#Blog Alert What Software should I use to make a Podcast?
You need to make sure your levels are good and even. Set Audacity levels so the peak between -3dB and -6dB
I would also take the time to add a proper compressor to the free software. Audacity supports something called VST, you can get free and bought effects, that 'plug-in.'
Speaking of compressors. You really should process your podcast with compression. If you are non-technical think of a compressor as a very fast volume control keeping the levels even.
If you're asking why should I process my audio? Well think about the diverse places someone might listen to your work. On a train surrounded by noisy commuters and train noise. In a car with engine and traffic noise. At home with the children playing in the same room. That is why it is important to make sure your levels average about -3dB to -6dB and that you have added compression.
If you want to use more professional software then Amadeus Pro for Mac and Sony Sound Forge 10 for p.c. are good choices.
Finally if you want your Podcast to sound totally professional, you pretty much have two choices, Pro Tools or Adobe Audition. I prefer Audition as it is more radio-friendly and can do clever things like batch-process and comes with some good radio-type effects.
Pro-Tools is great and an industry standard for music recording studios and also a lot of studios that edit TV and sound, so you will find plenty of online help and advice.
Finally if you want to keep it very, very simple than a set-up with an iRig Pro, a decent microphone, an iPhone and iRig Recorder app. With that you will be able to edit and produce a simple speech only with no production Podcast, that if you record in the right room environment will sound technically very good.
#Blog Alert Happy Marconi Day
In 1920 when The Daily Mail and The Marconi Company of Chelmsford broadcast the first advertised radio performance, featuring the famous opera singer Dame Nellie Melba it was a great success. Too successful, it worried the Government of the time so much that they refused to give out another licence for two years.
So it was in 1922 that finally a licence was given for The Radio Society of Great Britain to transmit 'experimental' radio 'broadcasts' rather than Morse Code. The Marconi Company provided the equipment. And the Engineer in charge at that time was Peter Eckersley:
"I happened to be at the Marconi Company at the time and we inhabited a place called Writtle, a hut, a long low hut, full of long low people, and we had a wireless transmitter and we were eventually appointed by the radio society of Great Britain to do this thing called 'broadcasting.'
We had to talk into this thing (microphone) and give them signals. It was very formal, mark you, but we went ahead nevertheless and that's probably how the first regular broadcasting station in Britain ever started.
We were, we were half an hour a week! Every Tuesday and we just broadcast, that's all. At first of all it was terribly formal a man picked up the microphone and said: "Hello C.Q. this is two-emma-tock Writtle calling." and we will now play you a gramophone record."
So it was awfully dull until the evening when Peter himself, fortified by a trip to the local pub and with the help of the publican's piano changed those formal broadcasts into something very different:
"But one day it seemed to me to be rather fun to pick up the microphone, we went to the local and we had some 'dinner' and I started to broadcast and we went on and we talked, at least I talked and we sang and we played the fool and so-on and I think that was the first broadcasting ever in Britain."
And so it was from a small wooden hut in a village just outside Chelmsford in the United Kingdom that regular broadcasting began. The Marconi Company were at first horrified by Peter's drunken antics, but then the post arrived. Hundreds of letters asking them - 'to do it again,' and 'did they have any picture postcards of themselves' and 'could they request a gramophone record be played.'
Happy Marconi Day and thanks to David Lloyd's Radio Moments for the audio used in the Audioboom Podcast.
#Blog alert Only The Queen Can Say We
Sure if you have a room full of presenters (ugh) by all means say we, and if you are talking about the radio station then again feel free to use we.
I do believe that there is a little safety catch inside some people's heads - that says to your inner self - 'as long as we say we, we do not have to take responsibility for anything 'we' say.
I also believe with a passion that talking in the the first person, saying I and you (the listener singular) is what radio and podcasting is all about.
We do hope you enjoyed today's podcast and we remind you dear subjects that you can subscribe at creative radio dot com. We thank thank you.
