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Podcasting with Audacity
An Introduction
Dr Jan Oosthoek
School of Historical Studies
Newcastle University
2008
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Table of Contents
Installing Audacity………………………………………………p. 3
Preparing your recording…………………………………...p. 4
Audacity controls - An overview…………………………p. 6
Editing a recording………………………………………………p. 6
Publishing a podcast…………………………………………..p. 9
Creating an RSS file……………………………………….....p. 10
Most common problem…………………………………......p. 12
Info
This handbook was produced by Dr Jan Oosthoek as part of a
podcasting project in the School of Historical Studies, Newcastle
University. The project was carried out in the context of course
HIS2049 - Environmental History of Northwestern Europe in the autumn semester of 2007. The project was kindly supported by the
Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for History, Classics and
Archaeology and the Newcastle University UTLC Innovation Fund.
For further information visit www.eh-teaching.org.
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Audacity is an open source, freely downloadable, multitrack
recording programme and editor for audio. The editing environment
allows you to integrate many separate audio clips into a professional-sounding audio file. What follows is a step-by-step
guide how to create a podcast with audacity.
Installing Audacity
A. Visit the Audacity web-site at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
The Audacity download page
B. Download Audacity for Windows version 1.2.6 (December 2007)
C. Now you need to download and install LAME MP3 encoder - Allows Audacity to export MP3 files. Click LAME link on the Audacity
download page to download the file. Open the file and follow the
instructions.
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Preparing your recording
Before you start recording you need to set the preferences.
Open Audacity.
1. Click on Edit ! Preferences
This opens the Audacity preference screen with
at the top a series of tabs. Select first Audio I/0
to set the playback and recording preferences.
2. Select the audio device, which is the sound card of your
computer, if this not detected
automatically. Then select if you
want your recording to be mono or stereo. If you record just
voice for a podcast it is
recommended to select mono to
keep the file size to a minimum.
3. In the Quality tab you set the
sample rate and format of your
recording. This is important because it defines the quality of
your recording. Set the sample
rate at 44100 Hz, which is CD
quality and the sample rate at 16-bit. Leave the other settings
as they are.
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4. To enable Audacity sound files to be converted and saved as mp3
and wav files users must install the Lame Converter. You can
download Lame Converter from http://lame.buanzo.com.ar/. After downloading the file, open it and follow the instructions.
5. After installing Lame, click
now in the Audacity Preferences on File Format tab.
Select Read directly form the
original file. The export format
must be 16-bit WAV.
Click now Find Library in the
MP3 Export Setup section. The
next screen asks you to locate the lame_enc.dll file. Click on
yes and select the folder in
which you saved the Lame
Converter.
6. In Audacity Preferences select the tab Directories and select the
location where you like to save your audio files.
7. Connect a microphone to your computer. Make sure the settings
in the windows preferences are correct.
Now you are ready to make your first recording.
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Audacity controls - an overview
To start a recording click the Record button and to terminate the
recording click Stop.
Now you have made your first recording you can listen to it by jumping to the beginning of the track and click on Play.
Editing a recording
Delete a section
If there are any unwanted errs or umms and you like to remove
them identify the section you want to delete. You can use magnify
tool to zoom in on the track to help you selecting the section.
Highlight the section with the Selection tool .
Press the delete button on your keyboard to delete the section.
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Adjust volume level
If a section of the recording is not loud enough you can adjust the
volume level by doing the following:
• Select the section that is too silent.
• Go to Effect in the menu bar at the top and click on Amplify.
• Adjust amplification (Db) accordingly with slider.
Adding new tracks
If you like to add a new track, because you like to add a second
voice for example, just click the Record button.
After you have recorded voice and you like to add intro music you can add a music track as follows:
Click on Project " Import audio and select the music track you like
to add to your podcast.
You can also drag and drop the file into Audacity to add an audio
track.
Place track in proper position
If voice is not needed during the intro music it needs to be moved
to a position where it should start. For doing this use the timeshift
tool .
Select the timeshift tool " drag voice track forward to desired
position and release the mouse button.
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How to duck music?
If you desire to have music playing in the background of speech but the music is too loud you need to adjust the music level. This is
called Ducking. To Duck music do the following:
Select music section that needs to to be in background " click Effect " Amplify.
Add fade in and fade out
In case music needs to fade in or out do the the folowing:
Select the section that needs to fade in our out " click Effect "
Fade In or Fade Out.
Solo and unsolo track
Sometimes it is necessary to hear only one track in
order to edit it. For this purpose a track can be
soloed or unsoloed. To do this click on the Solo button left of the track that needs to be solo.
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Publishing a podcast
Publishing a recording as a podcast is simple. The first step is to create an MP3 file which is done as follows:
Click on File " Safe Project " type file name
in frame that appears and safe.
A new screen (ID3 tags) will ask you to
provide so called metadata. This information
will tell media players what the name of the podcast is, the author etc. It is good practice
to lable your podcast so that people know
where it came from and who made it.
Ajust the metadata (info) further in iTunes.
iTunes
Open the MP3 file in iTunes and right click on the file name and click
on Get Info.
A summary screen providing technical
information about the file appears on the
screen. Click on the tab Info.
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In this screen you can adjust
information about the podcast such as the title,
producer/presenter, name of
podcast and year of publication.
Name = title of podcast
Artist = name producer or
presenter
Album = name or title of podcast series
Genre = This is normally
Podcast
Do not use the comments box since the show notes, i.e. description
of the podcast, will be provided in the RSS file.
When done, click on OK and now the MP3 file is ready to be
uploaded to the server and made public.
Creating an RSS file.
If you are creating an RSS file that includes podcasts, you should
use the RSS 2.0 format. There are also many additional optional
elements for podcast RSS files described at the Apple Web site (see
link below).
Once you have placed the audio file (MP3 file) on the server, you
must then create the RSS file to which people can subscribe and
place it on the same Web server as the audio file.
The example below shows an RSS file that supports podcasts. You
should change the bold portions of the file to be specific for your
site. Don't change the rest of the code!
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/DTDs/Podcast-1.0.dtd"
version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>Your podcast series title</title>
<link>http://www.url.ac.uk/learn/rss/podcasts/</link>
<description>This is a test podcast series</description>
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<item>
<title>This is a title of an episode</title>
<description>A short description of a particular issue of the show</description>
<guid>http://www.locationOfAudioFile.com/learn/rss/podc
asts/test.mp3</guid>
<enclosure url="http://www.locationOfAudioFile.com/learn/rss/podcas
ts/test.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" />
<pubDate>Fri, 7 Dec 2006 11:20:00 GMT</pubDate>
<itunes:author>Jan Oosthoek</itunes:author> <itunes:duration>18:28</itunes:duration>
</item>
<item>
<title>Sample Podcast 2</title>
<description>A short talk on picking bananas</description>
<guid> http://www. locationOfAudioFile.com
/learn/rss/podcasts/test2.mp3" type="audio/mp3</guid> <enclosure url=" http://www. locationOfAudioFile.com
/learn/rss/podcasts/test2.mp3" type="audio/mp3"
type="audio/mpeg" />
<pubDate>Fri, 7 Dec 2006 11:20:00 GMT</pubDate> <itunes:author>Jan Oosthoek</itunes:author>
<itunes:duration>18:28</itunes:duration>
</channel> </rss>
Posting Your RSS File
When you are finished creating your RSS file, save it with .rss as
the extension. (for example, name the file finearts.rss)
If you want people to find the RSS feed place the following code line between the HEAD tags of yoru web page (replace the bold with the
location of your RSS file:
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="url/to/rss/file">
For more information about making and publishing RSS feeds visit:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcaststechspecs.html#metadata
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Useful references
Centre for History and New media, http://chnm.gmu.edu/
Jack Herringon, Podcasting Hacks. Tips and Tools for Blogging Out
Loud (Sebastopol, CA : O’Reilly, 2005).
Phillip Torrone, What is podcasting?,
http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/07/20/WhatIsPodcasting.html
What is RSS?, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rss
Most common problems
Problems encountered by students during recording and editing sessions and recommended solutions.
Problem Solution
Converting audacity specific
format files (.aup) to MP3 (.mp3)
files that can be played on most
media players
A Lame MP3 encoder must be
downloaded from the audacity
website
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/,
and installed somewhere on the
computer. The first time an attempt
is made to export a file to mpg, the
programme requires the location of
the plug-in. Choose appropriate file
for PC or Mac type.
Computer begins to run slowly
during the editing stage
The recording has been constructed
from too many separate tracks. 8-
10 tracks is an ideal maximum
depending on the speed of the
computer. Tracks can be
amalgamated by cutting and pasting
one onto the end of another, leaving
a 2-3 second gap before pasting.
The gaps allow easier identification
of different tracks and can be edited
out later.
Recording too soft when played
back
Better digital microphones are more
sensitive to voice at normal
speaking volumes, but the recording
can be amplified through Effects:
Amplify from the main menus
