The Audacity to Podcast - A "how-to" podcast about podcasting and using Audacity show

The Audacity to Podcast - A "how-to" podcast about podcasting and using Audacity

Summary: Learn how to find a voice actor, what to look for in a voice, how to work with voice actors, and most importantly, how to brand your company using the power of the human voice.

Join Now to Subscribe to this Podcast
  • Visit Website
  • RSS
  • Artist: Noodle.mx Network
  • Copyright: © 2010–2012 D.Joseph Design

Podcasts:

 TAP037: 5 Steps to an Effective (Podcast) Website | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:06:58

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.

 TAP036: 3 Ways to Record Multiple Onsite Podcast Hosts | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 52:21

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

 TAP035: What’s New in Audacity 1.3.13 (with screenshots) | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 59:27

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.

 TAP034: How to Apply Special Effects with Audacity or a Mixer | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 48:46

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.

 TAP033: HTML5 Audio and Video Players and Blubrry PowerPress 2.0 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 39:34

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.

 TAP032: Truth about iTunes Subscriptions and Dropped pingPodcast | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 46:00

What you've heard about iTunes's auto "unsubscribing" and pingPodcast is probably wrong. Hear some truth plus two new launches for podcasters.

 TAP031: Rethinking and More Podcasts about Podcasting | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 31:18

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.

 TAP030: How to Have an Effective Podcast Intro/Opening | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 56:00

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.

 TAP029: How to Record and Mix Multiple Hosts in Audacity (Double-Ender) | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 31:16

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.

 TAP028: Sports Sounds Pro, Giving Back to Podcasters, and Making Friends [Feedback] | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 37:31

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.

 TAP027: 5 New Year’s Resolutions for Podcasters | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 30:38

Don't forget your podcast in planning your new year's resolutions! I share five suggested goals to improve your podcasting in 2011.

 TAP026: 10 Ways to Give Back to Your Listeners | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 41:56

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,

 TAP025: 10 Christmas Gifts for Podcasters | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 48:47

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 ...

 TAP024: How to Make Your Podcast Shownotes Easy to Get To | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 41:14

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 same options,

 TAP023: How to Insert Background Music or Sound Effects in Audacity | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 53:09

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,

Comments

Login or signup comment.