer tools to see numbers on file downloads (like your podcast files), these tools are buried in the control panel and don't give you very much information. LibSyn is very popular for hosting media files and providing basic and premium podcast stats, but they charge for this service and I only recommend LibSyn for extremely popular podcasts, if you have a good web host. I use Blubrry's free media stats (they also offer premium stats and media hosting) along with their free PowerPress plugin for WordPress (neither require the other, but I do recommend the combination). Both services offer the same, very helpful information: realistic stats on how your podcast is downloaded. They'll tell me how many people download through iTunes, through another player, | 8/4/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP007: Changing iTunes Author Name, Cover Art, and Waveform Visualization | I take some time to answer questions on Audacity and podcasting. Please support our content We have expenses for our podcasts. Please look at these options for how you can support us by supporting our sponsors (or outright hiring me). Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Save money by shopping at Amazon.com. Inspired to podcast again Don't wait until the planets align to start podcasting again! Just jump in, but try not to make it a huge ocean, which will just sweep you back on shore. How to change the "author" in iTunes You can't just change the individual MP3s to have the correct author displayed in iTunes, you also have to change the RSS/XML information. This is easy if you use Feedburner. Go into your Feedburner settings. Click your podcast's feed. Switch to the Optimize tab and then click SmartCast. If SmartCast is activated, you'll be able to change your podcast author field to your desired name (your real name, your company, your podcast network, or whatever!). Which visualization in Audacity? Waveform or Waveform (dB)? Both visualization methods are handy depending on what you're doing. Waveform shows you the shape of your audio, not necessarily its volume. Waveform (dB) shows your audio's volume, which is great for seeing how much noise you're recorded while you're not speaking, but it can be harder for editing. Mono or stereo for voice-only podcast? Unless you have a really good reason to release your podcasts in stereo (such as special effects, audio drama, music or sound clips), then mono will always be half the size (taking up less hosting space and bandwidth) and thus download twice as fast. How can you get cover art to display on iPods (or other players)? Having your podcast cover art in iTunes or your RSS feed is not enough, you also need to add it to each released episode by inserting it in the ID3 tags. Although iTunes can do this, it saves tags in an different, not-so-compatible version (ID3v2.2). You can use MP3tag (free, Windows-only) or ID3 Editor ($15, Windows or Mac) to easily insert your cover art into each file. I recommend 600x600 pixels, but 300x300 is also okay. If you need great-looking cover art, please contact me because I'm a designer! I currently use MP3tag on my Mac OS X computer. How? I use Code Weavers Crossover to run Windows applications seamless in OS X without installing Windows (like Parallels Desktop for Mac requires). Do you have questions? Please ask your questions or share your thoughts here in the comment, email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com, or call our listener voicemail line at (903) 231-2221. Also follow me on Twitter and please consider leaving a five-star review for the show in iTunes. If you enjoy The Audacity to Podcast™, please subscribe to our other podcasts on the Noodle.mx Network: Are You Just Watching?™ and the Ramen Noodle™. | 7/28/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP006: How to Make LAME MP3s with Audacity | Stop making crappy MP3s with Audacity and LAME! I tell you how to encode MP3s the way LAME was designed to, so you get a great audio quality and small file size. | 7/22/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP005: My Secret Audacity Recipe for Great Audio | We're talking Audacity this time! Adobe Audition has its fantastic multiband compressor, but did you know you can get fantastic audio compression from a free plugin to Audacity? Listen to the episode to learn move! Please support our content We have expenses for our podcasts. Please look at these options for how you can support us by supporting our sponsors (or outright hiring me). Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Hold your meetings online for just $49 a month Try GoToMeeting free. Save money by shopping at Amazon.com. What are a compressor, a limiter, and a gate? A compressor fits your audio within a selected volume range by increasing the volume of quiet sections. A limiter does the opposition by decreasing the volume of loud sections. A noise gate will close (like a real gate) when it receives audio quieter than its "floor," and opens again when it receives audio louder than its "floor." You can accomplish these audio enhancement effects by hardware such as a Behringer MDX4600, or by software, which is where we will focus. Too simple and too complex Levelator is a popular and free, standalone compressor/limiter/gate. Simply drag your .wav or .aiff audio onto the program, and it processes the audio into a new file (appended with ".output"). This works great for some people, but I don't like the results, which I can't customize because Levelator has no options. On the other side, you can get some complex multiband compressors for Audacity. I highly recommend upgrading to Audacity 1.3 beta if you use any of these plugins. A compressor that is just right for Audacity I introduce you to Chris's Dynamic Compressor. It has simple controls and produces great results. Although it's free, please support his excellent work! In the audio, I explain how to set Chris's Dynamic Compressor just right, and demonstrate the audible differences. Here are some screenshots of the different results. Your results may vary. Remember that Audacity will only maintain your compressor settings while Audacity is still running. If you restart it, the compressor settings revert to their defaults and you can't save them. Share your thoughts and experience! How did Chris's Dynamic Compressor work for you? Please share here in the comments or email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com or call our listener voicemail line at (903) 231-2221. Also follow me on Twitter and please consider leaving a five-star review for the show in iTunes. If you enjoy The Audacity to Podcast™, please subscribe to our other podcasts: Are You Just Watching?™ and the Ramen Noodle™. | 7/14/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP004: Live-Podcasting Questions and Answers | After several podcasts were recorded in front of a live audience at PodCamp Ohio, I hosted a panel with most of the podcast hosts as we discuss our equipment and workflow for live-podcasting. Please support our content We have expenses for our podcasts. Please look at these options for how you can support us by supporting our sponsors (or outright hiring me). Make your message look great by hiring me to personally design your website, presentation, podcast cover art, and more! Visit D.Joseph Design to view my portfolio and request an estimate. Hold your meetings online for just $49 a month Try GoToMeeting free. Save money by shopping at Amazon.com. Live podcasts at PodCamp Ohio Social Media Serenity (Thursdays at 9:30 a.m. ET) the Ramen Noodle™ (Mondays at 8:00 p.m. ET) The iPad Show (Sundays at 3:30 p.m. ET) The iPad Possibilities Podcast (Sundays at 9:30 p.m. ET) Podcasting equipment used among the hosts Alesis 18-channel mixer CDVU02IP Webcam Video switcher and VGA switcher Behringer Xenyx 1204usb mixer Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone for the best-sounding microphone Zoom H4n Handy Portable Digital Recorder for four-channel recording—vocals on one stereo track, music and other sound clips on another stereo track Edirol R 09 HR Recorder Blue Microphones Yeti USB Microphone MDX4600 by Behringer Elgato 10020196 Turbo.264 HD Encoder/Accelerator to speed up H.264 encoding Podcasting software used among the hosts Chris's Dynamic Compressor for Audacity or Levelator for any audio Skype for bringing in audio cohosts Ustream.tv embedded player for live broadcasts, because of mobile edition for iOS Ustream.tv's chat room or Chatango, but sometimes the chatroom is distracting for live-recording. ChatRoll is a non-Flash chatroom, but the free edition is limited to 10 simulataneous chatters. Look at Leo Laporte's live setup Stitcher for listing your podcast in a radio-style playlist Adobe Audition 3 for audio-editing, or free Audacity PodProducer for playing sound effects QuickTime Pro for high-quality video recording Why podcast live? Improves mic-presence Builds community and allows the community to contribute to the show Encourages better preproduction resulting in a better flow when you record Can encourage you against spending too much time in postproduction Scheduling a regular live show creates accountability Committing to a schedule results in consistent release schedule and thus more episodes General answers on podcasting Editing takes a lot of time, avoid it by honing your on-camera skills. Stop saying, "we'll fix that in post"! One episode per week seems the sweet spot for subscribers Use the mixer's equalizer settings to enhance your audio as it's recorded instead of postprocessing Releasing video seems to promote your podcast a lot more, but still offer an audio edition and remember to maintain a context for the audio-only subscribers Video podcasts require a lot more bandwidth, use a provider like Blip.tv or Libsyn so you don't crash your own server Apple TV and Google TV may drastically increase the demand for video content, look at what NetFlix is doing by being on nearly all high-end media devices Use Blip.tv or TubeMogul to upload your video media once and distribute it in various formats Follow us on Twitter Daniel Lewis @theRamenNoodle Dave Buchanan @AudioCollective Tim Chaten @tchaten Steve Bostedor @sbostedor Cliff Ravenscraft @GSPN Is your head exploding? If you're feeling overwhelmed thinking you need to buy all of the equipment we mentioned, go listen to my episode "The Bare Minimums" to learn how you can podcast super-cheap. Share your thoughts! I'd love to know how you podcast live or what kind of hardware and software you use. Share those and any other ideas or questions by sending them to feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com or call (903) 231-2221. | 7/8/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP003: The Bare Minimums for Podcasting | Don't think that you have to spend thousands of dollars to launch your podcast! I give you some tips for podcasting decently with the cheapest equipment. Need a website or presentation designed? I freelance through my own company, D.Joseph Design. If you need a website or presentation designed or need help launching your podcast, please hire me to make your message look or sound great! Contact feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com or (903) 231-2221 and I'll give you 10% off your first invoice. "New & Noteworthy" I already blogged about it, but here's a newer screenshot now showing The Audacity to Podcast™ as #5 in "New & Noteworthy" on iTunes' front page of podcasts. My expensive podcasting equipment Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone ($325) Behringer XENYX X1204 USB mixer ($130) On Stage MS7510 Microphone Stand Pro-Pak with AS400 Mic 34500 ($50) Zoom H4n Handy Portable Digital Recorder ($300) And more I started with the cheapest podcasting equipment A free Laptec mic that came with my computer and a passion to podcast was all I had to start. Sure, I also used Audacity and had a background in profession multimedia production. But it worked for starting out. I also used Levelator and simple bass-boost in Audacity to sound better. To make a pop filter, I got someone's old pantyhose (very embarrassing to do when you're a single guy) and wrapped it around a loop made out of a metal hanger. It worked decently. Tips for sounding good on a cheap microphone Don't talk too far away from the microphone. This catches more room noise and makes it harder to hear you. Don't talk too close to the microphone. This will result in plosives and clipping audio. Use a pop filter like the homemade one described above. Never touch the microphone or anything else touching it while you're recording! Get an amazing voice for your podcast I had a great time working with Ewen from BagelTechNews to record some stuff for the Ramen Noodle™. Follow Ewen on Twitter and contact him to do some great voice work, and let him know that I recommended him. Tell me about your budget-podcasting setup I'd love to know what workflows you have found that work with cheap equipment. Share those and any other ideas or questions by sending them to feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com or call (903) 231-2221. Again, please consider hiring me to design your website or presentation, or help you launch your podcast from start to finish. | 6/30/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP002: The Benefits of PodCamps for Podcasters | PodCamps are for more than just podcasters, but how can PodCamps specifically benefit podcasters? I share my thoughts and the three benefits. Before I begin, please note that I sponsor my own podcasts through my freelance design company, D.Joseph Design. If you need a website designed, help starting a podcast, or presentation designed, please contact me. What is a PodCamp? From the official PodCamp website: A PodCamp is a usually free BarCamp-style community UnConference for new media enthusiasts and professionals including bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, social networkers, and anyone curious about new media. The first PodCamp was held September 8-10, 2006 in Boston, Massachusetts. PodCamps are now being held worldwide. PodCamp isn't just about podcasting! If you're interested in blogging, social media, social networking, podcasting, video on the net, if you're a podsafe musician (or want to be), or just someone curious about new media, then please join us -- and bring a friend or colleague. I have attended all three PodCamp Ohio unconferences and the first-and-so-far-only PodCamp Cleveland and have presented multiple sessions at both: web design, tweeting for your organization, podcasting, Audacity, and even comedy! Look at the schedule from last PodCamp Ohio. The three benefits of PodCamps Get to hear from great speakers on great topics—but we're all rock stars, so the speaker is probably your peer! Opportunities to give back to the community by sharing your knowledge and passion. Meeting and networking with lots of fantastic people. Find a PodCamp near you, or come to … PodCamp Cincy 2011 I am the organizer for PodCamp Cincy to be held near in Cincinnati, Ohio, in October, 2011. For more information, email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com or follow @PodCampCincy. Send me your feedback and questions! I hope you're enjoying the show! You will get even more out of the show if you tell me what you want to hear! Send your feedback and questions to feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com, comment here, or leave a message on our listener voicemail line at (903) 231-2221. | 6/23/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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CleanTAP001: You Need Passion, Organization, and Dialog (POD) to Podcast | Welcome to the first-ever episode of The Audacity to Podcast™! I share my vision, talk about the POD of podcasting, and more. The POD of podcasting Passion—you have to be excited about what you have to say! That passion will drive you to find or generate content without much labor Organization—be professional, have your sites and information together Dialog—big media is one-way, social media is social! Connect with your audience and they will grow Share you thoughts! I have the next thirty-five episodes planned out, but you can change that by telling me what you want to hear! Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com or call our listener voicemail line at (903) 231-2221. Also follow me on Twitter and subscribe to our newsletter below. | 6/17/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 67 Episodes |
Customer Reviews
Encouraging and Informative
Let me be the first to say that this show will be around a while. I say that not just because Daniel has it planned out, but because even after just two episodes, it's that good. This show will empower you to podcast through information and motivation. Great job!
looks good
I listened to just a bit before subscribing. You have a clear voice and are very understandable. I just took a class in podcasting using Audacity and enjoyed it. BUT...I am a Mac user and will use Garage Band...but that's OK...I can still use the tips. Who knew about the art thing. Thank you.
Good luck.
Great! But...
Glad to see this podcast in the mix! I've listened to all 3 episodes so far, but, is there going to be info on how to setup the internet side of things? Currently I am posting the podcast for sermons from my church, thewellchurch.tv/podcast, and it was all setup and handed to me all nice and neat. I record on a cdr deck, then come home to edit (with Audacity) and post. I know what to do for recording and editing, I've recorded intros and outros using my wife and kids for talent. I have ideas for podcasts, but I hesitate to go forward with them because I don't know what to do after recording. XML, blog, feedburner? Help!
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