Archive for the 'Podcasting' Category
Subscribe to This Category

Pro Quality for under $1000 - Now, about that content.

Well, my audio editing guru Jerome has helped put together a selection of equipment to record telephone interviews for podcasts using standard telephones. We want to make it easyto interview someone without having to worry about the technology, letting them concentrate on the content.

The challenge with any phone recording is separating the audio between the two people, but this setup allows that. While I have set up a pretty servicable telephone interview recording setup using Skype and Pamela in the past, it was always subject to the idiosynchratic nature of Skype - and made for embarassing problems at times.� � The audio stream from our setup uses the left-and right audio channel for the two people. The caller is on one channel and the callee on the other. Of course you don’t broadcast it this way, it’s strictly for the audio editor. By separating the channels, you can do a controlled mix - equalizing the levels and tonal quality. You won’t get the harsh difference between voices that make some phone interviews so hard to listen to.

Telephone interview podcast equipment

• $469 JK Broadcast Host —� separates the audio between the caller and the callee
• $60 Audio-Technica ATH-M30 headphones
  $100 Shure SM58SLC dynamic microphone
• 1/8” stereo mini to L/R 1/4″ phono cable –found at
  Atlas desktop mic stand
• $15-20 XLR mic Cable�
• Zoom H4 recorder .� � it operates on 2 AA batteries or an included power supply.� It uses SD memory cards (comes with a 128MB but I use a 1GB)

The Zoom H4 could be replaced with a laptop, but we found that it� was very hard to remove “buzz” from the system with laptops.� The H4 suffered no such buzz and made really clean recordings.� If you want to use a laptop, you’ll need a high quality sound card - probably an external system and appropriate USB cables.

Another alternative now is a hosted solution called FreeConferencing� - We have not tried their calling solution, but since it will record everyone on the same channel, it will suffer the same weaknesses as Skype.

I’m checking out a new software called castblaster shortly, it looks promising - but a little bit pricy given Audacity is out there.� I’ll report back and link to them� if it works out.� I was disappointed in RecordForAll.

Idea 1: Imagine if you will a podcast widget.
This little box looks like a tape recorder. It has a play, record, rewind, ff, and pause button, all large and friendly. It has a small (gasp) speaker. When you want to record, you treat it just like an old fashioned tape recorder.

But there’s a twist. It has a USB plug. When you plug it into the computer, it asks you for a title and a date. You enter it, and the recording becomes a podcast on the web automatically and a copy is saved on the computer. Once the podcast upload is done, the device clears itself and is ready for the next recording. The podcast MP3 file is then available on iTunes via a normal Podcast feed…. automatically!

A device like this would make podcasting as easy as tape recording … churches, schools, and workplaces would be able to keep current versions of lectures and presentations on the web with the same work it would take to put it on cassette.

It should be durable and easy to hold..a familiar form that doesn’t intimidate. It should have a built-in stereo mic (like the awesome ones found on good camcorders.) Long periods of silence would be automatically removed, and the volume level of the recording would be automatically maintained. Software inside does this transparently.

It should be cheap and so simple that there are no special skills required. The technology should be good enough to hide all the neuances of recording and publishing. Let’s call it the podcast buddy.

Idea 2: The Podcast phone - or … podcasting from your cell phone.
Imagine a phone number that you call to podcast. A teacher could call this number to record the homework notes for the day, for example. Conference calls could be recorded and automatically podcasted to private audience at a company. Personal podcasts could be done from a cell phone… like blogging from the car.