2007.10.31

My Podcasting Setup – Part Two: Process and Software

Posted in Podcasting at 7:09 pm by Jeremiah Wittevrongel

Several months ago, I started to write a short story titled “The Howl from Beyond”, and my goal was to publish it in audio format. There were only three obstacles:

  1. I had never written a story longer than than 5000 words.
  2. I did not own suitable audio recording equipment.
  3. I had no experience doing audio production.

Though it took months, I wrote 12,000 words in “The Howl From Beyond”. It was one of the most challenging things I have ever done. After completing the first draft, I rewarded myself by purchasing the audio recording gear I wanted. Then, I started learning how to use it in between revising the story drafts.

I had no idea what I was getting into. And since I’m far too proud to be caught reading a “for dummies” book, I settled for trial by fire.

In part one of this article, I discussed the hardware I use. In this, part two, I’m going to talk about how I record and the software I use:

  1. Tracktion
  2. Audacity
  3. iTunes
  4. WordPress + podPress

Project Setup

I treat my recording projects as very simple multi-track projects, using Tracktion to do the lifting. I have 5 tracks that I work when recording a short story:

  1. Intro / Outro music
  2. Intro / Outro voice
  3. Main voice / content
  4. Voice Submix
  5. Bumpers / Interstitials

The intro and outro music has already been set up the way I need it, and so has my standard intro / outro voice components. These get dropped into tracks 1 and 2 from pre-recorded files. The main story content that I’m reading gets put into track 3. Tracks 2 and 3 both feed into track 4 so I can process them simultaneously as a sub-mix. If I’m using any bumpers or interstitials (in longer stories), these get dropped into track 5 from pre-recorded files.

For any given story, really only tracks 3 and 5 need to be modified; the rest come from templates I have already set up.

Recording

I’m reading short stories, and I’ve found that the following process works well.

  1. Print out the story single sided, 1.5 spaced, using a 14 point font. It’s nice and easy to read that way.
  2. Turn off anything that makes noise. For me, this means my air conditioner and refrigerator.
  3. Get comfortably seated in front of the microphone. Spread out two or three pages.
  4. Put on the headphones.
  5. Start recording.
  6. Read the story, paying attention to what I hear in the headphones. If it doesn’t sound right, pause for a second, and re-read the sentence. I do all of the re-takes right away, while I’m in the middle of recording. I can edit it later, and editing is easier if everything is already recorded in the correct sequence.
  7. Where there is a logical break in things, like a chapter break, I stop the recording, shuffle whatever papers I have to shuffle, then start again. The new recording will be in its own file, so it’s easy to work with one chapter at a time.
  8. When I’m done, I turn the fridge back on.

Cleanup

Tracktion does not come with a good noise reduction filter, and I’m a little reluctant to shell out for SoundSoap which I could use as a plug-in with Tracktion. So, instead I use the noise reduction filter in Audacity, which works well enough for my purposes. Essentially, I open each file in Audacity, run the noise reduction filter on the file, and save it over top of the file that was recorded. Because of the way Tracktion works with the files it records, I can do this without closing Tracktion, and it will automatically re-load the files I saved. Any edits made within Tracktion will be preserved.

Editing

Back in Tracktion, the biggest job that remains is editing the recorded audio. I listen to the voice track recorded to track 3, and cut out all of the mistakes in the recording. Also, if a pause between sentences sounds a bit too short or too long, I adjust it so it sounds as intended. It takes me roughly 1.5 times the length of the audio recording to do this. After all, I have to listen to the entire thing at least once, and listen to some segments 2 or three times.

Mastering

After editing the audio, the last task is mastering final track. The template I use already has things set up for me, so this is fairly quick, though when I first set up the template it took me a long time. There are a couple of things I wish I had known when I started:

  1. Ducking. During the introduction and outroduction, there are a few points where I speak over the music. To do this, I have to lower the volume of the music just before the voice track starts, and possibly raise it again afterwards. Some software packages (like newer versions of Garage Band) can do this automatically. But Tracktion does not have an automatic ducking feature. Fortunately, it’s easy to do using Tracktion’s automation feature.To use automation, I draw a line on top of the track that represents the volume level of the track. The line is flat, then drops sharply just before the voice starts, stays flat, then rises back up sharply to its previous level after the voice is finished. The volume of the track is adjusted along that line as it is playing back, so the music gets quieter when the voice is playing back.
  2. Compression. Most people listening to my stories are unlikely to be sitting at home in a quiet room with a high-end audio system. It’s much more likely that they’re on the train or in their car where it’s noisy. I don’t want them to strain to hear me, or to have to constantly fiddle with the volume on their MP3 players.Compression takes the audio, and squashes it so the softest sounds are closer in volume to the loudest sounds. Then, I adjust the volume of the voice to be louder overall. The end result is a more consistent volume for the voice, which is easier to listen to in somewhat noisy environments using regular audio equipment. This compression is applied to Track 4 of my recording, which is a combination of tracks 2 and 3. This means that the same compression is applied equally to all of the voice components of the recording, for a consistent sound.

Before I export the finished audio as an MP3 file to post on the Internet, I listen to the entire track from start to finish on my headphones. If something doesn’t sound quite right, I can always fix it, and using the headphones means I’m fairly likely to catch it.

When I’m happy with the sound, I export the complete track as an MP3 file.

Publishing

Before I can upload the MP3 to my web site, I set up the Artist, Title, Album, and similar information in the file (also called tagging). I simply drag the file into iTunes, then set all of the information using the iTunes interface. After that, I upload it to my web server.

Once the MP3 file is on my webserver, all that is left is to publish it so it can be downloaded. I write a new weblog entry on my weblog (which runs WordPress). Then, I tell the podPress plugin within WordPress where the MP3 file is, and it takes care of setting up all of the technical details of publishing the file as part of my podcast. Once it is published, anyone who has subscribed will get the new file automatically.

What about other software?

There is plenty of other software out there that I could be using instead. Pretty much any audio recording package will have the features that I make use of in Audacity and Tracktion; the process I follow could be used with any of them.

How long does this all take?

Unfortunately, audio production is time-consuming. To record and publish a 20-minute short story in audio format, I spend 80 to 90 minutes of time in all – 20 to actually record it, then 60 to 70 minutes doing all of the editing, mastering, and posting the file to my podcast. But at the end, I have something I can post and share with the rest of the world. And that’s reward enough for me.