So You Still Haven’t Made a Podcast? Part II
If you read the first post in this mini-series – the similarly-titled Part I – then you’re aware of some of the basic questions and answers involved in publishing your own podcast. You know about software like Audacity, you’ve ordered your high-quality computer microphone, and most importantly you know exactly why you want to podcast in the first place. Good. As they say on the first mile of a marathon, it’s a start.
In this post, we’re going to get into the nuts and bolts of getting a podcast from inside your head and vibrating in your voicebox and into the language of .MP3 files. Even if you’re not an expert at this, don’t worry; it will only take a little research (you’re doing it right now, after all) and some common sense.
Enough talk. Let’s get started.
You’ve Got the Ware (Both Hard and Soft): Now “Ware” Do You Go From Here?
If you followed the instructions of Part I, you should now have Audacity installed on your computer, a computer microphone in your possession, and the desire to take the next step.
Let’s explain it backwards: it’s time to learn how to actually record your voice and publish it to an mp3, even if you don’t know what you’re going to record yet. Why are we doing it this way? Because if you can’t figure out the technology, all of the preparation work can feel a little futile.
- Install Audacity on your computer if you haven’t already.
- Using audacity, plug your microphone into your computer: did you decide to go with a traditional jack microphone or one with a USB port? If you have the traditional microphone, skip step three and go to step four. If you have a USB microphone, read on.
- USB users will need to set Audacity to pick up their USB signal before they can record. Doing so is pretty simple: click Edit -> Preferences and you’ll see something like this:
Do you see where I have it highlighted with “Microsoft Sound Mapper” under “Recording”? If your USB microphone is plugged in, you’ll see it listed there. Make sure it’s highlighted and click OK.
- Do a quick test recording to make sure that you can hear yourself talking when you play the recording back. If it’s working, then you are ready to start recording your podcast. If you do a lot of editing into your podcast file, make sure that you save it often: I’ve run into plenty of problems with sound files I forgot to save frequently. Make adjustments to be sure you can be heard loud and clear.
That will set you up to initally record your podcast. If you’re unfamiliar with Audacity, don’t worry – it’s fairly simple to use (you’ll see basic buttons like record, play, pause, etc.) and you’ll get the hang of it eventually.
Now that you’ve got the technical work ready on the front end, let’s try and publish a “test” file to a .mp3 in order to make sure you’ve got this figured out. It’s best to test these files first to make sure you’re capable of getting it done; then you can rest easy once you start publishing new content.
Here is how you’ll publish an Audacity file as an .MP3
It’s not as easy as clicking “Save as -> Podcast” when you use Audacity, but that’s ok. I’ve got you covered.
The goal in this section will be to teach you how to end up with an Mp3 file that is properly formatted and includes information like your podcast’s title and source. This way, when people download your podcast, their media player will display useful info about your podcast.
For example, here is what my podcast has displayed when using Windows Media Player:
Don’t ask me why I selected “Blues” as the podcast category – maybe it’s because I’ve got rhythm – but hey, at least it works. Anyone listening to my podcast on their computer will be able to see who published it.
In order to accomplish this with Audacity, however, you’re going to have to execute a few “tricks” that I’ve picked up.
First: Audacity, for some unknown reason, can’t export your file to an .mp3 unless you have a specific file handy. If you’ve been playing around and tried to do this yourself, you probably noticed that the program asks you for a “LAME MP3″ encoder or something simple. When I first saw this, I thought “yes, ‘LAME’ is the right word,” but it’s actually a simple problem to solve.
You’ll need to download a file known as lame_enc.dll, which you can find for free all across the information superhighway. Download that file to your desktop at first so it’s easy to find.
Now, when you try to “File -> Export as MP3″ you’ll be ready. Tell Audacity where your lame_enc.dll file is (on your desktop for now) and it will take care of the rest. Voila! Now you can export MP3 files.
Second: Now that you can export MP3 files, it’s time to dress them up the way I did in the screenshot of one of my podcasts.
Once you have a test recording ready, go to “Project -> Edit ID3 Tags”. Something like this will pop up:
Fill all the information to your desire – if you’re unsure about something (like “album”), you can leave it blank. But since this is a test file, try to fill them all to see how the end up looking when you play the podcast with a media player.
As for the “format” on top, I tend to leave it alone. I haven’t really noticed any difference between the two types of file formats, to be honest.
Now you’re capable of putting out a podcast-caliber .MP3 file, all by your lonesome. But what will you fill it with? Stay tuned for Part III of the “So You Still Haven’t Made a Podcast” series, in which we’ll put content and publishing together and get you started on the path to podcast glory and honor. Go get part 3 of “So You Still Haven’t Made a Podcast…
June 2nd, 2009
You can also import your MP3 file into iTunes and do the ID3 tags there (which is how you can add album art to your episode).